the airport: a traveler’s first live glimpse of a country’s culture. an ambiguous place of transport that reveals no secrets. tourists thrown together with locals, cultural pioneers side by side with in-transit passerbys. faces reveal curiosity and ambivalence, interest and apathy.
Bangkok International Airport, first impressions: extremely noticeable lack of bombs/fires/guns/riots. (glad i opted to leave the bullet-proof vest at home, despite every warning that the red shirt situation was reason enough to postpone my trip to bangkok, tell my employer that i simply couldn't make it, and sit at home in my sleepy small town waiting for the "action" to subside...). my new dutch airplane buddy and i depart our vessel greeted by nothing but clean, spacious interiors, welcoming smiles from all sides, and friendly giggles at my enthusiastic first attempts at the thai language. driving from the airport to pattaya with my ever-so-wee taxi driver is unmistakably reminiscent of the exotic costa rican tropics. palm trees everywhere. suffocating heat and humidity. light blue-grey clouds hinting at an imminent equatorial thunderstorm. the only big difference is the beautiful – and completely unreadable- thai script adorning the signs and billboards. i am surprised to discover right away that even i have been guilty of the typical american assumption that the whole world speaks at least some english, apparent in the obvious cloud of consuming yet smiling silence i was sharing with my driver. my collection of “talk thai now” tracks i downloaded in a hurry to my new indigo ipod instantly become my savior as i search for some other friendly phrase besides the “hello” and “thank you” that i've already overused. my few sporadic days of preparation squeezed between the college graduations, 20-hour cracked-out road trips, and celebratory Vegas missions all crammed into the month of May-hem left me with less time than usual to adequately research my destination.
even so, after memorizing the generic prolonged orientations specializing in culture-shock metaphors and “how to survive without skippy peanut butter” lectures that had preceded my previous international endeavors, being thrown into an exotic country and language with little to keep me afloat but my own bubbles of excitement feels unbelievably refreshing.
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