September 15th 2011 8:00pm
Home sweet home! We reached Nakhom Si Thammarat last night and have checked into a local hotel. I start teaching this Monday… yikes!
While still in Phuket, Jenny and I met up Sophie and Nicolina, a couple of Jenny’s friends she met while living in New Zealand. Sophie is Swiss and Nicolina is from Sweden. Both of the girls were really nice and I enjoyed meeting them.
We all decided to rent a car and I got to drive! Thailand drives on the left side of the road which was new for me. Also, the car had a manual transmission, making the experience that much more memorable. Having a car and not having to pay the outrageous taxi fees in tourist trap Phuket was cool and we were able to roam about the island at our leisure. We stopped at the Big Buddah which is a 45m tall marble statue of... Buddah. It was on top of a mountain with a beautiful view of the surrounding area. After that we went to a nice, secluded beach that we couldn’t find on the map. Sophie and I attempted to snorkel but it was super dangerous and decided against it when we were about waist deep. The ground was littered with sharp rocks and the visibility sucked. I imagine it would be awesome place to snorkel given the right conditions, but mai pben rai.
After the beach we had dinner at a local Thai restaurant, yummy and cheap as usual. We then got another massage (my third so far… I’m such a lush) and called it a night.
The next morning we left for Nakhon by bus! It was about a 7 hour journey and the view was beautiful. While on the bus we practiced Thai and watched Thai music videos. About 70% of the videos had to do with teenage girls crying due to some sort of twisted love triangle. The other 20% was of guys in similar situations, and the final 10% were of some popular Thai singer who always wore a cut off jean jacket and looked Peruvian. I’m not kidding!
The fun really began after we got dropped off in what seemed to be the middle of downtown during rush hour. We had no idea what was going on but they shuttled us onto what could best be described as a cross between a tuk-tuk and flat bed truck. After about 10 minutes on the tuk-tuk-truck they dropped us off and pointed us in the general direction of the hotel. Words can’t describe how sweaty I was while lugging around a 30kg luggage bag up flights of stairs for about 20 minutes as we were trying to find our hotel. All’s well that ends well, and after a shower and beer I stopped complaining about it to Jenny.
Nakhon is MUCH different that the touristy areas that we’ve been in so far. Foreigners are few and far between and not much English is spoken by the locals. While I was in Bangkok and Phuket I thought I was hot shit in my Thai speaking abilities, but coming here as really exposed my lack thereof. After eating at a little Thai shop we went to a local teacher hangout for a drink and randomly bumped into, Allison, the teacher who hired me at Nakhon International City School. She was on the way out, but we chatted for a bit with her and her friend who was also a teacher. Inside, we met a few of other teachers and shared a beer with them. I haven’t been drinking much on the trip, and combined with the fact I’ve lost about 10 pounds (literally) since coming to Thailand, I got tipsy from one large Chang beer. Talk about being a light weight.
Today was spent lesson planning and getting acquainted with the town. Jenny and I need to find a scooter to buy and an apartment to live in for the year. Until then its taxis and hotels!
Andrew
No comments:
Post a Comment