Meeting the girlfriend's family

Like I said we spent the last few days relaxing and just socializing.  Thai's are very social people and it is not uncommon for my girlfriend and her co-workers to drop by their work place just to talk and be social.  My girlfriend works in a sports bar in my favorite part of Bangkok, near the Asoke Station along Sukhumvit Road.  From here we can get to most things we want without trouble.  High end shopping and a great movie theater are just a few minutes by train at Siam Paragon.  A little farther along is the much more budget shopping center of MBK (officially called Mah Boon Krong).  We can even get to the main bus station and the northern train station from here without having to battle Bangkok's horrible traffic.

So many nights we would just drop by play a few games of pool and drink some cheap beer.  Every so often a food vendor would pull up with his/her stove/bbq/cooler connected to their scooter.  They would ring their bell or honk their horn and if you wanted whatever they were selling you just step outside and purchased the cheap food.  The risk was low as everyone I was with knew what vendors had safe food for my tongue and stomach. 

My main trouble in Thailand is I can't eat spicy food.  Even worse is I seem to have some sort of allergic reaction to red chillies and if IO eat more then a tiny amount I get very sick and I ended up bed ridden for a day.  So my girlfriend always has to be careful of what food she orders us.   The great news is Thailand is full of good seafood and I love seafood so eat it whenever I can.  I am already missing my daily portion of shrimp and crab.

Benny (my girlfriend) has a beautiful daughter, that one day will be my step daughter.  Last time I was in Thailand I promised to take her (Voon) to my favorite Thai island, Koh Samet.  I had also promised to let another one of my Thai friends and fellow TB member Ya meet the little girl for the first time. 

So today it was time to head to northern Bangkok, near Don Muang Airport, to pick up Voon and meet some of Benny's extended family.   Even after several weeks in Thailand I am still unsure who is Benny's extended family is blood related and and who is just family through some sort of complicated Thai family connections.   All I know is for a while now the little girl lives with Benny's ex's family.  The room is always the same but often the people are different there except for a very nice elderly lady who seems to be there always.

Now my life has not been prefect and certainly has it's ups and downs but coming to this part of Bangkok always humbles me.  By any standard we use in Canada these people are all poor.  At least four people live in this one room that is on the 5th floor of a large apartment building.  This building is one of many in a large company complex and all the people seem to work for one company.  Not really sure what kind of company but there was a lot of wholesale food warehouses throughout the district.  All day men are seen pulling wagons full of food from one building to another, hand unloading large trucks and basically doing a lot of manual labor in sweat invoking heat.   The scariest thing I saw was when I was searching for a store to buy a Coke I had to walk past a 5 tonne truck full of large bags of fresh red chillies.  They were being delivered to a warehouse so they could be sold to who ever orders these things.  I had to walk right beside men that carried these 75kg bags on their backs without protection.  Keep in mind that fresh red chillies can burn your skin just by touching you and these guys were covered in chillies.  I gave them as wide a berth as I could.


Getting to this part of town is an adventure of Bangkok transportation.  The easiest part was leaving the Nasa Vegas as the doormen just stepped into the heavy traffic and found us a taxi.  15 minutes later we were at a Skytrain Station and we rode this to end of the line in the north.   Now it become a bit scary.  Mo Chit is a very busy station with general chaos on the streets next to the station.  As you come down the stairs from the station you faced with a mixture street vendors selling food and second hand clothes, racing motorcycles and scooters, loud diesel belching green buses and dozens of taxis trying to find customers.   The next step was to flag down one of these taxis.  To do this we had to step quickly between these buses by running across one or two active traffic lanes.  After another 20 minutes in the new taxi we would be in the district we wanted.  Some of the taxi drivers will take us into the district's narrow lanes but others drop us off at the motorcycle taxi stand.  If you ever want to be scared out of your wits ride the back of a motorcycle taxi in Bangkok.  

During my travels I get to do many fun things and see some great things.  I? have ot say some of my happiest days are when I get to see Voon and Benny together.  Due to personal economic, family politics and the vastness of Bangkok Voon and Benny do not see each other as often as then should be able to.  I hoping to help fix this but for now those moments of watching them together has to be enough.  It does mean I get shifted to the back ground but I can live with that.

After was had picked up Voon and visited for a while it was time for the return trip.  By the time we got back to the hotel we were tired but it was time to meet Ya.  I actually met Ya through this site and she was the first TB member I met in person.   Ya was very happy to meet Voon for the first time.  I found out this night that Ya and Benny grew in villages in the northeast of Thailand very close to each other.  Ya and Benny decided we should go to a nice seafood restaurant along the Choa Phraya River.  As it was dark and we were crammed into a taxi I am not sure where we were but it was a nice open air restaurant and the seafood was very good.

After dinner it was time to head back to the hotel and boy was I reay to get out of the city.  The beaches of Koh Samet were calling and it was time to answer them.