BACK IN BANGKOK

Well, I'm back in Bangkok now, or about 25 km northeast of Bangkok I guess. I'm here to teach English and I start on Monday. I am not on the islands anymore, that's for damn sure. It's been almost two months since I left San Francisco and I guess it's about time I got a start on this next chapter of my life.

I will have more to share soon...

BUCKETS

There is a section of Sunrise Beach that is lined with all of these little stands that sell buckets. That is a plastic bucket, a little bottle of liquor, some sort of soda, and a little bottle of Red Bull (Thai Red Bull is equal to like ten Red Bulls in the US). You buy a bucket, throw in some ice, mix the ingredients, and go nuts. All of the stands sell the exact same thing, and probably for the same price. So what is it going to take for one stand to stick out above the rest? At one point someone must have wrote the word "fuck" on the front of their stand and consequently noticed an increase in bucket sales. Well, the trend caught on, and the names of the stands are pretty funny. A lot of them say things like "Jen's Cheap Fucking Bucket" or "Cheap Fuck Bucket Love You Long Time"... you get the idea. But my favorite was "Brad Pitt! Fuck My Bucket". I don't know, I thought that was funny...

CIRCLING KO PHA NGAN

The next day, with our newfound friends Rob and Gen, we hopped on a boat tour that would take us around the entire island. And what do you know, our first stop was at the same beach that Mac and I had ventured to the day before. This time, however, we were directed to a path through the jungle that would take us up to the waterfall, I would get to see it after all! The walk took a while, I don't know how I ever would've made it there hiking up the river. We spent the rest of the day stopping at different beaches, swimming, snorkeling, and enjoying the scenery. What a beautiful island.

KO PHA NGAN

Mac and I arrived in Ko Pha Ngan mid-morning on Sunday. Ko Pha Ngan is a pretty big island but it's not as near as developed as Ko Samui. The west side of the island holds most of the bigger towns with roads running up and down the coast, whereas the east side of the island is more remote, with a lot of beaches that are only accessible by boat. The ferry dropped us off on Hat Rin, a little cape on the southern tip of the island. Hat Rin is a little town sandwiched by two beaches, Sunrise Beach and Sunset Beach. Ko Pha Ngan is world famous for its monthly Full Moon Party that takes place on Sunrise Beach, thousands and thousands of people flock to the island every month for the event. The beach is totally decked out with beachside bars, ear deafening sound systems, and little stands where you can buy booze. Being that it wasn't a full moon and the peak season has come to and end, the beach partying was relatively tame.

Mac and I were able to find a pretty cheap place on Sunset beach, and after checking in we wandered down to the beach with a few large bottles of beer. The beach is shallow and the water is almost hot, we waded out, sat down in the water, and sipped on our beers... what a great way to kick off the afternoon.

Desperate for business during the low season, Mac and I were approached by a number of guys trying to convince us to rent their jet skis. At first we declined because the price was pretty steep, but after a while we ended up talking these guys down to a deal that we couldn't refuse. For the same price that it costs to putter around the bay for a half hour, we convinced this guy into guiding us up the east coast of the island to find a waterfall! We threw a few bottles of beer in the trunk of my jet ski, our guide jumped on with Mac, and we all took off up the coast.

