Koh Samet and Life In General

Hello from Bangkok! First I'd like to apologize for taking forever to update my blog. I literally wrote out a post (I promise this is true), but then my life got a bit chaotic and I didn't get the chance to upload it. And now more has happened so I needed to alter my post a bit. And I finally put pictures up! I know I already wrote a quick blog post about it but I feel like it should be mentioned again since it took me two months to do it. You'll get more pictures soon- I haven't been taking as many pictures as I usually do. I feel like I already have a lot of pictures of Thailand and Bangkok from this summer so pictures have gone by the wayside a little. But I'll make more of an attempt.

Now on to the fun stuff. I left for Koh Samet on Friday the 12th. I was supposed to leave on Wednesday. Isn't that the way life always works? Never time for a vacation and when there is, it never goes as planned. I ended up having three interviews for a school called St. Joseph's located on Silom Road. The location was great. The school not so much. It was a catholic school, very rich and upscale, very strict. Very not the place I would have imagined myself working in Thailand. I also had to give three demonstration lessons. Three. One to the agency that's helping me find a job, one to the actual school, and then yet another to the school. I got to the third demonstration lesson and one of the women who works for the school came in, told me to teach a half hour on adverbs, and left. Adverbs. That's what I had to work with. And the fact that my students would be 6^th graders. She said I would have an hour. I figured an hour would be plenty of time for me to come up with something.

Ten minutes later. "Well the students are ready now, so you'll have to go now."

Yeah that lesson wasn't the best lesson I ever taught in my life.

The school said they liked that the students responded to me and seemed interested in what I taught but that they didn't really like my technique. I didn't like my technique either having had only ten minutes to prepare, nothing to work with, and really no experience teaching adverbs in particular. I mean don't you usually start with nouns and move on to adjectives before you get into the good stuff like adverbs? I couldn't even define adverbs without teaching the students what verbs and nouns and adjectives are anyway. Needless to say, the school wasn't particularly sold on me and I really didn't want to spend the rest of my time in Thailand being miserable, so I spoke to the agency about it.

And then I jetted off on vacation to try and forget about the job search. Which definitely worked. Koh Samet was gorgeous. It wasn't as nice as the southern islands with their perfect, picturesque beach scenes, but I loved it anyway. I had been in Bangkok for a little over a month and I was starting to feel smothered by the big city atmosphere. So I hopped a bus (which cost $20 bucks round trip by the way- this is why I love traveling in Thailand) and headed to the pier in Ban Phe which would take me to Koh Samet. The bus was actually more of a glorified van for fifteen passengers. On the way, the girl sitting behind me threw up and the guy sitting behind me had a seizure. (This is why I don't love traveling in Thailand). Apparently people in Thailand don't consider seizures serious enough to pull the van over to the side of the road, let alone go to the hospital. So we kept going while the guy's girlfriend and another woman who had some medical experience tried to help. It was a mildly scarring experience.

The ferry ride was another experience in and of itself. Our van load of tourists (including me) sat in the ferry for an hour while vans kept driving up and teenage boys who worked on the boat loaded it up with various types of food, a few kegs of alcohol (yes I'm being serious), and other merchandise that we could only assume they were being paid to transport by who knows who on the island. All we cared about was that it was ridiculously hot, we were so close to the island we could see it, and we had been stuck in a van with puke girl and seizure boy. The ferry couldn't leave quickly enough. It took another hour to dock in Koh Samet, we jumped our way onto the dock (literally) and then I set off to find a guesthouse.

I hopped the first baht bus (also known as songthaew, but I like baht bus better) to Naga guesthouse, which I had read about in my guidebook as being a good budget option. Definitely an option for those on a tight, tight budget. I paid 400 baht a night, which is about $12. What I paid for was, well, worth about $12 on a good day. I had a little glorified cabin built on stilts a few feet above the ground with steps that were actually wooden boards leading up to the door. The door had a padlock on the outside. That was great. From the inside, all it had was a little push lock like the kind you find inside a bathroom. There was a mattress on the floor draped in mosquito netting and I shared my little cabin with a wasp determined to make her home in the corner and a particularly noisy bird. The bathrooms were located up the hill about ten minutes. Needless to say I only spent one night at Naga guesthouse, but I will always remember it.

