Working Our Way Around the Globe

Traveling Again

It was our last day in Bangkok and one very important thing was still to be done – we had to set free the ashes that had been blessed in the ceremony in Kathmandu.  As we sat in the hotel’s Executive Club having breakfast, Mayor Shaun and I formulated our plan.  We would take Rebecca to an area she loved, rent a boat and send her off on her new travels.

The Thai people in Bangkok have a spot that they use for this specific purpose.  It’s in the center of the city, about a half a mile downriver from our little restaurant on the water and directly in front of Wat Arun, (The Temple of the Dawn), a 17^th Century Buddhist temple on the riverbank.  I decided that this was the right place.  After all, Rebecca loved to do as the locals do.

I had honestly been getting more and more anxious as we approached the time to do this.  I was nervous that we had left it for the last day and worried that we might have trouble organizing a way to do it right.  I was worried about my ability to do her justice and honor her properly.  I was worried about the weather, which was threatening rain.  But, mostly, I didn’t want to let her go again. 

I had been having a harder time in the last few days than I expected.  As we visited the places Rebecca loved so much, I couldn’t help but feel like I was saying goodbye to her over and over and like I was losing her again and again with each goodbye.  The catharsis I sought was eluding me.  Instead, I was in pain and unable to find any sense of peace.

We got in a taxi and made our way back over to the Wat Pho area and walked through the bustling local food market to the dock area and located the lady selling floral offerings.  We bought whatever flowers she had left and headed for the dock.  After a bit of confusion, we found our way to the information booth where the locals buy ferry tickets.  One of the attendants spoke English and, after learning what we needed, arranged a private “long-tail” boat to take us out into the river. 

The water was very rough and there were a lot of boats making it even choppier so just getting from the pier into the boat was a bit tricky.  But, we made it in safely and set off for the short ride to Wat Arun.

We had been instructed by the Lama in Kathmandu that these ashes were to go into a sacred river for a reason.  By placing them into the river, the waters, currents and tides would carry her to all parts of the world and she would become a part of all lands.  Both Shaun and I felt very good about that idea because there were so many places Rebecca wanted to visit that she never got the chance to and we loved the idea that we could help to send her off on that eternal journey.  But….that also meant saying goodbye to her again and neither of us were particularly ready for that.

Our boat driver spoke no English but had been told what we needed to do and, using sign language, offered to say a traditional local blessing and to place a traditional offering wreath on the bow of his boat in Rebecca’s honor.  We gratefully accepted and he joined his hands, said the prayer and placed the flowers where they belonged.  We were then ready.

We again said our own prayers and spoke to Rebecca of our love for her.  We told her how much we missed her and how we hoped that she was at peace.  We asked God to take care of her and to give her peace.  When all the prayers were said, the messages delivered and we had finished saying what we came to say, we tossed the flowers into the water and released her on her eternal journey around the world.

We lingered for a while as if we had dropped her at the airport and were waiting to make sure she got checked in.  We watched the current take the flowers away as we held each other in the long-tail boat and shouted out to her how much we love her.  Our driver smiled to assure us we had done things properly and we could see her being taken away to travel just as the Lama had said.  It was done.

We made it back to the dock, thanked our driver and walked back to the street feeling every emotion possible.  In many ways, it was so hard but there is no doubt that it feels very fitting and right. 

Rebecca is once again doing what she loved most - traveling the world.  She is free from the fear and pain.  She carries with her the immense love of some amazing family and friends and leaves behind in the physical world a legacy of kindness, decency, fearlessness, adventure, beauty, and inspiration.  She again has her mane of flowing red hair and is at God’s side.  I can only hope to someday again be at hers.

Shaun turned to me and said, “If Rebecca was here, she would want a massage and a beer now”, and he couldn’t have been more right.  It’s exactly what she would have wanted.  So, we went back over to Wat Pho Massage and had an hour-long traditional Thai massage before returning to Uren Urai for the beers and more of their incredible food.

