Thai Zumba Lessons and Dinner by the Chao Phraya River

A friend of mine is visiting from Nepal. After her undergraduate studies, she joined teaching at a college in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Since it is summer holidays in schools now, she is visiting us (my other friends from college and I) in BKK. Yesterday, we took her to the nearby Rama VIII Bridge, named after the King Rama VIII. The Bridge is 2.45 km long and spans the Chao Phraya River. On our way, we passed series of restaurants filled with local people. Since eating out is cheaper and less time consuming, everyone eats out here. We also passed a Indian restaurant run by Nepali people. One would think that these people from your homeland would be more helpful and nicer to you in a foreign country, but instead they started making sleazy passes and comments at us. Then we passed a vegetarian restaurant on our way, which had peculiar open hours. When my friend asked as old lady, who seemed like the owner, what time they would open, she replied 11. We were shocked, a vegetarian restaurant opening at 11 pm? But then she later clarified that she meant 11 am the next day.

After about 20 minutes of walk we finally came to the bridge. We saw a group of young boys playing football by the bridge. This reminded me of my football days in middle school, when I used to be on the school team and also my first year in college when I played varsity soccer. Although I was tempted to go join them for a while, I resisted. My three friends and I climbed the top layer of the bridge and that’s when I found men fishing with fishing rods that had really long strings attached to them and they were using binoculars to detect if they had caught any fish. Although the river was dirty, it looked beautiful from up there on the bridge. There were beautiful giant ships with lighted pink, yellow and blue colors, sailing on the river. A little further down, we saw a group of at least 30 women and men dancing to the tune of some Thai pop music. There was a tiny stage in front of them with a very fit looking instructor on it. It looked so much fun that I decided to join them myself. Dancing to the fun Thai music and facing the river was the best exercise experience of my life.

It was time for some food after the random exercise. We found rows of people, especially couples sitting on hand woven mats and cooking some kind of soup by the river. It seemed such a strange coincidence that everyone would be cooking the same thing. Then we found out that you could actually order those soup pots and pick which ingredients you wanted and cook them in the hot mud pot by yourself. So we called the lady who was taking orders. Since one of my friends is vegetarian she specified that we did not want any of the seafood, or meat or eggs. She looked confused so I asked her to go with the lady and personally supervise the ingredients for the soup. Apparently, the lady seemed very disappointed when my friend rejected all kinds of fish, lobsters, octopus, meat and eggs. Nevertheless, we ended up cooking yummy soup out of greens and vegetables. The river looked so beautiful with the reflection from houses on it and the air was refreshing. The evening was certainly one of those fairy tale romantic types.

Honey Hunter

Last couple weeks have been pretty rough for everyone at office. We had a big weeklong meeting with country officers from all over the world. This stressful event went extremely successful, everything was organized and on time just as written in agenda. However, after the event, couple people in my office became sick. One of them had to take 3 days off to take a bed rest and the other one took a day off.

Even I started feeling something wrong with my throat. This made me paranoid. I did not want a day off, as I wanted to take a holiday later during winter break. I have learned since my childhood that honey and ginger cures all kinds of cough and cold. So I immediately went on a hunt for ginger and honey. I went to Seven Eleven, which is a min walk from my place. I searched everywhere but to my surprise I did not find any honey. I saw a honey like thing in a tube by the counter, picked to check it out. The label on the tube was green and in Thai. It looked like a face wash. Frustrated, I went to a nearby super market and searched for it in the section where I could find all kinds of jam and bread spread. But there was no sign of honey. So I approached a store worker, hesitant, thinking if they knew what honey meant in Thai. Luckily, she knew what I was talking about and took me to the very end of the corner most isle and there it was, in a face wash looking tube with green Thai letters printed on it. So, the thing that I found at Seven Eleven, and discarded, thinking it was a face wash turned out to be honey. On the positive side, that extra walk of ten minutes to the super market, helped me burn some fat that I had taken earlier through a very oily Thai dish.

Where Creativity Knows No Bounds :)

Among many other things such as cheap food and clothes, fresh fruits, vegetables and smoothies at every corner of the road, there is another thing that stood out to me in BKK. People here are very creative and by that I mean majority of them, be it a local vendor or a great dress designer. It is hard for anyone here to starve to death. I have seen toys, hats and purses made up of recycled soda cans. I have seen amazing motorcycles and scooters with so many businesses being carried on them. The first one that I saw was a whole vegetable shop being carried on it. Then it was a fast food noodle shop. Finally, I got to see the motorcycle taxis, where men are in orange shirts and they take you to places faster than any regular four wheeler taxis. I am yet to ride one of those taxis though.

