Bedroom oasis, crooked taxis, broken footpaths

Maiyuu's new mattress arrived yesterday. It's for the single bed in his room. Later, he went out to buy a fitted sheet, and pillows.

The cost was B2,000. It was all-cotton, so more expensive than some of the other brands, but not as expensive as some of the imported sets - up to B7,000 for a small size.
No wonder Thais like sleeping on the floor!

After work last night, I joined him in his room to inspect his purchases. His bed set is grey. As well as a fitted sheet, he has cases for his tube pillow (a long sausage-shaped thing), and an ordinary pillow. They go with the grey/brown theme he is establishing for his room.

Maiyuu doesn't like me snooping about his room, so to be invited in there was a treat.

I sleep in a double room - designed for a couple, with its own twin wardrobe - while he lives in the spare room, or child's room as he puts it.

Even in the confines of that small space, he has made his bedroom look attractive: he has put up lights, paper mache masks, and colourful boxes which once contained bottles of after-shave, to decorate the place.

My bedroom, by contrast, looks like a typical male environment - plain and unadorned, because I don't know how to make my living surroundings look appealing.

The most I can do is make the room functional, and keep it looking tidy. Maiyuu can make a room practical and aesthetically appealing - even striking to the eye - at the same time.

'I will do up your room soon,' he promised, when I mentioned how lacklustre it looked.

It was close to bedtime, and we were tired.

'This must be the first time you have slept on a real bed for ages,' I told him, as we sat on his mattress.

'Half my life,' he announced.

What? Maiyuu is 30.

At our last place, Maiyuu slept on a fold-up mattress, spread on the floor. It was uncomfortable, but he never showed interest in sleeping on a mattress with its own base. I urged him repeatedly to buy a 'real' bed, but he declined.

'This will do,' he said.

Then he said something else which surprised me.

'This is the first time in my life that I had my own room to sleep in.'

Maiyuu has an elder sister. Maybe when he was growing up, Mum, Dad, his sister and Maiyuu slept in the same room; communal living is common for Thais. Or maybe he shared with his sister.

I reflected on this words, and how happy they made me feel.

I am sad that Maiyuu has had to wait this long to get his own bedroom, which he can close off to the world when he wants time to himself, or time away from me.

However, I am delighted that the day when he gets his own personal space has finally arrived.
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I have been walking to work this week. I don track shoes for a 15-minute trek which takes me from my condo in suburbia, over a railway line, and down the slummy side of a highway.

I carry my work shoes in a bag. When I get to work, I change from the jogging shoes into work shoes.

Track shoes, I have discovered, are better for negotiating the uneven, potted sidewalks in Bangkok. My ankles stay in one piece, as do the soles of my shoes.

I bought my leather work shoes only recently. The sole of one shoe is already split, thanks to the poor state of the sidewalks.

If I step into a hole accidentally, or fail to negotiate a tree stump sprouting from the footpath, I could lose everything.

Last night, I left my jogging shoes at work by mistake. I realised I had forgotten them as soon as I arrived home, and took a taxi back.

The old guy at the wheel didn't appear to know Bangkok; I had to direct him every step of the way.

On the way back, he went down two side-streets by mistake. Idiot! We are in the centre of town. How can you not know it?

Ten minutes later, we arrived outside my condo.

I gave him a B100 note. The fare came to B70.

'I have no change,' he said.

Nonsense. I wanted to complain, but I saw a tall foreigner standing outside the taxi, waiting to get in. A woman in her 20s, she emerged from the condo opposite.

I hopped out, and held open the door for her, as she leant in and told the taxi driver where to go.

'Pee, krub...' she said.

Don't bother being polite, I thought, Within a few minutes, this old man will take your B100, just as he did mine, and again claim he has no change.

I held open the door until she hopped in, and closed it for her. She didn't glance at me, still less offer thanks for my gentlemanly conduct.

'These days, young foreigners have no manners,' I complained to Maiyuu later.

'Don't help them, then,' he said.

'And next time a taxi tries to exploit you, call me, and I'll come down with change.'