This month I have mostly been…
…teaching.
As the month begins so the trauma (and I use this word accurately) of having to get up early six mornings of the week comes to an end with the summer season. This actually makes me a bit sad as I’ve developed a bit of a bond with my students as we’ve gone on our little journey together. I have no idea if they’ve learned anything. Their test results suggest they have and they all do well. Their departure prompts me to take some photos, something I’ve not done at work yet as I wasn’t sure it was appropriate. No one seems to mind.
Mine and Muang (well, Muang anyway; I don’t think Mine loves anything) discover a love of Cluedo. Muang gets the hang of it straight away, quickly learning to monitor our moves as well as consider his own, and winning every time. He’s gonna do well in life that boy. Whether it’s in kosher business dealings or otherwise, he’ll definitely do well.
One evening after heading out to the house for our ‘lesson’ (it might be better to call it a session), Binnie calls as I’m walking into the house to tell me the session has been cancelled. Brilliant.
As you may remember I have to get a bus and a bike to the house as it’s out in the sticks. So here I am stuck at the house with my bike not due back for an hour and a half. I try and communicate with the home help that I need them to call the bike peeps to get them to come back early. They have other ideas. One of the women decides that it would be a much better idea to take me back to the main road herself – on the back of a push bike. Quite frankly I’d rather have paid for a bike but she is most insistent and so I climb on the back.
I search for somewhere to put my feet. There is nowhere. Instead, as she starts to cycle (with such a great effort that I feel incredibly ungentlemanly), I find myself hanging on to the back of the seat with my legs flailing out to the side, putting great pressure on my inner thigh muscles. It’s bloody agony. This is before we get to the uphill bits.
She tries her best bless her but half way up each hill we have to disembark (much to my relief) and walk to the downhill bit (much to my dread). We soldier on like this until we reach the bike shelter where the bikers look torn between confusion and amusement. I thank the woman profusely and shuffle off to catch my bus, wondering what on earth just happened.
Bas, the 12 year old lad I have on Saturday mornings, becomes something of a chore. After missing his lesson I have to do extra time to make it up. I prep loads but it only just lasts because, while he’s very good and uses English perfectly competently, he has no imagination (or at least he’s afraid to use it) and is difficult to get talking for any length of time.
My class of 10 to 12 year olds continues to be bloody hard. They have the attention span of goldfish. But I do come up with one good game which they love – I place large laminated pieces of card on the floor, each with a letter of the alphabet on. I split them into two teams and tell them to spell a word with the letters. The first team to pick out the right letters and hold them up together in the right order wins. It’s amazing fun.My frustration with Nenny of Nail and Nenny fame reaches its limits. During one lesson I wait for a good 15 minutes for her to give an answer to a question. She just will not talk in English. Even though she knows it. It drives me mad!
Towards the end of the month I hand in my notice and start telling my students I’m going soon. Some of them seem quite perturbed by it. I’m not sure why, I sometimes wonder how on earth I get away with working here. But at least they’re having fun eh?
...doing some muay Thai.
(See separate entry.)
…getting BORED.
Early in the month I notice a growing sense of boredom developing in me. It’s been weeks since Songkran, there are no big events to look forward to, and life feels like it’s become a bit routine. Work, the cinema and Khao San Road seem to be all I do. I start to think that this year was supposed to be more exciting than this.
I come home one Saturday and am at a total loss as to what to do. There’s nowt on at the cinema, and Jess has gone to Khao San to meet Lisa. Should I join them? Can I be bothered to sit on that road again?
I get a text from Jess telling me that Paul Oakenfold is playing a club in Bangkok the following week. It’s like a gift from God. Finally something new and exciting to look forward to. I say as much to Jess and she calls me straight away, telling me to come down and join them. I figure I have nothing to lose.
We chat about life here – the good things, the bad things. We all have aspects of Bangkok that bug us. I wonder whether I should quit even earlier, give myself more time to explore the rest of SE Asia. They tell me if I’m not happy I should. It’s my trip, my year; I can do what I want right?
But then we’re interrupted by an American guy who comes to our table and asks if he can join us. None of us seem able to think of a reason why not so he does. He’s tall, with red wavy hair encircled by a black bandana patterned with white peace signs. He claims to be 19 but his red beard makes him look 15 years older. He’s drunk as hell.
