March 3 Update - “It is like we are playing Old Maid and you have the old maid now….” (Misty referring to my cold)

Misty and I spent most of the morning at Mercy working in the lab, preparing lessons for the week and trying to get some more of our video done. We met Cedric, Si Jie and one of our students for lunch. Cedric is a missionary volunteer from France. He is working mostly with the kindergarten students.

After lunch Misty, Cedric and I grabbed a cab to Lumpini park. Cedric lives close to here and Misty and I were heading back to the Night Bazaar. Misty and I sat in the boiling heat over supper. We decided to try one of the restaurants across the street. Bad idea that was, the food was not that great and it was incredibly expensive. They also gave us extra things like a cold towel before our meal that they later turned around and charged us for. Our total came to 508 baht, which is way more than any other meal we had here. We were not too impressed but unfortunately our language barrier prevented us from doing anything about it.

We shopped around the shopping stalls in the bazaar until about 9 pm, stopping for a cold drink every once in a while. We got some pretty neat things that you would never find in Canada. I was also using it as an opportunity to practice my Thai. Misty and I just about died when I was looking at earrings and I asked the guy in Thai how much they were. He looked at me with this blank look on his face, which confused me because I was sure that I perfected the tone and pitch completely. He then responded with “I don’t speak Thai.” (in English). Misty was still laughing about it later in the evening.

Because it was already dark out, and this place is not the safest at night (mostly due to drunks) we decided to take a bus home. For some reason the busses were not stopping at our bus stop, by driving right by. We later found out that they do not stop at that stop when the bizarre is on, so we should have walked farther. Instead we asked a few people for directions on what way we should be headed and decided to precede on foot until we got a taxi. Well three people told us one way, so off we went. While walking we saw some prostitutes. It was quite obvious as they were standing on the side of the road in a really short skirt and as soon as a vehicle pulled over, they would go to the window and talk to them. The drivers were all men. I should also mention that it is not uncommon to see young Thai women with older (ugly) white men; however we have yet to see a Thai man with a white woman. Anyways back to my story, so we were walking along and getting kind of nervous. We flagged down one taxi, I told him our location in Thai and he asks for 300 baht. Considering we came farther on the way here and paid only 60 baht I slammed the door and walked away. The next cab we pulled over wanted 200 baht, another door slam. The next cab driver asked what we would pay and I said 60 baht, and he said 100 and I said no. On we went. Finally I convinced one guy to turn his meter on after arguing with him over the price. I knew roughly what things should have looked like on the way home so I figured there was no way he could really rip us off. Before we knew it we were home, and it only took us 63 baht! I think the more Thai we know, the less able they will be to try and rip us off.

Misty and I are looking into taking Thai lessons. Cedric took them at a school close to where we were yesterday. He is quite fluent. It would be a lot nicer to be able to talk to our kids.

I am still not feeling the greatest. This head cold has sure got the best of me. The smells in the market really bothered me. Unfortunately I brought drugs for everything, but the head cold (just my luck!). I went to a pharmacy but was a little bothered by bartering for drugs that I did not know the name of. I am going to talk to one of the staff here today.