Code Durian

I've been watching events unfold in Thailand, and I have to say I'm just in shock right now. There had been, you may recall on and off protests for the past year or so. Mostly it's based on the division between the poor rural folks in the northeast of Thailand (generally the red shirts) who support the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin and the middle/upper class urban folks in Bangkok (generally the yellow shirts) who support the current PM Abhisit (the side supported by the military, and it is rumored backed by the King). I believe most of my students were yellow-shirts... although Rayong was pretty evenly split between the two groups.

As far as I know, everything in Rayong is fine. The violence has been pretty focused on a few areas in Bangkok... and this afternoon I got a warning email from the US Consulate in Thailand (I can't figure out how to get off the mailing list) that said there's also been some violence in Chiang Mai (a city much more sympathetic to the red-shirts). About a third of the country is under curfew tonight though. And quite frankly, I'm very happy not to be there right now.

One of my favorite places in Bangkok was Siam Center... a complex of really high end malls. Just one BTS stop farther was Central World. I went there once after getting my Visa at the Vietnam consulate. Well, 'Wireless Road' where most of the consulates are, was the site of a lot of the protests, and they've now burned down Central World. Guys - this is BIG. It's not quite World Trade Center big. But it is like setting fire to a building in Time Square. Fortunately, most people have been avoiding the area for a while, and even the red-shirts had been given pretty fair warning that the army was moving in to disburse the protests. But I can't imagine the financial impact this destruction will have.

Bangkok Burning.

I'm just in shock about the whole thing. These are the areas where I felt safe, the NICE areas of Bangkok where I went to relax and have fun on my days off. The Thai people in general are so easy going and laid back, that this just seems unreal. But people were killed... right there in the streets, right at the BTS stop where I bought my tacky silver flip flops.

I don't have anything profound to say about this. I just wanted to bring it to your attention. It's one of the things about travel- obscure places that you only hear a 30 second sound bite about in the news become real places, places where I've shopped and eaten. Political struggles are not just among faceless others... but people I taught, shared meals with, held onto dearly on the back of motorbikes.

It seems that the immediate violence is over in Bangkok. But I have no idea if or when this situation will ever be resolved. But right now.... it's a nightmare.

Naturally

since I have only three teaching days left (and three days left on my insurance here) I got sick.





I have yet another stomach bug. Last night/this morning was not pretty. I slept in the bathroom. I briefly considered going to the hospital after I puked up my antibiotic pill (perhaps the most horrible experience in my life - definitely top 3). And I had to call three people before I could find someone to help me: 1. had her phone off, 2. "your apartment is soooo faaar" (it turned out he had a 'guest' over) and finally 3. Pink - one of the office staff from my school, brought me some much needed bottled water & Sprite.





I managed not to puke between when I called her and when she came over, so I decided not to go to the hospital. I've had an experimental cracker and a few sips of the Sprite. I don't feel great, but I feel like I'm probably over the worst of it.





Dear readers, have I finally, once and for all, disabused you of the notion that solo international travel is glamorous and exciting?





TAG: Code Durian (at least for the time I spent in the bathroom)

I'm fine.

Thanks to eveyone who posted happy links in the comments yesterday. I spent the better part of today in bed looking at awkward family photos and some very hungry turtles. I've been having a rough go of things lately. There's nothing huge... just an endless list of little things that have been wearing me down.


I hated that I only had one day off a week, but it was fine, really because I wasn't working that many hours. Sunday was for 'doing things' and I could relax during the downtime on my easy days.


I hated my Saturday classes, but it was fine because that was just Saturday. The rest of the week was adult classes.



But then I got another kid class... and now two more. I now have five young learner classes, and am teaching kids 6 days a week. It is more draining than even I could have imagined. Coming up with new activities day after day after day. And it's one on one with three of the kids, so I can't even make them write up role-plays or do discussion activities together. It's a nightmare for me.

But even that was fine... because I didn't have a full load of classes. I can't turn down classes if I'm working under a full-time load. So, fine fine fine. I'll adjust, I'll deal, no problem, mai bpen lai.

But this month two of my old classes started up again, and now I'm working overtime, tons and tons of overtime. There's 130 teaching hours on my schedule for this month, my contract is for 100 hours a month. So this is a lot more than I'm used to. And teaching hours doesn't equal 'working hours' as I don't get paid for my prep time, or time I spend grading exams or writing progress reports. And it doesn't really reflect the days when I have to start classes at 9:00 and don't finish until 8:30pm.

It's really taking a lot out of me, but again... it's fine, it's fine it's fine. Because I've been worried about money and all the extra hours will help make up for the fact that I haven't saved as much money as I had hoped.

