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.