One Night in Bangkok
As I have said before, I live in the province of Surin. I don’t live in the main town of Surin, but in a small town called Prasat that is about 30 km from the main town. If you take the bus from Bangkok, it is the town that you have to go through before getting to Surin.
Last Friday (December 18, 2009) night, I went to one of the few bars in town that caters to foreigners. I was there because my boss at my school wanted to play the trivia quiz at this bar. He thought that my smarts would come in handy.
My boss and I arrived precisely at the same time. An American teacher from the same school as me and my boss were already there. The bar owner told us that there was no trivia quiz due to the fact that everybody was there for the music. This would not be the worst news of the evening.
My boss then told the American teacher and me that the British teacher from my school and his Chinese wife had gotten into some sort of altercation with the landlord of their rented house. The wife had ended up in the hospital with her two front teeth punched out. They had refused to pay the 200 baht that they had owed. They wanted the landlord to clear out the trash before they would pay. Obviously, the landlord disagreed.
After this altercation, they can not live at this house anymore, They will have to live at a house that belongs to the schools.
For the rest of the evening, I played pool with the American teacher and listened to the music. At 10:30 pm, I wanted to go because I wanted to go home. I explored the bars nearby and ended up at a karaoke bar. I ordered a Coke for me and two hostesses. I told them that I did not want to have any songs. They preceded to sing songs anyway and charged me for singing anyway. Fortunately, I stopped them after 2 songs for I would have ended up being charged a lot more for their singing This was my big mistake of the evening.
At noon the next day, my boss knocks at my door. He has come to tell me that he is looking for the American teacher who I partied with. He needs to talk to him because the landlord wants all the foreigners who live in the house to leave. The American teacher lives in the same house as the British teacher with the Chinese wife. He needs to find the American teacher to tell him to move. He tried to look at many hotels, but he could not find him. All I can tell him is that he may have left with a Thai lady and went to a hotel that is on the same side of the school that we teach at. The hotel is 150 baht a night. The boss then leaves to go look for the American teacher again, using what I know to hopefully find him.
After last Friday night, the teachers at my school should know this:
1. Pay your rent, no matter what, and then negotiate what you want. Thais are actually quite strict about when you owe them money.
2. When you go to a Karaoke bat in Thailand, you should make sure that they do not overcharge you. You should make sure that you only get charged for things that you want.
3. You should always bring your mobile with you if you have one. My boss could not find him because he did not have his mobile phone.
4. Just because you live in a small Thai town, this does not mean that bad things can not happen to you.
5. You should not underestimate a Thai girl that you pick up at a bar. Just because they are small, pretty, and do not seem to be very smart, this does not mean that they are not trouble.
It is now Monday morning and I hope all the teachers how up.