Sunee's Blog - 30th June 2009

The Notebook Hunt

To live with or without a computer when teaching in Thailand

I decided to move to back to Asia and had a teaching position in Thailand all lined up. I was not even a week in the country, when I started feeling the empty dark void of being technologically deprived. I paid extortionate amounts to phone family and friends back home and had to brave the internet café’s with shouting teenagers playing war games on the net. I didn’t have a computer.

I had a ridiculously small budget and was illiterate when it came to buying any items of technology.

I put my shame in my pocket, scraped up all my courage and asked a kind colleague to assist me in my desperate plight.

He was all too eager to help me spend my meager earnings. He grabbed a pen and scrap piece of paper as we left for Fortune IT Mall, which is conveniently situated next to the exit of the Rama 9 MRT (Bangkok Underground/Subway). This place was nothing like a mall, but more of a gargantuan labyrinth. I followed my new guru master like a loyal puppy, through the throng of people. He flitted from one small shop to another, scanning through the scribbling on small cards and wrote random numbers onto his scrap piece of paper.

My eye was drawn to the cutest pink number and I tried to get my friend to write down his numbers on this one as well. He just looked at me and smiled. Then I saw the price. Oh, ok. Next shop?

We eventually compared all the indecipherable numbers and decided on the Banana Shop (really, that was the shop’s name) and I got a reasonably sleek looking notebook with 100 gig bites and blue teeth and a good memory for much less than my budget’s limit. I then received a really cute mouse and shoulder bag and even a cleaning kit.

Now my parents and friends know I am alive and phone calls are free. I can also find pictures and information to make my teaching experience in Thailand much more appealing and rewarding.

24th April 2010

Packing to Work in Thailand