It was a beautiful ride, the east side of Ko Pha Ngan is awesome, mountains roll into the sea and the coast is spotted with little coves and secluded beaches. After about twenty minutes we arrived at a small beach. Our guide stayed back to watch our jet skis and pointed us in the direction of a little river on the far side of the beach that emptied out into the sea. We grabbed our beers and started walking. The river was calm at first, the water was almost stagnant, and the mud along the riverbank squished between my toes as we hiked upstream. Eventually the riverbed became more steep and rocky and we had to be careful not to spill our beers. After hiking for a ways we came across a group of Thai people picnicking on a sandbank under the shade of a tree. They were drinking whisky and cooking pork ribs and invited us to join them. There were four men and a woman, and the woman spoke a little bit of English. They offered me a pork rib, and my god was it delicious! I could've eaten all of them. After finishing off my beer I announced that I was going to continue my hike upriver to find the waterfall, Mac was enjoying the conversation so he opted to stay behind. The hiking was rather slow in bare feet, but I slowly made my way along the river. After about twenty minutes the river began to level out again. As I stepped on a boulder that was slightly submerged in water, a large snake, about three fingers thick, slithered around my ankle. I froze. I swear it took a long three seconds for it to pass. If my sister where there she wouldn't have hesitated to dive into the water and grab the serpent with her bare hands. I, on the other hand, figured that that was probably a good sign that I should turn around. I don't know, I kind of think that hanging out in a jungle stream with fat snakes is a little creepy, I guess I wasn't going to make it to the waterfall after all. There was a nice cold glass of whisky on ice waiting for me when I got back to Mac and the gang, and after finishing it off we headed towards the beach. The ride back was amazing. The sun was getting low in the sky, our guide rode on the back of my jet ski this time, and we laughed as Mac ran circles around us and caught air off the waves.

That night back in the pool at our hotel we bumped into a young English couple on their honeymoon, Rob and Gen. They were great, and we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the night and all of the next day as well...

LEAVING KO SAMUI

This was the pier we walked down to board the ferry and those are some fisherman that we passed on the way to Ko Pha Ngan. Thailand is full of this kind of stuff, it's really pretty.

KO SAMUI

Mac and I departed for Ko Samui last Friday, we left Phuket after a week of relaxing and one to many late nights. Our friend Matt, who also took the teaching course with us, put us in touch with his friend Pete, a buddy of his from college who now lives part time in Bangkok and part time on Ko Samui. Pete was down to show us around the island. We caught an early morning bus to Surat Thani and then transfered to a ferry for the hour and a half long ride to Ko Samui. Pete met us when we arrived. Pete is Thai, but went to college in Australia where he met our friend Matt, so he speaks fluent English with an Australian accent. He was heading back up to Bangkok on Sunday but said we could stay with him until then, perfect!

Pete's cousin was in town with some friends, so our first night on Ko Samui we joined up with them for some night fishing! Pete's cousin just graduated from university, so he and his friends were on a trip to Ko Samui to celebrate. There were probably thirty of us on the fishing boat, and we puttered out to sea just after dark. We actually had horrible luck, or maybe the guys on the boat just took us to all the wrong places, but I think we only caught like three or four fish between all of us! I sure didn't catch anything... Oh well, I still enjoyed hanging out on the boat with a cold beer and a warm breeze. It was a good night.

The next day we went on a little drive around the island. Ko Samui is pretty big, it's not quite as developed as Phuket, but it's getting there. This guy that works for Pete's dad took us around in his truck. Our first stop was at this mountain top sculpture garden, I don't even remember what it was called, but it was way off the beaten path. The sculpture garden surrounded a little stream that stair stepped through the jungle, the statues and shrines interacted with and blended into the surroundings, it was neat. The two photos on the top left are from the sculpture garden.

After that we found this little hillside restaurant with a view of the island. We stopped there for a beer and enjoyed the scenery. The picture on the bottom was taken from the restaurant. It was pretty cloudy and overcast that day, and along parts of the horizon it was hard to distinguish exactly where the sea ended and sky began. The island in the picture is very faint, but it almost looks as though it could be floating in the sky, cool.

After that we went to a waterfall where we splashed about and cooled off. There was a big boulder that you could jump off of, it was a lot of fun. Next we drove back towards the beach. Pete lives close to Chewang Beach, Ko Samui's most popular tourist destination. We sat at a table in the sand, ordered some large beers and a few appetizers, and enjoyed the rest of the evening. The next day Pete would head back up to Bangkok and Mac and I would catch the ferry to Ko Pha Ngan...

