Leaving my friend’s apt. around 10:40pm i caught a bus to Victory Monument, the biggest transportation hub in Bangkok to catch bus 551 which goes all nite to the airport. I walk all around the huge circle looking for that number on any bus signs without success, when i see a yellow bus coming with darkened numbers – 551 – yea! Butttttt, i cannot tell where it will stop in the huge circle, and i wait where i think it will come out of the circle, and sure enough, here it comes – vroooooom! I wave my hand, and the driver waves too as he drives right by – arghhhhhh!
What to do? I walk a bit down the same way, thinking that i will go to the closest bus stop and catch the next bus. I ask the lady in the VCD shop if bus 551 stops in front of her store, and she and several others have a fun time trying to communicate with me (at least the one lady smiled a lot). I gave her a pamphlet when i see the next bus going to the circle, and sure enough, in a minute it comes to pick me up 🙂
In around 10 minutes i see one of the most horrible sights in my life. 4 police cars with their lights on – OK, must be a drunk-driving test seeing it is 12:20 midnite – wrong. There is a form with a white sheet covering it and a slightly bruised motorbike already put up in a pickup nearby. Oh no!!! God, please comfort his family…….. All his hopes and dreams and family’s hopes and dreams for him, wiped out in an instant……. Next thing he knows, he’ll see Jesus…… Hope he is in the 1st Resurrection!
With a touch of dread i make it to the airport around 1:00 and try to curl up on a chair in front of the check-in counter as many others are doing. It is cold. After sipping a bit of cough syrup i drift in and out, not being able to drift anymore when two people on the chairs on the back side of me tell about their experiences in Thailand. After they get up, i rub my eyes and put on my glasses. Within one minute a visibly agitated youngish white man comes up to me, and tells me his story of how he was robbed the day before, and he has overstayed his visa and needs 2,000baht. My self-preservation indicator is pinging pretty solidly in the yellow area, but i think what i would want him to do if the situation was reversed, and after showing him that i only have 800baht on me, i gave him 600 and prayed with him. Later i saw some other man walking with him to the entrance of the immigration area, so i guess he was able to get the rest of the needed funds. Lord, please bless him and myself too.
Finally i check-in around 5:40, and go to the even colder boarding area where i get on the AirAsia flight to Yangon. I don’t have any bags, but notice on my boarding pass the RGN code, causing me a smile at how place names may get changed, but some things remain the same 🙂 The flight is around 90% full, amazing. I eat some bananas and gluten steak sandwich my friend made for me, and leave the starfruit alone as i spilled it out on the dirty pavement once, and forgot to wash it. Sorry to waste the one banana that went out to the sea via a grate to the sewer in Bangkok – ha!
My friend greets me at the airport, and things are very well, but hazy, now 🙂 Pray everything will go well.