Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Adventures in Thailand Part 2: Motobikes 101
When we last left our fearless wanderer.... wait that's me... I had just arrived in Bangkok after a less than ideal journey. After managing to sleep a few hours at a place in Bangkok, I was driven to Pathum Thani where I will be spending the majority of my time. We headed first to my school to prove to the director that I am a real human and will in fact start teaching soon. (Apparently the parents were getting nervous that their "native English speaking teacher" that they paid so much for their children to be educated by, wasn't really coming.)
After meeting the director, taking a tour of the school, and getting my schedule and books we headed over to Kiki's (the other teacher from the US) school. We spent a few minutes finally getting to chat face-to-face and since the timing was right, we snagged a free lunch with her in the school cafeteria.
Next it was off to find an apartment! Kiki had found a cheap place that was really close to her school and said she really loved it because the woman who owned it and her son really took care of her, so it was almost like having a host family. I liked the idea of being in the same building as someone else who spoke English, and the whole host family feel, so after checking the place out, I decided to stay. My room wasn't actually ready yet, so I ended up crashing in Kiki's room that night while they "got my room ready" - though I don't think anything actually changed in my room from when I saw it. (Don't worry, future posts will include photos of the apartment.)
The school director had asked me to come back at pick-up time so the parents could meet me (or... so the parents could see a white, blond haired, English speaking girl). The landlady intended to loan me her motorbike to make the trip, but after a couple practice tries and realizing that the starter was not terribly reliable, we decided to use the car instead.
That night Kiki took me to FuturePark to get a sim card for my phone and an AirCard for internet. (More on FuturePark in a future post... see what I did there? ha!) The next morning, Kiki volunteered to take me to school on her moto so that I didn't have to take a cab. We somehow managed to both get ourselves ready in her room and headed out the door. She knew it was important that I be at school on time so that the parents who hadn't seen me the day before would know I was definitely there now. In an attempt to get me there, she did what ALL moto drivers do when traffic is a little nasty and started driving on the side of road instead of really ON the road. Unfortunately, it had rained the night before and the ground was really muddy and well... Muddy ground - 1, Moto and 2 farargs - 0.
We both got a bit scraped up, but nothing serious. Since we were both now covered in mud, we headed back to the apartment to get cleaned up. When we arrived back the apartment the landlady went crazy making sure we were okay. She came up to Kiki's room and brought iodine and gauze and made sure we were really okay before she would let us go. While I was cleaning up, Kiki made a call to the school to let them know I would be late. Late on the first day (after already being a whole day late!). I'm amazing!
Stayed tuned for Adventures in Thailand Part 3: Cat Herding for Dummies.
Labels: moto, Pathum Thani, Thailand
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