One night in Bangkok and the World's your fresh, succulent Oyster :P

Yesterday was quite an amazing day.  My friend Krissy and I were one of the few who did not have to make a US Embassy stop, so we decided to tour the city on our own.  We took the river ferry (50 cents US) for about 20-25 minutes all the way down to stop number 1.  It was such a beautiful ride.  For so cheap one can get a great view of the parts of the city near the main river Chao Phraya: Wat Pho, the Grand Palace, the skyscrapers, the markets, the little fishing and tourist boats, just everything.  With the wind in your face and the sun above head, there’s nothing you can’t do.  Everything about this city seems to empower me, and yet there are poor, claustrophobic areas or homeless/limbless people that can bring you down from time to time.  But try not to dwell on it too much.  Life is life, and I have even seen some who have no arms and no legs with the biggest smiles on their faces, and instead of making me cry, that smile is contagious, and it makes me happy that they, if even for one moment, are truly happy. 

I have given some here and there. One homeless man that we passed was eating hungrily, and he spied my bottle of water and gestured towards it as if he had just returned from the desert, dying of thirst.  He said nothing, only gestured fiercely, and I gave it to him for the force of his need.  But you cannot, unfortunately, give everything.  If you gave 5 baht for every person who asked, you would come up short nearly $50 US dollars every day.  That’s how many there are here in need, and though I am much blessed, I cannot afford it.  And honestly, this is part of the reason traveling abroad is so damn important.  I hate to sound snooty, but most of the United States, even what we would consider to be the poor areas, are living in a luxury unknown to people elsewhere.  Traveling to a place like this (or the poor areas I visited in Mexico) opens one’s eyes to what real poverty is.  And there are of course pockets of real poverty in the States, but it is so much more rare than what one encounters on the side sois of Bangkok or the villages outside Oaxaca.  There is a reason behind “The American Dream” … but how can you know the truth of that dream if you have not seen the dreams of other places?

Nevertheless, this city has so much to offer.  Some of the friends within my small traveling group are already sick of it, bored, hot, going crazy for something else.  But me: this IS my something else.  This is why I left my parents’ couch.  I knew, I just knew there was something else going on somewhere else on the planet, and I was missing out.  I love the friends I made back home, and I wouldn’t give up those friendships for anything, or the quality time spent with my family… but I was born to travel—to be mobile, to soak it up, to absorb it in.  The world, my friends.  Boom! The world.  It is bigger than anything imaginable, and yet small enough to find your way if you are lost.  And you should never be afraid to ask for directions.  Though there may be much evil to face, I will always believe that people are generally good, and I refuse to believe that belief makes me naïve.  One must strike a balance between innocent naivety and guilt-ridden cynicism.  I feel as though my life is one big pattern of losing myself to my surroundings, and then finding myself again once I move.  Movement is all there is.  Once you have exhausted yourself in one place, it is time to find another, full of new faces, for there are always more souls to explore that your heart will never forget. 

I saw a part of Bangkok today that was uninhabited by tourists.  It was dirtier than I have yet seen—people stacked upon people, stand stacked upon stand selling everything you could imagine having: clothes, shoes, gadgets, foods of all crazy varieties, tours, tickets, books, music, videos, lights… EVERYTHING!  And the side sois (streets) were crowded as hell, hot and humid as hell, claustrophobic as hell.  But I love it.  I may as well be in heaven with all this stimulation, cheap awesome clothes, cheap awesome everything. 

I mean, I can see how others can get sick of it all so easily, but I feel I am just beginning in Bangkok, and there are still so many other areas of Thailand to get to know.  A year may not even be enough for me.  I can see myself living here for quite some time, living the traveler’s life out of backpacks and lockers and skytrains and water taxis.  Simplify, simplify, simplify.  A group of robed, orange-clad baby monks here, some school children in uniform making trouble there.  Street food here, a luxurious Western-style spa over there.  How could I begin to describe all the details?  I am always on guard, yet always open to new possibilities.  Even the Ping Pong show seems so arbitrary and unimportant to me now, even though at the time it was the grossest thing ever.  The unsanitary bathrooms, the lack of garbage cans and/or recycling centers, the things I am used to an efficient society having are simply stereotypes to grow out of as the days stretch by.  I am an empty vessel… fill me, oh Lord, with what you will.  I trust you to watch over me in each pair of true eyes I find.  May the force be with you, as it is with me, my anonymous friends and readers....  

Patong and Bangkok, BOOM!

Whew!  This has been my first chance of downtime since Friday.  Friday night I saw Patong, Phuket for the first time.  Dirty, dirty, down and dirty.  I had heard of the infamous Ping Pong shows before, but until you see it for yourself, you just cannot realize the greedy feeling of sweaty, dirty sex in the air – all these people watching these women pull object after object out of their vajayjays.  Ping pong balls are the least disgusting… razor blades, multiple goldfish, a fucking rat.  Some of my friends were laughing at me because I was in a corner with my arms crossed, just disgusted out of my mind.  The look on my face must have said it all, because watching that shit made me, as an individual woman, feel degraded for all of womankind.  It was bringing my spirits down fast, and I just couldn’t enjoy myself and laugh at it like everyone else.

