Kuraburi - June 20 Noon

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After a utility day spent in Kuraburi yesterday, everyone else returned from Ranong - I opted out of the trip so I could get supplies, move in, start my online class, and practice some Thai words. The only interesting thing to tell was that I had to order my own food totally solo for the first time for lunch and managed quite well; perhaps only because I chose a place we had already tried the night before (the Tom Yum soup). Oh and I took a picture of a great flower. When Judith (an intern from Austria) and Andrew returned to the apartments, they invited me to dinner. We had no idea where to go and walked aimlessly until we decided to try out the new bar that recently opened. I think it is the most happening place in town. It is certainly our new hang out for Friday and/or Saturday nights, but we cannot go on weekdays and expect to be able to work well the next day. We are all a little sluggish today. Here's my story...

We were the only foreigners in the place and the people were rather stand-offish with us. Fortunately I practiced my Thai, because none of the restaurants have menus. You just tell them a Thai dish and they go make it for you. This is nice because you are assured everything is made fresh. However, if you are unfamiliar with Thai dishes, it complicates things greatly. I asked for rice (khao) and chicken (kai), so she asked khao pad kai? Which would be fried rice with chicken. Everyone agreed that sounded good, so we ordered it. She came back and apologetically said she had no more chicken. So I asked for khao pad moo, which is fried rice with pork and that she definitely had. We also ordered tom yum kung, tom yum soup with shrimp. I guess we should not eat the shrimp here, but we didn't know. It is farmed with chemicals and antibiotics and such. It is not only bad for the environment but not good for your health as well. Ok, no more kung.

A little later everyone in the bar stood up at the apparent instruction of an announcer and raised their glasses as if to make a toast. A man tapped me on the shoulder and made a motion for me to stand as well. So we all did. We raised our glasses and... the entire bar broke out in the longest rendition of "Happy Birthday" I have ever heard, lasting at least five minutes. Joining in the festivity seemed to endear us to the people. Suddenly we were like locals. Andrew and Judith were dancing and I made a new friend. She was very shy at first but wanted ever so badly to join us. After quite a bit of coaxing, she warmed up to us as well. Isn't she beautiful? She tried to teach me some Thai words and I tried to teach her some English. Her father and almost all the other men in the bar, we found out, are police officers. The two of them are very photogenic. Her father wanted her to befriend us as much as she wanted to herself. Everyone was so very friendly. Someone sent us a place of some very spicy mystery meat. I asked a lady who worked there what it was and she said rabbit. It was so extremely laden with chili peppers that you could not recognize anything but the chilis. Yes, Dave, I DID try it. It was very spicy, indeed, but I took small bites and did fine. Andrew and Judith, however, loaded their mouths with a large scooped and suffered the consequences. More beer! More water! Ha ha ha. It was quite funny. Then someone sent us a plate of mussels. The mussels were served raw and closed tight in their shells with a side of some very spicy sauce. No, Dave, I DID NOT try those. But I found I had a talent for prying them open and helped out Judith and Andrew. Then beer started appearing. They hid our Singha beer and said it is not real beer. They brought us something else that I can't share because it was written in Thai characters. I should have taken a picture of it. Next time. Here is Andrew and Judith joining in dancing with some of the locals. While they danced, I learned how to do a dance that uses hand movements. If you compare my hands to hers, you can see how awful I was at it. But she was very sweet and patient and kept trying to teach me. Afterwards she tried to teach me a hand clapping game. I am not very good at it. I have the coordination of a new born colt. I am sure the beer did not help any, but I did not drink too much at this point. We did not intend to party it up quite so much but, once the people accepted us, it was taken a bit out of our control. We enjoyed the attention, the acceptance and hospitality, and did not want to insult anyone. However, if we return, we will need to take it easy and make sure things don't get out of hand. I am not worried or afraid of anything, but I do not care to have a hangover! We had so much fun. It has been a great experience so far, but tomorrow Andrew and I start working at the Burmese school. There is no airconditioning in the concrete classrooms and only one fan in each. I expect to be very hot and sweaty all week.

Kuraburi - June 18 18:45

Moved into my apartment last night without any problems or hoopla. However I woke up this morning to find tons of tiny bugs crawling around the floor. They looked like about three different sizes of ant and perhaps some other little mite like thing. Went back to the apartment tonight and they are gone again, so they are diurnal. At least that makes me feel better about sleeping, but I need to figure out something to do during the day. I am no fan of sharing my living quarters with bugs. Bugs are everywhere, much more so than Costa Rica. They had big monster bugs. Thailand has tiny to small bugs. Did I mention I got bit by mosquitoes yesterday? Well, so far I am not sick, so hopefully I got lucky. No new bites today, but my insect repellent balls up when applied on top of sunscreen and it is too greasy to put on first. I need to find another option, perhaps a spray on repellent?

