A New Life in Thailand

December 11, 2011

Remember when I said I teaching Thai history. I wasn’t kidding. That’s why I need to study before I start teaching in a couple of days. I have been meeting with my advisor for the last couple of days. She has been pumping as much Thai history into my head. But I needed more. I decided to go visit the Museum of Siam on my day off, hoping to absorb more valuable and crucial information of my class subject. And Bobby, who is a history and anthropological enthusiast, joined along with me.

To get anywhere in Bangkok it takes several modes of transportation. In order to get to Central Bangkok of the Ratthanakosin District, we usually take a bus, tuk-tuk, the subway, and two different trains. Then we walk the rest of the way. This time, we noticed that traffic was a lot worse than normal. We could not seem to catch a bus. But it didn’t look worth it taking one since traffic was completely stopped. Instead, we decided to walk to the train station.

Soi Ramkhamhaeng traffic at all times of the day.

Paper Explosion. We have never seen traffic this terrible on Soi Ramkhamhaeng before. We were easily passing up dozens and dozens of cars. It wasn’t until we got to a main intersection until we realized why traffic was so bad. There a large pile of recycled paper in the intersection. There were probably hundreds of pounds of paper dumped randomly in the middle of the road. This will give you a better idea of the size of the pile. After street workers and random passersby cleaned up the pile for a good while, a crushed and dismantled taxi finally was exposed. The taxi was completely covered by the paper! I actually didn’t even know that there was a taxi underneath the debris until I reexamined my pictures from the scene. It was such a heavy hit that the taxi’s window was shattered and side mirrors amputated.

We still didn’t know how this all happened but we were amazed by the amount of strangers helping to clean up the mess. These people were taking a significant amount of time and effort from their day off to pick up the dirty loads of paper scraps. It was nice to see this kind gesture. Bobby and I wanted to help. So we helped shovel paper into potato bags and dumped them onto a nearby sidewalk. We continued doing this until almost every scrap was off the streets and cars were able to finally pass through smoothly (or at least more smoothly despite Bangkok’s endless and dreadful traffic).

We didn’t realize the extent of the accident until after the mess was cleaned. While observing the area, a young woman came up to me and thanked me for helping. I noticed that she just got out of a severely damaged car, each window was shattered or cracked and dents were consistent throughout the sides and the tops of the car. An electrical pole landed on their car, almost killing them. She explained that there was a paper truck that was driving on the overpass above when it lost control and hit the side barrier. When hitting the side barrier, it first knocked the electric pole off its support. But before the pole fell to the bottom street, it latched on to the side of the truck, ripping the truck’s exterior apart and causing an immense amount of paper to fall below. I looked around and there were almost a dozen other cars that were damaged from this accident. This woman’s car seemed to be in the worst shape. By the look of her car, it looked like her family should’ve been badly injured, if not killed. I’m glad they are okay. We started to head on our way. It was kind of nice having Thai people give Bobby and I thumbs up as we passed by. What an experience!

Apartment Shopping. After visiting the Museum of Siam, it was time to buy things for my new apartment. 

Big C. Thailand’s most accessible and widespread department store is Big C. You can find Big C’s on almost every block. It is similar to how available and convenient Target is in our community. Big C’s usually are several stories high, selling an assortment of cellphones, home goods, grocery food, clothes, electronics, and vendor type products (cheap clothes and downloaded movies). This is the main place to go if you need anything. And most of its products aren’t badly priced.

I didn’t need too much though. Though I brought a lot in my hefty luggage, I actually did not bring a lot of clothes.  I brought a lot of things with me as if I were going to be living in the wilderness for the next year: a year’s supply of medicine, contacts, batteries, bug repellent, books, and more. 

My Shopping List of Household Essentials—

Electric Kettle. I absolutely adore tea. Since I don’t have a stove top, I needed an electric kettle in order to brew my own fresh pot. Now, all I need a tea pot, tea, and the ‘pee pee boy’ I left in Taiwan.

Bedding. Finding bedding was the most frustrating of the entire shopping experience. I have a queen five by five sized bed. I thought it would be easy to find bedding for this size at Big C. But it wasn’t. I guess kings and twins are more common as the queens section was one fourth as big as the other two. I was hoping to find a set of pillow cases, sheets, and a light comfortable for under 1,000 ฿. But because of the lack of demand for queen sized bedding, there weren’t any. I had to buy each and every bedding piece separately, which becomes extremely expensive since bedding is particular costly. Sheets alone were 600 or 700 ฿. Comforters were 800-1000 ฿. Pillows were 200-400 ฿. Pillow cases were pretty inexpensive at around 100 ฿. Buying the bedding separately was going take out more than one fifteenth of a paycheck I haven’t yet even received. Oddly enough, solid colored bedding cost more than patterned. I think Bobby and I were in this section for over an hour. After finding out queen sizes weren’t popular, I gave up and just picked the cheapest of each item. It will have to do.

Others. A small table (to eat or work on), a plastic chair, a towel, cleaning supplies, bathing necessities, basic dinning ware (one set of utensils and cups), and hangers were really all I needed. I know that sounds like a lot but I’m furnishing an entire apartment—a tiny, already furnished apartment! Eh, maybe I am going too far.

After bringing all my bags of goodies home, I thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed my house until it was shiny and new. I unpacked my belongings, did my laundry, and organized my new home to a most comfortable feel. Finally, it's over. I'm settled.

Me, roughing it in Thailand. I swear, it's a lot smaller than it appears.

The itsy bitsy bathroom

View from my balcony