I’m not stupid.  I understand that pornography and the sex industry in this world is highly lucrative, and run by men to please men’s desires.  But for the first time in my life, Patong was a huge reality check.  This crap really does exist, and it makes me sick to my stomach.  The mix of disgusting greed in so many eyes, mixed with disgusted looks from other tourists just brought everything home hard.  And it wasn’t that I felt sorry for the girls.  They were absolutely confident in what they were doing.  To them it was not degrading, it was nothing but another night of sweet money makin’.  That fact by itself was enough to make me both pity and resent everything about it.  I had refused to pay for the show from the beginning, but then they let me in for free anyway, so I figured I might as well have the experience while I’m here.  Now I wish I could give it back.  Witnessing that scene added nothing to my life, or my journey as a traveler except opening yet another avenue of the extreme “fucked up-ness” of the world. 

Ok, moving on.

The rest of the night was spent dancing at a club called Tiger, tequila shots, followed by a wonderful night swim wherein a friend of ours lost his pants in the ocean (hahahahaha!!!) and had to borrow my teeny tiny hot pink Koh Phi Phi shorts to wear back to his room, hahaha.  Oh giggles.  I don’t think he has any idea how much joy that memory will bring me for the rest of my life.  Whenever I’m feeling down, all I have to do is imagine this guy walking up from the beach pulling his shirt down over his wang!  Seriously may be the most hilarious image ever. 

Saturday was one of the best days of my life.  We were done with training, had nothing to worry about, so we all laid on beautiful Nai Harn beach all day drinking beers and letting the refreshing salt water wash over our bodies for the last time.  It was our last day as a group, and I had so much fun hanging out with my new wonderful friends and sharing my poetry with them.  Some people left that day, but me and a core group of six awesome people stuck around until the next evening and took the 7 o’clock bus to Bangkok.  That was the easiest twelve hour bus ride ever, totally smooth.  And when we got to the station, we were immediately offered a ride to our hotel, which turned out to be too expensive, so we went a little way down Khao San street and got a much cheaper deal. 

After our showers and collective pulling of the selves together, we went out to eat.  One of the boys was having a lot of stomach pain, so he went back to the hotel.  The rest of us, however, somehow got talked into a crazy city tour in a tuk-tuk.  It actually turned out to be a really fun experience, and we were all really into it.  Those tuk-tuks are ridiculously fun, like riding a rollercoaster in mad traffic.  The fun wore off, however, after the drivers made us stop at like three different places to “shop” so he could get free gas coupons from the shop owners.  No, I don’t want any tailored suits, snakeskin boots, or cut-gems from what looks to be a sweatshop operation. 

We finally made it to Siam Square, a giant Asian shopping mall full of all kinds of goodies.  We ate at this like, Japanese buffet where they give you a pot of boiling broth at your station, and you take whatever plate you want off of the conveyor belt moving in front of you, and put it into the pot to cook it.  It was kind of surreal, very futuristic.  I had a lot of shrimp, crab, clams, corn, etc, but they had so much to choose from: mushrooms, pork, beef, fish, all you can eat sushi and (strangely enough) hot dogs at another counter.  Needless to say, I had my fill.  I have been looking for sushi since I got here and I finally found some!  I didn’t exactly get to pick the kinds I wanted, but at least I found some.  I also finally got a phone, which rocks because now I will be able to stay in touch with all the good souls from the program that are now spread all over from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to Ayuttaya, Petchabun, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.  I already have travel plans to visit many of these people.  Can’t wait to set my eyes on all the beauty this country has to offer. 

I start teaching for real in one week!!  I am so nervous, but I know I’ll be fine.  Top priorities for this week: massage, manicure, pedicure (I want to do the thing where fish eat all the dead skin off your feet!), shopping for conservative teaching clothes (barf), the Grand Palace, and who knows what blessings the days to come will bring.  Much love to the ones I miss.  Signing off for now.

Halfway through humpday on the third hot ass week, I...

taught English.  Well, some English.  A few words at least probably stuck somewhere in their little 16 year old subconsciousnesses.  Yep, totally just used that word.  It was such an interesting experience, especially when we get to watch our other classmates teach a lesson.  I love learning from other people's mistakes :P  But in actuality most of us are pretty damn good at speaking English very slowly and repeating the same simple words multiple times.

I also received my school information this week.  You know, they hired me in October for training, they've only had five months to place me, so the official info just came in yesterday.  In another three days I hop a bus to Bangkok for a few days and then head up north to start teaching in basically a week.  But overall I am happy with my placement and will be living with some awesome girls, one of which I had the opportunity to watch while teaching yesterday.

During her lesson the air conditioner started leaking a waterfall on the tables and five boys just got up and went to the bathroom together.  She couldn't do anything about the waterfall, she thought the boys were just moving desks, so she let them leave, tries to continue her lesson while being evaluated with all this distraction.  She didn't know what to do, but she handled it better than most would I think.  Kind of a ridiculous situation.  Meanwhile I was so hot today, and still getting over food poisoning, so didnt have much in my stomach, I thought I was going to faint in the non-airconditioned classroom.  Luckily I had my trusty bag of sunflower seeds and a bottle of water to get me through the rest of the lessons.

