Tropical Splendor

 I leave my house in San Francisco and drive 15 minutes to the BART train. Wait ten, travel 20 to the airport, some two and a half hours for check in, security, waiting at the gate and another hour plus sitting on the plane, delayed as usual. Off we go for the 14 hour flight to Hong Kong, then five hour layover, some of it spent sleeping on the airport floor. Another four hours to Bangkok, 30 minutes Customs and luggage, picked up at the airport for the hour plus drive to the home where I will be staying. From door to door, some 27 hours total. The things we will do for the privilege of getting to play, sing and dance with stellar human beings.

So  here I am, back in familiar territory and the heart rousing despite a sore too-long-sitting body, uninspired food , little sleep and jet lag. Back in the land of little Buddhist shrines, the Muslim call to prayer, evening rooster calls and tropical bird songs. Heat and humidity tempered by ceiling fans and breezes, a snack of tropical fruits, a swim in a large empty pool. The 8^th floor apartment with a 180 degree view of the city, the muddy river below, distant large buildings, small food stalls, the sounds of motorbikes. 

It is a home of sorts, one of many that I’ve known and loved in over a half-century of travel. It could be Bali or Ghana or Costa Rica or Rio de Janeiro, but it’s not. It’s Bangkok, a place my wife and I first visited on a year-long trip around the world in 1979, Driving on the freeway from the airport into the city, I vividly recall that same drive 44 years ago. Coming from five months in India, it was a bit of a culture shock re-entering the world of freeways, liquor stores, televisions and bathtubs in hotel rooms and streets choked with traffic. A life we had left behind in India and now seemed briefly strange and alien.

It would be another twenty plus years before I returned, this time teaching Orff workshops at International School Conferences, International Schools and the local Thai Orff Association. Some 30 to 40 Thai music teachers have come to our Orff training in California and it has been such a delight to be hosted by them and toured through their home territory, visiting temples, museums, parks, festivals and of course, Thai restaurants! 

Bangkok is a big, bustling city and not on any ocean, but the delight of waking up without having to huddle against the cold, hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, tasting the extraordinary foods brings me into a euphoric state of tropical splendor. While I will never, ever, retire in Florida, a state hosting two of the worst human beings on the planet doing their best to kill our last hopes of knowing our history and defiling our humanity, I feel a sense of belonging to a culture dressed in shorts and relaxed temperatures. A day ahead to recover before four different short Orff courses here in Bangkok and then another one in Macau. Returning to this blog's title, a traveling music teacher still alive and well singing a version of the old jazz standard, “I’m Confessin’ That I Love It.”