An Ordinary Day in the Life of a Farang English Teacher in Thailand

So I feel like my blogs of late have been less about my day-to-day life here than about the more notable moments I have experienced, visa run trips, bouts with sickness, extraneous mishaps etc. But the truth is my day-to-day life here makes up, well, my day-to-day life. Five days out of the week I am an English teacher, and while it may not be glamorous or particularly exciting, it is my life right now, and in its own, more ordinary way, worthy of attention. So I thought for this blog I would document an ordinary day of my life here in Thailand, as ordinary as a day in Thailand can be for a farang English teacher.

Monday. Monday was the beginning of a new philosophy for me. The previous week, despite only teaching two full days, I ended Friday exhausted and nearly in tears. I had come to terms with the fact that I can’t really discipline these kids (I can’t threaten them with grades seeing as I don’t give any and while I technically could threaten them with physical violence, I haven’t been a teacher long enough to resort to hitting them). The difficult classes were going to be difficult right up until the end, but there had to be a better way of dealing with it, there had to be a strategy where I wouldn’t end the class as an exhausted wreck. So in a moment of inspiration I decided on a new philosophy. Love. I’ll give you a few moments to stop laughing. Okay, get it out of your system. I understand. If I read that I would probably laugh too, but my philosophy stemmed from the book “Eat, Pray, Love” (which is sort of my new Bible). See, in the book Elizabeth Gilbert has a problem meditating because all of these intrusive, pesky thoughts keep interrupting. And at first she gets so angry at these thoughts that the whole experience is ruined. But then one day someone suggests that maybe the answer is to not get angry at these thoughts, to just accept them with, yes, that’s right, love.

And in a weird way this sort of parallels my situation. Because these intrusive, pesky kids in these classes are not going to stop running or wrestling or screaming or playing or throwing or whatever the heck they decide to do that day in their ongoing attempt to drive me bonkers. I’m not a Thai teacher. They are not scared of me. I can’t really blame them. Before my only reaction to these kids was anger, and that anger would consume me and ultimately ruin the class. But, in my moment of inspiration, I wondered, why not try love. Let these kids throw anything they’ve got at me (and sometimes they do, literally, frikkin’ paper airplanes, I thought only kids in movies or cartoons threw paper airplanes), and let me react with the only thing that will keep me sane, love. Kid sitting at his desk doing his homework, love. Kids dueling with their plastic rulers, love. Kid running around in giant circles (I kid you not), love. Kid riding on other kid’s back (again, kid you not), love. This doesn’t mean I’ll completely let chaos reign. Usually when I see one kid clobbering another I’ll intervene (which is approximately once per class). And every few minutes I’ll walk to the back and attempt to make the 80% of students out of their seats go back to their desks. But I’ll do it with love in my heart. And yes this may sound like I’ve gone over the deep end, but I assure you I have not snapped. Nor am I on any kind of mood enhancing drugs, legal or otherwise. I just figured it had to be better than letting anger get the best of me. And you know what, when I set out on Monday with this philosophy, shock of shocks, it kind of worked. It changed absolutely nothing about the classroom atmosphere. All it did was change my outlook, my mood, my heart rate, and that made everything easier. So hey, maybe, this hippie dippie philosophy has got something going for it. Embrace the love people.

So Monday was a better day from the start. Here’s how a typical school day goes. I walk into school, sign a little book to say I’m there, go up to the tiny “office” that houses me and about nine other Thai women (and one British guy), gather my things, then head over to the Kindergarten building. The Kindergarten building is across a little street from the main part of the school. It was built recently and it’s exactly what you would expect a building would be like if it was built for the sole purpose of housing a Kindergarten. The steps are tiny, little kid sized (which by the way really work out your calves). There’s a big playground in the main courtyard, with swings and slides and all sorts of wonderful little kid things. There’s even a koi pond in one corner, which if I were a little kid, I would be glued to. My class starts at 8:30 but sometimes when I get there the little Kindergarten procession is still going on. They have a separate one from the regular school, but around the same time. All of the kids gather in straight lines outside the building and sing various songs, some of which come with intricate dance moves (which somehow they all know). About a fourth of these kids sob throughout the whole thing (the Kindergarten comprises three levels, so the youngest ones are like two years old, you’d cry too). And one cool thing is that most of the parents hang out and watch until every last one of these kids is inside the building. Family is hugely important in Thai society, and you can just tell from these parent’s faces that it’s killing them to have to send their little babushkas off to school. You imagine a Kindergarten drop off back home and maybe a few parents hang around but most drop the little munchkins off in the carpool lane and then rush off to work or to yoga classes or to other parent activities, but here nearly all of the parents stick around, every single day, for a solid twenty, thirty minutes, standing outside the gate, waving and smiling until their kids are ushered into classrooms and out of sight.

So after this I walk up to the third floor to the English Center. And so begins the best part of my day. I love teaching Kindergarten for several reasons. One I have a designated Thai teacher in with me every day. This Thai teacher is intrinsic to me being able to teach for fifty minutes. She’s a wonderful lady who switches from scary to kind in about two seconds, which I think is sort of how you have to be if you’re teaching five year olds. She can quiet these kids like nobody’s business and I really wish I could take her to all of my classes. She also is invaluable as a translator, because five year olds don’t know a ton of English. Kindergarten classes are small, only 25-30 kids in each, but without her it would be impossible. Now I do teach classes of forty six and seven year olds without any help, so that might give you a hint as to how difficult that is.

The Kindergarten English Center is a wonderful, clean, brightly lit room with no desks which is how I wish every one of my classes was. Desks are the enemy. Desks allow kids to hide things and store toys. Desks are hazards if I ever try to play any running game (I spend the whole time tensed, waiting for a kid to knock themselves out and get me sent straight back to the United States). Also about 80% of the ESL games you find online are IMPOSSIBLE to play if you have desks in the classroom, especially if there are forty or fifty desks crammed into a classroom that should have half that many. But my wonderful Kindergarten English center is a desk free zone. There’s a huge floor space and the walls and shelves are lined with English related games or books or puzzles, all sorts of things that I can use in my lessons. There’s even a little bathroom right off the room that has tiny little toilets and sinks (so cute!) The fifty minutes I spend in this room are quiet and easy, two things that do not exist outside of the English Center. I can talk at normal volume. I can do so many things I would never attempt in another class because of the floor space as well as the help of the Thai teacher. And these kids, oh, I don’t know what happens to a child the summer between Kindergarten and 1st grade, but obviously something big, because the difference between these perfect, wonderful, adorable little babies and their crazy, hyperactive 1st grade counterparts is immense. When they come into the class they all run up to me and hug me and then when the class is over they do the same thing. They’re enthusiastic and they learn quickly (probably because they, unlike some of my other classes, can actually hear the words coming out of my mouth). Oh, Kindergarten. If I could teach Kindergarten all day here I might not ever leave. They’re perfect. We sing songs and play games and I never want it to end.

But inevitably it does and 9:20 arrives. I have a free period so I always try to grab a computer but this is tricky as there are two and a half working computers (the half is what your computer was like back in the 90s) and lots of teachers. If I can get a computer I spend the next fifty minutes g-chatting and facebooking and just feasting on the internet. If I can’t get a computer I go up to my “office”, sit at my desk and either read or try to make lesson plans. Sometimes I go to our school’s little snack bar and get water or canned coffee (kind of as nasty as it sounds) or a yogurt. I’ve befriended the lady who sells tokens, Pe Oi (you exchange cash for tokens to use for food) so I stop for a little chat where I try to speak Thai (which pretty much means asking her “how are you”). 10:10 rolls around and with it my first non-Kindergarten class. On Monday I have second graders which (minus the 2-4) section are pretty good. They’re old enough to not be as totally insane as the first graders, but young enough not to be smart asses. I teach my lesson using the white board, flash cards, games, whatever teaching device I can come up with that I think might keep them entertained. Sometimes I really feel like I’m a paid clown, that that’s really the whole point of my job at this school. The kids certainly expect that if their chorus of “play game!” is any indication. I never attempt to “teach” for more than ten minutes (by “teach” I mean me standing at the front of the room talking while they sit at their desks, 50% listening, 50% ignoring me), and even ten minutes is a stretch. I think that might be why it’s so exhausting. I feel like at all times I must keep things fun and zany. Games! Songs! Crafts! I’m supposed to be entertainment, educational entertainment, but entertainment all the same, like a PBS kids show. They have teachers who teach them English grammar. They even learn math in English. So after nearly four months here I have come to terms with my true purpose. I am an English clown.

I get to where there is only three minutes left of class and then I count up the points. Usually the kids will count with me in English (hey subtle teaching tool! See I’m crafty) and then one team is announced as the winner. The kids cheer and dance and I give the winning team high fives or fist bumps (I never initiate the fist bumps, they do, and each time I do it I feel like I’m a 100 years old). Then I get a kid to erase the board (this is not difficult, they usually end up fighting over the eraser like it’s made of chocolate) then make my triumphant exit. Then comes lunch.

Lunch is pretty much the same every day. I grab my tokens, go down to the cafeteria, buy a water, then go to the food line. I could get noodle soup but I always end up splashing myself and staining my clothes, so I usually go to the section where you get a plate of rice and your choice of several toppings. There are a few curries and a hot dog type dish, but I almost always get the same thing (I am nothing if not a creature of habit). I go for the omelet (mmm always yummy and they always eat omelets over rice here, which at first I thought was weird but which I might keep doing when I get home, that’s how used to it I am) and this spicy pork (I think it’s pork) minced salad. Some days they have these fried chicken pieces and I’ll get those, although it’s always a tad embarrassing because none of the other teachers eat them. They are, however, a big hit with the kids. I grab my silverware, put a little spicy sauce on top (they have a big bowl of it by the silverware and the kids put it on everything, they grow up with it so it’s their ketchup), then go back up to my office. There are a few tables in the cafeteria for teachers but all of the teachers who have desks in my office eat there, which I much prefer. Despite being here for nearly four months, I still get a lot of attention walking around the school, especially in the crowded cafeteria. I’ve perfect the look straight ahead walk, but a chorus of “HELLO TEACHER” follows me everywhere I go. Some kids are constantly trying to touch me, and after the germ fest that was my first two months here, I’m not so big on the touching. I feel like eating in the cafeteria would be tantamount to feeding time at the zoo, me being the zoo’s star attraction. I do feel that I am well prepared if, in the future, I ever become an instant celebrity, people staring, people reaching out their hands to touch you, people shouting out your name as you pass. There’s really only one way to deal with it. Accept that you’re going to be stared at as though you have an extra head and keep walking.