We ask him polite questions to make conversation. He starts talking and doesn’t really stop. He tells us he grows cannabis for a living to which we’re immediately derisive. He gets out a Californian ‘license’ which, he claims, gives him permission to grow cannabis for use to combat his ‘back pain’. It could be real, or he could have bought it from the fake ID guy that sits on Khao San Road. I suggest he’s done the latter, Redbeard is insistent that’s not the case.
He orders two large tequilas but doesn’t have enough money. He discreetly looks to us but all three of us just sit there and watch his dilemma stoically. He’s come to the wrong table if he’s after free drinks.
He tells the waiter he’s going to get some money. We laugh at his idiocy and try and pick up our evening where we left it before the interruption. We should have moved really because before long Redbeard is back, stressing out that he’s lost his ATM card. All of us smell a rat, and none of us have to say anything to each other to know what we’re all thinking. We’ve been too long in Bangkok, on Khao San particularly, and have become too cynical.
He starts freaking out but his apparent stress has no affect on us, or anyone around. Everyone just sees a drunken idiot, disrupting the peace of the bar. Eventually he pays in dollars. He complains to the waiter he’s paying over and the poor waiter just takes his money, even though there’s not much you can do with such a small amount of dollars in Thailand. We do the conversion after and he actually paid under for the drinks.
Redbeard sits back down with us and downs one of the shots. He looks upset and says nothing. We talk as if he’s not there. He does another shot. Lisa moves towards me as his face turns green. “I think he’s going to vomit,” she says. I ask him if this is the case. He shakes his head but doesn’t look convinced. The verbal diarrhoea of earlier has now ceased, possibly to make way for something else to come out of his mouth.
He sips on Jess’s Coke. It seems to make him feel a little better but all he can talk about is his missing ATM card. His story changes a lot as he speaks – no money in his account one minute, loads the next. Eventually we lose interest and leave him there.
At least he killed my boredom for awhile.
…socialising.
This mostly involves going to Khao San Road. I don’t know why we’re so drawn to this place, probably because it’s so familiar. Despite all of us being somewhat adventurous spirits – we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t – there is obviously still some deep-seated need for a piece of home.
To an extent we find that on Khao San. It has Western beer, ice cream, pizza and any other food you might miss from home (apart from pasties of course, what a Thai pastie would be like actually hurts my brain to think about). The bars play Western music, Western films and all the staff speak English. Enough to understand rude English drunkenness and speed up your exit from a bar anyway.
And yet it is like nothing at home. Khao San has more in common with a holiday resort on some overrun Spanish island, or the nightlife of a surf resort on the East Coast of Australia. And yet it`s nothing like them either. It has a unique Thai spin that sends you in a spin, never sure whether you’re being ripped off or not. Least you know for sure you’re being ripped off in Majorca.
It’s that Thai spin that make it as comfortable an excursion for the Thais as it is the Westerners. Much as we come to gawp at them, they come to gawp at us in this tiny little world so different to the rest of the city. They come here and get drunk and eat (comparatively) expensive food in their own little weekend holidays from daily life in Bangkok.It’s a weird place. Predatory stall-holders watch out for the newbies pulling their heavy backpacks out of taxis, unable to hide the shell-shocked look on their face that everyone has when they first arrive. The stall-holders tend to be less pushy when that shell-shocked look has been replaced by the cynical one we all don.
Bemused Thai visitors mix with hippified travellers who think they’re experiencing life in Bangkok when they barely wander past the Burger King at the end of the road. And then there’s us – the weary Westerners who hang out here laughing at the hippies for want of something better to do.
It’s this unimaginative socialising that contributes to my boredom (see above). But we do wander off this beaten road occasionally. Often it’s to Patpong in the south of the city, where the market stalls loaded with fake goods face off with the titty bars. Walking down that road is an experience that only the brave should tackle. Unless you’re a shopper. Or a perv. When you’re not having fake Tiffany jewellry dangled in your face on one side, you’re being offered a ping pong show on the other.
But it’s not all tits and tat. Along the road there some pretty nice restaurants and the odd bar aimed fairly and squarely at those not in the mood for a perv, at least not early in the evening anyway. Western music-loving Thais and the more permanent Western residents are drawn to the likes of Twilo, a bar that has a resident band performing current R&B and hip hop hits.
