Christmas in Thailand

Christmas has a bizarre spot in American culture. We are very dependant on it economically, to the point where it is advertised for about 9 months a year. For the month of December it is impossible to go anywhere and not see Christmas, it adorns our store fronts, comes out of the radios and works its way into our conversations. Everyone in the states, regardless of religious denomination seems to be swept up in “the Christmas Spirit” because its now more of a national holiday than religious one. This is not the case in Thailand. Its more akin to a religious holiday still, where you are aware its happening, probably know a couple celebrating it, but even if stores are putting up decorations its not so pervasive as it is in the states. It took some recalibrating to enjoy Christmas in this snowless environment, it was a slow process but, by the time the 25^th rolled around I was in a pretty good state of mind for the entire affair. I woke up to skype with my immediate family on their Christmas eve, we simultaneously watched It’s a Wonderful Life from opposite sides of the globe. Have I mentioned how much I love technology? That, in a real sense, was my Christmas, and it was after this that my Christmas in Thailand really started. The following is the story of my Christmas day.

I knew something was strange. The man that was making my som tom was looking up at me with some unidentifiable expression on his face as he was pounding the dish with his mortar. He held up an uncooked crab, I considered it, nodded, and he threw it in. I got a second hint something was off when, after I had sat down at table of store next door the maker of my food moseyed over and began speaking to the owners of the shop, a wonderful couple that I’ve started to get to know since arriving. I began to eat, the first bite was good, had the flavor and kick that all good som tom should have. The second bite was very hot, and I made the ill advised move of drinking water to quench the fire, a mistake that no matter how many times people warn me about I continue making. The chef was sitting there expectantly, trying to be nonchalant; I pointed at the food, and gave a thumbs up, “good, thank-you”. He waved at his mouth making the universal sign for, “your mouth is burning with an intensity and passion that you didn’t think was possible isn’t it?” to which I shrug, nod, wave at my mouth and take another bite. Now, I have an appreciation for hot food, I love hot wings in the states, and I have never been stingy with my stars at restaurants, I consider a hot dish a welcome challenge, and if you can get past the heat there is usually excellent flavor behind it. But this burning in my mouth was not obeying the rules set forth in the human-spicy foods treaty, it was not decreasing, or even plateauing. No it was increasing in intensity, and suddenly it was not doing so at such a relaxed pace. My roommate has just woken up and was smoking a cigarette on our stoop and I saw this an opportunity to save face, I coolly and casually leatp from my seat, and with the urgency of a man running from hornets I strolled over to my roommate. I don’t even remember what I said, I think it was something rather disparaging about the cook and “Hottest ******* thing I have ever eaten”. I was still expecting the burning to at least slow if not stop, but it did not. I was suddenly pacing around in a circle listening to the hearty chuckle of that evil, fat, som tom chef from a few feet away. Time for round two, I went into the store and bought some Milo, basically chocolate milk, and return to the table, determined not to loose to this food (No I don’t have competition issues, and yes you can definitely win or loose meals. Shut up).

            The Milo felt like a genuine Christmas miracle, the screaming in mouth was almost silenced; the landscape was now more akin to a parking lot on a hot day than a prairie fire. Unfortunately the Milo provided only a momentary respite, the burning returned shortly. After two bites I am near tears, but I’ll be damned if I let that smarmy punk spice me out of my lunch. The burning was still there, though it was less intense, whether this was because of the Milo or the fact that my nerve endings were sending in their resignation letters I’m still not sure. The wife of the owner came out and saw my face, recognized the look of a oral burn victim and came over to look at my dish. She frowned and walked over to the chef, seems to chastise him for a few moments than returned with a packet of rice intimating I should eat it with the som tom and it will reduce the spicines. A minute or so later the owner, who’s English is spectacular comes out and offers me a small bowl of mushroom soup, “My wife make this, its not so hot, good for you!” I offer my sincere thanks, and use it to clear my mouth for an attempt at round three.