After lunch comes two more classes, and then I have a wonderful three hour break. Usually if it’s Monday I’m going to need groceries so I use this break to walk the five minutes or so to the main street in town and visit our little Tesco Lotus express (about the size of a CVS). I load up my shopping basket and every time I get in line to pay there’s a moment where I look down and think, wow, my purchases could not be more American if they were wrapped up with a big red, white and blue bow. I always get whole wheat bread, a half gallon of milk, tuna fish, corn flakes (they are sold everywhere here and despite earlier reservations I’ve become an avid fan) and apples. Sometimes if I’m out and can’t wait to go to the bigger Tesco Lotus or Gourmet Market in Bangkok, I get a little jar of Skippy Peanut Butter. Like I said, could not be more American. The girls that work there know me by now and I always try to get through the transaction without speaking English (not too difficult seeing as all I have to say is hello and thank you). If I have heavy stuff I take a little bicycle cab home. They’re really common in my town and the easiest way to get around unless you want to take a motorbike (which I never will, I’m sorry but I’d really like to leave Thailand with all of my limbs). I felt bad at first taking pedicabs because all of the drivers are about 60 years old and look as though they’ll have a stroke if they go more than two blocks, but then I realized they’re making money and they must be stronger than they look, biking people around in this crazy heat.

I get back to my apartment, rest or work on the lesson plan for my extra class that starts at 4:30. The first few weeks I napped but I try not to now, because once I overslept and was late. I’m very bad at waking up to alarms, especially if I’m napping. I tend to get disoriented during afternoon naps, so often I’ll wake up, confuse my alarm with something else, and then just go back to sleep. So as a precaution I’ve tried to stay awake despite being utterly exhausted by this point in the day.

A little after four I head back to school for what is the hardest part of my week. I teach this extra class three times a week and it is the same fifteen kids each time (the first month it was thirty kids from four different grades so it has gotten easier). So I have to come up with three extra lesson plans every week that cover new subjects not taught in my regular classes (I have all of these kids at other points in the week so I don’t want to repeat what I’ve already taught). I’ve tried to get creative and some things have worked better than others, but at this point in the afternoon the kids are cranky and hot and tired (so’s the teacher). They’ve spent the last half hour before class stuffing their faces with candy from the school’s snack bar, so in addition to the crankiness they’re also hyperactive. It’s trying, I will say that. But I get very well compensated so in the end it’s worth it. 5:30 rolls around and I’m done, free!

Sometimes I’ll go online if there’s a free computer. If not I’ll either go home and make dinner (a favorite of late, tuna sandwiches, yes such a departure from what I eat at home) or I’ll walk back to the market and get food there. Usually I’ll go for Pad Thai. There are two vendors, both with excellent food and I try to alternate so as to not offend either of them. I order my Pad Thai with dried shrimp and stand while they make it. At this point the market is crowded with students in their uniforms (there are three different schools in like a 1 mile radius), and people home from work picking up dinner. The air is hot and sticky, and most days it has either already stormed or will soon (remember it’s rainy season). I stand, usually covered in sweat after the long day, and no matter how many times I’ve seen them do it I always watch, fascinated, while they make my pad thai.

It takes about a minute and costs less than a dollar so it’s going to be real difficult for me to go home and sit at a pricey Thai restaurant and wait a half hour for my 10 dollar pad thai that’s half as good. The lady who cooks it has clearly done it enough times where she could make it with her eyes closed. First she cracks an egg onto the large skillet that sits over a small flame. A few seconds later after the egg has started to cook (the skillet is kept super hot so it cooks fast), she throws the noodles in, then she pours a brown liquid over the noodles (nothing is measured, nothing has to be). Next comes some tofu, some sugar, the dried shrimp, some brown stuff which I can’t really identify. Last come the green onions and sprouts. Everything is tossed together, the delicious smelling smoke wafting up from the skillet, mingling with the smells of all the neighboring street vendors, chicken and duck and fish and assorted fried things. Taxis and motorbikes rush past only inches away. Kids talk loudly as they walk past sipping on iced coffee drinks (hugely popular here). Mothers loaded down with a dozen different bags stop to inspect the food at various stands before moving on.

Finally my pad thai lady takes the contents of the skillet and dumps them onto a plate which is passed off to another woman who works there, assembly line style. Skillfully and quickly the other woman takes the content of the plate, dumps some crushed peanuts on it, wraps it in paper, ties it with a rubber band and puts it into a plastic bag. She then takes a bunch of green onions, a handful of sprouts and a packet of dried chilis, puts those in the bag too, and hands them to me, a very happy customer. I give her my 25 baht (again that’s less than a dollar) and walk home.

There’s a quicker route but I usually walk over to the road by the river. It’s a quieter street and I like to walk past all of the restaurants that come to life at night all along the river. They’re not restaurants as you would imagine, just a collection of low tables on top of carpets (you sit on the ground). The kitchen is a big stove and some counters under little awnings. By 6 these places start to get crowded, people sitting on the ground enjoying soup or rice with a cold beer. I reach my school and cross over one street, then walk a few more minutes until I get to the tiny alley where my apartment building is, almost directly underneath the huge suspension bridge that leads to Bangkok.

I usually pass the daughter of the man who owns the building. She’s in her twenties and runs the building’s office and she has a four or five year old son. At this time of day they’re usually outside playing badminton or some kind of game. Sometimes one of the men who works at the pub next door (also owned by the man who owns the building) plays with the little boy while his mom takes down laundry from the hangers outside. I wave to them, reach the door to my building and walk up the stairs to my apartment. The first thing I always do, even before turning on the AC or eating my dinner, is to take a shower. There’s no hot water and I’ve realized that the best way to deal with this is to take showers immediately after coming inside when the apartment is still warm from the day.

And then a little after 6, with the sky darkening (it gets dark here around 7 every day) I finally sit on my bed, put on some TV on DVD, eat my delicious, cheap dinner, and relax. And that’s an ordinary day, maybe not the most thrilling thing in the world, but it’s how I’ve spent most of my minutes and hours here in Thailand. And I have to say despite the crazy kids and the heat and the no hot water, I will miss these routines when they come to an end in a few weeks. Whenever I reach my apartment building now after a long day teaching, I have that unmistakable feeling that you get after truly living somewhere, even if just for a little while. I feel like I’m happy to be home.

I Love This Island

me lounging on Ko Samet, the island I love dearly, but which does not, apparently, love me back in return



the Ko Samet version of a restaurant (this was the one at our hotel)



fancy a coconut? you dont even need to get up from your beach chair

tree house bungalow (the only form of accomadation I've ever stayed in there)

how could you not love this island?

It is a Tuesday afternoon around 12pm, and I am not at school. School is in session. Despite the government holiday tomorrow (Mother’s Day, aka the Queen’s birthday), today and yesterday have both been regular school days. From my apartment I have been able to hear the various and often loud noises coming from the secondary school next door. Around 10am there was a man talking very, very loudly into a megaphone and then some kind of singing contest? Concert? Impromptu dance party? This was all in Thai of course so I sort of have to just guess.
So why you ask, am I at home? Why am I not hard at work corralling second graders, chasing down wayward ten year olds, teaching a lesson on items of clothing (which was supposed to be my lesson plan this week)? Well the answer goes back to Ko Samet, where I spent this past weekend. Now I still have my passport (I didn’t bring it, nor will I ever bring it with me anywhere again unless it is absolutely necessary). I still have my phone, camera, money. No my lovely, little Ko Samet didn’t take any material items from me this time. It did, however, take away the use of my right foot, at least for the next few days.

“Liz!” I can almost hear all of you shout in exasperation. For the last time, stay away from that island. That island has it in for you. And well, maybe it does. But as smart as it would be for me to stay away, as practical and as logical, I’m fairly positive that I won’t. Because I love Ko Samet, and as I mentioned in a past blog, sometimes the things you love mistreat you. Sometimes they put you through pain or hardship. But if you really love something, the way I love travel and my dear Ko Samet, then it’s simply irrelevant.

So now for the short hand tale of how I tore a muscle in my right foot. Don’t worry this blog isn’t about my misadventure, this blog is a love letter to Ko Samet. But for posterity I must first record my less than graceful mishap.

There are two things you have to understand. One, I am a complete and total klutz. I know a lot of people say that, but in my case, it’s really, really true. A year and a half ago I fell down a flight of stairs in Charleston (completely sober and in flats, and nobody pushed me) and bruised my leg so bad that even now, a year and a half later, it’s still bruised. A couple of months ago in Bangkok I slipped (in my defense it was monsooning at the time and I was wearing my zero traction, worn down flip flops) and landed on my rear so hard I was sure I had fractured my tail bone. I fall a lot. I fall in flats. I fall in heels. I fall on pavement. I fall on dirt. I am an equal opportunity faller. I will never be one of those women who can be described as graceful. Me and coordination do not get along. I’m one of those people in yoga classes who falls down repeatedly whenever we try and do a balancing move.

The second thing you must understand is that Ko Samet has one road and “road” is putting it nicely. It’s not paved. It’s not flat. It’s not straight. It is a red dirt road that winds around the exterior of the island and it is chock full of pot holes and giant craters. Whenever it rains this road turns into a muddy, slippery mess and the potholes grow and multiply. It had rained in Ko Samet before I arrived on Friday night. I got there around 8pm (after buddying up with some random girl travelers on the bus from Bangkok and sharing a speedboat with them) and met up with two of my teacher friends who were already there. We went out, we had a couple of drinks. And around 2am we decided to walk back to our bungalow (another facet to this story, NOTHING good happens after 2am, one of the truest and most often ignored rules in our world). We had two choices. We could walk along the beach (we were at a bar that was one beach over from where we were staying), but then we would have to walk over a large series of rocks (the same rocks incidentally that had been the scene of the purse snatching crime). So thinking it was the safer choice (and because I had no fond memories of those rocks), we took the road. It was dark. The moon was hidden behind clouds and there aren’t a lot of streetlights in Ko Samet. I was wearing said, slippery, no traction flip flops. We picked our way tediously through the mud and holes for a few minutes and then boom, it happened in an instant.