THE LAGOON IN RAILAY

I didn't really know what I was getting myself into when I decided to check out the lagoon, but man alive was it a hike. The trail took me down a very steep and very narrow ravine. I came across another couple hiking down and we all hiked together. I say 'hike', but most of the trail involved repelling down 15 to 20 foot cliffs using a slippery, dirty rope. We went down probably three or four of these drop offs, they were intense. I'm glad I bumped into some other people along the way, it was nice having someone to spot me and give me advice about footholds and where to put my hands. We finally made it to the lagoon, I was muddy and nasty. The lagoon was really cool, I couldn't take any pictures of it that would do it any justice, it was a shallow pond surrounded on all sides by cliffs that shot straight up hundreds and hundreds of feet. Pretty spectacular. I walked around the lagoon and found a little cave with a hammock in it. Gosh, camping down there must be tough, the mosquitos were nasty. The picture on the right was taken looking across the lagoon, you can see the dude I hiked with off to the left, and next to him in the middle of the picture is the ravine we hiked down. The hike back out wasn't as bad as the hike down, I think it's easier climbing up.

At 2:30 in the afternoon I caught the ferry back to Phuket. The next day I met up with my friends Mac and Mike. Mac and I are teaching in the same school so both of us have some time to kill before we start on June 1st. I've been hanging out in Phuket the last few days, relaxing and drinking too many beers. Tomorrow or the next day I think we will catch a bus up to Surat Thani, from there we will head off to Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan to do a little more island hopping before heading up to Bangkok to start teaching...

RAILAY VIEWPOINT

The next morning I woke up and hiked up to this viewpoint. The trail was steep like a ladder and had a rope strung up through the trees to help you climb. The view was nice, the picture there is of the east side of Railay. You can see that the beach is very shallow and kind of muddy, with a bunch of mangroves on the northern part of the beach. At low tide you can walk out hundreds of yards and it will only still be knee deep. Luckily the beach on the west side is but a few minutes away and is great for swimming. After hanging out at the viewpoint for a bit I hiked back into the jungle and followed some signs to the lagoon...

ANOTHER RAILAY SUNSET

I will never get tired of these. The best part of the sunsets here happen after the sun sinks below the horizon, the clouds and the sky explode with color. The sunset was great, except when I turned around and saw all of these couples making out on the beach. Holy shit is Thailand romantic, too bad I'm rolling solo, that's when traveling alone can kind of suck... but not really.

RAILAY, AGAIN

In the morning I took the ferry from Langkawi Island to Satun, Thailand and then caught a bus up to Krabi. There are a bunch of really cool islands that I want to explore down in southern Thailand, but I thought I would save that for another time. Once I got to Krabi I hopped on the back of a motorbike with some dude and caught a ride to Ao Nang Beach, from there I jumped onto a long tail boat and puttered over to Railay. I've already been to Railay, but I really liked it, so I decided I would stay there for a night before heading back to Phuket. Once again it was amazing. I just relaxed that evening, hung out on the beach, watched the sun go down, it was great.

LANGKAWI SUNSET

The country road I was on hit the coast as the sun sat low in the sky. I had heard that the beaches on the northern part of the island were the most beautiful in all of Langkawi, it was true. I spent the end of the day on the beach and then made my way back to the guesthouse in the dark. Tomorrow I would catch a ferry back to Thailand...

ISLAND SOCCER MATCH

I left Seven Wells Waterfall and took off across the island on my motorbike. It was a great ride, I enjoyed seeing the island countryside. I passed a soccer game along the way and decided to turn around and watch it for a while. The field looked like it had been carved out of the jungle, it was surrounded by dense vegetation and sat at the bottom of a steep hill. There were quite a few spectators lining the field, and as I stopped to watch the game, everyone there stopped to watch me. Even the guys playing stopped, one of the them almost took off his jersey and offered it to me. Play on? I found a place to stand on the sideline and watched the game for while. I was getting a lot of smiles from people and a lot of giggles from the kids that were there. The game was fun, I guess they were two rival villages, everyone was having a good time. It was getting kind of late in the day and I wanted to find these beaches on the northern part of the island to watch the sunset, so I decided to leave. I thought my entrance was embarrassing, my exit was even worse. Pulling out onto the road from where the soccer field was I hit some sand on my motorbike and totally wiped out. I wasn't going fast, and I just kind of clumsily fell over, but of course the game stopped again. I quickly stood up, all red in the face, and gave a sheepish grin and a thumbs up to all the shocked faces that were looking at me. A few guys ran over and I had to reassure them that I was ok. They were very nice, if I were them I would've been laughing at me. The game carried on and I made my way back down the road...

