"Only in Thailand"

“Only in Thailand” is a phrase that I’ve been hearing a lot of since I arrived. Friends who have lived here for almost ten years have told me that they will go to McDonald’s and be told that there is no more beef for the hamburgers or that there are no buns left for the KFC chicken sandwiches. Others have told me that when they’ve ordered groceries online, they almost always do not get everything they’ve asked for. Instead of receiving sour cream, they get cottage cheese because it looks the same. The phrase I heard often in South Korea, “Same, same” is also used here, much to my chagrin.

Therefore, the general rule that I’ve been learning is: if you tell a Thai that you need three things done, they will do one and not because they didn’t understand but because they may not be able to do the other two things and since they are okay with it, so should the receiving party. I laughed each time I heard these stories of woe and then showed an appropriate level of genuine sympathy before secretly wondering exactly how true this concept really was.

It wasn’t until after I moved into my condo a week ago that I learned this lesson myself.

I moved into my condo with my American way of thinking that everything would function as it should and that life would be better than it had been when I lived in a sewage-smelling studio on the outskirts of the city.

The first night there however, a friend who had helped me move entered my bathroom and discovered three cockroaches. One was next to the toilet, another was in the shower and the third was on the door. I was surprisingly freaked out and screamed like a little girl. For those who know me, this is very uncharacteristic of my personality. I don’t get squeamish around bugs and I certainly do not have any phobia that I know of regarding insects. Just the same, these cockroaches were between two and three and half inches long and were flying. I was adequately grossed out; so much so that my friend had to go back and forth to the hallway to bring in the remainder of my bags. Then I handed him my shoe and he knocked each one out in one quick tap and flushed them down the toilet. Later that night, I washed my shoe like nothing had happened.

Before hopping up into the shower – my tub is twelve inches off the ground due to the raised plumbing – I checked into every nook and cranny. I turned on the water and then realized that the showerhead was built into the wall at an angle that made it impossible to get under the water without crouching down. Therefore, I took the shower nozzle off the wall and suddenly the water pressure disappeared. It turned out that the water pressure only worked when I kneeled in the tub but anything over three feet and the pressure disappeared, as did the water.

After a disappointing shower in my new condo, I went into the kitchen and decided to heat up the mini quiche I had picked up at the corner market. My microwave/oven was also broken. I ate the quiche, cold. Irritated, I flipped the light switch so I could get a better look at the dials and no light turned on. Great. No light in the kitchen without using the fluorescent lights, which means a super bright place. This is unfortunate, especially when I’m half asleep and only want a little light. Next, I opened the fridge and learned that the light was out. Finally, I decided to check all the lights, the TV and anything else that might not work. The light in my bedroom nearest my balcony is out and just this morning, the light in my right wardrobe flickered out.

I called my real estate agent the next day who admitted that my place had been vacant for quite some time and he therefore didn’t know how long things hadn’t worked. Prior to signing the contract he promised that he would help out with any issues regarding the condo but as he is constantly giving showings and is basically always busy, he suggested I contact the building manager, so that’s what I did. The manager however, recommended that I call the owner of the condo. Here in Thailand, individuals purchase apartments and condos and then rent them out and the tenant very often needs to deal directly with them. In my case however, the landlady only speaks Thai and I therefore needed the building manager’s help. In turn, I mentioned this bit of information to the manager, who asked for my permission to go into my condo to fix everything. I said, “Okay” and then promptly moved all my valuables to a safe.

When I came home a day later I was pleased to discover a new showerhead with great water pressure that can remain on the wall while I rinse my hair. The microwave has also been replaced with something that is much smaller, but it works. The lights however, have not. Instead, I found a note above a light switch pointing to my balcony. The manager had thought I meant the switch nearest my balcony was broken, not the ceiling light. However, with regards to the light in the fridge and above the sink, I have no idea what happened there.

Then last night I lost hot water and now only get varying degrees of cool in my tub. Ironically, I get scalding hot water in the kitchen no matter what the setting is. And I still have a cockroach problem, although it’s not as bad as it was before.

I wouldn’t have even mentioned this problem until I found myself sitting on the toilet one quiet morning, marveling at how duped I felt about moving into a place with appliances and lights that didn’t work. Just as I was working myself up into an agitated frenzy, I heard something skittering across the floor and I flew out of the bathroom. When I returned, I found nothing but decided then and there to cover any available hole or crevice with a material appropriate to that open space.

What I later discovered was a gaping hole on the side of the toilet next to the shower where the bugs were moving in and out of. I wouldn’t have even known had I not gotten comfortable in my surroundings and then spotted two large roaches hiding out next to my toilet. I sprayed them with orange-scented air freshner but they were too quick for me and disappeared into the hole.