Foot in hole, wrenching, twisting movement, Liz down, foot hurt. I knew right away something was wrong, worse than just a mild sprain. I could put some weight on it but it hurt, a lot. I hobbled all the way back to the bungalow (which luckily this time was a different hotel, not one of the ones where you literally have to climb a miniature mountain to get to the room) and then examined my foot underneath the porch light. A lovely bruise was spreading over the top of it, even though it had only been a few minutes since I fell. The next morning I couldn’t put any weight on it at all and it was swollen to boot. One trip to the “clinic” later (I feel like a lot of things on Ko Samet have to be put in quotations, like the “police station” or the “post office” which shares space with a hostel’s internet room) and I was diagnosed, torn muscle, no walking for seven to ten days. I was given a pair of crutches (unlike any crutches I had ever seen, these ones you don’t put your weight under you arms, you put your weight on these little hand rests about half way up, they seriously look like old school, polio crutches, in fact they may well be), and sent on my merry way. Let’s just say the rest of the trip was interesting. There’s nothing handicap accessible about this island. Everything is up or down crazy, winding, muddy hills. Our bungalow was up a nice, steep set of stairs (no railing of course). And then there’s the sand, which isn’t the easiest surface to crutch on. It was just like the time I broke my foot at summer camp. At the time I thought summer camp was the worst place to be on crutches, but now I’m fairly positive it’s a Thai island.

I limped through the next couple of days (still enjoying myself because while I couldn’t swim or take any long walks, I could still sit in a beach chair and read, which ain’t too shabby a way to pass time) and then came the most arduous part of the weekend, the ferry back to the mainland. To get on the ferry I had to get down a pair of steep concrete steps (with water on one side), get through on empty boat, and then climb onto the full one. To get off I had to cross a narrow wooden plank, get up a pair of steep, rickety wooden stairs, then crutch my way down a wooden dock (with a good couple of inches of open space between each plank). Suffice it to say I had help.

So there it is, my latest mishap, one in a long series. I’m pretty much immobile right now, because to get to the market I would have to crutch for a good half hour to forty five minutes in the hot sun (normally it takes about ten to fifteen minutes walking but I am not a fast crutcher). The landlord of my building saw me get out of the taxi on Sunday and immediately rushed to my aid, carrying my backpack to my room, giving me his cell number if I needed anything, and even showing up yesterday morning at 8am with two bags full of breakfast foods (a 711 hot pineapple toasty, corn and bean yogurt (yes that is a flavor here, weirdly not too bad), gyoza (of course) and two cans of pasteurized milk). But like I said before, this blog isn’t just about my inability to go a full month in Thailand without some kind of minor calamity.

It’s about Ko Samet, beautiful, tropical, quirky Ko Samet. I love this island. Have I mentioned that? Well I’ll put it in one more time just in case. I love this island.

I love getting there at night (which is the only time I have arrived in all of my three trips). I love getting off the bus in Ban Phe, feeling the warm, breezy, salty air. I love the speedboat over to the island, whipping through the night air, going airborne with every big wave, ocean spray in your face and hair, and not caring because ocean spray is so much better than the alternative, sweat. I love when the speedboat rounds the turn in the island and you see Hat Sai Kaew (the backpacker beach, where I’ve stayed each time in true backpacker fashion) and suddenly the shore is a blur of color and light (but not in a horrible, over-crowded way, just in a lively, vacation way). I love Ko Samet almost the same at night as I do during the day. There is nothing better in this world than getting to the island after a long week of work, after a five hour journey, putting your stuff in your room and then going to one of the many restaurants and bars (all right on the sand). You sit with your feet in the sand, sipping a cold drink, with the water sometimes only feet from you, or sometimes coming right up to your feet. And you breathe, truly, truly breathe.

I love the mix of people. Yes it might be a little touristy, and some of these tourists can get loud and drunkenly obnoxious. But a lot of them are there for the same reason as you, to relax, to have a fun beach weekend and just take a break. In one night you can have conversations with people from a dozen different countries. On Friday night this past weekend (pre-foot hurting incident) we found ourselves crowded around a tiny little bar, right on the beach. Our bartender was Cambodian (he wore board shirts and a tie and nothing else), the guys to our left were British, the guys farther along the bar were Swedish (by the way, is there a single person in Sweden who does not have platinum blonde hair?). There was a Thai women and a Western man at a table behind us with their gorgeous child (all of these children who have one Western parent and one Thai parent are painfully gorgeous). And we all happily chatted and sipped our cold beers while Bob Marley or Jack Johnson or some other typically beach music played in the background (and yes it’s a little clichéd but that music is beach music for a reason, you hear it when you’re at the beach, with the sound of waves mingling with the beats, and suddenly all is right in the world).

And that’s just Ko Samet at night. You wake up, and I always love getting there at night, because then there’s that moment you wake up in the morning, step out onto your porch, look out across the trees and the tops of the bungalows beneath you (all the bungalows on this part of the island are on a steep little hill across the road from the beach) and there’s that water. On a sunny day it’s the most soul shattering, unearthly color in the world. If it’s cloudy it’s merely beautiful. I love the tree house, summer camp feel of all of the hostels. In some of the bungalows I’ve stayed in you’re so far up the hill that you practically are in a tree, perched precariously over the steep drop to the road below. Every little bungalow has its own porch and you look over and there are other guests emerging, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, your fellow campers in this strange, island dream world.

I love that for all of its prettiness, Ko Samet is at its heart an off kilter, quirky place. And thank God for that. If it was simply pretty then Ko Samet wouldn’t be nearly as memorable as it is. It wouldn’t have the same soul. Post card pretty is nothing if there isn’t a pulse beneath it, something realer than what’s on the exterior. True beauty comes from that pulse, from that living, breathing soul. If you just glance then Ko Samet might seem like any touristy island. But look just a fraction deeper and you’ll realize that there’s nothing slick or pre-packaged about the “touristy-ness”, which is what makes it endearing rather than cloying. It’s not like some vacation spots in the US where the corporate feel is everywhere, where chains dominate the land, and no one who owns a business in the place is even from there. Ko Samet restaurants may cater to Westerners but it’s always a little off, whether it’s the misspelled words on the menu, or the strange combinations of food, hot sauce on the burgers or ketchup in the “American fried rice”. There’s something a tad bit ramshackle and spontaneous about every restaurant or bar.

For example the first time I went to Ko Samet we ate breakfast at our hotel’s restaurant (open air on a porch, I don’t think anything in Ko Samet is indoors really, why would it be?). I ordered an omelet and bacon. Everyone’s food arrived, including my omelet but no bacon. After we were nearly finished, the waitress assured me that my bacon was on the way. And then she looked up toward the street, pointed, and said “see there it is now”. Bewildered I turned and looked in the direction she was pointing. Sure enough there was my bacon, zooming our way in a plastic bag carried by a guy on a motorbike. Normally you hear “bacon on the way” and assume it’s on the way from the kitchen. But nope, my bacon was on its way from the market or store, winding its way along the steep island road, to arrive cooked and delicious on my plate.

I love the people who live and work on the island, who play along with us tourists, but always with a bemused smile on their faces, like they can’t get over all of these silly people. And they work hard. You’ll see the same person working from morning to very late at night in a restaurant. Or the firedancers who helped us out on our first trip to Ko Samet. They were firedancers by night who also owned a tattoo parlor. And then on the way back to the mainland, who should I see working on the ferry, untying lines to get us away from the dock, why the same multi-tasking firedancer. I love that the official post office of Ko Samet is in the same room as a hotel internet café and library. I love that both the police station and clinic close at night. So if you’re robbed and/or stabbed at 2am then well you just have to wait until the morning to deal with both.

I love that the beach doesnt even begin to get crowded until noon, as tourists sleep in, amble down from their hotels, eat a late breakfast at one of the restaurants on the sand and then finally make their way onto the beach. There's a magical laziness that permeates the air in Ko Samet. Most people flop down on beach toweles or chairs and stay that way throughout the afternoon, pausing occasionally to nibble on fresh fruit sold by men who walk up and down the sand, or maybe take a dip in the clear, calm waters to cool off. Some people stay up in the shade at the restaurants, drinking and eating intermittently throughout the day, one endless summer picnic/siesta. Nothing about Ko Samet is hurried or judgemental. You want to sleep in and then lie in the sun all day, the whole island seems to hum with encouragement for such lazy behavior.

I even love the dogs on Ko Samet, or at least the puppies. There are a lot of dogs on this island, but they’re all friendly and love people (as most dogs do, but some ones in my town are not so friendly). And every time I’ve gone there have been at least a couple of puppies! Adorable, toddling, clumsy little puppies that come up to you and wag their tales or fall asleep underneath your table. For someone who loves dogs and who wants a dog very badly, it’s paradise.

And maybe that really is Ko Samet; paradise, a weird, beautiful, flawed, touristy, bacon on a motorbike version of paradise. I know there are probably islands in the south that are ten times more gorgeous, more isolated, with clearer water and whiter sand, and I may go to these islands and fall in love. But I think first in my heart will always be Ko Samet, part summer camp, part Neverland, part booze cruise. Ko Samet is the kind of island that a little kid would have created from thin air using only crayons and glue(well minus the booze cruise aspect), dogs and puppies everywhere, everyone sleeping in tree houses, men walking down the beach selling ice cream all day. It’s a wonderful, make believe world that is improbably real. And I will go back, despite what this island has done to me, I just don’t think I could stay away.

Border Running

Vientiane, Laos





the Scandanavian Bakery, home of the delicious pastries and sandwiches




charming little French town? nope, just Vientiane, Laos, smack dab in the middle of South-East Asia


A week ago I went on a border run to Laos. Now “border run to Laos” might connote to you various and sundry illegal activities. I know that whenever I heard the phrase that’s what I thought of. And the actual border run, at least at the start, for all of its legitimate claims, still felt, well kind of illegal. We met in the parking lot of a Tesco Lotus (giant British supermarket and Thailand’s equivalent to Target, except much, much bigger) at night, and were promptly herded into several vans, cattle style. I was with a friend (who had also lost her passport and visa in the Great Night Swimming Incident of 2009), and both of us kept remarking on how much we felt like illegal immigrants, smuggled away to go work in some sweatshop or field for two cents an hour. But luckily a sweatshop was not our destination. Instead it was Laos, the capital city Vientiane, to be more specific. Me, my friend and all of our visa run assorted companions (and wow were they assorted) all were paying this company to take us to Laos, handle all the complicated paperwork and procedures, so that we could end up with brand, spanking new, perfectly legal visas. And so at 8pm, from the parking lot of Tesco Lotus, we were off.

