The Mundane Monday

Back to work today after a long holiday weekend that included a successful excursion to Khao Yai National Park and an impromptu visit to Ayutthaya, one of the many former capitals of the kingdom that was burnt down by roving Burmese armies.

I really hate when people experience something like a sunset or a national park and instead of appreciating it at face value, write it off by saying, “Whatever. Such-and-such place had a better one.” But, I’m going to do it anyway.

Khao Yai is quite nice. But the Masai Mara had tons more animals.

Of course the two parks weren’t designed for comparison. Khao Yai is more about monkeys, birds, vibrant teal-colored scorpions, and a handful of elephants. Nevertheless, jungle foliage and leeches seem to be a good deterrent for crowds of shopping, eating people, and that was what I needed.

The leeches in Khao Yai were tiny. Borneo had bigger, thirstier ones.

Ayutthaya is popular on the tourist route because of its historical significance as well as its easy access from Bangkok, but one of the most notable landmarks in the town, in my opinion, is a rather unremarkable bridge with a very remarkable name: Pridi Damrong.

See photos in the sidebar there, including the Pridi Damrong bridge -->.
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Language is a gateway to so many things that I’ve always taken for granted. I went to the night market to get dinner last night, and even though it was nice to walk among the light Sunday night crowd listening to the night market sounds, I felt like an outsider. I didn’t understand a word anyone was saying. It’s weird blending in and knowing that everyone sees you and assumes you’re the same as them, but feeling completely different, and alone.

I haven’t seen another foreigner in town, except the one woman who was waiting for a minivan to Bangkok. Good call, lady.

Actually, that’s not true. I met this Indian dude who lives in my building. He’s the guy I call the Dude on the Internet, because he’s permanently attached to the computer in the lobby, always checking his email. He was there the afternoon I moved in, he’s there most evenings, and he was there yesterday when I went to drop off my laundry. And of course he was there two hours later, when I went to pick it up. This time, though, he stopped me.

“Excuse me,” he said. Do I hear English? “Were you at Victory Monument this afternoon?”

Why, yes I was. I had a deceptively simple task there: to transfer minivans. I was coming from Ayutthaya and trying to get on a van back to Mahachai.

It turned out that somewhere in the big mess of people at Victory Monument, I walked past the Dude on the Internet, and he recognized me but couldn’t place my face right away. What a very bizarre coincidence. That place was a total madhouse yesterday. I suppose that’s a dumb thing to say. It’s a total madhouse everyday. In fact, most places in Bangkok are a crowded disaster, especially if they’re designed for shopping or eating. And everything in Bangkok is designed for shopping or eating.

Bangkok, like New York, has too many people. In fact, Bangkok has even more people than the five boroughs: 9 million here, compared to 8 million in New York. That is about 7.25 million too many people.

Anyway, I’m not sure if all the stands are set up at Victory Monument everyday, on Sunday afternoons hundreds of stands selling clothes, watches, jewelry, makeup, bags, food, food and food pop up all around the Monument.

It turns out that the guy, my neighbor and new English-speaking friend, has been living in Thailand for three years, working for an American seafood company. He started out in India but was transferred here. I was curious to know what exactly he does for his company, since my organization works with the migrant laborers that these companies hire in droves. His card says "quality assurance." Is that IT-related or shrimp-related?
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As I was checking out of my hotel in Ayutthaya yesterday morning, I started chatting with another guest at the reception desk, also an Indian dude. He was also heading for Bangkok, but was going to have breakfast before boarding his minivan. I said, oh, okay, well good luck finding the minivan station, I’m headed there now. And I left, grateful for the only 35 mph English conversation I’d had in 24 hours.

In Bangkok a couple hours later, after circling Victory Monument at least twice on foot with a heavy backpack and no more bottled water, I finally found my minivan station. I stopped at one of those fruit carts that always look like a gift from God on a hot day. The fruit was flying off the vendor’s stand, everyone was so hot and thirsty. I stood and waited for the fruit man to slice a new watermelon, and noticed the guy from Ayutthaya standing next to me, also waiting for fruit.

