Women Who Travel Podcast: A Life Changing Move to Rural Thailand

CE: There was little shops all over campus, it was very beautifully manicured, and there were several cafeterias on campus, they were all individual owners, like mom-and-pop shops, so they would make fresh Thai food, and it was super cheap, maybe $1 per meal, and all the students ate there. My little dorm was right next to a Thai market that I would walk to every night and get dinner.

My professor told me to get my own apartment, but he agreed to get me one, because I couldn’t decide, and he chose an off-campus dorm. The off-campus dorms were about $160 a month furnished, they had a mini fridge. I didn’t have any cooking utensils in my dorm, but I did take cooking classes while I was there. I loved to make [foreign language 00:08:54] it’s like Thai barbecue, it’s like shabu hot pot plus Korean barbecue is how I explain it, and that’s my signature dish. Otherwise, I love to make Pad Kra Pao, which is stir-fried holy basil, and I usually make it with beef or chicken, and I just love that dish.

They had two beds that were pushed together and two desks. Usually, roommates sleep in the same bed, which was kind of interesting. And then, they always had a bathroom, and the shower and toilet were connected, there’s nothing separate, your toilet would get wet while you showered. And each of them had a balcony where you could hang dry your clothes. I didn’t have a roommate. I honestly would’ve liked one, but I didn’t know anyone to room with. There weren’t any engineering girl grad students, so I didn’t have any options, I was the only engineering girl grad student there.

At that time, I didn’t have a moped, and my professor was forbidding me from driving one. So he said the off-campus one would be better because I could walk to the van station or walk to get a motorcycle taxi there. Where the on-campus dorms were in the middle of a bunch of rice fields and I would be a lot less able to travel by myself, I just decided to stay there because it was easier than looking for a different dorm. There were giant Asian water monitors all over campus that my professor told me to not walk alone because they could bite my arm off or something. It’s like a less dangerous Komodo dragon, but still dangerous.

They’re these giant lizards, and if you get close to one, they can break your arm, but they’re not poisonous, so they probably won’t kill you. If you go to Thailand, you’ll probably definitely see some, they’re everywhere. They’re huge, they’re probably the same size as me. Thailand has a lot of animals. I actually decided to do bird watching while I had no friends. They have Chinese pond herons, they have these Asian anhingas. Thailand has amazing birds and lizards and elephants, of course.

When I first got there, I didn’t have any friends, so I would just go around to markets and I would go eat after school. When I finally got a moped, sometimes I’d just take a joyride because I had nothing else to do. There was two gyms on campus, and Thailand hasn’t really gotten into working out yet, like lifting weights, but I would get to use those weight rooms because it was in two of their athletic buildings. It’s really hard to be friends with someone with a language barrier, and people would actually freak out to talk to me because they were so nervous to speak English and basically be judged and try to use this language they’ve used their whole life that it was a big barrier to making friends with me.