In other news, after my last night of Muay Thai training (sad face), I met some more great new people, and some of us went to a cheap and delicious new place to eat further on up the road.  I was finally getting my appetite back, so I tried the fried shrimp with chili paste.  Superb.  And less than three dollars.  We had a good time and some of us got back a little late, but it was worth it.  Who needs sleep anyway?  And there has been a little moodiness and drama in the crew of lates, so it was kind of nice to step away for a minute.  It seems third week is the breaking point, everyone is busy, getting irritated with each other, and by the way, did I mention that we broke the record for the class with the most hospital trips?  Ya, needless to say, it's not the best week for us a whole, but none of it changes the fact that I have met some great friends here and I am going to miss them when I leave in four days.

Four days.  Holy crap.  I need to organize my crap.  It's almost midnight, I have to be up at 6, I haven't really practiced my lesson, I'm writing my blog instead of working, I need to go to sleep, but I must clear my bed of a boxing bag, a sweater, a pair of dress pants, a computer bag, a hat, some school materials, my Thailand travel book, my binder, my notepad, an empty water-bottle, my sunglasses, camera, a pair of bball shorts, scissors, and a watch.  And that's just my bed, that doesnt include the counters, the sides of our beds, and the bathroom.  Me and Mer-bear are so monstrously messy.  Poor cleaning ladies.  They seriously don't even try to clean our room anymore.  Oh well... so much to say, so much to do, and so little time.  I gotta go clear off my bed now, ciao.

Koh Phi Phi and Two Kinds of Poisoning

Saturday morning about 19 of us caught the ferry to the island called Koh Phi Phi.  You may have seen it in the movie The Beach.  It was such a gorgeous ride.  It took over an hour, but when we finally got near the island all you can see are these huge slate-colored cliff sides covered in bright green vegetation.  After we docked, we had to carry all our stuff to a place called the Tropical Garden Bungalows, and holy cow was it a hot walk!  The bungalows were pretty sweet, a few beds on the floor, a table, a western style bathroom (thank god) and a shower sprayer.  My favorite was the mosquito net.  The stairs to the top are made of stone, and all the bungalows are log, with a nice spacious porch.  The pool was pretty small, but the bar was right there next to it, and the Thai guys that owned the place were super friendly (if not a little too friendly, haha).  I couldn't figure out what the one dude was trying to say to me, and then I made out the word "sexy" and I was like, haha, thanks... totally awkward turtle.

We spent all day walking around the island drinking giant beers, shopping around, seeing some of the other beaches.  At night we went to the main beach where they had like eight outside dance floors set up right there on the beach.  We watched the fire dancers for a long time and then all proceeded to get pissed and dance up a storm.  The music and the lights were fabulous, wicked club style.  Everyone was going crazy, having fun, meeting new people, getting separated.  The streets in this place were small, it was like a big maze, so I made sure to go back with a few people in the group so I would find the bungalow alright.  It was a late night, and I put on my headphones, but still didn't sleep much.  The next day, some of the girls caught the early ferry back to Phuket.  Most of us, however, stayed at the bungalows being completely lazy and hungover on the porch until the next ferry.

I tried to eat the English breakfast from the hotel- it was supposed to be two fried eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, coffee and juice.  The liquids were fine, but everything else looked weird.  There was only one baby bite of regular bacon, the sausages looked more like strange hot dogs, my tomatoes on the side had mold on it, and the eggs seriously seemed plastic.  Needless to say, I didnt eat much.  So by around 1:30 I was starving.  We stopped at a cart to grab some food, and four of us got the cheeseburger.  I took a bite, and the burger patty looked a bit sketchy, a little too reddish pink, and I should have just put it down and got something else.  But I was so hungry at that point that I just ate it.  Worst decision of my life.  Immediately after, the entire ferry ride, my stomach was not happy with me.  I should have just gone into the bathroom and pulled some bulimia moves, but I figured it was just from the drinking the night before.  When we got back to Phuket, I went with a few others to a giant mall to buy some clothes for teaching the next day.  I should have just gone back to the hotel and rested (I was sooo exhausted!).  Plus we had all just had so much sun that whole weekend.  But instead I went, and when we finally did get back, my stomach just got worse and worse.

By 9pm I had full fledged food poisoning mixed with a good dose of sun poisoning.  My stomach was so cramped, and though I had nausea, nothing was coming out, so I just had to deal with it.  My body was so weak I could barely lift a water bottle.  My skin was boiling hot to the touch, I was feverish, sweating, getting chills, and my chest and nose were so congested it was hard to breathe, and my heart rate was so high I thought it was going to explode in my chest, or that I was going to have a heart attack.  I seriously thought I was going to die.  I have never experienced this kind of pain in my life, and I have been sick plenty of times with the flu, or some kind of bug from bad food, but nothing like this.  Ever.  All I wanted was to be home again.  But I suppose that's a natural reaction considering what was happening to me.

