So…this weekend, I kicked back, as planned. Except Saturday morning there were loud explosions going on outside my window starting at 6:30 AM, I thought we might be under attack by the Burmese. Except we weren’t. It was just Chinese New Years which means alllll day long, people were setting off fire crackers, EVERYWHERE. The owner of the internet café I go to was throwing a party with a cooked duck (head still attached!), candles and beer. He even gave me a complimentary beer along with the coffee candy he normally gives me whenever I visit.

Then on Sunday, I was supposed to go horseback riding, but that didn’t happen. I was on my way to pick up one of the volunteers, Lorna, on my bike. Just a block away from her house, I drove through an intersection and got clocked by an SUV coming from the side street on the left. I just remember the initial crash into my left leg, my moped falling, and my body flying in slow motion onto the pavement closer to the other side of the street. I lay down there for a second, wind knocked out of me and took my helmet off for some air. Then I looked behind me and saw my bike laying down and the pieces that had broken off all around it. “Damn,” was my reaction, just under my breath, ignoring exactly how lucky I was to be able to even process what had just happened. I was still laying in the middle of the intersection, so I hoisted myself up with the support of my helmet and started limping to the side of the road.

So the driver gets out of the SUV and runs immediately to inspect the front of his car to see the damage that was done. He must have seen that I was walking and so his priority then became his car, but this still struck me as insensitive, especially because as far as I was concerned, this was totally his fault. Then I looked at where his car was coming from: there was no traffic sign there, no stop sign. This surprised me, and then for a second, I was horrified at the prospect of this accident being my own fault. But I looked at where I was coming from: no traffic sign there either. No stop sign in any 4 directions of the intersection, and so at the end of the day, it’s no one’s fault except for Mae Sai’s crappy urban planning.

The crash apparently made a loud noise because within a minute, tons of people had come out of their houses to see what happened, including Lorna, who heard the crash from her house down the street. A crowd of maybe 10 people started surrounding me. One guy even came out of his house with a first aid kit and iodine to clean up my scratches…I didn’t have that many coz I was wearing jeans and a denim jacket: they were mostly on my palms and my left leg where I made impact with the car. The police came by, surprisingly pretty quickly. I tried calling Cindy to come over and act as my translator, but the cops were apparently willing to dismiss the whole thing in about 2 minutes because I couldn’t communicate with them in Thai and so they just left. Mae Sai’s finest: gotta love ‘em. I was really curious to know, was this considered my fault? It’s not a new biker thing, coz I garauntee you, I would have done the same thing if I were behind the wheel of a car. Lorna tried to convince me it was the SUV guy’s fault because he was coming out of a smaller side street, but when did that become a rule? This country, even this town, has traffic lights and stop signs in most intersections, why wasn’t there one here? So apparently there weren’t gonna be any charges pressed or anything, the SUV driver gave me his phone number (his name is pronounced “Nice.” I thought it was ironic). I don’t even know if the concept of pressing charges exists over here, but even if it does, I doubt I’m eligible to do so without a license.

I just wanted to go home and lay back some more; take a raincheck on the whole horseback riding thing, obviously. I insisted that Cindy take Lorna horseback riding and some really nice Thai local drove me to my guest house…where I live on the third floor. The receptionist gave me the key looking a little shocked, and I limped to the third floor, gripping the railing with both hands the entire way up. By the time I got to my room I was out of breath. I changed out of my jeans and into some pj shorts and just collapsed into bed. Then my phone rang; it was reception saying a car was ready to take me to the hospital, just to make sure everything was ok. Seconds later, my door knocked. I limped up to get to the door and there were 3 staff members, who insisted on picking me up and carrying me into the car.