I found a soap in Jatuchak market that had built in body scrubber, no need to get an external one. When it comes to clothing, I am sure we all have seen how creative and cute BKK designs are. I came across one of these scarves that had beads and crystals sawn into them. So along with your pretty scarves, you can also show off the fancy jewels without having to wear them separately. I am sure the Western countries will soon have them imported in large numbers. I also saw a pair of bra with detachable covers so that if you wanted to wear low cut clothes without revealing your bra then you could just attach those cute covers on top of your bras. In addition, dresses with shorts styled skirt can be found easily which are very convenient to wear. I also saw fancy umbrellas shaped like wine bottles, cartoon characters and Japanese dolls.

Creativity knows no bounds here: Yesterday, I saw rows of men standing on the high bridge of the King’s river and fishing with rods that had its strings at least 500m long. As the fishing was done deep inside the river, they could find fish at a higher frequency. The men used binoculars to confirm if they had caught any fish at the far end of their fishing rods. BKK is a city, which gets light rainfalls pretty often. Although the rain usually starts and ends within 2-5 minutes, it certainly causes discomfort for vendors that are selling fruits, vegetables, meat, etc on their carts. Hence, the vendors walk around with emergency plastic covers that they cover their carts with in case of rain and still continue with their business. To those who are looking for niche, come visit BKK and go back to start up a great business!!!

My Dream of Becoming a Bartender!

After a week of work days, Friday was finally here. After work, we all sang Rebecca Black’s “Its Friday, Friday, Friday” song. Although we hate the song, we love Fridays. As usual we took a walk to Khaosang road, searching for an interesting place to get dinner. We found The Green House restaurant which had tables set up outside, perfect for the cool weather on a Friday evening. I ordered stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and white rice, my most recent favorite dish. One of my friends ordered fried noodles with vegetables and no egg. She has to make sure to remind the waiters of "the no egg part" at least thrice since egg is considered vegetarian here in BKK. Another friend of mine ordered fried noodles with beef and basil. Along with the good food, it was great to have live music playing.

It started raining soon and we rushed inside the restaurant and grabbed the nearest table available. Although the rain stopped within couple minutes, the tables outside were wet, so we chose to stay inside. It was strange for the singer to be facing the empty wet tables outside so he changed his position to face the customers inside. Since the gap between the two pillars of his space was small, it so happened that I was the only customer that was sitting right across him. As much as I enjoyed his song, it was a bit awkward to be sitting right across from him. My friends even teased me, which only became worse since the singer smiled and thanked me when we left the restaurant.

After a few minutes of walk, we came across Lucky Beer bar that said, “we make very strong cocktails, no ID required.” My friends happened to be in the mood of drinking so we went there. The waiter at the bar looked Nepali so I asked him where he was from and he replied India. I insisted that he could not be from India and found out that he was Nepali/Burmese. My friends ordered cocktails but I had stomach cramps so I decided to spare myself. However, I promised them that for every glass they drank, I would act as the drunken one. I was staring at the woman bartender when I remembered one of those MBTI things that I did in college. It is a way of finding out the best suited jobs for oneself and my best suited job had come out to be a bartender or a barber. Being a barber would certainly need more training than a bartender so I decided to get things right at this Lucky Beer bar. The idea of bartending in BKK by itself sounded so cool. Since no one would pay an inexperienced bar tender, I asked the manager if I could do part time volunteer work for an hour, thrice a week. She did not know what volunteer meant so I had to get one of those Nepali waiters and ask them to communicate for me. To my disappointment, she refused my offer and said that she will think about it for couple days.My dreams of becoming a bartender was shattered. On a more positive note, I was spared of unpaid labor.