I don’t know how to capture exactly how random it is to run into someone at Victory Monument. This place is massive and chaotic, and people bustle around like ants. Not a small, orderly place. I wonder what the probability is of crossing paths there with two people I know on the same day, especially given that I know about four people in the entire country.
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Lunch was a little embarrassing today. I ordered rice with duck, and the portion was so small that I was still hungry after licking my plate clean. Oay encouraged me to order a second meal, and offered to wait for me to eat. No one else was having seconds, even though they had all each eaten only a tiny bowl of noodle soup. But if I didn’t eat something else, I knew I’d still be hungry. So that’s me, Two-Lunch Justina. No one made fun of me or even seemed to think it was odd that I ate twice as much as they did. But then again, no one’s English is good enough to say, “Wow, fat lady, you sure can pack it away.”

I usually try to learn one or two new Thai phrases a day, so I asked Oay how to say “rice with duck.” I probably should have asked her how to say, “two orders of rice with duck.”

There was a hair salon in the shopping center where we were eating called “Porn Saloon.” First, why is it that so many countries refer to hair salons as saloons?

I asked Oay what “Porn” meant in Thai, because I see it a lot. She said it’s just a name, and doesn’t mean anything in particular, which is no fun. I wonder if there was actually someone named Pridi Damrong?

“Hi, my name is Pridi. Pridi Damrong.”

“Yes, you are, in my opinion.”

The Tones

Greenleaf Guesthouse and Tours, Pak Chong. So I managed to find my way here, which was an unexpectedly arduous feat. This may seem obvious, but EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY IS WRITTEN IN THAI.

The northern bus terminal in Bangkok is massive, with several floors of ticket windows going to all northerly corners of the country. There were about three windows with destinations written in English, and luckily Pak Chong was one of them, presumably because foreign tourists like me travel there to get to Khao Yai National Park.

The bus to Pak Chong was standing room only. It was the Thai version of the Latin American chicken buses or the rattletrap Kenyan matatu-buses, which means it had a little rotating fan buzzing from the ceiling, passengers with all sorts of food in their laps, and ticket takers in tight uniforms droning in Thai. I got stuck sitting on the stairs, which wasn't so bad because I got to sit down, especially after I discovered that my Lonely Planet guide put just enough distance between my butt and the scalding metal steps.

For some reason I assumed that if Pak Chong was written in English at the bus terminal, then it would be written in English somewhere in the actual town. So I didn't bother to ask where we were when we pulled into a town and some people got off the bus. After all, there was no sign anywhere that said, “Pak Chong.”

An hour later I looked at my watch and realized that I was three hours into a 1.5 hour bus ride. I tapped the guy next to me.

"Where is Pak Chong?" I said in Thai.

Blank stare. Thai is a tonal language so if you use the wrong tone people don't know what you're talking about.

"PAK Chong," I said, trying a different variation on the tones. "PAK CHONG?"

More blank stares.

"Bok Jong?" I said. "BOK Jong? Bok CHONG. Bak JONG. BAK Chong."

"Buck CHONG?" he said, his face lighting up. "Buck CHONG! Buck CHONG!"

I nodded vigorously.

"Buck CHONG!" he said, pointing behind the bus. "Pass already."

My standing-room-only neighbor started discussing my predicament with three other men, and after every head had managed to turn and stare at the idiot foreigner cleverly disguised as a Thai lady, they decided that I needed to stay on the bus until the next stop on the route, a city called Khorat (in Thai, goh-LAHD, if you ever want to find out if you’ve passed Buck CHONG). There I could catch a bus going back to Pak Chong.

Well, Khorat was another hour away. By the time I got there, found the right bus with the help of my kind and generous new friend, and took it back to Pak Chong, my 2-hour trip from Bangkok had become a 7-hour trip into the heart of Northeastern Thailand.

