After all that hard work...we need a vacation

Sawadee-krap.

First off, we will be putting pictures up on this website soon. As soon as we got here I broke my computer cord and can't upload a single thing until I get a plug for my computer so you will have to imagine the lack of beard, our house, and breathtaking sunsets.

So, after observing classes for a few days and grappling with trying to buy toilet paper in Thai, the Thai schools went on vacation and so did we. We headed by bus across the country to the Indian Ocean. I was only about three hours but we are now in a land of international jetsetters, karsts, mosques, and beaches. We spent the first few days in a tiny stilted beach hut in a town called Railay on Tonsai beach. Tonsai beach is world renown as a cheap paradise for climbing and climbers. You can't drive to it. You have to take a dragontail boat to the beach next door and then either ford the waters at low tide or hike over a cliff to get to the fabled beach.
It was worth the hike. After securing our $4 a night hut (it had a bed, cold shower, and a toilet without a seat. Not really the Embassy Suites but, hey, five bucks.)
We spent the past few days hiking from beach to beach, jumping into the ocean whenever the mood struck, and eating curry. The sun would set each night to the sounds of backpackers throwing back Singha "bia" and dub reggae.
We returned form the wild to the town of Krabi. Krabi is a chill town and we're back here now. We spent two days here and rented a motorbike. It was my first time driving one and I figured the best way to learn was in a place where people drive on the other side of the road, I can't read any traffic signs, and I have no insurance. We survived without a scratch and even learned how to buy gas which can be found at the traditional pump or in a small bottle that looks like fruit juice sitting outside of most shops. As I am prone to trying just about everything people are selling in shops I'm glad we clarified early on that it was gasoline and not pomegranate juice. The area we biked to was filled with warm fresh water swimming holes, hot springs, and a wat (Buddhist Temple) where monks lived in caves, the trees looked like they were out of Jurassic Park, and for kicks, monks, religious pilgrims, and dumb tourists like us hike up the 1287 steps to see the big buddha statue. 1287 sounds like a fun number. The kind of number you would whip out to guess the number of jelly beans in the jar. 1287 steps are not sweet. They are especially unappetizing when it is a hundred degrees and you're wearing long pants and shirts to be respectful in the Thai temple. We started second guessing ourselves at about 387 when both our shirts were soaked and I was dripping a trail, ala Hansel and Gretel, of sweat up the mountain. The reward at the top was a big Buddha. A really big one. But, I didn't feel like meditating. More like dying and being reincarnated as a freeze pop.
After this unwise decision (and by the way, we were warned by two Thai people that we "should not go there now, go later, four o'clock". Next time we will listen.)we returned the bike and quickly jumped off to the Mangrove forests along the coast to spend two days kayaking around mangroves and karsts which seemed to have had a liberal sprinkling of monkeys. We were warned, no joke, to not hit the monkeys if they jumped on our boat looking for food as they would bite back. Alas, no monkey attacks but we were ready in fight club position every time our boat would float under a mangrove shaking with monkeys and we sure as heck didn't open our fried rice picnic on the tiny beach we found that had two monkeys staring down at us making angry puffed out faces.
The area we went kayaking is an entirely Muslim area with very little tourism. IN fact, we were the only ones staying in bungalows in a ten mile radius. The kind of place where a boy fell off his bike because he was staring at us and every other car would stop to ask us if what we were doing here and if we needed a ride. It was the last few days of Ramadan (a time of fasting between sunup and sundown for Muslims) while we were there so we were not able to sample traditional Muslim dishes (yet) but we did get to hitchhike in a car filled with old veiled women, get impromptu Thai lessons, and each morning as we woke and each night as the sun fell below the karsts in the ocean we heard the call to prayer. Sitting in the pink and purple light on a pier with the silhouettes of mangroves and watery mountains in the distant, the call to prayer would echo over the water from the loud speakers of the mosque sending ripples bouncing off the coast of India. The scene looked like a shadow puppet performance from Indonesia being played out with the flicker of the sun behind the screen. Sigh.......

We went to the Vegetarian Festival today and it was so insane I will need another session to describe it. Let's just leave a teaser that I saw a man shove a fire extinguisher hose through his cheek and walk barefoot through the streets. Talk to you later.

We're here....and sweating.....yep....still sweating...

