in thailand 2007

Perhaps instead of focusing on long, country-specific bloggings this year, i should instead try to put more little “incident” postings up….

Getting off bus #551 from the airport at 10:30pm, i adjusted my backpack, set my big black bag holding 50 English 1858gc books onto the ground, and waited for bus #54 to come.  “Show me what’s in your bag!”  A policeman coming up on a motorbike barks at me.  I’m in shock, as i’ve never heard of the police in Thailand asking to see what’s in your bag.  Thinking he might be a fake policeman, i look at him closely, and he asks to see my passport.  Still confused, i oblige.  He looks thru things, says “thank you”, and roars off.  What was that all about?

#54 had come while he was searching me, so i wait another 20 minutes until….one flies by me.  Now i’m getting a bit worried.  Not being sure just where i am, or what time the busses stop running, i edge closer to the light emanating from 7-Eleven.  Good old 7-Eleven!  It’s great to see civilization 🙂  The bus finally comes after waiting over one hour, and i find out quickly that i’m near Victory Monument, where it dumps me out.  The books are just too heavy to carry 45mins back to the Chinese Church, so i take another bus, which lets me out near MBK Plaza, where i ring in the New Year watching many pickup trucks with sirens on screaming their way thru the nite.  I find out later that some bombs had gone off, and 3 people died.  Sure glad i wasn’t caught in it.  My angels must have been on high alert tho. 

Finally bus #25 comes, and i get a ride to the Chinese Church, and the raucous neighborhood people celebrating New Year’s until around 2 or 3 am.  I sleep on some padded chairs in the little kids’ sabbath school room, as i have no key to the empty room between the toilets.  Same for the next nite.

Neighborhood kids come inside the church basement and play with me.  I have “Where’s Noah?” on the old laptop i purchased last month, and they love playing it.  Pastor comes back from holidays in Chaing Mai, and i sleep comfortably in the room.  God is very good to give me grace in the eyes of the pastor, and providing my every need.  Usually i eat some bread with p-nut butter, raisins, and some fruit for breakfast, some rice and raw vegetable for lunch, and rice with tofu and some cooked vegetable for supper.  Not tops for nutrition, but not too bad.

On the 3rd i meet my friend from Japan.  Hers is the first old-time famaliar face i’ve seen since leaving Japan over 14 months earlier.  We’ve been friends for 16 years and have been thru ups and downs in each other’s lives.  What a relaxing, happy time!  While getting a massage at MBK, i go to the bank, and for the first time since leaving Japan, use a ATM machine.  Like magic, 10,000 baht is delivered to me.  Dangerous!  Thanks a lot brother for taking care of my financial needs.  Hope i can get my Toshiba fixed now.

We go thru the main shopping centres of Bangkok, MBK, Siam Square, Paragon, Zen, then on down to Platinum Mall.  PM is a huge 5-story building just for clothing/fashion stuff.  I’ve walked around it several times, and it has always been almost deserted, leaving me wondering when it would close.  Well now it is hopping, with people crowding thru the small aisles etc.  My friend buys a yellow hat saying “We love the king”, and i buy a backpack.  The original price is 800thb, but i get the lady down to 500.  Then my friend gets it down to 400 – done!  A couple of days later i see a better one in a different shop for 300.  Oh well.  I hate haggling, but it gave us something to talk about for a long while.  Pantip computer mart is very near, so i show her around there, and hear that they haven’t repaired my Toshiba yet 🙁

We eat lunch at a little stall on the street, paying 60baht each for a little bowl of noodles and soup and then one plate of stir-fried greenery.  That’s expensive – 3.5usd for 2 people.  We eat in an air-conditioned vegetarian restaurant at nite, and with nearly the same quantity of food, for 80baht.  My friend loves Thai food, and the next day we catch bus #53 that goes thru Chinatown.  When we see a place that looks good, we alight.  Soon she is crying with delite (or is it the chili peppers?).  It is hard for me to get vegetarian food, but after the meal of rice with vegetable, i find someone selling boiled corn-on-the-cob.  Ahroi!  We go by Jim Thompson’s house, look at the sting ray in the pool, ogle the beautiful silks in the store, and walk 30 minutes back to the church.