Note: I’m about 165 pounds and these were three Thai guys picking me up: ie, they were kindof tiny and they struggled a lot to carry me. So I went to the hospital, got X rays, the whole shebang. No fractures or anything, like I’d suspected coz I’d be in a LOT more pain otherwise. I did, however, sprain my ankle. They ace bandaged it and they told me I had to stay off it for a few days. They gave me tons of drugs, which I’ve yet to take because I’m really not in any pain. I was all ready to whip out my health insurance card when I was handed the bill on my way out: 160 baht (that’s $4), so I paid in cash and I was driven home. And carried to my room again. The guest house managed to find me a crutch to walk with(they’re so nice), which the hospital didn’t have, and now I’m more or less an invalid. I left my bike at Lorna’s and now Cindy or another volunteer has to pick me up to go to work until my ankle gets better and I brave the bike again.

So that was my weekend. And I had tons of time to sit at my computer to write about all this, lying in bed with my foot propped up on a pillow. That’s why this entry is as long as it is. It’s not really my intention to lament to the world about it: I literally just have nothing better to do. I should realize how lucky I am, but right now, I’m just bitter about the lack of traffic signs in town.

I think I need to clarify a few things about my living situation, as I led many to believe that I’d be doing things quite differently from the way I’m actually doing them now.

Firstly, I moved off the site really quickly. Pretty soon after I got sick actually (which was, I think day 3 of my being here) I decided that I wanted to have a bed and running hot water and a facility whose toilet gave you an option other than a cold hose to clean up with…and I didn’t feel like being woken up by kids doing chores at 4:30 in the morning every day. So I moved into an open guesthouse. It’s about 10 minutes away on my moped and it’s got a nice cozy bed, a western style toilet and a shower that has lukewarm water sometimes. Some of you might call this a big cop out from the essence of simple living, but for a whopping $100 a month, this was a concession I was willing to make.

They really like me at this guest house. I leave the key with reception every day (It’s a lot like a hotel) before I leave my room, and one day when I came back, I was given a note with my key. It read:
“ To Wood, James,
Today they made-up your room.
If you have anything else you can tell me, I can help you. And whenever you go far away from Mae Sai, to anywhere, please tell me.
If you don’t see me, you can leave a message with reception.
I worry about you. Thank you.
Good night
(reception)”
Before I say anything else, I just have to say that at this point, I was home every day by 8:30 PM because I was sick, so there was really nothing to worry about. Secondly, this woman who works at the front desk spends her entire day watching American mysteries and thrillers, and so I think the vocabulary she’s used makes her sound like a spy or a damsel in distress-esque character out of a work of fiction or something.

Today, I came to my door to find a plastic bag around the its handle. It had two donuts inside and another note. It read:

“To Wood, James,
Hi! Today is my birthday. So I bought Mr. Donut (2 pieces) for you. I want to give you by myself but I got up late this morning. I’m sorry for I didn’t see you this morning. Drive carefully.
See you.”

Mind you, it’s her birthday. Not my birthday. It’s such a nice gesture, but…does this seem peculiar to anyone else?


My moving off the site also means that I’m totally not vegan, like I thought I’d have to be. Mae Sai’s got a stretch of road that’s got quite a selection of restaurants. They’re all thai and they all more or less serve the same thing, but the point is, I can get my chicken fix whenever I want it and I haven’t been hungry since I was sick for four days.
Moving off the site also means I use my moped at least twice a day to get to and from school. Having only learned to drive this thing a week ago, I’ve had my share of clumsy mishaps, all thankfully resulting without injuries, except for one minor scratch. I emailed a few people about the first time I tried to walk my moped down the steep driveway of my guesthouse. Well, obviously what happened was that it was to heavy for me to walk from the side and I when it started rolling down the hill really fast, I panicked and didn’t think to put my hands around the front break. So I broke its fall with myself and scratched my leg and the side mirror a little bit. A couple of really nice local Thais helped me and the bike up, trying their damndest not to laugh in the process. A couple of days later, I had a mishap with the choke of the engine. My moped’s kinda ghetto and sometimes I can’t kick start it unless I open up the choke, but apparently you’re never supposed to drive with the choke open after you’ve started up the engine, because the whole bike will stutter while you drive and it’ll eventually stall out on you in the middle of traffic.

