I will get to Patara Elephant Farm soon, but I was thinking of some interesting things that we saw or happened, and want to get them down on virtual paper. One thing that I found very interesting in Bangkok is that there seemed to be only a smattering of expats. I guess I expected more. Perhaps because in Qatar, one hears multiple conversations going on in multiple languages every day, all day. In Bangkok I primarily heard Thai only. I don't know why I'm mentioning that, it just stuck out to me.
Second...note to self for future trips abroad: Learn a few words BEFORE going!!! How simple and yet I am still apparently ethnocentric enough to have assumed (I can't say I gave any thought to it actually) that Thai's would speak passable English. Not so! And why should they? I was visiting their country. I should have learned key phrases prior to arrival! Most of the words I learned were commands to give the elephants, so hopefully they are real Thai words! In fact, knowing these few words would have helped immensely in the days prior. "didi" = good boy/girl; "how"= stop; "ma"= come; "bon" =eat; "kob-kun-kai"=thank you. The last one was quite helpful to know. Keri and Joe told me a couple more but I forget them already! The little bit of Arabic I have picked up mixes in my head with the Thai I just learned, the Spanish I know, and the many, many forms of English I have heard in recent months. I don't mean British English or Australian English or Kiwi English, (although I've picked up many new expressions from these, with brilliant being the best. It's so much nicer to say "That's brilliant!" instead of "that's cool." I hate "cool" now more than ever!) I am referring to Indian English or Nepali English or Bengali English, or as our elephant educator told us "Ben-English" (his name). I find myself losing proper English in many instances. It's much more efficient to say phrases such as "yes, yes," "same, same" (and I found a t-shirt in Thailand that said Same Same, which I found quite funny, since I hear that constantly in Qatar), "no have," "need taxi now," "go hospital," and unfortunately I could go on and on. When speaking to non English speakers, to speak in complete sentences only serves to confuse people. I do not mean my students, as although English is there 2nd, 3rd, 6th, etc. language, they are fluent. It's everyone else that I encounter each day at the grocery store, petrol station, doctor's office, mall, etc.
Speaking of hospitals...I got to experience not one, but two Chaing Mai hospitals! I forgot Sergey's medicine and he really needs it. He had insomnia one night, which frankly doesn't work when sleeping in the same hotel room. I took him out into the streets of Chiang Mai at 4 am one night/morning and hailed a cab. Prior to getting to the cab, we encountered entirely too many people who were attempting to go home from late nights out on the town. I haven't seen intoxication like that since college, and it freaked Sergey out. I kept telling him not to look, as there were fights being picked, yelling, pushing, falling on the ground, vomiting, etc. Anyway, I hailed one of the mini-fire engine looking cabs, who took us to a local hospital. Wow--the ER was silent. I had to wake up the staff, who were completely asleep in a back room only to discover they spoke not a word of English. I brought the taxi driver in to assist. He didn't speak English either, but seemed to be able to understand my hand motions better than the hospital staff. I finally conveyed that I needed to use Google in English to show them the medicine that I needed. After about 30 minutes, I found out they didn't have the medicine, and was sent to a private hospital. I thought, since it was so large from the outside, that this would be better...not so much. We went to the pharmacy, again dragging the taxi driver along, to find that I had to wake up the pharmacist. They did have the medicine, but I had to go back at 9 am when I could see the doctor. OK, so back to the hotel we went for a couple of hours, and then back to Ram Hospital, which, by the way, sounds nothing like ram. It's more like "waaa-aRmmm." Anyway, we got to experience expat Thai life for a couple of hours. The hospital was so cute and very clean and efficient. Again, knowing a bit of Thai would have helped. Duh...oh well. I managed, this time without the help of a taxi driver. We ended up in the pediatric clinic, up 5 floors, and then somehow in a completely different building?? Again, anyway...how do I describe the pediatric unit? The nurses and billing/secretary people all wore crisp uniforms, kind of this these below...except that they were either bright pink or bright purple, with a thin belt of the opposite colour, with the nurses having bright white old fashioned nursing hats, similar to the ones in the picture.