I took two more bites and couldn’t take it, my nose was Niagra, and my eyes were rapidly filling. I had to polish off the milo and dive into the soup. By this time the chef has joined me again, and the wife of the owner who is sitting at the table was frequently miming hitting the chef in the head with what I imagined to be a cast iron frying pan. Soon the chef is on his way, driving off with his motor bike based stand leaving me feeling as though Thai food had finally, truly and completely kicked my ass. The wife points at my bowl and says “for me, one!” I was a little confused so she re-iterates, this time however, I saw she was not pointing at the general dish, but one of the MANY small peppers that populate my bowl. That punk had given me easily 6-7 peppers. I was stunned, but this explained so much about the last half hour of my life that I couldn’t be angry. How could I be? The food may have been heinously hot, but it sure was an experience, and one that brought me a bit closer to my neighbors, on Christmas no less, the best time of the year to be brought closer together.

Later that evening I brought a pot of fresh coffee (my glorious parents had sent beans and a French press as a Christmas gift) to my neighbors to thank them for helping with my extreme lunch, and of course to wish them a merry Christmas. We enjoyed the coffee, laughed about the som tom and once the coffee was gone they brought me a beer and began filling, and refilling my cup. Soon my roommates had come out, and we were all enjoying Christmas beers talking about Thailand and its quirks with our neighbors. I noticed the owner of the shop was cutting up a lime, I thought, “dear god, if he is making cocktails than he is going to drink me under the table!” but soon he offered a slice of lime to my roommate and I, “Is that sweet or sour?” We were dubious, it was a lime, of course it was sour, but we obliged, tasted the slices, and sure enough, they were sour. He than gave us each a small berry shaped a bit like a bean, and told us to eat it and try the lime slice again. We chewed the berry; it tasted fine, anything but an extreme taste, and tried the lime. This time it was more akin to candy than a citrus fruit. Both of us looked up in shock, and asked what the berry was, “Miracle fruit!” our neighbor said laughing. It was a unique gustatory experience certainly, and one that lasted longer than either of us wanted it to. Our beers tasted more like sugar water the rest of the night, the dinner I had later could have been good, I don’t know, it tasted like candy. It was bizarre. It was Christmas in Thailand!

Khao Sok it!

In retrospect my big mistake was congratulating myself for doing so well in the first month. “Damn Mike, you are really doing much better with this blog than you anticipated good work!” quickly turned into, “Hmmm, I should probably do one today, buuuttt I HAVE been doing good job…” than into, “Blog?” Ashamed of my collapse, I am attempting a comeback.

This past weekend was a pantheon level one, many things came together, weather, location (oh my location), stress levels prior too, and need to be somewhere other than the city made this trip spectacular. While checking my email, I found out that the Red Sox had acquired a player that had been on my wish list for 3 years, which was exciting in and of itself, but it led to a simple and obvious realization that I would have said I understood, but really probably didn’t prior to that moment. Life goes on. Seriously. There are no breaks, no vacations, no pauses, skips, rewinds or fast forwards. Nothing we do can alter that in the slightest of ways. I was in the jungle, having seen some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and on the other side of the planet my favorite baseball team was making offseason moves. Its one of those weird things that I thought I understood, but in the end really just knew how to pay it proper lip service.

Khao Sok national park is the largest Jungle in southern Thailand. I arrived on Friday, taking a minibus after missing the cheaper regular sized bus by approximately 17 seconds. While booking the min-bus I was talking with the man who was writing out the ticket when it came up that I was a teacher. His expression and demeanor immediately changed from what is clearly a polished poise for tourists to a much more relaxed and human character, he knocked 10 baht off the bust ticket, and offered to call his friend and book me a discounted room at their resort, and really, who am I to say no to such a generous offer? The resort turned out to be a very pleasant place, run by people that made me feel like I was the only guest, (The Khao Sok River Valley Lodge, very near Khao Sok Jungle Huts, I can’t recommend them highly enough) and my room was a decent sized hut that was about 15 feet in the air on stilts. The owner’s wife walked through some of my options for the following day, and ended up helping me settle on the 1 day lake and cave tour, a great decision.