HERE I AM

This sign is awesome. When I saw this I thought to myself, "Here I am...". There was no context to this sign, no map or anything, it was just stuck in the ground next to this trailhead. There couldn't be a more accurate sign...

SEVEN WELLS WATERFALL

My next stop was just down the road from the Langkawi Cable Car. The Seven Wells Waterfall is named so because of a series of little pools that have formed in the rocks. The rocks are slippery and smooth and you can slide down the waterfall from pool to pool. Once I got up to the pools I noticed that there were signs for some trails through the jungle, so before going for a dip in the waterfall I thought I would go for a little hike. The jungle was thick and hot, and all of those dark storm clouds that I saw from the top of the gondola began to make there way overhead. After a half hour or so the rain began to fall, and it fell hard, more like a downpour. I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my camera case for extra protection from the water. It was kind of weird being in the jungle alone in the rain, I passed a few people towards the beginning of my hike, but hadn't seen anyone else along the way. The trail began to get really steep around the same time that the rain began to fall, ropes were tied from tree to tree so you could help pull yourself up the path. I was wearing flip flops, and when the trail began to fill with water and turn into a little stream, the hiking became rather treacherous. I can't say I was really worried at the time, but if anything had happened to me I probably would've been screwed. I kept on hiking up, the jungle was dark in the rainstorm, but I kept on going. After a while the trail opened up into a clearing, a waterfall sliced through the jungle. I scrambled across some rocks and waded through the water over to a boulder that was perched in the middle of the river. Standing up on the rock I could look down the ravine, over the jungle, and out to the sea. I was overwhelmed with a burst of energy and excitement. I stood in the rain, beat my chest like Tarzan, and hollered like a frat boy. I felt alive! 

The view from the boulder changed after the sun came out, the sheets of rain added a sense of depth to the jungle that was lost in the sunshine. But when the sun came out the foliage in the jungle began to sparkle and glimmer in the sunlight. Holy shit. I don't even know, it was just awesome. The trail continued up, but I decided to head back down. I got back down to the pools, picked a few leaches of my feet (gross), and went for a dip. It wasn't that late yet and I still had a lot of the island to explore...

THE SKYBRIDGE

A short distance from the top of the gondola was this pretty spectacular skybridge. I walked across it, snapped a bunch of pictures, and then found a little path that led down to the ravine below. It was a very cool piece of architecture, and provided wonderful views of the island.

THE LANGKAWI CABLE CAR

The next day I rented a motorbike, what a great idea. As soon as I left Cenang Beach I was in the country side, zipping down the road with the ocean off to my left and rice paddies off to my right. There's nothing like the color of a rice paddy, I think that 'rice paddy green' has to be one of the most vibrant and beautiful colors in the world. My first stop of the day was at the Langkawi Cable Car, a gondola that runs up to the top of a mountain with beautiful views of the island. There were dark storm clouds hovering over the east side of the island that were slowly making there way across the land, it was very pretty. And a short hike away was a skybridge...