All my friends in the program were so so sweet, and my buddy Brian had just been through the same thing a few days earlier, so he assured me that I wasn't going to die, and that I just had to wait through the night to let it pass.  I put in my headphones and listened to Adele over and over until I finally fell asleep (thanks for that CD MaryJo, it saved me!).  In the morning, I was much better, but still not 100% and I didn't want to push myself by going to the non-air-conditioned school to teach with the others.  So I stayed behind and slept until almost 2pm.

Right now I am eating some cup o noodles and crackers just to get something in my stomach, and a ginger ale to calm it down.  But the pain and the cramping kind of goes in and out.  I am watching Law & Order on TV, and it reminds of being home with my grandma.  It's making me miss her so much.  And I just had a fight over facebook with my brother and it's making me really upset too.  This really just isn't my day.  But writing it down and sharing with others makes it a little easier to deal with.  Now I have to go practice for my lesson tomorrow.  I hope I feel up to it, because I chose the absolute worst time in the program to get food poisoning.  Oh well, this too shall pass...

"We're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fishbowl..."

It is impossible to write every detail, every step on any particular leg of this journey of ours.  This journey that we all share together.  Yet so much of me desires to do so.  To record every second, every beautiful face, every wonderful moment, so that I will never forget.  But it is impossible.  It is impossible to describe all the experiences one person can undergo in just a week and a half.  All I can say is, this adventure has only reinforced what I already knew, that I live for the people I meet - for those that I have met, for those I am currently getting to know, and for those who have yet to impact the very course of my world, my thinking.

When we travel, we already make ourselves vulnerable.  We put ourselves in a brand new context and we wait to see what happens.  We don't know the language, we don't know the culture, we don't know the geography... and so, in my opinion, all this "unknowning" somehow opens us up - makes us less nervous about what others think, because the fact is, you're fucking foreign.  Nobody is going to understand you anyway, you are automatically an outsider.  And when you are with a group who speaks your same language and can communicate with you, like the 29 other classmates I live with and travel with on a daily basis, that openness tends to expand and intensify, because they become the only people that you feel understand you.

You let your guard down, and they also lower theirs.  We are traveling, now is not the time to keep a closed heart or mind.  You accept what you find.  And I for one never stop being amazed at how quickly and how deeply people can come to know each other and fall in love.  For I am in love with this group of people - their various personalities, their individual senses of humor, their talents... It is difficult to process all of the information received about who they are, where they come from and why they think the things they do, or act the way they act.  It is simply impossible to record it all in my journal, to try to make sense of it all.  And there is something magical about that too.  It would have to take a most expansive imagination to put it all together in a meaningful way.  But I hope someday to have enough courage and imagination to do just that.

And it's not just those in my group either... I have met some wonderful Thais, Americans, Italians, Germans, etc., outside of this program that light up my life... make me smile.  No matter how much I try to record in my journal, I have so far never forgotten the spirit-enlarging connections I have made with other beautiful traveling bodies during my past adventures, and therefore there is no reason to think that I could forget the experiences of this last week and half.  It feels as though I have already met, known and loved each of these individuals, and every time, we're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fishbowl year after year...  I really do wish you were here.

Training and... More Training

Today they trained us how to teach young learners (ages 4-12).  I know it would be difficult, but I really hope I get to teach little Thai babies, they are the cutest!  They won't have a clue what I'm saying, but who knows?  At this point, everyone around the world knows at least a little English... right?

I was super tired, though, all morning... Last night I had some bad dreams about being in a tsunami and I woke up crying in the middle of the night.  My dreams here, sadly enough, have been very vivid and very dark.  It's weird because I usually never have dark dreams at home, but here I have had quite a few and they leave me in a total funk for a few hours every morning.  My dream last night made me cry again when I woke up this morning because I could not stop thinking about Japan, and how defeated I would feel if I lost any of my friends or family to something so brutal and unstoppable.  Little did I know that Japan had yet another aftershock today.  My heart goes out to that country and its people, though I am still upset that they are deciding to dump all the radioactive water back into the ocean.  Why can't we just shoot that shit into space and call it good?

Anywho, around 3:15pm I had to have a snack, so I decided to check out the pancake cart everyone has been raving about.  I had a banana pancake for a dollar, and it was the most delicious pancake of my life.  They put this sugary white syrup all over it, and it's kind of like a mix between a pancake and a crepe.  OMG, yum.  Ok guys, I get it now.  Thai pancakes rock, and they have all different flavors (tomorrow I am going to try the pineapple), and you can get them with nutella and gummy bears and all sorts of different goodies.  I have decided that when I go back to the states I am going to start a food cart business and put vendors at every club corner on weekends so all the drunk kids will buy my food and I will be rich.  Then I can use that money to retire half the year in Thailand and half in Italy.  Fool proof I tell you.