At 8:00 they served breakfast, an actual pancake with some fresh pineapple and mango juice (it’s a tough life here sometimes). At 8:30 I was picked up and brought to the beginning of the lake where our tour guide Paul, a nice guy and great tour guide collected 200 baht for the park entrance fee (later that evening we discovered that the entrance fee was free for the weekend due to the King’s birthday), and shortly 12 of us were piled into a long boat and zipping across the lake. It was approximately a one hour ride to the other end where we would begin hiking to a cave. But forget the cave for now, the boat ride took me through the most spectacular landscape I have ever encountered. Forget everything you know about valleys, there were no gently sloping hills, or even steep hills leading down to the water. No, this valley had 200 foot cliffs erupting from the water, dripping with jungle. It was as thought there were once mountains there, but only this small fraction of the mountain thought it was worth sticking around. Some have narrow inlets where the walls of two cliffs tower maybe 30 feet apart on their way up. It is the only place I have ever been where the tour guide could have said, “And while they recently left for the coming hot season Dragons inhabit these cliffs roughly nine months of the year.” and I would not have blinked. The weather was spectacularly co-operative for the entire day, cloud cover breaking enough for it to feel sunny, but not enough that it got to hot. Additionally, I don’t think that there are too many places that actually become more impressive on a cloudy day, but low hanging clouds among some of these cliffs gave the impression that they never stopped, and added an air of mystery and mysticism that was awe inspiring.

We arrived at the other end of the lake, a small tourist outpost with little floating shacks for over nighters and a nice dock area with seating, kayaks (free for those on the tour) and a backdrop of legit jungle. We had approximately an hour to swim, kayak, read or lounge before lunch. The water was about as pleasant a temperature as can exist, and the opportunity to kayak away from the 4 Russians who had been drinking consistently since the tour began and consequently had been getting closer and closer to shouting their conversations, was very welcome. Lunch was good, a fish that seemed to have spikes instead of fins (presumably fresh from the lake) and an assortment of chicken and veggie dishes to go with rice. Than it was time to strike out into the Jungle towards the cave which, according to the descriptions of the tour, was considered to be the highlight of the park (not the case). The hike was among the least strenuous hikes I have ever encountered, but it was still very interesting as it was through the FREAKING JUNGLE! If you are unable to tell, I was every excited to go into the jungle, which I have wanted to see since I did a report on rain forests for my fourth grade science class. The path was flat, but we crossed a lot of streams, many of which had tiny waterfalls either just ahead or below where we were crossing. The jungle itself was peppered with Bamboo stands, vines of shapes and sizes (including, but not limited to green and spiky, thin and read, brown and spiraling, and the kind that you can actually swing on, Tarzan style), some mushrooms that were a bright, translucent orange, tarantula nests, and some crazy trees that looked as though the roots started about 6 feet above ground. The cave that we were trekking to had been used as a hide out by communist students who were fighting the Thai Gov’t in the 70’s. It was a great hiding spot, the middle of a jungle and an entrance that you had to duck to use, than a river flowing through it so that some swimming was required to get very far (side note: apparently it is stupidly dangerous anytime its raining, which seems to be every day from late October until, well now. So was fighting the Gov’t something they only did 10 months out of the year? I am confused). They cave was impressive, formations that take an unfathomable amount of time to develop pepper the entire thing. Many of the surfaces are covered in small up and down ridges as though someone had taken a small toy rake meant for the sand box and very carefully made them. It was impressive, but I found the cliffs and jungle to be more interesting.

