Ordering for the Table
On friendship, Thailand, and the quiet art of traveling well
This is part 1 of a multi travel series to Thailand! I will be sharing a new part each week.
If you could predict a trip by the first thing you tasted, ours began with a dare: a curried seafood rice and green curry furiously simmering on a Bangkok sidewalk, chilies crushed into submission with garlic, scalloped pieces of squid, and galangal ginger perfuming the air before the plate even hit the table. One of the owners, the wife, anxiously asked us twice if we could handle the spice. The three of us pulled bright weary smiles and nodded yes. The heat arrived first — sharp, blooming, impossible to ignore — followed by lime that snapped everything into place. Across the small wooden table, sweat forming on our foreheads, my two best friends met my gaze at the exact same time, eyes wide, challenging: Is this actually spicy?
It was. Of course it was. But, we came for pain.
Travel, I’ve learned, tastes different depending on who you’re with. Alone, flavor feels private — like a secret you keep between yourself and the bowl of noodles steaming under fluorescent lights. With acquaintances, it can feel performative — “You have to try this” as a personality trait. But with the two women who have known me through career pivots, fitness goals, apartment moves, heartbreaks, and snowed-in weekend getaways, flavor becomes something else entirely. It becomes a mirror.
Thailand was supposed to be about noodles simmered dark and herbal beneath Bangkok overpasses, about skewers blistering over charcoal in night markets, about juicy mangoes eaten barefoot in Krabi with sea salt drying on our ankles. Instead — or maybe exactly as intended — it became about the quiet ways we take care of one another. Somewhere between bookmarking restaurants and triple-checking itinerary bookings, I realized I had slipped into a familiar role: producer. Keeper of agendas. Guardian of opening hours. Gentle director of “I have cash for that.”
Two weeks is longer than a mountain cabin weekend. International travel magnifies everything — hunger, heat, indecision. “Where should we eat?” can turn into a referendum on trust.
But it never did.
If the instinct to shape the experience started to feel heavy, I wasn’t aware. But if my friends noticed, they met it gently — with teasing, with gratitude, with the kind of softness that doesn’t make you defensive. It wasn’t until our last day, when we finally sat still long enough to reflect, that I understood what they had seen all along.
The mystery I’d carried — that control might fracture us — dissolved somewhere between massaman curry and island hopping. What I’d mistaken for a potential fault line was, in their hands, something softer. They weren’t tolerating my planning; they understood it. They saw it for what it was: not a need to dominate, but a love language. A way of saying, I want this to be good for us.
By the time we left Thailand, sun-warmed and carrying the scent of salt and massage oil on our skins, I realized the first bite hadn’t predicted a challenge at all. It had predicted balance. Heat and sweetness. Acid and depth. The kind of harmony that only happens when every ingredient knows its place.
The trip didn’t test our friendship. It clarified it.
And somehow, in a country bursting with flavor, the sweetest thing I tasted was being known — and loved — exactly as I am.
Part 1: A Taste of Home
Airports have the power to transform us. Part time machine, part historical artifact — one of the only places where it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have, you still have to go through TSA. No one really knows where anyone else is coming from or going, and yet we’re all suspended in the same fluorescent purgatory. Airports are often our first introduction to a new country — which can be shocking — so they sterilize themselves for our sake. Polished floors. Decorative art. Fake gardens. Sometimes real gardens with tiny rivers guiding you gently toward arrivals, luggage claims, connecting terminals. Big shopping areas and food courts that mimic what every country has regardless of status — a mall. Comfort food before the real thing.
In airports, and especially on airplanes, we become children. Spoiled. Denied. Restless. Bemused. Sleep deprived but suddenly alert when we hear “beef or chicken.” We ask permission to use the bathroom. We keep our arms and legs to ourselves. We wait to be fed.