Somehow that pancake made me feel much better and I decided to go to Muay Thai training today.  I made sure to stock up and liquids.  A few other girls came with us today, and they loved it.  My trainer, Mai, is fighting tomorrow in Patong at the boxing stadium there, and I really really want to go watch him, but fights for Americans here are like $40 a ticket (whereas they are only $3 for Thais...lame), and nobody wants to go with me, and I have a lot of reservations about going to Patong for the first time alone at night.  So I probably won't go.  Damn the man.  Normally I wouldnt mind venturing solo, but Patong is sin city capital of the world - it seriously makes Vegas look innocent, and I just don't want to be walking around all paranoid.  It makes everything so unenjoyable.  Damn the man.  I really wanna go.  Oh well, I guess I will see a fight in Bangkok.  The club owners made us this delicious electrolyte drink made of nothing but blended banana and coconut milk.  It's way better than gatorade.  And after that I stopped off at this Vegan, raw organic bar and had my fill of Kambucha.  If you've never had kambucha, it is basically a fermented tea that helps clean out the bacteria in your digestive system.  It tastes like apple juice gone bad, a bit sour, but all in all it's not too bad, and it definitely makes you feel better if you've had any kind of stomach issues.

Dinner tonight was pretty chill, a bunch of us went to this cheap thai place called the Coconut Cafe just a short walk from the hotel.  I had the fried beef with garlic, chili and mushrooms.  And of course, a giant Chang (thai beer).  We took it easy because tomorrow we all have to peer teach in front of our classmates an actual real lesson plan, and nobody wants to be feeling like crap when they teach.  Trust me, I've done it before and it's not fun.  Plus we are being evaluated.  I hate being evaluated, unless it's by hot men.  Alright, well, I suppose I should get some rest then.  Mer bear is already passed out in the other bed, and I'm worried my incessant typing is keeping her awake.  But probably not.  If you are my friend and you are reading this, I miss you.  Much love, and keep on keepin' on...

Coral Island & Rawai

Two nights ago a bunch of us went to eat dinner at an Italian place near the Reggae Bar.  It was expensive, but Renata, the chef, makes all her own pasta right there in house – best tortellini al ragu ever!  I was so happy to meet some more Italians (Roberto, Fabrizio, Martina), they were so friendly, and of course practicing my Italian always gets me excited.  It reminds me of the wonderful times I had with my beautiful Brendina in Perugia.  I am still astounded by the large Italian population here, I had no idea I would get to practice so much in Thailand. 

After dinner we went to a club in Rawai called Laguna.  It seemed like five separate rooms all connecting to make one pretty large puzzle of a club.  I was enjoying myself thoroughly, getting to know the other kids in our crew, and teaching the Thai bartenders how the Germans shoot Sambucca.  They failed miserably, but hey, at least they tried.  We ended up finding this darkened, private dance room in the back and that’s where we stayed the rest of the night until it was time to go home. 

When I woke up the next morning I was a still a little intoxicated.  So obviously I thought the best idea would be to go down to the minimart next to the hotel and purchase myself a giant beer and a pack of smokes.  I went down to the beach and watched some guys training Muay Thai.  I introduced myself to a few of them, mostly Germans and Swedes.  Then around 10am, the majority of us hired a bus to take us to the Rawai pier where we had some skiffer boats waiting to take us out to Coral Island where we spent all day playing on the beach, drinking beer, snorkeling and chillin’ with the locals.  Too much beer and sun made Bri pretty faded by the time we got back, and I passed out immediately for a nice afternoon nap.  When I came to, I was still feeling pretty exhausted, but I trotted my way down to that Italian place and ate dinner with all those Italians I had met the night before.  I just can’t get over how at home I feel here.  Everyone is so friendly and wonderful. 

Today some friends and I ate lunch in Rawai, I tried the fresh deep fried squid, which was pretty good, but my favorite was the grilled red snapper.  They had all the fish and shells and stuff right there at the front of the restaurant, so you could pick whichever one you wanted and they cook it up perfect.  You just can’t beat it for 150 baht (5 bucks).  We walked around doing some street strolling and shopping.  There was a place by the pier that had teak wood carvings so incredibly detailed I wish I could have bought a bunch and shipped them home.  Maybe I will eventually. 

Afterward I hopped on the back of my buddy’s scooter and we went to a giant shopping complex where all the clothes were so ugly and expensive.  Needless to say, I didn’t do much shopping there, but I did get some necessities I was needing and a couple of nice skirts I found from the street vendors outside the complex.  Tomorrow is the second week of training and we will be doing a lot of peer teaching, so I have to look nice.  Well, I suppose that is all for now, I’m going to bed.  Catch you on the flipside.  

Week One: Welcome to the Jungle, we got Fun and Games

Saturday April 2nd, 2011 – 6:55am, Phuket Thailand (I am posting this after the fact, so these first entries don't match the blog date)

I have never written a blog, but I have kept a diary since I was fourteen years old.  I am now almost 26, and I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of raw, unshaped material.  This is something new and different for me.  In a diary, one writes to themselves, or to god, or to something unknown and unnamable, something that has no judgment, no advice – just silence to listen.  And that is what so many of us need: to be listened to.  To be heard.  For blogging, the audience changes.  It is somehow more risky, opening oneself to the masses.  But I am ready to be heard.  I fancy myself a good writer, and there are things in my heart and head that I feel should be shared with whoever so chooses to read my stories.  So thank you, in advance, for reading them.  For once the fabric of another’s words enters your existence, you are no longer strangers.  And sometimes, someone else’s words and experiences will change you forever.  For why would so many people write these things if not to find themselves, and be found by others? 

