Since the last update we’ve moved into a new apartment and have changed our daily routines. We are eating in neighborhood storefront restaurants, including one that the Bangkok Post rated tops in the city for its renown Thai chef and …..for its hamburgers! We’re getting out to movies occasionally and seeing more of Bangkok and meeting people. We’re in language classes too and have joined a gym. Last weekend we attended the annual meeting of the Neurosurgical Association of Thailand at a beach resort in Cha’am. So, we’ve firmed up our rather amorphous pursuits of the earlier days. I can’t tell you how much we’re enjoying this time in Thailand.
First the new apartment. Our new digs are in The Victory Executive Suites, an older hotel that shifting patterns of taste and traffic have bypassed over time. So the Victory is a bit down at the heels and undergoing renovation. But it is gracefully funky in its faded glory. An elegant marble entry opens into a huge lobby with a granite floor beneath a high vaulted ceiling, the walls wainscoted with blondish wood. Adjacent to the lobby is an old-fashioned reading and social area, also huge, where crimson chairs and couches surround low, granite top tables in conversational groupings. No one bellies up to the curved bar anymore; it is closed. An assortment of newspapers hangs on wooden rods, and there are some shelves of old magazines and paperbacks. Just a few people are seen wandering through, and most of these head for a solitary computer next to the bar to check e-mail. But, you can still sense better days gone by. And we are literally only 7 minutes walk from the Skytrain which you can see in the picture at left, taken from our window.
Picture this: Judy and I setting out for the day, descending into Soi Lertpanya, threading our way among the food stalls and buzzing motor bikes, headed for the Skytrain. We have Fitness-First packs slung over our shoulders and a woven nylon brief case containing our school supplies and collapsible umbrella in hand. Grinning. Are we ready, or what? Maybe the scent of jasmine is too strong?
Having gotten increasingly tired of having to ask Thais to speak English to us, we’re taking steps to change that. We’ve already completed a 20-hour course in the Thai language at Pro Language, a school located on the famous Sukhumvit Road in the Times Square building. Our language experience was great at Pro Language. We had a wonderful teacher, Khun Eid, and a good time. Our fluency ranges from non-existent to stuttering at this early stage. But, we’ve begun to recognize words in conversations and on the TV. And we find ourselves wondering aloud, “Why didn’t I say ya da da? I know that word,” in some language encounter or other. So we have some basics, but we definitely need to practice and continue studying to get to the next level.
We’ve also joined a pretty swanky gym, Fitness First, located in the Landmark Hotel, about five minutes from our language classes. Several times a week we mosey down Sukhumvit to the gym. No, you don’t have to shinny up the lobby palms or take the escalator to get in. You take the elevator.
This a first-class fitness facility. The rows of treadmills and elliptical walkers face banks of TVs or look down on the lobby below. To watch TV, you just punch in the channel you want to listen to and plug in your headset on the attached keypad, and set out on your walk. Fitness First provides these headsets and 3 introductory sessions for new members and performs a physical assessment with all the embarrassing measurements.
The exercise machines are top-of-the-line and designed to ensure independent motion of the extremities. No moans of stressed metal, no squeaks, or out-of-order signs are anywhere to be heard or seen. The free weights are rubber clad, preventing noise and floor damage. Booming music drives vigorous stepping or kickboxing in the aerobic rooms. More music issues from the spinning room, whose door is always open to dissipate the heat that riders generate as they chase Lance Armstrong or race up and down hills. Stretch classes, medicine ball and Latin dance also tempt members into group activities. Men’s and women’s saunas and steam rooms, fresh towels, showers and lockers, are there to assuage the aches of abusing workouts and to pamper. There is a reading room in the gym lobby with the daily papers, coffee, tea and water. Fitness First is definitely not your dark and sweaty kickboxing gym. There is one thing I would really like to see: the awe that a couple of giants like Robert and Eddy Khayat would inspire if they stopped by for a workout.
What is there to do on weekends? Well, how about going to the movies. One Saturday night, we we stepped off the Skytrain into the MBK complex with a hotel, department store, and 6-floor shopping mall topped by a 7th-floor multi-screen movie with large comfortable seats and dry, non-sticky floors, surrounded by restaurants. There are also long rows of gaming computers on this floor, choked with players. Our buddy, Dr. Bob, would be right at home there, but it seemed that many of the players were frazzled from combat and in a daze. I didn’t realize that computer gaming is such a huge phenomenon. We chose a Vietnamese restaurant and had dinner before the movie.
The playbill featured The Hulk, Charlie’s Angels, Twin Effect and some lesser productions. We were looking forward to Jackie Chan action, but Twin was in Chinese with Thai subtitles. So as not to miss nuance or subtle interplay, we did want to see a movie in English and purchased tickets for Charlie’s Angels, the epitome of subtlety. They later offered free T-3 sunglasses for purchasing tickets for Terminator 3 early but we held off.
Now here is a real highlight. Last weekend, we attended a meeting of the Neurosurgical Association of Thailand as guests of Dr. Chaiwit from Khon Kaen. It was a high honor and privilege. We met Dr. Chaiwit through Dr. Thomas Flynn of Baton Rouge, who has long supported neurosurgery in Asia. Dr. Chaiwit is an energetic and committed neurosurgeon, who almost alone, has served a population of several million for many years. Judy and I look forward to spending some time in Khon Kaen in the fall. At the conference, we also met other top neurosurgeons in Thailand, including the President of the Association, and professors from Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
It was also exciting to met some of the younger generation of doctors, including Drs. Wanarak and his wife, Dr. Kung, who just successfully completed Neurology boards, and Dr. Tanat. They work in Chiang Mai, at the university. We will spend some time in Chiang Mai visiting the NS department later this year.
Almost incredibly, one doctor introduced himself as a former neurosurgery resident from Morgantown, WV. He had completed his residency at WVU hospital two years before I came on staff. When I heard that, I realized that this encounter was less a small-world phenomenon than proof of the extended influence of career teachers, such as Dr. Nugent, on whose shoulders we all stand.
The meeting was held at the Regency Hotel and Resort in Cha-am, a seaside town on the west coast of the Gulf of Thailand, not too far from Bangkok.
Tags: Thailand