PATravel: Thailand Adventure Part II

Thailand Adventure Part II

03.05.2012

As I sat listening to the deep baritone voice of the exquisite woman cutting Pete’s hair, I realized it’s been far too long and too much is happening for me not to write it down. Right now, we are sitting on the porch of a little wooden bungalow, my feet resting on a hammock and listening to the chorus of bugs that accompany sundown. Today was our first full day on the island of Koh Tao, which literally translated means “Turtle Island.” We have completed our 3 week TEFL course and have a week to kill before we have to be in Bangkok for work orientation by our agency, Media Kids. Pete and I started our 4 day diving course today and spent most of the day at the bottom of a pool learning how to breathe through scuba gear. Our instructor is an Irish marine biologist called ‘Mama G’, calls everyone ‘sweetie’ or ‘beautiful,’!

We arrived in Koh Tao yesterday afternoon following a long day of buses and ferries dragging our luggage through the sand to get to our resort. We are 50 metres from the sea, but have been far too spoiled with our previous accommodation. The basic wooden bungalow with only a fan is about 10 degrees hotter inside than outside and we are getting munched by anything that flies and has more than 4 legs! Thank goodness for the mozzie net!

Tomorrow, after writing a short exam, we go on 2 dives up to 12m, followed by 2 more dives the next day up to 18m. Whale sharks have been spotted left, right and centre so we are all rubbing our ‘lucky nipples’ that we’ll see one.

Went for a wonder through town this afternoon before Pete suddenly decided to have his hair cut. Enter our 1^st direct experience with a Thai ladyboy. With looks that belonged on the catwalk and a voice akin to a rugby prop, she cut Pete’s hair in 10 minutes in one of the best styles I’ve seen!

Ladyboys are considered the 3^rd gender in Thailand and, according to most people we’ve spoken to, are wholly accepted members of society. Dig a little deeper, however, and you find that ladyboys are not allowed to attend school or hold government posts unless they dress as men. Even more surprising is the information that children as young as 8 can already tell if they will be ladyboys and may start taking hormones to make them more feminine before they hit their teens!! What a crazy world we live in! But I’m sure there will be more to write on this in the not too distant future…

As I mentioned at the beginning, I have quite a bit of catching up to do. The last time I wrote, we had just experienced our 1^st earthquake and tsunami warning. Since then we have celebrated the Thai New Year. Known as Songkran, this festival is a 1-6 day long water fight that makes null and void every sign we’ve ever seen about saving water. It started serenely enough at breakfast with Pete pouring a bowl of water over a little Buddha statue and hanging a string of white flowers around his neck for good luck. However, by lunch time, everything turned into torrential chaos and every person in sight was drenched from top to toe. Buckets, hosepipes, water pistols, jugs- every conceivable water container known to man was filled and dumped on anyone or anything walking by. Passing cars and mopeds were no exception and carried water throwing villains of their own. Between getting soaked, pasty concoctions of talcum powder mixed with coloured food dye was plastered onto our cheeks while everyone shrieked ‘Happy Sonkran.’

We have never been so wet for so long or laughed so hard in our lives! Needless to say we slept very well that night.

Since this weekend, our first in Krabi, we’ve been island hopping, snorkelling and kayaking in mangrove forests. We’ve weathered tropical rainstorms with raindrops that hit you like bullets and bend the coconut palms almost horizontal, only for them to clear up in 20 minutes and leave exquisite sunset displays that cast rainbow colours across the limestone cliffs. We have swum in 30’C ocean water and watched lightening trapped in the thunderheads on the horizon.

We’ve photographed monkeys on the beach fishing for clams and avoided the myriad of mangy dogs as we hiked up the 1,237 steps to Wat Tham Sui (Tiger Cave Temple). We’ve seen a white breasted golden eagle catch a fish right beside our kayak and spent the evening watching fire dancers on the beach.

We have finally learnt how to digest Thai food, although not without the occasional bout of ‘dribbly bum,’ a term kindly donated by Bradley Jones, a friend of Pete’s. In fact, Thai food has been quite the adventure in its own right and deserves its own little right write up at some stage.

Finally, and probably most importantly, we have learnt the basics about becoming a teacher in Thailand. For 4 days of the training we were taken to teach at 2 local Thai schools. The facilities of these classrooms were basic to say the least. A long way from the interactive whiteboards and padded cushions of Western schools. Concrete floors, no classroom doors and the odd centipede crawling on the wall. Not to mention the local farm animals that sometimes competed with you acoustically during the lesson! (Cows, chickens, cats and goats) Reminded us so much of the Transkei back home. Pete was even lucky enough to watch an epic Discovery Channel-like battle between a spider and wasp that saw the spider paralysed and dragged off to its doom.

But like so many people, those with the least are often the most grateful, and we left the schools with so much more than we gave (including a personally picked pineapple from the field across the dirt road).

Tomorrow will be exactly a month since we left chilly England. This time next month we should be settled into Chaiyaphum and our new school. Again, it strikes me how fast your life can change. It’s been an incredible privilege so far and all that’s left to do is carry on seeing what’s around the next corner. Here’s hoping it’s a whale shark!! :-)