I have to pause here to describe some of the primary characters in this little escapade. There were nine people in our van (three in each row, and that includes the driver’s row). Despite the close quarters the vans were as nice as vans can be and even had a fairly large television screen to watch DVDs on. But at the end of the day, the vans were still vans. And there’s no way you can spend ten hours in a van with eight people without observing some things about your fellow travelers. So without further ado, our cast (or at least the star players).

Cranky/Crazy Old American Man: Early 60s, teacher, and a perfect example of what I like to refer to as the Crankification and Jerkification Process that Happens to Western Men in Thailand Who Have Lived Here for Many Years (I think I may start a Wikipedia page for it any day now). Now that’s a generalization, and I realize that not all older men become cranky who have lived here for a long time. But out of the old Western men that I have met or observed, most of them fit this description to a tee. I don’t know what exactly it is, but I have a couple of guesses.

Maybe it’s the sad reality that older white men in Thailand, no matter their physical or emotional attributes, tend to be able to have their pick of young, pretty Thai women. There’s probably a whole thesis you can write about this, but if you come here and spend about five minutes out in Bangkok, you’ll see it, over and over and over again. All types of older white guys walking around with much younger and usually much more attractive Thai girlfriends. It’s very possible that some of these relationships stem from genuine love, and I don’t want to judge, but unless you are the most optimistic person in the universe, you can’t say that all of these relationships are based on mutual understanding and respect. You have to admit that many of these relationships are nearly business transactions. Each party is receiving what they want. For the men it’s a young, pretty Thai girlfriend. For the women it’s security and the promise (whether real or not) of power and money. And maybe men who live in this environment for years and years start to get influenced by all that power and money that’s projected onto them (again whether real or not, most of these guys are teachers, so not exactly rolling in dough), and they start thinking that they are powerful. Again there could be many reasons.

The reality is that so many of these guys that I’ve been around act like complete and total tools. There’s no other way to describe it. They are completely condescending toward Thai culture and speak of it with such animosity and disdain that you just have to wonder what in the world they’re doing living here. And they talk to Thai people in exactly the same vein. Like the guy in the van. Over the course of ten hours I cannot count the number of times he loudly and rudely shouted at our Thai drivers (in English of course, another characteristic of this species of expat, they never speak Thai, despite many of them living here for over a decade). First he freaked out because we stopped at a rest area and he couldn’t get the door open. It was locked, because you know, most cars now have automatic locks. He couldn’t find the lock to open it so he immediately starts raging at the drivers (again in English) about how dangerous it was for them to “lock us in”, and how they can’t do that, because if we were in an accident we would all “burn up”. This was his general argument and he proceeded to repeat it about twenty times, the same thing, with all the talk of burning. Here were these poor drivers, probably underpaid, getting screamed at by this crazy American man (in English may I remind you) for something that was in no way their fault. And it proceeded this way the whole trip, whether they were driving too fast, or too slow, or that they needed to STOP RIGHT THAT SECOND at a rest area because he PAID FOR THIS and could in no way wait like the rest of us until a scheduled stop (and they stopped at least every two hours). Everything he said was in caps, everything laced with rudeness, everything just stinking of this white male, superior, downright colonial attitude that I can’t stand. Guess what white dudes? Thailand isn’t a colony, never has been. So don’t come here, live for a few years, and act like you own the place. Because that’s exactly what they do. Act like they own the place, get offended when Thai people don’t understand them (despite the fact that they’re speaking in ENGLISH, for the last time you’re in Thailand you crazy maniac!) and then spend most of their time discussing all of the things they hate about Thailand and Thai people (I cannot tell you how many of these conversations I witnessed on this trip and it made me want to barf, on them preferably). So yeah, this guy pretty much sucked at life and I wanted to push him out of the van, but unfortunately the opportunity never presented itself.

Younger American Dude Who May or May Not Have Been on Drugs the Whole Time: So this guy was the antithesis to the above guy, and for that fact alone he was a much better traveling companion. But he was still not exactly normal. From the moment he stepped on the van his speech was about 10% actual words and 90% dudes, rockstars, superstars, sexy and various other nicknames given out often and at random. For the first hour he spoke loudly and incessantly, seriously at a faster speed than I’ve maybe ever heard anyone talk in my life. He was sitting next to this poor Swedish guy who gamely tried to keep up with the “conversation” but really with this American guy I don’t think a conversation could be anything but one sided. He swigged down whisky from the back seat and discussed the large Xanax that he was planning on taking for the trip. He was in many ways the prototype of American surfer boy, shorts, ripped t-shirt, spiky hair, but then you look closer and guy’s looking a little rough around the edges, little bit hollow cheeked. And at that moment his appearance, combined with his endless and hyper speed stream of consciousness style of speaking, was when I realized he was probably on drugs. Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice guy. He didn’t talk to our drivers like he was King Leopold touring the Congo. But this nice guy, very likely on something, I don’t know what, but I’m pretty sure humans aren’t supposed to talk that fast without some kind of chemical assistance. That is until about an hour into the trip when the talking abruptly stopped. I looked around, shocked by the sudden silence and the Xanax and whiskey had obviously done the trick. And I kid you not, he didn’t wake up until we were almost to Laos.

Random Europeans: I lump them all in here, because while the other Americans in our van were embarrassingly impossible to miss, these sweet and understated Europeans were quiet, unassuming and helpful. A British guy who sat in the front conversed with the drivers (like actually talked to them, not at them, and shock of shocks, in Thai, the language they speak, the language he had learned after being here for two and a half years because he had made an effort and wasn’t a giant jerk face). Then there was the poor Swedish guy I mentioned before, Pelle, who somehow managed not to knock out crazy, rambling American dude before the Xanax did. I have to admit, it was a wee bit embarrassing to be an American in this particular van. We were not represented well. It would have taken an Olympic effort of generosity and diplomacy on my part to wipe out the evil Olympics of horribleness from cranky old dude and the special Olympics of crazy from younger surfer dude. But alas.

So those are some of the people I shared cramped quarters with for ten hours (and then ten hours again on the way back). I can’t exactly say that wonderful friendships were formed, but it wasn’t boring.

After a little wait on the Thai/Laos border (the bridge that forms the border crossing is called “Friendship Bridge”, how cute right?), we were off to Vientiane (which ended up being about 15 min. from the border) and straight to the Thai embassy. The first clue I had that Vientiane, despite being the capital, may not exactly be a “city” was that the embassy was on a dirt road with farmland surrounding it and roosters clucking about. Cue more waiting, more having to prevent myself from strangling loud, obnoxious older American men(and one Canadian) who were loudly discussing all the things they didn’t like about Thai people (at the Thai embassy, of course, because why be offensive if the target of your offensiveness isn’t right there to hear it). And then we were back in the van and driven to the guesthouse where we would be spending one night. All of the visa related stuff was done for the day (and at this point it was only around 10am) so we had the rest of the day to explore Vientiane.

The absolute first thing on my list: coffee. Now you might scoff but let me first say that coffee is one of the cultural aspects of Laos. They are famous for their coffee. So this was less about me needing caffeine (and boy did I need it after a night on the crazy van) and more about a cultural learning experience. I was dedicating myself to the subtler aspects of Laos society. It was to be an eye opening experience. Okay fine it was all about the caffeine. So me and my friend, Lauren, caught a ride into town, and as we reached “downtown” that’s when I first began to realize that Vientiane was just the kind of wonderfully absurd, strange little town that I could so easily fall in love with. It’s a capital city but it’s about as small town as you can get, quiet and peaceful, few cars and almost no traffic. From my limited knowledge of its geography it seems that the bulk of the town is spread out along the Mekong River, which gives the whole place that sleepy, waterfront feel that only a place on a large body of water can have. It’s wonderfully cool there. Or at least cool relative to Thailand. I’ve grown so accustomed to it never really being below 90 degrees during the day that Laos seemed practically chilly to me, and it was probably in the 70s there. You can walk around there and not sweat and that in and of itself is a miracle.

Oh and it’s French, so, so French. You see, Laos was a French colony and the effects of this are obvious everywhere you look. The buildings are French. The wideness of the streets. The large open square in the center of town with a big, dramatic fountain in the middle. All of the street signs are written in Laos first and then French beneath. The mailboxes say “Boite aux Lettres”! It may seem silly to get excited over a French language mailbox, but if you know me, you know that I love France and all things French. I spent a semester in Paris and I loved every single second of it. And I’ve missed France ever since. And never in a million years did I expect to find a cure for my French homesickness in the middle of South-East Asia. But that’s exactly what I did. Except Vientiane isn’t simply French. It’s not simply anything. In the one day I spent there (and yes I realize that is a very feeble amount of time) it seemed to me like it’s this wonderful hybrid, a kind of pretend, anything goes fairy tale land that changes from second to second, from whim to whim.

You want a French pastry? Well here are about a dozen wonderful bakeries. There’s a kind of famous one, called The Scandinavian Bakery, and in just over a day we managed to eat there twice. The largest, most delicious chocolate croissants, every kind of fresh bread behind the counter, the smell of its wafting from the kitchen in all of its flour-y, earthy, sweet glory. Tiny, delicate cookies. Massive, decadent brownies and scones. Salty, perfect salami or ham sandwiches on fresh baked croissants or baguettes. And of course the coffee. You get some of this wonderful food, and then you take it and sit on the upstairs balcony, in these tiny Parisian chairs at these tiny Parisian tables under this very Parisian awning. You look out at the very French square and fountain, but it’s surrounded by palm trees. And walking through the square are two women in traditional Asian skirts, holding umbrellas, and you realize that every time you think you’ve got a handle on this town, it shifts and becomes something else entirely.

You want cheese or wine? What about one of the many, many French restaurants. We went to one for some after dinner cheese (an included dinner was cooked for us at the guest house by the tour operator’s Thai wife, and it was hands down one of the best meals I’ve eaten in Thailand, and that’s saying something), and I was back in Paris. It was called “La Cave des Chateau” or the Cellar of the Castle (thank you rusty French!) and the place was a little cave, the walls and floor all in stone. It was tiny, and in the back was a tiny bar, just like the many tiny bars I saw again and again in Paris. And like in Paris, standing at this bar were two very French men, one in an apron (the chef). They smoked cigarettes and sipped wine and conversed loudly in their native tongue. And as I sat a few feet away, eating delicious goat cheese and sipping delicious French red wine (and all for so cheap), again I could have been smack dab in the middle of the French countryside. But then our Laos waiters came up to us and we conversed with them in our broken Thai, and I wasn’t so sure where I was anymore.

