Here we have a brilliant story of Derek Hopper and his first experiences of Bangkok as a LoveTEFL teacher…
The decision to move to another continent for work is not always an easy one to make. Often, unemployment or comfortable ennui (or both) play a significant role in the decision-making process. Assuming, though, that a transcontinental teaching adventure is for you, why should you choose Thailand?
Anyone who has ever read a guidebook will be familiar with the travel writer’s habit of describing ordinary destinations in extraordinary ways. The industry’s tendency to heap praise upon unexceptional destinations means readers will, more often than not, react with jaded indifference when they hear a place described as a ‘sensory overload’. But Thailand, arguably the jewel in the crown of Southeast Asia, deserves such descriptions.
In some respects Thailand may be the most sensual country there is. The moment one exits Bangkok’s mammoth international airport the heat is all-enveloping. This can be unpleasant at first, exacerbated as it is by having spent the last dozen or so hours dining on airline food, struggling to sleep and watching terrible films. Perhaps the beginnings of a headache serve as a reminder of too much wine consumed at altitude. Or not enough water. The good news is that some quality sleep and a proper meal cause the body to begin in earnest with the business of converting this thing called sunshine into serotonin, vitamin D and plain old happiness. But for now it’s merely important to make sense of this new currency as the airport shrinks in the rear-view mirror, your taxi spiriting you into the beating heart of Thailand: Bangkok.
Driving into central Bangkok usually involves a breakneck ride along the city’s impressive elevated highway system. During the day distant buildings are obscured by the haze. In the evening the city is probably at its most pleasant, when, for half an hour or so, the sky melts into surreal shades of orange, pink and purple. At night, though, the city is electrifying. Bangkok’s skyscrapers and Buddhist temples are illuminated and fairy lights hang from trees like weeping willows of phosphorescence. The traffic, already bad, seems to grow suddenly worse. The feeling of being in the bowels of an Asian mega-city becomes overwhelming.
Bangkok’s signature smell is a combination of street food, hot garbage, exhaust fumes and sewage. This is not to suggest for a moment that one’s nose is under permanent assault. Much of the time, as with everywhere else, there is no smell at all. But every day one is met with some combination of those four things. The single pleasant aroma among this quartet is the food. Thai street food is spectacular. In the West, the terms street food and junk food are interchangeable: hot dogs, greasy hamburgers, kebabs. Not in Thailand. In Thailand the street food can be either simple or complex, but it is almost always delicious. New arrivals may be intimidated at first; not knowing what to to order, not knowing how to order, the slightly alien feeling of eating a meal on a plastic table and chairs adjacent to a busy street. Often the ingredients will be so exotic as to be unknown. Tuk-tuks drive past as you eat, growling and belching fumes. The babel of Thai is all around. Eating spicy food in a hot climate is new and you sweat. There are mosquitoes. The smell of citronella rises from your ankles and you catch its lemony twang. The chef tosses noodles and you dine to the sound of metal clanking occasionally on a skillet.
The five senses are sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Although we experience these sensations wherever we live, Thailand makes the senses work on another level. Cabs aren’t just a uniform yellow like in New York or black like in London. They’re pink, purple, red, orange, yellow, blue and green. Tuk-tuks can be decorated like floats in a Hindu ceremony. There is architecture worthy of our attention and admiration everywhere, but in how many other places can you be temporarily blinded by the sunlight reflecting from a golden stupa? Where I come from the beaches are wonderful but the water is murky and the sky is slate grey. In Thailand the beaches are saturated with colour. The water is turquoise, the sky azure blue, the palm trees emerald green, the long-tail boats bedecked in garlands of flowers and wrapped with scarves in primary colours. The sweet sting of slight sunburn combined with the smell of tanning lotion and salt on skin are commonly experienced in most places with a pleasant climate, but nowhere is the beach lifestyle so flawlessly executed as it is in Thailand. Afternoons are regularly defined by the drinking of cold beer under palm trees beside a quietly lapping surf, usually after being kneaded into a euphoric daze by a masseuse. The culture of al fresco dining means you smell food all the time. Thailand has no monopoly on the ubiquity of food, of course, but nations like this are a part of an élite group. Here, people often greet each other with the phrase ‘Gin khao yung?’: ‘Have you eaten yet?’ Food means more than just sustenance in Thailand.
Attributed to St. Augustine is one of the genuinely inspirational travel quotes. He said ‘the world is like a book and those who do not travel read only a page’. Food also works in this analogy. Those who eat the same things over and over or never leave home miss out on sensory experiences (both good and bad) that make one truly aware of being alive. The next time you wake up at 7am to the sound of rain lashing against your window to go to a job you’re merely satisfied in, nothing notable to smell on the journey since eating is done in privacy, without the feeling of a sun warm on your back, the mercury in single digits, ask yourself: ‘Have I eaten yet?’
To read more of Derek’s fantastic blogs follow his site here derekhopper.tumblr
If you are interested in teaching in Thailand and sharing similar experiences, then check out our latest Thailand positions here
