Day 182 – Bangkok, Thailand

August 7th, 2019

I read that Bangkok has a population of over 8 million.  That is twice what the population in Los Angeles is, which is hard to imagine.  I liked the area of the city our hostel was in.  Brendan did a good job picking that as it was in the heart of downtown but had a neighborhood feel.  I thought it was funny to still wake up to roosters in the center of this massive metropolis.  I guess it’s normal to have roosters in your city apartment. 

Brendan’s activity planning style is a bit different than mine.  Today, our big activity was walking for three hours on the side of the freeway to get to a bus station to compare ticket prices to Cambodia.  We didn’t take any real breaks from walking.  On our way back I really wanted a nice cold smoothie since I was hot and tired.  We stopped at a smoothie stand that was in front of a restaurant, but no one was behind the counter.  As I slowed my walk and scanned to see if there was anyone manning the station to make a smoothie, a lady caught my eye who was standing to the side of the smoothie stand.  I assumed she was an employee of the restaurant or smoothie place as she warmly said, “good afternoon!”  I asked if I could please have a mango smoothie and she looked around and said “please wait here. The guy just stepped away from the stand but will be right back”.  I told her no worries and tried to keep walking, but she was insistent we wait.  She was very polite with her language, showing us to a chair in the restaurant to wait.  I obliged and was honestly happy for the break as my feet ached from the 3-hour walk by the freeway. 

Another guy from the restaurant came to the table we were sitting with menus and I said, no thank you, we are just waiting for a smoothie.  He acted confused and like he didn’t know what a mango smoothie was.  I thought that was strange since there was clearly a smoothie station right out front.  Anyway, we waited a long time.  Probably like 10 minutes.  There are literally 10,000 places I could buy a smoothie in this city, so Brendan suggested we keep walking.  I felt kind of bad since the lady had asked us so nicely to wait, but did think the whole thing was kind of strange, so we started walking.  We got just a short distance and the lady started waving and flagging us down as she was just down the street in front of another smoothie stand holding a bag of 2 mangos.  She had bought two mangos and took them to another smoothie stand to have them make my drink since the guy was apparently on some sort of extended break from the original smoothie stand. 

We went over to her and she went into a story how she bought the mangos for me, one for my drink right now and the other mango to keep for tomorrow because it will be sweeter then etc. etc.  I said “Oh, okay, thank you! That was very nice.” I wasn’t really sure why she did that.  Anyone else would have just said we are not making smoothies now, and point me in the direction of another smoothie stand.  I was getting a little nervous this was somehow going to cost me way more than any other regular smoothie. 

The lady at the new smoothie booth handed me my fresh mango smoothie while the lady who bought the mangos for me was eager for me to take a drink to see if it was good.  I told her it was delicious and thank you very much as we pulled out money to pay for the smoothie and the extra mango she bought for tomorrow.  To my great surprise, she refused the money and said “no, no, I buy for you”.  She then started asking us where we were from, and where we were going and all the usual questions.  I couldn’t figure out what her angle was and was just waiting for this to turn into something where she has a sick child that needs expensive medicine or something resulting in me giving her a lot more than 30 baht, the price for a smoothie.  She never asked for anything though and was just super friendly.  As we were leaving, I tried to insist and give her money as there was no reason she needed to buy mangos and a drink for me.  She continued to refuse though and just said “I buy for you”.  I decided to just receive it and sincerely thanked her.  She waved us goodbye and that was it.

 I was sort of in shock at such a random act of kindness, and after we walked away was wishing I had gotten a picture with her to better remember the moment.  Looking back, I realized I didn’t even know if she was an employee at that restaurant or smoothie stand.  She might have just been a random person standing close by.  I guess I will never know why my desire for a mango smoothie became her biggest priority in that moment, but her kindness touched my heart.  It also immediately transformed my mood.  I forgot about my aching feet and the long, hot walk by the freeway.  I was filled with joy and gratitude to have such a unique encounter. I realized how much of an impact a simple, random act of kindness can do for someone’s day and their life.  You never know the magnitude of sharing love and kindness.  I already can’t wait to “pay it forward” and do something random for someone else!  I don’t know if it was because of the love this smoothie was given, or if they snuck some sweet and condensed milk in it. However, it was the best mango smoothie I ever had!

As we continued with our day and the high from random love and kindness was fading, my feet began to ache and feel tired from all the walking.  You always get stopped by people who want to talk to you and ask all the questions where you are from and welcome you to Thailand, but it is always to sell you something in the end.  That one lady was truly an exception.  There are many people who work together to sell you the tuk tuk tours that go to three buddha’s in the city.  We heard the same spiel yesterday about how we are so lucky to be here on this one special day when the Thai government is giving away free gas so we can go to these buddha’s for the cheapest price ever.  The spiel is very elaborate and it’s only 40 baht (which is like nothing, $1.30) to go to the buddha’s.  I think Brendan knew I was about done with the walking, and he agreed for us to take the tuk tuk.  We knew it was some sort of tourist trap but were not sure exactly how.  We figured worst case scenario, we just give the 40 baht and leave if we don’t like it.  We were supposed to go to “the big buddha”, “the happy buddha”, and the “sideways buddha”.  The tuk tuk takes you there, waits for you to look, then takes you to the next spot. 

