by Gabrielle Marsh
Nominated by Allie Piippo for Writing 160: Multimodal Composition: Deconstructing Travel
Instructor Introduction
From reading the title, "Thailand and Tribulations," I knew I was going to enjoy Gabbi's travel literacy narrative. Clever turns of phrase, vivid descriptions, and a clear narrative arc sprinkled with Gabbi's personal brand of sarcastic humor make for an engaging approach to the assignment. Gabbi's choice to frame the travel experience around the financial struggles and uncertainties of the trip deepen her analysis and convey the bigger picture of her travel experience - that having to overcome obstacles can make for the most memorable trips.
— Allie Piippo
Thailand and Tribulations
In December of 2019, a friend deposited my second-hand luggage and I at the Chicago - O’Hare International airport, after a night of cramped sleep in her shoebox apartment. I was bound for Chiang Mai, Thailand, predetermined by the fact that my partner, Elliott, was studying abroad there. It was a kill two birds with one stone scenario; I wanted to visit him, but I also itched to escape my oppressive corner of the Midwest. A year prior, I had withdrawn from the same college that Elliott was attending, which was full to the brim with the home-brew-kombucha, parents-paid-for-a-gap-year-in-Nepal kind of students. They had read Kant in highschool while I smoked weed in a Meijer parking lot and went to parties in the trailer park. They had seen the world, had it paid for, and could now imbue their astronomically expensive studies with this worldliness. My experience of the world was more road trips in the min-van, camping, and a sliver of the continental U.S, and my education lacked the turbo boost of SAT tutors and private schools. I had expected college to be the answer, once I had clawed my way in; a sort of catapult into a life less lower-middle-class. Yet, I came to find that my desperate conglomeration of financial-aid was not even close to covering the cost of school, let alone something as extravagant as study abroad. Thus, when I should’ve been applying to spend a dreamily academic semester in France, I instead decided to get off the beach before the horizon-eclipsing tidal wave of student loan debt was able to drag me out to sea. Reluctantly, I lugged my textbooks back home, to the gray-brown cul-de-sac where the oil stains and drunken neighbors seemed to knell the death of my escape plans.
After a few months of drudgery had further removed me from my academic aspirations, Elliott informed me that he’d been accepted to the six-month study abroad program in Thailand. In every conceivable way, my parade had been rained on, while his float continued to roll forward. Of course, I was elated for him, but I was also painfully, intolerably jealous that in the same breath, I could say “don’t go” and “well, I can come visit you.” As much as I wanted the whole opportunity for myself, wanted the whole opportunity for him, some gnawing, ratty part of me couldn’t help but to embrace the chance to skim from his fortune. Even if it paled in comparison to the experiences of my peers, I was finally going to get some of what I’d been missing out on; not a degree, but access to the world beyond my own rathole.
The next few months before Elliott’s departure consisted of frantically organizing itineraries, saving, and googling things like “Thailand on a budget.’” I stuffed all of my meager time and energy into planning an extravagantly frugal trip, in hopes that I might be imbued with a bit of the cultural capital that seemed to grow exponentially for my past classmates, while it shrank away from me with each day my textbooks gathered dust. Yet, I had no way of knowing what this experience I yearned for would truly entail, as I’d only traveled outside of the U.S twice before, boarding an airplane for the first time at 17. Both times, my family and I had been circumscribed to ‘economy’ resorts paid for by my grandmother, the benefactor of all extras for my single-parent household. Either way, I didn’t have much experience with international travel, let alone planning it myself, and I also didn’t have much money at my disposal, despite my eager saving. The problem, which quickly became apparent, was that armed with minimum wage and minimal knowledge, I couldn’t replicate the idyllic experiences my classmates seemed to be having, and even more so, I couldn’t make up for all I had missed out on when I left school. Nonetheless, traversing Thailand on a razor thin budget revealed to me that, no matter the pain-stakingly crafted itinerary or the number of traveling-on-a-budget blogs I’d read, my world could, and would have to, expand in its own, less than ideal, but still exceptionally rich way.
