catching up a little

The move to the new room was accomplished last weekend. When I came to Thailand I had two carry on bags and a stuffed sea bag. The odds and ends of household items have more than doubled the mass of my belongings.

Random’s girlfriend S. was once again a huge help in finding the new room as well as negotiating with the landlord. Due to circumstances, I found myself alone when it was time to make the actual move. After packing and cleaning the old room I flagged down a baht bus with no passengers and hired the driver to carry me and my things to the new room.

I am on the top floor of a four story apartment building a couple of miles from the old room and closer to Pattaya proper. Actually, I am now within reasonable walking distance to Beach Road and Walking Street.

The new room is far enough off of the main road to greatly reduce traffic noise. I spent all day Saturday packing and cleaning and moving. It was about 16:00 when I had been dropped off by the baht bus and began carrying things up to my room. There was a Thai woman who introduced herself and helped me carry a few bags up. She explained that she worked for the landlord, doing general cleaning and other things around the building. It had been a long hot day and I was glad for the help.

Eventually I met with the landlord and took care of the administrative tasks. S. stopped by after her English class and took me out to a couple of stores for some items I needed. By the time everything was finished, I was fairly tired and looking forward to a shower and sleep.

While I am pleased that the room is smaller and there are virtually no sounds of traffic, there are other things to adjust to. There are several neighborhood dogs that seem to have a barking and howling competition almost like clock work every night around 23:00. They carry on for about a half hour or so and then pretty much go quiet.

I had dozed off to sleep when I heard a loud and unfamiliar bird squawk. As it sounded as if it was in the room and perched over my head, it had a predictable effect. I cut on the lights and thankfully did not see anything wearing feathers in the room. I did notice that one of those little gecko lizards was on a far wall about a foot from the ceiling. I laughed, walked closer and asked him if he was the one making noise. He seemed to be trying hard not to make eye contact with me and had no reply.

I shut off the lights and lay back down. I was just starting to drift off when I heard the bird squawk again. I laid there and it squawked once more. It sounded as if it was coming from the ceiling. I wondered if there was a nest in the crawl space between my ceiling and the roof. In any case the bird went silent until about 3:00 in the morning when it squawked once more and was quiet again. This general pattern repeated it self the next two nights with the only change being that the bird seems to have changed locations from the front of the room to the back of the room. Last night I didn’t hear it at all.

On Tuesday morning I took a motorcycle taxi to down town Pattaya at about 6:00, had a light breakfast and about 45 minutes later boarded a van with six other foreigners and our Thai driver to make a 3 hour run to the Cambodia border in order to have our passports stamped so as to be allowed to stay in the Kingdom for another 30 days.

A couple of the members of our party seemed to know each and would make brief comments to one another. For the most part it was silence in the van. It wasn’t that anyone was particularly anti social, none of us felt like talking. One or two of the passengers appeared to have been out until shortly before the van was scheduled to leave, they were fitfully sleeping on the way up. Occasionally some one or other would receive a phone call. By the time we stopped half way to stretch I had worked out by accents that there were 3 Brits, 2 Germans, A Russian and one America, me.

There was an overhead video screen and head phones were provided for the movies that were played for our distraction through out the whole trip. I ignored the movies and watched as the early morning sights and sounds of Pattaya were soon replaced by wider and wider spaces of open land and jungle.

We passed through several smaller towns as we headed north-north east towards one of the Thai border crossings. As we went further large hills and small mountains were visible in the distance. As the towns became wider apart we passed small coffee farms and much denser jungle.

In the larger towns beyond Pattaya, the Western influence was still clearly visible in both the commercial architecture as well as signs in both English and Thai. In addition to well known global brands of car dealerships, even when in Thai there was no camouflaging the ubiquitous Coca-Cola trademark.

As we moved further out, English all but disappeared and in the countryside, the overall flavor of what I imagine may be many American expectations of rural Asian scenes were visible. Primitive looking dwellings, simple appearing farmers and here and there a water buffalo. All the while, the bus never left the black top paving of the highway.

I did bring a camera but snapping pictures through the tinted window of the fast moving van was less than satisfactory. When we stopped at the border, our driver herded us to the Thai Immigration building where we stood in line to have our documents and passports examined. After that we walked across the corner from the parking area past the road leading to Cambodia and over a long wooden foot bridge.

As soon as we approached the bridge we were treated to the onslaught of children who we had to wade through to cross the bridge. All were smiling brightly, holding out small hands, palm up or grasping a Styrofoam cup. Ceaselessly they repeated their mantra or “hey mister, one two baht please mister one two baht.”

While it would only be human to feel sympathy for their poverty, we all had been warned to ignore them.

One ex-pat I had told I was going to the border compared the throngs of children to piranha fish. Shaking his head he told me that if you gave one of them anything the rest would swarm in on you insisting on theirs.

He went on, “Don’t even make eye contact with them, they appear to be all sweetness and innocence, but they can smell weakness and that’s what our Western empathy is to them. I can’t blame them looking at it from their perspective. They see us as strange looking people who have everything and they have next to nothing.”

Once over the bridge we met with representatives from the Visa company we had hired to drive us up and assist with process. We all surrendered out passports and were led over to some duty free shops offering cheap cigarettes by the carton and alcohol.

A few of the buildings were concrete; most were put together with old weathered planks. There were open air markets on both sides, which we had been asked to avoid in order to keep to the trip schedule. Later while talking to two of the Brits I would learn that beyond the market on the Cambodian side was a casino with slot machines and table games. All gambling is expressly illegal in Thailand, except for the national lottery.

There were children not actively engaging foreigners who were carrying large burlap or plastic bags checking the garbage cans for plastic bottles or presumably other recyclables tossed away by tourists.

In about twenty minutes the Visa company rep came back to the half dozen picnic tables most of us were waiting at. She began calling out names and handing back passports. From there is back across the bridge and back through Thai Immigration to be examined and stamped back into the Kingdom.

We had to wait a little while for two of out party who had overstay fines to pay. When we were all back through Thai Immigration our driver called us over and we boarded the now cool van and found airline style cold lunches waiting for us on our seats.

The drive back was uneventful except for the half way stop. I went into the convenience store to use the bathroom. I was directed back outside and down the sidewalk. There in front of a small building I saw international signs for women, men and urinals. I followed the urinal sign and found myself behind the building and facing a long row of urinals with a sink at one end. The floor was tiled but it was all open air with no walls or partitions.

We got back to Pattaya about 15:00. In thirty days, I’ll do it all over again.

Ok for now.