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: