It is hot as hell, all I want is to be naked, and all I can think is how hungry I am and how *clean* Bangkok is.
I haven’t seen Peter since college, when we were both competitive, geek-chic journalism students at Northwestern University in Chicago. But this night in August, 2010 finds us in a night market in Bangkok,
me uprooted from the New York media world and in the middle of a year-long, round-the-world trip with my husband, Gabriel, and Peter settled as professional yogi and real estate developer in Thailand. What the hell happened to the two ambitious little Asian journalists?
Who cares? We plunge recklessly into the market near Peter’s home in the city. After a year in the developing world, and coming off of two months in India, Bangkok seems abundantly, embarrassingly delicious
and rich. We eat sushi. We eat ice cream. We drink Thai iced tea. We drink Thai hot tea. We drink sake. We eat barbecued squid, with two different chili sauces. We sweat. We eat lychees. We eat papaya salad.
We eat rambutans. We eat little elastic fruit-shaped candies, shiny jellied versions of Japanese marzipan. We browse sweater selections – who the hell wears sweaters in this weather? – with the prostitutes from the high-end houses nearby. We drink Singha. We sample makeup next to impeccably groomed ladyboys with unmistakeably male feet. At 1 a.m., we stop in for a bite at Peter’s favorite neighborhood seafood
restaurant. Surrounded by shouting children, revelers, and the occasional farang, we eat salted fish, beef salad, mango salad, sticky rice. We drink more Singha. Gabriel and I are drunk, intoxicated on Thai beer, spice, perfume, seafood, heat, each other, and Peter.
That was the first night.
Six weeks later, we’ll be lucky enough to visit Peter’s ancestral home in Ratchaburi and sleep in the garden-within-a-home that he rebuilt with materials from the original structure. We’ll share a meal of bitter eggplant and steamed vegetables and pray with Buddhist monks at the temple central to his family. We’ll play vicious games of hearts, detoxing our skin with clay facials and aloe vera (just because we pray doesn’t mean we’re not vain as all get out). We’ll visit the summer palace of Rama VI, and Peter’s cousin TKTK will teach me how to tie flowers in my hair. Gabriel and I have become as comfortable kneeling at stupas as we are squatting on plastic stools at street stalls, and it’s easy to see that the heart of our Thailand trip is both this lovely family, and revealed by this family.
In late October, at the close of our 10 weeks backpacking through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, we finish our trip how we started, in Thailand, and feeling excessively alive. Instead of hustling down a buzzing Bangkok street, Gabriel and I are floating on our backs in the eternity pool at Awe, sipping fresh coconut and
listening to the buzz of cicadas. A gecko lounges lazily near the water, testing the grass. A fisherman anchors his small boat, walking to shore with his day’s catch in a basket on his head. Sun glints off the glass doors of our villa, and for one rare moment, Gabriel and I aren’t thinking about anything, not planning, not reflecting, not talking, not loving, not arguing. We just are. This is Thailand’s gift to us, and we are not understanding, but we are grateful.
My name is Peter: Born in Chicago, raised in a small town in Thailand, and worked as a journalist for various publications throughout the USA. The stress drove me to yoga and beach life. I opened Awe Resort in 2007. Please join me in paradise!