CHAPTER 3: Ban Phe, Thailand

January 1st, Don Mueang National Airport, Bangkok Thailand.

That had done it! No more airplanes for this young lady! I was up to my nostrils of having to move my arse up 7 planes a day to get from one place to another. Thankfully, I had no other choice but to take a bus from Bangkok to Ban Phe for the simplest of reasons: there was no actual airport in Ban Phe! cheers. So it was land traveling time... bring it on!

I took another one of those eccentrically-electric pink cabs (this time asking for the freakin' meter-thing, not to get ripped off or anything) and the nice and chubby Thai driver (who spoke fluent English, by the way) took me all the way to the big bus station in Ekamai.

He drove like a maniac throughout all the possible shortcuts a city like Bangkok had to offer, but I didn't mind. Quite on the other hand: I actually enjoyed the speedy sightseeing of a place that somewhat reminded me of a noodle-museum (I know, random reference) my family and I once visited in downtown Tokyo... what I mean is that nowadays civilized Thailand probably resembles what Japan used to look like 50 years AGO. That's how it goes.

I got out the 4-wheeled gay machine, paid accordingly to what the numbers suggested on the green screen, next to the GPS and approached the info desk. I bought an expensive ticket to Ban Phe (thanks to a Japanese looking girl who translated the whole convo) and looked for the bus on aisle 30-something and a half.

I hopped on the bus, and put my huge backpack on the seat right next to me so that I'd improvise a nice and deformed pillow. And so the last of the first of all journeys began...
It was like a slideshow of shadowed scenes moving pacingly from the right to the left side of my window pane as I stared, peacefully motionless and comforted by the conscious feeling that reminded me that I was alright, I was alright afterall.

LITTLE DID I KNOW

After a series of wobbly hours I found myself in the midst of a SILENT bus... which meant it had already come to a total stop and also happened to be COMPLETELY EMPTY: utterly and totally vacant of earthly life (including the driver).
I suddenly panicked as the Jaws soundtrack began to crawl its way up from the back of my mind... but then something happened: the driver came back!
I ran towards this man and cried to him something like "are we in Ban Phe, mister?" "Where the hell is this place?!!!".
He freaked out a little (as he probably didn't expect to see any human remainders left inside the huge vehicle), but then laughed that kind of laugh every one does when they see me in a pickle.
"Yes, this Ban Phe hehe", "bus station"
I showed him the written address I was supposed to arrive at but he did not seem to recognize the place at all, not even the references... shite on a turtle!
So I said thanks and turned around to look for someone else I could interrogate thoroughly no matter the level of English of the person: I was ready to do or act out whatever I needed to get other Asian folk to "understand the words that are coming out of my mouth" like Jackie Chan once said in Rush Hour II.

I was in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Jesus' bellybutton, and I was scared shitless.

Then suddenly a young lady approached my Texas-chainsaw-massacre personal scene and offered some help: she took me to the nearest 7/11 (those things seem to roam about in every single corner of this country). There she asked for the address I'd given her and she got an answer!!
We got into her white little car along with her boyfriend and some other dudess, and ho! after 5 minutes of driving through no man's land in southern Thailand I found myself in front of the "SIAM ENGLISH INTERNATIONAL TEFL SCHOOL". Holy baloney! it did exist after all!

The guard was nice enough to point out my name out from a piece of paper he had lying around (random) and he gave me a key to one of the rooms. I took off my shoes and got inside, thanking the nice lady from a distance with a good old thumbs-up signal... she'd saved my life (again, someone always does).

WTF WTF! WTF!!!!!!

As I opened the door... one of the scariest moments of my life began to materialize in front of me: the room was hideous, awful, horrible... depressingly unwelcoming. The accomodation included a not so-friendly looking cockroach crawling across a little puddle that went all the way from the bathroom to the balcony door, and a closet full of spiderwebs as a side dish to the visual horrorshow buffet.

"What the hell did you just sign up for, little Xalli?"

I was so tired I just chased the animals out of the room with a stick, put my humongous bag on the bed and fell asleep almost automatically, as a means of mental defense mechanism, I suppose.

The next day I woke up to find a desolated floor that kind of reminded me of "The Shining" hotel (for you to get a picture of the situation). So I went downstairs and politely complained about the room to the staff dudes (I got changed to the second floor, where the room was smaller but WAY CLEANER and with fair enough functioning of the rest-room facilities).
After that I entered the room where my first TEFL course class had already started: I was looking at a group of people that looked as different as can get, but I did not have the chance of analyzing them properly due to the fact that the teacher was addressing my persona, underlining the fact that I was the last trainee to have entered the class... thankfully on time. Anyhow the light spot was on me, the Mexican, as usual.

We had a nice little session of meeting and greeting and so forth blah blah's and I found out I'd just met guys from Egypt, Jordan, USA, UK and the Philippines (to add up to the spice of nationalities, why not?). It was awesome!

To be continued...