In my 24 hours in Laos there were so many moments like this, strange, wonderful, moments that spanned cultures and continents. I only saw the very outside surface of Vientiane and I’m sure there’s a much richer, much more complex world within, but what I saw I really loved. I loved the quirks, how currency there seems to be a very fanciful thing. The Laos currency is called a yip (what an awesome name for a currency, I wish we had yips back home), and I’m not sure what the exchange rate is, but it’s a lot of yip to a dollar, like up in the thousands. But most places will take Baht. However if you pay baht you are probably going to get yip back in return, so most of the time I had no idea how much I was paying or getting back in change. One store didn’t have enough yip or baht to give me change so she asked if she could pay me in American dollars. The restaurant we went to said on the menu that it accepted Baht, Yip, US dollars and the Euro, to make matters even more confusing.

The people were kind, all of our assorted taxi and tuk-tuk drivers who we could talk to in our very limited Thai (apparently the Laos and Thai languages are almost identical). Fun fact about Laos tuk tuks. Whereas the ones in Bangkok are actually one, solid vehicle, designed as a tuk tuk, the ones we took in Laos were literally one part motorbike, and then like some planks and benches cobbled on to the back and somehow made to balance. Yet another endearingly quirky (and kind of terrifying) facet of Vientiane. Oh and the beer, how could I forget the beer? Laos is known for Beer Lao, which I’ve had in Thailand and have liked. But according to Lonely Planet, you can only get the draught version of Beer Lao in Vientiane (where it’s bottled). And so at one bar I ordered myself a draught Beer Lao, and it was perfection. Light and airy, almost sweet, and again, very, very cheap.

Without planning it, we met up with most of our visa run group at a hotel bar later in the night. This hotel is hard to miss because it’s the only high rise in Vientiane (according to Lonely Planet, I know I’m a dork, it’s the tallest building in Laos, and it’s not an exceptionally tall hotel or anything). It sits right on the Mekong river and it also possesses a bar that stays open past midnight, when all bars in Vientiane are supposed to close. Our tuk tuk driver took us there when all the other bars were closed and I’m assuming this happened to the other people in our group too. So we finished up the night with more beer Laos, talking with all of these random people about random things. Somehow I ended up in one conversation about the American healthcare system (and shockingly it did not end in tears or shouting) and another conversation with an Irishman about why it is or isn’t okay for Americans to claim that they are English or Irish or Norwegian (people from those countries apparently think we should just call ourselves American and get over it) But as I explained there are no true Americans (unless you’re Pocahontas’ great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter), we are a glorious melting pot, and yes I actually used the phrase, “glorious melting pot.”

Maybe it was the Beer Lao, maybe it was the cool, fresh air (no pollution in Vientiane!), maybe it was the view, the Mekong river running past the hotel in the dark, so much open space around us (such a nice reprieve from the urban bustle of Bangkok) but despite wanting to strangle some of these people only hours before, I ended up genuinely enjoying their company. Or maybe it was none of those things. Maybe it was just Vientiane and its affect on us, this tiny question mark of a city, charming and weird, lovely and diverse, a European face planted on a traditional Asian town with centuries of history and a fair share of tragedy buried beneath its ground. I know it made me feel something, the way only a few cities ever have in such a short period of time. I wish I could have spent more than a day there, and I very much hope I can go back.

But after just one day, with a new visa in hand, we were back on the van (different cranky old American guy this time, same horrible attitude, this one freaked out because there were no DVDs not dubbed over in Thai for us to watch). We crossed over the Friendship Bridge and I was back in Thailand, but with a newfound love for the tiny little Laos city I was leaving behind, and about 30 dollars worth of yip in my wallet, which despite its absolutely adorable name, I found is nearly impossible to exchange for Baht in Bangkok. I guess not everywhere can be as multi-cultural as Vientiane. Oh well, I still love you yip.

So that time I got swine flu (part two)

the interior of a room at the Pathumwan Princess Hotel in Bangkok, and the happy ending to my story


So where did we leave off last time? Ah yes, I had just contracted what my doctor believed was a pork related influenza of the A strain variety. Now what any sane or intelligent person would do in this situation would be to go home and get in bed for a week. But well, this is me. I decided the best path to take would be to challenge my body to a game of chicken. I was going on my tropical island vacation damnit! And my body just needed to get in line. I had given it meds, a little bit of rest, plenty of water and all that. So it was time my body did something for me in return, namely recover from the flu in record time and allow me to go romping on sun dappled beaches and swimming through emerald waters in approximately 24 hours. Reasonable right?



So along with two friends I boarded an early morning train out of Bangkok to Surrathani (the jump off point for the island, Ko Samui). It was supposed to be an eight and a half hour train ride, so I reasoned that really this was just another full day of rest. I’d just be lounging around, alternately dozing and reading American gossip magazines (which cost, ahem, about ten US dollars here, EACH, and yes I am deeply, deeply ashamed of myself for buying these on more than one occasion). I was feeling okay, I mean. Sure my head still felt like it was in one of those squeeze garbage cans, and my chest wasn’t all that great either. But my body just had lingering reservations about this beach business. As soon as it saw the water and got a little bit of sun, it would be a completely different story. My body would be thanking me for this vacation.
I sat back, ready for a relaxing train ride (because there are many of those right?), and well it wasn’t exactly relaxing. It was an AC train but you could have fooled me because of how stifling it was. The train itself was tiny, a little midget train, only two cars long, and it was also full. There were fans in the ceiling but they weren’t rotating and they weren’t pointing in my direction. So within minutes of leaving the station it was boiling. But hey, it would just give me a chance to sweat out some toxins. By the time we got there that evening, I’d be the vigorous picture of health. Except as our journey went on I started to feel worse. I still had absolutely no appetite, and even the sight of the prepackaged train “breakfast” (which was rice and some kind of neon orange chicken) made my stomach turn. But no matter. My body was just trying to test me, get me to fold, but like I said, it was a game of chicken. And I wasn’t about to be the first to turn and run. Thai island paradise here I come! WOOOOO!!


And then oh yeah, our train crashed. Now this wasn’t a big, derailment, carnage and explosions kind of crash. I’ll make that much clear up front. But it was still a very definite crash. And that’s not all that normal for me. I don’t expect the train I’m on to have any kind of collision with any kind of object, machine or man. That’s not too much to ask right? I mean I already have the friggin’ flu and now my train crashes!? Seriously universe? SERIOUSLY?


Like the cliché always goes, it happened very quickly. It wasn’t until it ended that I could even figure out what my senses had just experienced, because at the moment it was all one big jumble of sound and image and movement. It was the weirdest thing, because I honestly took in everything completely backwards. One second the train was humming its merry way through beautiful Thai country side (oh yeah, did I mention that every time you take a train or bus anywhere in Thailand you are sure to drive through the lushest, greenest, most tropical, jungly, mountainous, straight out of any movie, most heart stoppingly, soul achingly, drop dead gorgeous scenery on this planet). And then the next second we were stopped. And then in reverse I understood what had just happened. Right before the train ground to a halt there had been a large spray of water out of the window. Milliseconds before that there had been what looked to be a very large pick up truck flying through the air. Before that the train had lurched forward with a sickening screech. And then before that had been the collision, the sudden sound of metal and steel and glass all churned up together. Now it all sped up and formed a complete picture and only then did I understand what in the hell just happened. There was silence for a few beats and then the two train cars filled with the sound of people wondering what had just happened, if everyone was okay (everyone was okay, except for a few scratches and bruises, and one train attendant lady who apparently fainted and had to be carried off). Everyone then looked out the windows (on my side of the train). We were a couple dozen yards away from a small train stop (just a platform really) and in the midst of some kind of rural market place where at least a hundred or so people had been gathered minutes before, eating and talking and shopping. But as we looked out the window these same people, in masse, ran in the direction we had just come, most of them toward what I could only imagined was one absolutely obliterated pick-up truck. A few groups stayed put, walking instead toward our stopped train, anxious looks on their faces. I realized that some of these people had been standing there, waiting for a loved one to arrive on our very train, and that these poor people had watched us hit the truck and lurch dangerously on the tracks, and that as confusing and scary as it had been inside the train, they had probably had it ten times worse.


And then well, a lot of aimless standing around and talking occurred. People got off the train. People got back on. People stood around outside the train talking. People stood around inside the train talking. There were no official announcements, no official anything. At one point everyone, en masse, got off the train with their baggage, so we followed suit. As I stood in the aisle, I glanced at the car ahead of ours (remember this was only a two car train) and couldn’t believe what I saw. The floor was caked in red dirt and shards of glass (the front windows of the train had been smashed with the collision). Surely we would have to take a different train to our destination. I mean this one seemed down for the count. We stood on the grass with our backpacks while random Thai people said things to us in reassuring tones. People drifted back from the site of the wrecked pick- up truck. I didn’t want to look too closely but when I glanced in that direction I saw that it lay on its side in some kind of ditch/creek (hence the water spray) a little ways away. No one seemed to be screaming or crying so that seemed like a good sign (a little while later another backpacker reported that everyone was okay, which seemed impossible, but hey, someone’s really, really, really luck day right?) There was much meandering. A large crowd of people stood around the front of the train which I can only assume took its fair share of damage. And then after a little while longer, the engine started up, the train lurched forward, and you got it, we boarded this beaten up, mangled, dirt and glass strewn train and went along our merry way.