Mae Sai is not the barn I was expecting it to be. Sure, there’s no movie theatre and you’re kindof shit out of luck if you want anything other than Thai food…though there is a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Tesco as you go South and approach the neighboring town. The street that I live on is a very busy market place during the day. At night, it’s totally deserted other than this one bar called “Johnny’s,” which sketches me out with its revolving door of expats with checkered pasts and tattooed faces. The owner, Johnny, is renowned as an alcoholic who jumps up ontop of the pool table barefoot if he’s having a good game and uses the back end of a mop as a pool stick. He swears to me that I met him months ago in his bar, even though I’d never even been to Asia as of last month, but he’s perfectly friendly and happy whenever I see him, nonetheless.

Finally, the kids at the site. I have to say that I haven’t interacted enough with any class long enough to chart any progress. I haven’t even started working with the scholarship recipients yet (which is going to take up my life, 2 hours a night Monday-Friday along with my daytime responsibilities). I do really enjoy all of them though, and I think I’ve even learned a thing or two on how to tame the beasts in my lowest level class. My higher two level classes have never had English-Thai dictionaries, and so I splurged and bought them each one so that there wouldn’t be any dead ends on the homework assignments or communication with me (there’s only about 17 students total in those classes). I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ll give ‘em to them on Monday when I meet with them again. Cindy was telling me some absolutely horrid stories about the nature of their refugee lives (most of them are from Myanmar), and they display the kindof strength I would never expect out of anyone, let alone from a group of 9, 10, 12, 14 year olds.

When I work in development in the office, there are a couple of kids that meander about into our door. I have one particular favorite, his name is Se-Dtang and he’s about 6 years old. He insists on climbing on my shoulders while he wears this cardboard mask. It’s got scissor hole circles for eyes and he roars like a dinosaur while I put together lesson plans or write up help wanted ads over the computer. Se-Dtang has had a piece of gauze taped to the left side of his nose ever since I’ve been here. It’s masking a very suspicious and nasty looking cigarette burn, the second one of the last couple of months, I’m told. And whenever anyone tries to bring it up with him, pointing to their own faces asking, “Tam arai nii maa?” (what happened here?) he looks in another direction and changes the subject. I don’t really know when the site decides that a student is a candidate for boarding the school, (as opposed to just being a daytime student) but this sortof thing is not irregular, from what I’m told.

I think that’s enough for now. I don't get to update this blog as frequently as I like, that's why these last couple of postings have been so long. This weekend, I’m goin horse back riding and kicking back a little bit. Next weekend, however, I think I need to start moving around and see things in Thailand other than Mae Sai.

First impressions

A volunteer and staff member picked me up from the bus station on 2 mopeds. Those of you who saw me off on my way to the airport in New York know that I traveled relatively light…but come now, I still packed 6 months of clothes, my computer and books for teaching, leisure and travel. I mean a car would have been nice, especially since that’s what they said they’d be bringing. I was told I brought more stuff with me than the average volunteer. Oops. The staff member Pi Chom put one of my bags on the back of her moped and just let it balance while she sped off onto the highway back to the center. The volunteer Cindy put my other bag in front of her bike while I carried my hiking bag in the backseat of the moped. It wasn’t comfortable. I’ve noticed in this country, especially in Mae Sai, that people reeeeally like to tempt fate with their mopeds and motorcycles. I mean sure, I understand not being financially equipped or even having the volition to invest in an SUV or station wagon. But that doesn’t mean that a 6 person family should try to all pack in ontop of a motorbike, smallest children dangling off the driver’s legs or ontop of his shoulders, all without helmets. That’s my ethnocentric thought of the day.
We pulled into the driveway and there were kids everywhere and they scattered like a flock of pigeons to avoid the incoming mopeds. It was around their lunch break and so they were romping around playing, eating lunch. I noticed I was getting stared at walking around the place when Cindy turned to me and said, “You’re the first foreign male volunteer we’ve had in about a year, so you’re quite the novelty.” Cindy was actually listening to the Thai banter that was going on around us, and it occurred to me later on in the day, after hearing her communicate with staff, that she’s totally fluent in Thai. She’s probably more fluent in Thai than any westerner I’ve ever met. She’s been here for the last year and a half and has just picked up on it studying it independently with staff and students. She walked me into the administration building and introduced me to my desk, which was pretty exciting. In the last 7 months of temping with Metro and working with Happys Paws and Starbucks I sure as hell never had my own desk.
A few kids came running inside with baby powder all over their faces, laughing and screaming. They paused to take a break to reapply another layer baby powder. “They like to make their skin lighter because they think lighter skin is more beautiful than their own. We have these arguments with each other insisting that the other has more beautiful skin than our own.” I guess that’s not any worse than white people’s obsession with visiting tanning booths, but it somehow struck me as tragic to see this kindof complex in a group of 8 year olds.

