Over the last nine months, I feel that I have learned a thing or two about Thailand, life, and myself.  I would like to share some of those revelations with you now.

Unexpected days off are to be expected.            

On many occasions, I have been informed of holidays the week before (if I’m lucky) they occur.  Usually I find out perhaps the Friday before.  But it has happened that I am made aware one day prior.  Don’t get me wrong, I love days off same as the next guy.  I just get so thrown off when I am forced to take time off without fair warning…

Water bottles are scary.            

            Want to protect those shiny rims from the lifting-legs of pesky strays?  Look no further than a clear, one-liter bottle filled with water.  Prop it against your 22’s and dog urine will be a thing of the past.  For some reason, Thai dogs are afraid of water in bottles.  Some intrepid individual figured this out at some point and used it to his (or her) advantage.  Now, putting a water bottle in front of your hubcaps is standard practice when wanting to safeguard the cleanliness of your wheels.

Being a visual eater in southern Thailand sucks. 

            I am very affected by the appearance of my food.  This has not served me well living where I live.  They serve a lot of scary fish and soupy dishes in unappetizing colors.  I know I need to get over my aversion but it has yet to happen.

The helmet is key. 

            As long as the driver of a motorbike is wearing a helmet, no other safety precautions are necessary; And any helmet will do, including a hardhat.  Put as many people on the motorcycle as you want.  Five people?  Mai bpen rai.  Pets?  Mai bpen rai.  Infants and toddlers?  Mai bpen rai. Five people plus infants and toddlers and pets while the driver talks on a cell phone?  Mai bpen rai.  Minus the helmet on the driver?  Now we have a problem.

If you print it, they will wear it. 

            There are many shirts in Thailand with English writing printed on them.  A lot of times they don’t make sense.  Most of the time they make for a comical situation.  Once, I was on a songtaew with a very old woman wearing a tee-shirt with a pot leaf that read “God made cannabis”.  My favorite, however, was being on another songtaew with a man wearing a shirt declaring “I Survived Gonorrhea”.  It then listed the incubation period and the symptoms associated with the venereal disease.  If that man had a single friend who spoke and read English, he would not have been wearing that shirt.  Well, who knows.  Maybe he would have.  This is Thailand.

Massive cars accidents: spectator sport. 

            One afternoon I was scooting in to Hat Yai from Songkhla along the back highway.  Up ahead I noticed a large amount of slowed traffic along with a ridiculous number of bikes and cars parked along the road.  I suspected that there was some sort of market or festival going on along the highway.  No.  There wasn’t.  As I slowed, passed, and glanced to the opposite side of the road, I realized they were all just staring at a car.  That was upside down.  With the tail end in the air.  At about a 60 degree angle.  In the ditch.  No one actually seemed to be helping or particularly concerned.  Mostly they were standing around casually chatting and sitting on their parked bikes.  I am *guessing* that emergency services had already been called, but I really couldn’t say for sure.

Call Guiness.  We have a new world record. 

            I have spent the better part of a year in a second-world country.  And I have not yet used a public restroom.  I spend most of my day at the school which has very nice (private) facilities.  Then I am usually at home or at a private residence.  Oh, and I don’t drink much water.  I think that I absorb what I need from the air around me.  This helps.

A thousand needles on your face. 

            Now that I have a motorbike for transportation, I am no longer sheltered from the weather.  If I must drive home in the rain, then I must.  I try to avoid it in heavy rain, but a very light, misting rain is fine.  However, even the lightest rain at 50 mph will feel like needles on your face, arms, and chest.  I don’t like needles.

I haven’t gotten lost.  Not once.

            I never thought of myself as someone with a good sense of direction.  If I don’t have the mountains to the west, I don’t know which direction I am facing.  Worries about not being able to get myself around and getting lost in a strange city haunted my dreams before getting here.  Somehow, I managed to follow directions and get myself around Bangkok when I first got to Thailand.  I think I got lucky that time.  I have managed to memorize routes and directions and fairly well navigate in two different cities.  I have been able to give driving directions to friends and to motorbike taxi drivers.  I know short cuts and back roads.  I have amazed myself with the ability to sense which direction I am facing.  I am apparently not as directionally-challenged as I previously thought.  Which is a handy thing to NOT be in Thailand.

I’m ruined for driving in America.

            Sixteen years of (mostly) following speed limits, using turn signals, driving in my lane (and not between other vehicles), NOT driving against traffic on the wrong side of the road, keeping my vehicle off sidewalks, pumping my own gas, and waiting at red lights… All flushed down the toilet.

Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner?  These descriptors mean nothing.

There are no meal times here. Just as there aren’t any foods that you specifically eat or don’t eat at a particular time of day.  Western culture has a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In Thailand, they are called eat-whenever-the-mood-strikes-you-times. I may have just made that up.

When I had been here about a week or so, I mentioned to Phil that I hadn’t yet had “Thai breakfast”. To which he responded:

“Have you eaten Thai food here?”

“Yes…”

“Then you have eaten a ‘Thai breakfast’.”

Fish, chicken, pork, eggs, noodles, rice. These are the dietary staples and they are eaten all day, every day. You can get them in some variation or another on nearly every street corner and sidewalk. Deep fried, stir fried, steamed, boiled, grilled, and roasted.  Snacking is rampant and eating sticks, plastic bags, and straws probably comprise 90% of the rubbish in this country.

I haven’t fallen in to the snacking trap and am still stuck on western meal times.  This has been to the benefit of my waistline.

Awkward is being served alcohol by a 13-year-old.

            I am a rare drinker.  I am not anti-drinking; I just prefer to spend my money elsewhere.  Therefore, my experience drinking in Thailand is limited.  So, on the occasion that I did recently go out with friends for some libations, it was disconcerting to be served by a 13-year-old behind the bar.  First, we ordered from the adult bartender.  Since she couldn’t speak English or understand what we were ordering, she turned to the owner’s son to take care of us.  Although I felt uncomfortable and weird at first, he was really a great bartender/server and kept us sorted the entire evening.  Thirteen-year-old bartenders are awesome!

Resistance is futile.  You will be assimilated.

            One of the most irksome things about being foreign in Thailand is the staring.  It is unavoidable.  Even when I have a helmet, sunglasses, sweater, jeans, and backpack on while riding a motorbike, they still somehow know that I am foreign.  I have learned to accept it (mostly) and ignore it.  I recently came to the realization that I, too, stare at the foreign strangers that I see around town.  I mean, come on, they stand out like a sore thumb.

 

I have made the plan to stay on at my school for another year.  Move in to Hat Yai, buy a motorbike, save more money.  I hope in that time to experience even more cultural idiosyncrasies and discover more surprising things about myself.  I don’t think I will ever discover that I like stinky, scary fish dishes, though.