I arrived to Bangkok early morning on 24th December, not really knowing what to do for Christmas eve. I found out that there is a christian mass but i still wanted to join for kind of family Christmas dinner - and not really go to restaurant. I searched for polish community in Bangkok and I left a post on their forum, but no respond. Moreover I checked couch surfing website. Initially i did not find anything interesting out there and almost in the last moment I found what I was looking for. Scott, an American guy was organizing a Christmas dinner for coach surfers in Bangkok.
It was already early afternoon but luckily I found his mobile phone on line and asked if i can come by on this very short notice. And of course I could. I should have only organiseed a small gift. I also knew that few people were supposed to cook some traditional dishes. Hm, it was a challenge. I was kind of short of time but I decided to stop in international grocery in Bangkok.
It was kind of great challenge but I was able to find most of the products for my already famous MUSHROOM SOUP. I guess it was fifth time in a row when I prepared mushroom soup for Christmas, but for sure this one was very different than the others. In previous years I was always getting dry wild mushrooms from Poland, this year the basis for the soup were dry Chinese mushrooms. I was saved by the fact that no one there knew how the Christmas mushroom soup should taste like...
On the way I also managed to get a gift and all the products for the soup and I arrived to Scott's house. He recently moved in to this house and on purpose he rented bigger house in order to be able to host many couch surfers. When I arrived the Spanish couple was very busy with the preparation of Paella, Turkish girl was preparing salad (for her it was second ever Christmas) and Thai girl was finishing the coconut soup.
The Christmas eve dinner in the company like this was a very unique experience. I always spent Christmas with the closest family and here I was among twenty travelers from whom I did not know anyone the previous day, and I would not meet most of those people ever again. And despite of this very transient feeling I could feel connection to the other travelers and had a unique feeling of Christmas. Everyone brought one single present that we exchange. And late in the night I could connect via skype with my home to virtually join them for Christmas.
The next day, the Christmas day there was a second dinner. Quite a few people left Bangkok on 25th and quite a few new coach surfers joined the dinner. Two people that I knew before showed up for the dinner!!!! The Dutch guy Bas, with whom I was hiking in Sikkim and the girl that I met just before leaving Siem Reap! Great coincidence.
So on one hand I was far from my home on the other hand thanks to Scott's hospitality and thanks to invention of Internet and skype I was able to grasp both unique Christmas experience: one from Poland and the other one from Bangkok at once.
Thanks a lot Scott, thanks a lot Skype.
That was a great pleasure to spend christmas with you and the other couchsurfers. Nice to have meet you in Bangkok and thanks for the good time spend together.
ReplyDeleteFabrizio