I continued to teach at the government school in Bangkok, Wat Nuannorodit school, right up until a few days ago but at the end of September 2009, the Head of Department, Ajarn Chutatip, took early retirement along with three other Thai teachers who I worked with. From the start of the next term, things weren't quite the same. Don't get me wrong though, things were still okay but a wind of change was in the air that was to grow stronger in the months ahead.
Back in August 2009, I had a pain in my lower abdomen. I went to the hospital to get a diagnosis, it was BPH or Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. At first I was being treated with drugs, one of them being an alpha blocker that had a near ninety per cent chance of reducing the size of my offending organ in time. However in March 2010, I had a severe infection that went to my kidneys, causing my blood pressure to drop alarmingly as well as giving me a fever. I went to the hospital, was seen and diagnosed within minutes and the doctor suggested I stay in a few days for treatment. I declined but had to return daily for three days to be drip-fed antibiotics. A couple of weeks later, I had my appointment with the specialist. I didn't feel the alpha blockers were working to well and didn't relish the idea of taking them for the rest of my life, so I opted to have a procedure known as TURP to shave away the part of my prostrate that was strangling my poor urethra. The operation was set for May.
Just before I had the infection, I went with the school to English Camp for three days of jolliness and immersion in English with my fellow teachers and IEP (Intensive English Program) students. The camp was at the big armed forces base at Satahip, right on the coast and not far from Pattaya. Of the foreign English teachers at the school, only Ken and myself went, Mecho and Brian were unable to make it. We were joined by a substitute teacher who was from Texas. Ken and I had put in a lot of preparation to organise activities for the students but when we got there, we found that nothing had been properly organised and the substitute teacher, who will remain nameless, was a total oddball (polite term) who we found more of a hindrance than a help. We did what we could, improvising a lot of the time but we weren't getting any help from our Head of Department nor from the teachers in her circle, it was quite disparaging.
April came and went, the Red Shirts came and stayed. At first they occupied the area around Phan Fah bridge and Bangkokians were pretty much able to go about their business as normal. The leaders of the Red Shirts confronted the Prime Minister and the government head on, insisting on elections within 90 days although the government had a mandate to govern until the end of 2011. Prime Minister Abhisit, offered elections with seven months, following reform of the constitution, which is recognized as being seriously flawed. The Red Shirts were having none of it and moved to Rajprasong and the surrounding area, the shopping and entertainment heart of Bangkok.
Now it is May, on Monday, I'm going into hospital for my operation. The phone rings, "Mr Peter, I'm afraid you're Thai Health insurances office are closed as they are in the occupied area, so you will either have to pay for the treatment now and make a claim later or postpone it to a later date." I postpone it.
The Red Shirts were now getting very aggressive. On 23 April, an attack on the BTS station at Sala Daeng killed one person and injured seventy-five others, things were becoming very ugly. Rockets were going off everywhere. Renegade Army General Katthiya, known as Seh Daeng, was considered to be responsible for much of the violence. Indeed, he instigated an assault on Chulalongkorn Hospital, where Red Shirts ran amok around critically ill patients looking for soldiers they believed were hiding out there. No soldiers were found. The violence reached a crescendo when the Red Shirt Leaders, realizing they were about to be defeated by the army, much to the relief of Bangkokians, told their supporters to create as much mayhem and disorder as possible. They did, they set fire to Bangkok.
The new school year started one week late on 24 May, as peace was restored to the city. The wind of change was strengthening and I was disappointed. I rescheduled my operation for the end of July to coincide with exams and half-term. It was decided that the IEP students command of English when speaking wasn't a good as it should be. These students have a maximum six lessons, fifty-five minutes long, each week. They don't use English in any other subject, for example, the sciences or computing, so they don't make any use of it, preferring to stick to their own language. An extra class each week for phonetics (the study of the sounds used in speech), was brought in. This could have been a good idea, the foreign teachers made various suggestions for how we should conduct the class but the Thai teacher seemed to know better. So every week, usually just a few minutes before the class, we would be given handouts with nothing but words using the sound being practised that day. I would do my best, spewing out these words and getting students to repeat them, making up sentences and rhymes using the sounds but again I was improvising. I never considered these lessons to be very successful but very tiring for the teachers involved and very boring for the students. I have given a few phonetics lessons, using my own resources, to my M3 IEPs as part of the listening and speaking course I taught them, I use my own resources and the students enjoyed the lessons and learnt something from them, enough said!