LANGKAWI ISLAND

I left Penang for Langkawi Island on an 8:15 AM ferry and arrived a little before noon. Langkawi is on the very north western coast of Malaysia, very close to Thailand. It's a pretty big island with some mountains, a lot of nice beaches, and not very many big towns. Once I got there I took off for Cenang Beach, a little beach along the west side of the island with some cheap places to stay. I found a little guesthouse just a stones throw from the beach and checked in for the night. The beach was nice, there weren't many people out, I went for a long swim and then wandered down the beach for a ways. Right on the beach just down from my guesthouse was Cenang Beach's reggae bar, called Babylon. A reggae bar called Babylon? Nice try. Being that 'Babylon' in Rasta terms refers to all bad things in society, the oppressor, corruption, basically 'the man'... I'm not quite sure it's the best choice of names for a reggae bar. But whatever, I still hung out there and drank beers. The beach, which was pretty empty during the day, began to fill up with people as the evening approached and the daytime heat began to fade. All of the sunbathing western tourists left the beach and the Malaysian tourists came out to enjoy the evening weather. I had an early night that night, the next day I was going to explore the island...

PENANG

Penang is an island off the west coast of Malaysia. The bus I was on crossed the bridge to Penang as the sun was setting over the island, it was beautiful. I found a place to stay in Georgetown, the biggest town on the island, on Chulia Street, in the old Chinatown. There's a lot of old pre-war British Colonial architecture in that part of the city, the buildings are all very weathered and textured. There are also a bunch of cheap places to stay for budget travelers like myself.

If there is one thing I will never forget about Penang, it's the food. Holy shit was it delicious. My first night in Penang I found a bunch of little food carts just down the block from where I was staying. During the day that section of the road is where all the hardware stores are, but at night after the shops close down, the food vendors roll up and set up their carts. I didn't know where to begin, I wanted to try everything. In my two nights there I think I ate from at least seven of the food carts. I went to bed both nights so stuffed that it hurt. Stir fried glass noodles with shrimp, fresh squeezed mango and coconut juice, chicken satay... I didn't even know what I was ordering most of the time. One of the stands was full of skewers, a couple pots of boiling water to cook/heat the skewers, and three or four sauces to dip the skewers into. I wanted to hang out there all night, but unfortunately it was my last stop of the evening and I was already so stuffed that I could only eat like seven or eight of 'em. My god did it taste good... If I lived in Penang I would be fat. Oh, and the breakfast I had on my first morning, I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I wandered into Little India to find some roti canai, a traditional Malaysian food that's like a sweet flatbread pancake thingy. I'd had it before, they sell it from little food carts in Thailand, but I wanted to try it while I was in Malaysia. It's kind of hard to describe, but they take a little ball of dough, flatten it out and twirl it until it's basically translucent, and then throw it onto the griddle. You can put all sorts of stuff in it, sometimes I get it with banana and coconut. Then they fold it over, flip it a few times, and serve it up, sometimes with sweetened condensed milk on top. Mmmm. So I ordered it for breakfast with egg and banana, two of 'em. It was tasty. But the best part was the metal bucket full of curry that they gave me. I shared it with the other people at my table so I guess it was like a condiment or something, but man did it make the meal. It was like a yellow potato curry, I could've just eaten that alone, but on top of the roti canai... whoa! I could've stayed there and eaten that all day, but I had to go meet up with Johnny Ho.

Johnny Ho is a brother of a family friend. Through a last minute correspondence initiated by my dad, I somehow arranged to meet up with him for the afternoon while I was in Penang. Johnny picked me up at the 7 Eleven on Chulia Street in his Benzo, he was playing Peter Cetera on the stereo, The Glory Of Love, what a great song. "So, uh, you showed my dad and brother around Penang when they came here 10 years ago?", I asked. "Um... yeah, I don't remember, maybe...?", he replied. I don't think he had any idea who I was. We drove around to the northern part of the island to a beach town called Batu Ferringhi, we didn't really have much to talk about, he pointed things out to me along the way. We found a little bar on the beach and ordered some lunch and a few beers. After a few drinks we both loosened up a bit and talked about all sorts of things. Johnny loves Penang, he is very proud to live there. "Look at this", he said, "Here we are on the beach at noon drinking beers. This is the life...". I agreed. Johnny and I hung out for the afternoon, he drove me around to some other places, we stopped for some more beers and talked and laughed, it was a good day. The next day I would catch the ferry to Langkawi...