May 10th seems like it’s gonna be much like any other Thursday here when it starts. Jess and I finish work and head down to Silom, grabbing some food at one of the comparatively expensive places along Silom Road. It’s a good restaurant though as it has an open front and you can watch the crazy Bangkok world go by as you eat some crazy Bangkok food.
We meet up with Anna, Vicky, Fliss et al at Twilo. The usual shenanigans occur – Anna storms the stage as usual when they play Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie. Even though she’s not drinking tonight she can’t resist the rumba rhythms! Fliss is hanging out with a new girl who’s joined the school – an Irish girl called Karen. She’s great fun, remarkably at ease is this crazy atmosphere and surrounded by a bunch of people she barely knows. Like a good Irish girl should, she parties harder than the rest of us put together. Rather than fazed, she just seems genuinely excited to be here. As she should be.
Vicky’s ex-boyfriend is here as well, visiting her for a holiday. Later on in the evening she decides to take him to ping pong show, as every good Bangkok host should, and their departure prompts a discussion between the rest of us about going to a gay sex show. Jess’s sensitive nature to such things means she bows out immediately and heads home alone. But Anna, Joey, Louise, her boyfriend Sky and I decide it would be hilarious.So off we go to Soi Pratuchai – a strip of road very similar to Soi Cowboy, just with scantily clad boys running around instead of girls. It’s pretty late and we’re concerned that we’ve missed the shows. Inexperienced as we are, our cynicism is well-honed and we know they’ll try and drag us in there, even if the show has finished.
Assured by the doorman of one club that the show is still in full swing (as it were) we enter and are shown to our seats. There’s nothing going on on stage but Louise points out that there are two guys fucking over by a table on the other side. Slowly they make their way around the room, stopping by each table to fuck for a bit before moving on. It’s so bizarre.
Eventually they make it to us and stand (and bend) right by Sky. Louise tells us later that Sky nudged her and pointed to his leg where the guy being fucked’s penis was lying. Sky is remarkably unfazed by this, finding it all quite hilarious. In fact I think I’m the one most uncomfortable with it all. None of the people I’m with are at all aroused by this (though Joey seems totally absorbed by the naked go-go boys when they come on for a “big cock show”), and though most of the go-go dancers are way too skinny and girly for me, a couple of them are, you know, quite fucking hot!
I pretend not to notice these ones and have a laugh with Anna instead, until she says to me, “God some of these guys are quite hot aren’t they?” I breathe a sigh of relief and feel a little more comfortable.
We have a bit of a discussion about whether it’s a demeaning job or not. I put the argument that it’s the sex workers who have power over the punters; they’re the ones in control and reaping the most benefit. I’m not sure if I agree with this, I’m just playing devil’s advocate and, as such, it raises some debate, albeit debate punctuated by some squealing and giggling as a go-go dancer notices the ‘tourists’ by the stage and comes over and waves his cock in our faces.
We go back to Twilo. Anna, Louise and Sky go home. Joey goes off on her own adventure. Vicky and Mike come back. Mike is reeling after suffering the attentions of some female go-go dancers. “Vicky told them something about me and when I went to the toilet they came in to have a look,” he tells me. I can’t imagine what he’s talking about, but I appreciate Vicky’s wicked sense of humour.
Soon it’s just me, Fliss and Karen, both of whom are fending off a crazy Thai lesbian who’s having the time of her life, dancing like she’ just got out of prison. Maybe she has.
We end up in Maccy D’s. Karen tells me that she had to take an English test because, as she’s Irish, the Thais wouldn’t believe English was her first language. Insanity. But we don’t stay long; they have to be up in a few hours for school.
A couple of weeks later I’m venturing beyond Khao San with Fliss and Karen again. We bravely leave the safe confines of hippyville to check out the Thai version of a rock pub.
It’s Saturday night and I’ve been at work all day. Jess has departed and I call her to discover she’s in Chinatown with Fliss, Lisa, Karen, new girls Rachel and Jenny and an American lawyer guy called John that Jenny met on Khao San (of course).