The first time I left home for new adventures was when I went to college at eighteen years old.  It was only three hours away, but I cried for days, lonely and afraid, yearning to crawl back to my mother’s arms.  Thankfully, that phase passed rather quickly, and I soon found new friends, new books, and new teachers to light my way and occupy my time.  Eight years later, though, it hasn’t gotten any easier to leave my family behind.  Quite a few months ago I decided it was again time to flee the nest.  There is only so long I could live, as an adult, with my parents, not utilizing my degree, because ultimately I regress to being dependent on them and my hometown, rather than living the adventurous, independent life I have imagined for myself. 

I applied for a teaching job in Thailand and was accepted in the training course to teach English overseas.  After living in Italy for six months, and a small stint in Mexico, this is my third venture abroad, and my destination took approximately twenty hours of flying time alone.  I have finally learned that no matter where I go, how long I stay, or how old I become, I will always be a mama’s girl, and I will always miss the glorious ones I cannot take with me.  “Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known.  Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.  But I’ve made up my mind. I ain’t wasting no more time.”  So here I am again, alone and afraid in a foreign country.  Except this time I know the phase will pass, and the loneliness fade as soon as I find those friendly faces I was meant to meet. 

Phuket reminds me so much of Mexico: the heat, the humidity, the smell.  Already so early, the market beneath my hotel window bustles with shoppers buying fresh fruit and fish for frying.  The buses and motorcycles run non-stop with the beeping sounds of traffic I love so much.  But the streets are crazy, and the motorcycle taxis drive on the shoulder, so close to the lanes it looks like they could be sucked under the wheels of a truck with one wrong move.  And the locals don’t seem to care or notice; they move not for moving vehicles in parking lots or airport pickups.  Go the hell around, I’m walking here.  As for myself, I think I will stick to the elevated walkways and make sure to look all ways before I cross…

Having never written a blog, it’s hard to know how to end an entry.  Being a student of literature, all my conclusions had to be formal, a summation of the general theme and its importance as to where we go from here.  But I think I will enjoy this more amorphous way of writing, more like stream of consciousness.  Let me finish by announcing that after several years of unfounded skepticism, I am officially a blogger.  Congratulations to me.  

Sunday April 3^rd, 2011 – 6:40pm Phuket Thailand

I am no longer scared and alone.  I have met several people from the program, and they are all like me: open minded, open to adventure, and love to travel and have fun.  It truly amazes me, and it happens every time, how quickly people can get to know each other, become friends, trust each other, swap stories, etcetera etcetera etcetera.  It seems it takes no time at all.  If you find one thing in common, that’s all you need, and the rest, as they say, is history.  My roommate is a lively fireball from New York City who, until recently, was living in San Francisco.  She, unlike my previous roommates, is NOT a passive-aggressive bitch.  Thank you Jesus.  I mean, we have only known each other for a few days, but I know enough to know that if we do have problems, we will be able to talk them out.  She is certainly not shy, and certainly not afraid to speak her mind, and neither am I.  We also share some other, quite coincidental experiences and personality traits that lead me to believe this is a good thing. 

There is a guy from South Africa (whose accent I absolutely adore!) who is so extremely outgoing and funny and nice, and I learned last night, when we all went out to dinner together, that he shares in my everlasting love for Led Zeppelin; we have the same Jimmy Page symbol tattoo from album IV J.  One thing in common will strike up a conversation wherein you find so many other commonalities.  There are two older women in the program (probably 35-40 years of age – hey that’s older to me!) and they are some of the spunkiest women ever.  One is from New Orleans with one hot ass hairstyle and the sweetest demeanor, and the other hails from Brazil, has no shame in sharing her botox stories, and loves to party, if not harder than myself.  So much for detoxing in Thailand, haha.

I had these grand illusions (or delusions?) that I would be completely alcohol and tobacco free during this trip.  I don’t know who I was kidding.  Oh that’s right, I was kidding myself.  I am what I am, and I do what I do, and that is that.  When you meet cool people who do the same, it’s hard to stay on the wagon.  Or is it off the wagon?  I can never remember.  Anywho, what I am trying to say is, partying brings people together.  Plus packs of cigs are like two bucks.  And last night a bunch of us went to the Reggae bar where we proceeded to douse each other in black light responsive paint, dance our asses off, and barter for beer.  The guy from Virginia got the tender down to 30 baht, while the rest of us were being charged anywhere from 50-100 baht for the same beer (Exchange is approximately 30 Thai baht to the dollar).  This place (Thailand) is like nothing I have ever seen.  This particular bar had a very open architectural layout, but it was a dive, filled with big impressive paintings of an interesting conglomerate of people: Bob Marley, Mother Theresa, Jimi Hendrix, Buddhist statues having sex.  Mmmmmmmm, sex.  Oops, I digress.  There were half mutilated Barbie dolls hanging from the ceiling, and the bartender had huge dreads and was working shirtless with a smile the whole time.  And the DJ was a chick.  Rock on.  We must have looked like crazy tourists covered in modern war paint, but it didn’t take long for others to follow our lead and let themselves go.  You’re in Thailand, relax, go nuts, don’t judge. 