I think trying to get around in a country and culture and language I don't understand makes me realize how well I knew Kenya, and how comfortable I was getting around after living there for so long. It was really helpful to know Swahili, but I also knew how everything worked, and I could predict how people were going to behave. And because of that I knew how to navigate my environment to get what I needed. If I wanted to wash my underwear? Ask for a basin. If I wanted a hot bath? Ask the guide to boil water. The matatu tout will always remember to tell you where to alight if you ask him to. As much as Kenya infuriated me, it was very familiar place and I'd never be lost there.
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So, thumbs down on the people’s bus in Thailand. Yesterday evening I took a minivan into Bangkok with Dr. Khin, who makes the 1-hour commute to Mahachai everyday. Thumbs up on minivans. They are new, clean, air-conditioned, and only one person is allowed to sit in each seat. The entire vehicle still has all its original parts from the factory, instead of being a Frankenstein vehicle created by welding together the remains of four or five different dead cars harvested from accidents that happened 20 years ago in more developed countries. There are no rattling windows, no missing rearview mirrors, no touts hanging out the window trying to recruit more people to stuff inside, no passengers with teargas-grade body odor reading your book over your shoulder and holding your wrist to stop you from turning the page because they’re not done yet, no drivers falling asleep at the wheel, no rusty door sliding off its rails and clunking onto the ground while unemployed men on the street leap from their drunken stupor and run over to try to force it back into place.

Minivans here are a lovely ride. Still, my other car is a matatu.

The Recovery

I’m feeling a lot better today. At Dr. Khin’s suggestion I took a second day off from work. My coworkers have been great. Dr. Khin and Noreen just stopped by again, and of course the good doctor came with food--a brilliant four-part loaf of bread, to be exact. Each part has something different embedded inside. It goes, prosciutto (or its Thai equivalent), pork sung, hot dog, and raisins. It’s such genius, especially the hot dog. I love being in such a food-obsessed country.

Earlier this morning Jaep and Ahn stopped by. I was still wearing my glasses and padding around in sleepwear - wee boxer shorts and a shrunken t-shirt. I still don't know what's considered modest here, but they were polite enough not to stare or seem bothered. They didn’t stay long though. Maybe the shorts were like, “Go away! Go away!”

Dr. Khin is fond of asking about my poo. The first thing she said when I opened the door today was, “So how many times did you have diarrhea today?” And this morning she called to ask if it was watery or solid.

Other than that, I’m planning an excursion to Khao Yai National Park for the four-day Big Buddha weekend that starts tomorrow. Fortunately there are more public restrooms in Thailand than in New York City.

The Sick Day

I felt a lot better yesterday morning so I went into the office. Oay took me to see the drop-in center at Tha Chalom, a neighborhood a 30-second ferry ride across the river from the market. The site also houses a child center, so I wanted to see what they do as well.

Noreen is a Burmese nurse who manages the drop-in center at Tha Chalom and sees clients seeking basic health care. We chatted a little about the child centers, since my primary project is to compile a report to donors and partners about them. I found it more interesting to ask Noreen about Burma, though, and I have a feeling I’ll be collecting bits and pieces of people’s personal stories throughout my time here. For a country whose government restricts contact with the outside world with such a heavy hand, there’s a lot of information that gets out. For that matter, there are a lot of Burmese people that get out – millions in Thailand alone.

After a couple hours of trying to have a coherent conversation in a hot room with a fan blowing on me, I was starting to feel a little feverish again. Noreen laid a thin comforter and pillow on the ground and told me to take a nap.
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I decided that being instructed to take a nap at work yesterday was reason enough to stay home today and try to get a little better.

Dr. Khin visited me this afternoon and came bearing ORS and fish. I really think the Asian obsession with food is a bit much; she asked me literally six times if I had food to eat. I told her, each time, that I had some rice and some vegetables - and now some fish. She also asked me all about my diarrhea, which was sweet. I like talking about my poo.

It was really a day of trying to get better. I laid in bed, then on the couch, then on my bed, checked some email, turned the AC on and off, turned the fan on and off.