Talking with our tour guide, and being amazed at some of the things he was able to pick out of the jungle, or on the shore as we were speeding by in a boat, it reminded me that people live in places like this. Its very easy to forget, that even though they are tourist destinations, people grow up and live in these places, and our guide at least, seems to appreciate it. The shirt he wore much of the day combined with his relaxed attitude and seemingly content state was a nice caption for the day

Thai Teaching

Kids are kids, are kids, are kids. That being said, there is a world of difference form kids on this side of the world, and the ones in Benton, Maine. This shouldn’t be shocking as growing up in Surat Thani has maybe three or four things in common with growing up in Benton, but the bigger difference is the schools themselves, and what I am doing at them. In the states, even as a substitute, your job is to keep the classroom environment a reasonably calm, structured level for a learning environment, but this is not the case as an ESL teacher in Thailand. Here the every day teachers still prowl the lines of desks holding rulers or switches ready to rap the knuckles of any ill behaved child. The style of learning revolves around sitting quietly and repeating, or copying what the teacher says or puts on the board. Thus, when a goofy foreigner comes into the room and starts behaving strangely there is an almost palpable release of tension from the kids and they go off the deep end a little. Screaming, walking around, and even occasionally actually paying attention are all common responses.

When you first walk in to the class room kids are talking enough to create a dull roar, and by the time you are about five feet into the class room a small voice pipes up above the rest, “Stand up pleeease”. Suddenly, the noise stopes, chairs or benches scrape and the class is standing, “Gooood morning Teacher”. Suddenly, they are not only standing, but staring expectantly at you. “Good morning class, how are you today?” What happens next depends on the age group, in P3 and up students will respond “I am fine thank-you, and you?” but in P1 and P2 the kids respond, “I am happy… (all fifty, in perhaps the most rehearsed expression of joy ever throw their arms up and wave them twice)”. The next thing you must say is “thank-you class, you may sit down now.” If you do not say this, the children will remain standing, I’m not sure for how long, but I have a suspicion that it might be the entire class. From this point on in the class there must constantly be crazy, exciting, funny or loud things happen or the class is lost to you. I started off making lesson plans, but pretty quickly realized that what you actually need is a routine. It seems like very little actual learning went on, which distressed me at first. But, I quickly realized that if you are seeing a class of 50 P1-P6s only once a week for one hour, you cannot deliver a lesson and expect retention. The best you can do is keep them entertained and using English for the hour that you are there.

Also, we had a freaking monsoon day... It made me curious what would happen if they got snow. probably apocalypse.

Mike goes to the beach

Today was my first day out of the city Surat Thani. I left a city which has been growing on me by the day to go to my first Thai beach. Wow. About 45 minutes or so outside of Surat is a beach town called Khanom, which we will get to, but first the ride there its self is worth addressing. In addition to the tropical flora, which still blows my mind because I have only lived here a week, the landscape itself is stunning. Driving along the land appears to be reasonably flat, no big hills, no mountains in the distance, when almost without warning there is a hill that bursts out of the flat lands. A hill may not sound particularly impressive, but this is a hill which you would need rock climbing gear to ascend. Its more reminiscent of the lonely mountain than blueberry hill. I spent a good deal of the day trying to guess at what could cause such a geographical oddity, and still am not particularly close to an answer I am comfortable with. I assumed that something this strange must be a rare thing, and I was very wrong. Nor was the first one anywhere near the most impressive, as you get closer to the coast it seems like the landscape is dominated by them, some much taller and still skinnier, some much like a regular hill, but rather than ending a gentle slope it looks as though a massive ninja cruised through chopping down the hills that looked at him the wrong way. Oh, and they are all covered in Jungle. Ridiculous.