When we arrived in Bangkok, I was met with something both familiar and slightly undone — the infrastructure of a rapidly developing country with small seasonings of the third-world still sprinkled throughout. AC units that didn’t quite cool. Ceilings and floors the color and the smell of forgotten bread. The air was thick. Not just humid, but heavy, like it had weight. My backpack straps dug into my collarbones. Did I overpack? Absolutely. SHIT.
Our Grab (Uber, but Thai) pickup area sat across what felt like a rapid river of buses that did not give a fuck about traffic rules, if any applied. Massive coaches, taxis, Grab cars all cutting across lanes like fish in different currents. Staff wearing shirts that read “Grab Happy To Help” stood calmly in the middle of it all, sweat somehow invisible on their skin. Meanwhile, the rest of us — zombies fresh off long-haul flights — were already stained with yesterday’s sweat.
And then I saw them.
Two people standing in the eye of the storm, shoulders forward, fingers sticky, casually eating Dunkin’ Donuts.
This shocked me. And frankly, disgusted me. How can they be eating this? In this heat? AND in Thailand? Surely — although I had not yet confirmed it — Thailand has better snack options.
But then something shifted.
That melting frosting wasn’t about taste. It was about comfort. A bit of home before stepping into the unknown. Airports soften the blow of arrival. Maybe sometimes we soften it ourselves.
I was asked to sit up front by our Grab driver. Steering wheel on the right. Me on the left. Immediate disorientation. I decided to practice the Thai I procrastinated learning until 24 hours before our flight.
“Sawadee ka.”
“Khop khun ka.”
“How do you say friend?” I asked.
The driver nodded and laughed politely.
I’ve been here before — trying to bridge language gaps with whatever scraps I know. English. Spanish. Newly memorized Thai. When I travel, it feels important to at least attempt the barrier between tourist and curious guest. “How much does this cost?” “Where is the bathroom?” The phrase I learned fastest? “Poot Thai mai dai.” I don’t speak Thai.
By the end of the trip, adding “ka” to everything — even English — came naturally. Okay ka. Thank you ka. Spicy ka. It slipped into my mouth like muscle memory.
I tried asking our driver where we should eat. He responded with more laughter and a little too aggressive of a head nod. I had a long way to go.
Our Airbnb was in Bang Rak — the same name as my favorite Thai restaurant in Seattle. A historical neighborhood with buildings dating back over 100 years, sometimes called the “Village of Love.” Our street reflected the grit that kind of history requires — street vendors mixed with pharmacies we would visit more than once to stock up on Thai beauty products, a grocery store with a department store right above it.
Unlike any Airbnb we’d stayed in before, this one sat behind a metal gate — the kind businesses pull down at night to blink their storefronts shut. Already, the line between residence and street felt blurred.
And then, my first small failure.
After all my Reddit research about the “best” SIM card strategy for Thailand, I had no working data. I was relying on my friends to Google directions. So much for being ready. Standing outside our apartment, I fixated on the sleek modern keypad mounted on the wall. We tried the code once. Twice. Three times. Nothing.
It was Soleil who noticed what I didn’t: the simple padlock resting casually at the edge of the metal door, like a street cat waiting to be acknowledged.
It didn’t need to be complicated.
We rolled up the gate, revealing a glass door, a curtain, and the soft welcoming breeze of AC. We dropped our bags in a small pile — relief heavy in our bodies.
No dramatic arrival. No cinematic soundtrack.
Just three women, slightly damp, slightly disoriented, standing in Bang Rak — marinating.
We wasted no time. Within minutes we were back outside, stepping into the thick midday air in search of our first real meal in Thailand
I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of the Thailand series. The next two installments will include Google Map links to everywhere we ate, wandered, and occasionally got lost — and they’ll be for subscribers only.
If this piece fed you even a little, consider subscribing. Your support directly fuels my coffee addiction, which in turn fuels this writing.
Khop khun ka 🤍
Definitely laughed out loud at “grab happy to help.” Loved part 1, looking forward to the rest!