I got to meet up with some staff and Cindy told me to come to her level 4 and 5 English classes. These would be two of the classes I’ll eventually be taking over in the next couple of weeks, as Cindy’s finishing up her term by the end of March. I’ll also be taking over level 6 and possibly working 5 nights a week with a group of students who are taking some test for a scholarship of sorts.
It’s funny that they managed to divvy up the English classes into 6 groups, coz the reality is, they’re all at very low levels of English proficiency. Level 4 was a discouraging group to start with, there being a little over 25 kids in the class and most of them resting their heads on the table or worse, screaming and shouting to each other in Thai. I tried to get one boy’s attention by looking straight at him while I was having the class repeat a word written on the board like, “Green” and he looked at me kindof ticked and just responded “Arai?!” (What?!) Cindy warned me that the level 4 group is really tough group to work with.
I can’t really say I blame the kids for their lack of interest in English, knowing some of their situations. This school doesn’t foster exclusively kids pulled out of the sex trade. It also fosters kids at high risk of entering the sex trade as well as poor village and hilltribe students and students of refugee families from Myanmar. A lot of them don’t have papers and a lot of their families are kindof trapped in Mae Sai. In one direction of the highway, there’s the border to Myamar. The other way, you can’t leave Mae Sai without passing through two police check off points within a couple of miles of each other. On top of that, because a lot of these kids are coming from places like China, Myanmar and Laos, Thai is actually their second language, making English their third. Where does the motivation even come from to learn English when a lot of them haven’t even finished learning Thai and a lot of them won’t ever have a real opportunity to use English in their lives? The Level 5 and Level 6 English make me feel like I actually have a purpose here.
These kids are so focused. They’re still at a really low level of proficiency and they need a lot of training in some basic phonetics (a lot of them can’t say ‘plate’. They call it a ‘face’ no matter how much you break it down for them sound by sound) but they sit there either paying attention to the worksheet I put in front of them or me, and they actually make an effort to absorb the information in front of them. One girl asked Cindy if she could come in on Saturday with her brother to have some extra English lessons. She asked me if I’d be up for it and I said of course I would. It’s the few students like that that make it seem like the experience here will be totally worth it. It almost makes me wish I tried harder when I was a kid in school.

So I know for certain I’ll be working with level 4, 5 and 6 throughout the week. I don’t know much about this evening course for the potential scholarship students, but I’m supposed to meet with the director this Monday to discuss that in further detail. In addition to teaching here, I’ve also been given the position of volunteer coordinator. As in, I’m supposed to recruit foreign volunteers and actually modify the application form so that we can do a police background check. As of now, pretty much anyone can apply to volunteer here and there’s pretty much no screening process whatsoever. I realized that myself when they let me in. I could have been an axe murderer for all they knew. I’m also co-hosting the radio station a couple of times a week with some other volunteers, and when some of them leave in April I’ll be expected to be in charge of a couple of shifts a week on my own. I’m not clever like my Dad and I can’t think of what I could possibly say over the radio that’d be in anyone’s interest. Luckily, there won’t be too many English speaking listeners out there and I can talk about pretty much anything I want for the hour long session. The only subject that’s taboo, I’m told, is Burma. We don’t wanna piss them off, evidently.