Speaking as a boy born and bred in Maine, my experience with beaches typically include a lot of rocks, freezing water, sea weed, and a lot of character building. This Thai beach resembled this in… well really no way at all. We pulled up to a sprawling fine, white sand beach which was flanked by massive hills (one had a small island off its tip, as someone looked at it and decided it wasn’t quite perfect enough, and added the island), and after about 200 feet of sand met a beautiful mixture of blues and greens rolling up to shore. Palm trees marked the separation between the resort area (filled with pleasant looking bungalos) and the beach, and this is where we set up camp for the day, under a wooden umbrella with comfortable beach chairs. Soon someone came out to take orders for food and drink, I had a clear curry with fish (this was the first dish to officially kick my ass with spiciness in Thailand), and a quick dip was had while the food was made. The water was pleasant, warm enough that you could spend hours swimming with out getting chilly and cool enough to make it worth it. The rest of the time at the beach was spent between reading, napping, and occasional dips, really a blissful way to spend a day in what amounted to a tropical paradise. In most situations this would have been the full day, we would have caught a bus back to Surat, probably sooner than we had to because we didn’t want to miss the last one, and it would have still been a wonderful day. But this was not most situations. We had been brought to this beach by Wen, a Thai Co-workers and friend from Super English. While my roommates and I had been swimming, she had been conversing with a parent, who suggested two stops for us, the Fish Spa, and a temple. I was torn, not knowing what a Fish Spa was, I wanted to stay on the beach and take a walk up the shore to a more ritzy resort and check out there setup, but luckily, one of my roommates was enthusiastic about the idea of a fish spa.

My vision of where we were headed included a sterile room, a bucket of water, and fish biting my feet. Wowee zowee was I far off. After yet another beautiful drive through the ninja chopped hills we arrived in a forested area and paid 100 baht for a Fish pedicure. We were led down a path, into some trees until we came in view of a pool where people were relaxing under a shady canopy with there feet in the water. Clearly not what I had been expecting, I began to get excited, something which was compounded when an employee of the spa came up and offered us small glasses of a deep blue liquid whose taste I can best describe as a sweet, cold, liquid, corn on the cob. We found a spot to our liking, a bridge across a pond or a stream, I wasn’t sure which, and dangled our feet into the water. After a few minutes with only seeing fish I began to assume that it was more of a place to sit and relax than anything to do with actual fish, but I was once again very wrong. Before too long a fish tentatively approached my feet, hovering a few inches away for a moment than rushing at the sole of my foot. Surprised, I let out a half laugh, half shriek and jerked my foot out of the water into the air. I got bold quickly and put both feet back in, and tried to contain myself. Soon, no fewer than 20 fish were nibbling and cleansing every part of my feet, from the heel to in between the toes. After a few minutes of this I managed to contain my exclamations of surprise and restrain the natural impulses of laughter and foot jerking and lay back to look up at the sun streaking through the leaves, allowing a small army of fish to remove all the dead skin from my feet, a unique experience if ever there was one.

Surely this would have been enough for one day, but no, we still had one more stop on our docket, the temple. Three years ago I traveled to Turkey, and was stunned by the beauty of the mosques there, and while time may have robbed some of the grandeur from my memories of them, this temple was among the most beautiful religious structures I have ever seen. Driving up a giant tower is erupting from the landscape, but before you can actually reach the base of the tower there are stairs. But before you get to the stairs there is a stunning, smaller temple whose gables are made of vibrant and shiny blues, reds and greens. The structure pediment contained a Buddha placidly sitting surrounded by a ruby red mirror, swirls of intricate gold, and an outline of curling sapphire blue coils. The base of the stairs had an ornate gate, and the railing were the long bodies of dragons whose heads were ordained with similar colors as the Buddha. Once you arrive at the top of the steps you come into full view of the tower you saw from the road below, and at its base is a temple similar to the one below, but all of the shiny bits are benefiting from the direct rays of a late afternoon sun. This sun, by the way, is descending towards the ocean, and shore line, which you have a stunningly clear view of. Everywhere are images of the Buddha surrounded by stunning color and wealth, bells line the outer walls of the courtyard and are rung by patrons of the temple as they walk the wall.

By the time we have soaked all this in, and headed back down the stairs hunger has gripped us enough that we stop in the town’s market before leaving. This, like every market I have seen so far is a hot mess of smells, sights and sounds. One booth, serving what appears to be a dark fruit jam is mobbed by bees. Another is selling whole fish on a stick, another flowers, another curry, another fruit, another shoes and watches, and many more. This is a small market, but like its bigger counterparts, it is almost overwhelming trying to choose food among the over stimulation. In the end I go with a tried and true rule, when in doubt, chances are that what ever the fat guy is making is probably really good. And it was.

