#11 It's not our own but we call it home

Ever wonder how people get good at cup stacking, practice.

Check check it yo! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0YgrUKfTcA

I buy an iced americano, a thin sandwich, and an apple for two dollars and sixteen cents. Walking in to work all of the Brits are buzzing about the rioting and looting back home. They post on Facebook to show their displeasure, “Nice job lads, great advert for the Olympics next year.” They ask themselves where the parents of the thirteen year old boy who carries a television down the street are. They realize the parents are probably only thirteen years older than the boy and out there right behind the kid carrying every sort of profitable merchandise one can acquire. Six teachers board the company van, the Thai teachers sit together in the back. The van climbs up a small rise on the highway towards Chonburi, then the bottom drops out and our stomachs stretch to our throats, this is the next hour and a half for us. We also see a yellow stream emit from a man who's truck is stopped on the opposite side of the road from us. His urine is a neon dehydrated slash into the green landscape that lines the highway. Jules and Charlie and I discuss Jewels masters degree work and then her last year spent working with victims of sexual exploitation in London. She's come to Thailand to do what she can here about it, she has her work cut out for her. The clouds shelter us from the sun as we traipse across the courtyard, our legs still asleep from our hour long van ride. Before we enter our classrooms we join our hands and bow our heads to the head mistress of the school. It's just another day in paradise.

“Thanks boys. You guys are the SHIT! I'm in love with Bangkok thanks to you. Thank you for such a fun bad ass weekend! I hope to see you again soon (speak more Thai) Take care. Maure”

It's just a note left for us by a friend of a friend after they'd spent the weekend staying in our spare room, but I think it pretty accurately describes what it's like in this city if you're stuck with our lot. You can always leave, but you wont want to. Then the definitive moment comes when you realize that with us you're just a tourist looking in on the life of a few lads who reside in this world of times so good they can kill you, I believe that most people living this life might have their very sanity sucked out of them. I am glad we're not like most people.

After a stint at the gym with Olly we dress up and head out to the seafood restaurant that recently opened, we're lucky enough to be just the type of boys to bring round the younger expat crowd and so we get cheap drinks and good service.

We're handed sheets of paper to participate in the pub quiz. One sheet is full of aircraft of various kinds and Ronnie, the former aeronautics engineer, names them all off without hesitation. The next sheet of paper has bridges from all over the world, between us we've seen every bridge on the paper except for some random bridge I'd never heard of in San Diego. We're a group of such divergent talents, Swiss, American, Brit, South African, Belgian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, country, city, old, young, teacher, executive, designer, and negotiator, there simply isn't much that someone in our group doesn't have some sort of experience with. This evening is not like all the rest, there is no evening that too closely resembles any other, except perhaps for the diversity, that seems to always be there. Oddly enough the only real friction that anyone seems to be able to produce comes from an American who until he opens his mouth appears to be fresh off the boat from India. When he drinks he becomes an asshole. Last year he blacked out drunk in a beach town south of Bangkok, he woke up to two men kicking in his doors and then breaking his legs with a pipe. The only story that could be gathered by those of our group that went to get him out of the hospital was that someone had seen him talking to a girl. We all knew what happened even though it was never confirmed, we'd seen him go off before. She probably mentioned she had a boyfriend and he then probably began to be very rude at which point her boyfriend took notice and had him thrown out of the bar. They followed him back to his hotel and then broke in once he was asleep. He is the type of American that makes it hard for me to be an American, he is why it pays to be a nice person, and this is me saying that I can now actually say I know someone who had their legs broken.

When he's with us we take care to ensure that he leaves before he gets into trouble, friends like these are hard to come by back home, but here there's no doubt that we all need to be watching out for each other. Once when the American was in a slightly more sober state he negotiated for a random tourist who had found themselves being fined three thousand baht for tossing a cigarette butt onto the street. He had the fine reduced to a tenth what it started at thanks to his Thai tongue and his insistence. We all come with our good and bad, usually none too equal, and without a mass of others to fit into our gaps and holes we would be a miserable wretch of lost travelers trying to fit into a culture that we don't call our own but strive to call our home.

The queen's birthday is tomorrow. The streets are lined with plastic chairs and, oddly enough, tables. A few of the office buildings on my street have erected large installations with her picture on it. Many of the pictures are not flattering, but as concerned with aesthetics as most Thais are they are also well aware that beauty and the lack there of mean something. An aged matriarch who's lost her beauty is probably the most comforting maternal figure there is, provided her husband is the greatest king your country has ever known, and he is.

In the morning at one of my schools they were rehearsing songs to sing during the party they would throw on Thursday, today, the day before the queen's birthday. Then just after lunch these girls were dancing in the quad, also practice for the big party. I asked if the king's birthday was a bigger deal and every one said no, that's reassuring.

More fabulous names: Amy spelled A-Me, Doo Doo, Phu pronounced Pooh, Be Be, Ian except they spelled it Yhian, Make only they misspelled it into Mek, a poor boy named Anette, thankfully they misspelled it A-net, Cartoon, Crap, which is actually a misspelling of Khap, a polite word that one puts at the end of sentences to show respect, Rew, the Thai word for quick, Fatten, and yes it signifies exactly what it sounds like, I-Tim, a misspelling of Item, this kid is really smart, Soccer, Ice, and another kid in the same class named Eyes but pronounced ice, Bam, Boom, Golf, Off, Oat, Putter, Ping, and lastly a lovely young girl named Film. Her upper lip is deformed and I pray they understand the irony of that.

Adios amigos, and the next time you write a note think of me and how much you would enjoy writing one after a weekend in Bangkok.

Hmmmm...is there something wrong here?

One of the many monks on the street accepting an offering from a passerby. Off screen left is a man holding a trash bag full of the offerings this monk has received today, and it's only eight in the morning!