I debated whether to put what happened next in the blog because it is disturbing.  This blog is my outlet for sharing our story though and I would not want the story to be skewed by only saying the good and omitting anything unpleasant.  At our second stop it was at a somewhat abandoned temple.  Our driver kept saying this is where the big bellied “happy buddha” was and would point in some vague direction.  He motioned us to go walk around the temple grounds, so we did while he waited at the tuk tuk.  Brendan had just made the comment how it feels really abandoned as there were no other people around and all the temple doors were closed.  We were walking along the side of this big temple when we heard a guy call to us from a few yards away.  We looked over and he was sitting in the corner shooting up, showing us his arm with the needle in it.  He was saying “look, look! heroin, heroin…”.  Like it is for a lot of people who have been affected by drug abuse in some way, this is a very sensitive topic for me.  Seeing it was kind of a kick in the gut and I got a big lump in my throat and became a little frightened.  My heart immediately ached for that young man, but I knew the best thing to do was remove ourselves from this situation and unknown environment.  We hurriedly made our way back to the tuk tuk, and it felt like a long way walking without anyone else around. 

When we finally got close to the tuk tuk there was another “plant” who was seemingly just a local who was coming to pray who engaged us in conversation and went in to a big story about his family and how great the tailored Thai suits are for unbelievable prices.  He told us we were lucky to be here during the one-week tourists could get suits for the same price as locals and seemed surprised we hadn’t heard of this on the Thai news.  The tuk tuk gimmick and the drug addict at the temple were completely unrelated,  but I just had such a horrible feeling from it, I wanted to get away from both situations. 

We still had not seen the “happy buddha” as the driver kept vaguely pointing at other statues saying that was it.  Brendan pulled up a google picture of the happy buddha on my phone and told him to take us there like we were told in the beginning.  He said okay, and that would be at our last stop right after we swing by the Thai suit store.  We said no, we don’t want any suits and he said, “just five minutes for looking”.  We both said we are absolutely NOT going to go to the suit store and Brendan got insistent he needs to take us to the happy buddha.  I couldn’t help but smile as it seemed ironic to be sternly saying, “Take me to the happy buddha!”.  Lol, the guy must have thought we really needed some happiness to be so angry about it.  When he realized we were not going to budge and go to the suit store he drove us to another temple where the happy Buddha was supposedly at and told us the spot where he would be waiting for us. 

The 3^rd temple was also on very big grounds that you could walk through.  Brendan showed a couple people inside the picture of the happy buddha we were looking for and they would point in some direction.  We tried to follow the vague points but never found that particular Buddha.  I didn’t really even care about seeing that Buddha and told Brendan we should just go and give that guy the 40 baht we agreed on and be on our way.  I guess Brendan really wanted to see the happy Buddha though because he decided to ask one more person about it.  I think the guy was a monk who lived there, but maybe in his recreational clothes instead of his robe as he just had a pair of gym shorts and no shirt. 

Ever since my phone got snatched out of my hand in Buenos Aires, I am super paranoid about it getting stolen.  In the big cities, I now have it on a tether to hopefully deter any phone snatchers.  Before I knew it, Brendan had just handed the random guy (who I now really hoped was a monk) my phone with the tether no longer attached to anything!  I immediately thought how the tether isn’t going to do much good now lol.  As he had the phone and was looking close at the picture of the happy Buddha he says “ooh…this is not here”.  I jumped in and was like “ok, no problem!  I don’t even want to see that Buddha, thank you so much” and put my hand out for him to give back the phone.  He pulled away though and said, “let me ask someone else where this is”… I said “oh no, it’s okay really. We have to go anyway”.  He paid no attention though and quickly started out through the temple grounds.  I was literally jogging trying to keep up with him as he mazed us through all these temple grounds.  Afraid he was just going to start running away with my phone, I was greatly relieved when we finally reached another monk who was doing some wood working and we stopped.  He showed the other monk the picture on the phone and that guy confirmed that Buddha was not at this temple.  He handed the phone back and we thanked him for his effort.  I was really ready to leave at this point, so we went out to find our tuk tuk driver to pay him and be done with the temple tours that never actually had the happy buddha. 

The tuk tuk driver was gone. We walked up and down the spot he said he would be without any sign of him.  So, we are guessing the whole scam was to just take us to the Thai suit shop.  When he realized we were not going to go there he dropped us off at a temple and left not caring about the 40 baht.  So, we never ended up paying a cent for the tuk tuk ride at all.  Our hostel was only a short walk away at this point, so we made our way back.

Brendan said the nice lady really ruined his idea of just not talking with any street people.  Most of them do want something out of it but there are sometimes, genuinely friendly locals.  I truly believe that lady got joy out of giving me the smoothie. I wouldn’t have wanted to deny her that by not giving her the time of day and talking.  In return she also gave me a huge gift of joy and inspiration to do good to others.  I guess the moral of the story is you never know when someone will surprise you.  Be kind to others but also try to be smart.  Bangkok is crazy and I feel like I saw some of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the city all in about 45 mins!