And it did run, but I couldn’t help expect the whole thing to just give up any second. Excuse the kind of cheesy parallel, but here I was, a broken down Liz, trying to keep my Thai island dreams alive, riding on a broken down train, doing the very same thing. Oh life. Somehow, our rag tag train made it to Surrathani (along the way people on the ground who we passed usually did very comical double takes when our little battered engine that could moved past). We departed, late but at least in one piece. And then the fun really started. You see the train station in Surrathani is in a tiny little town about twenty minutes from the actual “city” of Surrathani. And from there you have to take a ferry to get to Ko Samui. Now there aren’t really any “official” ways of doing this, no “official” city buses to take you to the pier, no “official” city ferries to take you to the island. No instead there are tour companies, all touting their own package deals. And you don’t come to them. No they come to you. The second you, a very clear farang (foreigner for those of you keeping up on your Thai) step out from that train station, you are the prey. But they don’t walk up to you with the clear intention of trying to sell you a package trip to the island. No they are merely concerned citizens who want to help. In fact, you can be halfway through one of these business transactions before you even realize that you are in fact, taking part in a business transaction. There’s no information desk. Every time you try and stand off to look in your Lonely Planet, you are swarmed by many men who are thrilled by the prospect of taking you to your destination. Except it’s not so simple. Because some of these men are saying that the ferry to Ko Samui already stopped for the day so you must stay in a hotel in town (a hotel that coincidentally is either owned by the same tour company or sharing a deal with them). But another guy is saying they can get you a boat to the island (provided you’re willing to pay of course). It is a complicated labyrinth of smooth talk and genuine help with no way to differentiate between the two (to be fair none of these guys are evil, they’re just doing their job, albeit in a very smooth talky, potentially deceitful way). We spent a good forty five minute talking to about five different guys with various “advice”. We even tried to join forces with a beautiful, multi-national family (you know the ones, where the mother is from like Eastern Europe and the dad is from Australia and somehow they have created a baby with all of the genetic blessings of both countries, and none of the genetic shortcomings) to get a chartered boat to the island. But after much prodding and many assurances that if we went to the pier that evening the only way to get to Ko Samui would be to swim, we went to a hotel nearby for the night.


And that’s when my body, so cooperative throughout all the train and train station shenanigans, decided to remind me who is boss. It was almost as if it had decided to wait politely in the background while I dealt with all of that stuff, and then once I was securely and safely in a hotel it felt it was time to head butt me into submission. In a sudden rush I felt like complete and total poo. I felt like my fever was back. My chest hurt. My cough was getting worse. I felt sick, really, really sick. I climbed into bed, and without any kind of deliberation I knew. I was not going to Ko Samui to frolick on sun drenched shores. There would be no pina coladas in the sand, no snorkeling in clear waters. There would be no fun holiday times, no celebration even for the 4th of July (which was the next day) with my other American friends. I was going back to Bangkok to a hotel with room service where I would not have to get out of bed for as long as possible.
And to make absolutely sure of this my body decided to throw in some vomit (sorry for the graphic details, but it’s for posterity) the next morning, so as to really hammer the final nail into the coffin that was my trip to Ko Samui. If my body could have talked it would have said this: “Hey Liz, we usually get along, sure you put some fast food junk into me every now and again, too much beer or wine on occasion, all that coffee and Diet Coke, seriously I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. But the point is we’ve always been pretty much in synch. But this, this is just sheer lunacy. You drag my flu ridden self out of bed, put me on a hot, crowded train (and one that crashes to boot!) for nine uncomfortable hours, and then you expect me to get on a ferry and go on vacation! We could have done this the easy way but no. So go ahead, throw up that watermelon you had for breakfast (the one tiny glimmer of American 4th of July I had that day, to make this story even more pathetic) then get on a train and go back to Bangkok immediately!”


And well that is what I did. Of course the first available train didn’t leave until 6pm, meaning that I had about four hours to kill at the train station. But those four hours ended up being strangely wonderful. For one I’ve always loved train stations (except for the hell on earth, abysmal, make you want to throw yourself on the tracks Indian ones we visited-go to Agra, you’ll see). There’s something just so romantic about train stations to me, something old fashioned and adventurous. And when I think back on past vacations or trips, somehow it’s always the train stations that stand out to me, little post it notes stuck in the pages of old travel memories. And as I sat there on a hard plastic seat with a giant bottle of water, I couldn’t help but be reminded of four years ago, me traveling solo for the first time in my life. I was with a friend in Rome (during my semester abroad in Paris), but she flew to London to meet her parents, and I still had a week left of break, so I took the train to Florence for two nights. I remember Florence very clearly, seeing the statue of David, eating gelato for dinner (okay and lunch), wandering the streets and getting chased by an Italian man. But just as memorably I remember waiting for the night train that would take me back to Paris, sitting on a similar bench at a similar station. And I remember how I felt that day, the same way I felt sitting at the Surrathani station, waiting for the night train that would take me back to Bangkok. There are things in this world people can take away from us. There are things that can be tarnished and ruined. But traveling alone in a foreign country, even if just for a few days, nothing and no one can ever take away what that feels like. Just to know you can do it, to know you’re okay, that even in a foreign country, alone, you’re okay. I carried that feeling away from Florence and hold onto it still, and I know I’ll do the same with my time in Thailand.


I sat at that station and kept waiting to have to throw up again, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel great by any means, but I felt level and strangely calm. It was as if my body, having seen that I followed its instructions, was giving me a little break. And I read. I started and finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love.” I had almost read that book so many times in life. I had picked it up and carried it around at Barnes and Nobles before changing my mind and putting it back. I have no idea why. But the morning I left Bangkok, as I was browsing the shelves of the hostel’s book exchange, I saw a battered, crumpled copy. My favorite version of books is when they are battered and crumpled. As with any proper stuffed animal, this shows they have been loved, adored, read again and again and again. I like the creases in pages from where they’ve been folded down. Love the food stains and smudges. I like these kind of books because it shows that they are really living things. Books aren’t static, or at least they shouldn’t be. I re-read books because they do grow and change every time you read them. But I digress. I saw this battered, crumpled, torn copy of “Eat, Pray, Love” and exchanged my book for it.


And I started it at that train station. Nearly five hours later I was almost finished. And it was the perfect book for that moment in my life. When I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself (being alone and sick on the 4th of July thing was rough. I love the 4th of July, love the hot dogs and cole slaw and watermelon, love the tennis on television, love the flags and the fireworks and that one perfect, unironic day of patriotism and pride) this book filled me with happiness and calm and warmth. I won’t go into the details other than to say that Elizabeth Gilbert puts into funny, clever words exactly how I feel about so many things, spirituality (minus all the meditating, I respect it but am not at a point in my life where I could “quiet my mind”, my mind never shuts up), God, food, pasta, wine, did I mention food?, but most importantly at that moment, travel.


Because, here’s the thing. A lot of this blog has touched on some not so great things, misadventures if you will. But I really hope it hasn’t seemed overly negative. Because as much as some of these things have sucked, they are all part of this big, messy moment in my life. And I wanted this. I signed up for this knowing it would be hard and messy and that I might get sick or have my purse stolen while night swimming off a Thai island (okay well maybe I didn’t anticipate that part exactly). I knew teaching would be hard. I knew I would miss home sometimes. I knew that this would be rocky. But I wanted rocky. My life before I left, throughout the year after graduation, was veering dangerously close to the opposite of rocky, which is not to say perfect. Perfect is not the opposite of rocky, bland is. A life that was always easy and always safe is not at all what I really wanted. It’s great for life to be easy and safe sometimes, a good deal of the time even, but if it’s always that way, then it’s not really life, not life, capital L. It’s just life, lowercase l, and that’s not enough for me. And being here in Thailand, well it hasn’t been easy and safe. And that’s why, despite the stolen purse and the swine flu and the passport stuff and various other mishaps I’ve loved every minute of this. And you might say how in the world can I love every minute of a trip that’s had such issues. But I love this trip because of its issues, because of its rockiness. I feel like finally my life is starting to be lived in color. I don’t want a beige life. I never have. Beige might be easy on the eyes and it might mean you never clash with anything, but frankly never clashing with anything is overrated. Let me clash. Let me pair pink and orange together and just go with it.


But I bring all of this up because of a passage in Ms. Gilbert’s book which spoke so directly to my heart and to that moment in my soul that it was almost a little spooky. And here it is. I know this blog is already a novella but I just have to transcribe it all.

“Truthfully, I’m not the best traveler in the world.



I know this because I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve met people who are great at it. Real naturals. I’ve met travelers who are so physically sturdy they could drink a shoebox of water from a Calcutta gutter and never get sick. People who can pick up new languages where others of us might only pick up infectious diseases. People who know how to stand down a threatening border guard or cajole an uncooperative bureaucrat at the visa office. People who are the right height and complexion that they kind of look halfway normal wherever they go-in Turkey they just might be Turks, in Mexico they are suddenly Mexican, in Spain they could be mistaken for a Basque, in Northern Africa they can sometimes pass for an Arab…


I don’t have these qualities. First off I don’t blend. Tall and blond and pink complexioned, I am less a chameleon than a flamingo. Everywhere I go but Dusseldorf, I stand out garishly. When I was in China, women used to come up to me on the street and point me out to their children as though I were some escaped zoo animal. And their children-who had never seen anything quite like this pink-faced yellow-headed phantom person-would often burst into tears at the sight of me. I really hated that about China.


I’m bad (or, rather, lazy) at researching a place before I travel, tending just to show up and see what happens. When you travel this way, what typically “happens” is that you end up spending a lot of time standing in the middle of the train station feeling confused, or dropping way too much money on hotels because you don’t know better…


Aside from my cockeyed internal compass, I also have a shortage of personal coolness, which can be a liability in travel. I have never learned how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know-that super relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of a riot in Jakarta. Oh, no. When I don’t know what I’m doing, I look like I don’t know what I’m doing. When I’m excited or nervous, I look excited or nervous. And when I am lost, which is frequently, I look lost. My face is a transparent transmitter of every thought…


And oh the woes that traveling has inflicted upon my digestive tract!...But I have other bodily weaknesses too. My back gave out on my first day of traveling in Africa, I was the only member of my part to emerge from the jungles of Venezuela with infected spider bites, and I ask you-I beg of you!-who gets sunburned in Stockholm?


Still despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby-I just don’t care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine. Because it looks exactly like me. I can barf all over me if it wants to-I just don’t care.”


And that last paragraph, as I sat reading that in the train station off the Gulf Coast of Thailand, that spoke to me in a way few other books have ever spoke to me. I needed to read this book at this moment. I needed to have this book show up on a bookshelf in the Wendy House hostel in Bangkok. I don’t necessarily put too much stock in fate and destiny and all that, but maybe I should, because this book found me in a really low moment and reminded my sick, self pitying self why I was doing this. I have been barfed all over repeatedly here, but like Elizabeth Gilbert, I could care less. That barf is a part of this wonderful, incredible, life changing journey. I’d rather not be barfed on, but at the end of the day, it’s all part of it, all part of this. This trip has figuratively thrown me down stairs and sucker punched me and roundhouse kicked me Chuck Norris style, but in spite of that, hell, because of all that, I’m doing what I love right now. As strange as it seems I have always wanted a life that would throw in an occasional round house kick.