KUALA LUMPUR

Gosh, I totally went to Malaysia last week. What an adventure. I didn't really know much about Malaysia when I bought the ticket, but luckily I had a few hours to kill until my flight so I bought a Lonely Planet to read while I waited. I didn't get into Kuala Lumpur until late, and after catching a bus into the city, and then a taxi from the bus station, I didn't end up getting to the guesthouse until after midnight. The next day I set out to explore the city. Kuala Lumpur is a big, hot, bustling, modern city. It's kind of confusing to walk around, actually it totally blows to walk around. There is no grid, and all of the streets are really curvy and either dead end into another street or merge into a massive ten street intersection... well not really, but kind of. Anyways, despite Kuala Lumpur being a total maze I guess I kind of got the hang of it. I did a bunch of urban hiking my first day and besides getting lost a bunch, I was able to explore Chinatown, Little India and Merdeka Square. All very cool. My second day there I got up early and went to Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur's signature skyscrapers. I think they may have been the tallest buildings in the world up to a few years ago. I took the lift up to the skybridge for a view of the city. Later that afternoon I caught the bus up north to the island of Penang...

TRAVELING ALONE

I had a few beers this afternoon with Johnny Ho... but I'll get to that later.

I got the hell out of Phuket on Sunday. Not that I don't like it there, but when I found out that I had three weeks off until I started teaching, I all of a sudden got that traveling itch, and I wanted to travel alone. I kind of had it in my mind that I would be heading up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, but when I got to the Phuket Airport and found out that there were no more tickets left, I was forced to explore my options. The Air Asia ticket counter said they had a flight to Kuala Lumpur that evening, hmmm? I ran down to the airport bookstore to see if they had any travel guides on Malaysia, they did, and so that was my deciding factor. I bought the ticket and spent the next few hours reading about where the hell I was going... I also met a few girls from LA in the bar, traveling alone is cool, and man do I love California girls.

I've since left Kuala Lumpur and am now in Georgetown, on the island of Penang. Malaysia is pretty cool. I will update the blog later with pictures and stories of my travels here, but for some reason I've been inspired this evening to express some of my thoughts on traveling alone. I like it. I like traveling alone. I find myself smiling a lot. I mean, it can be rough at times, but overall I think it's good and healthy. Traveling alone with no expectations is great too, I had no idea what the hell Penang was like until I got here. It's hot, sweaty, unfamiliar, confusing, and bigger than I thought... kind of like a lot of southeast Asian cities. But these hectic surroundings don't intimidate or scare me, I don't have to think or worry about anyone else but myself. When you're on your own, there is nothing to slow you down or speed you up, you can find your own pace and run with it. You can feel hungry and grumpy and not worry about annoying anyone else, you can sneak into a Subway and eat a B.M.T. even though the food in Malaysia is supposed to be amazing (sorry, dad), and you can stay in the most budget of budget places because there is no one else but yourself to see the cockroaches in the bathroom. What I see and experience here is so different from what I am familiar with that it in no way connects me to what I know, nothing here forces me to think about anything that I don't want to think about. I can let myself think about whatever I want. I can let my mind wander. I actually find myself thinking about a lot of really dumb shit, like really dumb. But whatever, I don't have to share it with anyone else. "Penny for your thoughts...?" Hell no, not when you're rolling solo! I pay attention to the bustling traffic, the motorbikes and buses... I notice the charm of the British colonial architecture and the old trishaw drivers that pass by, but I feel no sense of urgency, no immediate worry. I'm in between chapters of my life right now, I know where I came from, and I have no clue where I'm going. It's really, really exciting. This is just what I needed.

So now I will press the "publish post" tab. Shit. maybe I will take this down later, I didn't really expect to post stuff like this, but whatever, I guess that's what a few afternoon beers will do...

I GUESS I'M A TEACHER NOW...

