From Boxes to Boxers!!!

Hindu religion has divided human lives into four stages that everyone must experience. After passing the infant stage, it is the student stage followed by the householder stage. Although I am not completely done with my student life, moving into an apartment after college has certainly given me some feel to the householder stage. Moving into an apartment was less hectic for me because most of the BKK apartments come fully furnished and I got luckier because one of my coworkers, who is from Nepal, moved to a country office in Viet Nam, which saved a lot of shopping for me such as cooking utensils, cleaning supplies, decorations, and so on.

It was a Sunday evening and I was supposed to go collect some stuff from him to bring back to my apartment so I called him and he asked me to bring some cardboard boxes so that he could pack some of his stuff for posting. Although I had planned to take my huge luggage bag to bring back stuff from his apartment, I decided not to as it would be hard to take the boxes and the bag in the heavy rain. So I decided to wait for a while at the reception of my apartment building and found a Thai couple with a really cute baby to spend time with. After the rain stopped, I walked to BIG C, a supermarket, to get the cardboard boxes. As I had never shopped at this store before, I was not sure where I could find them so I approached a staff and asked him about the cardboard boxes. The staff gave me a strange expression and led me to one of the isles in the clothes section. It was then I knew why he had given me a funny look, he took me to men’s boxers section. Haha, the wonders of speaking different languages!

I laughed and asked him that I was looking for boxes and not boxers. I looked for a cardboard piece around, showed it to him and made a big box shape with my hands. So he inquired about boxes to the staff who were shelving but we could not find any large size boxes so I went to a nearby post office, which was on the ground floor. I bought three large cardboard boxes from them and they helped me get a taxi since the boxes were heavy and impossible to carry all the way to my friend’s apartment. I found out that they had too many stuff to give out and hence I made two trips to get all the stuff back to my apartment. One thing that I learned from that day is to speak and act when I bought peculiar things such as cardboard boxes.

My non Thai Accent and the Taxi Driver

It’s a Saturday and I don’t know what to do with myself. I woke up this morning and went swimming for a while. Then came back, took a shower and went to have lunch and then slept again for 3 straight hours. Although BKK survives on tourism, people hardly speak English here, which makes life much more difficult for me. If I had planned to stay in BKK longer then I would have certainly considered taking some Thai language classes. Although I hardly converse with local people (besides buying fruits and groceries), it seems that everyone understands the money language but not other things. For instance, I take a cab to work every morning but it is extremely challenging to make the driver understand where I want to go with my non Thai accent. It takes me about 40 minutes to get to work straight by a cab. Another alternative is to take a cab to the nearest pier and then take a boat to work, which also takes about 40 minutes to get to work but it’s cheaper than the first option.

My first day at the new apartment, I took a cab straight to work just because it was my first day and I wanted to be extra careful. I got to work an hour earlier than my usual time, which was good, not to mention I woke up way earlier than I used to. The guard at the first floor was a female and she completely understood where I wanted to go, which made it easier since the cab drivers never seem to know what I say. So my second day, I wanted to try the other route through the Kiak Kai pier. This time it was a male guard calling cabs for us residents. I told him I wanted to go to Kiak Kai and he just stared at me. The female guard came to my rescue and told the cab driver where I wanted to go. Although I have only been to that place once from this direction, I knew after a while that something was wrong. To my shock, the cab driver was taking me in totally different direction and stopped at a BTS (sky train) station. He did not speak any English so I had no idea what was going on. I had already lost more than half an hour and I was nowhere near work.

I had a strange feeling that he did not know where we were supposed to go and so I asked him to take me straight to work instead. He recognized the place but said he could not go. At this, I called a Thai friend and asked her to talk to the cab driver. She told me that the cab driver could not take me to either the pier or to my work directly because he had to be somewhere in ten minutes. This made me so angry and although the driver did not understand any English I complained that he should not have taken me in his cab if he was not willing to take me where I wanted to go. This meant that either I would have to take a cab back to my apartment and then to the pier or take the train for the next half an hour and then take a boat for another half hour to work. Since it was traffic time, I could not rely on cabs, so I took the train. I was so mad that I did not pay the cab driver. However, once my anger was gone, I felt guilty for not paying him, as he would have to pay to the cab company from his pocket. I called a friend and cried on the phone explaining what had just happened. He consoled me telling that if the driver deserved his payment then he would have asked me for it. Although this made me feel a little better, I could not help thinking about it for the next half an hour on the boat to work.

I am not sure if I would pay the full amount if the same thing happened to me again with another cab driver. But I think I would at least pay half the sum. I do realize that the more cabs I ride, the more probability of me rounding up in situations like this so I just got to be patient and try not to lose my temper from next time.

Apartment Hunting !!!

I hear an ambulance pass by as I am writing this blog. It is then I realize that I can actually enjoy a nice BKK skyline from my room if I pulled my window curtains. So I sit down on a cute little chair and set my laptop on the coffee table by the window. Nice thing about BKK apartments is that majority of them come fully furnished; they have a refrigerator, microwave, bed, sofa, coffee table, chairs, TV set, cabinets and so on, which makes lives of us temporary residents much easier. Although it has been only couple days since I moved to my new apartment on the 18^th floor, I already feel a need to go shop for things like cleaning supplies, cooking utensils, groceries, toilet papers, and what not. I finally feel like I graduated from college and turning into a working housewife. I am relieved, as I have already signed my lease and even gotten pass for the swimming pool, which is on the 4^th floor of the building. However, there are some things that I need to learn: buy water from the water machine and use the laundry room, instructions for which are in Thai.

Apartment hunting is anything but fun. There are few agents that you can call in BKK and surprisingly you don’t have to pay them but the owner does. However, none of those agents worked in my favor, as most of them offered me studio apartments with no kitchen at all. Given the fact that I come home really tired and I hate cooking for myself alone, there are less chances of me cooking during the week days. However, my natural human desires like having choices so it took me longer to get a studio apartment with a built in kitchen. The first one that I looked at was pretty cheap but no kitchen and not even an extra sink, in case, I wanted to build my own kitchen at the balcony. The second one that I looked at was perfect except that the price was a little higher than my range. The owner said that he could negotiate the price so I called him the next day of my visit and he said that he had rented it out already. Although I was the first person to look at his apartment and he had promised to inform me before renting out to someone else, he did not even bother. The third one that I looked at was the same as the second one except even more expensive and on 10 floor down. Then came the fourth one with okay price but needed at least a year of lease. Since my job contract expires within 11 months and I already spent a month in a guest house, I would not qualify for this one either.

Hence my current apartment has been a blessing with a monthly pay rate of exactly what I was looking for and a kitchen with microwave and refrigerator but no cooking heaters. However, there is a supermarket nearby and it is pretty cheap to buy a digital one so will have to go get it soon. Besides, the train station is about 5 minutes walk from here and there are lots of restaurants, shops, a café, a hospital, a bank, bus stations, and so on, which makes my life easier although I don’t drive. The apartment has 24 hour security, a swimming pool, a gym and the security people call taxis for me when I leave for work in the morning. Although it took me a month to look for this apartment, so far I like it so I can say that the saying “patience is virtue” seems true.