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Picture if you will a poor little fat kid getting his first intercity bus. Its a 5 1/2 hour journey so he brought snacks. He is fat, thats what fat people do. Now picture him walking up to the driver

Yes, I can vouch that Ippy is a real person and a very messy room-mate!  

Ippy doesn't have sex though. He finds it troublesome, or something.

its a kind of transit stop for the gaijins. So theres at least a few whiteys in the area. But usually theyre on the way to Koh Chang.

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In terms of getting around (transport, shops, business, admin) Bangkok has stacks and stacks of people speaking English. You can properly get around without a single word of Thai. Where I am now, theres a bit more of a communication gap, but you can still get by. To put it in Japanese terms, Bangkok is like having conversational Japanese, whilst here its like having survival Japanese. You can still have simple conversations here with enough of the people to make Thai seem unnecessary unless you really want to have a Thai social life (the majority of the general population here dont really speak english obviously, but they also wont be in a hurry to chat with you either unless you speak Thai). One thing i have noticed though (well, at least regarding my students) is that they suck at spelling and their pronunciation is heavily accented. This makes it pretty hard to understand even a reasonably competent thai english speaker (unless theyve lived abroad for a while). Reason maybe comes down to this: they drop the last consonant in a word. Its like the inverse of Japan adding the extra vowel. I assume its something ill learn to pick up over time. For now though its a bit tricky. :)

 

In summary: Significantly more English here than in either Japan or Korea in places you wouldnt expect as well as places you might hope. But of a lower academic standard. Its like theyve been taught functional English rather than academic English.

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Sa bai dee mai Kah/khrap?

Sa bai dee, kha/khrap.

 

Mai is like 'ka?' in Japanese - if its at the end of the sentence (if its before the verb it makes the sentence negative).

kha/khrap are politeness modifiers depending on the gender of the speaker - kha = girl; khrap = boy.

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Im going to say somewhere between zero and nothing. Absolutely no motivation to do so either. No desire to pull, no intention to stay longer than a few months, no real burning need to socialize, and can get by with simple English in about 80-90% of situations. Its really unnecessary unless you have a long term future here.

 

ETA: you do sort of need it for the job though since its an hour long class without any other co-teacher at all to translate. Anything even moderately complex takes 10 times as long to explain or demonstrate.

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Im going to say somewhere between zero and nothing. Absolutely no motivation to do so either. No desire to pull, no intention to stay longer than a few months, no real burning need to socialize, and can get by with simple English in about 80-90% of situations. Its really unnecessary unless you have a long term future here.

 

ETA: you do sort of need it for the job though since its an hour long class without any other co-teacher at all to translate. Anything even moderately complex takes 10 times as long to explain or demonstrate.

 

weren't you pulling when that maid walked in?

 

;)

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Ya, food? I always enjoy it for the week or so I've been there but any longer I think I'd get tired of it. Also, are you sweating your ass off all day or do you have some sort of air conditioning?

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I don't really know Thai food.

 

Is what you get down there where you are (in any way) similar to what you might get served in a Thai restaurant in Japan/UK, ippy?

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food is nommy to hell. Love it. But unfortunately i have this phobia that what im eating isnt what i think im eating (i honestly have a shopping list of, lets call them, quirks). Its my own fault too. When i was around 17 or 18 i went to the supermarket with my folks (as you would), and bought myself some chocolate and a 2 litre bottle of 7-up. When i got home, i started tucking into it and my sister asked me for some. I said 'sure' then backwashed into (as any older brother would). Only id been eatin the chocolate so the backwash was grim to look at. She obviously declined my generous offer and we went on our ways... only now i had a bit of a quandary. You see, i won! she didnt get anything. But now i had to drink about 1.7 litres of gunk infused 7-up. And regardless that it was my saliva in brown form swirling about it, i found myself disgusted by the whole idea. But if i didnt drink it, then my sister would have won! UNTHINKABLE. So over the course of several days i drunk that bastard bottle (im pretty sure i didnt finish it), and over the course of seven days gave myself a phobia that to this day means i cant drink from the same vessel as anyone else, nor can i eat from food that their mouth has in some way touched (by actually partly eating or just their chopsticks picking around a bit). So really i lost. My sister won.

 

The reason i tell you this is so that youll understand when i tell you that although street food here is massively nom! I cant bring myself to eat it that often. As for chicken, i can never get it out of my head that its rat or dog even if it comes from a decent shop. Ill happy tuck into mcdonalds though despite the fact i know what chicken mcnuggets are. And once im tipsy drunk, i couldnt care less about any of the above. It makes me though something of an unexciting tourist was the point of this shaggy dog story. Plus, i cant STAND when you get something with prawns and they dont remove them from their shell (youll find that a lot in street food here). The legs usually boil off the rest of the animal by the time you get it, leaving thsi little white (sometimes greying) set of legs that really looks like someones feeding you insects for dinner. Its ****ing YUK! Aside that though. Loads of yummy food. Aside the curries though my favorite at the minute (which i can only get street food style), is from the deep south of Thailand. Its a chicken leg on a bed of slightly curried rice with some yum chilly sauce (khao Mok Gai). Good solid grub that one.

 

Chicken-Rice-Curry-With-Coconut-Koa-Mook-Gai.jpg

 

Doesnt look that hot ill admit, but its proper yum.

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:lol: I'm amazed you left Blighty!!

 

Street food is ace, but you'll def end up with a case of Delhi belly.....but what trip to the 2nd world is complete without a dose of the trots?! :D

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