We spent our last night re-visiting the bars of Silom and enjoying our final hours in this amazing city.  By Midnight we were done and still needed to pack so, we said our goodbyes, for now, and made the tuk tuk ride back to the hotel.  Our mission was complete, our journey had come to an end and we had been forever changed by the experience.  Shaun was by now one of my closest friends and one I will forever cherish as Rebecca always had.  And Rebecca….well, she is doing what she loved most by traveling the world.  I’m sure she is watching over us and I pray that she is proud of the way we tried to honor her.  I have no idea what comes next, so please don’t ask. 

I asked Shaun to write some final thoughts for this blog and what follows are those thoughts and I think they are beautifully expressed.  My extraordinary wife chose her friends well and I am sure that he has spoken for them all with this……

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We're currently in our third hour flying from Hong Kong to New York and I am overwhelmed with emotion. Dade is sitting next to me watching a movie, and thanks to the wonders of the Business Class cocoons we're in, he can't see me in my current state. I think the gravity of the past 2 weeks is settling in.  See, Rebecca was one of my best friends. She wasn't just one in a million; she truly was one of a kind. She was astoundingly beautiful, incredibly smart, hilarious, graceful and wise well beyond her years.  Her passing has had a profound impact on me, and I am fully aware I am not alone.

 

I have never used the word profound as much as I have since her passing - the profound sadness, a profound sense of loss and most important the profound love I have for her. I met Rebecca back in Boston. We both went to Emerson and lived in the same dorm.  The first time I saw her; I was immediately drawn to her and yet intimidated by her. This tall, gorgeous, confident redhead would walk by and I could sense that she was different. We quickly became friends. In fact, we became inseparable. And the impact she had on me was... Well, profound. She introduced me to new things, news ways of thought and opened my eyes to a whole new world.  Most importantly, Rebecca loved me for who I was and all that I was before I even loved myself. To lose something like that has been incredibly devastating.

 

Rebecca was one of the few people who I felt like I could share my inner most secrets with - the details of my life. I could just be me. No judgments, no disappointments. She loved me for me and gave me honest advice. Rebecca was one of a very select few who I felt allowed me to be me. Even after we lost touch for years after college, when we finally reconnected it was if no time had passed. We picked up right where we had left off, although she was then married, living in Miami and had at that point been diagnosed. But there was a natural ease, I think she made me feel as comfortable and normal as I did her.

 

This trip has been incredibly moving, humbling, inspiring and life changing. I can't express in words how much it means to me to have gone to the places Rebecca loved so much in the world. To sit in her spot looking out at the Himalayas, to eat at the restaurants she and Dade loved, to drink at her favorite bar, to walk through the markets she loved so much. I felt connected to her during those times. I loved to walk around and explore with wonder the things she came to hold so dear. And I think that's one of the things that saddens me the most. Last year Bec and I started to make plans to go on a trip together.  We both suffered from insatiable wanderlust and yet had never traveled together. Well that was to change in 2012. She told me she had made a deal with Dade and we were going to plan an adventure of our own. We didn't really care where we went; we just wanted to have that experience together. We even joked about putting a map on the wall and throwing darts to decide where we would go. Unfortunately we never went on that trip together. Instead, I traveled with Dade around the world - literally - to help spread her ashes. And that's a big reason why this trip meant as much to me as I hope it did Dade. I wanted to have an adventure with her.

 

Dade has been emotional during the course of our journey because of the overwhelming outpouring of love and support from friends of him and Bec's. He felt like he could never repay the love and generosity of those around him. He said he felt like he owed me something for joining him on this journey. I told him now is the time to let friends and family surround him with love and support. This was a time to embrace that outpouring. We're all here because we love and care for him. Rebecca is one of the people I love most in the world, and since Dade was the person she loved most in the world my love extends to him.  I would do anything for Dade at the drop of the hat. I know Bec would have done the same for me.

 

Dade shared with me conversations Rebecca had with him about me. She wanted the best for me in all aspects of life. She wanted me to find someone who loved me as much as I loved them. Hearing these words broke my heart. To have missed Bec and Dade's wedding and know she would never see me find that love one day, to not be at my wedding if I were to ever have one, breaks my heart. To hear her words through Dade about the kind of man she thought I was and the hopes she had for me makes me both proud and sad.