I never liked not having my own classroom, but it was fine. Keep it simple, just bring my materials to class every day - no problem. Except that I'm accumulating more and more and more stuff for my kid classes (a box of markers & pencils, stick puppets for dialogues, glue, scissors, markers, magazines for collages etc. It's taking me two trips to set up the classroom. Fine fine fine... not worth complaining about. But now they're rearranging all the classrooms. They've taken the big conference table out of the room where I teach a class of 9 (I like teaching at a conference table, sitting like an equal with my students), and replaced it with desks (which I hate because they're not set up for pair work and a pain in the ass to move around). Then they've moved the conference room into the room where I teach my one five year old girl. Whereas we used to have one table and plenty of room to walk around and do activities "fly to the [picture of a] bird... swim to the river.... hop to the bunny." we now have two tables and barely enough room to maneuver around them.

They can't really do anything about the rooms because they're preparing for an influx of new corporate students, and they'll need to accomodate a lot of students in each class. Fine fine fine fine fine. Whatever... mai bpen lai... adjust adjust adjust. But as of Saturday the manager decided to change the kitchen into another student lounge... but has locked the staff bathroom because it would be tacky to have a bathroom near where the students hang out. Gah!!!! So now when I'm spending 12 hours a day at the school I have to hike upstairs to the student bathrooms... which inexplicably have the toilet paper rolls *outside* the bathroom. Because somehow it's not tacky to have to gather your TP in the hallway right outside your classroom before going into the bathroom. No that's not tacky at all. But it's fine fine fine because now I'm going to be leaving in a month and a half. Not worth getting into a stink about.

I miss Bunny & Bobby, and I'm pretty lonely here with no real friends to hang out with. But you know, it was okay because I was still somewhat social with the other teachers. Except that a couple of situations have moved some of these casual friendships from 'tolerable & occasionally fun' to 'unpleasant but occasionally tolerable.' So I don't even have anyone to bitch about all these petty grievances with.

It's profoundly ironic actually, I speak to people all day long, but I don't have anyone to talk to. And with no one to talk to, no one to help me unravel all my experiences...they all just get locked into an obsessive track in my brain. People, the crazies have come out, and it's starting to get ugly. It's one thing to talk to yourself, it's another thing to talk to yourself in public.... but now I find myself walking around arguing with myself... out loud... in public. And then I catch myself doing it, realize that I've crossed into crazy-town and start either laughing or crying or both. And then I tell myself that I'm okay... I'm okay, I'm just having a bad day. But I don't believe myself, because I've been having a lot of bad days lately. And then I realize that I'm arguing with myself again.

I'm ready to go home. I feel like I hit my peak at the 8 month mark and it's been a slow decent since then. The bad days are starting to outnumber the good days and the good days just aren't as good as they were before. But I don't really have a 'home' to go to right now. When I do get back to the states it's going to take a bit of work to create a home for myself again.... and I'm not looking forward to that. Well, except for the people speaking English part... I am looking forward to that.... and the cheese. I am *definitely* looking forward to the cheese.

It had to happen sooner or later...

I may have mentioned how much I hate Saturdays. Well, today was something special. I went up to my class and some of the kids in the classroom across the hall were SCREAMING. I mean, there's the usual level of ruckus you'd expect from a hundred kids tromping up and down stairs going in and out of classes, but these girls were putting out hypersonic squeels that nearly made my eardrums bleed. I looked in the door to see if a teacher was there but didn't see anyone, so I poked my head in and shushed them good. Of course then I turned around and noticed that the teacher *was* in there, just sitting at her desk preparing for the class. D'oh! I said a quick 'sorry' and left. But ooooh, not okay to go in and discipline another teacher's kids... but honestly - I couldn't believe she could sit there and even attempt to look at her book with the kids screeching like that.


Have I mentioned that I don't like kids?


Anyway, with that pleasant little encounter, and three hours of class behind me I came downstairs to get ready for round two. There's a computer set up in the hallway near the teacher's room for the kids to play on before & after class. No problem except when the kids all pull up chairs and make it impossible for teachers to actually *get* to the teacher's room.


This particular day I was attempting to maneuver around the kids when the most horrid smell I've ever encountered wafted over to me. At first it smelled like some unholy combination of body odor and garbage. But a second later there was a wave of eau d'industrial cleaner. When I opened the door into the teachers lounge it was almost unbearable.


"Oh you missed your opportunity to try Durian!" said Jim, an older teacher from England.
"Is *that* what that was?!" I replied stifling my gag reflex to the best of my abilities.