The next place I stayed was a step up. I paid 3$ more a night. It was worth about 3$ more a night, so at least Thailand was giving me exactly what I paid for. I had a bathroom in my new home, which was what I really wanted. The problem was that it was Thai style, meaning the only way to flush the toilet was using buckets of water. The sink was also slightly problematic in that the piping had a hole in it where the water spilled out at the bottom and the floor was angled so that the water was supposed to flow to the corner of the bathroom and drain there, along with the water from the shower head stuck to the middle of one wall. Unfortunately it didn't work that smoothly. But I didn't care-at least it was my own bathroom. And I had a little mattress and a fan and screens on the windows, and a cute little porch. And two locks on the door from the inside, which was a plus. It was like a lot like camping, which I haven't done in years, so oddly enough I enjoyed it. And by that point, I was sick of moving and wanted to enjoy being on the island.

My first day on Koh Samet I spent at the beach, out at dinner, and then in bed. I know, I clearly know how to party. In my defense, I was exhausted and still a bit traumatized from the trip to the island in the first place.

My second day I spent at the beach again. I stayed on the beach literally all day except for a pit stop to buy bug spray and sunscreen. As my friends will tell you, I'm a terrible packer. You would think after all these years of taking trips I would be good at it. Nope. I went to an island that is a certified national park and forgot both sunscreen and bug spray. Fortunately there was a little shop that happened to have both, and even though I'm pretty sure my bug spray attracted more bugs than it actually rejected due to the fact that it was scented, and my sunscreen was only SPF 15, it was better than nothing.

That night I went to Jep's for dinner. Jep's is a great restaurant tucked beneath trees but still right up against the beach. And they have fire shows every night. So as I ate whatever I ordered (something Greek with lots of potatoes that was absolutely amazing), I got to watch kids who looked to be about five and seven twirl fire. And wow were they good. I put a picture up on my blog so you'll have to check it out to really see, but it was amazing. I mean I spent the first ten minutes wondering where their mother was, but once I got over that impulse, it was a great show.

That night I decided to check out a bar called Silver Sand. There was a soccer game on (Chelsea won that night by the way)and I ordered myself a gin and tonic and was perfectly happy for awhile to just watch the game. And the people at the bar. It was a Saturday night so the place was packed. It didn't seem like that many people were into the soccer game but I saw a lot of people glancing at the screen from time to time. Soccer seems to be on a lot here, but it isn't treated the same way we treat football in the States. People glue themselves to the TV in the States when they watch football. In Thailand, everyone watches soccer but it isn't quite the same obsession. There has been a lot of publicity for the World Cup though, and I'm excited because so far we haven't been able to watch any kind of sports. We missed the Olympics, we're missing March Madness, and I just want to see something on TV that isn't the health care bill getting passed and Chile's earthquake. I know current events are really important and affect a lot of people, including me, but after hours spent watching it, I just really want something, anything, else to come on the TV.

Anyway. So I was at the bar on the beach in Koh Samet. I ended up talking to one the bartenders for awhile and he bought me the rest of my drinks (clearly it pays to know the bartenders in Thailand). I also met a group of really cool young people working in Bangkok who were from everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Flora was Thai but she was from California. Vik was from India. There was a girl from Georgia, a guy from England, a guy from Australia. We had our bases covered with countries and continents. I ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the night and we danced and it was really the first time that I've gone out successfully in Thailand.

The next day I went on a snorkeling trip. So in the morning, as I hurried to get ready after having had a few gin and tonics the night before, feeling not so much like getting on a boat, I went to the beach and met the speedboat that picked me up. An hour later I got off the speedboat not really feeling less queasy. We had ridden on the speedboat from Koh Samet to one of the smaller islands surrounding it, far enough away that I could barely see Koh Samet in the distance. And there were some fairly decent waves on the way- I had to hold on pretty tightly to the railing. Fortunately, snorkeling helped me feel better. A lot. The snorkeling right off the beach wasn't as good as the snorkeling to come, but I love snorkeling enough that it was still very cool. After letting us snorkel for an hour off the beach, our guides set up a barbeque on the beach and we had chicken kebabs, vegetable fried rice, and fresh fruit. It was one of the best meals I've had in Thailand. Then we packed up our stuff, hopped back on our speedboat, and headed for another island.