Anyway, I went to the Burmese Learning Center and met the children I will be working with. They are aged 7 to 12 and are of a very happy disposition, just as cute as can be. Two particular little trouble-makers were teasing me for attention. I gave a short chase and that seemed to satisfy them. I cannot post pictures of the children or Burmese people for legal reasons - protecting their identities. However, I did take some pictures of their village, so I am posting one of those. What is interesting about this picture is that the ocean tide comes in and fills their backyards with water - as shown. When the tide goes out, it is more like a swamp. The Burmese immigrant workers live here and work on commercial fishing boats, which dock nearby. It is their children that go to the Burmese Learning Center. They cross the bridge in the picture and it goes right to the school. I have a really neat picture of some boats that are to the right of this picture, but I am not going to post it here. I think it will be one I post on FB after I get home.

I believe I mentioned monkey mountain. Well, now I can post a picture. I did get several pretty good pictures, but I think I will only post one. These monkeys are actually macaques and they do not have a long prehensile tail. It is only about 6 inches or so, a little longer for the big ones. The closeup gives a really good idea how their faces look but not the rest of them, so maybe I'll post another showing the whole body.








This is a female adult. She is either pregnant or has a baby. I can't remember which at the moment.

Ok, what else? Oh yes, I have a rare picture of myself. I was goofing around, swinging on a liana. Tarzan could not have swung on vines, too weak, but he would have swung on these woody versions. They are very strong and hang all over the place haphazardly. I wish I could have gotten a picture of me riding on the back of Chana's scooter. I am sure that was a hilarious sight. Ok, I am at an Internet cafe and need to draw to a close, so I will post one more picture - since visuals make it so much more interesting. My new friends at Andaman Discovery, Andrew and I went bicycle riding up a hill to a waterfall about 8km from the office. It was a lot of fun and gave me a great opportunity to see the countryside. This picture is taken at the bottom of the waterfall, which I unfortunately did not get into the picture. Laura, from France, is closest, then Nan, who is Thai, then Tui, also Thai, and Andrew, from UCLA in the cap. There is so much more to tell and I am trying to write as much of it as possible in my journal, but this blog would be so long if I tried to put everything. I think I am bginning to get past the culture shock. It is so very different and I feel so out of place and lost here. Fortunately, I have some very nice people to help me acclimatize. This is absolutely invaluable being a stranger in such a totally foreign country/culture. One thing I can say is that ALL of the food is amazing. I have liked everything I have eaten immensely. I need to take a picture of a fruit I tried today. It does not look edible but tastes absolutely delicious. I had a fruit in the airport I wrote about in my journal if not my blog, but anyway it is called dragonfruit and it is great, too - rather the texture and flavor of a properly ripened kiwi - maybe lighter. Fruit! Yum. Noodles. Yum. Tom Yum soup. Yum here, way better than Tom Yum at home!!!! Different flavor. Ok, until next time.

Kuraburi - June 18 14:30

Just checking in. I will find an Internet cafe later to post my happenings and pictures. I have taken over 250 pictures. The subject matter is amazing in some of them even if the pictures themselves are not. I am at the Andaman Discoveries office and using their computer, so I cannot access the photos. But I am here at my final destination all safe and sound. I start working at the Burmese Learning Center on Monday, but went to meet the kids today. I will blog about this later.

Phuket - June 17 05:00

It is still dark outside. I may try to sleep more, but I slept for the better part of 12 hours. Since I did, I am confident I will have the energy to walk around today before the driver comes to get me this evening. From the air Phuket looks like a very bumpy surface - if anyone knows what Karst topography is -- where some areas sank and others stayed up depending upon the rock materials. This makes it look like humps miscellaneously left around, some standing up out of the ocean and inlets, very unique and interesting. I probably can't get a picture of it now, but I am sure I can later when Dave and I come back. By the way, the humps are covered in beautiful green foliage except where it is to steep to stabilize with any soil, then bare rock show through.

It is raining outside now. It would be nice if it gets it out of its system before I go out today! I should probably buy an umbrella, being the green/rainy season. Every day is going to be a bad hair day for me here. The local people have that beautiful thick, coarse, oriental black hair that is much better suited to the humidity. My hair takes on a life of its own and is totally confused which way to go. Ha ha! Small price to pay, so I just won't bother with styling or even blowing dry. Hats and ponytails are the name of the game for me here.