On Saturday 31 July, I checked in to Bangkok Christian Hospital in Silom Road. My room on the 14th floor was pleasant and certainly spacious. A kitchen area, hotel style en-suite and a large room with a big sofa, table and chairs, big screen TV and a bulk standard hospital bed. My operation took place at 8pm. I was given an epidural, which made the lower half of my body completely numb. When the anaesthetist was satisfied that it was working, she gave me an injection to which I started counting towards 10 and woke up in ICU. Because of the epidural, I had to stay there until I had feeling back in my legs and feet, Mayom visited me but had to leave at about 11pm while I was still numb. Eventually I could wiggle my feet, I was so relieved, my legs had had the same sensation as my lips after a visit to the dentist, not nice at all. I was moved back to my room. I shall dwell no further on my stay in hospital for on the Tuesday, i was allowed to go home.
A month passed by. Mayom frustrated at trying to get a suitable position in a five star hotel in Bangkok was told of a vacancy in Reservations at Air Asia but it was based in Kuala Lumpur. Post Red Shirts, tourism in Thailand's capital was well down. The Service Charge payment, which hotel employees rely on to earn a decent wage together with tips were badly down. Mayom interviewed for the KL job and was accepted. On 27 August, he left for a two year contract, though he thinks he may return after a year. The next day, I applied for a position in Phuket, teaching students at Mathayom levels 4 to 6, in other words 15 to 18 year olds.
Phuket is a pretty popular place to work, plenty of teachers go after vacancies there and so I really wasn't sure I'd be interviewed, let alone get the job. Almost two weeks went by and an email took me by surprise. It asked if I could attend an interview at Phuket TH school. Well of course, I said yes and on 16 September, I took an evening flight down to Phuket in order to attend the interview on the following morning. I liked the school, a private school run by Chinese, it was clean, nicely painted, decent furniture and the classrooms all air-conditioned with white boards. Class sizes are small with just twenty to thirty students. The interview went well, no, the interview went really well, and my demonstration lesson to Mathayom 5 students was successful too. There were six other candidates up for interview and I was told that I would hear, one way or other the next Wednesday afternoon. That day my phone's ringing volume was turned up as I waited and waited for a call but none came. On the bus going home, I checked my email and there it was, a message from Phuket TH. Rejected, I thought as I opened the mail, it started "Dear Peter, I am pleased to be able to offer you the position as English Teacher at....". A tear of joy ran down my cheek, I wanted to stand up and shout YES! but instead I remained seated until my stop, called into 7-Eleven and then went home and made a few phone calls.
When I first arrived in Thailand two years ago, I spent three weeks in Phuket going to the dentist for some desperately needed treatment. For the first three days I hated the place and wanted to get back to Bangkok. My fourth evening there things started to change, I bumped into a couple of Brits I had met the previous Friday in Bangkok and realised that all I needed was a little bit of camaraderie. I started to fall in love, yes in love with Phuket, , it's white sandy beaches, the backdrop of lush green mountains, the streets, the people there. Since then, I've returned on two occasions prior to the interview, once for my birthday in 2009 and again for a few days at the beginning of May this year.
So here I am two hours into a twelve hour journey travelling south to an inland town on an island wrapped by white sand and turquoise sea. My new Torremolinos but lovelier with that unique Thai charm.
With my interview being on a Friday, it made perfect sense to spend the weekend in Phuket and whilst browsing around the bookshops i came across a book I had seen two years previously and thought, that looks interesting. For the past 18 months, I've been looking everywhere for it but couldn't find it. I bought Bangkok Boy, an autobiographical account of the life of Chai Pinit, a straight guy who grew up in the Isan province of Si Sisket, situated in the east of Thailand bordering Cambodia. Like many Isan people he turned to the big city to make money, first as a waiter in Pattaya, then becoming a go-go boy and prostitute in order to attain a good income to pay for his lifestyle, ending up where the big money was in Bangkok. Chai writes about his life from his youth when he discovered the pleasurable vices of alcohol and gambling, his relationships with women and a ladyboy, his children and up to the present time as a forty-something man who was almost killed in a brawl with a former friend high on yaba (tablets of methamphetamine and caffeine). It's one of the most interesting stories that I've ever read. I'm glad I finally found and bought the book.
Okay, back to the present. I feel I've been awarded a new lease of life after recent events, maybe it's karma – I think it's karma, so I'm going to take advantage and not allow myself to get into a rut. I've cut back drastically on my Facebook games. I intend to write, about what I'm not sure yet but it's something I've always wanted to do. Certainly I'll start by regular blogs and see what develops from there. I'm going to do a lot of photography, try and make some creative images and I'm getting a bike. A Honda or Yamaha will do, needed largely out of necessity as the transport system in Phuket is typical of rural public transport systems, i.e. not much of it about and the motorbike taxis are twice the cost of Bangkok's car taxis.
The bus has reached Hua Hin, two and three-quarter hours into the journey, that's quite good timing and also time for me to turn out the light and take a rest.
To be continued.
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