 

But this isn't about the sadness. It's about the overwhelming pride and love I have for Rebecca. The grace and bravery she showed up until the very end is astonishing. Rebecca was an incredible force in this world.  She touched those whom she met and impacted lives in ways I don't think she fully understood. The world won't be the same without Rebecca, but it is a better place because she lived in it. And while there is a void in my life and heart because her light went out, I am filled with joy and pride and grateful for having experienced her love in the first place.

 

Rebecca, I thank you for helping make me the man I am today. I know you'll always be here with me in spirit and I can only hope to make you half as proud of me as I am of you. I will continue to travel and go on adventures and know you'll be there with me. It's never goodbye, it's bye for now.

 

I love you more than words can express.

 

Shaun

This is a short video of the events at the river and a little tribute to beautiful Rebecca.  Thanks, Justin, for doing such a wonderful job and for creating such a moving tribute.

 

A Day That Actually Felt Like a Vacation

The day started late as we were finally used to the time change and managed to sleep until a little after 9:00 AM.  We didn’t have any plans for the day but there were a few things that I had never done that interested Shaun.  He felt it was important to do something on the trip that wasn’t Rebecca related and to make a few new memories that I could carry home that were purely happy.  I thought we had accomplished that a couple of nights before at Super Pu**y but Shaun didn’t have the same memories of the night as I did.

We decided to check out The Tiger Temple.  It’s about a two and a half hour drive outside the city but we had time to kill and Shaun has some sort of tiger fetish so, we made a deal with a taxi for the day and set off in search of adventure.

The drive took forever.  There was traffic in a lot of the small towns along the way and the going was very slow.  Surprisingly, Mr. Narcolepsy managed to stay awake and the time was filled with good conversation, a can of Pringles and a lot less anxiety than I’ve been feeling lately.

We arrived around 3:00 PM, which was wonderful because most of the people were gone by then and it wasn’t at all crowded.  We entered and made our way to the “temple” area.  Now, I have to say this in the interest of total honesty but I want you to know before I do that it doesn’t matter at all.  I don’t think it’s in any way a real temple and I’m not entirely sure those guys in robes were really monks.  Now that we got that out of the way….IT WAS AWESOME!

We walked down a path and came to a natural rock enclosure filled with tigers.  Right….real tigers.  There were small ones, bigger ones and massive giant tigers.  They were everywhere.  A guide took us each by the hand and led us from one to another while another guide used our cameras to take photos.  We petted them, played with their tails and they even laid their pretty tiger heads on Shaun’s lap.  It was so very cool.  The tiger song from “The Hangover” kept running through my head but that only made it better.

After that we moved to the tiger cub area and watched as they played in the water.  Tigers play hard and they were going at it with each other and splashing all over the place.  It could not have been cuter.

We walked for a while and looked at a bunch of other non-tiger animals and then piled back into the car to go a few kilometers away to see another attraction in the area – The Bridge over the River Kwai.

Until then I thought it was a factual story but I am not sure now.  Whatever the case, this was the bridge and the river and we were there.  It was beautiful and rural if not a bit crowded.  Shaun still had Granny with him and identified a pretty spot across the river that would be perfect to set her free.  That’s right….across the bridge we went.

In case you didn’t know, it’s a railway bridge.  It’s still in operation and there is just enough width for a train to fit, all of which made crossing it very cool.  We reached the other side and it couldn’t have been more different from where we started.  There were no tourists, no gift shop….no nothing.  In other words, perfection.  I imagine it looks today much as it looked in the 1940’s when they either did or didn’t do whatever they did or didn’t do there.  We climbed down a rickety metal staircase to the shoreline below and walked down the shore to the spot Shaun had picked out.  We took off our flip flops and waded into the River Kwai and Shaun bid his Granny “goodbye…..for now.”

By the time we got back to the hotel it was time for dinner so we grabbed showers and went back to see if Ruan Urai was really as good as the night before.  It was.  We tried different dishes, (except for the Pomelo salad, which Shaun is now addicted to), and again, each one was a masterpiece.  The skill and technique it must take to create those flavors is evident in every forkful.

It had been a full day and we were tired so we simply called it a night after that.  It was a good day and for a few hours I felt like I was on vacation.  I’m grateful to Shaun for that and for the new memories I have of one of my favorite cities.

 

The Best Bar on the Planet – JJ Time

In keeping with the theme of seeing Rebecca’s Bangkok, there was no question what we would be doing on the last day of the year.  It was a Saturday after all and Saturday in Bangkok, as far as Rebecca was concerned, was JJ time.

The Jatujak Market, or The JJ as the locals know it, is one of the world’s great markets.  We wrote about it on this blog many times because we loved it.  We always said that you could tell everything about a destination by visiting their local markets and this one is simply beyond belief and entirely worthy of an amazing city, like Bangkok. 

Happening every weekend, the JJ is a sprawling maze of booths selling literally almost anything under the sun.  There are even exotic animals to be had - and not just exotic animals, but the endangered species kind.  The market is made up of booths – and there are close to 9000 of them.  The cab driver dropped us off in the front of the market, and we entered the home furnishings section.  The first thing we saw was truly mind-blowing – a close to life-size replica of an elephant made entirely of drift wood.

Neither of us was in a shopping mood so this wasn’t about that.  This was all about showing Shaun one of Rebecca’s favorite places.  She loved this market so much that she would time out our entire trips so that we could be sure to hit Bangkok on a weekend.  Our home is evidence of her many trips to the JJ because there are odds and ends all over it that came from our excursions there.

It was hot and a bit crowded as we wandered through the narrow aisles.  We passed booth after booth with some amazing things and a lot of utter crap.  We wandered in and out of one section after another until we eventually found ourselves thirsty, which meant that it was time for Revolver.

Now, those of you who knew Rebecca well know how much she loved a good bar.  She could happily never set foot in a nightclub again but she adored a truly honest bar.  Revolver is such a place and was, in fact, her favorite bar in the world.  She could always somehow find her way there in the chaotic maze that is the market - almost like a bird that knows how to return to a remote mating location purely by instinct.  Shaun HAD to experience it.  There was never a doubt.  She would never have allowed him to be here and not have a beer there and there was no way I was going to let her down.  There was only one problem…..I had no idea how to get us there.

Shaun could tell I was getting frustrated and a little upset as we meandered through the JJ in apparent circles.  I guess it was the tears that gave it away.  I explained what I was looking for and what I remembered being around it.  What happened next can only be described as freaky.  He stepped in front of me and led the way, as Rebecca had done every time before.  He weaved in and out of aisles making a turn here or a turn there.  Ten minutes later, there it was, Revolver Bar.  Unless you’ve been to this market and have some frame of reference for its scale and complexity you can’t fully grasp how incredible that was.  There is absolutely no way to explain that he was able to find a bar he had never been to in an Asian labyrinth of booths other than to believe that Rebecca wanted him to see it so much that she again used the invisible hand to guide him there.

Since we have written our impressions of this magical little place a couple of times on this blog, I have asked Shaun to take it from here and tell you about it.  After all, he took us there.

The Revolver is an oasis nestled in an endless maze that truly assaults the senses, but in the best possible way.  The sights, the smells, the sounds and the electric bustle of life are truly incredible.  However, as a sensitive fair-skinned individual, like Rebecca (DO NOT CALL ME A GINGER!), I tend to overheat easily and need sanctuary from the sun.  The Revolver is such a place. It is a small, unassuming and downright cool bar.  There was a quartet of ladyboys who were tending the bar when we arrived.  To honor us Westerners and our New Year celebration, the bar was decorated in silver balloons, balls and flowers.  The ceiling was a sky of silver Mylar balloons that made a soothing sound when the breeze jostled through.  Small café tables covered in white tablecloths accompanied by a single flower in a small vase littered the 3 small seating areas.  There were cases of beer under the tables, under benches, in front of the bar – everywhere you looked.  There wasn’t a storage area there, so the barware and alcohol are very much a part of the bar. 