When I get there I end up sitting next to him and chatting to him a bit. He’s an interesting fella; he got a job here recently and, much like us, left his life behind to check out a new one.
The food is gelatinous, expensive and pretty gross, but we soon depart. Most of the table goes home but Fliss, Lisa, Karen and I decide to check out a “rock” pub down the road at Ratchathewi. It’s actually pretty good. Decked out with band posters on the walls and the odd guitar dotted about the place, the only way you’d know you weren’t in London or wherever is the presence of the Thai staff.
A Thai rock covers band is playing. They’re quite hilarious. The female singer is pretty awful, and the band does an odd selection of covers ranging from The Cranberries to Ashlee bloody Simpson. They have a slightly different idea of what rock is here. Even Avril Lavigne gets away with it.
Between bands they play a learn drumming DVD, which is all a bit surreal until we realise the drumming teacher is the drummer form the second band. We all hope that he didn’t notice us ripping the piss throughout the entire thing.
The second band is quite good. Covers again, but more proficiently done and better song choices as well – they lean towards classic rock and heavy metal. Lisa loves it, being the big metal fan that she is, and becomes absorbed in the music. I become drunk and start playing air drums on Fliss’s head and breasts. I think I’m quite good. Fliss isn’t so keen.
When we start trying to pop unpopped popcorn seeds (the grammar in this is amazing, no?) in the candles it becomes clear it is time to leave and we pile into a cab home.
…going to the cinema.
The thought of Spider-Man 3 elicits much excitement in Jess, Lisa and I. We are sorely disappointed. Too many villains, too much misguided and unsuccessful ‘comedy’, and dance routines. No one wants dance routines in a Spider-Man film. Come on.
Pathfinder I go and see cos it’s raining and I don’t want to walk home in it. Walking home in the rain, however, would probably have been more interesting. A dull movie that doesn’t even have any good-looking people in it.
28 Weeks Later is amazing. Visceral, shocking and totally thrilling it hits the ground running and doesn’t let up for a second. I was fucking terrified the whole way through. Predictable ending though.
Pirates 3 is good fun. Maybe a bit too long but, as it’s tying up all the loose ends, makes so much more sense than the second one, which left me clueless. And it’s funny as well. That scene with Jack Sparrow at the bottom of the sea is hilarious.
…witnessing racism.
Karn, my chatty 18-year-old student, is a bit racist. He sits there chatting away quite interestingly when he’ll throw something quite racist, usually about Indians – Thai people have got a real thing about them, and are always slagging off Indian food as ‘disgusting’ – or homophobic. I bite my tongue, mostly. Though I do gently suggest in a roundabout manner that maybe they have the wrong opinion. Unfortunately it’s not the right place to be disputing such things. Jess experiences similar. She comes out of a one-to-one lesson one evening fuming after her student says she doesn’t like Indian food. “Why?” Jess asks. “Because I don’t like Indians,” is the answer. What do you say to that? We do what we can instead – go for an Indian on Khao San Road.
…having fun with Paul.
Now that James has gone Paul becomes a slightly different, more enjoyable person to be around. Deprived of an audience that listens attently to the sometimes amusing but mostly uncomfortable macho-fuelled tales of his sexual adventures, he becomes a bit more normal and fun. Jess and I take great pleasure in mocking him (there’s a running joke about the presence of Gabrielle on his iPod and his total lack of awareness about how uncool this is) and on the way develop something of a bond with the fella.
…joining Facebook.
Which results in the death of my blog. Sorry blog.
…getting ill.
Not very interesting. Working six days a week for up to 12 hours a day for a month takes its toll and I get man flu. I sleep in a lot and get over it. But damn I miss a comfy bed and a sofa and a TV – they would have cured me a lot quicker.
…shopping.
Sometimes you just need to right? I’m not a big shopper really, I usually just buy what I need and go and do something more interesting instead. But very occasionally I have an urge to just go and spend some money and hang out in shops and browse. Rather boringly, when the urge arrives this month, I go and do this in book shops. They are my new CDs. But then I go and buy some CDs as well. They are my old CDs.
…playing the field.
(See separate entry.)
…hanging out with Ekachai and Fon.
Last month Jess and I were given a couple to teach – she got the girlfriend, Fon, and I got the boyfriend, Ekachai. It’s an interesting experience, us teaching them, because we get to compare notes and talk about how they learn and use English differently.
