Our flight home was uneventful. That's a major coup. We like to fly Singapore Airlines first and foremost because nothing goes wrong. You can rely on a smooth check-in, an on-time departure, luggage that arrives in the right place. There are no maintenance issues, late flight crews, problems with meal service. Singapore is a well-oiled machine.
Beyond that, it's also very comfortable and their economy is better than most US airlines' Economy Plus. That's why when we were upgraded to Premium Economy from Singapore to Los Angeles, it was a big deal. Premium Economy is sort of a hybrid of economy and what would be business class on most airlines. With extra legroom, wider seats. a larger screen, high quality headsets, more food choices, bottles oof water instead of just cups, better reclining seats and more personal storage, it was a very well received change in plans.
"I think we should ALWAYS fly premium economy!" Sennen exclaimed in Tokyo
Who knows if that's what we will do in the future, but it certainly opened our eyes to how how trans-Pacific travel could feel.... Of course it also highlights how spoiled our kids may be when it comes to travel. Singapore Airlines is not most people's baseline.
"Daddy, why does Southwest Airlines take up all of Terminal 1?" Sennen asked as we left LAX.
"Because it's a big airline with lots of flights and they need that much space," I responded.
"But it's not a big airline. Where do they even fly?"
"Sennen, it is a big airline - they have flights all over the country to almost every city. They have a lot of flights per day."
"But Daddy, they can't be that big an airline. They don't even go to other countries and they have small planes."
And there it is. Of our kids, only Sennen has even been on a domestic flight and when I took him to New York in January 2020 on a United 787 Dreamliner, not a smaller 737, he asked when the food would be coming and why the flight attendants didn't come with toys. I had to explain domestic travel to him. Sad face.
That said, what our kids find normal is different and mostly in good ways. They don't judge the people and places they see - instead, they tend to appreciate and join in what any given country and culture have to offer. Certainly, they ask questions - but not usually from a place of feeling there's a right way or a baseline standard to how people should live. In fact, there are very few shoulds in their world other than ones relating to kindness and respect. Even then, we have had conversations about how different people have different ideas about how kindness and respect work.
This trip, Sennen really struggled with the Thai way of relating to dogs. While Bangkok was relatively free of the feral street dogs that were once its signature, Ko Samet had its share. While these dogs were far healthier and better provided for than some of the ones I encountered in Ban Phe and Samet in 2001-2002, they are not owned by people in the way we own dogs. Although it may be changing some with time and international influence, Thais (and Balinese for that matter) have traditionally seen dogs as other creatures to co-exist with. In fact, one superstition is that dogs are the reincarnation of thieves. People don't take them into their homes and treat them as family members, but put out food and water and have the dog guard their home or area. It's more of a symbiotic trade than an interpersonal relationship.
Americans often struggle with dogs being treated this way and even Sennen - who has always had an ambitious relationship with dogs - felt the same. He wanted to adopt a Thai street dog and bring it home where we can give it a better life. When I explained why we couldn't do that (there are organizations that facilitate it - but it's a process) he made sure to counter that I had brought home a semi-feral Balinese Kintamani. If I could do that, why not save a Thai street dog? A great point - but he didn't live through the Conlan the Kintamani period - I loved that dog, but he was an unparalleled unique and difficult creature. Or perhaps more fairly, he didn't transition easily to the expectations put on him by American society and just in his first few weeks alone - at age three months - used his incredible bite power to chomp through three different leashes (it took a metal chain leash to be able to successfully walk him).
Of course there are moments in travel when what we see challenges us to evaluate our ethics and values - and to sometimes have to decide if there's a valid perspective or truth we haven't acknowledged - or if there are some hard morals that matter to us and may be absent in another society. For me, the caste system in India - and particularly the way it can be so harsh and actor in Delhi - was a moment when I really judged another culture and felt fine with it. Sennen had his first tangle with an intercultural moral conundrum.
But their usual outlook was one of appreciation and adaptation. I'm always proud that our kids are able to see what's great about a place they visit and can easily adjust to how things work. We don't take planned travel packages and for the most part, use the same transportation as locals. We don't try to avoid the hassles and challenges of another country - Bangkok traffic, for example, is a part of the experience. Hearing their thoughts on the trip we just concluded, they have so many positive things to say and a fantastic comfort and understanding of a society very different from their own - but which has become quite familiar to them.
While I would like us to visit some different and perhaps new places in upcoming trips, I suspect we are not done with Thailand. Perhaps our relationship with Thailand is strong enough that we'll never be done with it. It would be hard to imagine a life that doesn't include the numerous smells - sublime and wretched - of Thailand. The way you can smell sewer followed by cooking garlic and chili followed by filthy exhaust followed by perfumed flowers all within a minute is an especially Bangkok phenomenon.
But for now, we'll bid Thailand a final Sawasdee Krup and Khap Khun Krup as we return to our usual lives. Being home for a day, the whole thing almost seems like a dream. We've hit Costco and Trader Joe's to get the house restocked. I've taken out the Sunday night garbage. The dishwasher needs running. There are Amazon boxes to sort through, homework to turn in, school lunches to be made. The days of warm coconut sticky rice and eggs for breakfast and fresh coconut shakes served to us at our beanbag lounge chairs on the beach are over - for now.
On to our next adventure when this blog will pickup again....