I wish I had taken a Thai language course. Many people speak broken English, but it is certainly a barrier. I have a handbook with important phrases but I do not understand the pronounciation rules, which makes it virtually impossible to learn, speak, and understand. Your typical tourist can by, because the people who cater to tourism have a better grasp of the English language. However, those are not the areas I am going to be in for the next month. I hope I come out with a little, but I will need a small amount of instruction on pronounciation compared to spelling. Spelling, that's another thing, they use characters on their signs - but my handbook has it spelled in western letters. So confusing.

I will take pictures while I am out today, so I will try to blog again later to post them. Oh let me describe where I am. I think I only wrote it in my journal. Approached from the outside, a Californian might describe the place as a flea-bitten, rundown, roach motel. But after you enter into the courtyard, it transforms into a tropical paradise with a pool, lush foliage, and cute little cottages. The room is no frills for Western standards, but for Thai? Wow! I have a Western toilet; running water in the sink; a shower that even has an Insta-hot; air-conditioning; and a stocked refrigerator with water, soda, and beer. Oh, I do have a picture of the inside courtyard - I'll try to post that for practice. Looks like it worked. That is the view from my room. My next pictures will be better and more meaningful, I hope. This was just practice to see how to do it. Now I wait for daylight to start a new adventure I can talk about.

Phuket - June 16 15:00

Tired. Beautiful, amazing topography. But tired...

Taipei June 16 6 AM

Free wifi in Taipei! But everything is in Japanese and/or Chinese characters. Took me about half an hour or so to figure out how to get signed in, but once I did the blog switched back to English. Shew! That was tough!

The flight left about 35 minutes late, but arrived about 30 minutes early. It was a great but long flight and I think I watched 6 or 7 movies. I took an Ambien after they served the meal early in the flight, but sleep still eluded me. I don’t know why I can’t sleep on an airplane.

Arrived in Taipei sans any paperwork to complete for immigration. Transfer passengers were routed through a quick screening and sent to the gate. I hope my luggage transfers, because there were no instructions to pick it up for customs or rechecking; there was no immigration check, and no check in procedure to go through. Super easy! Then, to really make my day, the bathrooms were clean, had western toilets, and even had seat covers provided. It’s the small things in life, you know?

I could tell it is humid here by the mugginess of the tunnel thing you exit the plane on (not a technical term) and by the mildew smell, which I assume is ever present. Once we broke through the clouds, I saw a lot of green and some nondescript modern buildings that could have been anywhere in the world. Since this is all I will see of Taiwan, it will leave no impression on me.

I still have two flights ahead of me (to Bangkok and then Phuket) before I get a break over night and then a 3 ½ hour drive to Kuraburi. This was the longest and hardest stretch and it is nice to have it behind me, but EVA Air was nice. My flight left in darkness (1:00 AM PDT) and continued in darkness the majority of the way. It seemed to take forever to see the sun come up. It is weird going between major time zone changes!

Anyway, arrived safe and sound into South East Asia and continuing on after a break. I’ll write again in Bangkok or Phuket, as time permits.

US Travel Warning Lifted

It is a shame that UCLA canceled the trip prematurely! The UCLA students that are currently studying there were not sent home and other universities did not cancel their summer programs. At least this means there will be plenty of other students around while I am there. I am still working with Andaman Discoveries, who has put together a nice program for me and the ONE other UCLA student going with me. We will still be learning as if taking the UCLA classes, but we will not be getting the credit. Personally, I think the experience is more important anyway.

We will be studying in Khura Buri, north of Phuket on the Isthmus Kra in Southern Thailand. During week one, we will be working at the Burmese Learning Centre and Nursery offers education and help for political refugee children from Burma (Myanmar) in Thailand. These children are not recognized by the Thai government for education, economic or medical benefits -- so volunteers at the center play an important role in these kids' lives. We will be helping to teach them English, grow a kitchen garden, and learn to be self-sustaining. Week two is a homestay and community assistance program in Ban Talae Nok, a Muslim community. We will be working with a youth group to help put in place an ecotourism cooperative in the fishing village, jungle and mangrove with nature trails and educational signage. Week three is on the island of Koh Prathong, where we will work on a river restoration program and monitor the sea grass and wildlife of the ecosystem. During our last week, we will live/work/learn with Buddhist monks at the temple and nature/wildlife conservation area in Mae Nang Kaow. As I learn about Buddhism, I will help teach English and plant identification.

This program takes me so far out of my comfort zone, I can't even explain. However, my mind and heart is open to these new experiences and I am very excited about it. I need to prepare by learning some basic Thai and also some basic Burmese. Challenging! Not sure if I will blog again before I leave, since I still have to finish my research and Devan is now here visiting -- it's good to have him home! At the latest, I will blog again when arrive in Phuket, where I am spending the first night to recover from jet lag.