Shelves around the bar contained aged bottles from yesteryear that came from around the world.   The music was good, chill, downtempo music – a favorite of mine.  It was nothing I had heard before, and it added to the ambience.  I love nothing more than to hear new music that I like.  It’s easy to see why Rebecca loved it so much.  It was tasteful in its shabby chic way and completely unpretentious.  See, down one of the hundreds of rows, we walked by a bar that was full of Westerners – complete with Western DJ spinning trendy music.  It was a scene.  Revolver was a hidden gem.  It is everything I love in a watering hole, and quickly became a favorite of mine, not just in Bangkok but anywhere.

We drank beers, shared stories of Rebecca while laughing and crying.  But the whole time I knew she was there smiling that Dade and I were at her bar, sitting in her seat and drinking beers sharing of love of her.   

OK, I’m back.

After the Revolver, my mission at the JJ was complete.  Shaun had experienced it and loved it as Rebecca knew he would.  But, I know she was there because she led us to it…..just like she always did.

By now it was starting to set in that it was New Year’s Eve.  I was spiraling into a depression/anger mess and we had not a single plan for the night, which wasn’t fair at all to Shaun.  He knew here was nothing I could do about it and was wonderfully patient and he decided that he would make something happen.  He tapped away at his iPhone for a while as I cried and between him and the mystic device, they came up with a plan.

Step one would be dinner.  Step two was a proper New Year’s Eve party.  He even arranged for us to get advance tickets for the party to avoid a line or, worse yet, the party reaching capacity.

The dinner would be at a little Thai restaurant that his “contacts” said was very good.  His contacts have a gift for understatement.  We found Uren Urai Thai Restaurant nestled in the garden area of the Rose Hotel.  It’s in a century-old Thai house and is peaceful and serene – just what I needed.  It was New Year’s Eve, they were fully booked and we didn’t have a reservation but they were very kind and accommodated us nonetheless.  Maybe they recognized the Tiger Mayor Man…..I don’t know.

What followed was one of the best meals either one of us had ever eaten.  Each and every dish was sublime.  We shared a variety of plates and each was so subtle but so complex that it boggled the mind.  Shaun’s favorite dish was a fluke as he didn’t order it originally.  The original dish was steamed egg with curried crab.  But when the server returned after the order was placed saying it would take at least 20 minutes he ordered a salad instead.  And what followed was a revelation in our mouths.

The piquant pamelo salad.  Oh what can be said about it?   It is truly something special.  The pamelo, for those unfamiliar, is a large citrus fruit.  To compare it to a grapefruit doesn’t do it justice.  The delicate wedges of pamelo are tossed with herbs, chilis and a peanut dressing.  The mixture is then laid in a coconut quarter and topped with grilled prawns and cilantro.  Each flavor is balanced in perfect harmony.  The sweet, the salt, the spice meld into what can only be described as a ballet on the tongue.  And that was only one dish.  Each one that was presented at the table was nothing short of fantastic.

We are both certain that this was the best Thai restaurant we had ever eaten at but it was also simply one of the best meals we had ever had…..anywhere.  It was so good that we went back every day until we departed.

After dinner we walked the short distance to the party, which was on the roof of a new 50 story building a couple of blocks from the restaurant.  I was in no mood for a crowd and my mind was beating the crap out of me with every possible thought it had at its disposal but it was beautiful up there and we had an amazing view of the entire city of Bangkok.  The breeze was blowing across the deck, the music was pretty good and there was a nice crowd. 

I wish I could tell you that we danced and got drunk or that it took my mind off of the things that were tormenting me but none of that is at all true.  We enjoyed a few drinks, watched the funny people and rang in the New Year as best we could.  While I missed Rebecca madly and longed for her lips at Midnight, I was grateful for Shaun’s embrace and words of love and encouragement.

We watched the city become engulfed in light from fireworks and, once the show was over, so was our night.  We took a tuk tuk to the hotel and called it a night.

Well….I made it through Christmas and New Year, thanks to Shaun.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to get through the rest of my life….easy, right?