They come in three times a week for ‘conversation practice’ for an hour and a half each time. It’s bloody hard teaching Ekachai because he’s not very chatty. I do lots of grammar with him because even though he told Binnie he doesn’t want to do that, his grandmother told her that he needs to. So I kind of throw it in with other stuff, try and make it as interesting as possible.
Jess has it the other way – all she does with Fon is chat – and between the four of us we develop something of a friendship. This results in Jess and Fon arranging for the four of us to meet up one Monday. I’m well up for this idea. Any chance to hang out with Thai people I jump at because ultimately that’s why I’m here – to learn about them and their culture. I didn’t come here to just hang out with a load of English people.
The Monday we meet follows a Sunday night (which has become my Friday night these days) out with Beer (more of that in a separate entry) and so I’m hungover and very late for our meeting. It’s Beer’s fault as well. He drags me to get something to eat...
...and then to a shopping mall for something or other. I take him with me to meet Fon and Ekachai; I figure it will add to the mix and be good to have another Thai English speaker to help the conversation flow more easily. It turns out to be a good, and entertaining, idea.Jess and Fon have arranged to go to Pratunam market so we meet nearby. Because Jess is starving we decide against going there and head to Siam Square instead. Fon and Ekachai take us to MK – a Japanese chain restaurant where you basically cook your own food. A big pot is brought to the table along with lots of ingredients – egg, meat, green vegetables – which the pair proceeds to chuck into the pot, seemingly indiscriminately.
Just as the food is cooking the whole restaurant grinds to a halt and the waitresses each stand by a table and do a little dance routine. It’s bizarre, and in my hungover state I’m more confused by it than bemused. Then they stop and carry on as if nothing has happened. I’m not even sure it did. Yes, it did, I have a photo look:
Beer and I have eaten, stuffed our faces in fact, so we’ve just ordered drinks. Of course I try the odd thing that Fon throws my way, wanting to see my reaction. But it’s Jess who is really entertaining for them. The girl is not a big fish fan and there are a few things in the pot she’s not sure about. But with Thais present she’s more willing to give different foods a go, and even ends up liking some of them.
We go shopping around Siam Square, where I buy some shorts. Fon and Ekachai tell me they’re expensive, that I should go to Chatuchak market. And blimey I’d love to, but I work weekends and never have the chance. Besides, the shorts are still so much cheaper than in the UK. Jess chides me for thinking in pounds rather than baht, just as I did her when she first arrived. Point taken. But I love the shorts so I’m happy.
We go to Starbucks. What proceeds is one of the most amusing conversations I have during my entire time in Thailand. We talk about words and how sometimes if you say a word in a different way it means something different. I complain that the word khao in Thai has five different meanings depending on how you move your jaw. Beer tries me to get to say all five. Everyone’s in fits as I try. Then the Thais point out various words in English that can have different meanings depending on how you say them and I have to shut up. English is as hard as Thai after all.
…dancing to Oakie.
(See separate entry.)
…saying goodbye to Vicky.
(See separate entry.)
…seeing Shereen.
Another month, another random friend turning up to visit. Rather than being on her way somewhere, Shereen is on her way back from somewhere. My former colleague has been on a press trip to Vietnam as part of which she is making a brief shopping stop in Bangkok on the way back.
I’m working ’til half eight so there’s lots of texting as to where they are. By the time I’m finished Shereen is in Patpong Market shopping for handbags. Amazingly, considering she doesn’t know her way around, we meet up with little trouble. Amusingly she is with a bunch of the poshest journalists I have ever met. They are from newspapers like the Telegraph and wedding magazines and all talk in plummy voices. It’s most amusing watching them turn their noses up at the fake bags on offer at Patpong. Too cheap looking, apparently. Well, duh.
They filter into a shop, where the bags are more realistic, and inevitably more expensive. As I help Shereen decide on which bags are a good price by translating into pounds for her, one of the journos comes up and questions the situation. It soon transpires she thinks I work for the store and am trying to scam Shereen. God, do I really look THAT Asian?? It’s all quite amusing.
