I’ve more or less settled into a nice routine here in Bangkok and I thought I’d share with you guys who were curious about the rote day-to-day experiences I have.
6:00 a.m. -the alarm on my phone goes off. At this point, when looking at the snooze ‘menu’ on my phone, should I select the up-and-at-’em 5 minute snooze? The semi-responsible 10 minute snooze? The slightly gluttenous 15 minute snooze or the I-might-get-fired-if-I-select-this 1 hour snooze?
Usually it’s three rounds of 10 minute snoozes.
6:30 a.m. -I throw my pillow to the side and do about 30-40 push ups on my hard-as-concrete mattress to get the blood flowing, which makes for a more alert morning.
6: 35 a.m. - I hobble to my shower closet. I turn on the spigot and cold water limps out of the shower head. I close the toilet lid because it’s right under the shower’s meager tragectory and I begin the daily chore of cleaning myself under cold water with little pressure.
7:15 a.m. or 7:25 a.m. - I’m dressed, I’ve packed my little briefcase (I have a camera bag that can hold my computer, my notebook, all my electronic plugs, my camera, pens and a few folded up paper towels for use during meals) and I’m heading down to the street to meet my coworker Laura, who no doubt has been waiting for me an x amount of minutes and will give me some bitchy, ” ’bout time!” remark.
7:20 a.m. - I walk down my street to a Chinese husband and wife vendor team who make delicious and fluffy fried bread goodies, which traditionally are dipped in a very hot bag of soy milk sweetened with raw sugar.
They met in an English class some odd years ago and the husband speaks English very well and is always interested in practicing his English with us, and I suspect the wife may be proficient, but she seems too nervous to carry on a conversation.
“Oh! Hello! Good morning, and how are you?” he always says, with minimal Chinese ‘Ingrish’ accent.
“I’m doing very well, and you?” Is always my response, which I say slowly and clearly for he and his wife.
“I’m doing very well, thank you,” he’ll always say. A pretty typical formal English greeting for Speakers of English as a second language. From there he’ll ask Laura and I how our students are doing, when we teach, what we’re doing for the weekend, or when we’ll visit China.
During this exchange, Thais are ravenously piling loads of the couple’s delicious donut-like fried bread into baggies and dumping baht coins in the tray before skirting off. He’s always separating, stretching or cutting dough for the bread in precise motions while the wife mans a large wok, expertly rotating the different bread chunks with large, thick chopsticks in the hot palm oil. The pieces shaped like an”X” have more of a salty flavor while the fried dough balls are sweet. I always get five. Two of the sweet donuts and three of the X donuts, but I rarely get the soy milk. I’ve grown to love soy milk, but hot soy milk heavily sweetened with sugar puts me to sleep no matter what time of day, so I stay away from it.
7:25 a.m. - We thank the Chinese couple and walk to the curb, watching for available taxis coming down Khun Thep Nontaburi. Instead of lit or unlit signs on the top of the taxis, the cars here have little signs in the windshield in front of the driver, and if they’re on, they’re available, and if they’re unlit, you get the picture…
I usually flag one down and get in the front seat, which is the American driver’s seat. I tell the driver, “Sawatdee kap, bai mon Latchapluek kap,” which means, “Hello, to Ratchaphruek College please.” Inevitably, my pronunciation is incorrect, or confusing. The driver looks at me while computing what I just said, then asks me again where I’m going. I repeat what I said before exactly the same way, and always the second time he says, “ahhhhh oookkaaaaay, mon LATchaPLUk…” emphasizing the flat and high tones of the phrase, which sound exactly like what I originally said, but that’s how it always goes down.
7:45 a.m. – 7:55 a.m. - We arrive at school. Only a 15 minute ride with no traffic, it can be much longer depending on the time of day and when we hit traffic lights. The cost of the taxi ride costs anywhere from 80 baht to as much as 115 baht ($2.34 – $3.37)
8 a.m. to 8:50 a.m. - I’m at my desk, soaking up the A/C from our ceiling-mounted blast chillers, checking my email, facebook or playing baseball.
*8:50 a.m. - I browse my class schedule, determine where I’m going and for what class, prepare my materials, gather up my books, CD player for listening excersises, whiteboard markers and the roll sheet and head down to class.
*All of my classes are three-hour classes, and start at either 9 a.m., 1 p.m. or 6 p.m., so sometimes I sit at my desk until about 12:45 p.m.
11:45 a.m. - I head down to the canteen (what they call the cafeteria) and choose one of several amazing meals for only 20 baht. $1 = 34 baht.
1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. - I’m in either in class or at my desk until 4:30 when it’s time to leave. At 4:30, Laura and I walk to the entrance of the college and catch a cab home, which is always more expensive because we have to drive about a kilometer before making a u-turn to get back on the Rama V Bridge.
5 p.m. - I hurriedly change out of my work clothes, carefully fold and hang them up in my armoir and change for water polo practice. It’s about a 25-minute walk to the Bang Sue MRT (subway) station, which is across from the train station. If I take the MRT to the Phahon Yothin stop (three stops away) I walk up Khun Thep Phahon Yothin about three miles to the pool where I practice. If I take the train, I have to wait an hour for the train, but it drops me off closer to the university, so lately I’ve been doing that.
6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. – I repeatedly get my ass kicked by the Thailand National water polo team and members of the Australian National team for two hours. I didn’t even have to train that hard when I was playing every day in high school, but here it’s brutal, but I’m grateful for the excercise and the privilege of playing with such skilled athletes.
8:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. - I make my way home by various means available: Either I walk back to the Bang Khen train station and catch the train to Bang Sue and walk home from there, or my coach Ben will drive me to a local BTS (Skytrain) station, which takes me back to the Bang Sue MRT station (same place as the train station) and I walk home.
9:30ish p.m. - I eat dinner outside of my building, usually Chinese Five-Spice Pork, which is a favorite of mine.
After dinner I walk up the eight flights to my apartment for more leg conditioning, then I unlock my door, brush my teeth and pass out…
3 Comments
July 7, 2009 at 11:49 am
The food looks fantastic and sounds even better when you describe it, the work does not look too unmanagable but the polo and exercise routines sound like torture.
Roscows, Hesses, Smitheys, Woodwards and us are meeting at the Brazilian restaurant in Ocala, Ipanema, July 14 to treat your mother for her retirement. That is a lot of food there too.
Meats the guys drool over.
I guess cold water is usual a lot of places. Claire and Carlos spent a week in El Salvador in a beautiful beach house with 3 other couples, California friends, and they had a cook for all meals but no pillows and no hot water. We are spoiled. At least you do have A/C at work. The college looks nice too.
You are having a great experience.
July 9, 2009 at 1:36 am
I gotta tell u bro, your writing style is addictive! If you ever decided to compile all your blog entries into some kind of travel log/book, I would totally buy it…there’s nothing worse than an obviously amazing trip being described in an intolerably boring way.
July 12, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Mmm this food looks soooooo good. You talking about hitting the snooze made me laugh out loud. You do that more than anyone Ive ever met. Haha.
That is so great that you get to play polo while you are over there! How lucky!