Greetings from hot and steamy Bangkok. I’m in SE Asia for about ten days exploring with my great friends Elliott and Brian. We flew on a new, 16 hour nonstop flight Singapore Airlines started between Seattle and Singapore. Amazing that with a little bit of entertainment (or the entire second season of Killing Eve) and some liquid merriment along the way, the time seemed to fly by.
Bangkok is one of my favorite cities in Asia because it is so alive with flavor. Sounds of birds chirping, water monitor lizards hanging out in Lumphini Park and the sense of thick oxygen from the dense vegetation trying hard to win out amongst sometimes choking exhaust from the cars, tuk tuks, motorbikes and busses clogging up the roadways.
The people have a special spirit in Thailand; welcoming, kind, gentle. It seems impossible not to smile when making eye contact with locals. Yesterday, on the street a man started chatting with us. It ended up that he was an A380 captain for Thai Airways; some airline blood. We walked with him a few blocks, and he offered us sightseeing recommendations. A lot of his suggestions invovled going to malls, but none-the-less, friendly and kind people exist all over this land.
Speaking of flavor, the food is outstanding and spicy. I’ve experienced this in previous trips but always seem to forget that the Thai chefs don’t mess around with peppers. I enjoyed an order of Tom Yum Goong soup yesterday that came in just one temperature – hot. It was delicious with bright flavors and sent the taste buds in my mouth skyrocketing. The perfect answer to jet lag!
And another reality of SE Asia, and in particular Bangkok, is the heat and humidity that I can only compare to living through summers in Washington DC during particularly uncomfortable bouts of heat. I don’t think of myself as a delicate flower, but the first day walking through the city was a bit draining. I returned to my icy hotel room for a quick rest and change before more onward exploration.
My room was 19C (66F) and while the perma-frost feeling was welcome I couldn’t help but remember my recent blog post about more seriously working to reduce my carbon footprint in the world. Here was a chance to try to balance sacrifices with my earnest interest in doing better. My fingers were still not quite on board as I pressed the thermostat buttons north to 24C (75F). Now that I type this even 75 degrees seems cool to me, so I suppose it’s always relative.
Now, just changing the air conditioning from morgue level to a summer breeze on the Oregon Coast kind of temperature isn’t going to prevent the arctic from melting, but still an important reminder to me that even small steps can eventually make a difference in the world if collectively, we work to enact change.
You see, it isn’t always convenient to think of the planet first, especially when beads of sweat are dripping from your forehead and the polo shirt you’re wearing is half soaked and sticky with “city resin.” But I want to do better.
In case you haven’t already checked it out, please take a look at my blog post on this topic titled Ten ways to reduce your travel carbon footprint. This is important to me and I’m working hard to hold myself more accountable, sweat and all.
And who knows, maybe I’ll up my room temperature to 80 degrees?
Happy Travels,
Matthew