Despite the fact that the durian had been consumed and disposed of before I got there I could still smell it - FROM THE HALLWAY! That's some powerful stank! I'd had no particular desire to try durian in the first place... but this just solidified it in my mind. No way, no how. If I never see or smell it again, I'll be just fine!


I left the teacher's room as soon as I could, but still had to make a couple trips back in there for one thing or another. Gah! Horrid. Jim stated, quite placidly that while he liked the fruit he was slightly bothered by the disinfectant they use on it (the second layer I smelled). Good LORD it was nasty! It's like the smell of every bodily function left to simmer in the sun by the side of the road absorbing a day or two's worth of pollution. The idea of someone eating it - it just boggles my mind. I really wonder if it's a genetic thing or not - your ability to tolerate the smell/taste of durian.


But I'm really not willing to investigate the matter.


TAG: Code Durian (Get me the hell out of the teacher's room!)

Cambodian Adventure Day One - getting there

Oh Dear Lord! When I said I wanted more adventure in my life, I think I should have been a bit more specific. Getting from Rayong, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia involved no less than:








2 Songthaews (we missed our stop and had to get back on going the opposite direction)

See how happy Bunny is... we have no idea what we're getting into!

a mini-van to Bangkok (zooming along at something close to light speed)

the BTS sky train

an opalescent nail-polish pink meter taxi

a 'good god why doesn't my air conditioning work I may actually die of heat stroke' bus to Aranyapatet (Thai side of the border)

the nastiest ever bus toilet - the door wouldn't shut & the overly full flushing bucket kept splashing on the floor

while we're at it - two squat toilets too horrid to describe

an over priced tuk tuk to the Cambodian Embassy (for an overpriced visa)

Thai passport control

a walk across the 'friendship bridge' over not a river but oceans of plastic bags & garbage

Cambodian passport control

A taxi. The taxi from hell.

Another tuk tuk





Walking into Poipet, Cambodia was overwhelming. It was the dirtiest and dustiest place I've ever been. There were tons of people crossing from one side to the other (we were the only tourists there) and another ton waiting on the other side, and we were immediately set upon by people offering us a taxi into Siem Reap. We'd read in the guidebook that we should expect to pay around $40 US* for the 3 hour ride. The first few taxi drivers offered us a ride for $45 & up. We kept saying "no thanks, no thanks, we want to walk"* but they simply didn't leave us alone. One guy followed us the entire way across the bridge and even waited while we went through passport control. It was annoying in the extreme. We were eager to get someplace where we could see a few different taxis so we could pick the least aggressive one... no such luck. They kept telling us they had the 'last taxi'... which was odd because there were about five of them saying this.





A short way into the city there was an old dusty bus and it felt like everyone in the vicinity was ushering us onto it. There was a sign that said "Bus to transportation terminal" or something like that, and really we didn't know what else to do, so we got on. So did like four of the taxi drivers. It was one of those moments where we just looked at each other like "What just happened?" We don't know these people, we don't know where this bus is going, what the hell is going on here? They were making friendly small talk in English and we tried to just go along with it. A few miles down the dirt road (absolute clouds of brown dust everywhere) they pulled over into the parking lot of a large new-looking building. There was nothing else in the immediate area, and the sign said "Transportation Terminal".





We might have relaxed at this point... after all we had wanted to get to the transportation hub. The problem was, the hub wasn't exactly humming. It was empty, no people, no furniture, no signs, no nothing, no garbage even. There was *one* taxi in the gravel parking lot and aside from a few people outside huddled around it, no one, NO ONE in the building. I asked where the toilet was, eager for just five minutes away from these guys so we could get our collective heads together. Naturally, there were only squat toilets available. =/ We kind of freaked out for a while but eventually realized there wasn't much we could do... we needed to take a taxi into Siem Reap and they really did have the only taxi available.





Back outside, they told us the taxi ride would be $60... nice change up from the $45 they'd been offering back at the border. The three of us just turned around and walked. It was too much. We'd been harassed from the border, taken to an abandoned building and more or less bullied into a taxi. But then, where exactly were we going to walk to? Dusk was falling at this time and it was a good couple of miles back to the border. So when the taxi guys started chasing us again offering us a 'discount' we turned around and took it. We even talked them back down to $40. Of course then half the guys started asking for a tip... which, obviously, we did not give. We all climbed into the back, refusing the offer to have our belongings put in the trunk, or to let one of us sit in the back. I wasn't about to trust these people any farther than I had to. Which was still much farther than I would have liked.





