We're Here!

Well, my adventures in Thailand have begun and I hope to be able to pass on the stories through this blog. Julie introduced me to the world of blog. Everytime you click on the URL it will show you the most recent blog and then you can view past postings as well. I think enough jet lag has passed for me to finally be able to share everything I have been taking in here.

I'm in Chiang Klang, Thailand. This is where the Lord allowed Julie and me to go for our away rotation in medical school in April. We are doing medical missions here with Dr. Tom Ashburn through the IMB. We left Houston on 3/31/05 (Thursday) and travelled for 35 hours--Houston to LA to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Nan, and then the Ashburns picked us up in Nan and drove us to Chiang Klang. At Nan there was one small/big problem.... NO LUGGAGE! Honestly, I wasn't surprised, it happens every trip for me. So we were really calm about it and barely conscious to digest it all. We were supposed to have gotten our luggage in Bangkok as soon as we arrived in Thailand to personally clear customs with it. Oops! We had no idea, because the airport in Houston told us they checked our bags all the way to Nan. We even had a several hour layover in Bangkok and probably walked by the luggage carousel and never knew it. In Bangkok I learned a lesson about Thai culture. There is this article describing the 9 characteristics of the Thai people in order of importance. Number one is the importance of the ego and to never offend anyone. So, what happened when I asked in Bangkok if our bags were checked still to Nan was the demonstration of this number one characteristic. They nodded their heads and said "yes." This was to demonstrate humility to us and not let us know they may not have understood English. I've gotten lots of nodding heads and "yes's" here and now know that it doesn't always mean that. :) Anyway, the Ashburns told us we had no other option but to go back to Bangkok the next day and try to see if the luggage was waiting for us in Bangkok. Our options were to either take a 12 hour bus ride all night long back there or to take a domestic flight for only 1 hour. We would have only saved $30 U.S by taking the bus. Not to mention that just as we were discussing this on our mountainous drive to the village with the Ashburns, I was holding on for dear life not to have an accident with my car/motion sickness and we just drove by a wreck of a truck wrapped around a tree beside of the road. I deep down felt like it might not be safe for us to take the bus on that mountain road and also knew I wouldn't make for a happy camper with Julie if I was to get sick on that bus, although, my first thought was to take the bus because of the pure adventure in it. Amazing race road block here we come! :) No, we opted for the flight on Sunday, the next morning. I asked Dr. Tom if the luggage was going to be there and he said, "your luggage is there." I asked, did you find out for sure or are we going on faith... he said, "your luggage is there, Zsila." I got it! I said, "oh, we are claiming it! it's there." I'm telling you, I prayed the whole night through my jet lag insomnia and on the plane that it was there. i knew the Lord knew our needs. Our luggage not only had thailand stuff but new zealand stuff in it, too. we got to bangkok and took the shuttle from the domestic to the international airport (only after learning the hard way the first time we arrived when we walked the looong tunnel between the two that seemed like walking through a space mission or something). we went to the information desk and got more "yes's" and nodding heads. anyway, we finally went to the thai airways office and they said our luggage was waiting for us. as we headed that way, julie asked if i wanted to stop for coffee. i told her i couldn't until i had something to celebrate. hold that thought... then we met with a security guard who proceeded to take us to a hidden side of the airport and had to clear major security and sign our lives away before entering. i figured it was just a formality, but wasn't sure what we were doing b/c no one spoke english. then, he took us around into a huge room with tons of luggage in it. at first glance, we didn't see ours and julie sighed hopelessly. i was like, no, we are going to search every bag if we have to. Then, that precious red yarn gleamed in the light on my two bags. i was so excited! julie wasn't. she still hadn't found hers. she kept telling me her bag that she had hurriedly bought the night before the trip was GREEN. there was no green bag. Then we saw it! it was GREY, not green. who cares, it was there. we could go celebrate! trying not to be so outgoing b/c the thais are a quieter culture- well, that went away, when we became so excited. julie gave the guy a hug! everyone was smiling at our display of excitement and elation. we knew we wouldn't fly back until the next day, so we were off to see Bangkok for the next 24 hours. we got a taxi to the Baptist Guest House there. I'm so comforted by going with the IMB, there are strong networks and people take care of each other. we had directions written in Thai to get us there. It was on Soy 13. I loved it! It was the cutest, white stucco building with beautiful hard wood floors including a living room, kitchen, games, and rooms for guests upstairs. we met Sylvia and Jim, who run the place. They were so welcoming and assured us that we would be taken care of. Dr. Tom made a deal with us and gave us his cell phone and had us call him after every major event so he knew we were safe. God provided with such loving and caring people to be working with. Dr. Tom walked me through every step in that airport, probably b/c he knew I wasn't all there with the jet lag. he told