So I haven’t posted in a while. So many things happen daily and I often think – I should put that in my blog and then a week or more will go by and I sit staring at my blog trying to remember all the things I was going to post in here! And by the way, John if you are reading this – I haven’t gotten the info on Siem Reap yet – the lady wasn’t there last week when I went by the Embassy so I’ll try again sometime this week!
Last week I took the plunge and started taking Thai language instruction at the Berlitz center. There are various locations in which you can take Thai here – you can even get someone to come to your home for instruction. Berlitz is quite pricey but I have heard great things about it. I really like my teacher – her name is Rueng – which is short for her actual name that I swear must have 30 letters in it. Her last name is even longer. She is a great instructor and we work well together. She is patient with me as I learn. Her English is outstanding too and I learned she is married to an American from – get this – of all places – Baltimore, MD. She has been there and LOVES crab cakes! She is very easy to understand and writes everything out phonetically for me. I must be learning something because I can now recognize some words when I hear locals speaking to each other. The Berlitz center is walking distance – it’s about a mile or so away and takes me about 10 minutes to walk there. I go on Monday and Wednesday from 915 a.m. until 1125 a.m. and on Thursday from 10a.m. until 1210p.m. While the lessons are fun and I am thoroughly enjoying them, I am mentally drained afterwards and now have worked an afternoon nap into my routine on school days.
One day last week on my way home from Thai I had this weird experience. So to get home I walk down Silom which is a major road through the city and then I turn off of Silom onto a little road which is probably the equivalent to an alley way for us back home and that takes me directly to my building. Anyhow, on the corner of the alley way and Silom was a man dressed in some sort of robe thing – looked like he was wearing a huge blanket and he was obviously blind. He had his hand on the shoulder of a woman (presumably his wife maybe) and she was sitting in a wheel chair and was also blind. He had a little box with a wire to a microphone and he was singing some traditional music. The streets were particularly crowded at this time due to the lunch hour and there was a sea of people ahead of me sort of flowing in a wave-like manner through the streets. As I looked ahead and saw this man and all these people, along with all the markets and street vendors, it was almost like a de-ja-vu experience – sort of like I was watching a movie and what was in front of me was a scene in a movie. This feeling continued as I walked down the alleyway to my building. I was truly the only “round eye,” as Joe calls us OR “farang” as the locals call us, in the crowd and all eyes were, no doubt, on me. I never felt in danger – just felt as though I was being sized up!
I went to get a foot massage in the spa in our building last Sunday with my friend Jackie who was visiting from Tokyo. The lady giving the foot massage patted my legs in the beginning and said, “Ohhhh big leg, very big big leg” as she laughed hysterically. I am not sure at what point the Asians are taught that it is acceptable to point out to another human being how big they are – but someone seriously needs to look into changing that when educating these people. Now I had been warned ahead of time that they think all “farangs” are HUGE and well duh compared to them, this is a very accurate statement and I was warned that they aren’t shy about publicly acknowledging this either. So it did not shock me any. It was one thing for her to make the comment but to continue to laugh for quite a while the way she did was just not necessary. However, I have heard worse, much worse. We know of a lady who got into a taxi and the driver laughed at her and dished out insults about her size. She eventually asked him to pull over and she got out – I don’t blame her. I’d have done the same thing. Unbelievable. I told my instructor, Rueng, about my story and the other ladies story and she taught me how to say back to them in Thai, “Excuse Me! It is not funny!” She told me not to hesitate to use it and she bets they shut right up and get quite embarrassed when I say that to them.
We got our shipment of household effects in from the US and that was one happy day in the Ollei household. It is so nice to have our own stuff. It took us a while to get everything set up but we have managed for the most part. Though we aren’t completely there – the computer desks we were furnished with do not have any drawers or cabinets so we have nowhere to store office supplies – extra inks, paper etc. So we are looking into ordering from either our landlord or from the embassy some sort of cabinet fixture that we can store these items in. We also still need to hang our pictures which is not as easy as one would think. So the walls over here are made of concrete so you need a special tool to drill through it. But we can call the maintenance man to come up and drill the holes once we mark the walls. We still need to mark the walls though – all in due time.
