Fire Dancer

My First Island

Motoring across the Gulf of Thailand headed towards Koh Samet I have what I call a "What the hell am I doing in Thailand?" moment. These moments are a good thing though, not a bad thing. I left my fair city of Petchaburi eight hours earlier and after taking a van to Bangkok, meeting up with a Thai friend and bussing to Ban Phe, there we were speed-boating towards a dimly lit mound rising from the ocean. Not a bad way to start a weekend in the islands.
We opted to be dropped off at the bar that night seeing as it was midnight and after being reunited with the orientation group we had become so close to, Samet immediatly became my home away from my home away from home.
Once there we did everthing one expects to do on an average weekend: swam, tanned, kayaked, ate, drank, watched fire dancers, and practiced hand stands. Koh Samet, although filled with Farang(Westerners) really is everything it is made out to be. Perfect white sand, blue-green water as clear as a glass out of my Grammy's kitchen, and of course bungalows. I don't know why I love bungalows, I don't even really now what the defining charactoristics of a bungalow are. I think maybe it is just the way the word sounds. Bungalow...Sigh...What a tough life I lead.

A Friend at the River Kwai

Morning Duty

Woke up this morning and at 5:45 and almost beat the rooster to breakfast. I don't know where he lives but that SOB can project. After a quick shower I was on the back of one of my officemates motorbike headed to town. We arrived in a busy downtown market and saw dozens of men draped in orange robes milling about form cart to cart. Actually, I say men but the youngest looked to be no more than 10 years old.
If you ever want to present food to a monk first of all don't say you are feeding them, I made this mistake. Pee' Tew, one of the teachers in my office told me, "You feed a baby or an animal, not a monk." After you know what it is you are doing the steps are easy.
Stop at any cart and purchase a or plates of food (depending on how many monks line up for your offering) that included: a small bowl of rice, a small bag of chicken, a juice drink, some fruit, a flower and a couple sticks of inscence. These Monk packs cost about 5-15 baht or 15-45 cents.
Pour the rice into the monk's bowl and place the rest of the food in the satchel slung over his shoulder. Then place the flower on top of the bowl which he will immediatly grab with his hand. The monks are not allowed to touch you, or you may not be allowed to touch them touch them...I am not sure. Once you have given him the flower you Wai him. This is an action that gives him the respect he deserves. When Wai'ing a monk you put your hands together fingers extending towards the sky and thumbs between your eyes. Then just close your eyes and bow your head. Congratulations you have succesfully given alms.

Good First Impressions

I have just now arrived in the city where I will be living for the next five months. It is called Phetchaburi (Pet-Boo-Ree) which means "The Diamond City". I just arrived so all I know so far is there are lizards everywhere and I have a mango tree and a banana tree in my backyard. Oh yeah, I have my own two bedroom house...strange.
Orientation was a whirlwind week. I rode an elephant, went bamboo rafting, swam in the River Kwai, saw a Muay Thai Boxing match, learned how to teach english, learned how to speak British, ate seaweed flavored chips(not good), and visited the Grand Palace of Thailand. All in all it was an amazing week and I feel extremely blessed to be here. The Thai people are amazingly kind and welcoming.
The collision here, and it can only be described as a collision, between eastern and western cultures is bizarre and hilarious. At Lumpini park in Bangkok there is a musical performance everynight on a huge stage that is about nine feet high and about the area of half a football field. Everyday at about six the show starts and they play/cover the exact same songs every single night. My favorite part of the show is when they play "My Lumps" by the Black Eyed Peas followed by a techno-version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan. Both songs involve about six back-up dancers and are accompanied by the WWF being projected on a movie screen at the back of the stage. A collision indeed.

Watch Your Step

When walking around Bangkok you must be careful where you step. The sidewalks are not built on any sort of foundation, they are simply bricks laid on top of the dirt. Therefore when it rains the bricks and dirt move freely and sometimes sink into the earth after a particularly good storm. It was after one such storm, when the raindrops were the size of softballs, that I adventured out of the hotel in search of a bowl of spicy noodle soup(Num Sup). I was not paying attention and I stepped on a particularly soft patch of earth. The mud and bricks made way for my sinking frame and I soon found myself in an underground cavern filled with travellers of all varieties. They had a wonderful community set-up there where everyone shared what little resources there were. They invited me to join them but I declined because I had nurses waiting for me to teach them english. And I am no communist. So I climbed out and found my soup. It burned my mouth.

Dipping Sauces

So, I am almost there or here depending when you read this. I am sitting in the airport in Tai Pei, Taiwan attempting to make some astute sociological observations about the cultural differences between West and East. So far I have nothing. My first meal on the Asian contenent was a ham and cheese croisant. Oh, I know what you are thinking why fly half way around the world to have a ham and cheese croisant? I will tell you why…the dipping sauce. I opted for the dipping sauce that appeared to have a summary of the history of Taiwan written in charactors I could not understand, however, in English all it said was “Spicy”. I am proud to say that I seem to have passed my first test of Asian cuisine with flying colors. The spicy sauce was as it claimed but no match for my college fare that demanded every morsel of food be doused with some sort of pepper extract.
My traveling day was relatively uneventful. I arrived at the San Diego Airport two hours early which enabled me to catch a shuttle to LAX that replaced my schedualed flight which had been canceled. I find that when travelling a “roll with the punches” attitude is absolutely necessary. So, when I saw the check-in cue I took a deep breath and nothing more. I have not seen a line of this magnitude outside of Disneyland’s Space Mountain (Family nod here) or a Phish show when everyone loses track of time in the lot and ends up missing the first 12 minutes of Runaway Jim(Friends nod here).
I did make my flight of course and this was where my luck started to turn. I ended up in the back row of the plane with two empty seats between my closest fellow passsenger and myself. By wiggling sideways into a sort of mock fetal position I was able to lie down and sleep fairly comfortably. Short people do have some advantages. In your face Randy Newman! The rest of the flight was uneventful other than one wake up call where I found out that my medical training was the most advanced on the flight and had to treat a woman who spoke broken english and was having trouble breathing.
I am off to Thailand in an hour and really have no idea what I am getting myself into. I don’t speak Thai, I don’t know how to teach English, and those two skills seem relatively pertinent to teaching English in Thailand. Well I suppose I will be OK so long as there are more tasty croisant sandwichs and dipping sauce. “Spicy”
Oh yeah, the elderly woman was fine. We put her on an oxygen mask and helped her get comfortable. A medical team met her at the gate.

“The world is like a giant bowl of dipping sauce…sometimes it isn’t labled.”
-Confuscious

(written 10-14-06)