My mom sent me this letter recently, strangely a letter from myself, aged 18, written at a high school retreat and saved by my high school all these years, only to be mailed out now, five years after graduation. This letter addressed me, its future self, and in no uncertain terms, told me what it expected of me. I haven't met quite all of these strict expectations, but halfway through the letter, past self told me that if I wasn’t traveling, then I should go and do it right then and there. And maybe it’s cheesy, but I’m really proud of the fact that in that way I’ve lived up to the eighteen year old me’s expectations. Because eighteen year old me, like a lot of eighteen year olds, naïve yes, a little foolish maybe, but beautifully, singularly brave when it comes to looking at the future and demanding that it lives up to its potential, the way only an eighteen year old can demand.


So I journeyed back to Bangkok with newfound clarity, and I spent the next two nights in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed at, for about a sixth of the cost it would be in any American big city. Something else I took away from “Eat, Pray, Love”, the whole Italy section about letting yourself be a little decadent, treating yourself every once in a while, especially when your body is weary and broken. And boy did I (or at least my kind and understanding parents did, thanks again Mom and Dad!) I knew from the moment I checked in (and was brought this iced banana tea in a champagne glass) that this was the place to recuperate. Every single person who worked at that hotel who I encountered asked me if I was taking medicine, if I needed to see a doctor, to let them know if I needed anything, anything at all. At the point when I arrived I think I looked and sounded a little, let’s say, rough. A lack of sleep and food and general health will do that to a person. And these kind hotel workers welcomed me like I was their sick child home early from school.


I slept in the softest, cleanest bed, with the most wonderful cloud of a comforter. I took like three hot showers a day in the world’s most awesome bathroom (it had a big clear window looking into the bedroom but if you pressed a button this awesome curtain came down!...and the shower, it had this big square nozzle in the ceiling that was like a waterfall!, oh!, oh! and there was an elephant on the counter made out of towels! that killed me. I couldn’t bear to remove a single towel from it). There were soft, wonderful, fancy hotel robes too, and if you know me you know it has always been a dream to stay in a hotel with fancy robes. I wore my robe around for hours along with the provided pair of shiny blue slippers. I recuperated. I took care of myself. I ordered room service (a big juicy hamburger with salty fries and real ketchup! Pizza with real parmesan cheese! Definitely enough to entice my appetite back to life) and made tea and watched actual English language television. Wonder of wonders I made it back to Bangkok the day of the Wimbledon final, the only live match I got to watch for the entire tournament (and for me this was almost unbearable, Wimbledon is the two week long Super Bowl of tennis, it’s as much a part of my summer memories as the pool and camp) and wow it was a good one, as much as my heart broke for Andy Roddick (although as a fan I was so proud of how he played and how he conducted himself after the match).


I watched oodles of the Discovery Channel and BBC News. Both mornings I actually put on some clothes, (as tempted as I was there was a little sign saying that slippers and robes were not allowed to be worn outside of the rooms) left my room and partook in the complimentary breakfast in one of the hotel’s many restaurants. Now I have seen some massive breakfast spreads in Asian hotels but this one, well it put them all to shame. So much delicious food. Crepe stations and omelet stations! Mountains of gorgeous fresh fruit. French toast and pancakes. An entire table of bread and pastries. Bacon! Corn fritters! Fresh sushi and miso soup! Four kinds of freshly squeezed juice! The second day when I felt better and more rested I sat by the enormous salt water pool with all of Bangkok spread out around me.



I breathed. I knew that I was doing exactly what I needed, that in the future there were sure to be more mishaps, more disasters, more metaphorical train crashes (hopefully not any more literal ones). I was going to get barfed on again by travel (just had to put that word in one more time!). And I was going to love it regardless. Because it’s just that unconditional kind of love.


But for two nights at least, I took a vacation from travel, sent the colicky baby out to a sitter, and finally, finally got some rest.

so that time i got swine flu

Hello all. I think it's been about a month since my last post, and for that I apologize. But if you continue to read on then I can at least offer you some very legitimate excuses for my internet absence, at least in the last two weeks. And as far as weeks go, those two were a doozy.

It all started after a weekend trip to Bangkok. Everything was lovely as it usually is when I go to Bangkok. Against all odds I have formed an attachment to this big, chaotic city. Pretty much whenever I don't travel off to islands or other far flung Thai locales I pack up a few things, hop on the red, non AC number 82 bus that leaves from the center of my town, hop off about ten minutes later and get onto the air-con orange number 140 and head direcly into the heart of the city (I mentioned this earlier but in case you forgot I pretty much live in a suburb of Bangkok). There's this little street (barely more than an alley) tucked away in the shadow of one of Bangkok's behometh malls, and this street has become intensely familar to me. It's lined with hotels and hostels and guesthouses. It's barley wide enough for a car to pass on (although they do of course, and of course as in all places in Thailand they pass by at high speed). There are various food and fruit vendors. And toward the end of this little street, with the big skyscrapers looming in the distance overhead, are a few little hostels that well, feel like home. I've stayed in these rooms legitimately a couple of times. I have also crammed illegitimately into single rooms shared by five or six of us teachers when really they only comfortably fit one (hey when you're on a budget...). And maybe I should venture out more for comprarison but I really can't imagine ever staying anywhere else in Bangkok (except for the super modern, ultra luxurious Pathumwan Princess Hotel but more on that later).

My favorite of these hostels is Wendy House. I'm not even sure if it is techincally a hotel or hostel or guest house, but I do know that it has a wonderful blend of hotel ammenities mixed with the laid back, warm vibe of the most backpackery hostel or guest house. The lobby is small and filled with tables. At any time of day or night there are at least a few travelers sitting at these tables, either eating the home cooked Thai food provided by a small kitchen or thumbing through Lonely Planet in various languages. Some have their ginormous backpacks on the floor beside them, either waiting for a plane or train or bus to some next destination or newly arrived in Bangkok, jetlagged and exhausted but full of restless energy at the adventure to come. Toward the front windows there are two rows of computers with webcams and speakers conveniently attached. Whenever I walk through the lobby there is almost always one guest on the computer talking on skype to a friend or family member back in some far away home. Toward the back of the lobby is a large bookcase crammed full of paperbacks and hardbacks in various stages of disintegration. And here you can browse or borrow a book for your room or if you happen to have some extra books you don't want anymore you can simply exchange your book for a new one, no money necessary.

So in many ways Wendy House sounds like your typical hostel, but one large difference is that you get to your room, and it's clean and nice and there's an ensuite bathroom with hot water and fresh towels. The beds are large and made up with soft, clean sheets. There's television with cable (channels in English!). There are even a pair of slippers to wear around when you're in the room. So it's really the best of both worlds. Which is exactly what I crave. I love staying in a nice room with AC and hot water and tv and all of that, but I also love the commaraderie and friendliness of a hostel or guest house, the sort of "all in it together" vibe that fills the place, the knowledge that everyone else there is a tourist or traveler and can in some way relate to your own situation, with all of the excitements and frustrations it entails.

But I of course digress. So two weekends ago I stayed at Wendy House, spent time at Siam Paragon (oh such decadent, shiny luxury, so much so that the only two floors I ever really frequent there are the food hall and the cinema), bought myself some real, honest to God cheese at the Gourmet Market at Paragon, saw Transformers 2 (very, very silly) and then on Saturday evening went back to my humble little abode in Pra Pradaeng. I ate myself some cheese (mmmm) despite not having too much of an appetite (warning sign! dun, dun, dun) and went to bed early. And then I woke up, early (another warning sign, although I've started at least waking up on my own early in the mornings I can almost always get back to sleep if it's a weekend, unless of course I'm sick, dun, dun, DUN!) And fairly quickly I realized all was not well. There were the usual culprits, chills, general ickiness, lack of appetite (and right after I bought the block of real CHEESE, freaking germs), but there was also a very weird sensation deep in my chest. I didn't really have a strong urge to cough, but when I did cough I found myself unable to stop. And it was that full, heavy kind of cough, ugly sounding and rattly, but emanating from a deeper place than I'd ever coughed from before.

So I was sick, but not surprised. As I've mentioned before my immune system must have decided to jump ship somewhere around my plane's stop over in Hong Kong. It must be happy, off alone on some Asian beach, not having to do any heavy lifting anymore. But unfortunatley it's left me in the predicament of constantly being sick. Until this point I'd had a couple of minor infections and bugs, sore throat, cough (but a different, much less scary one), nasal stuff, you know, the usual. But very soon on this Sunday I could tell this was worse. I took my temperature early on in the day and it was just under 100, so a mild fever but nothing I couldn't handle. I made myself some tea and put on a sweatshirt and retreated to my bed to watch DVDs.

But an hour later I was freezing even with my sweatshirt and blankets and the AC setting turned up to a high temperature. I felt significantly worse so I took my temp again and it had jumped up to above 101. Hmm. Well I snuggled back in bed and tried to nap, but unfortunately I have this weird thing where I have a really hard time sleeping when I'm sick, especially when I have a fever. It's all my body wants and needs and yet it's somehow forgotten how to do it. I kept watching my DVDs (Chuck Season 2, yeah that's right, go out to your local Barnes and Noble and see if they have it there, oh wait they don't, it's not out yet and won't be for quite some time, same with my Gossip Girl Season 2, and 30 Rock Season 3, and The Office Season 5, oh how I love MBK and its wide selection of completely non legit DVDs). But suddenly I couldnt even watch tv properly (which is definitely not normal for me). I was feeling even worse. Only an hour had passed but I took my temp and it had jumped up again, past 102 now. Same deal an hour later. And then an hour after that it had reached 104.

