“You’re so brave,” they always tell me with widened eyes, as if I’m going off to war. Coworkers, acquaintances, relatives … the reaction is nearly universal from people who don’t know me that well, when I tell them I’m planning a trip to a foreign county – alone. I don’t know if they’re so shocked because they really think these destinations are dangerous, traveling alone is inconceivable to them, or they just never thought I would be one to do such a thing. I didn’t think I was being brave when I decided to go to Thailand on my own.

My first day was not promising. After 20-some hours in transit, during which I slept not a wink, I arrived after 11pm at night, local time. Stepping outside the air-conditioned airport was like being smothered by an oven-heated pillow over my face like I was a crotchety, old rich guy in the hospital whose heirs wanted him out of the way. I had arranged to stay at a hotel near the airport, but got ripped off in the taxi, even though I’d read a warning in the guidebook. I was simply too tired to protest. The driver kissed the large-denomination bill I reluctantly handed him and reverently touched his Buddha on the dashboard (which is how I knew for sure I way overpaid). No matter – I just tried to think of it as a donation to the driver’s family. The hotel near the airport was nice, but somehow after all those hours awake, I still couldn’t sleep.

The next day, after swallowing down a couple bites of trail mix from my bag, I took another taxi all the way to downtown Bangkok (paying a fraction of the fare I’d paid the night before for a five minute ride) to my Air BnB, where I discovered the advertised “air” was just a fan that blew the ambient hot air around the upper reaches of the bedroom. No matter – surely, I’d get used to the heat.

The day already well advanced, I decided to metro my way to the train station and tried to buy advance tickets to my next destination, but was told (in what few English words the attendant knew that applied) that wasn’t possible and I’d have to buy the day of. This turned out not to be true, but I wouldn’t have evidence until the day I tried to carry out this new advice. No matter – I eventually got the ticket.

The train station appeared to be a few blocks from Chinatown, according to my guidebook map, so I left the station and started walking in what I hoped was the correct direction. I was leery of trusting local drivers after my first bad experience, so I ignored the entreaties of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers at the exit and kept walking. After the first block, I realized the gas fumes of the tuk-tuks were making my head feel not so good in combination with the extreme heat taxing my recently late-fall-adjusted-body, and that it was long past lunchtime. A couple long blocks later in the punishing heat, with no signs of Chinatown or any tourist-friendly sights, I realized this was a Very Bad Idea and turned around to head back to the train station.

On the metro heading back to home base, I finished the last sips of the small bottle of water I’d purchased earlier from a little vendor in one of the metro walkways. As I descended an escalator to change trains, I got extremely lightheaded. For just a second, I started to panic, envisioning myself getting helplessly ambulanced away to deal with a foreign health care system where I had no idea if my insurance applied and couldn’t understand anybody. After taking a deep breath of semi-cooled subterranean air and holding it for several long seconds, I decided that there was no way I was going to pass out my first day in Thailand. I remembered seeing what appeared to be a mall entrance at one of the metro walkways. I needed air conditioning, water, food, and a good sit, in that order, and a mall was just the place to meet all those requirements. I found my way to those shining mall doors, and the coolness as they opened granted me a measure of immediate relief.

After successfully purchasing a larger bottle of water (there is no running water in Thailand that is safe to drink, so no water fountains), draining most of it in under a minute, and finding some food in an extremely confusing food court situation of which I was able to eat a small, but sustaining amount, I wandered the refreshingly familiar mall concourses trying to figure out where to sit down for a good long while for a rest. I spotted a cinema! The latest Hunger Games was playing – available in sub or dub! Assuming “sub” meant the original English soundtrack would be audible while subtitled in Thai, I purchased a ticket and the biggest soda I could find, and sat in a plush chair in a darkened, quiet, air conditioned room, where I could almost, for a minute, believe I was back home in a local movie theater.

Before the movie started, right after a friendly reminder to silence our cellphones, a placard asked the audience, in both English and Thai, to rise to honor the king. A stirring rendition of the Thai national anthem started playing over a golden-tinged montage of the Thai king acting gracious and kingly with his subjects. I stood there with a scattering of locals enjoying a day at the movies, and the music was so blatantly patriotic (or I was so exhausted) that a newfound pride in Thailand caused my eyes to tear up. As my cultural experience for the day ended, I sat down and watched a Hollywood movie I could have watched anywhere in the world. But I saw it my first day in Bangkok.

The next day I took the public ferry with orange-robed monks and explored the golden corridors and many buddhas at the Grand Palace and saw the Wat Pho and an enormous reclining Buddha. I enjoyed a refreshing coconut ice cream served in a half coconut from a guy in a cart and haggled for my first souvenirs. By the time I left Thailand for Malaysia, I missed the Thai smells, lavishly decorated temples, and easy-going locals. When I flew back home from Kuala Lumpur, I missed the call to prayer singing out from the nearest mosque at sunset and cheap yummy street food, too. In the chilly, prosaic airport of my last layover at O’Hare, it seemed weird at first that I could understand everyone and that I had to flush toilet paper down the toilet instead of throwing it out separately. The familiar now seemed strange, and it took a few sleeps to readjust to home.

Hmm, maybe it is a little like going to war. And maybe I am brave. Heroes go to malls, too, right?