Once she’s bought some bags, Shereen and I go and get some food while the others head back to the hotel. We have a good catch-up about my old work, what’s been happening since I left and how certain ‘difficult’ colleagues of ours are behaving. All has carried on much as it was before it seems. Amusingly I keep saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ when talking about PA, as if I still work there. Old habits die hard it seems, despite the fact I’ve barely thought about the place since I left.
We go to Shereen’s hotel, the rather swanky Millennium Hilton. It’s weird to find myself in yet another swanky hotel in Bangkok. I never imagined that would happen as often as it does. We have a drink with the journos, most of them are completely drunk, one older woman in particular. It’s her birthday apparently and she certainly seems to be marking the occasion. But she’s not a good drunk and keeps throwing her money everywhere.
Eventually they all head to bed and Shereen and I go for another drink in the swanky bar over-looking the river. We talk about certain colleagues again and she’s surprised at how candid I am. She tells me I’m good at pretending to like people and asks if I like her. I tell her I prefer to call it being diplomatic, but it does make me think. Am I two-faced? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t go out of my way for people I don’t like and my actions will certainly always guide my relationships with people the way I want them to go. I’m not ‘friends’ with anyone I don’t like, but on the other hand, particularly in a working environment, I just don’t believe in causing a scene or making a situation any more unpleasant than it already is. I just think that being diplomatic, two-faced, whatever you want to call it, makes a lot of situations easier to deal with and helps the world go round a bit better.
All that I keep to myself, by the way. Shereen and I just carry on gossiping and before long it’s two in the morning. She kindly offers me a bed for the night which I gratefully accept. A comfortable bed is a luxury these days. I sleep like a log.
The next morning is quite amusing. We have to get up early as Shereen has an early departure and the expressions on the faces of the PR people as Shereen comes down with me in tow are a picture. She texts me later and tells me I’m not gay enough - I’ve given her a reputation!
…reconnecting with the Thais.
Some chance meetings in the shopping mall above which I work bring me back into contact with the Thai friends I first made upon my arrival. I’ve not seen Ting, Sai, Aom or Aor since Mengly left, despite my best intentions. I bump into Aom a few times as she works in the mall, but her limited English and my even more limited Thai makes it difficult to proceed beyond hello.
But then I bump into Sai with a male friend of hers. At first I think she has a new boyfriend, a new haircut which makes her look much sexier only adding to my impression. But she tells me this is not the case. She even thinks he might be gay. I shrug and give him a glance. He could well be, but my gaydar is terrible.
We arrange to get together the following Friday and after my session with Mine and Muang I go and meet them at the Swensens ice cream joint in the mall. This is a Thai treat – a Western idea that they have taken and made their own by treating the whole thing as quite an event. I suppose compared to noodle soup on the street it is.
Aom’s there waiting when I arrive, which is a bit disconcerting, but somehow we manage to communicate, much better than we have any right to, given the language barrier. Soon Sai, her male friend and Aor turn up and we order some ice cream balls with chocolate fondue. Amazing.
We chat about Mengly. None of us have heard from her since she left. I put it down to her having a bad experience in Thailand and wanting to forget about it. I certainly don’t take it personally. She was a strange girl, with that slightly different take on the world that Americans have. I don’t think she was ready to venture out into the world either; she certainly had a fair few issues back home which she needed to sort out first.
After Swensens we head to the soi for steak and chips. It’s been awhile since I’ve done that as well. I enjoy spending time with these girls again. I’ve no idea what they’re saying half the time but there’s enough of a level of communication there to know that we like each other and have something to offer each other.
We go back to Sai’s to watch a DVD. Forrest Gump is the choice. I’ve not seen it since it was at the cinema so it’s good to watch it again; it’s a clever and enjoyable film. Aor wants to watch it with English subtitles – a lot of Thais learn and practice their English this way. But Aom is adamant it has to have Thai subtitles. Aor makes up for this by asking me the odd question throughout the film. I’m teaching even now and I really don’t mind.
Aor and Aom walk home with me, which is a relief cos it’s late and the soi dogs are out in force. They bark a lot but stay away from the three of us. I make it home with everything intact.
…reading some books.
