Day Three: You Can't Go Back

I woke extra early, hoping to beat the August heat, and undoubtedly a victim of jetlag. I descended 28 floors to the breakfast buffet, eagerly anticipating the breakfast soup station from my last visit - choose your noodles, wait for the noodle master to cook them in broth, then add your condiments - fried garlic bits, green onions, tofu, etc. But there was no soup station. The rest of the buffet was good, but I'd been so looking forward to the soup...

I had also been looking forward to some shopping in the Narita (Tokyo) Airport the day before. I have almost finished both compacts of my favorite eyeshadow, which I've unsuccessfully tried to replicate with both drug- and department store brands. However, Shiseido apparently doesn't make my favorite colors anymore. After visiting four duty-frees in the airport and a Shiseido store in a Bangkok mall (a mall!!), I gave up.

I've realized that one advantage of traveling to unfamiliar places is that you have few expectations that won't be met.

I planned to go to the Chatuchak weekend market that Sunday. Since it didn't open until 10, I had a few hours to kill after my 6AM breakfast. I headed up to the 4th floor pool - a hotel employee told me that they'd added sand and palm trees, and that sounded like something to see! The place was deserted at 6:30 in the morning except for a lone dedicated hotel employee sweeping the floor, and the views over the river were stunning.

I love the pool setup. The "beach" is to the left as you walk in and is faced on one side by pairs of lounge chairs separated by walls of greenery and by cushioned platforms on the other. If you walk straight ahead toward the river, you reach the infinity pool: a lap area on the hotel side and then a semicircle of lounge chairs facing the river. The lounge chairs are all sunk into about 4 inches of water, and there's a beautiful jasmine tree in the center of the pool. Since there was rain coming down (it's rainy season in Thailand), I stayed under cover and settled myself into a surprisingly comfortable beanbag chair with American Pastoral.

The rain came down harder and harder, the wind picked up, and I wrapped up in pool towels to protect myself from the downpour. I read for about 2 hours before heading out for the Skytrain and the market.

My favorite thing about the Skytrain: signs requesting that you give up your seat for monks. Second favorite thing about the Skytrain: it's efficient and easy to navigate.

I wandered the Chatuchak Market for several hours, getting progressively hotter, sweatier, and grumpier. I found the gifts I wanted, lusted over some gorgeous oragami-type lamps that I wouldn't know how to get home, and tried unsuccessfully to work up the courage to enter one of the very busy and very Thai restaurants. By mid-afternoon, I was not only hot, wet, and grumpy, but my back and feet hurt. I'd been accosted by people who made a pretense of being helpful and then tried to persuade me to go to a store even though I told them I was trying to find a local museum. I was longing for a bit of familarity and something that wasn't a challenge, and I did the unthinkable:

I ate my first dinner in Thiland at the Outback Steakhouse.

I've never understood people who traveled all the way around the world to do something they could easily do at home. But that day, I understood the draw of the McDonald's, the Starbucks, and the Outback Steakhouse.

In my defense, I've been craving a steak and baked potato for several weeks, but really I just longed for someplace that looked familiar, where I'd recognize things on the menu, and I could be pretty sure the waiter/waitress would be fluent in English. It succeeded on all counts, and I did order a Thai beer to go with the steak.

Thai food and the islands tomorrow.