I finally ventured out to the night market around 6:30. I must have been really thirsty because all I wanted was fruit or juice. I got three trays of pre-sliced fruit – some papaya, pomelo and mango, the last of which may not be great for a funky tummy, but it looked pretty tasty. When I got home, I could only eat a bit of papaya and a slice of pomelo. The idea of fragrant rice and fish just didn’t appeal to me.

Oay came by to see how I was doing, and said she was a little worried about me. While she was here, the HR director in Bangkok called me to make sure I was feeling better. I have to say that everyone has been so wonderful with making sure I’m okay. It’s nice that there’s a doctor and several nurses in my organization. I definitely feel like I’m well looked after here.

The Barfies

My coworkers Ahn, Oay, Muu and Arom were kind enough to plan a day of sightseeing for me, with a stop at a human rights workshop that Raks Thai was hosting for migrants at a wat (temple) in Mae Khlong, aka Samut Songkhram, the next province over from Mahachai.

We got a late start on our trip to the floating markets at Damnoen Sanduak, which is in Mae Khlong. Guide books recommend getting there as early as 6am to avoid the masses of tourists, but we didn’t arrive until nearly noon. By that time there were more tourists than fruit vendors on the river, and they were stuck in a floating gridlock because there was no room for the scores of boats to pass each other in the narrow waterway. My recommendation: heed the guide book, get there early.

We had lunch at the Raks Thai office in Mae Khlong. Muu and some of the Mae Khlong staff ordered an elaborate meal including tom yum soup, som tum (green papaya salad), and fried rice with eggs. They spread newspapers on the floor of the office and we sat around it picnic style and barefoot.

I’m sure the food was delicious, but my stomach was starting to get angry with me about breakfast.

“I didn’t like those eggs you ate this morning,” it said.

“Justina,” Oay said, pointing to my food. “Delicious?”

“Yes,” I said.

Muu looked at my half-empty plate, then at her own, licked clean. “If delicious, you plate like this,” she said.

“It’s delicious, really,” I said. “But stomach feel bad. I think eat bad eggs for breakfast.” I’ve started to speak in simple English to get fewer non-comprehending stares.

Sure enough, two hours later, as we were parked in town and waiting for Oay to run some errands, the eggs staged an uprising and evacuated themselves onto a small plot of grass in front of someone’s shop.

Muu had followed me out of the car and was murmuring and patting me on the back. “Okay,” she said, handing me a tissue. “Feel better?”

Everyone was so great. Oay came back with some medicine and put me back in the car, directing Ahn to take me to his house. I was still dizzy and faint so I barely remember walking through a small jungle with wooden planks spanning across a marsh to get to his house.

Ahn’s mom padded out to greet us as Oay and Muu helped me through the house. No one had said anything about Ahn living in a wooden stilt house on the river, a common style of housing in this area. It was a small and simple wood structure, but picturesque and breezy.



We walked through the house to the back porch, which looked out across the river. Their boat was docked at the foot of the porch. Ahn’s mom laid a blanket and pillow on the floor and everyone encouraged me to sleep. No problem. I was on my back and snoring 30 seconds later.

Oddball Photos, Volume 1

Branding That Wouldn't Fly In the US. Darlie Toothpaste, originally made by a Taiwanese (some sources say Hong Kong) company that was bought by Colgate in the mid 1980s. At the time, the toothpaste was called "Darkie," and today the Chinese name still translates as "Black Man Toothpaste."

This brand was also popular and widely available in Kenya.


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I bought this mop at Tesco and didn't notice the branding until I got home. And nothing says "Black Man" better than stereotypical Chinese fortune cookie lettering.


Too Much Exoskeleton. I went to the market here in Mahachai to buy shrimp, and this being one of the biggest seafood markets in the country, I was presented with about 15 different kinds of fresh shrimp to choose from. There were several different species, further separated into various price tiers based on size and, I'm guessing, freshness. There was one stand selling live shrimp out of basins being pumped with a constant supply of water. The shrimp were moving around, blowing bubbles and looking pissed off about being there. These guys were the most expensive - 180 baht per kilo.

