A meeting with friends

Things move fast, I had only known MayOm for just over 2 months, now it was 27th February and he came over with a bag of clothes and some clothes hangers, he put them in the second wardrobe. We'd agreed that he would stay at my apartment in Sathorn for 4 or 5 days a week, spending the rest of the time at home with his mother. On Saturday we took my small suitcase and took a taxi to his home where he filled his suitcase and mine, packed his laptop in its bag and together with a couple of carrier bags of papers and TOEFL course books returned to my apartment.

Now, MayOm was supposed to be improving his English and watching, in the main, English speaking TV channels and receiving lessons from me. Well the lessons lasted two weeks and the English TV somewhat less, now I'm subjected to Thai soaps on TV. The Thai's are crazy about their soaps, to the point that a crucial episode means dropping absolutely everything and I mean absolutely everything for the TV. Thai soaps remind me of the acting standards attained in that famous long departed British soap, Crossroads. One notices that many actors and presenters have a light skin tone and some have slightly European features. The Thais have as much of an obsession looking white as north Europeans do getting a tan, a dark-skin is deemed to be unfortunate as it is easily confused with peasant farmers working their paddy fields. However, back to MayOm's English and he can now understand me speaking normally; every so often I correct his pronunciation and insert prepositions into his language. It's now seven weeks since MayOm moved in and he never did go back to stay at his mother's home.

Friday 6th March, it was around 6pm and I went to the Pinnacle Hotel near the Suan Lum night bazaar to meet two friends from Torremolinos, Ed and Trevor. I was quite excited, having my first friends visiting here. They were actually spending four weeks in Pattaya and popped up to Bangkok for the weekend. I took them to Silom Soi 4 where we sat at The Balcony watching the passersby; after almost two hours, we managed to stroll across the soi, about eight steps, to the Telephone Pub and went upstairs for some food. After, we went back downstairs and parked ourselves on the terrace of the Telephone and later returned to The Balcony to enjoy a few drinks and the local views. Shortly before 11pm I decided to show Ed and Trevor something of the seedier side of Bangkok nightlife in Soi Twilight. We went into X-Men and sat directly in front of the stage. Well I like to keep my blogs clean so I won't go into detail about what we saw, though the three of us had to pop our eyes back in quite a few times. We had a couple of drinks there which I would call Spanish measures – I think the idea of them being so strong is to loosen up the punters in order that they take a piece of the merchandise away with them. It was closing in on 1am when we left, Ed and Trevor returned to the Pinnacle and me back home to MayOm.

The next evening we arranged to have dinner, Ed and Trevor, MayOm and me. MayOm chose the Pandanus Restaurant in Sathorn Soi 1 which has Thai, European and Fusion food we enjoyed over some good conversation. Afterwards we went, minus MayOm, to The Balcony in Soi 4 for some more sightseeing before finishing at 9, the name of a new disco showbar, for the show. I left Trevor and Ed there having arranged to meet them the next day for a visit to Wat Pho. Now the reason MayOm went home instead of coming with us is that he does not like Soi 4. In his opinion there are too many money boys there. I agree to a point, yes there's a lot of that type although there's also a number of decent Thais who go or work there but I respect his opinion on it.

The following morning I got up quite late, as one often does on a Sunday, of course this meant I had to hurry to get ready to visit the temple with Ed and Trevor. I met them at the Pinnacle Hotel, where they were waiting by their taxi which was to get us to Wat Pho before taking them back to Pattaya. We got through the traffic to the Wat about 1:30pm. The day was hot with sun beating down fiercely and we were all respectfully dressed in jeans rather than shorts for the visit and it didn't take very long before we were feeling the effects of the sun. Wat Pho is famous as the birthplace of Thai massage; it is one of the largest wats, covering 50 rai (20 acres). We wandered around, visiting the shrines of Buddha and walking the 46 metre length of the Reclining Buddha We passed statues Singha lions and of stone giants guarding gateways, amongst them was Marco Polo. Trevor and I got adventurous and climbed one of the Chedi to see a lovely view of the temple from a height of about 10 metres. Eventually the need to sit down and quench our thirsts became overwhelming; I'd already consumed a bottle of water I'd been carrying. We then continued around a little longer, spending almost two hours there before leaving, Ed and Trevor by taxi to Pattaya and I by ferry along the Chao Phra Ya River to home.

Monday 9th March came and I was off to the Text and Talk Academy, where I had decided to take a further course specifically aimed at Thai students including young learners. I want to teach children and the CELTA course I did in Chiang Mai never prepared me for that, also I just didn't feel confident after the course, which I was about teaching adults anyway, to go straight into paid teaching. My plan to go volunteer teaching at a primary school for six weeks from late January had been wrecked by the incompetence over the handling of my accounts by the Abbey bank which was impossible to sort out over the phone as the call centre staff both in the UK and India either lacked authority (even the managers!) or were completely ignorant and even rude. The critical problem of being able to access my funds were resolved in a matter of minutes when I called into the Beckenham branch. Now as it was mid January, I had no return ticket organised yet to Thailand and the schools would be closed from the beginning of March until late May, volunteer teaching was no longer feasible and Text and Talk guaranteed me work to follow. You might ask at this point why I did a course aimed at teaching adults then? Well my reply is simple, in that I took the CELTA course understanding it to be the Rolls Royce of TEFL/TESOL training, I also thought I that in all likelihood I would be teaching in Spain and at a language school where most students would be adult.

The course commenced with seven teachers on it, the only thing it has in common with the CELTA is the 6 hours of Teaching Practice, although even those are different more varied and probably more real world. In the final days we were down to five, two had dropped out.

On the morning of Sunday 22nd March, I took a bus down to Pattaya to meet with Ed and Trevor. On arrival at Pattaya bus station, I jumped on a motorcycle taxi to Le Cafe Royal, where they were staying, I found Ed on the patio sipping on something alcohol-free, I took a coke. Shortly after Trevor arrived with his friend Tom and took a coffee. I spent the day with them, having lunch then settling down to a beer or two at the Panorama pub. It was there that I met Oum aka James who I knew previously as a waiter at The Balcony. His head had been shaved and the hair was only just growing back, it turned out that he had been a novice monk for a short while and was now looking after a house in Pattaya owned by a Farang, keeping it secure whilst it was undergoing renovation by builders. He told me he would be returning to Bangkok in April and asked me if I could help him by giving English lessons when he got back. I told him, I don't mind meeting him for a conversation but I would have to charge for a lesson – I have decided, soft as I am, I won't give lessons for free but will charge a fee somewhat dependent upon what the student can afford. A good few beers later it was 8:30pm and time to head back to Bangkok, saying my farewells to Ed and Trevor, his friend Tom and to Oum I jumped back onto a motorcycle and commenced the return journey.

I got back home about 11pm, beating MayOm back; he had been attending a fashion show at Siam Paragon and also had done some shopping, for he returned with a selection of face care products including a whitening lotion.