Bangkok, Thailand, a country of many markets and attractions. We came here with many assumptions, and found many to be true. But in truth, the place is honest and full of hard working people whose religious faith finds its place in every greeting and goodbye. As you clasp your hands together, you pay homage to centuries of old traditions and timeless artifacts. In its shadow, the modernity of sprawling hotel buildings alongside homes, ram shackled next to one another, which double as a personal business for selling the next best thing you can bargain for cheaper at the neighbors homeshack, a few steps further down.
We found the company of one another the best, as we knew and only spoke 3 words (kap kun krar, sa wa di ka, and tai roob -- thank you, hello/goodbye, and picture please respectively) of the language, and understood nothing, except for the same replies. A simple greeting, hello and goodbye shapes the daily life routine; where everyone seems to begin with a positive note and end on a high note. The clasp of the hands is like a hug that awaits an embrace from the lips, which usher the greeting that envelope the fingers and seal the recipients reply. To get through 5 days in a foreign country with three words, basic gestures, a smile, and the point finger was fantastically nothing. We should do better to get to know one another…to be more present…to get connected. This I would say though,
is something we had never done before, in a different culture, thousands of miles away, across many mountains, through the sands of time, to be welcomed to a parlor where words are lost in translation.