For one night a year, the Thais reclaim Khao San Road.

I heard that Khao San Road was a good place to celebrate Halloween, so I figured I would make a pilgrimage to my favorite place in Bangkok. Getting there proved to be an epic saga. The only bus I know of that goes from Siam Square to that part of town is the elusive red number 15 bus. After a half an hour, I decided that this must be one of those times that it is just not going to come. No problem, I’ll hail a taxi. Taxis kept driving by, but none of them had their lights on.

It seems everybody waiting for a taxi was a block down the road, grabbing them as soon as they turned the corner. I walked down there, but still, no taxis came. Strange that the roads are packed with them, but you can never find one if you need to.

So I gave up on that, and walked a block to the other side of Siam Square, where I quickly hopped in one. Unfortunately, asking a taxi driver to take you to Khao San Road is the same as asking to be ripped off. As usual, this guy would not turn on his meter. Strangely, he quoted his inflated price of 150 baht, three times the meter rate, in Thai. Doesn’t he realize that if a foreigner knows enough Thai to understand him, they will also know the real price?

After asking nicely three times, I got fed up and fled, and hopped in the taxi behind him. Looking pissed off and saying “Khao San Road, METER” worked like a charm.

Eventually, I arrived at my destination, among a mob of people. I had never seen so many people there. The street was pack literally solid, from one end to the other. Then I realized that it was packed with Thais. Thais between the ages of 18 and 25. It seems all the hippies had been sent to Viang Vieng, and a mob of Thai college students had been imported.

The attraction was the cleverly named Thai punk band Modern Dog. They were pretty good. Eventually one of the college guys, Nak, started talking to me in poor English. He was surprised when I said I had been here for three months. He introduced me to his friends Neung, Dear, and Noi, none of whom spoke English. I asked him if they came here often, but he didn’t understand. The fact that most Thais don’t understand a word they are saying doesn’t stop most foreigners from happily blathering away in rapid-fire, slang-filled English. But it bugs me, so I try Thai at the first sign of confusion. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to say that.

After the show we got a table at one of the streetside bars, normally full of farangs, but now packed with Thai students. After it became apparent that my friend originally talked to me because he was gay (an ongoing problem I’ve been having), and I wasn’t interested, I felt a bit awkward, as Nak abandoned me. I tried talking to the lovely Noi, unfortunately girlfriend of Dear (saying “I cannot speak Thai” in Thai is a great ice-breaker), and learned how to ask “do you come here often?” She said they do not come here often. I tried to ask if they only come here once a year, but I didn’t know how.

I stayed until 2, and the taxi home was no problem. Much shorter and cheaper than going all the way out to Chatchuchak. The only issue is that the sois on Rang Nam do not have numbers, and I cannot remember the name of mine, so I always end up going past it.

Victory at last

I don’t know why I stayed in Chatchuchack for so long. Finally, after years of living in the suburban wastelands of Maryland, then the wastelands of Chatchuchak, I am realizing my dream of living in a big city. Unlike Pahayothin, with its car dealerships, tire shops, and garages, Rang Nam is lined with things of interest to me: sidewalk vendors, shops, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars. There’s even a Seven-11. Gone are the days of having to walk 15 minutes to get to the only restaurant. The convenience! There’s a small park a block away that I can jog in, while listening to live entertainment.

If that’s not good enough, I can walk to the Victory Monument itself. With all the people, the booths and vendors, the beer gardens with live entertainment, and the Skytrain above, the area has a Disneyland feel to it.

The only downside is that the people in the house across the soi, a large, nice house, have several chickens. One must accept the fact that while in Thailand, one is never far from a live chicken.

Coming soon: photos.

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I’m taking the Introduction to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) course at ECC Siam Square. ECC also offers the prestigious CELTA, an intensive four week course that will qualify you to teach anywhere in the world. But, since I have never taught before, I decided to take the two week intro course. It is also a third of the cost.

The TESOL is very introductory, and we spend most of our time discussing concepts in groups, rather than being taught. I think they’re trying to demonstrate the kind of active teaching that we should be doing, but that doesn’t allow much material to be presented.

It is sort of interesting, though. In all my previous experience, lessons have always been very passive affairs that I usually slept through. But they stress involving the students at all stages, engaging their interest, eliciting rather than just giving words, and asking comprehension checking questions. It sounds good in theory, but I wonder how it will work in practice.

I assumed I would find out during the three teaching practices, which I also assumed would be full lessons to Thai students. But we’re actually going to teach our fellow classmates, and only in three 15 minute chunks. I won’t even be nervous, since I’ve gotten to know everyone over the last week. My first teaching practice is on Monday. It’s a vocabulary lesson, and in an effort to make it more realistic, since everyone speaks English, we have to teach five words of a foreign language. So I’ll give Thai a shot.