The Floating Market

Finally, after contemplating for weeks between doing a masters degree or a PhD, it was both relief and more confusion when I got a job offer to work in Bangkok for a year. Confusion in the sense that I was added with one more option to decided on when I was already confused between two earlier and relief because I just decided to go with the third one because I looked at it as my rescue. So I went to the Thai consul in NYC to apply for my visa to Thailand. It was a pretty small office with only couple people in line, which was a relied because I hate waiting, as I am sure many people do. The first thing I noticed in the consul was the poster hanging on the right hand side of the window with a label saying, “The Floating Market.” The poster looked amazing. My best friend who had accompanied me to the consul kept staring at it and said, “Khushbu! You are going to have a blast at BKK. A year will fly by and you won’t even know it.”

I visited the Floating market last weekend and I would like to dedicate my trip to you. I only met you few years ago and since then you have been my companion and my god father for every step I take. I vividly remember us staring, it was romantic. My actual trip may now have been as romantic but it was definitely something that I have seen for the first time in my life. There were two men rowing our boat on smooth canal water. The color of the water was clear black and I could almost feel the bottom of the canal with my eyes. Once we entered the Floating Market, it was like a festival. There were locals selling all kinds of fruits ranging from lychee, mangoes to durian on their narrow wooden boats. The fruits looked so yummy and juicy and reminded me of my own fruit farm at home. I immediately bought a kilo of lychee and mangoes.

As we went deep inside, our boat was stuck in traffic and unfortunately there was a motor boat right in front of us, blowing smoke in our faces, trying to get started and skip the traffic. Then I saw an old lady with a big boiling pot of oil on her boat and she was serving pan cakes, omelets and all kinds of Thai dishes. My head was already spinning from the smoke and the traffic and this boat by the side of me only made things worst. Then I close my eyes and remembered my own roots. I am an Asian and I have been in worst scenarios, for example, I was once stuck on a highway for 6 straight hours and there were no shops around. This thought definitely put me at peace with myself and I was able to enjoy the Floating Market more. As for the headache, I came back and slept for hours that evening and conquered it the next morning.

From Durga Temple to Sin CIty

It has been three weeks since I landed in Bangkok and although I know this is one of the hub for prostitution centers, I had not come across one yet.

Yesterday, I finally decided to get together with a friend from Wellesley College whom I met about a year and half ago at a CGI U conference. She is in Bangkok for 10 weeks for a research. It is such coincidence that we both came to BKK around same time. I called her from my office after lunch and asked her what kind of food she would want for dinner. She said that she was craving for Indian food (not surprising at all since she is from India). It was fine with me because I love Indian food, to be more precise, my hometown is 10 minute walk from the India/Nepal border so I can qualify as an Indian. Many vendors often come to me and start greeting me in Hindi, thinking I am Indian. After speaking with her, I went and asked my couple other friends at office who are also here for internships what they wanted for dinner. My Chinese friend said that she was okay with anything and my South Indian friend said that she was craving for South Indian food. Since Indian is common in both Indian and South Indian phrases, I decided that we should go for South Indian. We looked online and found that Silom area had a lot of them.

My Chinese friend got a bad headache after lunch so I headed to Silom with my South Indian friend. We took the boat and the sky train and waited for my Wellesley friend at the BTS. After her arrival, we all got together and found a nice pure vegetarian Indian/South Indian restaurant called Sagar. We ordered all kinds of Dosa, Idli, Sambar, Curd Rice, etc. It is true that I am not an expert on South Indian food and hence my friends got to make fun of me when I mentioned I had never had Idli and Sambar before. Also, the food was pretty hot for me so I did not qualify as an Indian although I look like one with my brown skin. After dinner, we came across a South Indian temple, where I hardly recognized Goddess Durga because she was not riding a tiger. My South Indian friend was delighted to speak in Tamil with the priests. In the mean time, my Wellesley friend was talking about her MIT friends who were also in BKK in her research program and that she wanted to introduce them to us one day.

After our temple journey, we wanted to check out the shops that were across the road and hence we crossed it. There were lines of tshirts, jeans, hand bags and purses from fake designers such as Paul Smith, Prada, Gucci, and so on. My Wellesley friend wanted to buy a wallet and so we stopped at a shop. The vendor lady said the price to be 400 Baht ($13). But she wanted to pay $7 so we were busy bargaining. A creepy hoarse whisper came to her ears, "Ping Pong Show." Thank God I had some background information on that from my friends or else I might have been interested. We looked around and found ourselves standing at the center of bars and clubs with half naked women and creative bikinis. We quickly bought the purse and rushed passed the market with at least ten people offering us deals for the show on our way. We quickly took a right turn and found ourselves in the middle of red light area. My friends wanted to drink and one of them suggested a road side building but before we could enter, we saw a lady with a flyer in her hand that had at least 20 girls picture on them, all kinds, from Asian to European. A woman approached me with a flyer and I scowled at her thinking, "Do I look like I am attracted to women?" only to find that she was holding a flyer with food selections. HAHA. We also found an area that said hot male, dream boys, etc. As soon as we exited the road, we bumped in my Wellesley friend's MIT friends that she had been talking about all this time. It was strange connecting faces to their stories.