The problem with being a poor, first-time traveler is that your lack of knowledge will often cost you more in the long run - at least, this was the case for me. In the early stages of planning for my trip, I had yet to study the complicated science of when one should purchase plane tickets. I thought that I would just hop on the internet and do so when I had enough money, but in the depths of a night shift, two months before my planned departure, I discovered my folly. I called Elliott in a panic. “I just looked at SkyScanner and the cheapest ticket is $1,200 with a 16 hour layover in ShangHai…both ways.” I deflated into the creaking desk chair that precariously held me, as Elliott tried to thread some silver linings. Yet, the stinginess of my impending travel conditions hung like an anvil over my excitement. Once I had squeezed into my mockingly small seat on China Eastern Airlines, which was the most economical option for a reason, the anvil dropped. I tried to steel myself, conjuring roses for my thriftiness and tenacity, but as the 24 hour flight crawled by, my bones locked and my feet swelled into an unavoidable truth - you get what you pay for.
Arriving in ShangHai at 11PM did not provide any sort of counterpoint. As I made my way through the maze of customs, I quickly came to realize that I’d have to exit the terminal, spend my layover in the lobby, and re-enter the next morning for my connecting flight to Chiang Mai. McDconalds was the only restaurant open and I, to my chagrin, had to exchange some of my limited dollars for yuan in order to get something resembling a meal and cigarettes. The lobby was full of stragglers like myself, claiming territory amidst the limited seating and outlets. Knowing that I was bound for a tropical climate, I had left my coat behind, giving a behind-the-back middle-finger to Michigan winter. In ShangHai, I regretted this decision deeply as I shivered the night away in my thin layers, waffling between the smoking area outside, where armed police cast me sideways, eyebrow cocked glances, and the corner I had claimed inside, the halogen glow illuminating my poor preparation for an airport sleepover. However, after several hours had passed and I could no longer stand the sight of my phone, I looked up and noticed a girl in a similar state of bleary eyed disrepair. We struck up conversation and discovered our despairs were mutual despite our complete lack of other similarities. She, too, was in for the slumber party, departing for Sri Lanka the next day, on an annual trip from the U.K. to visit family. She told me that she always looked forward to these trips, no matter the length or cost, and that this excitement kept her going. However, even she, despite being such a savvy traveler, needed sleep, so from that point on, we took turns, guarding one another's luggage in the unspoken, cracked smile knowing that we couldn’t afford to lose it.
Bedraggled, but emboldened by all I had accomplished and learned in the last 30 odd hours, I eventually arrived in Chiang Mai. Having traveled farther and longer than anyone in my family before me, I was finally able to hug Elliott for the first time in 4 months, but quickly pushed him away, mouth agape, having felt the lack of him beneath me. “You’re so skinny!” It was an accusation, not a compliment. Knowing all of the hopes I had been precariously hanging on my two weeks with him, he spent the previous months as my comrade in scraping by. He had turned down weekend trips with classmates, dinners out, and new shoes to replace his flapping-soled converse, all so that he could save up for my visit. Evidently, he had also survived solely on cup noodles and shrimp chips from the 7-11 nearest his apartment. It was the cheapest meal option, he told me, and his taste buds would recover. To say the least, his study abroad experience hadn’t been easy, or at least not as ideal as I’d imagined. It gave me a much needed pause to think about the realities of travel, rather than my writer-abroad fantasies spurred on by the teenage romanticization of Hemingway and the like. Sometimes, I realized, travel was less drama, intrigue, and wonder, and more struggle.
(Marsh, 2019)
Despite Elliott’s romantic, yet unadvisable, gesture, our trip was still on a tight budget and thus creaked to a start as we wandered Chiang Mai from the home base of our $10 per night hostel, with its strange shower configuration and garden hose bidet. To my disappointment, we couldn’t afford an excursion to the elephant sanctuary that Elliott had gone to with his program, so instead we planned a full day at Wat Doi Suthep, a gleaming temple perched atop a jungle enshrined mountain. This, too, turned out to be less than the kind of enlightening, cultural experience I’d been dreaming of; rather, we hiked four miles in what seemed like 100 percent humidity, straight up an erratic trail, which, in our sweaty delirium, we lost for quite some time. Eventually, though, we emerged from the brush to see the illuminated gold walls of the Wat, reflecting the boiling sun like a beacon for weary travelers. As we traipsed barefoot through the temple grounds, dodging well dressed tourists who had wisely chosen the 20 minute bus ride, I felt the delightful press of fresh air in my lungs, letting my eyes glaze over intricate statues and magnificent art to stop instead, with wonder and joy, on a sign that translated a bit of Thai into “MOM.” Cackling, I knelt for a picture and, of course, sent it on to my mom, as a reminder to both of us that I was safe and sound, that the me in this new, magnificent place was nonetheless still deplorable and unserious, still sweat stained and reeking.
