Internship in Sukhothai: Part I

Internship in Sukhothai..a life style change.
Well, I made a mistake by choosing to come here for my second internship. At first, I thought Sukhothai is a nice city to stay (for 5 weeks at least!) since it has a tourist attraction, Sukhothai Historical Park aka the ancient city.

Sukhothai Historical Park aka The Ancient City

The glorious Sukhothai period 700 years ago, ruled by the king, Ramkamheang, the astonishing ruins, and also the “World Heritage” as it was announced in 1991. So yeah, that was the reason I chose Sukhothai, hoping I might have some fun, it’s gotta be somewhat a tourist town, I might be able to see some hot white boys and such.

...And I was wrong...

Welcome to Khirimat Hospital, welcome to the world of boredom.

We (Kate and I) totally forgot that the hospital we chose is just a community hospital in Amphur Khirimat, not the Sukhothai city. In fact, it is 22km away from it. Besides, the Sukhothai city itself has nothing either. Yes there were tourists..but the town is just quiet and boring as I mentioned in my previous blog entry.

The road sign from Khirimat town

The Khirimat hospital is a 30-bed hospital. Most of the patients here are farmers and villagers. The hospital is not even in Khirimat town, it’s a little further away with nothing around it but the road and the field. Life wouldn’t be too hard if there’s public transporation for me to go places. But guess what! The song-teaw that would go into town will just come whenever, u won’t know when it’s gonna come. Usually it takes 30mins to an hour to wait for one. And it stops running at 6pm…so if you don’t have a vehicle, you are trapped.

At least there is a bus stop..only that there’s hardly that comes..

There are houses for people who work in the hospital, which are free, you just have to pay for the electricity. But honestly, I’d rather pay the rent than to live here. Since there is no house that is unoccupied, we had to share with 2 hospital staffs…we got a room.

Well, it was a storage room before and it is still now becoz the stuffs are still in the room. There’s no bed, no air-con, no TV and no internet!! (I can only use the net in the pharmacy room which is fucking window 98 or borrow a bike and go to the only internet café in town.)

It was a big change for me and my friend. I can’t live without internet and she can’t live without TV. So here we are.You have no idea how depressed it is during my first week here. I just freshly got back from a trip in Penang, staying at hotels and such..and now I’m stuck in this upcountry bannok place. The first internship at BNH hospital I got to use my English, dispensing medicine to foreigner and now I have some problems understanding what the villagers say.

The only pharmacists who can stay and work here are either the one with no ambition or any goal in life. I can’t stand it. There is no way I can live my life like this. You work from 8.30am to 4.30pm. Maybe OT some day until 8.30pm or then play badminton. So yeah, u get up, work then play badminton with colleagues then go to bed. WTF?!!

Badminton, the only activity you can do

I have to admit I’m too selfish to sacrifice myself working here. But actually without these boring people, the poor villagers here would have no one to cure them, right? So yeah, u have to be either too nice or too dumb to wanna work here.

Well, guess I can’t complain that much, even the hospital director’s house is like this.

Actually, I’m not picky about the living situation. I mean, I can live without bed..but not without a shower. At least there’s a shower here..but still inconvenient.The pharmacist who live in the same house, she loves nature too much. Too many plants..and that means you create the entire ecosystem. Plants..then bugs, then frogs and other amphibian species come to eat bugs. And don’t forget the mosquitos, I hate getting mosquitos biting my ass when I take a dump..but there’s nothing I can do, I have to suck it up.

It’s such a drag to take a shower each day. I’m not used to with this. I always hate amphibian, frogs, toads since I was little and I still do now. When the rain stops, I have to deal with this. Baby frogs in the bathroom…oh my god I hope they are not gonna jump to me.
That’s just not enough, although there’s window screens preventing the mosquito..the bugs can still get in the room. If it rains today, there’ll be millions of bugs coming to our room tomorrow. There were just so many of them in the room, crawling on our bodies and where we sleep and the bugs smell, too! We were so depressed and upset with life. I basically cried during the first 4 days here. So we have to do something to make out life situation better.

This is the solution to our bug problems.

This is the backyard, what a heaven for god’s creatures!

Have u ever seen a kitchen like this? It’s just unpleasant to even cook. There’s no sink, u just have to wash the dishes in a bucket.

The ceiling..makes me feel like harry potter in the cupboard under the stairs.

This is the only “wardrobe” we have.

The Ghetto Towel Hanger

Well, luckily I brought my laptop to entertain myself. We try to find ourselves something to make our living situation better.

For example, my friend’s makeup zone made out of stereo box.

Kate is watching movies…

A guy from a Korean series, “Love Story in Harvard”

I have to look shitty becoz I’m living in a shitty place:P

So that's the first part of my Sukhothai internship blog, I still have more to bitch about..hehe...