Going where I’ve never been

One of the most important things to realize in Thailand is that impatience and frustration will get you nowhere! Thais are unfazed when it comes to traffic – they will sit at a light for 30 minutes, repeatedly cut off by weaving motorbikes, food-vendor push carts, masses of pedestrians and tuks tuks driving the wrong way, and not give so much as a sigh. They’ll wait until the end of time for buses, a chance to cross the street or a turn in the checkout line. They never bat at eye at a motorbike flying towards them on a sidewalk – they just step aside. The response to any irritating or unfortunate situation is mai pen rai – never mind, no worries!

I’ve never been too easily irritated – I think I’m pretty patient and generally go with the flow. The Thais put me to shame, but they have also rubbed off on me quite a bit. I mean, really, where do I have to be that is so important? Things in Thailand can always wait, and it’s important to accept that if you’re going to make it here with your sanity intact!

The past few days have presented a few frustrating incidents in terms of coordinating our departure. First, there is the issue of getting our Cambodian visas. The border crossing is notoriously seedy and full of scammers – the best advice I’ve read is to assume that every single person there is trying to cheat you. If you take a tour bus, they will have a well-rehearsed breakdown halfway there, causing you to arrive at an overpriced, out of the way guesthouse at 1 a.m., when you have no choice but to stay. Why? They pay the bus drivers commission on every ‘guest’ that is delivered.

The visa costs $20, but the immigration officials will ask for 1500 baht (about $45). Sometimes you can ignore them and hold out a $20 bill, but generally they will shut the window and ignore you until you pay. This money, of course, goes straight into their pockets. There will be touts telling you that you need to pay to be stamped in (not true), that they have to help you fill out the form (definitely not true) and the driver you end up with will tell you that your guesthouse is full/closed and offer you a list of others (that pay him commission). Basically, there are a lot of potential hurdles when arriving in Cambodia, but most of them can be bypassed with enough research (which, obviously, I’ve been doing a bit too much of).

Because of this research, we’ve decided to be smart and get our visas at the embassy here in Bangkok. We have the time, they won’t overcharge and then we can just walk right over the border, no officials to deal with. Gabe took on the task of heading there yesterday while I was at work. After finding the location on their website, he set off on what is easily a 1-2 hour journey (again, Bangkok requires patience!). He didn’t find an embassy, but he did find a pile of rubble and a sign stating that it was, in fact, the Cambodian embassy. He’s trying again today, thanks to an internet forum that gave the new address which has been in place for nearly two years. Maybe it’s time to update the website?

The next hassle involves my work permit. Thai immigration has put this awesome law into effect where you have to have your work permit cancelled at the immigration office that granted it to you. Then, you have to leave the country the same day or else pay a daily overstay fee (no small sum). Naturally the office opens at 8:30, the process takes a couple of hours (not to mention transport time there and back), and you are left with a very small window of time to get out. This is no accident! I’m sure that the extra revenue stream started flowing with the instatement of this rule…

Of course, I’m determined to pull it off and we should be fine since the bus to Cambodia  only takes four hours. It gets complicated, however, when we throw checking out of our apartment into the mix… The owner won’t let me check out the night before (you can’t stay after room inspection!). He also doesn’t want to do it before 10:00 a.m.(why so early? I’ll be sleeping!), nor is he cool with letting Gabe take care of it while I go to immigration (his passport number isn’t on the paper!). Since the process of returning to check out means that we’d never make it to the border on time, we are resigned to moving out on Monday night and getting a hotel. In Thailand, all you can do in this case is smile agreeably and thank the guy…

The next little issue involves stuff. We’ve got clothing, some dishes, some books and my laptop – things we want to take home but definitely don’t want to travel with. My friend Joe is staying for the next year and offered to let us keep whatever we want in his room, since we’ll be back through Bangkok at the end. It was a great plan, til I found out that he’s leaving town on Friday and won’t be back before we leave. It’d be tough to give up internet access tomorrow,as we’ll have lots of last minute things to take care of, so I asked my friend Jim if he could help out. He was planning to move on Sunday to a new condo and is more than happy to take a bag or two for us. It was going to work out perfectly, until he found out that there are no checkouts on Sunday, so he is now moving Saturday morning. Bottom line is that we’ll now have to plan on finding our way to his new place at some point on Monday, between packing up, checking out and moving to a hotel. Fun.

Part of me wonders if I should have just paid the overstay fee, but then my Thai-side kicks in and reminds me that, honestly, it’s not that big a deal. There are things out there worthy of frustration, but this certainly isn’t it! For all of the strange, backwards ways that many things are done here, the Thais redeem themselves with mai pen rai – the world should take note!

It’s another stormy Sunday afternoon, so I thought I’d pass the time with some more social commentary…

First of all, Thai time. In Thailand, meeting times, starting times, ending times, departure times, arrival times and deadlines are all merely suggestions. Thai people simply are not in a rush to get anywhere or to do anything, and it carries over into most aspects of life here.

