After my last little self-realization/self-actualization diatribe I want to post something new and less angsty, more fun.

Tomorrow morning we are headed out on an alllllllll day long hopefully-scenic train ride from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. It should take about 13 hours, and I’m looking forward to it. We haven’t been on the ground much here in Thailand, as we have perused the bountiful domestic flights several times as we flew into Bangkok, stayed for a few days, flew to Surat Thani for Ko Samui, and also flew from Phuket to Chiang Mai. It’s been a far cry from all our much more interesting transportation stories from India, but having only a month here (we thought) warranted paying a little more for the fairly inexpensive domestic flights. But honestly, it’s quite a lot more boring to travel richly like this. An airport’s an airport in the end, and they’ve already all blurred together. In India though, I’ll never forget some of our ridiculously uncomfortable, irritating or downright miserable moments of getting from Point A to chai stop to chai stop to chai stop to chai stop to no we can’t stop for the bathroom to but we can stop for another chai stop to Point B. It was good times (said now, plenty of months removed from it, mind). Anyway, fun train ride and returning to awesome Bangkok with its 40 Baht street pad thai, 10 Baht skewers, 10 Baht fruit and 25 Baht spring rolls aside (not that we’re looking forward to the food), we’ve got something else really awesome in store.

About 15 years ago when I was in 8th grade – well, when WE were in 8th grade, since Ray and I were both there and did this – our teacher had us send a letter to “any service person” for Christmas. Sadly, Ray, along with about 87 out of 90 of the class never got a reply. Happily though, I did. Even more happily for a 13-year-old with a penchant for making somewhat unorthodox friendships and writing way-too-long things (so much has changed, no?), my responding sailor happened to be an awesome guy and probably the best penpal on the face of the earth. We wrote pretty frequently, and not only did I get good, page or 2-page letters, but I got COMICS! I loved it. They were so great, I showed them to my friends and kept all his letters.

As luck would have it, not only was my Navy penpal going to be heading back Stateside from Japan sooner than later, but his parents lived in Phoenix, Arizona. So he was headed to where I lived! We continued our letter-writing friendship when he got there, and talked on the phone. We even met up once or twice, and this is sorta embarrassing now but we met up at…the mall. We walked. Around. The mall. Mind you I was 13 or 14 and just a freshman in high school, so in case you don’t remember, options are pretty limited. I’m glad mom was cool and involved enough in my life to check out the situation and just make sure that I was doing something that wasn’t dodgy (it wasn’t) with someone who wasn’t pervvy (he wasn’t), and let us hang out. Because I really did enjoy our friendship and having the chance to interact with someone much different from my school friends and living a much different life. I’m sure it played a big part in my interest in finding ways to bridge gaps between people, whether geographical, age difference, interest, or social convention. It’s tough to say whether that interest spurred my interest in travel or the other way around, but suffice it to say, he was a fun and probably developmentally significant part of my young life.

Sadly, I vaguely remember talking to him on the phone just before I left for a spring trip to California with my schoolmates…maybe he was heading back for Japan…and after that, we never spoke again. This was circa March 1997. I tried finding him again later, sent a letter to his parent’s house but no reply, even tried a search occasionally online when the internet came around to my sphere (wow do I feel awkward and old saying that). But to no avail. He was gone.

I graduated college in 2005, and while I was in the Netherlands that summer, I got an email from my roommate/college best friend, wondering if I knew this random weirdo who had just emailed her asking about me. How he found her, I still have no idea. But it was Kevin! I emailed him back and we got back in touch, and have been in relatively decent touch since then (especially now thanks to Facebook being so huge). I knew he was still in Japan, so he was definitely already on the itinerary, but not for another year or so. I felt it too, when we left India and flew this much closer to Japan, like dammit so close yet so far. I was eager to see him again after all this time.

Then last week or so he messaged me asking if we were still in Thailand. He was coming to Thailand! We were in fact still in Thailand at the time he wrote, but we weren’t supposed to be by the time he would be here. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and we were enjoying Chiang Mai, and feeling tired of being on the move and wanted a break for awhile anyway. So we did our border run to Burma to extend for the extra 15 days, scheduled our departing flight to the Philippines for the same day he and his gf will leave to go back to Japan, and planned to meet up in Bangkok for the night or two before that. And that time is here! It’ll be a quick visit, but I’m really, really looking forward to it. I thought this guy was lost for good, but he’s back in my life and I’m so excited that I am actually going to get to see him again NOW, for the first time in some 14 years. And I think being 27 and 34 in Bangkok will probably be a much different story and a lot more interesting than being 14 and 21 at the mall in Phoenix. Not that that wasn’t awesome.

Who’da thunk it, when I mailed my little letter back in 1995? Thanks, Teach! It was a good project, indeed!