A university day

When I leave my house to start my trip to the university I first off take a moto taxi. As Bangkok is always crowded with traffic the moto-taxis are the perfect way to squeeze in between a bus and truck, take the pedestrian walkway as a short cut and hopefully make it on time to the next appointment.

I jump on one of the orange jacketed men’s (only once a woman was driving me) bikes, usually a worn down Scooter, 125 or 250cc and we cruise 10-15minutes through heavy traffic. This is costing me around 40-60 Baht (1,00-1,50€), depending on the distance.

I get off at the rather dirty “Klong Tan” train station where I’ll get my ticket for the 30 minute train ride.

 Locals don’t have to pay for short distances (inner city) and I am charged a ridiculously low 4 Baht (equal to 10 cents); explaining the low maintenance and generally rather poor standard of the trains.

The tain is generally about 10 minutes late, but calculating this in, almost always on time. During peak hours the train can be quite packed, but me and my classmate Johanna generally find a spot to sit down when we head for our weekend classes.

In the train you can buy fruit, sausages and even a whole meal of rice and meat from passing vendors.

Each Wednesday we meet a fellow passenger who took it upon himself to become our personal Thai teacher during travelling time. He used to work for Thai airlines at the Suvarnabhumi airport, which explains his good English skills and his eagerness to be around foreigners.





 

     

After passing through rather shantytown areas, squatter settlements that arise around the rail tracks, we get to our destination “Phra Chom Klao”, right next to KMITL, Techno Ladkrabang.

The yoghurt strawberry fruit smoothie at our favourite wooden coffee shop is delicious. 

Thai university students like to play cards during their free time. They might seem like high school students, but at age 17 they start studying at Bachelor level and Thais generally have a younger appearance.

During Thai language class

The International College, where we take our courses, is a newly erected 8 floor building. In “our” room on the 8th floor, generally reserved for the 5 MBA IMRE students that we are, the chairs still carry the brand tags, as no official inauguration for thanking the donor has taken place yet. Our classes range from Waste Management, Biological Treatment Methods to Case Studies, where we have local experts visiting to give lectures on either their company going green or their field of expertise. The most interesting guest speaker so far was Gregor Wessels who talked about sustainable land use planning with the help of GIS and showed case studies of Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta. Further on he gave insight knowledge of the construction plans of the new MRT line (please read a later entry for more regarding those plans). In between weekend classes we head for a lunch on campus. In front of one of the cafeterias a huge lizard is living and walking around freely. He is fed by the cafeteria staff and apparently not dangerous although sized and looking similar to a crocodile. Each of the cafeterias consists of many little food stalls thus offering a broad selection of foods. My favourite eatery is the Isaan stall that prepares “khao soy”, a northern style spicy curry soup, which is served with chicken and crispy egg noodles (picture follows later). I have not seen it anywhere else in the city yet but am on the hunt. Only fellow classmate Joseph from Ghana chose to live on campus and uses some of the sports facilities and the library in his free time. The rest of us generally head home after class. On the way back I again take the train, pass the Klong (dirty city canal) by walking and change into the red bus on Thong Lo. During the day this street is too crowded to calculate travelling times with public transport but on my way home I love to use the tiny quirky old steel model of a bus. Depending upon date and time I go out for dinner, drinks or any other activity.