Before they could reappear I ran into my kitchen, grabbed a bag and some electrical tape and taped up the hole. Three days later I found a large roach hiding out on my shower curtain. Damn those things move fast. I could hear it running up and down my curtain but I couldn’t get it to just drop to the ground. Then all of a sudden everything moved in slow motion. The roach spread it’s wings and without thinking, I held out my hands with the intention to slap them hands together as if I were crushing a fly before realizing what I would be crushing. At the last moment I grabbed some air freshner and sprayed moments before it landed in my hair. I screamed and started shaking my head. People in the next condo must have wondered what the heck was going on. I not only sprayed myself, but I had caused the cockroach to get tangled in my hair. A few seconds later, it was on the floor writhing around, the last moments of its’ life ebbing away. I picked it up by the leg and tossed it into the toilet bowl before hitting the flush button.

I’m contacting the building manager tomorrow about the lights, water and cockroach problem. I feel like some crazy American nut who can’t let sleeping dogs lie but at the same time I’m angry with myself for not having known to check every single light switch, appliance and the water before moving in.

To calm myself down and enjoy my early evening home, I treated myself to dinner at Au Bon Pain not far from my house. The seafood soup in the bread bowl appealed but when I ordered it they told me they were sold out of bread. Really? A shop that sells bread but has none? Only in Thailand.

Always Moving

I’ve been in transit since giving my notice in Everett, Massachusetts to my landlord, telling him that I was really moving to Thailand. He asked me three times to make sure this is what I really wanted and that I was really going to move. “Yes” I told him. From there, I moved in with a good friend who was kind enough to let me stay with her for two weeks. That was a lovely experience. After that, I moved home for one week and strangely enough it was a very long week and not in a bad way. I had built up Thailand in my mind for the past several weeks and was ready to be there already. In the week building to that move I felt as though my life was moving in slow motion. I was consolidating my life into seven storage boxes and trying to pack my clothes into two suitcases plus one mini carryon. I was also paying off bills and cleaning up my credit history with the intent of staying abroad for an extended period of time.

By the time I got to Thailand and had moved into my studio, I was glad to be there but horrified that my room smelled very much like the streets I walked through while exploring my new surroundings. There’s nothing more pungent than raw sewage mixed with humidity, people, animals and a thriving, flourishing city. This I discovered was the approximate smell of my studio when I turned on the air conditioning. Oddly enough, my bathroom smelled better, which worked to my benefit, as that was the best place to get an Internet connection. I would prop my laptop up on the closed toilet seat and squat on the floor as I checked email and Facebook. Still, this was not a life to live. I therefore began apartment hunting.

After finding a condo in a nice part of Bangkok, I decided to stay with friends so I wouldn’t have to pay an extra week for a place that made me gag.

With the help of a friend, I moved my three bags and laundry basket to their place in Petchaburi, next to the MRT (subway) and Airport Link. For one week, I slept on their oh-so-comfortable IKEA pull out sofa and went to work with my friend. This gave me an opportunity to learn the routes better, although I had to admit that I wasn’t as aware because I knew he knew where we were going. It’s like being the passenger in a car and not really paying attention because you know that the person who’s driving has it covered. It wasn’t until I moved into my new place that I really started learning my way around and screwing up in the process.

When the time came to move one final time, I packed my bags the night before so that when we left work and got back to the condo, we could load up a taxi and head on out. What I hadn’t anticipated was the overwhelmingly awful traffic that exists on Sukhumvit and Asoke. There’s no better way to describe it than an almalgamation of cars, trucks, buses, taxi’s, and motorbikes, all vying for a way down the street. Everyone is trying to get ahead but no one is moving. If we could have managed it, I would have suggested we take the subway, but it was just too cumbersome.

Therefore, once we loaded up the taxi and climbed in, we were underway. It wasn’t until we had pulled out of the condo’s roundabout that I noticed the meter was off. I mentioned it to my friend and the taxi driver began shouting and told us to get out of the taxi. He was hoping to make a profit on my move and had refused to turn on the meter. In turn, we unloaded the taxi and he sped off. We decided that the best way to get a taxi in this horrendous traffic was to move to the other side of the street, so with arms weighed down with luggage, we rolled the bags and carried the basket, across the crowded street. We weaved in between cars and managed to miss the speeding motorbikes that were also fighting for space. Once on the same side of the road that we needed to be on, we waved down taxi after taxi but to no avail. Once we mentioned Sukhumvit, no one wanted to pick us up. Stressing out that I was already over an hour late, I called my agent to apologize and he asked me how far away we were. I told him about the traffic and that without it, we were fifteen minutes but with it, it could be as much as an hour. He told me not to worry about it and I relaxed. After the sixth taxi however, I could feel myself starting to become desperate. After forty minutes of hailing taxis, one finally picked us up. We loaded up the taxi, climbed in and then didn’t move for twenty minutes.

Two hours later, we arrived at my condo. For someone who doesn’t like to keep others waiting, I felt awful for keeping my agent waiting for more than two hours. Although tired, he understood how terrible the traffic is in my (new) area and whisked me through the many steps of my leasing contract. After it was all said and done, he gave me the give and wished me a good night. At last, the moving was over, at least for this year.