The TESOL’s a good introduction, but I don’t think I will be ready to teach after taking it. I may take the CELTA in January.

The Candle Festival

Happy boat maker

The festival of Loy Krathong. took place last night, and I was once again impressed by the nocturnal nature of the Thais. On this night, happy couples buy two lotus-shaped boats, containing flowers and candles, and set them out to drift. If the boats stay together, so will they. Again, figuring Khao San Road would be a good place to start, I caught a bus, which got stuck in bad traffic, so I didn’t get over to that part of town until 10. I saw a huge mass of people around the Golden Mount Temple, so I hopped off to see what was up. The sidewalk was lined with vendors selling beautiful floats, snacks, food, clothes, and about anything else you could want.

After extraditing myself from the crush of people, I moseyed on over to Khao San Road, which was packed with Thais again. Not as crowded as last week, but still, much fuller than usual. I met up with Australian Duncan and Northern Irish Ruairi from class at Gulliver’s Tavern, which I had actually never been in before. There were lots of friendly Thai females. I thought they were a little too friendly, if you catch my drift. I was too cynical, and they kept telling me to “stop being so serious.” Words to live by in the Land of Smiles.

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Now that my TESOL course is finished, I am bored. Last Friday I graduated with a grade of a “B.” I’m happy with this, since the class was so trivial, I don’t know what you would have had to do to get an “A.” I think most of the grade was based on attendance, and because of the slow clock in the canteen, I was late frequently during the first week, until I saw all the L’s by my name. You probably also had to teach flawlessly.

Teaching to our fellow classmates was artificial, but it was a good first step for me. For the first practice I had to teach six Thai words in 15 minutes. I thought this would be easy, but it was harder than I thought when I got up there. My lack of ability in Thai didn’t help, either.

The second session was reading comprehension. I had to elicit the class’s interest, have them read a passage, then answer questions about it. Teaching native speakers how to read English is pretty easy, so this went pretty well. Except for the fact that I lost track of time, and short-changed myself by five minutes, so had to go really fast. Perhaps this was the fatal flaw that cost me an “A.” But now I feel more confidant, and more ready for the CELTA. I’ll be even more ready after studying grammar for a while, since they didn’t actually teach us any in this course.

So now I’m done, free of responsibility, and bored. I really need to have something to keep me occupied and focused. I was planning on taking another month of Thai lessons, but now I’m thinking of going home for the month of December.

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A Thai lady in my TESOL class recently pointed out that it’s winter here. Sure enough, it is slightly less hot (low, instead of high 90’s). Then, later that day, I was shocked to notice something I’ve never experienced in Bangkok: a warm breeze. Winter is truly upon us. Now, while the Thais are all bundled up in their scarves and mittens, I can stay outside for periods of up to 20 minutes without becoming totally covered in sweat. It really is a relatively nice time to be in Bangkok.

I find that I don’t miss snow, and don’t particularly look forward to seeing copious amounts of it in the next two months. Maybe this is because I saw plenty of it last April in Nepal. What I do miss are rainy days. The hour long downpours followed by clear skies during the rainy season just didn’t do it for me. Now, I take the clear, blue skies every day for granted. If there were an overcast, rainy day now and then, I think I would appreciate the beautiful weather more.

I went to Khao San Road and bought a round-trip ticket home. I found a place that was significantly cheaper, and excitedly paid. When I checked the itinerary, there was no connection from LA to Indianapolis. The travel agent didn’t understand why this was disastrous, so I showed her the two cities on a map. Even then, I don’t think she understands that, unlike in Thailand, you can’t just hop on a bus to go anywhere you want. Without your own car, you can’t get very far in America.

At least I won’t have to worry about visas for a couple months. I had to go to immigration again to extend my Thai visa. I only needed 9 days, but they could only sell me a 15 day extension for 1900 baht. Yipes, that’s $50! Strangely, the official pointed out I could pay an overstay fee of 200 baht per day at the airport, saving me 100 baht. But I’ve heard stories of people who overstayed by one day, but had a train ticket out of the country for later that day. This didn’t stop Immigration from paying them a visit, and throwing them in jail. You should always be legal in Thailand.

In America, I should be able to get a one-year visa. This will make life easier when I comes time to apply for a work permit. Work permits cannot be issued with tourist visas, but you can’t get a one-year visa in Thailand. So they make you go to Malaysia, which is incredibly far from Bangkok. The Thai consulate in Penang will only issue a one-year visa with evidence of employment, which, of course, can only be obtained by working illegally for a few months. There’s no way to avoid this catch-22, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it.

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