Pastor prays for my friend, and i go with her on bus #4, heading for the airport.  We get on the bus a little before 6, and her plane leaves around 9:30.  It should take 1 1/2 hours to get there.  After 20 minutes we decide that it might be faster to walk, or even crawl to the airport.  We hop off and get on the subway, change to the sky-train, and get off at the eastern end – On Nut.  My friend is a nervous wreck, knowing for sure that she is going to miss her flight. I try to calm her down by relaxing on the bus bench (hey, it’s not my flight), and fortunately, #552 comes within 10 minutes.  You have to get off at the bus terminal, and catch a shuttle bus to the airport itself.  There is a vcd with Thais playing “That’s the way i like it, uh huh uh huh”.  What a laugh!  We arrive plenty early, and finding some energy-providing devices at Family Mart, we take them up to the observation deck (enclosed), and have a nice, final meal together.  Thank you for friends, God, and thank you for this opportunity to witness to her.  Please work on her heart so that she will give her all to you one day, and be in heaven forever.

For vespers, Friday evening at the church, the English teacher/missionary here gives a powerful talk on how Jesus Christ is our everything.  I’m so happy.  I’ve been praying that the friction between us over the Qur’an would be swept away, and that both of us could focus on Jesus Christ.  Prayers answered – thank you Jesus!

On Sabbath i go to a different missionary friend’s place, and give the sermon, and a study of chapter 32: The Shaking, in the afternoon.  About 7 or 8 are in attendance, and we have a good study, until the very end, when the lone Thai man starts giving his doubts about Ellen White and me.  I tell him i’m certainly not inspired, but Ellen White is, and we must follow what she has written, as it is from God.  He doesn’t seem so sure of that.  So sad that the only member of our group who has theological training, the only Thai person, is the only one doubting the messenger of the Lord.  Is this what they teach at Mission College?  Yes, i know the answer already…..

Pastor takes me to the land out past the suburbs, where a church member is letting him use to start a school.  He wants to call it: “School of Daniel” (not after me, of course – ha!)  There is nothing there at all now, except a bunch of tall reeds, and a bit of a swamp.  There is quite a bit of land, maybe 10 acres, but near a busy road, with a row of houses on one side.  But he is energetically trying to start something for God there, so i start with a big hoe to chip at the dried earth, and throwing it into a ditch.  He slashes and burns some reeds, giving us a bit of a scare when the wind catches it, threatening to start a big blaze.  What a way to start witnessing for Jesus, to burn down people’s houses!!  We both pray, and the wind subsides, and after his beating on the fires awhile, they quit flaming.  Hey, looks like a nice black path has been burned, like a road into the property – thank you Lord.

Finally i get my Toshiba, all nicely fixed.  It has been 7 months since seeing it come on, and it really gives me a rush to see everything just as before – whew!  But now is not the time to muck around in it, as i have to catch the 7:30pm bus to Kuala Lumpur.  Cost 1,400thb.  Scheduled arrival: next day, 6pm, with one change in Hat Yai.  Nice intentions, but not nice execution, as the bus dumps us somewhere around 5am.  Seems like only me and one other is continuing onward, so probably this is the stopover point for some beach resort.  After waiting over an hour, we take a speeding minivan down to Hat Yai, where we wait over 2 hours, then finally onto a Malaysian bus that gets us thru customs, rolls unmercifully slow for a couple of hours on the nice expressway (40km?), then gets us into KL finally at 11:30pm.  Some people tell me i can take the train to KL Sentral station, but taxi drivers tell me no.  It is too difficult to walk to, as KL is not very pedestrian-friendly.  The taxi driver lets me out at the Air Asia bus stop at KL Sentral, and i spend 3 1/2 hours there, getting prodded when i try to lay on the cement, but being left alone when sitting up.  7-Eleven provides a shot of orange juice which helps a lot.  9RM gets one to the new, budget-airline airport way out from KL, in around 60 minutes.  It is still dark when i get there, so slump out on the cement sidewalk there awhile with what looks like Filipinos and Indonesians.

Thanks again Thailand and 14 hours of Malaysia for helping me get things done, meeting friends, and for the protection.

NOTE: Post written May 17, 2007, regarding time in Thailand spent in early January