I got a motorbike! Ok, it’s not exactly the style I might have hoped it’d be. It’s not a Vespa and it’s not Red, Green or Blue. It’s a Honda Dream, it’s off white and it’s a little old. I just learned how to drive it yesterday and so I’m still not completely comfortable on it. When I come to stop signs and awkwardly stumble my feet towards the ground, the Thai locals are especially emphatic with their name calling “Falrang! Falrang!” (Whitey!)
And after a few days of being sick and having to stay indoors pretty much until the end of the weekend, nothing was like getting ontop of my moped and going down the highway to the monkey caves. It’s liberating, almost in the same way that driving a car…no a convertible is…I’ve no such license for this bike and from what I understand, most people don’t.
That’s it for now. I’ve had some interesting work to do and a lot more to come it seems like. The lack of free time sometimes makes me forget how much I regret not being able to be home during some really important times with my family, but I do think about home quite a bit, nonetheless.

Arrived in Mae Sai, So much news from home

I just got to Mae Sai yesterday. There's a lot to describe about this place, a lot of good and interesting things.
I'm really distracted, however, because in the last 24 hours, my sister Emily got into UCLA law school, My cousin Scott became a new father to baby Kyler Crafton, and my sister, Kathleen, evidently gave birth to my new nephew Nathan Philip Griffis! Congratulations to all! So much good news in one day.
The internet actually leaves much to be desired on this particular site, so I'm going to keep this short. I'll fill in the details about Mae Sai later on. Just wanted to make those announcements to everyone.
Oh, and you can send fan mail to this address:

Jamie Wood
c/o DEPDC
Box 10
Mae Sai, Chiang Rai
57130
Thailand

English Words

My Thai language teacher is also an English teacher. He asked me to come in and help him teach a few of his beginner's courses. This was an excellent opportunity to hop on, so naturally, I agreed. This particular lesson was divided into 4 sections: colors, days of the week, months of ther year and invitations.
The section on invitations was basically just a series of questions that all began with "Would you like..." I wasn't paying too close attention to the handout's examples. I waited until he had the class recite each example out loud to realize what they were.

All seven students said the following sentences out loud and in unison:
Example 1: "WOOOOD YOOOOU LIYKE SOM CAWFEE"
Example 2: "WOOOOD YOOOOU LYYKE TOOOO GOO TOOO DEEESCOTAAAYK WIT MEEE"

Here's the kicker:
Example 3: "WOOOOD YOOOOU LYYKE TOOOO MALLLYYY MEE"

That's right. Would you like to marry me. Now that we've established what six colors are, what day of the week it is and the fact that you don't like coffee, let's get married. My eyes grew big and I looked onto the handout to make sure I wasn't hearing them incorrectly.
By the way, my beginner's lessons in Thai language consisted of learning the words for directions, food, greetings, apologies, prostitution and massages. Their beginner's lessons were totally not the same.
After my 5 seconds of shock were up, I bit my lower lip so that I wouldn't crack a smile. It just seemed that absurd to me. Then after a minute, I realized it was just really sad. He's teaching this class, consisting of 5 women and 2 men, the English words they'll probably want to know whenever they speak to a westerner.
Coincidentally or not, when I went to the bar next to my hotel that night to play pool and converse some more with the locals, the Burmese refugee bartender asked me to marry her. This was after I called her a trooper for still being on her feet after a 16 hour work day. When she asked me to marry her, she was being facetious with me, for the most part. I'm pretty sure. In reality though, I don't think a man'd have to twist her arm too hard if he wanted to marry her. Anything to stop the 16 hour work days, 7 days a week.