I usually buy the greyish shrimp that we're used to seeing in the States. Today I saw some big blue shrimp with long claws. What ARE those things??? There was only one way to find out. The verdict: Stick with the familiar shrimp, unless you like eating the head. The claws were a lot of work for tiny morsels of meat.

(below) Blue shrimp with long claws from the market lined up on my counter for inspection.

The Market

I don’t know what they were thinking at the pillow factory. Maybe they get paid according to how much polyester fill they can stuff into a single pillowcase. The pillows I bought at Tesco are like tall bricks, and last night my body finally rebelled.

Lying in bed this morning in a half-conscious stupor, I decided that I would cut open my pillows and remove some of the stuffing. An hour later, I had two somewhat flatter, softer pillows, and a new third “bolster” pillow that I made out of the extra stuffing.

Bed-in-a-bag sets in Thailand come with a comforter, fitted sheet, two pillowcases, and two bolster pillowcases – long, cylindrical log-shaped pillows. That’s right, no flat sheet, but two bolster pillowcases for I’m not sure what. Maybe people use them as body pillows, which sounds like bad back alignment waiting to happen. But I’m no chiropractor.
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Today I decided to explore my neighborhood on foot, and apply some of the community mapping skills I learned in Peace Corps, which basically involves wandering around looking for landmarks in English so I can find my way home.

I set out for the market around noon, the perfect time of day for idiots who want to get heat stroke. My apartment is in a pretty central location. There’s a night market down the street that pops up around 5 pm everyday to feed hungry workers pouring out of their office buildings.

This morning, a Saturday, the street was lined with tarp-shaded stands full of clothes, random knick-knacks, plants, and cages full of rabbits, parakeets, gerbils, kittens and puppies for sale. As pets.

As pets.

I wandered further without purchasing anything live, and ended up at the park where Ahn took me yesterday. I had mentioned to Jaeb that I wanted to go running, so she stuck me on the back of Ahn’s motorbike after work yesterday and told him to take me to the park, where he was meeting some friends for sepak takraw, a popular game in Thailand that appears to be a combination of volleyball, soccer, and hackeysack using a loosely woven rattan ball.

<-- A sepak takraw player kicks the ball so fast that you can't see the ball. (Lumphini Park, Bangkok.)










The park here in Mahachai is a tiny spot of paved sidewalks, stray cats and manicured bushes that wind for a solid one-eighth of a mile next to a temple that seemed to be broadcasting a monk chanting over loudspeakers. Though ridiculously small, the park seems to be a popular place for runners, perhaps because it’s the only place in town that isn’t lined with shops, highways or factories.

Yesterday afternoon the air was thick, hot and still, and 15 minutes of heaving my feet one in front of the other was plenty. Half of my water content was now on the sidewalk. Amazingly, there were at least fifty women gathered around a small gazebo for a vigorous aerobics class set to loud techno, which was competing with the chanting from the temple.

My co-workers have been advising me to take motorcycle taxis everywhere, but there are a lot of places that are really accessible on foot. I don’t get the sense that people walk a lot in this city. I guess it makes sense – it’s hot as hell. Today I discovered that both the market and the temple are less than a ten minute walk from my house.

Right next to the park is a long pier where you can catch a commuter boat across the river. For 3 baht per crossing, it runs day and night ferrying migrant workers who work odd hours. You can even take your motorbike on the boat.

The river appears to become a port at this point. There are fishing boats docked all along the water’s edge, appearing to be in varying degrees of working order. The river also has tons of water hyacinth, an invasive aquatic plant that tolerates pollution really well and is known to wreak havoc on the water’s ecosystem, killing off fish, breeding mosquitos and water-borne parasites, and blocking sunlight from reaching other aquatic plants. As if the unfortunate smell and garbage floating on the surface weren’t enough.

