Bangkok Thailand - An interesting experience

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.People from elsewhere

Yves Makowski , a 30-year old father has been living in Bangkok for just over a year. He took paternal leave to take care of his 19 month old daughter, Elise, in order to follow his wife, Veronique, who is working in Bangkok. They all seem to have acclimatised well to the Asian lifestyle.

B-T: What were your first impressions when you arrived in Bangkok?
Y.M.: "The first shock was the heat (laughs) - yeah, the weather. Then, the people - it's so busy; there are so many people on the streets. We come from an area where the people have a reputation for being rather cold and we don't live an outdoors life because the climate doesn't allow it. Here it's the complete opposite - the people live outdoors, it's all happening and there's nightlife".

B-T: Once you'd settled in, what were your main priorities?

Y.M.: "The cultural side of Bangkok was not a priority for us. In view of the stress and pressure that Véro had to cope with at work, we tried early on to get out of Bangkok at the weekends and make the most of the beautiful Thai beaches (Hua Hi, Ko Samet (see photo) Ko Samui). We did Bangkok afterwards. Now we're going to try to see the North (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai) and we'd especially like to visit the neighbouring countries like Vietnam, China etc...".

.An interesting experience

Bangkok-Thaïlande: What brought you to Thailand in the first place?
Yves Makowski: "Vero had the chance to come and work here. She knew that her company was looking for a logistics manager for a project in Thailand, so she just applied for the job. I encouraged her because I thought it would be an interesting experience. The only way for me to follow her was to resign or take paternal leave - the laws in France are good for that kind of thing. So I applied for one year's leave (renewable for another year) and here we are!".

B-T: Was it the idea of living abroad of the particular destination that interested you?
Y.M.: "Both. Perhaps not so much the idea of living abroad, but Asia and especially Thailand was somewhere that we really wanted to see".

B-T: What did you know about Thailand before coming here?
Y.M.: "Not a lot. I knew the food was good, I'd only heard good things about it. I knew it was 'the Land of Smiles', I know quite a lot of people who've come here on holiday and have loved it. Then there's the image of the pollution in Bangkok and the overcrowding, but really we didn't know much apart from that".

B-T: Did you have any second thoughts before you left?
Y.M.: "There was a bit of pressure from the people around us (our families) who were a bit reticent about us going, not so much for us but for our daughter, Elise. It's true, the only questions we had were concerning Elise, she was only 8 months old when we left and we wondered how she would cope with the pollution. But we were reassured by our paediatrician who knows Thailand and apart from a few necessary vaccinations we haven't had any particular worries".

B-T: How did you set about organising things for Elise in Bangkok?
Y.M.: "Vero looked through the guide books for international schools and kindergartens. In fact there are quite a lot of international schools which was good because we didn't particularly want Elise to go to a French school. She was too young anyway, the French schools only take children from the age of 3. We found a school near us, which takes children from 8/9 months. Everything's in English, though some of the children and staff speak Thai. I think the fact that Elise is amongst children with different ways and different is really good for her". (/LA)