Slow: School Zone

I am a blithering, sleep-deprived idiot ... and this is just Day Three of an intensive 30-day CELTA training. To paraphrase the punchline of a very dirty joke, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't think I can take 27 more of these."

Thank you, red shirts: word of their imminent move onto Silom Road, where my school is, prompts an early end to class this evening. I take the third-floor sky bridge that connects our building to the Sala Daeng train station, so we don't have to descend to street level. On the ground below I watch soldiers facing north toward the red shirts' base camp in Lumphini Park and hear a military loudspeaker -- taunting the protesters, says Anton, a fellow student who speaks Thai. A thunderstorm threatens as smartly dressed office workers dart for the cover of the station, and what could be the last train of the night. I am on that sucker right behind them.

As of 9 p.m., the Bangkok Post web site reports that things are still quiet. But the worst of the troublemakers like to work at night.

Posting might be sporadic until I can get a decent night's sleep.

Back-to-school shopping

Big Greg has been written out of the story, so we need a new character. Meet Betsy, a fellow English teacher-trainee in my class, which starts tomorrow.

Betsy just earned her degree in Economics from UO and is starting a yearlong Thai adventure of her own before getting on with real life. In the apartment lobby I stumble across Betsy and her many bags fresh off the plane from South Dakota -- although "fresh" is clearly the wrong word -- waiting for hours for an apartment rep who might never come. She is wildly grateful to meet another IH Bangkok attendee, especially one who seems to know his way around. I hang out and share as many survival tips as I can until someone finally arrives to show her to her apartment.

The next day Betsy and I go on a supply run to Mall Bang Khae -- the same mall where Greg showed me around, only this time I get to play guide. We spend hours and hours wandering up and down gaping at stuff. The gaping goes both ways: at 6'1" and blonde, Betsy draws more than a few eyeballs, especially from small children and young Asian dudes.

At the mall I track down a nice pair of slacks, the "polite clothes" that teachers are expected to wear. The clerk, a pleasant middle-aged woman, punches up the price on her calculator ... and then punches up a second, lower price "without receipt," looking up at me inquiringly. A second clerk stands off to the side, eying me. I pay cash, they bag up the goods (in a generic shopping bag) and I am now party to petty corruption in Thailand. But at least the pants are a decent fit.

On Sunday, our last day before start of school, we visit Wat Arun, one of Bangkok's most elaborate and sacred Buddhist temples. Betsy and I are spiritually overcome by the steaming-fresh plates of authentic Pad Thai we enjoy at a vendor hut just outside the temple gates. The other stuff inside was pretty cool, also.

Holy crap!

Five grenade explosions, one dead, 75 injured on Thursday night at the Sala Daeng BTS station and other nearby locations along Silom Road. In other words, right in front of my school.

I have an email inquiry in to the course manager to determine whether a little carnage and shrapnel might affect the start of class on Monday, and how to dress for a war zone. Stay tuned.

Soup is good food

Every evening at 6, after the heat of the day, this bustling little clutch of food vendors opens for business in a vacant space along Ratchaphruek Road, next to the main entrance of my apartment. Three or four stalls in all, they serve up all sorts of wonderful street fare to commuters, taxi drivers and Metro Park residents alike. I eat there every night, with the cars whizzing by just a few feet away.

The old gal in the pink shirt cooks a wickedly spicy shrimp and basil over rice. The stand in the far background is big into pok-pok salads with grilled fish. But my favorite is still a simple chicken and dumplings noodle soup from the fellow in the foreground in the red apron. Thirty, forty baht (a little over a buck) for most everything.

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I am at the end of a self-imposed two-day chill-out -- not going anywhere, not spending any money, just kicking back and resting up for the start of English teacher certification, i.e., the reason I'm here. Because teachers are supposed to "dress polite," tomorrow I go shopping for the slacks I should have brought from home.

Ice cream topping of the week

After early supper at a hotpot restaurant, the waitress talks me into dessert. I choose the coconut ice cream. On her way back with my bowl, she stops at the condiment counter and sprinkles a dash of something on top. I wonder: Pineapple? Chocolate bits? Mango?

Corn.

I thank her and eat my ice cream and corn without complaint. But only this once.

Camera Aquatica, Part Deux

What I like about this picture is that it is taken with my back-from-a-watery-grave camera. Sure, the center focus is a little gauzy, but I'll open up the casing and hang it in front of the A/C overnight to continue drying. And all it cost me to fix my camera was a 65-baht mini-screwdriver set and a little patience.

I am half-tempted to taxi back to Mall Bang Khae and share this wonderful news with the sales fellow at the Sony Style store, but I know he'd feel sheepish: last night he takes one look and tells me, "Ohh, this camera ruined. Cost more to fix than replace. But here! Let me show you this new camera ..." As in, new camera for 11,350+ baht, not quite $400.

But all I can think about is how Mr. Sony Boy just popped a fresh battery into my camera and it fired right up. Sure, the image was murky, but certainly moisture-related. Dry it out and ...?