Our next destination was Koh Tao, an island south of Bangkok, which we’d picked specifically for its affordability compared to more touristy spots, like Phuket. We had also planned an elaborate travel route there, to avoid the cost of a direct flight; first, we boarded a rickety plane to Bangkok, then caught a Grab (Thai Uber) to a train station. Sleep evaded us during the 8 hours in the rumbling train, stiff in plastic seats and wedged among locals who savored fragrant meals, carried trash bags as luggage, and communicated to family in nasal tones via flip phones. Every midwestern bone in my body ached for the bucket seats of my Hyundai Sonata, for the open roads north of Grand Rapids where it’s common practice to go 70mph everywhere; yet, I was engrossed by all of the sights and sounds, even those that seemed most mundane. As I sat somewhere between voyeur and doer, I soaked in the privilege of traveling less in style, and more like a local. I didn’t need or want a fortune; I was happy to settle with just a taste of the everything and nothing throughout our world, to even the score between the cramped sleep on a slow train and the green destination.
However, when we arrived in Chumphon, just as dawn was yawning up in the sky, I momentarily left my insightful tolerance for discomfort behind. As we unfurled from the train car, we realized that our connecting bus had left ten minutes prior and we were stuck. To make the situation even rosier, I felt a gush of blood in my unwashed leggings and promptly came to the horrifying realization that I was stranded, free bleeding in rural Thailand with no access to a bathroom, and I had forgotten to pack even a single tampon. We sat around for a few hours, Elliott panicking while I stifled snotty sobs, with no clue what to do. After a while, though, perhaps because he was sick of my crying, Elliott mustered the courage to seek out assistance, and eventually found a somewhat friendly police officer to help us. By mid-afternoon, we had finally made it to the unfrequented island, sick from the rocking sea, but welcomed by our ocean view hut that smelled faintly of sewage. This lesson was undoubtedly one we had to learn the hard way, but I can almost guarantee that we’ll never make that kind of scheduling mistake again - although, if we do, I’ll always remember to pack tampons.Throughout our two weeks, we experienced the Thailand of broke college kids, of the inexperienced and often unprepared, cutting costs by creating excursions, which, however full of mishaps, were our own. As such, we found ourselves with a bit of wiggle room near the end of our circuit, so we decided to leave Bangkok a day early and head for the historic city of Ayutthaya. This was actually the least expensive section of our itinerary, featuring our cheapest hostel and a day of freely exploring the burnt orange, aged temples, hopping on and off rented bikes as we rode among the elephants and few other tourists. By this point, we were exhausted, having spent the last week waffling between wonderment and dilemmas, but Ayutthaya was our rose for the troubles. At the end of the day, we sat down for a Thai iced tea, our table overlooking an algae green lake, and reflected on how we had stretched ourselves into mostly competent, if somewhat spent, travelers.
Elliott had been there for months, speaking Thai and traipsing through Chiang Mai with his classmates, but all of it was new to me. This kind of travel, so far and so terribly distinct from my Grand Rapids daily drag, had never been accessible before, a fact which I resented and rushed to undo in an attempt to remake myself in the image of someone more worldly and successful, like the classmates I’d left behind. In that rush, I spent two weeks in Thailand, trying desperately to expand my horizons while battling my own apprehension, ignorance, and empty pockets. Nonetheless, I was able to experience the idiosyncrasies of pungent, sweltering, exquisite Thailand, in a way that was less lofty than I had hoped, but all the more meaningful for it.
Works Cited
Gabrielle, Marsh. Photograph of view from airplane window on a flight from Shanghai to Chiang Mai. December 2019. Author's personal collection.
Gabrielle, Marsh. Photographs of self and partner at Wat Doi Suthep temple complex, Chiang Mai. December 2019. Author's personal collection.
Gabrielle, Marsh. Photograph of self at the summit of a hike on the island of Koh Tao. December 2019. Author's personal collection.
Gabrielle, Marsh. Photograph of self riding a bicycle in Ayutthaya. December 2019. Author's personal collection.