me how to look for the green dot in the airport and how that was customs. i mean, literally we passed the people and that was customs! hello, no stopping, no opening bags! wow. different from home. back to the guest house- we asked sylvia what we could do on an afternoon in bangkok that late (3-4pm ish). she said either Wat Po or the world's largest market. we wanted to do both, but opted for the temple (wat po) since we didn't know if we could ever see that again. i was hoping markets would be in chiang mai when we go there. they will. so we got mixed answers on what time wat po closed, but we decided the journey would be worth it anyway. it involved taking a sky train (julie says it is like the L-train in chicago), then taking the river taxi to the place. how fun is that! you should have seen us trying to read the signs written in thai. oh, i forgot to tell you how funny it was when we were in the airport during our legs of travelling to thailand. we were half asleep and really ashamed to be opening our mouths by what ignorance was coming out. i asked julie if hong kong was it's own country. she said, "no it is the capital of china" uhhh. no. i think beijing is. there's a problem when we don't know this. hello, world history from sixth grade. then i said some quote that will go down in history... "julie, why is everything written in Indian here?" it was a scrolly text. she said, "zsila, that is thai!!!!!) oh dear, we were opening our mouths and inserting our feet. we laughed so hard thinking if this had been the amazing race, national tv would have played this. scary! i guess it is good we didn't get on that show. :)
back to the L-train in bangkok... it was an above the ground subway type of system. i loved how easy it was once we figured out how to use it and what direction to go in from asking europeans who were visiting. we got totally opposite answers on directions from several people. everyone stared at us when we asked with a blank face, but we finally figured it out. it is so safe and clean! then we got to the river taxi. this was neat! we love water and rivers! it was still daylight and one lady told us wat po was still open until 6pm, we were hoping she was right. all i knew about wat po was it was a buddhist temple. i have never seen anything like that before and knew how culturally important that would be to see. the river taxi showed us the city in a new light. there were tall skyscrapers of electronic companies like Soni, Panasonic, etc and then of major hotel lines like Westin, Sheraton, Hilton, etc. then there was the striking contrast of impoverished homes lining the rivers with colorful clothes hanging on the fences. it was amazing to me that those tiny homes falling apart could be on riverfront property (now that i'm looking into housing in houston and understand more about real estate). we wandered our way to wat po. once there, it was an emaculate temple from the outside, very colorful and everything was in gold. we had to take our shoes off and go in. to my gasping surprise, there was the most humungous reclining buddha i have ever seen the entire length of the building. it was okay to take picures so we did. it was hard at first to be respectful and reverent. we were gasping at how huge it was and made of gold. we took pictures. then, i was hit suddenly with an astonishing reality of what was going on. it hit me when i saw people lighting candles (as seen before in catholic churches for prayers) and saw then bowing down and praying to this gold statue made by man. wow. how hopeless. this wasn't just a tourist thing for us to see, but a spiritual hope for thai people there. i got a few shots of them praying on the camera to show you later. i realized this is the closest thing we have to baal today in modern times. wow. how i know it hurts God to see this. then, we headed for the palace around the corner, it was raining and i bought a little silver umbrella. there were venders around any tourist sight selling thai cuisine, fruit, and fruit juices. julie, got pineapple. i was scared to, so i didn't. by the way, she is fine. :) the palace was closed according to what we could tell from some military guards who were motioning in thai to not come in the entrance. we found out it opened the next day at 8:30 am which we thought we could do before our 2:20pm flight out back to Nan.
so, we headed around the corner and stumbled upon a huge plot of land/like a park. there were hundreds of kites being flown by kids all the way to elders. it was amazing! we didn't know if it was a festival or a routine thing to do on sundays. kites were every shape and size. all i could humm to myself was "let's go fly a kite, up to the highest hight, oh let's go fly a kite." :) we took pictures with them and the people walking by with bouquets of balloons in every color. there were more vendors of course. then we decided to experience travel by a new means. we took a "tut tut" taxi which is more like a little go-cart taxi mobile. we took it the short distance back to the river boat. it was fun. the river boat was a whole new experience on the way back because it was now dark. Oh, back to the kites really fast, they had one huge kite in the shape of a rainbow that danced in the sun setting sky to music from bette midler or something but they would quickly turn off the music when it fell to the ground. it took several men to fly this rainbow. i loved it and of course, took a picture of it.
okay back to the river ride in the dark- this time we got OUR OWN PERSONAL river taxi boat. it was the shape of a gondola!!!!!! it was the same price so i'm not sure how we got it. by the way, these things cost like 75 cents!!!!!!!!!!! i cannot tell you how affordable everything is here! :) it is a dream for poor students like us.