I wandered away from the pier and into the market. It’s really quite amazing. There is so much fresh seafood – shrimp, squid, fish, eel, crabs of all sizes, lobster. And if the fresh version is too perishable for your taste, just walk a little further to find stand after stand selling the dried version. I came to the market armed with a very important phrase: thao rai. How much? Next time, I’ll also plan to be armed with its counterpart: numbers.

I wonder if most of the mamas selling seafood at the market are Burmese or Thai. I am so thrilled at the prospect of being able to get anything I could possibly want right here in my town. Need a pet turtle? Need a turtle for soup? Need a washing machine? It’s all here. I mean, except cheese and quality chocolate. I still haven’t found a supermarket nearby, only the Tesco that’s a bit of a drive from my place. I’m starting to miss bread.

People are generally pretty nice about my not knowing any Thai, despite the initial confusion. There are always some blank stares, some giggling and embarrassment, but always an attempt to help out the weird Chinese lady.

I know that my sense of urgency about needing to learn the language to avoid awkwardness is a bit unnecessary. Lots of expats live here and never bother to learn Thai. They’ve learned to manage the language gap. My brother’s high school friend, a Taiwanese American, has lived in Hong Kong for eight years and still doesn’t know Cantonese. If he’s shrugged off the constant assumptions about what language he should be speaking for this long, I’ll survive a few months while I learn some basic Thai.
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The other night, over dinner with Francisco, I was marveling about the TV screens all over the Bangkok SkyTrain stations and on the train cars.

Francisco said, “Those things wouldn’t last five minutes on a subway car in New York.”

I said, “I wonder why people are so respectful of property here that they wouldn’t think to steal a TV screen.”

He said, “The question we should be asking is why people in New York aren’t respectful that they would think to steal one.”

And then we laughed at how ridiculous we are as Americans.

The Motorbikes

I took a motorbike taxi to the office for the first time today. This seems to be one of the main modes of public transport here. There are also buses, and what I think are called song-thaews, buses with a large pickup truck bed in the back with two benches along either side where lucky people sit while everyone else crowds in around them.

Motorbike etiquette is still a mystery to me. When you're the passenger, what do you hold onto? There are the bars next to the seat, but they're not very ergonomically useful. If you know the driver, you could hold onto their waist, but if you're just taking a bike taxi with an old sweaty guy driving, do you really want that kind of intimacy? I'm getting a motorcycle helmet and learning to hold onto the bars really tight, even though no one really drives that fast.

Thais don't hold onto anything when they ride a motorbike. I've seen people holding babies in one arm and steering the motorbike with the other. I've also seen dogs with their hind legs in the driver's lap and their front paws on the handlebars, zipping down the street happy as can be.

Thai drivers are so laid back. I think Thais drive better than anyone else in the world. They are safe, courteous and slow. No one floors the gas. No one slams on their brakes. There’s no complete stop for traffic that has the right of way, but when a critical mass of vehicles builds up at an intersection, everyone just goes together, and the cross traffic slows down to let them pass. There’s no road rage here, either. I can't imagine Thai people raging about anything. Part of it is that expressing emotion is considered a loss of face in Thai culture.

I really think that I could ride a bicycle around town. I've seen a few people on bicycles, but it seems to be the poor man's motorbike. Also, pedaling makes you sweat, and Thai people hate to sweat, so I imagine that anyone who can afford it opts for the cool breeze that you get from zooming around on a motorbike.

My coworker said riding a bicycle might be dangerous, but she doesn’t know that I've ridden a bike in Manhattan. Nothing compares to the danger and stupidity it takes to do that. Except maybe riding a bike in Nairobi.
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Ahn took me to Dr. Khin's clinic and I spent a few hours there asking questions and observing her work. She can provide basic care and medicine, and the clinic distributes condoms and family planning (pills and injections) but she has to refer patients to the hospital for more complicated procedures, including births and HIV testing. The services are 30 baht but no one is turned away if they can't pay. Sometimes if a client can't afford transportation, the clinic arranges and pays for the cost.

