I was all the more proud of myself as I could have opted for the easy way out but I didn´t. I was supposed to meet my uncle at Khao San, which was across the Chao Praya River from where I was staying. I could have taken the cab, which would have cost me around 200 baht, and which would have been quite quite boring. So I chose to take public transport via the Chao Praya River instead. That meant taking the shuttle boat from where I was and transferring to a public boat on the yellow line. It sounded easy, the fact that everything can be summarised in one sentence, but it certainly wasn´t, at least to me. I did all these with some butterflies in my stomach as it sounded a real complicated route, what with all the different coloured lines via a mode of transport that I was not familiar with, pulling a luggage around and battling luggage of an emotional form too! But strangely, I was feeling confident that day, so different from my very first day of misadventures and decided to give it a go. I also knew that if I screwed it up, I could take it in my stride as I was the one who chose this harder path.
It was a wonderful one-hour long adventure, along a river that sustains Thais for many generations. There was even a local guide (a very well-groomed one) on board the boat explaining the major tourist spots:
Though he was unintelligible (the bulky, trudging noises made by the boat drowned out his voice), his presence and muffled speech was comforting and reassuring.
There were numerous stops at piers along the way and it was a really scenic journey:
And all these for 30 baht!
The sense of confidence during this journey, which is rare, derived from one major reason. The fact that I did lots of homework and ensured data and information I received is ´triangulated´. And so I decided from then on, that everytime I needed to get to a new place or do something new in a foreign land, I am going to seek information or talk to at least 2 people. 6 is the optimal number but this is not always possible. As I have an extremely weak working memory, that would require making copious notes from the different sources of data.
This experience gave me a lot of confidence in manourvring by myself in a strange land. I am capable of doing it, just that I needed a lot more time than others in seeking the required information and processing them. Hence, having my data triangulated meant new information could be repeated to me in different forms and though some information could be different and even contradictory, as long as I had them jotted down in my notebook, I could make the necessary inferences and deductions that are required.
This meant that as along as I know myself well, my learning style and how I remember things best, I can do it just like any others.
What great relief that realisation brings!
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