I teach some new pupils, try some more weird food with Aom watching on. She orders a meal for me one evening which has all sorts in it – heart, fried pig’s blood, intestine. They don’t let anything go to waste here; it seems they eat every part of the animal going. Even chicken anus is a delicacy here. There is NO WAY I’m trying that. I try each thing in my meal once before leaving it and just eating the noodles, spring onion and pork. Afterwards I try Aom’s dessert – coconut milk with multi-coloured sweetmeats, which are made from rice. They are gross – chewy and tasteless – but the coconut milk is nice.
Mengly, after finally getting some money out of ECC, decides she’s not going back, and arranges to go and visit her uncle and his family in Cambodia. It’s all arranged very quickly and they tell her they will come and pick her up tomorrow. It will be her birthday while she is away and so before she goes Sai, Aom and Aor invite us round to Sai’s flat to give us both birthday presents - mine belatedly because I didn’t tell them it was my birthday until we actually went out for it, and Mengly in advance because she’ll be away.
They give me a sheet of Thai silk for me to use however I wish, some Thai silk ties for work – one with elephants on – and a yellow polo shirt for me to wear on Mondays to show my love for the King. (I’d told them I was thinking about buying one and wearing it. I can’t wait to actually do that and see what reaction I get out and about.)
Mengly gets similar presents, but the best present for both of us is from Sai – framed mocked up pictures of us each as characters from King Naresuan; me as Naresuan himself and Mengly as his sister. They are brilliant and hilarious and go down very well. Mine now has pride of place on top of my wardrobe.
As the week goes on it brings various events; increasing aggression from the stray dogs as I walk home from Sai and Ting’s apartment, for example. Their barks at me get louder and more disturbing each time but I refuse to let them scare me into not walking home.
A new teacher arrives at ECC by the name of Jess - an English lass from Bedford. I’m a bit flippant about ECC and working here when I first meet her, which probably doesn’t help when you’ve first arrived in this strange city at a new job and I try and be more helpful as we get to know each other over the rest of the week.
I don’t realise it’s Valentine’s Day until Maew wishes me a happy one. She’s about the closest I’ll get to a Valentine this year. Her flirting has increased massively and I have to resist flirting back in case she gets the wrong idea. It’s difficult because I am very good at flirting. I do it without even realising it, which has got me into trouble in the past - I can do it with ease with people I’m not attracted to, but put someone fanciable in front of me and I turn into a quivering wreck. What’s that about?? Anyway, I resist with Maew cos she might think I’m interested, and the thing is I probably would be if it weren’t for the obvious. She’s gorgeous, and funny, and very bright. I’ve sat in on her computer classes before (she lets me use the spare computer while she’s teaching) and she’s an excellent teacher. In another dimension somewhere, I have met my Thai girlfriend.
I spend Valentine’s Day evening crying my eyes out. Not because I’m upset about my lack of love life, but because I mistakenly order a spare ribs and rice which is covered in chili seeds. Two mouthfuls and the tears are streaming.
One evening I come home to find The Biggest Bug In The World That Has Antlers As Big As Windscreen Wipers sitting on my door frame. I reach the top of the stairs, look up to my door and recoil in disgust, nearly falling back down said stairs. It’s huge, about the size of my door handle, which it’s only about a foot away from. I take some photos of the ugly motherfucker, trying to get as close as I can before my muscles freeze and say to me, ‘Are you fucking insane?’ I then have to gingerly reach over it to unlock my door. Then I gingerly step past it, back against the door. My heart skips a beat when one of its antlers moves. I take some more photos, praying it doesn’t decide it likes the look of my room, and then shut the door, safe in the knowledge that it’s too big to get in underneath.
I open the door later to see if it’s still there. It’s gone. This frightens me more and I expect it to jump down on me form the ceiling. But it’s nowhere to be seen. Then I look down the corridor and see it about half way down (that’s how big it is), CLIMBING INTO SOMEONE’S SHOE (Thai people leave their shoes by their front door, more because of worries about dragging Bangkok filth in than religious reasons). I shut my door and go to bed.
I phone Dad in the week. It’s strange to talk to him – a familiar voice from back home is something I’ve not heard for what feels like ages. The line is dead quiet, which makes me realise how far away I am. Not in a sad way, it just gives me a bit of perspective. The internet has made me feel closer to home than I actually am. I’ve actually leaned on the internet quite a lot as company – instant messaging, emailing, blogging. But the phone call weirdly makes me feel further away. But in a good way. This is the furthest I’ve ever been from England and it feels great and exciting. I feel like a traveller.
I text Mickey at one point. You may remember Mickey from such blog entries as One Night In Bangkok and, er, that’s it. He’s the Thai guy whose whiskey Tom and I helped drink. I figure it will be interesting to meet up with him, have someone to hang out with in the gay places. He gets straight back to me and is very keen to meet up. A bit too keen, maybe, but we arrange to meet on Sunday.
I get to know Jess a bit more as we eat together after work. She nice, easy-going, but is very shell-shocked at the moment, having given up a life of working as a designer for Unilever and going down the pub every night in Bedford with the same old people to come to this crazy city, teach when she’s never taught before, and meet a whole host of weird and wonderful new people. She’s on a sabbatical, taking six months off work to do this, so will be going back, but came for similar reasons to me – all her friends were doing big things like buy houses and have babies and get married, none of which she wanted to do, so she did this instead. But it later emerges that, like many Westerners here, she’s also running away from a broken heart, hoping that six months distance will ease some of the pain.
Her talk of going back makes me start to think about what I’ll do when I go back – teach? write? both? something else? – and where I’ll go – London? Brighton? Bournemouth maybe? My mate Gary lives there and I quite like it. It’s a city by the sea as well, which is my ultimate goal. But these are all just ideas. I’ve got plenty of time to think about that.
The weekend brings more work; all day each day. I watch Jess go into her very first class – a bunch of under-10s. She looks very scared! After work on Saturday I meet some of the teachers – Ian, Vanda, a guy called Jason who has floppy Hugh Grant hair – by the market over the road for a drink. I call Jess and invite her. I feel drunk after one bottle of Leo. Thai beer is fucking dangerous. And the bottles of it are always big. And cheap. Lethal. After three I can tell I’m drunk. I’m being all animated and excitable. When Ting arrives he laughs at me – he’s not seen me like that before. I don’t care I’m having fun. Before Ting arrives we slag off ECC and Bangkok a lot, after he arrives (and tells them he’s Thailand’s Brad Pitt), we’re a bit nicer about Thailand.
The next day I feel like shit. Seriously, I finally begin to understand what the hell is meant by the phrase ‘death warmed up’. I have a class at 8.30 on a Sunday morning as well, which lasts two and a half hours. When I say, “I’m never drinking Thai beer again,” I actually mean it. Although Singha beer doesn’t affect me in this way, for some reason, just Leo, Cheers and Chang. I shall avoid all of these like the plague from now on.
It’s not a good day generally, but I do have a brilliant lesson with ten-year-old Bell – we sing Rock Around The Clock together, which is fab. I don’t hear from Mickey, so claim the evening as my own. I eat at Sizzlers – burger, chips and coke, just what I need. Then, on a whim, I decide to go and see Babel. I’ve got a day off tomorrow so I figure I can catch the last showing.
It’s an amazing film – its shifting from country to country and language to language might be quite jarring to some but I find it’s perfectly pitched for me and my current flitting about the world. The only slight annoyance was that it’s quite a quiet film for the most part and some bloke a few rows back kept yawning really loudly through it, but this was more entertaining than annoying.
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