School is well and truly over and done with. Most of my classmates are scattered to the four winds -- some gone home or on holiday, others in search of teaching assignments -- but we all remain connected on Facebook.
I get to meet the six strangers who are enrolled in the current CELTA training cycle; a nice enough bunch, but clearly these people will NOT be singing karaoke together, pounding big Singha's and playing Presidents & Assholes long into the night. And probably none of their classes will be canceled on account of military action, either.
On Friday night I finally connect with a friend of a friend, Pan, whose family runs an English school here in Bangkok. Pan, a native Thai who went to school at PSU, knows the good watering holes in this town -- defined as "cheap food, cheaper drinks and not a dive" -- and we are soon met by a bunch of her very wasted English-teacher buddies, including a couple of fellow Portlanders. The party rolls on and I never get a chance to ask Pan about teaching, or schools, or anything related to the reason I am in this country. But we all have a danged good time!
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I bid adieu to my glorified dorm room at Metro Park and head downtown with Betsy for one last dinner, at the place near Siam Square where I met Pan and her friends two nights earlier. Fond farewells. We were terrific party buds for most of the last two months and I promise her that our paths will cross again. Betsy makes me shake on it.
Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.
After dinner, I ride the Sky Train as far as it’ll take me toward the airport. Getting off at night in unfamiliar territory, I ask for directions to the nearest bus stop from a fetching young Thai woman. She not only points it out but also walks me there, carrying my suitcase, and then puts me in a cab instead of the bus – “much faster,” says this lovely stranger.
These people are just amazing. This place is amazing.
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My Thailand adventure ends the way it began: watching young, uniformed Thai night shift workers dining on delicious, inexpensive street food at the secret cafeteria in a remote corner of Suvarnabhumi International Airport. For hours right along with them, I enjoy steaming soups, fresh-grilled chicken and rice plates and Thai iced coffees, all for a fraction of what the clueless farangs upstairs are shelling out for mediocre prefab slop.
Early Monday morning I climb into the magic silver space-time machine that makes Thailand all go away. The machine bumps and roars in the darkness. When I emerge 17 hours later, it is still Monday morning and I am back in Portland, and every damned thing is the same as when I left. It might take me some time to decide how I feel about this.
To be continued ...