Second...note to self for future trips abroad: Learn a few words BEFORE going!!! How simple and yet I am still apparently ethnocentric enough to have assumed (I can't say I gave any thought to it actually) that Thai's would speak passable English. Not so! And why should they? I was visiting their country. I should have learned key phrases prior to arrival! Most of the words I learned were commands to give the elephants, so hopefully they are real Thai words! In fact, knowing these few words would have helped immensely in the days prior. "didi" = good boy/girl; "how"= stop; "ma"= come; "bon" =eat; "kob-kun-kai"=thank you. The last one was quite helpful to know. Keri and Joe told me a couple more but I forget them already! The little bit of Arabic I have picked up mixes in my head with the Thai I just learned, the Spanish I know, and the many, many forms of English I have heard in recent months. I don't mean British English or Australian English or Kiwi English, (although I've picked up many new expressions from these, with brilliant being the best. It's so much nicer to say "That's brilliant!" instead of "that's cool." I hate "cool" now more than ever!) I am referring to Indian English or Nepali English or Bengali English, or as our elephant educator told us "Ben-English" (his name). I find myself losing proper English in many instances. It's much more efficient to say phrases such as "yes, yes," "same, same" (and I found a t-shirt in Thailand that said Same Same, which I found quite funny, since I hear that constantly in Qatar), "no have," "need taxi now," "go hospital," and unfortunately I could go on and on. When speaking to non English speakers, to speak in complete sentences only serves to confuse people. I do not mean my students, as although English is there 2nd, 3rd, 6th, etc. language, they are fluent. It's everyone else that I encounter each day at the grocery store, petrol station, doctor's office, mall, etc.
Speaking of hospitals...I got to experience not one, but two Chaing Mai hospitals! I forgot Sergey's medicine and he really needs it. He had insomnia one night, which frankly doesn't work when sleeping in the same hotel room. I took him out into the streets of Chiang Mai at 4 am one night/morning and hailed a cab. Prior to getting to the cab, we encountered entirely too many people who were attempting to go home from late nights out on the town. I haven't seen intoxication like that since college, and it freaked Sergey out. I kept telling him not to look, as there were fights being picked, yelling, pushing, falling on the ground, vomiting, etc. Anyway, I hailed one of the mini-fire engine looking cabs, who took us to a local hospital. Wow--the ER was silent. I had to wake up the staff, who were completely asleep in a back room only to discover they spoke not a word of English. I brought the taxi driver in to assist. He didn't speak English either, but seemed to be able to understand my hand motions better than the hospital staff. I finally conveyed that I needed to use Google in English to show them the medicine that I needed. After about 30 minutes, I found out they didn't have the medicine, and was sent to a private hospital. I thought, since it was so large from the outside, that this would be better...not so much. We went to the pharmacy, again dragging the taxi driver along, to find that I had to wake up the pharmacist. They did have the medicine, but I had to go back at 9 am when I could see the doctor. OK, so back to the hotel we went for a couple of hours, and then back to Ram Hospital, which, by the way, sounds nothing like ram. It's more like "waaa-aRmmm." Anyway, we got to experience expat Thai life for a couple of hours. The hospital was so cute and very clean and efficient. Again, knowing a bit of Thai would have helped. Duh...oh well. I managed, this time without the help of a taxi driver. We ended up in the pediatric clinic, up 5 floors, and then somehow in a completely different building?? Again, anyway...how do I describe the pediatric unit? The nurses and billing/secretary people all wore crisp uniforms, kind of this these below...except that they were either bright pink or bright purple, with a thin belt of the opposite colour, with the nurses having bright white old fashioned nursing hats, similar to the ones in the picture.
The clinic seemed out of this world...with futuristic chairs and large interestingly shaped animals for kids to sit on, plus a zip line for them to fly across the waiting room! It's hard to describe the picture in my head. I wish I had a camera with me, but I was a bit tired at the time. :)
Jet lag is helping me turn this into entirely too long of a story. Bottom line is that we successfully got the medicine, and better yet, the cost of 3 days worth of the non-generic medication plus the doctor's visit cost less than USD30! I am seeing first hand just how overpriced medication in the U.S. is. It's a shame, really. I'm going to have to add a few more "Part 2's" before I get to Part 3. I need to get some sleep!
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