So now that I’m home, I feel like I can be completely honest with you. I had a bit of a mild freak out in Thailand.
This is what happened:
read more ↓Prior to my leaving, I had a mild feeling of dread about the trip. I don’t usually get this. In fact, I’ve been so greatly enjoying this six week country-hopping excursion that I’ve decided to extend my travels through to early next year (and hopefully beyond, if I get my way on a particular trip in January…), leaving only a day or two in between locations. But something about Thailand was really not sitting well with me.
I started talking to friends and family about it in an effort to get an understanding of what to expect, thinking it would help calm me down a little. Not that I was in meltdown mode or anything, but… but. But I wasn’t able to sleep, and I wasn’t excited about the trip, and I was having second, third and fourth thoughts about it. Family assured me it would be fantastic and I’d have a great time, friends told me to be aware of their intense love of the King and encouraged me to try street meat. Outwardly I nodded in agreement and echoed that I would have fun, inwardly I turned my stomach into knots and hoped I could make it all go fast.
The night that I left, I was dragging my heels and folding laundry – folding laundry! – when it came time to leave. Jeff, who graciously agreed to drive me to the airport, said, “You’re going to miss your flight, you know. Don’t you want to go?”
I didn’t know how to say no, I didn’t. And I didn’t want to say that, because I knew it was silly. I just couldn’t figure out why I felt that way.
I felt like a zombie – despite a decent night’s sleep – by the time I hit Taiwan, and when I landed in Bangkok and checked in at my hotel so I could go wander the streets, I was having a hard time convincing myself that I hadn’t made a big mistake. Yeah, Bangkok was noisy and somewhat Vegas-y, but it’s not like something bad had happened to me. After meeting my group the first night I felt a little better, but not by much. (Believe me, it annoyed me about 10 times more than it’s annoying you to read “something wasn’t right in my head” for the last four paragraphs.)
My answer came nearly a week later at the homestay before we did our hillside trek. Although I’d started to fall in love with the country just a little bit, there was still that little nagging feeling inside of me that I was trying desperately to ignore. When our host sat down with that Canada coffee table book and asked me to point out where I’d lived while residing in the Great White North, I had this feeling of relief wash over me when I saw pictures of West Edmonton Mall (where I spent many a teenage birthday, but no, I was not on the Mindbender just before it crashed), the Saddledome, snow… and that’s when it hit me: I’m a long, long, long ways away from home.
I excused myself and went to sit alone at the side of the house. I sort of started to beat myself up a little for being silly. After all, wasn’t that why I signed up for this trip? To be a long, long, long way from home? To take myself out of my element to see how another corner of the world lives, and to learn a little more about myself? And hadn’t I been all over the world at this point? Well, yeah. I just hadn’t been somewhere like Thailand before, where I stuck out like a sore thumb and didn’t even know curse words in the local dialect. And I finally had to admit to myself that not only did I feel really out of place, but I was also a bit scared of what I was going to experience on the trek. I’d never done anything like this before, and I didn’t want to regret it in the form of some kind of illness or broken limb.
The internal beating continued, wherein I chastised myself for being childish and told myself to stop whining and be a grown up, but it wasn’t until I stopped that nonsense and told myself it was okay to feel scared that the feeling finally subsided. Interesting how it wasn’t until I surrendered to the emotion that it stopped engulfing me.
Anyway. The rest of the trip was a breeze from there on in, I not only ate street meat, I ate crickets and grubworms, and I would absolutely go back in a heart beat… but I would still spend as little time in Bangkok as possible. Even with my newfound zen about the country, I still found Bangkok as comfortable as a bicycle with no seat.
In the meantime I’m in the final stages of locking down my itinerary for Disneyworld, which – interestingly enough – is going to include video of me explaining rides, Fastpass systems and whatnot. It’s been a while since I’ve done TV stuff, so I’m hoping it’s much like riding a bicycle (with a seat, thanks.) No, I’m not practicing what I’m going to say in the mirror. Much. The added bonus to this trip is that one of my nearest and dearest friends, Danica, will be joining me. And I do mean nearest and dearest – she once prank called a boy who’d screwed me over and held my hair back when I puked after too much red wine chased with Drumsticks and Hot Rods. Yes, she’s that kind of friend. If I needed a body disposed of, I’d call her.
More soon. I have to get to bed, ‘cause I have four days in which I have to complete six articles before I go hang with Mickey.
And yes, I did listen to Christmas music all day today, and I’m aiming to have my condo filled with more lights than an L.A. traffic jam on the 101 before I leave again.
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