That's when a small part of my brain started to worry. I felt too sick and hazily feverish to really panic or be alarmed, but I had never in my life had a fever that high, and with how fast and sudden it came on, I knew something might be wrong. This coupled with the fact that I'm in Thailand right now and you know, they have tropical diseases right? Isn't that what my doctor told me before I left. I started to wonder if I could be malarial. I'd been bitten by mosquitos plenty of times. Or what if it was Typhoid (I got a vaccine for that of course but in my fevered state such logic didn't matter). All sorts of terrible, dramatic, illnesses raced through my mind-Dengue Fever? parasites? Whooping Cough? I groaned a lot and pulled my blankets even tighter around me except now I was both chilled and extremely hot. My face felt like a furnace. I kept picturing how in old movies they put those ice things on people's heads who have fevers. I really wanted one of those ice things, or a cold wash cloth, they have those in movies too. The closest I had was a chilled bottle of water and that actually felt really, really good. I was thirsty and no amount of water I drank really helped. It was just a lot of badness really, and through my fevered state I resolved to call someone if my fever went up much more. That's the thing about living alone in a foreign country. When something like getting massively sick happens you really are on your own. And at that time you want nothing less than to be on your own. At my sickest that Sunday I could barely make myself get out of bed to pee (luckily I did mind you). When the end of the DVD came and I had to put on a new one it took about fifteen minutes of convincing myself before I could move the five feet to the DVD player. Although I didn't want to watch dvds, I couldn't really concentrate, I couldn't sleep. My head was starting to ache. My eyeballs were painful (ugh, one of the WORST and little talked about parts of the flu, is the painful eyeballs). My lower back and knees were hurting so much I couldn't get comfortable. So I just lay there, a bottle of water perched precariously on my head, took three Advils and waited for their promise of relief.

And whether it was the Advil or just the fever reachings its peak, an hour later I was covered in sweat. I took my temp and it was back to under 103. Which made me even more confused because while I welcomed the fever reduction and subsequent improvement in my convalescent state, I had no idea what illness I had that would have included such a rapid rise and fall in fever.


So after another full day in bed (oh how I miss my soft, full size bed with even softer down comforter at times like these) my temp was close to normal and I decided I could go into school. I had already missed several passport related days and I felt bad missing more, especially with a three day holiday coming up the next week. So I taught, although I was so exhausted and still icky feeling that I could barely stand up, much less try to corall 40 boisterous children. I came home exhausted, went to bed early, woke up in the middle of the night, and surprise, surprise, the fever was back. But now in addition to the fever and chest stuff there was a whole new array of symptoms, mainly just an ungodly sinus blockage that felt like there was something very heavy sitting on top of my skull.


At this point I really had no idea what in the world was going on with my body. I was seriously leaning towards me being malarial, that or the whole Whooping Cough thing. So deciding that I shouldn't just assume all would be well on its own, I called my coordinator in the morning, said in no uncertain terms there was no way I could teach (I know my limits, I would have passed out or started babbling incoherently, or if the sickness really got the better of me and the students were extra troublesome there could have been physical violence involved, it would have been bad). I said I needed to go to the doctor. And so I somehow forced myself out of bed, put some clothes on (that's about as much as I could handle, the whole brushing hair, putting in contacts thing, not so much), stumbled out my front door into the heat (by this point I had started to get used to the crushing Thailand heat, but being sick, oh it's not fun), stumbled even more to the school and met my coordinator.


A little while later I was being poked and prodded in the front of a Thai hospital. Since it wasnt my first trip to the rodeo (ie all of my previous sicknesses) I was familar with this distinct Thai medical practice. You get checked in like an American hospital but there's sort of an assembly line type thing right there in the waiting room. At one table they take your temp (it was in Celsius, but the nurse exchanged a meaningful glance and some Thai words with my coordinator, which was reassuring), your blood pressure and pulse, then you're taken (this time I was physically led) to another little station where you're weighed (thank you Thailand! with exactly no attempt at dieting I have lost 12 pounds, I think about 4 pounds of that were sickness related, but seriously I've heard from everyone hear how foreigners come here and lose weight. I officially give up. I know nothing about dieting. Forget carb free. All I eat here are carbs, literally every meal noodles and rice. And I've been going through a box of sugary cereal every two days! Yet I'm losing weight without effort, while at home I deprive myself of all things delicious and force down cottage cheese and celery and I maybe lose 2 pounds in a month. It's like it was in France. All of these things Americans avoid or else turn sugar free or fat free or calorie free or carb free, well they eat them freely everywhere else in the world and yet people are not what we so often are back home, super, super fat. Maybe it's the spiciness of the food or the fact that I walk a lot or you know, the whole no wine thing (which pains me to admit because it means that my love affair with wine and my refusal to abstain from it even when dieting could in fact be the thing keeping me from ever being able to lose weight at home), but I'm just convinced that it's something about America itself, the place, that takes all this wonderful carby food and makes it pudge inducing, oh it's just so unfair)


But again I digress. After my little spin at the assembly line, there came more waiting (although minimal waiting time compared to what it would be in an American hospital), and then I was led into a room with a doctor behind a desk. I sat opposite him. He talked in rapid Thai to my coordinator. I stared at the wall behind him while they conversed in what seemed to be a very interesting conversation about me. Then he came across the desk, looked into my mouth, said some more stuff in Thai, listened to my breathing (for far too long for me not to be a little freaked out) then went back to the desk. At this point I coughed (something I had needed to do for a while but was trying to hold in because in this H1N1 climate you cough in a public place and people look at you like you just sprouted three extra heads). And the doctor's reaction to my cough pretty much told me all I needed to know. He literally lept back in his seat, almost cartoonishly so because of how speedy it was. Then he hastily pulled his face mask up from his neck onto his mouth. Then he grabbed some tissues, thrust them at me, and said I was to cough only into these tissues. Meanwhile I was trying to narrow down what horrible contagious disease I must have that he would clearly be so afraid of catching, again leaning toward Whooping Cough.


There followed more rapid fire Thai between him and my coordinator. Then he looked at me, said "well, yes I think it might be H1N1 or something like it", then began speaking Thai again to my coordinator. And so there it was, I was officially (or I guess unofficially, since there were no blood tests, just this doctor's opinion and obvious fear of me and my cooties), swine flued. I suddenly felt like the diagnosis was scrawled across my forehead. I was infected. I was contagious. I was like those people in the signs everywhere! The disembodied nose sneezing into a tissue or the similarly disembodied mouth coughing. I was the disembodied mouth! Would they put me on a poster? Were they going to quarantine me and make me live in a bubble? But I was getting ahead of myself. The doctor looked back at me, said that it didn't seem to have "progressed" in my lungs (which, um, what exactly would happen if it did PROGRESS in my LUNGS?), but that it was important to monitor my symptoms over the next few days. Then he very quickly prescribed me four different meds (one I later learned was the famous Tamiflu I had so often read about in the news), said to come back if things got worse or if after four days I wasn't better, and then hustled me right on out to the waiting room to wait for my prescriptions (in Thailand you get your prescriptions at the hospital about ten minutes after you see your doctor, and with no insurance at all they're still so cheap they might as well be free).


My coordinator led me to a chair and then proceeded to walk to the other side of the room to stand (which at the time, not gonna lie, made me feel a little like I had leprosy). And then the icing on the cake. The same nurse who had taken all my vitals earlier walked up to me, in the middle of this crowded waiting room, and handed me a face mask, clearly indicating I was to put it on immediately. Now there were plenty of people in this hospital with face masks (as there are all over my town and Bangkok), but it was clear to me and to all near me that this mask was not for my sake. It was for the sake of everyone else around me, because again, I was officially diseased, a danger to society, like that monkey in Outbreak. I could almost sense everyone in the room shift slightly in their seats away from me. I was still feverishly hazy at this point and exhausted from the minimal effort it had taken to get to the hospital, but underneath it all, I felt a lot of things, weirdly amusement in some ways because OF COURSE I would catch swine flu while in Thailand, after everything else that had already happened. It was really just my luck (or complete lack thereof). I was curious about what exactly swine flu was and how different it was from any other flu. I was more than a little freaked out after the whole lung progression discussion (what would happen if it did progress doctor man, you didn't mention that!). I didn't think I was going to die, but at the same time, when you're diagnosed with an illness that has made headlines for killing a fair number of people (I know, I know, people with underlying illnesses, just like the regular flu, but still, the headlines don't say "3 more die from h1n1, but don't worry because they were already really old or sick so you'll be totally fine", they just emphasize the word die). I was more than a little annoyed with the mandatory face mask. Had never worn one before but wow do they suck! Especially when you are sick and have a fever and thus have hot breath, which gets trapped inside the mask and makes it really hot and fogs up your glasses in a really embarassing way. But most of all I just really wanted to be home, not for good, I knew even in my sick stage that my trip here in Thailand was not at all finished, but if I could only be home for like a week, to be in my bed, with cable television and meals prepared by my mom, and all of the comforts of home. I wanted to be comforted and fawned over and made the center of attention. I'm not ashamed to admit these things because well that's what all of us really want when we're sick. I didn't want to go back to my little dorm room apartment and lie in my hard bed (oh the beds in Thailand, I will not miss these) with only a couple of packets of Ramen Noodles for nourishment (the super spicy Thai variety so not exactly chicken soup) and a dwindling supply of bottled water. Plus the whole no hot water thing, I've pretty much gotten used to it, but I will tell you that taking a cold shower when you have the flu, pretty much the worst thing ever.


But I won't bore you with my little pity spiral. It didn't last too long. I got home. I got into my hard bed (which even in its hardness was a welcome relief from being upright at that point). I watched more DVDs (now I was on to Arrested Development). I drank some tea. And then I knew what was necessary. I would go to Bangkok, go to a hotel with hot water and beds and complete my recovery. At this point I was giving myself um, about a day and a half to recover, because like I mentioned there was a big three day holiday ahead and I was not going to miss it. I had already bought a train ticket to an island down south called Ko Samui. A lot of my friends were going. We had a bungalow. I was not going to spend the only major break in the entire semester sick and in bed darnit! I would get better. I was on four different medications! Never mind the fact that as my fever lowered my sinuses were getting even worse, now there was an elephant sitting on my skull, and as much as I adore elephants, I'd prefer if they kept their large hefts off my cranium. Never mind that there was no way I would be up for an eight hour train ride in a day and a half, considering that even making tea left me utterly spent in the energy department. I would will myself to get better in no time. I was young. I was (pre-Thailand at least) healthy. No stupid swine flu or A flu strain of some kind was going to stop me! Pandemic schmandemic. I laugh in the face of any pork related illness! I fart in its general direction (sorry for the crudeness, but the only way to sum up my disdain for this virus is with some help from Monty Python).



So yeah, that was the plan at least, but like most of my plans, it did not go, well, for lack of a better phrase, according to plan. But I will have to finish this tale another time. For one this post is long enough already and I'm almost out of time at the internet cafe. So I'll just have to leave everyone hanging. Suffice it to say I am alive and I can assure you I am not in a bubble, so at least in that regard you won't be in suspense.