It was a fun night with so many adventures and our journey from a South Indian temple to the Red Light Area.

Conversations with Italian Family, Chinese Woman and her Japanese Friend

When I landed in BKK, I was not worried at all. Thats because my work mate (who graduated from the same school that I did) came to pick me up at the airport. She had also booked a room in a guest house for me for the night so I was not worried about a place to stay. What is more convenient is that my work is only 2 minutes walk from where I stay.

Of course, I felt independent and tasted the feel of being a local when I set my journey to AIT, which is about couple hours away from where I stay (through public transport). The first thing I used was a boat. The wind felt different and free and I felt liberated on that boat full of strangers that spoke different language than mine. Then I got off Taksin pier where I took a Sky Train (BTS) to Siam. There I changed the train to Mo Chit and from there I again too another van to the University. I could have opted for a cab instead that would have probably costed me only few Baht more and saved me more time, had it not been traffic hour. On my way back from AIT, I was on the final train to Taksin river, standing in the middle with a Chinese/Japanese woman and Japanese woman on my left and an Italian family (mother, father and their two daughters) on my right. Seeing that the Japanese woman switched back and forth from Cantanese to Japanese, the Italian mother asked her where she had gotten her Cantanese from. She replied that she had spent more than 10 years in China. This was only a conversation starter. Her Japanese friend bragged about how she had been so helpful to every Japanese who came to BKK to settle. To this, the Japanese/Chinese woman replied that it was her .... to help others, however, she needed the Italian woman's help to fill in the blank for the word "hobby." To this, the Italian woman replied that she was the God Mother for them. Another man joined the conversation saying that she was actually the mother of all new Japanese immigrants to BKK.

Further, the Japanese/Chinese woman started talking about her ancestry and stated that she was named Om Santi at a very young age and that her name means positive, peace, ... She was having difficulty in finding English words to explain to the Italian woman. Also, there was big crown in the train and hence the Italian woman could not get what she meant. So the Japanese/Chinese woman repeated again, adding that her name originated from Hindu religion. But the Italian woman still did not get her. At this, I could not stop myself from getting involved as I had been patiently listening to their conversation instead of listening to my newest addition of audio book on my kindle. So I explained to the Italian woman what she meant to say that her name came from Hindu epics, which meant peace and the Universe as a whole. At this everyone laughed, saying that the Japanese woman has turned into the universe from god mother. The Italian woman asked me how many languages I spoke and I said 5. She just stared at me and smiled with admiration. It is not that fair because out of 5, 3 languages originate from Sanskrit so I have an advantage there. The train came to a hault, my stop had come. I smiled at my right and left company and smiled goodbye at them. The Italian woman thanked me for helping them out with their conversation and I got off the train, excited about my breezy boat trip back to my place!!!

Bangkok

Bangkok!!! Its the city of Gold and of Golden People. I had never thought I would end up here, although I am technically planning to spend only a year here and then go back to grad school in the States.

I have to admit, its usually first impression that counts. I have been in BKK for more than two weeks now but everyday becomes a new first impression for me. My first impression was that of the airport. This might sound funny but the thing that fascinated me there was the escalator. I had never before seen a slanted escalator that could be used to drag the luggages so smoothly unlike the ones at other airports. Another great thing is here accommodation, I have been staying in a guest house for about $12/night with free wifi, AC and cleaning services.

One thing that I could avoid noticing is all these Thai girls with white guys. It is fun sometimes to jut sit outside a restaurant and start counting those couples. Food is another thing that is cheap here. For about $5 you can have a great meal. Thai people are always polite and helpful except for two instances, my experience with them have been pleasant. So I was looking for apartments and twice the owners sold their apartments to someone else without even notifying me although they had promised to talk to me first (as I was the first customer).