On this three hour taxi ride from hell, I had a lot of time to ponder the nature of fear. I was terrified... absolutely terrified. The road was only partially paved. At times it was at least a pressed & smoothed dirt/gravel road that was merely bumpy and uncomfortable to ride on, but at times it was incredibly rough and we were tossed about like a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. I huddled close to Bobby and tried not to freak out. Because up to this point nothing bad had actually happened to us. I mean, from another perspective, you could say these guys eagerly greeted us at the boarder and ushered us effortlessly to the last taxi available, saving us from having to spend the night in town. But in my mind, their aggressiveness, our unfamiliarity with the situation, the strangeness of being in a new country (a country with a horrifyingly gruesome recent past), the deep deep darkness, and our inability to choose among different options just had my guard all the way up.





But still, I was uninjured, no one had threatened me, I was just in a really really uncomfortable situation. I tried to comfort myself with the mantra "At this moment I am safe." which at least for a few seconds would distract me from my terror. But in addition to the road being inconsistently paved, there were several small bridges under construction along the way. Each bridge-in-progress involved a backwards 'C' shaped detour*, off the road into a gully, and back steeply up and out of the gully & back onto the road. The first time he veered off the road, I made peace with my maker because I was certain he was going to pull off the road and kill us all. Of course he didn't, but once that thought entered my mind, I simply couldn't get it out. He made a couple cell phone calls, and at each one I was sure he was telling his accomplices to meet him at location X with shot guns & shovels to hide our bodies.





Again, I was aware that the fear was only mental... but it was real nonetheless. I kept my mantra going, and when Bunny started chattering inanely I joined in fully, even playing her favorite game - 20 questions (both general & Harry Potter versions) - a few times. The road was sporadically populated and when I saw other people walking or biking around I felt minutely better... if they were unafraid, maybe it really was safe. Of course as we passed one woman running down a lane with a flash light Bunny suggested she might be a ghost thus negating any comfort she'd provided with her babbling.





After the first hour I did try to convince myself that if he'd wanted to rob & kill us it would have been more efficient to do so closer to town (you know, why waste all that gas)... but it just didn't stop the terror. The problem was, the ride was too long. About 2 hours and 50 minutes too long in my mind. And every time he pulled off the road onto a detour, I was sure again that we'd be dead at worst, or at best robbed and stranded. I took some of my cash out of my wallet and stuck it deep in my backpack.... just in case. But nothing, nothing was shaking the terror from my little brain.





Finally, FINALLY we pulled into Siem Reap and I started to relax, just a bit. As we drove we passed huge shiny-new high end tourist resorts that made the city look more like LA than Cambodia. It was really unbelievable. Once we got to a fairly busy road, the taxi driver just pulled over. We paid him the $40 and started hiking away. Naturally, he'd dropped us off near his 'buddy' the tuk-tuk driver... but we were having none of it. Comforted by urban lights and noise and busyness we headed for the nearest well lit restaurant.





Interestingly it was a Japanese place, and although we weren't in the mood for dinner, they let us sit down and have some Iced Tea while we sorted ourselves out and tried to call our hostel. They even brought us nice cool handiwipes to clean the dirt and stress of the day off of us. It was the first time since we'd gotten off the bus in Aranyapatet some 4 or 5 hours earlier that I felt like we had any sort of control over what was happening. In a few minutes a tuk tuk from the hostel arrived to transport us to our temporary home. It was only after we were safely locked in our room that I could finally relax. Our room was clean, the beds were comfy and the bathroom had not only a western toilet but a HOT shower as well. I enjoyed my first hot shower since September and collapsed into bed, relieved to be done with Day One of this crazy Cambodian adventure.





*Cambodia was a surreal blend of third world poverty and American style comforts. The people involved in the tourist industry speak English remarkably well (especially considering it was in my lifetime that people were murdered for speaking a foreign language) and signs are in a mix of Khmer, English and occasionally French. They also drive on the right side of the road, and use the dollar for all but the smallest of transactions. The ATM gives you US dollars, and you'll might change back in a mix of dollars and riel (4,000 riel to the dollar)... the math was most disturbing. The main streets of both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh were overrun with foreign restaurants, Italian, American, Japanese, Indian, Korean, Spanish, even Mexican. But it was always evident that the wealth and western style comforts were a mix of foreign investments and foreign colonization.... I saw no sign of true Cambodian wealth, or even a thriving middle class. But I'll have more to say about that later.





Cambodian Advisory Guide for the day - Code Durian... this day made me want to go back to the US more than anything I've experienced thus far.

The Airing of Grievances

Two years ago, I was on the Holiday Party committee at work. We had meetings and discussed themes (we decided on snowflakes and blue & silver color scheme). Jobs were assigned, catering was ordered, furniture was rented, etc. And on the day of, the committee spent hours and hours putting up decorations and making everything look just so.