On Friday we received our car here – yes we shipped our Toyota 4Runner to Thailand. I doubt we’ll drive it much here. Joe had to drive it home from his work and that was an experience. So when we picked it up there was NO gas left in it at all. So we had to drive to the old embassy compound to get gas there, which was about two miles away from where we got the car. Keep in mind they drive on the other side too – so you drive on the left side of the road but the drivers side is on the left – a little odd. Anyhow, it is a right turn into the compound and you cannot make a right turn there so you have to go past the compound and then make a u-turn. Joe did this at the height of rush hour on a Friday here in the city. I’m amazed we are still alive to be honest. The traffic here is insane and the people on motorcycles/mopeds are like ants swarming in and out of between the cars and on the sidewalks and anywhere they will really fit. You have to be extra careful so you do not hit anyone. In the end we managed to get home in one piece. We drove the car again on Sunday night trying to get to Carrefour which is sort of like a Wal-mart back home I suppose or maybe a little nicer? We had never been there before but were told roughly where it was – never found it and got completely lost twice as a result of looking for it. Getting un-lost took us a good 30 minutes each time. We managed to buy some of what we were looking for at a place called Power Buy. But I do sense another shopping trip in our future. Joe got to drive yet again today, as he had to take the car back to the embassy for its inspection, which it passed. We both now have a Thai Driver’s License – though I have not gotten brave enough to drive just yet and am not sure I ever will to be honest. We have NO tags on the car but were given a piece of paper – Thai on one side and English translation on the other – that basically says we are Diplomats and leave us alone even though we are driving with no tags! Apparently it takes about 60 days, give or take, to get your tags.
Joe informed the apartment management that our direct line is not working. We have two phone lines in our apartment – the house line is for calls within the building and the direct line is for local Thailand calls outside of the building. Well, I kind of cringed when he did this. Anytime the technician starts messing around with our phone and/or Internet, NOTHING works after he leaves. So of course, the day after Joe tells them this, Joe gets on a plane for a business trip outside of the country and I am left to deal with it on my own. Well they come up here and as usual screw it all up. The guy insisted our Internet was not working, and I swore it was working just fine. He kept arguing with me so I said well, I will show you. So I pull out my laptop and click on www.cnn.com and up comes CNN on the screen. The technician and the lady from the management office I swear had eyes as large as tennis balls at this moment. Neither of them could believe it and kept asking how my computer and my Internet could be working when it was not hooked up or plugged into anything. I told them it is wireless and I got blank stares and realized they have no idea what wireless is – my confidence in their ability to fix any electrical problem in our apartment further declined at this moment. It was a long stressful day with them, as they wanted to look at our Vonage phone too insisting that also did not work. I tried to explain to them not to touch it and told them it was nothing to do with the local phone line – they did not understand. I explained that the Vonage was an American line for calls back to America. Again tennis ball size eyeballs. I managed to fix our Internet and our Vonage phone, which they screwed up. Then after much patience, I was able to communicate with the lady from the management office who translated to the technician what the problem was and in so many words, FORBID them anywhere near my office, Internet, Vonage or computers. In the end after his second visit he got the two phones working but on his way out the door he was yapping about needing to fix the Internet too. I was so mentally exhausted and drained that I took an afternoon nap for three hours afterwards.
OK last funny story. So last Saturday night we went out to Lebua State Towers to their skybar with some neighbor friends. This is a high-rise building – probably the largest – in Bangkok. On the top floor they have this outdoors sky-bar that boasts amazing views of Bangkok and has a really nice cool breeze. So, on our way there our neighbor told us about taking pictures – apparently you can only take pictures of the view and of yourselves. You are not allowed to take pictures that will have other customers in them. The reason being is this is where a lot of Western men whom are having affairs with Thai locals will go with their Thai mistress. They were very strict about the pictures. Joe had a video camera trying to get video of the city but they told him no video allowed. So he just took some still shots. However, I cannot say that I saw that many Western men with Thai women there. Though it would not surprise me if there were. On that note, I am posting this and heading to bed. More to come later in the week I hope!
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