From Rangsit, Thailand
Dearest readers,
Please accept my most sincere apologies for my most unexcusable delays in writing to you all, let me assure you that you have all been uppermost in my mind, it’s just sometimes the fingers don’t follow the heart…typing-wise, that is. Anyhow, for those of you weren’t aware, you will probably be only mildly surprised to hear that yet again, I am off on yet another adventure! But rather than treading entirely new ground, I am back to one of my all-time favourite haunts, Thailand. I am here through a unilateral exchange organized by Dalhousie with 2 classmates. We are doing a course about community medicine. The main part of the 3-week course thus far has been a 9-day rural field trip to the central province of Ang Thong, about 2 hours north-ish of Bangkok, in the midst of Thailand’s rice-growing region.
But that will be a separate email in and of itself; first to whet your appetites is an attempt at brevity of my first few days here in the land of the free (which is what Thailand means in Thai.)
We are at Thammasat University, which is just north of Bangkok in a suburb. Although I’m a bit disappointed we’re not in the big booming metropolis, Rangsit is a big beautiful campus (so big that there are lots of free shuttles running around. Which is a good thing considering that the Thais here consider anything more than about 5 min. walk away unwalkable.) As it is in Canada, they don’t like to contaminate the rest of the student population with the dirty meddies, so we’re a bit far from the rest of campus. But luckily they have covered walkways all the way around so that we haven’t turned into complete puddles by the time we finish the 15 min. walk. We are staying in the rather austere medical student’s dorm. Our room is the only one without mountains of shoes and boxes outside the doors, but we do have a gigantic stick-on baby donald and daisy duck set on the door, so I figure that makes up for it.
It is a good thing my friend Arpun is here, she is very hard-core about exercise, I fear without her I would find it too easy to find an excuse not to get out at all. But we did, and I’m ever so glad! We got up at 7 the first day and headed out to the stadium. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but it certainly was not what I found! Thammasat hosted the Asian Games in 1998, and so their stadium was, needless to say, phenomenal. I have never set foot in such a huge one, let alone run in one. Even the provincial track championships in high school were in a piddly school track. This stadium, with literally thousands of seats, inspired pure awe. We were almost afraid to enter. It was empty, except for two Thai long jumpers and their coach. We approached cautiously; luckily there were a lot of stairs down so I had a lot of time to think about how I would ask in Thai if we could use the track. But after my oh-so-carefully constructed sentence, the coach looked up and said in near-perfect English, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak any Thai.” He let us use the track, and better yet, told us that the Asian Grand Prix were happening here the next day. Our run in the track was surprisingly productive considering the blistering heat even at 8:30am. For every 3 laps, I had to stop for water, and could feel the sun penetrating every pore, which battled back with every ounce of sweat it could produce. After 20 minutes I was as hot and soaked as if I’d just been submerged in a hot tub.
The Asian Grand Prix were a different story, though. As we approached the stadium, we could hear loud drumming, which we discovered was coming from various drummers and cheerleaders (including some guys in satin pink outfits) who were leading various groups of schoolchildren cheer on the athletes. These kids themselves (about jr high, I’d guess) seemed professional cheerleaders themselves, with coordinated little clapping schemes and chants. Of course, as interesting as they were, the athletes themselves were the main attraction; up close, it was hard to believe how fast they were running, especially the distance runners; the 1500m runners seemed to have legs that would carry them faster than me at my 100m sprint pace. There were competitors from all over east and south asia, from as far away as Oman.
We decided to hang around after the games were over, when I suddenly noticed a guy from the Indian team subtly taking my photograph! I nearly burst out laughing, especially when I saw his sheepish look when he realized I’d caught on, but the three of us decided to pose for him. Some of the people we saw today qualified for the Olympics, so who knows, I may end up as a pinup on some random Indian Olympian’s wall….but he had given us a great idea…we got photos with the athletes! We also got videos from them, all saying a certain line (which I can’t unfortunately reveal; it is secret). I think they thought we were slightly absurd, but trust me, it will all be worth it!
One highlight of my trip so far was visitn my old haunt of Thamaka, where I spent 6 weeks two years ago. I got off the bus stop but couldn’t quite remember where the hospital was located. So I just kind of asked as I walked; people here in this one-bus-stop town don’t often see foreigners (when I lived here people often gave me rides everywhere so I wasn’t around , so on my trek I nearly caused more than one traffic accident from people rubber-necking at the strange white “farang” that was wandering their streets. The last lady I asked left her fruit stand to accompany me to the hospital. Once inside, I mentioned that I knew Dr. Eh the orthopedic surgeon and was ushered into the ER (which is also his office). He had changed his email and phone #, and so had no way to know that I was coming; he has not seen me in three years, and probably not heard from me in about 1-2 years, so boy was he surprised to see me waltz in through his doors! He was so kind, he closed his private clinic that night (Fri) and Saturday too to spend time with me and take me sightseeing. He said he wanted to take off Sunday too but he was working at the government hospital and couldn’t switch his shift. He took me to Erawan waterfalls, probably my favourite place in Kanchanaburi, where you hike up a trail and can swim at various levels of the waterfall. you just have to watch out for the nibbling fish, which will munch away at you if you stay still too long.
Dr. Eh’s work ethic never ceases to astound me; he works long days at the government hospital M-F, from about 7:30-5pm, has about a half hour off, then goes to his private dlinic from about 5:30-8:30. He works at his private clinic Sat morning and works again at the public hospital SUndays. In addition to all of this, he is on (home) call 4 nights a week; basically he only has Saturday afternoons totally off…And in addition, he has two toddlers at home that his wife takes care of. I am always amazed at his dedication and cheerfulness. I don’t think I could manage that kind of schedule for more than a few months, let alone years…yet he feels so strongly about serving the poor who must use the public system so he won’t work all private, yet to earn enough money for his family he feels he must work both systems.
Take care everyone!
Heather
