Earthquake

 Earthquakes were not on my list of mental preparations for the move to Bangkok. And for good reason. As the holder of a partial Earth Science degree, I am fairly well versed in the science of tectonic plates and seismic activity. Bangkok falls well beyond any plate boundary. On a more anecdotal level, as the daughter of two southern Californian parents who lived through the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, I vividly remember my mom's stories of thinking the world was ending as the ground shook beneath her. Years later and far removed in Michigan, I also remember watching news of the 1994 Northridge earthquake trickle in as we waited to hear from extended family back in California. Of the many things my parents miss about life there, earthquakes were definitely not on that list. 

So when the ground started shaking underneath me in the middle of my afternoon Year 9 debate on who should be held responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, I paused, told my students I was feeling faint and held the wall. The students too felt faint. And then I looked up to see trendy exposed pipes and light fixtures in the English breakout space sway rhythmically above me.  Too slowly, the penny dropped.

Teachers came out of classrooms, doors were opened and students huddled under desks. Then the lockdown drill went off, shortly followed by the fire alarm and quickly followed by a security guard with a whistle who ushered everyone out of the building and onto the school's front field, temperature 38 degrees celsius. Most of the staff and many of the students remained on that field from roughly 13:45 to 16:30.

An eerie calm descended as the school's emergency procedures fell into place. Not that we'd practised for earthquakes. Students were sorted, accounted for and calmed. News trickled in from teachers who had the foresight to grab their phones on the way out the door. Myanmar. Bangkok's soft soil. A building collapse across the city. In our part of town, no notable damage was evident. 

The business of getting students safely home began. Bangkok, already known for its punishing traffic, ground to a halt. An official government warning went out about the earthquake which compounded the chaos. Buildings were evacuated and with nowhere to go, people took to the streets. The convoy of school vehicles began their efforts; teachers handed students off to bus drivers, parents and nannies in the efforts to ensure everyone was safe. The one-way journey into town from school stretched from 45-minutes to 2-hours. But drivers kept on driving and students got home safely. 

Teachers were dismissed as the final students made their way home where traffic only worsened. 2 hours turned into 3 and 4 and many of us decamped to the bar across the road. You can take the staff out of Britain... The ensuing drinks were calming balm for the soul and many people stayed hours into the evening. I eventually left when a group of my friends decided to brave the 10km walk down Sukhumvit Road, likely the country's most polluted, home. 

Only living a 10-minute walk down the road, I returned home to check on Paul and Frank. In the midst of the earthquake, Paul thought he was having a medical episode when the kettle began swaying in front of him. Having only recently returned from London after a month of doctor's checkups, this was more than plausible. He only twigged the reality when he turned and the kitchen light was also dancing. He shrugged it off, checked his messages, including one from me via a friend at school, and then proceeded with his day. 

Frank, in his infinite stress and anxiety, slept through the whole thing. 

We later laughed about our parallel universes only a few hundred meters down the road from one another. Sadly, the news for those in Myanmar, for the building collapse in the Chatuchak part of the city was far more somber. For friends and families in the city, some went home to damage, structural faults and temporary displacement. The city remains in a sense of heightened alert and lots of questions remain. To say it's a strange, unsettling time would be putting it lightly. But we're also safe and sound and very grateful for that.

Border Crossings

Trivia fun you never knew you needed: the Mekong river is the world's twelfth longest, spanning six countries and nearly 5,000 kilometres. It serves as a partial border between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Its undulating, verdant and sparsely populated expanses make the river an excellent locale for quiet contemplation in the form of slow travel. 

Call it age or the madness of an international move but slow travel was precisely the tone Paul and I wanted for a one-week trip to Laos. With a weather forecast that predicted jumpers and trousers, we were practically beside ourselves with glee and took the 'winter clothes' out of reserve. 

Our journey down the Mekong began with an hour's flight from Bangkok to Chiang Rai in northwest Thailand. The city forms the outer edges of the Golden Triangle, a term coined in the 1950s to categorise the (then) world's largest, most notorious opium growing region that spans parts of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Today, due to burgeoning tourism in Thailand, the collapse of government in Myanmar and severe restrictions placed on the opium trade in Afghanistan by the Taliban, Myanmar has become the world's largest opium producer. But I digress. 

From Chiang Rai airport, we hired a driver to take us to Chiang Khong, the Thai border town an hour and thirty minutes away. At 2000 baht (about £46) this hardly broke the bank. We spent an afternoon and night in the Chiang Khong Teak Garden hotel, a not-unpleasant place to watch the rain fall steadily from our balcony which overlooked the Mekong. We may have shared another moment of glee--cool London-like rain was a brief and glorious novelty. 

Chiang Khong boasts two 7-11s, a smattering of hotels and a surprising number of restaurants. There's not a lot going on but there was more than I expected given the size of the town. Its real draw however was the town's proximity to the river, literally on the banks of the lifeblood of SE Asia. 

The next morning a quick taxi (both car and tuk tuk available) took us to the Thai/Laos border, which opens at 8am, as borders are wont to do. In the farce that is often border crossings, we got stamped out of Thailand, paid 20 baht for a mandatory seat on the bus to cross the Fourth Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge (there are 7 similarly named bridges, should you be interested) and arrived on the other side roughly 5 minutes later. In Huay Xai, Laos we did the whole thing again in reverse: filled in the paperwork for a visa on arrival; stood in a queue; picked up our passports; paid in crisp USD; exchanged money at the extremely fair currency window. 

Welcome to Laos--country 69! 

And now...2025

Welcome to 2025. I say this circumspectly, without an exclamation mark as not to stir up the sleeping spirits of the year ahead into an early state of agitation. Watching the news would have you believe this quarter mark through the century will be an eventful one. With this in mind, I've adopted a theme for 2025, call it my mantra: may we live in gloriously uneventful times.

Given the nature of the second half of my 2024, I hope for (manifest, if you will) some metaphorically grounding experiences. Flights, yes. Travel adventures, for sure. Visits with friends, old and new, definitely. Significant moves across the world, not so much. 

Over the past four months, we've both had several fortuitous reminders that the world is small and perhaps, there's a reason that Thailand chose us. Whether it's the semi-chance encounter Paul had with his British-Ghanaian old sixth form friend at the Gaelic Games Asia Edition (maybe read that again) or the fact that my friend, Jen, was called out of the London dugout to represent her organisation at a Bangkok humanitarian conference in December, we're relishing the encounters. 

And in an attempt to complete the calendar year on a slower pace, Paul and I closed the door on Term 1 in Thailand with visits from friends and a little trip to Southeast Asia's only landlocked country. Meanwhile Frank, having lost half a kilo of his 3.5kg body weight in the first four months, spent a week of holiday with Spey, our lovely Thai petsitter who achieved the ultimate Nonna goal: fattening Frank up again. One week later, we returned to a happy, chonkalicious sausage dog who had gained all .5kg back. This made the contrast from Frank's September weekend stay at the Pet Hotel ever the more sharp. The image of his sullen saunter across the flat, only to lock eyes and slowly empty his bladder on our brown glittery synthetic rug (jealous??) speaks volumes for a dachshund's capacity for revenge.

Progress all around, really. 

And so we stumble forward, having made it over the hurdle of the early days of life in a new city on a continent far, far away. Musings on a pre-Christmas trip down the Mekong, on BKK Christmas and on dog-friendly Rayong to come!