So I skedaddle to track down a screwdriver and then head for the taxi station downstairs, eager to begin repairs. "Metro Park," I tell the attendant ... who stares back, uncomprehending. And then I realize that I do not know the Thai name for my own apartment complex. How am I going to communicate to get home?

Solution: I race back up to the top floor of the mall, where the Internet cafe is, pull up the Metro Park Web site, and ask the clerk on duty to write down the name/address in Thai. Thirty minutes later, I'm back in The Room dissecting my Sony Cyber-shot.

The operation is successful and we expect a full recovery.

Two wild and crazy guys

Until I get a new battery for the now-dried-out camera -- or, dammit, a new camera -- I'm going to have to rely on stock photography for the next few postings.

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I hang out for an evening with Greg, the burly-handsome university teacher who's headed back to the states this week. Greg is recuperating from the previous evening of debauchery, which involved far too many beers with an ex-Marine pal and something about a bar girl he took home and ended up getting into a post-coital fight with. He is also in the process of breaking up with two marriage-minded girlfriends.

Greg is a man of prodigious appetites, and our game plan for the evening is to hit the Japanese buffet at one of Bangkok's deliriously gaudy malls. I am his able wingman in this endeavor as we lay waste to entire schools of shrimp, calamari and other aquatic delights.

Interesting twist on the conveyor belt sushi model: we each have our own pot of boiling broth recessed into the counter in front of us. The raised conveyor delivers a continuous procession of raw seafood, veggies, meats and other ingredients; we simply grab whatever we want, dump it in our soup pot, and in moments, dinner!

After we've done our damage -- and we are lightweights compared to many of the petite fellow diners around us, who can really pack it away -- Greg takes me on a tour of the mall, turning his rampaging-bearlike charm on every sweet young thing he sees. But here's the thing: he always scores a positive reaction.

Greg explains: "You gotta realize, we are nowhere near Silom or Sukhimvit of Banglamphu. There are very few farang in these parts. Hell, we might be the only white guys in this whole mall. We stand out, and that can work to our advantage."

In marketing, we call this product differentiation.

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The next day I venture into Silom to check out my new school. At the bottom of the skytrain station platform I run into the entire Thai army in full battle gear, waiting for the Redshirts to arrive. Meanwhile, citizens go amiably about their day, chatting on cell phones as they casually step around the concertina wire. It's as though a picture of a military deployment was Photoshopped into a Bangkok street scene. For a moment I stare goggle-eyed at the REAL MACHINE GUNS and then retreat back to Metropark, or specifically to its swimming pool.

Camera Aquatica

A show of hands: has anyone else ever jumped into a swimming pool with their digital camera in their pocket? Please tell me I'm not alone in this.

The same 5-second rule as food dropped on the floor applies here, right? Because I shoot straight out of the pool the instant it happens, yank the battery and the memory card, and set it all in the sun to dry. Here's hoping that I'm not shopping for a new camera tomorrow.

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At the pool I meet my first expat: Greg, a social sciences teacher at Siam University. Greg makes Brian Dennehey look like a shrimp, and I get the impression that he's a party beast who does OK with the ladies (pronounced tha lay-days). He's lived in Thailand for a few years, owns a condo here, and apparently knows the teaching scene. One of those guys who happily carries both ends of the conversation. As it happens, he's flying home to Seattle tomorrow for a few weeks, returning on June 6 ... and we realize that if we'd met just a few days earlier, I could have played caretaker for him and saved a bundle.

We agree to meet up for dinner this evening, which for me will be a welcome change from eating alone at the nearby vendor stall. Hey, I figure, what trouble could two single guys possibly get into on a Sunday night in Bangkok?

Borat gets a haircut

If I am going to function in this country as more than just comic relief, I really need to become a better communicator.

That means being able to express basic needs, such as telling the taxi driver: "I want to go to the mall." And then telling another taxi driver, "I want to go home now." Or ordering food from a menu that does not have pictures I can point to, or asking: "Where is a barber shop?"

Because I don't have the words, I do the snip-snip, fingers-to-hair pantomime for the clerk at the shopping center. She leads me over to the scissors, and even helps me find the right pair. I thank her, wait until she's out of sight, and then bolt out of the store.

Finally I do stumble across a ladies' salon that does the job. Many giggles. But also two luxurious shampoos, beginning and end, plus meticulous attention. About 8 bucks.

Today I re-read my Thai for Beginners book. And then read it again.

Foods that won't catch on at home, Part I

The Room

Metropark Sathorn is an enormous new apartment complex that in some ways resembles a military compound. Talk about your gated community: all entrances are manned by uniformed guards who snap to attention and salute smartly with a loud, cheerful "Sawat-dii khrap" as I walk by. Key card checkpoints, digitally coded door locks, security cameras ... this should reassure all those folks who advised me to "stay safe."

My studio unit is ... functional. Clean, new, air-conditioned, furnished, exactly how you would picture really high-end campus housing. Which is fine, because school is why I'm here and the two places I'll spend the most time are the study desk and the bed. Oh, and the pool. Three places.

It's the weekend, work is all caught up, and it might be time to slip into vacay mode.

