Picture this, for most people, their office is located in some high rise concrete building or a small cubicle. But for the two of us, office can be anywhere and more often than not, a coffee shop. Before I am telling you about this coffee shop, known as our “office”, I’d love to tell you a story about my Thai friend. This way, you might also learn a little about Thailand as well.
My Thai friend comes from Northeastern region of Thailand. I don’t know how would the socio-economy looks like in reality, but from what I heard from different sources, Northeastern aren’t necessarily affluent compared to Bangkok area. Somehow, this friend and some of her cousins move to Bangkok. Here’s the kicker, she built a brand around herself, and while rocking gym wear, she’s teaching English. What mindboogling was, she did not have an English degree. Nada. if followers were the metrics of success, she’s not doing too bad at all. She cracked the code making language learning fun and perhaps that is why, people followed her, bought her course and subscribed to her. I told her many times that she’s my inspiration, as with hard work and a little bit of creativity, we can find our way in this world. Speaking of which, it was exactly what she portrayed and taught, which I hoped she realized that.
We personally clicked over ideas and most importantly, due to similarities in the type of job we have, we become work buddy.
One day, we decided to leave our boring dorm lounge to find a place to get things done. So we scanned through coffee shops around the area and tried to find something that fits our tiny budget. We wanted to find a good coffee shop but also a decent-enough co-working shop. I wanted to get back to Millieu but it wasn’t something we look for. There is something lacking about Millieu and it was not necessarily budget friendly either.
As we browsed through dozens of recommendation, our eyes laid on Sunrise Home Cafe. The cheerful name sounded quite inviting for us and returning from Laos, I definitely craved waking up drama-free with a good coffee. Just from the name itself, I had a big expectations. The cafe opened from 7-6PM which is perfect working hours. After all, we’re also rats in the rat race only with different wheels. Our wheels spins differently and in random directions, we find crumbles here and there, sometimes starving a day or two which isn’t a problem, especially both of us considered ourselves professional rats in this treadmill of life. We also have the choice to spin in the direction with more cheeses and sugar.
Sunrise Home Cafe wasn’t necessarily cheap, at least by my frugal German buddy standard. But considering the table, the wifi, and the overall service, it was worth the splurge. 100 Baht for a piece of mind, sanity, a shelter from the heat of bangkok that felt like the bottom pit of hell, everything was worth it. The coffee though.. Was sub par.
Look, compared to the beautiful smiles and heavenly cappucinos I used to get in Laos, this coffee was sub-par. Hands down, nothing matched those heavenly cappucino in Laos. It was sure enough to suppress my appetite and kick-start my brain. But the coffee was like a cheap nootropics that kept me worry-free, calm, and ultra-focused yet comeswith some nasty side effects. Ironically, me and my friend kept coming back just because it was reasonably priced and the convenience that we don’t have to travel too far and spent more Bahts on transportation. Safe to say we are the picture perfect of what new generation called broqué.
As I said that coffee wasn’t the highlight, the architecture or the building was. It was a cute minimalistic building that are designed like a doll house. If you’re 6ft tall, it certainly felt like you’re entering a midget’s den. Though I am pretty astonished that some of the chairs are very comfy especially if you sit for hours. I saw instagram girls in and out the place taking cute pictures. They were obviously way more fashionable than both of us in our gym wear. But for me and my friend, the place is our “office” in Bangkok.