I won!

I’m pretty sure that in one of the local newspapers in the small town of Kanchanabury, on the east end of Thailand, there’s a photo of this strange blond baby, smiling when he crosses the finish line. 

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re traveling to a foreign country? Mine is to do local things. I’ve traveled to many places I was the only farang/alien/zar. A local mela of 80 thousand Indians near Pushkar with a bizarre sad circus, singing with A-list rock stars in a small pub in Manila and walked for an hour in the jungle to avoid paying a ridiculous fee to enter a park in Sri lanka. I also love doing ”regular ” local things. Since running is my other passion (on top of traveling) I’ve decided I’ll join races all over the world. Or at least wherever I travel to.  You can see some of it on my Instagram.

This winter we spent a month in Thailand. I feel at home there and this was my fifth time visiting the land of smiles. I found two races that seemed fun while I’m there. One of them was a small, local one, in Kanchanaburi. This town is a famous place for tourism. Mostly for the bridge over river Kwai. It is about 3 hours drive from Bangkok and a chill sort of vacation. With beautiful guest houses with a river view and young tourists.  The race was a local event and even the website was in Thai. I used google translate to try and sign up. I got all the questions right, but couldn’t pay for it. I decided I’ll try and do it when I get there. 

When I got to the town, I was only a few days into the trip and both Kai and I were still jet lagged. That actually saved us. I asked locals to translate the website and tell me how to register (“you can’t”), where is the race (right outside town, about a mile away), and when (no one can tell me). I practically gave up. Then, the day of the race, I woke up at 4am with Kai. Walked to the street doughnuts place and had the guy tell me, while making the first doughnuts of the day, that the race starts at 5. 20 minutes from that time. 

I rushed to the room. Put on running shoes and ran a mile with my running stroller and Kai to the location. 

I’ve participated in many races in New York and Israel. This was very much the same and yet so different. I got to the place at 2 minutes to 5am. In the small park were hundreds of people in identical t shirts. Yellow, as the national color. Many of them warming up together, dancing to pop music. At 5am! I went to try and sign up. Had to find a translator to tell me that it’s not possible. Not wanting to give up, I asked if I could run the race without signing up. In New York it’s not possible to run without signing up. In most cases, a stroller is banned even if you do sign up.  I’ll write a separate post about this. They said “of course” with a big smile. In fact, as soon as I got there I was received with positivity and smiles. Could be many things, but I believe the presence of Kai, a blond, bright eyed, two year old, was the main one. Before leaving the stand to wait for the start of the race they gave me a shirt. 

There were two races: a 5k and a 10.5k. That’s not a mistake. A ten and a half km. Very unusual. A quarter marathon. I wasn’t sure if me being jet lagged, with a baby and a stroller, in the dark, was a good idea to run the longer run. But I decided I can always quit mid race. Kai loves running with me. Last year we participated in one 5k race and in the month of August we ran 60 miles together. All throughout the run people were smiling at us and taking pictures. When we got to the finish line, we were received with thunderous cheers. They even insisted we’ll take a medal. 

The finish line had plenty of local food for the runners, live music and a stage with the picture of the king. People stood in line, bowed to the king, and got their medal.  

When we got back to the room, people were waking up.

Come Run With Me

Now that I’m back in New York, I carry the medal and good memories from Kanchanaburi with me. Running is one of my favorite ways of discovering a destination. After guiding commercial tours in north America for over 3 years, I invite you to join me on private running tours with small groups.
Follow @transformationaltravel6 for my next tour dates and locations, and updates of races and traveling.