we saw all the lights and felt the wind blow in our hair and for the first time realized that we were relaxing. something we haven't done since before march 17th, match day when we found out where we were going for residency. i mean, i literally have been moving out of my apartment and packing for these two continents ever since then. we realized bangkok was a blessing to us and losing our luggage was God's way of giving us a little 24 hour vacation before we started working. i'm so thankful for the lost luggage! we also joke that we hit thailand with a "bang" in "bangkok" since we packed so much into that 24 hour period. we walked around siam center (which is an area with a mall and street shopping) and I persuaded julie to eat one last american meal with me at hard rock cafe. it hit us where we were when we saw the menus and t-shirts said, "hard rock cafe-bangkok." wow, we were there! too cool. so marroon five played in the background reminding us of the states as we ate our cheese burger and i even got ice tea. oh by the way, we converted to drinking hot tea from the moment we got on the planes. no more coffee, it is just not the same and not worth the dissappointment. i love hot tea, though. my favorite drink here is a bottled drink called "green tea with honey." ooh, it makes me happy! :) we found a lady selling lays made of jasmine flowers. they were too great to pass up so we each wore one for the night. smelling them made us happy. we smelled them a lot. by the way, thailand is known as the land of smiles, which is so true. i have never been in a happier on the surface place. everyone looks at each other with a smile and is happy to help you. julie and i are known as "farangs" which means westerners. we even had little girls yell out to us and point "farang". how cute. i'm sure it is more julie's blonde hair that makes us stand out. :) i can pass for something here, surely. :) we have been traveling up to this point WITHOUT WATCHES. i have never done that before. neither of us like wearing them and have soley relied on other's watches to get us through each leg of the trip. CAN YOU BELIEVE WE DIDN'T MISS ANY OF OUR CONNECTIONS! praise God. so, i decided i really needed to buy one from a street vendor or something for when we were back in chiang klang and there were no stores in sight. b/c of not knowing what time it was, we got back to the guest house at midnight. oops. we lived it to the fullest. oh, we each got new sets of eye glasses frames that were really hip in bangkok and at great prices. i need them for those call nights and can make a fun statement with them, so can she. we made friends with every store we went into. it was great! julie even exchanged email addresses with some of the people. this is what it is all about!
so, we showered and headed to bed. the next AM we got up and wanted to go to eat an american breakfast. sylvia recommmended federal coffee house just a few blocks away. however, it rained all night long and was still raining. before looking outside, we decided we would wear skirts and shoes that were fine if they got wet. we thought it would be adventurous! oh, it was adventurous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

let me tell you, houston has nothing on bangkok when it comes to standing water after rain!!!!!!!!
i have never witnessed this before in my life.... we were walking through steets/sidewalks with water up to our KNEES! of course, we took pictures. it was hilarious. i'm still picturing julie standing in the water. :) we finally SWAM to the restaraunt and had an awesome meal. somehow cars were driving through the water that was almost covering their wheels. as they drove by the restaraunt, waves were created and splashed water up into the restaraunt. soon we were flooded in our own restaraunt! everyone pitched into help and push the water out. i was wondering if there was a natural disaster that you guys heard about that we were in. i think it was just normal. but crazy! we swam back to the sky train and headed above water to the grand palace that we missed the day before. we ran into a couple from england (the man lives in malaysia now) and they rode the river taxi with us back to the palace after being ripped off the day before. supposedly there is a scam that the police and guards are in on. they won't let you into the palace but will take you to a place where you have to pay extra money. that couple missed the palace b/c of that scam yesterday. even the river taxi guy said, "don't listen to anyone who tells you the palace is closed, it is open! it is a scam" i have never heard of that before. we went in and let me tell you, i have seen the Alhambra in spain, I have seen Buckingham Palace, I have seen the White House, I have seen Versailles in France, I have seen the Royal Palace in Monaco, but i have never seen a palace as grandiose as this!!!!!!!!!! i'm talking intricate gold and gems all over the place. The couryards were breathtaking. Blues, greens, gold , etc all over the place. we saw the temple of the famous emerald buddha. after that, we had to hurry to head back to get our plane. we were running behind with all of the water on the streets, i made the wrong choice by taking a taxi back. traffic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we could barely move an inch on the street. the taxi driver didn't know english. back to the amazing race... we pointed to our wrists as if there were watches there and said fast fast. i motioned like i was driving a car steering wheel and did it really fast. we hoped he got the clue of our charades to drive fast!!! at least change lanes, please into a faster one. oh well. we did hurredly stop and buy a watch on the way to the sky train and made it back to the guest house to pick up our luggage and take a taxi straight to the airport. the plane was delayed, of course. whew. this is where we had to pay extra for our bags being overweight. see, in thailand, there is a weight limit to luggage. we only paid $10 U.S. more. that was a relief. then it was back to PB Air, our domestic flight back to Nan. We left Bangkok with a Bang. They played the soothing Hawaiian/latinish music on taking off and landing. Dr. tom was there to pick us up with his wife, Mary. we headed for the hills to the hilltribes of northern thailand. our true journey was beginning for why we were really there. i was excited to see what lies ahead in the work God has for us here.