Farewell to Phranakorn Nornlen

And so ends my third visit to this offbeat guesthouse in the heart of old Bangkok. Nothing fancy, just very quiet and relaxing. They have but two televisions, and both are used for decoration. You want entertainment? Go watch the parrots in the dining garden.

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Uh-oh.

I just now noticed that my passport came through the Songkran water festival about as well as if I had run it through the wash. Already chewed-up to begin with, its pages have crinkled and the stamps inside have started to bleed, including the one-year Thai visa I plunked down $175 for. I can already envision the steely glare from the immigration official at the airport, come June 7. Yes ... the "Hey, Stupid!" look.

(Sigh.)

Movin' on up ...

Note to self: next time bring a cell phone and pop in a cheap SIMM card. I realize this while trying to coordinate a rendezvous with the apartment rental rep who will drive me to the complex of brand-new units several miles outside central Bangkok. We have a plan to meet at the Krung Thonburi skytrain station at 10 a.m.

To make it easy for him to identify me, I email him a picture of myself, including the shirt and daypack I will be wearing. I even leave early for the station.

He has the picture. We have a place, we have a time. This plan is foolproof -- or would be, had I seen his follow-up email specifying exactly where to meet.

And so, he waits downstairs at the exit ramp, and I wait upstairs at the gate. Bottom line, we miss connections. Later, when I find the nearest wi-fi connection back in town, I read his string of testy emails. Sample: "Where are you. I am waiting at exit 2 from last 30 minuts. I have other works to do. Y u do not call me? I have told you to buy a sim card so we all save time. The owner is also waiting at the room. Because of not having tel we all are wasting our time"

Shorter translation: "Hey, Stupid!"

Happy ending, however: The sales rep does eventually try upstairs at the BTS station and learns from the very helpful woman gate attendant that I had been there all along and even borrowed her cell phone to try and call him. An hour later we finally do connect, I secure the studio apartment, and tomorrow I move in. More about my new digs soon, but it will be my first exploration of middle-class Thai society. For example, my landlady is a lawyer who also lives in the complex. (She and her boyfriend, also a lawyer, are both in their early 30s and stunningly gorgeous.) Whereas up until now my only experience has been with the street denizens of old Bangkok and service workers in the destination locales. No, not THAT kind of "service worker."

Hot and wet in Bangkok

Suvarnabhumi Airport keeps a wonderful culinary secret tucked away in a downstairs corner, which I stumble across while searching for the city bus shuttle at 3 a.m. I had already braved the depressing gauntlet of bland, overpriced, prefab feeding stations, unwilling to be yet another bleary-eyed tourist who makes their first meal in Thailand ... that.

Away from the high-traffic eateries, away from the bustle and noise and shuffling herd, is this cafeteria that serves mainly the Thai airport workers -- and it's great stuff, at street-food prices! No directional signs lead to it. And few farang must ever venture down there. The menu boards are predominantly Thai, with tiny-type English translations. I dive head-first into an immense bowl of this wonderful Tom Yum soup, a mere 40 baht (just over a buck) and can hardly wait for the day I fly home, just so I can come back here again.

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Here's another savvy traveler tip: see all those smiling taxi drivers out there along the curb, the pirates who know every fare-maximizing scam to run on jet-lagged white goofuses? Smile back, say "mai ao khrap" (no, thanks) and head on down to the free shuttle that takes you to the nearby transit center, where you pay under a dollar to get wherever you're going just as quickly. And it takes me only three trips to Thailand to figure this out.

The quiet, new-agey place I always stay is good enough to let me occupy the room well before the official afternoon check-in time -- like maybe 9 a.m! -- and I instantly drop into a coma for most of the day.

Late afternoon I venture out for a walk around the neighborhood and soon am completely drenched by giggling children and adults alike. This week is the annual Songkran water festival, essentially a great big water fight during the hottest season of the year. In 95-degree heat, the soaking feels great. It is also welcome cover, because without the water festival I would still be just as dripping wet. Perspiration is my mutant superpower.

My first authentic Bangkok street meal: a plate of what appears to be a chicken and pork stew over rice, all of which has been sitting on the busy sidewalk for hours in the tropical sun. And a cup of (presumably pre-boiled) ice water to wash it down. Hey, what could go wrong?


NEXT: Apartment hunting, and casing the school.

'Hey, Stupid!'

These are the first words I hear upon my arrival in the Land of Smiles. And, mind you, the plane has just landed and I am not even past the arrival gate yet.

It was an honest mistake, really. I was the last person off the plane and had the concourse pretty much to myself. Walking past a glassed-off waiting area, I notice that the security door is wide open, so I pop in to sit down and check email. As I pop back out and continue on, I hear a female voice call out the very un-Thai salutation.

I glance back at two bovine-looking gate attendants lumbering up, smiling -- incongruously, considering what was just said. "Why you come through there?" the one wants to know. I explain about the just-got-off-the-plane, the check-email, the wide-open-door-for-criminy-sakes, and then add, "But I guess my question is: 'Hey, stupid'? Really?" Still grinning, she goes back to close the security door, and I beat-feet it off to immigration.

The adventure begins!