Moving At The Speed of Surat

Living in San Diego I valued the laid-back lifestyle and relaxed pace, but moving to Suratthani I am quickly realizing that Suratthaniens have mastered a whole new level of chill! Friday night we headed down to the pier where we enjoyed street food & a few drinks with the other teachers. Vendors line the street, selling everything from fresh fruits, smoothies, pancakes, chicken on a stick, fried fish, curries, roasted grubs, cockroaches and other unidentifiable dishes (maybe a plate of intestines?). Tables fill the pier and the vendors bring the food up to you. This is the happening spot on a Friday night and the area was filled with locals! Next, we all went to Pool Bar — a night club where they played a mixture of American club music and also had a local band came out for the last few hours playing popular sing-a-long songs that made the crowd go crazy :D

Friday Night vendors at the pier on the river

Saturday we all headed east to Khanom Beach which was about an hour away by car, luckily we had two guitarist in the car so we had some great entertainment on the ride out! We arrived at CC Beach Bar and were the only people in sight! They had an extensive menu including both Thai and foreign foods – most of us were already eager to get familiar food, I had a margherita pizza and the other new teachers all ordered hamburgers with Holly being the only to order a Thai curry! After lunch we met some of the locals who were next door playing music and invited us over for some songs & whiskey! Needing a relief from the heat we went for the sea & I was shocked to feel how warm the water was! Unfortunately, as we were just tossing around a ball, Holly was stung by a jellyfish!! We quickly moved our game to the sand and ended up with a nice 3-on-3 game of beach volleyball.

Next, we went just a few roads down the way over to Jam Bay – one of the local bars which is built out of an old boat and even has sleeping quarters upstairs. There we met several locals as well as some teachers from other schools in Suratthani and a few teachers who had just arrived and are looking for work. Next to the bar there was a small retreat center called Harmony House Healing Center where we were able to rent out sleeping mats for the night for just a few dollars, they also had little bungalows as well as private rooms that several other teachers had rented as well.

Jam Bay

Harmony House

Later in the evening we all piled into truck beds & cars and drove a bit farther down the way to the home of a local singer where we were invited to a concert in his backyard! Job 2 Do is a pretty famous reggae musician and we were all thrilled to see his house in the jungle and get to experience the local music in such a great setting!

Sunday I woke up really early and decided to have a little meditation and walk on the beach before the others got up. I ended up seeing several jellyfish, starfish, hermit crabs, & collecting a bunch of neat sea shells. We proceeded to spend the day enjoying the beach, I was pretty much in Zen mode by that point so I posted up in the cabana and seriously did not move for the rest of the day! By the time we left around 5pm we went to pay out our tabs (they had an honor system where you made your own tab and helped yourself to beers, waters, wine coolers & food) which—including our beds—we ended up paying about $25 total!!

All in all, a successful trip to the beach and I can say quite certainly that we will be back!


TUNES BY Job2Do:

Sawatdeekaaa

Good Morning Thailand!

After a four day journey involving 3 planes, 1 taxi, 2 tuktuks, 1 sleeper train, & a shuttle that took me to the wrong travel agency – I was delightfully relieved to see the smiling face of Apple, the driver from The Language School who came and found me at Holiday Travel in Suratthani!

I arrived at my new residence where I met my housemate and was surprised to find myself in a beautiful, 3-story Thai house with wood floors. My room is decked out with pale blue, built-in cabinets, a desk, & a vanity, plus my own balcony! During the week Joel and I will have the run of the place, and we will be joined by two more teachers who live in another town and will be staying here only on the weekends. There is plenty of space here, our living room has an awesome built in bar and we are one of the few houses in town that actually has an oven. Doesn't sound like we will be doing much cooking though, the kitchen is in a bit of shambles & the street food is so cheap its hardly economical to cook anyways. Most of the teachers from our school actually live on the same block as us, as well as the two managers, so we have already met most of our neighbors!

After a tuktuk ride over to Tesco Lotus—the local version of Target, that is accompanied by a whole mall of electronic stores & salons—we headed over to check out the school and meet some more of the staff, the school is only a few blocks from our house (maybe ten minutes walking, if that!) and on the walk I already spotted a few nice pieces of graffiti as well as an art supply store!! The town is very interesting, so many small shops of every variety which are mostly run down but then every few blocks you will find some super modern store or restaurant that seems totally out of place. The school itself is one of these oddball places, I'm happy to say it is just as nice as the pictures made it look!!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through town, found a nice market with tons of unidentifiable foods! Lots of fresh fruits & fish in every form imaginable, many of the stands have large silver pots with different kinds of curries, meats and vegetables. For lunch I had a delicious tofu soup with rice and they brought us a platter of mild greens (like green beans & cucumber slices) to tame anything that was too spicy. Luckily they put all the spicy stuff on the side so you can try it at your own pace!

In the evening we met up with several of the other teachers for dinner at the restaurant at the end of our street and then headed down to Chill Haus, a very hip local bar, to enjoy live music by one of the other English Teachers.

Very few people here speak English, and if they do it is not very much! I am really motivated to learn as much Thai as I can, the characters seem overwhelming—the writing is an art form in itself! But we are quickly getting down some of the phrases and it is clear that it will be advantageous to learn how to barter with tuktuk drivers and small shop owners! Everyone smiles at you and if they don't speak English they hurry to grab someone who can.

Overall there seems to be a very friendly and welcoming vibe from the people here. The weather is hot & humid but it is not unbearable and afternoon rain showers give a nice relief, while still hot the moisture is welcomed! So far I am digging the lifestyle of the Thais and absorbing as much as I can from their culture!! Looking forward to orientation and training on Monday, until then I think I will join in as some of the teachers have planned to stay a night at the beach, which is about a 45 minute bus ride away! And I just might have to pop over to the massage parlor across the way from my house—I hear its the best in town and they only charge about $13 for a 2-hour traditional massage!!!!

"Your paths will change. All of you listening will be surprised. That is a constant for all of you. Be aware that there are certain choices you will let go of. Be these people. Be these events. Be these career paths you are following. You will let go of parts of your life. That much we can see. So make your peace with that. Make your peace with letting go in order to gain, for this is one of the great spiritual battles for those who are trying to change. They wish to gain. They wish to create something new, but they are not willing to let go of something old. And this very important, very important. For as many of you are already aware, the past can be an anchor."

~Zachary through Lee, from The Eye of Awareness and Energy Speaks

...Continued

it all started before i can even remember

a little girl, exploring a big world

just me and my sister

taking on the

world