When the doors opened to the 37th floor and I stumbled out hugging the big black bag of all the toiletries, clothes, food and other stuff I had acquired over the last 2 weeks in On Nut, I was still holding on to the memory of the last 2 weeks, and almost like I had betrayed where I was for… for what?
Then I opened the door to the new apartment and the grin on my face almost split my face in two.
Holy fucking shit.
The place is gorgeous. Huge. Exactly what I wanted. I dropped my stuff and took a little spin as I took it all in. I’d never been in a place with walls this high. I have never been in an Airbnb with STAIRS. Oh my goodness, a sofa… and could it be? Yes. YES! Those buttons turn the legs up and the back down so you can lounge back and look up at the TV… if that view wasn’t so distracting.
I giddily skipped up the stairs to find the bedroom which is SO nice. And that view! Everything I thought about On Nut slowly becomes background noise, drowned out by the happiness and comfort I’m feeling, drowning in the exubrence of this space. I’m wishing I turned up here earlier… how would my first 2 weeks have gone differently if I was here?
Very differently, it turns out.
But in the meantime, I’m busy unpacking bits and pieces. The second half of my Bangkok life begins here, and you know what? It’s time for a wardrobe overhaul! Despite my endless my hate for shopping, everything I’ve bought (and it was much less than I thought I needed) has been specked with grease and stains. If I’m going to treat this time abroad and as a birthday gift, I’m officially going all out!
So, I’m going on a bit of a repeat of the first day and head off towards Praut Nam Market, stopping by at a Uniqlo on the way and getting way too tempted by way too many things, which are over double the price back home (and will most definitely never wear out of fear of getting them stained with grease and oil). I walk my way to Praut Nam Market and fail to find the lovely 3 women who sold me the cheap t-shirts that fit better than anything I’ve ever worn.
The place is completely different when it’s not hammering down with rain, and I keep getting lost and told the market is closing. I’m retracing my steps, but the weather, the people, the city itself seems to be shifting… but so am I. When I got here, the idea of haggling and negotiating filled me with dread, and rather than pay 100 baht more than what I thought was reasonable, I’d get in a 200 baht taxi somewhere else just to be told the same price.
Now? I’m having genuine conversations with the people in the markets, learning bits of their language, laughing it up with them, and being offered cheaper prices. I’m gliding around picking up deals, walking away from things I don’t really like or need and… wow, did I just happen across what seems like the only shop selling plain t-shirts… in 200 different colours… and is cheaper than Primark?!
I’ve truly won the fucking lottery.
£1.56 for a t-shirt that fits better and is way better quality than the £2.50 slop that I get in the UK.
As I’m walking the very long way back to the BTS, is dawns on me why there are so many malls in Thailand, and why my mother loves markets, TK Maxx and filling her stuffed wardrobes full of even more things that will never fit. This is FUN.
Much later, I get back to my wonderful Airbnb, fold and hang my new clothes nearly away and admire the colours and become wistful over how good I’m going to look, how much fun I’m going to have. I turn towards my bed and stare out at the cityscape, the flickers of thousands of lights in the distance. I (finally) sleep like a baby, with no earplugs in or water rushing through the walls to kick me out of my slumber. I wake up in the morning and pull the curtains apart to find sunny Bangkok greeting me and I smile back, heading downstairs and hearing my excitement echoing through all the space and silence.
I am not moving from here all day.
I spend the morning using the washer/dryer and thinking about how much I’m saving not seeing the lovely woman back in On Nut for this service (and how I still miss her, a bit). I get noodle soup and siu mai delivered and slurp it up hungrily, thinking how happy I am to be here, because I could never stay in and do this kind of thing where I was. I lay back on the reclining sofa watching ‘Superman’ and drifting in and out of consciousness, until the sun starts to set. For dinner, I wolf down an amazing lasagne, pepperoni pizza and cheesecake as I’m having the time of my life watching ‘Jojo Rabbit.’
And before I go to sleep, I look up at the high ceilings, I look over the balcony, so high up from where I was in On Nut, so far away from the pauper-like life I was living in London. I think about how small, confined, isolated my life was, how I was just constantly coping, and spending more and more money to cope with my coping and still, my ceilings never got higher, my horizons never broadened, my view never got further than the four walls closing in on me in the studio flat in an area I never wanted to be.
I wash up the bowls with remnants of ridiculously tasty noodle soup, I scrub the plates with tantalising tomato sauce, and I think back to the milkshakes I drink for breakfast and lunch back home to save myself money to survive, to spend more and more on coping mechanisms to cope with my coping… and I guess, to be where I am now, waking up to what is possible, what I forgot, what I always wanted, and what I don’t. What is waiting for me.
I look around one last time before I go upstairs to sleep, and I think…
“Do people really get used to this? Do they really get bored of it?”
