"You'll understand when you come my way cause all of my demons have withered away"
Okay, I've figured out a way to get a Balinese smile out of the more shy Bangkokians (Bangkokites?) Jyab?
Basically, this evening I'm walking home from my brand new job down a new (to me) street to my newish home listening to a not so new Fat Boy Slim CD. I've got a goofy grin across my face and my walking is really a strut come dance! And I'm sure all the Thai are thinking "bar (new word for today) falang." Don't quote me one the spelling and I think I like "gila", the indonesian word for crazy, better but bar will do just fine being careful to put the intonation into your eyes not the sound of the word!
So I'm finally feeling pretty settled here in Thailand. I think what I wasn't looking for found me
and I'm seriously tempted to stay here in bar Bangkok for a few months, make some headway into this language that confused me so much last time I was here, and have a generally good time. I'm pretty sorted right now. I'm staying at at guesthouse right on the river next to the new and architecturally impressive Rama 8 bridge. It's one of those places you have to be
introduced to cause otherwise you'd never find it and most of the people here are staying medium to long term; lots of teachers, including MEEEE!
Yup, after years at uni laughing at all the suckers who got a Dip. Ed on top their degree and saying "Never" cause then I might accidentally end up back in school, the place I hated so much, I'm back and kinda enjoying it.
Today I had my first day of training for a fun company called Fun Language who are going to pay me pretty decent money on the scale of BKK teaching wages to goof around and play games all day. Hee hee hee! Basically they work in classrooms without furniture inside the kids schools teaching from 3 to 13 year olds. And literally, all of the teaching is based around playing games and getting the kids to have fun so they don't stress out about learning. Its pretty cool. I get to wear pants and a very stylish "fun language" polo which is soo much
cooler than all the fake Ralph Lauren ones they're selling on Khoa San. Which is kinda funny cause I seem to have turned into a girl since I arrived in Thailand and own all these skirts and a pretty top or two. Yup, you heard right! Work pays at the end of each month which is pretty nice. A lot of places pay in arrears to discourage people from doing runners, so now I can
worry about my stomach instead of my bank balance.
I've lost so much weight since arriving in BKK. I seem to spend so much time wandering around in the heat and humidity getting lost! A couple of days ago I had these really bad cravings for MacDonalds fries until I finally realised my body was craving salt. Oh yeah,
and foodwise, theres an excellent vego restaurant around the corner from my guesthouse and an even better one down the road from the office. Sorted.
So last night was full moon and Loi Kratong "the second biggest festival in Thailand" as I got told about twenty times yesterday! There are a couple of varying reasons I've heard for the festival; one is to give thanks for the rains (which are finishing up) another is to make recompense for all the disrespect paid to the river by, get this, floating thousands, nah, millions of offerings mounted on polystyrene down all the rivers in Thailand. So I'm living right on the river okay! Nice one. We're staying across from a big park where they're having this huge party broadcast right across the nation. Fairy lights, wicked fireworks and lots of food. I wandered over there early in the evening to check it out. Surpisingly I'm
one of the few falang and lots of cameras pointing at me. So now I'm famous, but not for being Roxette or David Beckham like in Bali. There's hundreds of boats chugging up to this one point in the river (next to us) to offload all the Kratong (offerings). And people have paid serious money to have dinner on all the tourist boats to check it all out and we're just having a casual barbie and downing a few beer Leo. I still haven't figured out which is worse, Leo or
Chang. My stomach was feeling pretty unsettled this morning as I got up this morning bright and early for my first day of work and waded through the remaining flood waters to the ferry.
And I was worried about not being close to the water. This morning I caught a ferry across the river to the school to meet fellow teachers, then we got a taxi back across to the office on the other side of town after school and I caught a canal ferry back home.
There's this awesome little canal that I've just discovered (or been shown more honestly) that runs right from near where I stay, east to where I work. The ferry has a spring loaded roof that collapses to get under the super low bridge and tarps up the side to protect you from the super scungy river water. The Chao Praya makes the Yarra look like spring water. It's a murky mocha colour and has untold amounts of crap floating down it. But in the evening when the sunsets
its a pretty pinky colour and during the day the blue reflection from the sky contrasts nicely with the coffee! I really like watching all the river hubbub in the evening; after the ferries stop running and swamping the banks with wash, squid lady comes out and plies the people at the restaurant next door with her delicacies. She runs up and down in this tiny wooden boat with a rack of dried squid and a little fire or cooker on the boat to cook it.