Dr. Khin was really interested in the work I did in Kenya. She asked me about the public health system there, and whether people got good health care. I didn't lie.

"It sounds like things are worse in Kenya than for migrants here in Thailand," she said.

As crappy as migrants have it here, I think she's right. In Mahachai the health infrastructure is pretty good. Nearly everyone gives birth in a hospital. Migrants are regularly referred to the provincial hospital here, and the quality of care sounds pretty decent. No rumors about disgruntled nurses in the maternity ward abandoning their patients for days, as there were at the district hospital where I lived in Kenya.

The barriers to access among migrants here are more about their legal status and language and cultural barriers than about a lack of available facilities, services or trained medical practitioners. It's a completely different level of problems than in Kenya, where systematic failures could be traced back to the inaction, incompetence or mismanagement of a few powerful people.

The Office

Today was my first full day in Mahachai. Ahn the driver came to get me at 9am, as we agreed last night. He doesn’t speak any English, like about half the people in my office. But I like to remind myself of my own unique status as the only person in the office that doesn’t speak Thai.

The office is equipped as any well-funded NGO should be: AC, computers, printers and wireless internet. Of course, we are talking about Asian people so no one turns on the AC. They just run about eight fans all day long, partly for the heat and partly for the mosquitoes. Like in Bangkok, we take off our shoes at the door, which means mosquitoes bite me on the bottom of my feet. I HATE THOSE BUGGERS.

Our office is in a complex that looks like a strip shopping center. There are other organizations renting the other spaces, including an NGO called the Labour Rights Protection Network, and some seafood companies. There is also, I’m told, a pool nearby! I am planning to join, assuming it’s longer than the 20-yard joker at the campus gym back in New York.

Like almost every building I’ve seen here, ours is four stories high. Each organization's office occupies all four floors, with a stairway leading up to the other floors. In our office, the first two floors are where everyone sits. My desk is upstairs on the second floor, and I have access to a printer, photocopier, fax machine, etc. We have a conference room and some important person’s office on the third floor, and the fourth floor appears to be used for storage.

As expected, there’s nearly a full kitchen in the office. The only thing missing is a stove. But we have a rice cooker, an Asian hot water heater thing, a fridge and freezer, microwave, electric crock pot, a sink, dishes, silverware, cups, instant coffee and tea. And of course someone brings food to share nearly every day.

Ahn, Oay and Muu took me to visit a few of the drop-in centers. We went to Tha Chalom, a neighborhood across the river from the office, which has a child development center on the ground floor. It's managed by Noreen, the Burmese nurse who I met at the conference in Bangkok. The kids are really energetic, and the floor is a bit sandy with all the youthful hyperactivity. One of the teachers is a Thai guy who is always barking at the kids with his high-pitched voice. Maybe this is considered educational.

We also stopped by Talad Kung, an area of town aptly named for having perhaps the largest shrimp market in Thailand. There is another drop-in clinic here, where Dr. Khin works. She provides basic health care services in Burmese, and refers clients to the local government hospital for more complicated issues or for lab tests. There's brochures and posters in Burmese about HIV and STIs, pregnancy, family planning, dengue fever and other health information, and plenty of condoms and birth control pills. My favorite is this display with samples of unsafe "condoms." The sign is in English, Thai and Burmese.

So far the people who speak the best English are the Burmese staff – Noreen and Dr. Khin. They’ve both been in Thailand for years – Dr. Khin has been here for ten years and both her kids were born here – but their Thai is not very fluent. Like in Thailand, Burmese students study English beginning in fifth grade. I’m told that the Burmese language isn’t related to much else, including Thai. So Noreen and Dr. Khin can both speak it conversationally, but they can’t really read or write it. Migrants from Cambodia generally have an easier time learning Thai because it’s related to Khmer.

