Adventures en Route to Korea

All good things must come to an end. It's a brutal fact of life. Sadly, Thailand has come to an end as well. But we have great memories, great pictures (to be posted soon), and both concluded that we've probably just experienced one of the best weeks of our lives. I realize just how privileged I am.

Sure, the weather and scenery of Korea are no comparison to Thailand, but it is comforting to know that we still have a few weeks left in Asia, and the prospect of spending time with Meaghan and Kevin is like drinking hot chocolate on a cold day.

Our last couple days in Thailand were terrific, but much of the same: swimming, sunning, and shopping. The long bus ride back to Bangkok was amusing for a time. We entered the large double decker bus (fortunately with better shocks than the last one), and laughed at the rainbow colored seats, complimentary blankets with designs of fluorescent plaid, and the fuchsia curtains decorating the windows like garland on a Christmas tree. I told you pink was everywhere.

As if that wasn't humorous enough, the speakers started positively blaring old school hip hop. It's midnight. We have 12 hours on this bus, and have been traveling for hours in other forms of transportation. The excessively loud hip hop was about appropriate as picking your nose in church. But all we could do is laugh because it was so bizarre. We got into a hysterical, over-tired fit of the giggles. We looked around the psychedelic interior of the bus and commented that Austin Powers would have been proud. We laughed some more. But when we started hearing 70's songs reincarnated as modern hip hop, the fun was over. Fortunately it only lasted for half an hour.

The second humorous event of the trek back to Korea was much better.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to be at the airport, but neglected to account for rush hour traffic. Bad move on our part in a city of 16 million people. (Mistake number one.) We took the overcrowded Skytrain as far as we could, lopping poor Thai people in the head with our backpacks, mine at 45lbs and Lynae's at 35lbs. We had a hard time hailing a cab; they were all full. Finally we found a Taxi stand with a lone cab with the hood up.

"Airport?" We asked. You learn in a country with massive language barriers to speak in single words and massive hand gestures.

"Ok," he says, as he slams down the hood of the cab. (Mistake number two: Never trust a cab when the driver's peeking under the hood.)

The drive to the airport is at least 1/2 an hour and we're in massive traffic, nervously watching the clock click on. Lynae comments that his fuel light is on. Strange, considering we're over 1/2 hour away from the airport. But we concede that as a cab driver, he must know what he's doing. (Mistake number three.)

After about 20 minutes the cab sputters and stalls like a stubborn child. He cranks the engine a few times and we heave a sigh of relief as it chugs to life. We go up an incline on a busy highway, and lo and behold, we stall again.

He turns the engine for 5 minutes and no luck. He peeks under the hood. We are looking at each other, saying, "he's out of gas! Why is he looking under the hood?" He pours clear liquid into some gadget under the hood. Finally, nervous at the time, I look at him, point at my watch a few times and say, "new taxi!"

He nods and makes a phone call as we're stranded on the side of the highway in a gassless cab, pushing our luck for time, laughing a sort of nervous laugh, because despite the time constraints, it's funny as hell. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Thankfully in 5 minutes another cab came along, but he was on the other side of the highway. We took our heavy back packs, jumped over the cement median, went down a ditch, jumped over a bit of water, and entered the new cab, teetering along because we're so top heavy.


We made it in time. 18 hours later, we staggered, once again, into Meaghan and Kevin's apartment at almost 4am. Today we visited the children again and received Christmas cards-- addressed to "Teacher Meaghan's Older Sister"-- and many hugs and squeals of delight. Tonight we are going for dinner with Meaghan's staff; we have been invited to their Christmas dinner by her boss. We're enjoying our celebrity-like status here.

Yawn. I need a nap.