I’ve talked before about how students often show up 10-15 minutes late as though it’s nothing – they know that they are “supposed” to be on time, but it’s just not something that gets enforced or really even noticed. Thai people have the ability to walk incredibly slow – I mean to the point where it seems like special effort! They’ll take these tiny shuffle-steps, stopping here and there to look at whatever is being sold next to them, seemingly with no awareness of anything going on around them. Things that might seem incredibly rude in the west – such as blocking an entire walkway to inspect some pineapples, parking a motorbike right in the center of the sidewalk or simply riding your motorbike through a crowded bus stop – are commonplace and don’t get a second thought. Personal space has an entirely different meaning here!

Despite slow walkers, abrupt stops in the middle of sidewalks, jammed paths and, of course, traffic that never lets up (commute time in Bangkok is typically 2-3 hours by car/bus), you never see an aggravated Thai. There is no sense of impatience, road rage is unheard of and irritations are brushed off. I think that a lot of it boils down to Thai time – if you’ve got all day, what is there to get all worked up about?

I’m sure that there are many factors causing this attitude, many of which are related to Buddhism and its lack of the “get ahead” mentality.  However, I think that the hot, humid climate, the sheer number of people, the belief that everything should be “sanuk” (fun) and the monsoons play a huge part as well. I mean, when the afternoon storms hit, everyone simply stops and takes cover where they are, until it’s over. Appointments and meetings be damned, they will wait until the rains stop!

Although there are certainly times when all I want is a place to open when it says it will open (for example, when I haul my massive bag of laundry to the end of the road only to find the door locked), or for there to be just a little bit of logic to the way the sidewalk traffic moves, overall I would have to say that it’s all very refreshing! You have to make an effort to adopt their attitude and simply slow down…once you do, there is no stress, irritation or frustration. As the Thais say, “mai pen rai”… it’s no worry.

I also want to comment a bit on Thai-size. Generally speaking, Thai people are small – they’re short, they’re skinny and their biggest shoe size won’t fit my big toe. There are some exceptions, however, which I notice largely due to working at a school.

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen an older person over the height of ‘short,’ but I’ve got a good number of tall, lanky 17-20 year olds in my classes. Interestingly, I recently read the reason behind this: milk was not commonly consumed in Thailand until about 15 years ago, which is when it started being given to babies. Thus, we are now seeing the first generation of milk-grown Thais… Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have milk-grown feet yet so I’m still out of luck when it comes to shoes!

Another thing that I have noticed in Thailand is that while you almost never see an overweight Thai adult, there are some pretty big kids running around. I’ve got an overweight kid or two in a few classes, but the biggest problem is definitely among the younger children, the 5-10 year old age range. This has an explanation as well: fast food, internet and television. This is a country that has only had these things introduced in the relatively recent past, but the effects are being seen quickly.

KFC, McDonalds and Dairy Queen are all huge here. Tesco is essentially WalMart, encouraging shoppers to “buy more, save more!” and society in general is modernizing pretty rapidly. Considering that  pretty much every student I have lists their hobbies as “video game, internet, shopping,” it’s easy to see that Thailand is facing more and more of the consequences of westernization and consumerism every day.

A lot of these things are pretty specific to Bangkok, as it is a huge city with rampant consumerism. The villages are much different, the lifestyles much more traditional and much more appealing to me! Eventually I’ll be in Laos, where there is one ATM in the entire country. For now, however, I’ll stick with my observations of of city life!

My dad had asked about the gas prices, which I think is worth mentioning here. Gas is just as expensive, if not more, here as it is in the states. It’s running around 40 baht/litre right now, which is just over $4 per gallon. Most people do not drive, and although the roads are choked with traffic at all hours of the day, it is 85% taxis and buses. There is a large upperclass population, as there is in any big city, but I can’t imagine how anyone on a typical Thai salary would ever dream of having a car!

The gasoline for taxis has always been subsidized, but that will come to a stop at the end of the year, as the government has decided that it’s financially unsustainable and that subsidized prices will not get people to change their habits. Bus, boat and taxi fares were all increased last week by a few baht each and I’m sure that they’ll be raised again before too long.

The Thai’s are hardest hit by food prices, as food takes up the majority of family budgets. School lunches were only 15 baht and standard street meals 20 baht until a few weeks before I arrived; they are now 20 and 25 baht, respectively, due to rice prices. It’s nothing to me, but it makes a  big difference to someone who makes $200 a month! I don’t think that this country could ever go hungry, but they are feeling the pain as much as anyone else in the world!

As “bad” as things are with the American economy right now, it’s good to put it into perspective. $4 gas is bad, but imagine if that $4 was your daily income (minimum wage here)… there’s a big difference between having to sacrifice a vacation to make ends meet and having to find a way to buy enough food for the week! Not too many places in the world have it particularly easy right now, but we’ve got to keep in mind how good our ‘bad’ is..