The continued story of my 3 day stay in Thailand and adventures with an old stranger.
Welcome back for the second episode of my travel story, where I visited Thailand and met a stranger. Last week I made it to Bangkok, visited the embassy, and ran into the boomer on the steps of the embassy. This is where the adventure began.
A few visa documents.
The boomer and I headed back to the embassy with our documents. We both just needed to bring photographs, which we both had left back at the hotel in the morning. Nothing too important happened. We crossed the bridge across the road, handed in our photos and headed back towards the hotel. I was started to get hungry and the boomer was in the midst of a tale about the old days in Thailand, how it used to be much cheaper until all the foreigners flocked there and ruined it. I asked him if he was hungry, and asked him which place he recommended to eat at. He told me, I could check out the sit down restaurants. Then he grimaced, “They’re a bit overpriced though. I can live on 50 Baht a day with street food,” he claimed.
Thai street food.
There were many options, but we settled on a bazaar style setup. There was a small corridor that lead to a wide open area inside. It had a cement floor, lots of different food wagons with a variety of food options. There were around two dozen blue tables for people to sit at too. Much of the food was similar in nature varying in quality. Smoothies, breaded fried meat/seafood, and vegetable/noodles or vegetable/rice mixes.
Some kind of Thai lunch.
I had a hard time deciding what to eat. I turned around and the boomer had disappeared. I settled on something similar to what you see in the photo above. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was eating, but went to search for a table. I thought the boomer had already seated, but I still couldn’t find him. I found a table on the edge that had a street view. There were around half a dozen Thai school girls sitting there. They were smiling big, giggling and chatting nervously. I sat a chair down from them, and they didn’t seem to mind.
Pick your choice of slow painful liquid death.
Finally, the boomer sat down. He had a bowl of soup, some rice and two large bottles of soda. It would be a custom for him. Later, each time I saw him shopping in Saudi Arabia, he always had several 2 liter bottles of soda and bags of chips. After repeating his earlier discussion about how he could live on 50 Baht ($1.50) a day, he started to ask me about which school I was going to work for and tell me about his teaching experiences. I told him, that I would be working for TPSU and it was my first year. He complained that they only hired young people at the university and that’s why he was working at IBS. He had been teaching in Saudi Arabia now for 7 years and working on his house in the Philippines.
What I imagined when he said he was building a house on an island. This is in Iceland though, not the Philippines.
His house was close to being completed. He was working in Saudi Arabia to pay for it and was now low on cash. He talked about the old days of Thailand and how the Philippines was now better, before returning to discuss his house.
Some random Philippe-no girl’s picture I found on Google.
Male Philippe-no labor workers, who work for $6 a day in their home country.
He went into more detail about girls in the Philippines and how cheap the labor for his house was. Then he went on a rambling tangent about how you needed a family member to guard the house while you were gone, because if not then the neighbors would break in and steal everything.
An Indian guy with a shirt made of gold.
Complaining about the thieves, led him to talk again about working in Saudi Arabia. First he talked about the Pakistani and Indian workers, who he claimed “still looked dirty even after showering”.
A photo of two Muslim reverts, found on google.
Then he discussed the other teachers and their rides to school on the bus. At the moment, I had decided not to reveal that I was a Muslim revert. He told me that there was segregation and on the teacher buses, with reverts sitting in the front and non-Muslim teachers sitting in the back. He claimed they thought they were too good for the non-Muslim westerners, seen as being dirty Kafirs (infidels). It’s worth noting that while working in Saudi Arabia and riding the same teacher’s bus I never noticed this.
Arabic students. Image found on google.
His next target were his students. Saying “you have to be man, squash them like a bug. You can’t take no shit from them.” He also warned me never to get close to students or teachers, because they would try to get you to do something stupid or say something stupid and then get you fired.
Some Thai girls.
Finally, he returned to his favorite topic. Telling me about all the Thai women that he had slept with. Also, he told me “When I walk into a club or bar. I look around and find the one I want, and I know I’m getting that one.” He gave me lots of tips for picking up girls, but most of it revolved around just offering money. “They usually cost 1,000-1,500 Baht ($30-45),” he said several times throughout that first day.
Sometimes, it’s best to keep an invisible piece of duck tape over one’s mouth.
Now, I attempted to speak once in awhile, but I was just cut off and he continued rambling. After forty minutes or so of him talking he would stop. It was in these pockets of time, where I realized I was now allowed to talk. That is until I said something interesting enough, for him to start talking again. I could expect him to then ramble about various topics for 30-40 minutes.
Sadly, it is that time again. For you to see the sad picture with the dreaded words “to be continued”.
The last thing that happened that first day. He invited me to come to his room the next day. He told me that he would take me to “some spots” and introduce me to the Bangkok sky train. I wondered what these “spots” what these “stomping grounds” could be.
That is it for today’s episode. What will the spots be? How does the sky train work? You’ll have to wait until next week!