This island we just hopped off the side of the speedboat and snorkeled around. It was amazing. The coral was beautiful and there were fish absolutely everywhere. We were only there for about fifteen minutes and I wanted to stay longer. It was gorgeous. After that, we went to a fish farm about five hundred meters off the shore of another little island. The first picture on my blog is the picture of the fish farm. Tiny little boards separating roped off sections in the ocean where all kinds of creatures existed. The picture and that description about sum it up. I inched my way across the boards, taking about five minutes to get anywhere as the waves made them rock back and forth and my own natural clumsiness made me a little worried about falling into one of the nets. I soon discovered that while most of the nets held fish, some did not. Our guide stopped by one of the net areas and started pulling the net up. It turned out two tiger sharks and two huge sea turtles were lounging on the bottom of the net. About six inches above the water, I was a little afraid for my life as the sharks started cresting the surface, let alone falling in. After awhile, they settled back down and we decided to keep moving. I shuffled out on to one of the boards and realized that I had tiger sharks on one side of me and nurse sharks on the other. One good wave would have finished me off. Our guide took pity on me and started leading me around, explaining what each of the fish were and making sure I didn't trip and fall in anywhere. He eventually let me back to the tiger sharks and when one of them went swimming by, he grabbed it by the fin and gestured to me, so I touched it. Sharks feel really smooth, by the way. After that experience, I was ready to head home. We all piled back on our speedboat and headed towards Koh Samet. I got dropped off at about waist level in the water and waded my way into shore, then went back to my little grungy yet oddly cute cabin to shower and change.

Without much of a plan, I grabbed dinner at Jep's and watched the fire show. A guy from Switzerland walked up to me. "Are you here by yourself?"

"I'm at Jep's by myself." I tried not to say I was on the island by myself because I didn't really want people knowing that.

He asked to sit down and we started talking about where we were from, why we were in Thailand, and life in general. We walked down the beach a ways, found more fire shows, and then found a Black Moon party at one of the local bars. We ended up staying there for awhile but I was so exhausted from snorkeling all day that I excused myself and headed home at a fairly early hour.

My final day in Koh Samet (Monday) I just relaxed. I laid on the beach all day, stopping to get lunch at one point, and got a sunburn. It was glorious. At the end of the day, I was bound and determined to get to the other side of the island, the Western side, to see the sunset. And by bound and determined I mean I walked into town to the pier, which took about half an hour, and then found out that to get to the West side I would have to pay a cab driver an exorbitant amount of money (200 Baht for a ten minute cab ride? Not in Thailand). So I walked. About halfway through I figured it probably wasn't the best idea for me to be walking on a dirt path through a jungle by myself, but it was still light and I rationed that there were motorbikes passing me every now and then on the road so there must be people nearby. It took about a half hour but I eventually got to the other side of the island, and just caught the sunset. And what a sunset. It was worth the trek.

I walked half of the way back after spending about a half hour watching the sunset. I thought about catching a cab back but the songthaews wanted to wait for more people since they have space for at least ten, and I didn't want to spend my last night waiting. About halfway back to the East side, a songthaew stopped and the driver picked me up since he was going that way anyway and gave me a huge discount on cab fare, which saved me walking the rest of the way through the jungle so I was pretty grateful.

When I got back to the beach, I showered and wandered down the beach to a restaurant that I had seen the night before with fresh seafood. Seafood so fresh that I picked my own crabs while they were still alive. I still feel bad about that. Though it was a really good meal. After that I got a crepe right off the beach (love Thailand) and went back to Silver Sand, the bar that I went to Saturday night. The same bartender I had met Saturday night was still working. It was dead. There was almost no one there. I mean I know it was Monday night but how many people go to Koh Samet to work? Na (the bartender) and I ended up playing Connect Four the Drinking Game (which we invented) for hours. Turns out there are a lot of strategies to playing Connect Four. I got really good by the time we finished- keep that in mind the next time you challenge me to a game of Connect Four.

The next day, I headed home to Bangkok. And an hour of ferry ride, two hours of killing time in Ban Phe, and three hours of van (it would have been two and a half but the driver forgot his sunglasses and felt the need to go back) later, I arrived on Koh San road. I grabbed dinner and took a cab back to find my apartment still in one piece.

The rest of the week was fairly standard. Holly and Kristina came back from Koh Samui on Thursday and Holly's friend Jacey flew in that weekend, so she spent part of the day with us on Sunday. That Saturday we were supposed to meet her and Gina, another friend of Holly's who was in Thailand, at a wine bar called Bracchus. We ended up at the wine bar by ourselves because the traffic was so bad that it was difficult for Gina and Jacey to get across town. So we ended up indulging ourselves with good wine, which we never get, and bruschetta and nachos, which we also never get and which was amazing. When we were almost finished and ready to head home, the bartender told us that a cabaret show was about to start upstairs. So we wandered upstairs and sure enough there was a mini cabaret show because it was a girl's birthday and she had hired them to come to Bracchus. Who knew that that was a birthday tradition in Thailand? The show was amazing. It started with a woman dressed as Beyonce who knew the Single Ladies dance perfectly, then progressed to Cher and Lady Gaga. By the end we were all but dying of laughter because of how perfect everything was choreographed and how great the costumes were. It ended up being one of the best nights I've had in Bangkok yet.

