November 11, 2006 Just Another Place To Catch A Bus

Thailand

Living and working in Bangkok sounds a bit glamorous, or at least exotic, but to me it’s just another place to catch a bus.

I mean, yeah, its cool to be here, to be working in Bangkok and all that. It’s Asia after all, and how many people are here doing what we’re doing?

But when I come out of the office at six o’clock and get to the curb outside my building, and I look down the street to see if there is a cab coming that I can flag down, the glamour is worn off; it’s just another city and I’m thinking about getting home.

We’ve been here nearly five months. We’ve done a few touristy things, and we’ve got a lot of air miles going back and forth to Singapore since we’ve been here, but mostly it boils down to living and working all week and wondering if playing hard on the weekends is worth it or if we should just rest up.

Judy’s business is doing OK; she doesn’t push it too hard and the jobs sort of trickle in which suits her fine. Right now she is typing away on some document about the Iraq “Oil for Food” program and about the findings of a U.N. inquiry into the corruption. I think it must be interesting, as work goes, she’s been at it all day. Anyhow the clatter of her keying from the other room sounds a bit like a coffee pot percolating and it’s comforting to hear.

I spend a lot of my time packing a notebook computer around Bangkok from one office to the next and by now I can navigate this town on autopilot just about like I could do in Hong Kong a couple of years ago. You don’t much think about your surroundings, you just trudge off one train and onto another, and catch a cab where the trains don’t run. The best part of the whole day for me though is the motorbike ride down our street to the train station in the morning when the air is warm, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the wind blows in my hair. It always feels good. Of course, it always feels good coming home at night too.

Most folks in Bangkok eat out every night, and we could too; there are a lot of good restaurants around here, but usually we cook at home. Thai food is my favourite and while be both can do it, Judy does it best. When friends come to visit us in Bangkok we usually cook at home and invite them for dinner.

Our trips to Singapore are actually tough weekends, with twelve hours of travelling, 24 hours non-stop playing hard when we are there, and twelve hours of sleeping if we are lucky, all packed into a short 48 hour weekend. But the sailing is good, and we’re glad we can get down there and do it. We’ve won one race and lost three in a big way, but it’s still fun.

So, holiday season is coming, we’ll be thinking of you all, and in Bangkok life goes on.

Fred & Judy, Bangkok

PS You can catch a lot more of Judy's Photos
here, at Wingssail Images