Didn't wake up in my own bed this morning

Ok I was just saying that so I could get your attention. Actually, It's true that I didn't wake up in my own bed this morning. My hotel room has two beds in it and I fell asleep in the one I normally sleep in, but I woke up in the other one somehow.
Last night I decided to to hang out in this bar nect to my hotel and try to strike up a conversation with the bartender. In my own clandestine sortof way, I was actually trying to figure out if she was a prostitute. I don't think she is. She's a refugee from Myanmar and doesn't have a passport...works two jobs. One starts at 8 am and ends at 5pm. The bartending gig starts almost immediately after that and doesn't end until past midnight. She wants to leave Thailand, saying there's just not a lot of mobility around here, but she probably never will because she can't get a passport. She straightened her posture, clasped her hands together on top of the counter , opened her mouth to reveal two two straight strings of pearly whites. Then she asserted, "Life is shit." Later, I asked her to play pool with me and she kicked my ass three times in a row.
In the same bar, I struck up a conversation with an American who actually knows of the program I'll be working with in Mae Sai. He's lived in Thailand for the last three years and has been researching narcotics, specifically heroin, in some of the more ghetto areas of the country. Initially though, he was researching child trafficking, which is how he knew of my program.
He told me this awful story about how he and some other people from his organization once went to Techula (can't spell it), the neighboring town of Mae Sai in Myanmar a few years ago. Inside a brothel, they had found a five year old girl who had been beaten and was crying. Not only did she have some scrapes and bruises, but she appeared to have some lesions on her body that seemed unrelated to the physical abuse she had just recieved. They took her away (I don't remember how), and brought her over to hospitals in major cities in northern Thailand, including ones in Chiang Mai. One hospital was able to diagnose her with AIDS and Syphilis. They also found a viral infection in her vagina that the doctors couldn't even fully identify. The messed up thing is, none of these places would treat her because she didn't have papers. They wouldn't treat a 5 year old girl with Syphilis and AIDS because she didn't have a legal form of identification, which was probably never given to her in Myanmar to begin with.
I don't remember the end of the story. In fact, this story was much longer than I've explained it to be. I know because as he was telling me this he kept pouring himself and me shot after shot of tequila without my asking for them and the story just became less and less lucid. I will have to ask him to refill me in on those details at another time...the story itself could very well have been fiction for all I know, but it was depressing to think about either way. He told me about a few places to hang out at night in Mae Sai, which was nice. And he said he'd email me his research, which would also be really helpful.
I was starting to feel drunk...and my most recent experience with tequila was on my friend Jackie's birthday back in August when I ended the night feeling really nauseous and hovering my head over a toilet bowl. It was time for me to go home. I remember quite well bidding my farewells to the bartender and the American, walking back to the hotel (the whole 200 ft), changing out of my clothes and getting into bed. I must have gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then just went to the wrong bed afterwards. It was pretty uncomfortable because that bed had all of my luggage piled ontop of it.

thai lessons

I was going over some very basic vocabulary words with my thai tutor today and experienced some confusion.

puying-ba = bar girl
me:"what if it's a man, is it putai-ba?"
t: "no, we don't have such a word."
m: "so...you don't just call male bartenders bargirls, do you?"
t:"well, when i say bar girl, i mean prostitute of course"
m:"...and when you mean to say bartender?"
t: "same thing"
m:"...bartender...is the same thing as prostitute?"
t"yes, i would say so"
m:"ok, but what if you happen to tend a bar and you're not a prostitute"
t: "it really doesn't happen that often"

I decided to concede and pretend that this was a gross exaggeration of sorts... I mean, I know prostitution's pretty big here, but I can count about 14 bars on the way to my 5 minute walk to my thai lessons.

Next word: Maw-nuat. massage doctor/ masseuse
My teacher says to me, "Some maw-nuat work like this," and he mimes massaging a persons shoulders, "and some maw-nuat massage like this" and he mimes the action of giving a hand job.

