Being in Asia hit me in the face. Maybe it was the time difference, 11 hours ahead is a pretty big change. Maybe it was the sitting still on a 11 hour flight running through an airport in Toyko then sitting through a 7 hour flight. Maybe it was losing a night of sleep. Maybe it was sweating as soon as I stepped out of the airport. I think it was mostly the feel of Bangkok when we arrived in the dark at 10 pm. It was so different than anywhere I had been before.
We took 3 forms of transportation just to get to our hotel. Two different train systems and 2 Tuk-Tuks for 11 people plus luggage. That was a cramped but amazingly fun ride. Our adventure was just beginning. (Pictured below the SkyTrain and our hotel Tuk-Tuk.)
Bangkok was a huge city. It smelled everywhere. Our hotel was gorgeous. There were slums down the road. The nearby shopping center looked more modern than any in Akron. There were piles of trash on street corners. My first night in Asia I learned one thing: Poverty is universal. Poverty is always around and it always looks about the same. After a few weeks seeing the shacks that are people’s house becomes so normal. Same as in America, it was easy to travel and see people in need and completely forget about them once we got to our final destination, in Thailand, beautiful temples or our air-conditioned hotel for the night.
The universality of poverty is one thing I do not want to forget because I was surprised with living conditions in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar but I know there are worse living conditions throughout the world. The United States is so clean. The garbage truck comes every week to pick up our trash. If being in Asia taught me anything, it is that I am so lucky to have everything I have here in America. Now I am not saying Thai people weren’t happy and that everyone was in need. I just know with how much I was blessed with in my life I should be able to give back to help find a way to create a sustainable earth. I sincerely hope in my lifetime that greater strides will be made together to battle problems, like poverty, that the whole world faces.
People around the globe may speak a completely different language (in every country you visit), they may eat food that is super spicy and rarely serve french fries at restaurants. They may even have completely different perspectives on the necessity of traffic laws and seat belts. They may greet you with a bow, not a handshake. They may have an entirely different opinion on how important being on time or having any sort of schedule, but that is a difference in culture and one thing is for sure a smile still means kindness. We are all really the same at heart and it is time we start accepting that.