The food is amazing.  Anything you want for less than three dollars a plate: steamed prawns, spicy green curry, soup served in a coconut, pork fried rice with garlic and chilies, fresh squid, deep fried spring rolls, oodles of noodles, and of course you have the world variety: Italian, Mexican, American….  Big huge bottles of water are fifty cents, and big huge bottles of beer (Chang, Singha, Leo, Tiger) are only a dollar or two. 

The beach is… well, fucking paradise.  It’s super hot here and you sweat through your nice clean, dry clothes in about two seconds, but the sea is the perfect temperature, and sometimes the clouds roll in, or a nice breeze goes by to give you a bit of relief.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the boobs.  Naked boobs.  Old lady who doesn’t give a shit bare boobs walking down the beach like she owns this stretch of sand.  Someday that will be me, but for now I am a bit more modest.  But not much.  Also I don’t have a lot of boobage so sagging may be out of the question for me (fingers crossed).  I was unaware that nudity is optional here. Some of us were thinking about midnight ocean skinny dipping, but that might be too much for the first week.  We will have to sea.  And trust me, I’ll be looking. 

There are many others too, from England, Australia, Colorado, California, Canada, Romania, New Zealand, etcetera.  And I’m sure I will have more fun stories to share soon.  All of us are still a bit jet-lagged and/or hung-over from having too much fun (if there is such a thing), but all in all, each of us has had our bout of doubt and skepticism, and I think each of us has already gotten over it.  I am confident in this decision, and my mother will not be happy to hear that I may stay here forever.  She just might have to fly here and drag my tanned ass home if she ever wants to see this freckled face again, because I’m already in love with the Thai people.  They are the sweetest, and almost everyone in this particular area knows some English, but they are patient with me when I try to (probably poorly) speak the little Thai that I know. 

The landscape is also like nothing I have ever seen before.  Thick jungle between villages, leaves as big as my torso, palm trees as tall as… um… they’re fucking tall.  Sorry if I cuss too much for your style… get over it.  There are lots of homeless doggies  and kitties running around.  I want to pet them, but I’m afraid they will follow me around hoping I drop them some scraps.  I’m also slightly scared they may infect me with rabies or something.  So I let them do their thing. 

Actual training starts tomorrow, and none of us are ready to “go to school” again.  But hey, that’s what we came for, and I for one will stick this out if it kills me.  Three weeks is nothing, and I know it will fly by in no time.  Tomorrow after class me and spunky New Orleans are going to ask the monks if we can join them during their morning chant at Wat Nai Harn.  And then I may start training Muay Thai at Dragon, where another guy in the program is training, and he rented a moped thingy, so I will be able to grab rides from him, although I am skeptical about riding with an unexperienced American driver in Thailand.  These people are seriously crazy when it comes to traffic, as I may have mentioned, and will probably continuously mention because I just can’t get over it.  This one lady was riding around with a baby and no helmets.  Let me repeat that, an infant child being held with nothing but arms wearing no protection whatsoever.  I’m telling ya, nuts.  Friday night I plan on seeing a real fight in Phuket Town, and this weekend, weather permitting, some of us are going to go to Ko Phi Phi (main filming location for The Beach, starring my darling DiCaprio).  So, needless to say, I’m not feeling quite as homesick as the last entry may have insinuated.  Sorry mom.  You’re probably the only one reading this anyway, so I LOVE YOU! Tata for now…

Monday, April 4^th 2011 – 10:04pm Phuket, Thailand

I had my worst jet lag yet this morning before class.  I went for a run on the beach and when I got back my stomach was not happy with me and I felt so exhausted I could have passed out for another ten hours.  My roommate Mer Bear demanded that I get myself a smoothie to have something in my stomach before we started training, and thankfully I obeyed.  It definitely helped and by noon I was feeling much better, and had myself a healthy serving of chicken stir fry with veggies in a red curry sauce.

These first few days are all cultural training, and our teacher is a native Thai woman who is the most adorable thing I have ever met.  She is also super funny, which always makes learning easier.  There are about 35 of us in the course and today we received a crash course in Thai language and the varied customs of the Wai (which is where you put your palms together, and kind of bow and lift them to certain places on your face to show respect, depending on who you are talking to).  I didn’t get to go to the temple today because I decided I need to go shopping for some more proper clothes before I do that. 

After class me and Mer bear decided to get a traditional thai oil massage on the beach, where they have shaded massage shacks about every two feet.  We talked to lady down to 300 baht – ten bucks for an hour long massage!  And it was one of the best ones I’ve ever had.  They use their elbows and knees and feet, and stretch your body in all these crazy awesome ways.  All I could think the whole time was, “God I love my life.”  After that the program fed us dinner with 5 or 6 traditional thai foods.  There was spicy ground pork, some fried egg, shrimp pad thai, vegetables in green curry, chicken and tomato and mushroom in coconut milk (my favorite), and of course, fruit for dessert, which is the custom.  Fresh papaya, watermelon and pineapple.  Then our cute little Thai teacher made us get in a circle and do a few thai dances.  It seems some people in our group are missing the dancing gene, haha. 