The next day, Holly, Gina, and Jacey left to go to Chiang Mai for a few days. That week basically nothing happened except for Tuesday. I was in the movie theater and ended up having a really bad panic attack, so after about a half hour of explaining that something was wrong to the people who worked there, Kristina and I got across the fact that I wanted to go to the hospital. They eventually got me downstairs and into a van, and half an hour of sitting in traffic to drive a mile down the road later while being asked if we wanted a refund for our movie tickets like we cared, we were in the ER. About forty five minutes after that, the ER attendant came in and asked what happened.

I said I was in a movie theater and I wasn't sure, but that all my muscles tightened up and I couldn't talk, and I thought it was a bad panic attack. He asked if it was a scary movie. I said it was Dear John. He said he wasn't going to go see that movie. Then I asked him to check my blood sugar and take my blood pressure. It seemed like everything was normal, so I asked for some Xanax because my muscles were still pretty tense and breathing was difficult. That seemed to work after about a half hour and I asked to schedule an appointment to see a doctor the next day.

In case you hadn't noticed, there was a whole lot of me asking for things in the picture that would not have happened in a hospital in the US. Fortunately, by the time we reached the ER I was at least a little better and felt fairly certain it had just been a panic attack.

The next day I went to my appointment with the Behavioral Health doctor. He told me that I had hyperventilation syndrome and that too much oxygen had gotten into my body, and that's what happened. His advice to me was to "stay calm." I tried to tell him that I was in a movie theater, not exactly a stressful situation, but that didn't seem to sway the diagnosis or my treatment of "staying calm."

So I went to see a neurologist. That was even worse. I walked in and he asked, "So what's a pretty young girl like you doing in my office?" I told him what had happened. He asked if I had a boyfriend. I didn't see the connection. His prognosis after taking my blood pressure was that it was a bad panic attack. I wasn't sure if these people were just repeating my own diagnosis of myself or actually creating their own diagnosis, but he launched into a lot of medical talk about too much oxygen that matched the Behavioral Health doctor's speech earlier, so I figured if they both agreed on it, it was a safe bet that's what happened. I asked for a CBC just in case. Then I asked for an MRI. He laughed and basically told me that there was no way I needed an MRI. "You're too young and pretty to be sick," he told me. So going off that clearly medically related diagnosis, I headed back to my apartment.

Besides that interesting event in my week, nothing else happened till that weekend. Holly, Jacey, Kristina and I went to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. The restaurant had classic but delicious Thai food and offered us condoms at the end of the meal instead of mints. The restaurant raises money for awareness of family planning and the importance of contraceptives in Thailand. Thus the condoms.

After that we went to a cabaret show called Mambo. We thought it was on Sukhumvit, close to Cabbages and Condoms. Turns out there were people on Sukhumvit who offered to take us to Mambo but that the actual show was located about fifteen minutes away down some random roads. So after packing into the back of a cab and a ride through the city to the point where we had no idea where we were headed, we finally got to Mambo. I have to say, it was the worst cabaret show I have ever seen. Not that I've seen many. But it has to be one of the worst in history. The costumes were gorgeous and the guys were hilarious, but the girls just seemed to hate being there. It was a strange combination. The music made it so much worse. But I was still glad I went; even though it was pretty awful, it was still really entertaining.

And that was the rundown of the past few weeks up to last weekend. I have found a job that I like and I think I'm going to take it, by the way, so I'm really excited. I taught part time last week, and then ended up getting offered a full time position at a different school, and I have been teaching there for the past week. However, as this post is ridiculously long already and I haven't signed the contract with this school yet so nothing is final, I'm going to update you on the teaching situation in my next post. I know, I know, you're thinking "Dear God, it's gonna be another month," but I promise it won't be. I'll try my best to update you next week after Songkran (Thai New Year). And I'll be able to update you on the exciting trip that we're taking to Chiang Mai during Songkran, so it'll be a good post ;) I miss you all and I hope you're doing well!

Love from Bangkok,

Monica

P.S. Some of you may have heard that Thailand has declared a state of emergency due to the red shirt protests going on in Bangkok. So far they've been fairly peaceful (and kind of entertaining for us to watch), and we're reading the newspaper religiously and it doesn't seem like that will change. But if you're interested check out www.bangkokpost.com.