The New Apartment

I went back to the conference in the morning hoping to hear something more insightful about migrants in Thailand. It was more of the same: NGOs complaining about the poor health and employment situations of migrant workers and advocating for more tolerance and openness, and government officials patiently explaining why migrants aren’t welcome in Thailand (they’re poor, uneducated and disease-ridden), despite the fact that the economy depends on them.

I was really proud of our executive director yesterday. He was one of the two people in the room, out of several hundred, who went up to the microphone to ask a question at the end of the program. He began by saying, “This whole discourse makes me very uneasy,” and complained about how the government ministries were being intolerant and closed-minded, and that they needed to do more to help migrants.

I skipped out on the lunch that was provided at the conference because I had told Maem, the HR assistant, that I’d be back at the office by 1. I was starving by the time I got back to the office.

“Didn’t they serve lunch at the conference?” Khun P asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But I told Maem I would be back here at 1, and I was already running late.”

“Oh dear,” Khun P said. “What kind of intern are you? You should always eat a free lunch.”

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A lot of places in Thailand have two names – one used by local people and one found on maps, street signs, and any official publication about the place. Even Bangkok is known as Krung Thep to Thais.

Mahachai is the local name of my town, which is officially called Samut Sakorn, or Samut Sakhon depending on who’s spelling it. The next province over, known for its winding canals and floating markets, is called Mae Khlong by locals, or Samut Songkhram by no one.

Mahachai has one of the highest concentrations of migrant workers in Thailand. Most people who know about migration to Thailand have never heard of it in that context, though. People know about Mae Sot and other border areas, but this musty fishing port, situated an hour southwest of Bangkok on the mouth of the Tha Chin river as it spills its creamy brown silt into the Gulf of Thailand, remains unrecognized for its dubious honor of attracting and hosting legions of migrants, mostly from Burma, in search of better wages and less oppression than in their homeland. These laborers usually end up working in the seafood factories or on the docks.

We packed up the car with my luggage and a lot of food and supplies for the Mahachai office. The Mahachai staff had reserved an apartment for me based on a budget and some simple requests I had given them over email, but I hadn’t seen pictures or even received a description. My biggest fear was not having a kitchen. It conjured up memories of the stunt that my worthless lying bum of a supervisor pulled on me in Kenya, where I was shown a palatial two-bedroom house on a hospital compound and told I would be living there, and when I arrived in the village they said I’d be living in a tiny room that was big enough for me to put up a bookshelf to demarcate my bed from my stove.

On the way out of Bangkok we passed several colossal, ornate temples. Each time I asked Maem if they were famous for anything.

“No, just temples,” she said each time.

“But they’re so big and fancy,” I said.

“There are many temples in Thailand,” she said. I learned later that nearly all temples are built using funds donated by the community. The government doesn’t fund the construction of temples.
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So, it turns out that my apartment is much to my liking. It’s simple but has all the amenities I need – AC, hot water, a flush toilet, spartan 70s-style furniture, two balconies, and most importantly, wireless internet. There’s also a massage spa in the building, and washing machines.



A few days later I would learn that there are no dryers, however, when the woman who provides the premium laundry service (which I don’t have) handed me a pile of my clothes fresh out of the washer.

“Dryer?” I kept saying in English.

“Wash already,” she kept saying in Thai.

After a few minutes of this, I finally understood that her nodding and smiling meant that I should take my wet clothes upstairs and hang them on my balcony.

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DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF you don't like hearing about other people's poo. Peace Corps friends, karibu.

So I tried out my toilet for the first time, armed with the knowledge that toilets in developing countries can have rather anemic flushing capabilities. The lesson is: put the toilet paper in the garbage can.

Sometimes it’s not toilet paper that’s the problem. Sometimes people forget to eat a balanced diet that includes fruits and vegetables when they’re traveling in a new place. Sometimes there appears a turd that becomes a formidable challenge to the average flush toilet in the host country.

Flush again. Flush again. Flush again.

Flush again. Flush again. Flush again.

Sometimes, after digging through their garbage can for a suitable tool, people find a way to poke the turd down, but only after wishing that David Sedaris were there to commiserate.