THAILAND 8: - A Place To Call Home

"This is how we live together." - Pook

I had finally accepted our situation as it was, and came to peace that there wasn’t much that I could do about the flood, the school start date, or our financial situation.  So, I relaxed and enjoyed the amazing Thai food, the sunsets over the Andaman and this time off with my love.

But, as beautiful and relaxing as Koh Phayam is we can’t stay there forever.  We had finally received confirmation that we could go to our apartment in Nonthaburi.  The lack of food and water in the area was a real concern, but we were out of time and money.  Another visa run would soon be in order, and Laos was our destination.

Despite the fact that our job search had paid off and we both had been accepted to teach in China, all expenses paid, we felt that we were supposed to be in Thailand, and chose to stay.  Logically it didn’t make any sense, but in our hearts we knew we were making the right decision.  The next morning we headed off to Champs Elysees, our first apartment together.

The ten hour bus ride north to Bangkok dropped us off at the unofficial bus depot, a gravel parking lot in the middle of the city.  It was four in the morning, and we were headed into a flooded area that could have been a hundred miles away for all we knew. . .

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM JUSTIN'S (My husband's) PERSPECTIVE - ENTER GUEST WRITER: 

Dawn had yet to break when we shuffled off the bus, retrieved our luggage and faced the wolves waiting hungrily in the parking lot.  They smelled the delirium caused by a restless night and pounced relentlessly, preying on our weakened state.

“Taxi!  Taxi!  Where you go?!  Taxi!”

I, Justin, wanted food and coffee before making any decisions, but we agreed that everything was closed, and that we should get to the prearranged gas station rendezvous straight away, so that we could get to our apartment and rest and shower.

After several drivers told us that our destination was unreachable, one seemingly brave soul accepted the challenge, for a price.  1600 Baht ($40 USD).  Which seemed incredibly high, maybe not for New York City but definitely for Bangkok, but we were too tired to think about it, let alone haggle or argue.

“Yes, Yes!”  The taxi driver decided for us as he grabbed our bags and threw them in his trunk.  We looked at each other and the same thoughts passed half-heatedly through our sleep deprived minds. 

Should we do it?  I dunno, seems like a lot of money.  Aw **** it, let’s go.

The elevated expressway was lined with parked cars and our taxi seemed to be the only mobile machine for miles.  Below the city of Bangkok rose from a lake of eerie calm.

We arrived without incident at the Esso gas station in Muang Thong Thani, wherever the hell that was, and our slowly stirring thought process was telling us that we’d been had.

“I thought he said 70 Km, but he must have said 17.”  Neither of us wanted to admit that we’d been taken.  

We went inside the convenience store, bought a simple breakfast, ate it quickly and prepared for the long wait ahead. 

About an hour later we realized that this wait was gonna suck, big time.  We tried to lay down using our gi-normous backpacks as pillows, concealed behind a crude wall of cinderblocks that had been installed as a precautionary flood wall.  The area wasn’t flooded, and there were no alligators or poisonous snakes around, so we were grateful for that at least.

An employee kindly awoke us from our sleep and asked if he could help us, we took that for the friendly Thai equivalent of the American phrase, “No loitering, you lousy homeless bums!”

Three hours and one dawn later, our ride arrived.  Pook, a Thai lady of middle age, took us out to breakfast as her first act as my boss and our host.  Following the less-than-spectacular meal she showed us to our apartment.

The apartment complex has an exterior design of a Parisian or Roman style with pillars and arches, domes of faux aged copper, elaborate statues of winged and fallen angels, and, of course, a 7-11.  The inside of our building was Rome themed, with plenty of arches, painted ceilings and statues of guards and gods.  The inside of our apartment was a box with a bed and some IKEA quality furniture.

I’m sure you’ll hear more of the cold showers, malfunctioning equipment and uncomfortable bed later, so I will move on for now.  Pook took us shopping at what seemed to us a mega mall.  Cars were parallel parked three-deep in front of the store because, as Pook explained, the multilevel parking garage was being used as a place of safe keeping for the cars of local Thais whose houses were flooded beyond access.

“This is how we live together,” Pook explained as she saw the looks on our faces.  The parking attendants were pushing cars back and forth like the game Rush Hour  in order to let people out and in of the parking lot gridlock.  In America, this would be unheard of.  I could just imagine a rich American seeing his shiny new BMW being pushed to and fro by the greasy hands of a teenage lot attendant.  His face screwed up in a look somewhere between outrage, terror and disgust.

The time soon came for yet another border run.  This time the destination was Laos, north of Thailand, for a 60-day visa.  We discovered that bus route 90 would take us from our apartment to the Mo Chit Bus Station near Chatachuck in Bangkok, which is where we would be catching the overnight bus to Laos.  We walked ten minutes to the bus stop to begin what would be an unforgettable journey.