This morning we knew just where to go to find church! The building behind the Bangkok Thailand Temple of course! The address doesn’t actually have a road to it and our Bolt driver asked us “Where you go?” We answered “Church.” He looked at the approximate destination and said “Mormon Church?” We replied “Yes” knowing he wouldn’t understand if we said the real name. He made sure to let us know that he had to go “different way” but that he would get us to “Mormon Church.” He drove us straight there. We told him “Kaapkunmaika” which is thank you very much in Thai.
Church was an international mixture of people and held *mostly* in English. A cute African girl said the opening prayer in a language we didn’t recognize, the sacrament prayers were done in Thai, and one of the speakers started out in Thai before switching to English. A missionary behind us translated the whole meeting (including the English and Thai) into Chinese for the people he was sitting next to. Impressive.
The Senior missionary couple I met the other day sat in front of us and asked how the trip is going. We also saw a young couple who live in Bangkok but were with us at the Elephant Sanctuary in Chiang Mai. We said hi to each other and laughed about what a small world the church makes.
After church we grabbed some pastries and bananas from a shop in the metro tunnels and rode back to the hotel (we’re basically pros now, haha).
We had to check out of the hotel but our ride to the Humanitarian Service part of this trip was delayed by two hours… So we left our luggage in the lobby and walked to nearby Lumphini park.
The entrance to the park had a pond on both sides with giant monitor lizards and yellow head turtles swimming and sunning themselves. So fun to watch! The monitors look so much like crocodiles when they are in the water, but their long tongues flicking in and out give them away.
We had fun playing on the exercise equipment and watching the wildlife until we got hungry for lunch.
This area of Bangkok has very few restaurants though and nothing that looked appetizing…. So instead we retrieved our luggage and booked a Bolt to take us to our meeting point at the BKK (Suvarnabhumi) airport 45 minutes away. There were no large transport vans available on either Bolt or Grab… So imagine a 7 passenger midsize SUV filled with 7 people, 1 large suitcase, 6 carry-ons and 6 backpacks. We were squished in like sardines.
Most Bolt drives will include the tolls in the price… This driver insisted that we pay 75 baht for a toll and was annoyed when we questioned why and didn’t just hand over cash. When we got up to the toll booth the toll was only 50 baht and she had a pass card. We weren’t sure what the right thing to do was, but we gave her 50 baht when we arrived safely at the airport. So, watch out for scams from drivers. The worst they can do is be grumpy and give you a bad review. (We have also encountered some drivers who would call after accepting the ride and asked how many people… If they didn’t want to take the 6 of us or thought the money wasn’t enough they would tell us to cancel and book someone else. ALWAYS make them cancel the drive on you otherwise your rating will go down. And most of the time they’ll just come and pick you up because they don’t want the canceled ride on their history either.)
We finally got some late lunch at the airport which is huge and crazy and has fun slanted escalators instead of stairs. The kids were happy to get chicken sandwiches from Burger King. American food!
After lunch we searched for a lady with a “The Green Lion” sign. Finally found her in the crowds and we met 3 other women (2 from England, 1 from Portugal) who would travel with us. The lady took us to the bus ticket counter, handed us tickets, pointed at a door and said “Bus here, you help yourself” and walked away. We all looked at each other like “What? Which bus?”
We walked out the doors to a huge lot with tons of cars, taxis and buses everywhere. Finally saw a sign that said Hua Hin and there was a bus sitting there… It pulled out just as we were walking up to it. I found an employee and showed him the ticket and he pointed to where everyone else was standing and said “There. 4 o’clock.” It was 4:03. Soooooo, did we miss our bus?
Five minutes later another bus showed up and we were able to get on, but not before they made us pay for one of our suitcases (one each apparently but they could have been any size – luckily it was only $20 baht, but still.)
The bus ride was 3 hours long and that driver did not mess around or slow down for anything. Once we hit the highway he pretty much put the bus over the striped line in the middle and laid on the gas. Everyone else on the road got out of our way.
We started thinking about dinner since we were going to arrive at the center almost 3 hours later than originally scheduled. Superman texted the coordinators and they said they would have the drivers who would bring us from the bus station stop at a 7-11 on the way. We know what those options are like… So Superman told the coordinators that we would appreciate a real meal so we can take our anti-malaria pills on full stomachs. They said they would make dinner for us…. Sadly, they did NOT make dinner for the other 3 women traveling with us and they weren’t told that was the reason for the 7-11 stop (at that point they were in a different truck than we were) so they only picked up a few snacks. Luckily there was cereal and fruit available. We had fried rice, fried eggs & sausages.
After we ate we were told we were going to stay at a different accommodation and to load our things on the truck again. The driver was a funny old man who didn’t speak English but would over-exaggerate grunts as he helped with the suitcases. He was like that all week- very sweet and funny.
We took off on dark roads that turned into gravel roads with almost no buildings and no lights around us. We kept going and going until Littlest said she thought we were going to sleep in the jungle tonight without a tent or anything… We thought that just might be the case. Finally we arrived at the Paradee Resort – an old run-down collection of little separate rooms around a pool. Note (a coordinator) was there to let us in. Yay, we do have a place to stay!
We walked into a very sparsely furnished living room with two bedrooms and a bathroom. We had to laugh a bit– 5 twin beds for 6 people and no extra bedding for the couch. And just look at the bathroom… At first we didn’t think the shower part even had a roof– it’s corregated metal and screens. It’s actually a less rustic accommodation than we were thinking (we were expecting a bunkhouse) so that’s nice. Excited to find out what we’re going to be doing this week!