The day of the party, one of the committee members brought in two giant plastic blow-up snow-globes and proceeded to set them up. I opposed them vehemently! When was this discussed at the committee? How did tacky red & green suburban lawn decorations fit in with our snowflake theme? Why on god's green earth would anyone buy these things anyway??? I was the vocal minority... the rest of the committee were in the "I don't like them, but I'm too chicken to disagree with anyone out loud." or "I really don't care." camps. I fumed... not so silently.

At the party, after a couple of drinks, I stood looking at the giant snow globe (taller than me); at Santa and his reindeer being showered with a constant storm of styrofoam snow. An Australian came by "You've got to love it, it's so American!" - I died a little inside.

Soon enough the instigator of the snow-globe plan came over and put an arm around my shoulder. "You really hate it don't you?" He said.
"Yes, I really really do. I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch about this."
"That's okay." He said as we continued to stare, mesmerized by the blizzard of styrofoam snow. "In fact... today is Festivus and you're supposed to air your grievances."
"It's what?"
"It's a holiday for the rest of us. The first tradition is the Airing of Grievances where you tell everyone in your life how much they've disappointed you... the second tradition is the Feats of Strength, where you wrestle your host to the ground."
"Really! Then I really genuinely hate this snow globe, and I can't believe you brought it here, completely destroying any attempt to make our party 'elegant' or at least 'not tacky'."
"That's the Spirit!"

And that is how I learned the true meaning of Festivus.


So in the true spirit of the holiday I would like to share with you my Airing of Grievances: Thailand Edition.

1. Humidity - it hasn't been especially warm since I got here, but anytime I walk more than two or three blocks I'm drenched in sweat. My the end of the day I look pathetic and smell atrocious.

2. Pollution - on the ground, in the air, at the beach. There are never enough garbage cans at public places, so trash ends up everywhere. This is a beautiful country, but it would benefit tremendously from a bit of a clean up.

3. The sex industry - personally I'm don't think the words 'sex' and 'industry' should ever go together. It's a tad disturbing to walk down the main street at night and pass prostitute after prostitute, or to see women sitting outside 'massage parlors' and 'karaoke bars' but know that for an extra 1,000 baht they're much more than that. It's even more disturbing to know that the majority of foreign guys who come here have used these services. I try not to judge... it's a whole different culture here. It's unlikely that the world's oldest profession will go out of business any time soon, so I know it's not worth me worrying about. But having sex for money.... ewwwww ewwwww ewwwww!

4. Sidewalks - every trip is an adventure. If there's a uniform sidewalk for a stretch of more than two stores I get excited. Otherwise it's uneven at best, at worst more pot holes and loose concrete than 'side walk'. I think back to life in the US where an uneven crack in the sidewalk was cause for spray paint, a sign and at times caution tape and I just crack up.

5. Wildlife - giant cockroaches that attack you in the shower, rabid dogs that bark all night long or sit staring at you as you eat, frogs that jump out at you as you walk along the street, snakes* of undetermined size and ferocity that lurk in any grassy area, lizards that crawl all over the walls, and the mosquitoes... those annoying and potentially disease carrying mosquitoes that are undeterred by mosquito repellent... all of these irritate and/or terrify me.

6. 'Fast food' English - I teach from 7 different books, and work 6 days a week. My schedule changes constantly. I haven't had two consecutive days off since September. I teach people ages 10 to 50. Every classroom is empty when I get there, and needs to be empty again when I leave - I have only a hanging folder and a plastic shoebox to store my teaching resources. A couple of my classes have text books that are completely inappropriate for their level. You can't fail anyone, ever. The copier is constantly running out of paper. The bathrooms are constantly running out of TP.

7. Squat Toilets

8. Whiskey - it's gross... why does everyone insist on drinking it?

9. Beige cars - a solid 50% of the cars here are beige; another 45% are silver. They all have tinted windows. When I get out of class, I can never identify which car I came in and wander aimlessly until my driver honks at me.

10. Bread - when you can find it - it's never that good.

11. It's just not 'home'. I'm a farang, and even if I became fluent in Thai & married a Thai man and had half-Thai children... I'd still be a farang, an outsider.

12. Squat Toilets - it bears repeating.



Ok... your turn, celebrate the true meaning of Festivus and air your grievances with pride!




*Yesterday both Donny & Big regaled me with stories of snakes falling out of trees; snakes as big around as your leg, snakes that span three hotel rooms in length, and snakes that hang out at the beach. I was *screaming* and seriously (however briefly) seriously considered leaving Thailand. TAG - Code Durian!