I speed through The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. It’s an ingenious little novel about an old man who is killed saving a little girl in an accident at the fairground where he works. He then finds himself in heaven where he meets five people he has an adverse affect on during his life, whether he realises or not. It’s quite a page turner, not least because of the stories each person tells, but also because you’re dying to know who he’s gonna meet next. It’s a thoughtful little piece as well with the message that, no matter how insignificant you think you are in life, there are always a host of people out there whose lives you touch in often extraordinary ways. Beautiful.
I follow this with Spartan by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, a historical novel set during the times of the warrior race. It tells the tale of two Spartan brothers separated at birth due to those people’s policy of discarding the weak in favour of the strong. But the ‘weak’ brother survives and grows up to reclaim his destiny, etc etc. It’s all pretty predictable, but violent and exhilarating fare, though I expect my enjoyment of it was partly fuelled by my love of 300 as well.
And I soldier on with and finally finish Anne Frank. The end is, of course, devastating, despite the lack of sympathy I had with any of the ‘characters’. It’s the senselessness of their predicament that really gets you. And no matter how annoying a teenage girl is, reading about her early demise is made no easier.
…filling the Jess-sized gap in my life with Michael Schofield.
Jess, rather inconsiderately, goes on holiday to the islands. Something about not having seen the sea yet or something, I don’t know, who cares. All I know is that I’m being deserted without a second thought. I’d never do that to her. She’s so selfish.
Thankfully she leaves her computer behind along with the entire first series of Prison Break. I’ve never been much interested before but Jess and Paul and Fliss and others keep banging on about how good it is (hearing macho man Paul making camp shocked noises as he watches it in the computer room at work is most amusing), so I take a look. By taking a look I mean watching the entire series from beginning to end. You’ve got to be thorough haven’t you? I must admit, as TV shows go, it’s mildly diverting.
…having a most random day.
It’s the final day of May. I’m hungover from a night cavorting with yet another Thai lad (see separate entry). It’s a Thursday but I have no work today thanks to Visakha Bucha Day, a Buddhist holiday that commemorates three important anniversaries in the life of Buddha: his birth, his enlightenment, and his death.
To celebrate this I go and get a McDonalds. I’m sitting there feeding my hangover when Aor walks in. She says she saw me as she was walking past. She’s out shopping. We chat a bit. She asks my advice about her English degree and where she should study further. I know little about foreign students studying in England or America but tell her a bit about the relative expense of living in both places. She goes off to shop while I head back to the flat wondering what to do next.
I bump into Vanda and Ricky on the way. They’re off to have a coffee at Starbucks. I join them. We’re so Buddhist.
We sit and chat about the big news from last night – the constitutional tribunal’s verdict on whether Thai Rak Thai – the party that was ousted from government in a military coup back in September – and the opposition Democrat Party were guilty of electoral fraud. The verdict meant a lot to Thai people – if both parties were found guilty they would be left with a huge political vacuum. If both cleared, people would start to wonder whether a coup was necessary. As it was, the Democrats were cleared, while the popular Thai Rak Thai party was found guilty and all its 111 members, including ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, were banned from Thai politics for five years.
The three of us sit there trying to untangle the intricacies of the politics here, which of course are mixed in with a culture and way of thinking that are different to our own. It’s nice to have some intelligent conversation occasionally. I can’t do it too often, but every now and again it makes a nice change, don’t you think?
Vanda is leaving on Tuesday to go to Oman, of all places, to start a new teaching job there. We talk about our future plans; she very kindly offers me a place to stay at her folks in New Zealand. Then we go for a wander.
As we walk around the mall our intelligent conversation is forgotten and we marvel at a strange fairground-style attraction. It’s a plastic woman dressed in some S&M-style gear at which you throw balls. A small child is enjoying this contraption when we stumble upon it. We consider whether this is appropriate or not. But this is Thailand, who cares?
We then go into Central department store and head to the magic counter in the toy section. There we spend an hour or so watching magic tricks and playing with toys. Both Vanda and Ricky buy tricks but neither is able to pull them off with quite the aplomb the assistant did.
They then head off to the cinema to watch Wild Hogs or something equally unappealing. I’m not THAT hungover, I decide, and go back to my room to watch Prison Break.
Jess calls. She’s not spoken to anyone yet. She’s been there a few days! She has the same problem as me – it’s all groups or couples. But she has high hopes for the Full Moon Party tomorrow. I wish her luck.
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