Bangkok

Bangkok

Plane lands at 12:20 AM. In bed by 2:AM. Plush Hotel. Ride from the airport is in the nicest Mercedes I’ve ever been in. The hotel car.

Up at 7:45 for the complementary breakfast. Nice enough. Bangkok is hot and humid. I’m having a hard time getting oriented. I want to see some sights, get a traditional Thai Massage and eat Thai food. Those are my goals for my 19 hours in Thailand; that and catch the plane to Delhi that night at 7:50 PM. Rather than going to the Massage school in colorful old Bangkok. I settle for a massage at the hotel. It costs twice as much as downtown, $19 per half hour. Worth every penny. I consider just getting massaged the whole 19 hours. After a few inquiries about good local traditional food, I eat at the hotel, wondering if I will ever get out of the hotel. Did I mention, “It was very plush.” I think about my experiences in India; hard, dirty, noisy. I consider extending my stay in Thailand. There is sweetness in the people I’ve not encountered before. I think I could really like Thailand. The hotel is on the river. It has a shuttle boat up the river a ways. I decide to ride on the river until it’s time to go. I take the shuttle, and then hop on public transportation, an express boat. It fills up rapidly. People are going home from work. I learn later that you stay off the land transportation as much as possible. Traffic on the roads is awful. I ride up the river for a half hour then decide it’s time to head back. I have a car reserved at 5:00PM and I still need to pack. As I get off the boat, then on another for the ride back, I mistakenly get a local, not express (no flag, rather than yellow flag; 34 stops rather than 11 stops). On this boat, I overhear a businessman talking on his cell phone. He had missed his last appointment due to the awful traffic. There was a premonition, that I did not catch at the time. Also not noticed was the fact that my watch had stopped running 90 minutes ago. I think to myself, “It gets dark early in Thailand.”

I get back to the hotel, stroll around the pool, pack then go to get the car, still completely unaware of how late I am. About 30 minutes into our drive (much of it not moving in traffic), I notice the clock in the car. I inquire of the driver. He confirms my lateness. My plane leaves in 40 minutes, we are 30 minutes away (assuming we start moving). As a slow panic begins to set in, I start to bargain with the Divine. I will spare you the details. I have already shared that I have been working on clearly seeing the future unfold with grace and ease. I engage in that again, in the back of this plush Mercedes, stuck in traffic in Bangkok, about to miss my plane to Delhi, then miss the car that is waiting for me to drive me to India, then stuck in the airport in Bangkok with way too much luggage to lug around. I envision arriving at the airport on time And making the plane. I can’t rationally imagine that this could really happen. I envision it nonetheless.

I arrive at the airport 20 minutes before takeoff. The Gods in my personal pantheon apparently include the 3 stooges, but they were listening. I get to the counter. There is no line. It is the wrong counter (business class); they help me anyway. Their help is to let me know that I have no reservations on the flight. I make reservations. They tell me that my baggage is over weight. (It wasn’t on Air China, but now I’m flying Thai Air). I agree to pay. Extra. That happens at a different window. Hurry ! I go to 2 wrong windows before finding the right one. They want to see my ticket. It is at business class. Hurry! I get my payment and my ticket, “Run through customs.” Hurry ! Whoops, first you have to pay your airport tax, go to a different window. Customs is quick. Run! I arrive at the gate 11 minutes before scheduled departure. This doesn’t seem possible. I agree with the Divine that this extra 11 minutes that has somehow been given to me must now be given back. I get to my seat. Out of breath, but on time!