Big Changes

I have asked both my grandmothers what they believe the biggest change in the world was during their life times was. One believes it was transportation, the other the vast increase in population density, and both really make you consider just how much has changed in the last century. But there is an incredible, and potentially huge difference between the generation of my parents, and my generation, that of electronics and the internet. With all respect to the car, and airplane, I really think that this may be more revolutionary in terms of human behavior. Many who know me have heard me be amazed at modern technology, be it indoor plumbing or a smart phone, but I recently had a moment which drove home yet again what an colossal gap exists between the two: Sitting on my bed, sweating slightly, I had just plowed through two episodes of the office, when I looked out my window. The realization was simple and obvious, that I was in Thailand, not the northeastern United States. There are always moments like this in a sudden transition in life styles, but this was slightly different. My amazement came because watching The Office was an identical experience in Thailand as it would have been in northern Vermont. As my generation ages I have absolutely no idea what the ability to be entertained so easily and freely by something so portable as a laptop will have on us; there is no pressure to challenge yourself to find entertainment when it is quite literally sitting in your lap, no matter where you are.

That being said, here are a couple reasons to travel. Saturday night was the last night of the Vegetarian festival in Surat Thani; it had been an ongoing celebration, which I was mostly unaware of, and unaffected by. In fact, I thought last night had been the previous night when I had attempted to attend some fire walking at a temple, and found that it happened a night earlier, there was a lot of fire crackers, some fireworks, an auction in a language I didn’t understand, and some men taking down a bamboo stage using machetes. So one night later, when I was heading into town to get dinner at the night market I did not expect more festivities, however when another teacher suggested we make an incense offering at the temple we were unwittingly swept up into it. I expected this to be a two minute max affair, light the incense, bow in prayer at an alter, and leave the aromatic offering. Instead we received a large bundle of incense, and left three sticks at several different alters, being led to each one by a kind person giving us directions in rapid Thai that none of us understood. Once finished we were ushered into room behind the main space of the temple (the doors to this were ornately painted pictures of Chinese warriors, the faces had spectacular detail and another teacher astutely noted that the face was probably done by a master, and the rest by apprentice) where it became clear that they were going to give us a vegetarian feast. We were put down at a table and several dishes were brought over, the only one of which that I recognized was a ridiculously tasty yellow curry, others included something akin to dumplings, various greens and an interesting mushroom soup. As we ate a Thai woman came and sat with us, instructed us on how to request water when she saw we were over heating from the spice, directed us to bathrooms and provided the kind of company that only a benevolent person with whom you can’t breach the language barrier can. By the time we headed off to explore the night market, a fantastic place that I will devote another entry to, we had turned down seconds, had them, than insisted on turning down thirds and left to a “See you soon” from our amicable dinner companion.

The next story is one more suggestive of the connections you can make over a year in a place like Surat. My two roommates and I stopped by a local restaurant to enjoy not only good food and fruit smoothies (ridiculously common and significantly better than in the states) but a reliable wireless connection offered by Earth Zone on Chalok Rat Rd. in Surat Thani. A teacher, who sadly left on Monday after a year at Super English, stopped into to check in his computer and grab a bite to eat. This was a restaurant that he had frequented, and he had come to know the staff quite well. We eventually got up to pay our bill and the grizzled veteran of a teacher got to talking with the owner, who has a good grasp of English, though she speaks it in a very ESL way takes some time to grow accustomed to (I had no idea what was being discussed). After a few moments, Chris, the veteran, turns to us with wide eyes and says, “Are you ready for this?” Apprehension begins to fill me, what could prompt such a reaction? Moments later the owner returns to the bar, carrying a tray of six shot glasses filled with a liquid roughly the color of apple cider, though beholding to a very different genre of drinks. She explains that this is an old Thai medicine, a shot a day will keep you healthy forever. It is a wide variety of Thai herbs (don’t ask which, I’m not sure anyone really knows) that have been allowed to steep in honey and vodka for a year. Bottoms up. There are some sensations which I don’t think can be accurately described, and moments after that traditional kick of hard liquor dominated my senses for a moment a new stirring occurred which is certainly beyond my ability to accurately describe. It trickled down through my digestive system, highlighting each step, the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, and beyond. I don’t think I have ever had such an intimate experience with the biology of my body beyond the stomach.