Hi! We haven't been able to e-mail until now as we don't have the internet at our house and we didn't exactly know where to go. Plus, we've had to get bicycles, a cell phone, observe classes, get things for our house (since it is absolutely empty save a bed and a dresser), and do other tedious things. The tasks are more tedious than usual because it is exceptionally hot here right now (even by their standards). Caleb and I have been having to wear more clothes in this weather than we'd usually wear in order to look "respectable" in Thai culture. Hot! We are looking forward to cooler weather and getting away to the beaches and Northern Thailand soon.

So, we're here and we're sweating. As we write this it is in the 90s and I have sweated through every item of clothing I am wearing. I can't wait to get in front of a non-air conditioned classroom and teach! I feel a good first impression with Thai kids who have barely seen farang (foreigners) before is to have a wild haired, bearded man sweat all over their desks and yell things in a strange language. I foresaw these events today as I observed a 4th grade classroom where I was met by stares and shy blushing 4th graders. At least that's better than the preschool I observed the day before where two little boys stared at me and kept rubbing their upper lips in fear that they too would sprout a mustache in seconds. Being an American in the port town of Surat Thani makes me an oddity to start with. Having a beard makes me a muppet, something you have seen on TV, believe they exist on a fictional street, but hope to never run into in real life in fear that your life will suddenly be sponsored by the number 7 and the letter "B".
Soooo....I had to make a big decision. Keep the beard and scare children or lose it. Let's just say that I will be looking pretty different than I have in the past 8 years. The short and shorn look will not only keep me on the cutting edge of Thai fashion but will also keep me cooler and hopefully stop the steady dripping that soaks my collar each day.

SO what is Thailand like?
Well, hot. Really hot. Makes you sleepy hot. Heat + jet lag + no understanding any words or letters on signs have had a strange euphoric effect on us making the smallest activities seem like some weird dream. I half expect to be walking down the street to see a shark with braces leaping over my head or a tiny person running after me speaking in tongues wearing a velvet jumpsuit (OK, I have weird dreams). None of that has happened but as we float through Surat Thani we have been chased by barking stray dogs and Tuk tuks (3 wheeled motorcabs).

COdie and I have our own house (no roommates) which I am sure we will appreciate later. Now, on the other hand, we would love to have someone to help us with the little day to day things. Where do we put out garbage? why is that man blasting music out of his house all day? how do we get water? how do we shut the dogs up at 3am? why are there cockroaches in or house? where do you go to buy earplugs.....
The bad news with the house is that other than two beds and two dressers there is nothing, I mean nothing, else. OK..there is a squat toilet downstairs and a western toilet upstairs but there is no furniture. After spending the past few days on a tile floor we bought an old used bamboo table from a second hand store. We're pretty proud of our set up. Now we can do any number of things like eat on a flat elevated surface. Yay!
Our street is mostly quiet except for morning and afternoon scooter traffic with people dropping their kids off at a nearby school. Nights are quiet until the inevitable dog fight that wakes us up until it ends. We have a lap pool nearby that the teachers at our school go to for exercise. I think I am going to get some goggles and start lap swimming for exercise. There are evening yoga classes that we will start up with after we get back from the October break.

The best part of Thailand so far has been the food. Piles and piles of delicious Thai food with meals costing us usually less than a dollar. Yesterday I ate dinner three times as we walked through the night market. From the best buttered corn, to seafood Pad Thai, to strange meat on a stick with flies buzzing around it we are always in the mood to try something. There are plenty of deep fried bugs so I will definitely make sure to bring some back for everyone.

Our teaching gig won't really get going until next month so for now we are observing classes but will be teaching both high school and three kindergarten classes. We observed a 4th grade class learning action verbs in team style competition. They got to choose their own team name and everything. And what do you suppose they would pick for teams? The Packers, Bulls, Fighting Unicorns. No such luck as team Emo and team Innocent went head to head.

The teachers at the school are all awesome and have been really nice to us. They are all tired after a long semester and going different ways travelling throughout Thailand currently, so I think we'll really start getting to know people after traveling in October.

We will probably leave tomorrow or the next day and travel throughout Thailand in October as our school needs our passports to process our visas. We're not sure yet where we will be going but will let you know when we get there.


We're going to a book exchange tonight with the other English speakers at a bar. We'll write soon and include pictures of our house and my missing beard.