This weekend I went with a few ladies I work with to the nearest beautiful beach of Kahnom. Instead of taking a death trap mini van I rode in a real car! My friend and co-worker Amy has lived in Thailand for five years now and is married with 1.5 (.5=pregnant) little girls so they have a real car, not a motorbike. The whole ride little Issara (Issy) sang English and Thai children’s songs to me in her sweet two-year old voice.
We met three other ladies we work with for lunch at a beach bar. We swam, read, and played in the water and sand with little Issy. The beach bar is an awesome concept. I just walked up to order anything; fresh coconut water, snacks, drinks, and enjoyed it while I relaxed in the sand. I had to chase palm tree shade to stay cool and not sunburnt. Palm trees are not the most reliable shade but the perfect temperature of the clear water is a great alternative. I know I’ll miss relaxing weekends on beautiful deserted beaches when I go home to California.
Andrew has been gone for the past two weeks. He went to visit family in England. I have been tackling Thailand on my own. I am very proud of my ability to handle things; Thailand is much different to the California I know. I do occasionally freak out, like when I get home and casually walk in the front door, take off my shoes and find I almost stepped on a cockroach. Ah I’ll never get used to those darn things in my house. Luckily they flip on their back and can't get back over. So I can sweep them outside when they are stuck, otherwise I'm pretty sure they run faster than me, creepy buggars.
Andrew usually drove the motorbike everywhere since I don't like traffic here. With him gone I am driving and I've found I have more road rage than I ever thought possible. I have literally growled at people for being in my way because they were driving in the wrong direction on my side of the road. It's not really the Thai culture to confront people so I hope they didn't hear my frustrated growl but then again I hope they did. Maybe it will stop them.
I don’t really know how to describe driving in Thailand. How about this, think of driving in traffic in America and add all the things people would do if there were no cops to stop them. There are cops here and I’ve heard of tickets for riding with no helmets and driving on the wrong side of the road. But in my experience the laws of traffic here are more like guidelines or the laws here are just not the same as the laws in America. Stop signs don’t necessarily mean everyone should stop and take turns; they mean stop and wait for the flow of traffic to finish then your flow of traffic might get to go if the person in front is aggressive. If it’s easier to drive on the other side of the road than make a right turn then people do it. Yes, I meant right turn. Those are the turns that cross traffic in Thailand. I’m not sure I have mentioned that Thailand roads are opposite to American roads. In New Zealand it was one of the hardest things for me to get used to. In Thailand there’s so much more I don’t even think about the other side of the road thing.
Today after meeting some friends for dinner, at “Food Barn” I paid an electric bill for our house at 7/11. I found it quite funny. You can pay for so many things at the billions of conveniently located 7/11s. “Food Barn” is the name of the restaurant the farang (foreigners) gave the eatery. It’s a fitting name. We do that with many restaurants because most of us cannot read Thai. เนื่องจากตัวอักษรที่มีลักษณะเช่นนี้ (Since the characters look like that). Some our favorite restaurants have names such as “the curry place”, “the Muslim place by the gas station”, and “the Essan places by the stadium”. Today I was telling my farang neighbors where I was going for dinner and they didn’t know where “food barn” was just by it’s given name and “the Essan place by the stadium” is “the mat place” to them because you sit on bamboo mats. A much more well thought out, creative name than our practical one. Our system works well for the people who know these descriptors but not for people who don’t or our Thai friends. For the longest time our Thai friends picked us up every time we went to dinner because we couldn’t describe where to eat in a second language over the phone. Now we’ve got it down and we even met somewhere new. I think we are learning how to communicate.
Anyway I was just keeping the blog world updated. I’m off to sleep. I teach bright and early in the morning. I am really excited about making a farm book with my students. Amy and I thought of the idea as we were lying on the beach this weekend. My class is working together to make a big farm book. In an art lesson today the kids decorated the background pictures, they look awesome! Tomorrow we will add our words and pictures of animals.
Saw Wat Dee Kah! คืนที่ดี (I can't read that, I typed "good night" in Google translate and copied and pasted, it's quite annoying to not know how to read again!)
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