After this a group of men, whose connection to us I am still unsure of, bought us all a glass of red wine (we toasted them merrily, standing awkwardly at the bar). This felt strangely un-surreal after what had just happened. None of this truly remarkable experience would have been available to us had the teacher who came before us not been a wonderfully kind, outgoing, and adventurous person over the previous year.

Three sunrises, three continents

Monday morning I woke up  in Belmont, MA, at my brothers house, and by the time I was done showering, the sun had risen. The next time the sun rose I was approaching the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, appreciating the impending brilliance from the window of a plane. Some hours later, I have no idea how many as travelling through 13 time zones seems to have really disoriented my perspective on time, I was approaching Bangkok from a few thousand feet as another faint glow slowly became my first day in Thailand.

            After three (I think) straight days in airports, leaving the Surat Thani baggage claim area (with a woman who had been waiting for me with a “Welcom to Surat Thani Mike” sign) was fantastic. My first misstep in Thailand came when I tried to get in the passenger side and was surprised to find Wen sitting behind the wheel, I think she was a little caught off guard as well. There is a potent difference to life here, and it seems to permeate every aspect of it, though luckily this is rarely a bad thing. Traffic has a different feel to it, mainly because of the multitude of some serious motor scooters (these rock, and I aim to have one ASAP) and their seemingly tenuous connection to the traffic laws that apply to the rest of the vehicles. The entire world has a spectacularly different look and feel to it really, palm trees instead of pine, bill boards ranging in quality from similar to the US, to more akin to a high school promoting a spaghetti supper (actually as they were in Thai for all I know they were), restaurants on the side of the highway, with no parking (or walls for that matter) and giant, gold framed pictures of the king. The differences didn’t really surprise me, I expected it, what surprised me was that everything seemed to have been altered in some way.

By the time we arrived at my apartment I had almost stopped being surprised by the differences and started just noting them, but the apartment had a few legitimate surprises in store for me. To begin, the door is more akin to a shop front, with a metal garage style gate that gets pulled down and locked, and a sliding glass door behind it. Once inside, it had the frightening desolation that all residences have when they have been recently vacated by a group of previous loving tenants. The other big shock was the lack of running water. It comes every now and than, but rather than taking showers and flushing to toilette with it, we store it in trashcans so that we can shower, or flush toilettes later with out hopping everyone else in town, particularly those living down the hill from us, take a break from using water. This was, to put it kindly, a bit distressing to me, as the thing that I was most excited about after three days in airports was a shower. As I began to pack my sleep deprived self started shouting things (in my head) like “that would have been good information to have YESTERDAY!” or “What??? No fucking water?” But I was smart, and rather than staying in, and dwelling on this fact, which is unchangeable, I went out with what has so far been the highlight of the trip, my future colleagues. I took a bucket shower, put on some fresh clothes and when to play poker with some other teachers. This distraction and entertainment was the precise balm I needed, by the time the evening was over, I was tired enough that I passed out the moment I get home. The next day I woke up and went to get some pad kwap-pow for breakfast, and I had come to terms with and acknowledged that the plumbing was much more of a mild inconvenience than the uber issue it had seemed the night before. I have now switched rooms, made my bed more comfortable, unpacked and am getting legitimately comfortable and content. The lesson is settle down and sleep on it, chances are it’s not so bad as your initial reaction suggests. This city seems wonderful, strange, but wonderful. It’s going to be one hell of a year.