This is funny because I'm getting tutored for the purposes of facilitating my life structure in Mae Sai, where I won't be looking for any maw-nuat, and if I ever so much as referred to one of my students as a "puying-ba," I'd probably be asked to leave and never show my face again. This is probably what comes from enrolling in a school that's catered to teach thai for tourists visiting for pleasure. Oh well. Helps to learn all parts of the language I guess.

still on my honeymoon

I say I'm still on the honeymoon phase of my trip because I'm still in Chiang Mai (not Mae Sai), I'm not yet doing what I came here to do, and my Thai language immersion courses...well, they haven't really immersed me into much of anything other than a few handouts worth of expressions vocabulary words. They don't take too long to memorize and there are many more hours of the day to account for when that's all said and done. Having said that, I spent today visiting an elephant camp, riding one up and down some steep hills, visiting the mong tribal village way deep in the mountains, and steering a raft through a river. I spent the entirety of my day doing this with some Australians I met on the van. Oh, and by the way, to do all this and have a tour guide take you to all of these places from 8:30 AM- 5PM : $15. It's nothing short of absurd. I'll be in for a rude awakening in about a week.

not trying to be vegan, cabs, my new roommates

When a wise person discovers he's going to be living on a vegan site for 6 months, he might modify his diet ahead of time. Slowly, but surely, his body will acclimate itself to digesting nothing but fruits, vegetables and grains. I, however, have taken this opportunity in my last days of carnivore-hood to find a meat and dairy product in virtually every meal I've consumed in the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, for example, I had chicken for breakfast on the plane, a cheesburger for lunch and spaghetti carbonara for dinner. I think I'm gonna be juuuust fine.
***

Chiang Mai's got these taxicabs that are about 3 feet wide by 4 foot long. They have no doors or seatbelts and their ceilings are made of tarp. They kindof resemble those amusement park cars that ride on tracks and are not intended for people over 4 feet tall because they're just that tiny. They also go maybe 40 miles an hour and spit up diesel fuel like nothing I've ever seen before. They've got these handles on the sides so you can hang on for your dear life as the cabby goes careening around corners, cutting off larger, more threatening vehicles until you get to your destination and he slams on the breaks. Then you're supposed to haggle over the price.
I wasn't meant to haggle.
No really. Yesterday I managed to get into a cab and talk down the price of my fare, saying numbers and "that's a bit pricey" in Thai. This was a pretty big accomplishment for me because I'm not confrontational, especially with strangers. And I don't think I've actually ever succesfully haggled before, even in markets where it's customary to do so. Then by the time we settled on a lesser fee, I felt guilty and ended up paying his original offer. Whatever. It's the difference of paying $1.50 versus 50 cents, but it's the principle of the thing. I should be able to haggle just like everyone else and not have a complex about it when it's all said and done.

I got a cell phone and I registered for 10 hours of thai classes :)
***

I found my first problem with Thailand.... one I actually knew about ahead of time, but it bothered me how I ran into it. After winding down yestrerday, I got into the shower, started lathering up when i hear things fall to the floor, different from water falling. like, TAP taptaptaptaptap. I looked down and there was a New Orleans sized cockroach, then another and another. I look up and there's a few more where they came from up in the vent. "crap," I jumped out of the shower, grabbed my towel (still sudsy and soapy) and ran for my hiking boots to start pounding away at them.
I killed the three and then rinsed off in the sink instead of the shower. After I;d gone to bed, in the middle of the night, I woke up to the same tapping noise. i turned my light on by the bed and jumped out for my boot again to start whacking again. His guts sortof spewed on the floor, I sortof just left him there so that his friends could witness his deformed body as a warning to the rest of them not to visit me,...or maybe they'd just bide their time and seek revenge as a whole posse. Whatever, they're not paying $15 to stay here every night. In any case i went back to bed with one hiking boot on my foot, laced, ready for more attacks...slightly on edge.