Wednesday, April 6^th 2011 – Phuket Thailand

The writer in me is dying to go back and edit some of these entries, but I have decided against doing that so I can stay true to what I say at the time I’m feeling it.  Truth is unedited.  Last night about 13 of us went about 15 minutes north to Kata to have dinner.  I ordered the crab fried rice thai style and doused it in fish sauce – sooooooooo gooooooood.   Unfortunately it’s such a touristy area that the prices were a bit expensive, and the service there totally screwed us on the bill, saying we were some 350 baht short when we went around and made sure everybody paid for what they ordered.  Alright, whatever, Thais have to make a living too, I guess.  And I’m assuming they make a pretty decent living here considering all the tourists that probably go around paying full price without bartering.

After dinner we went walking, looking for a dance club, but we ended up at a bar on some corner not far from Kata center.  They had pool and, surprisingly, the game Jenga, weird.  And they played in a totally different way I had never seen before.  We all had a great time drinking together and bonding.  I finally met a real Italian!  (if you are unaware, I love Italy and speak quite a bit of Italian).  There are so many Italian restaurants here I was wondering how I hadn’t met a native yet, but I finally did.  Of course he ended up being a chunky fifty year old guy from Florence, but I didn’t care.  At that point I was just excited and uninhibited enough to practice my Italian again, and I did pretty damn good.  I introduced all my new program friends to my new friend Francesco, and my lovely Mer Ber roommate was so drunk she was speaking to him in English with a thick Italian accent, like that would make it easier for him to understand, haha!  Half the group grabbed a ride back home, but six of us stayed behind to have more fun.  I was having a pretty damn good time, but I was in the best shape of all of us, and I felt a little like the mama of the group wanting to make sure all my kids made it home ok.  And of course we did.  I knew it was time to go when I saw one of the South Africans passing out at the table.  So we said goodbye to our new Thai friends (whether they were ladyboys or not I could not say, but boy did they have some moves!) and we hopped on the truck back to Nai Harn Beach. 

I ended up staying up another few hours after that, shooting the shit with some classmates, getting to know each other and whatnot.  This morning me and Mer Bear woke up 20 minutes before class, so I rushed to the shower and got ready so I could grab a banana smoothie before the lesson.  I LOVE CLASS… so far.  I know it’s only the third day, but I feel like I have already learned so many helpful methods and activities for teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).  And all of our instructors are so sweet and patient and knowledgeable.  I hope to be like them someday, and just being a student again after a two year hiatus reminds me how thankful I am for all the amazing teachers out there, and how much I strive to imitate the qualities they possess. 

Yesterday was my first day back training Muay Thai.  We found this great place just a ten minute walk away from the hotel called Nai Harn Boxing Club.  It is owned by a wonderful American couple who just took it over, so they are trying to recruit some new peeps, and they gave us a pretty good deal.  So far it is just me and two other guys who want to train, but a lot of other people are pretty interested in checking it out for at least a session or two, so I hope they come.  The trainers are native Thai and speak hardly any English, but it is soooooo great!!!  In two days I have already been introduced to some incredible techniques I’ve never done before.  I finally get to use my elbows! Yay.  And ouch.  You better watch out if you try to mug me in a dark alley, because I could cause some serious damage.  And the owners are so wonderful.  After training we sat around for like 40 minutes just talking to them.  They too are (or were) in the English teaching business, teaching in South Korea for like twenty years!  And they have written books on the subject that are being used in public schools, so they are seriously hot shit, professionally speaking.  They also gave us some great tips on local places to eat, get massages and sauna treatment, etc…  even though I feel like all of Thailand is pretty much a sauna.  I am shocked at how much sweat I pour out while I’m training, and yet all the while my Thai trainer doesn’t have a single bead of sweat on his entire ridiculously cut Thai body. 

Ooooh!  I almost forgot to mention the street vendor I discovered today at lunch.  Some of the other students had told us about it, and now I am never going anywhere else for lunch here in Nai Harn.  This lady has a refrigerated cart that has everything you could possibly want on a stick: spicy chicken, crab, spicy hotdogs, sausages, pork wrapped in what looked to be some kind of egg roll thing, fish stuff, and I don’t even know what else.  So she takes whatever stick you want and deep fries it right there in front of you, then douses it in a spicy chili sauce and tosses some fresh cut cucumber and cabbage in the bag.  I ate fresh crab, chicken and sausage all for 25 baht!  For you Americans, that is the equivalent of just under a dollar for the best crab of my friggin’ life!  Yum. Yum. Yum.  And of course there are no liquor laws here, so you can grab an ice cold beer from any of the outside restaurants on the street to wash it down before you have to head back to class for the afternoon session.  Did I mention I am in Paradise???