Friday

Since changing my tickets with Delta, I had to go to the Delta office to pick up new paper copies and turn in my old tickets. I planned to meet everyone for Badminton at 3:00, so I left at 10:30 a.m. giving myself enough time to navigate through the transportation jungle that is Bangkok, to get to the Delta office by 1:00 p.m. and back to HAT by 3:00.

Just thinking about getting anything done in Bangkok makes me tired. Whereas at home, I would simply jump in my car, drive to my destination, do what I had to do and still have time to hit the park for a run, the farmers' market for groceries and be home in time to watch the news; here, it is a much more trying ordeal. Luckily for me, the Delta office is in a building near a sky train stop, so I could cut out one leg of the trip. I left the house at 10:30, determined to check my email, buy some cards and flowers for the HAT staff, find lunch on the road and make it to the Delta office by 1:00, when they re-opened after lunch.

One option open to me would have been to hop in a cab at the corner of our street and pay 100+ bhat to sit in traffic for an hour. I chose the other option, which although possibly similar in duration, was much more appealing to my wallet and my sense of adventure. So I headed to the nearest pier, hopped on a ferry across the river, took the river taxi to the skytrain and the skytrain to the third stop, nearest to the Delta office. Arriving at noon, I had an hour to get lunch and find some cards.

The Delta office is in a very tall office building in an area of the city with its share of very tall office buildings. Unlike other areas of Bangkok, the sidewalks were clear, absent their hoards of souvenir hawkers, food stalls, lottery ticket touts and other assorted merchandise sellers. Looking around, I thought my best bet would be to get my tickets and catch the sky train to another part of town for cards and food, but I decided to take some time to look around first, rationalizing that I had yet to be anywhere in Bangkok where I had to look very hard for some tasty grilled squid dipped in chili sauce or my favorite treat of crispy fried bananas.

I picked a direction and soon found myself rewarded by a small alley filled with carts, leading to a pretty decent sized market hidden in the midst of all the gleaming marble and steel, complete with fried squid and chilies, and a store filled with greeting cards.

At one o'clock, I was full, stocked and sitting in the Delta airline office waiting for my renewal tickets.

By three, having opted for the sky train and then a cab ride to HAT, I was back at the office, being loaded down with yet more gifts and driven off to 'My House' to play Badminton.

After a rousing hour of Badminton, complete with hysterics and hearty yells of "mai di" (no good!) every time someone missed a shot or botched a serve, I was saying yet another goodbye, eschewing the traditional Thai wai for a good American hug and heading back to CCS to pack and get ready for the next leg of my journey.