I completed my three week training course yesterday, now all of a sudden I'm certified to teach English in Thailand, weird. Most of the people in my program have been placed in schools in and around Bangkok, my school is about 20 km northeast of the city. There's one other guy in my program that got a job in the same school as me, his name is Mac, he's cool. But unlike most of the people in my program who head out this week to begin teaching, my school doesn't have me starting until June 1st. I guess that means I have a good three weeks of livin' to do before I start work! I'm leaving Nai Narn Beach today, gonna go the airport and buy a cheap plane ticket somewhere cool. I have some fun stuff in mind, we'll see what happens...

RAILAY SUNSET

So many beaches, not enough time.

KRABI

After a long first two weeks of teacher training I was in need of an adventure. Last Friday after class twenty six of us took off for Ao Nang Beach in Krabi Province, a great jump off point for island hopping. The next day we all rented a big speedboat and headed out to the islands. Our first stop was at these two tiny islands connected by a narrow sandbar, it's the one on the top of the picture. It was actually a little overcast which was nice, but it was still piping hot out. After that we went to Railay, which isn't actually an island, but since there is no road connecting it to the mainland and it's only accessible by boat, it seems like an island. Railay is awesome, the beaches are surrounded by huge cliffs and deep caves, and it's a very popular destination for rock climbers and backpackers. We had a relaxing afternoon, swimming and eating lunch at a cafe on the beach. The plan for our big group was to go island hopping all afternoon and eventually end up on Ko Phi Phi for the night, but since I had already been to Ko Phi Phi a few weeks ago and was really enjoying Railay, I decided to stay there for the evening along with four other people from our group. After the rest of the gang left we took a small footpath to the next beach over and found a cheap place to stay, we dropped off our bags and went out to explore. The beach where we were staying faced east and the bay was full of mangroves, so we decided to head back to the other beach to watch the sunset. We accidentally took the wrong path along the way and ended up finding another beach that we hadn't been to, it was beautiful. The beach was empty, there were maybe four other people there, so the five of us sat down on the sand and watched the sun go down. It was a very relaxing evening full of beers and good company. The next day we took off to go back to Phuket.

THE BIG BUDDHA

There is a big Buddha on a mountaintop that overlooks the southern part of Phuket, last week some of us went up to check it out. There are great views of the island and the sea, and we saw a wonderful sunset. There were monks wandering about, circling the giant Buddha and enjoying the end of the day. We did the same. What a nice evening.

THE REGGAE BAR

There's a "Reggae Bar" on every beach in Thailand, or at least on every touristy beach. It's interesting. Jamaica is an island of 3 million people, and to think that's it's music has such a huge influence on beach culture around the world is pretty crazy. But the reggae bars I've been to around Thailand don't just cater to tourists that want to experience "island life", well I guess they totally do... but they also seem to be run by these little Thai Rasta dudes. I wonder if they understand that there is more to Rastafari than Bob Marley, weed, and reggae music? They must. Either way, they seem to uphold the lifestyle pretty well.

Down the street from my hotel on Nai Harn Beach is the Reggae Bar. This reggae bar is a little different from others that I've been to. I feel as though it may be a kind of commune, from what I've observed it seems that most of the little dreadlocked Thai dudes that work there sleep in the hammocks that are strung between the palm trees that line the bar. There are a few women that work there too and a handful of little kids that run around the place, quite a pleasant atmosphere. The guy who runs the bar is a jolly man. He often sports a sarong, never wears a shirt, has a big bulbous beer belly, and wears his dreads up on top of his head in a sort of nappy beehive. He's the guy in the picture shooting pool. What a character. I went to the Reggae Bar my first night on Nai Harn Beach, and the second time I went I brought them a few mix CDs of some of my favorite reggae music, they liked that. After a game of pick up soccer last weekend I was walking by the bar and heard them bumping one of my mixes, I had to go in for a beer. They were happy to see me and invited me over to share their roast fish dinner with them. There was a bowl of big black beetles on the table, I'm not sure how they were prepared but they were pretty spicy. I peeled the wings back and took a big bite out of the juicy, gooey beetle butt. They were actually pretty tasty. Good times.

Anyways, this reggae bar isn't your typical Thai reggae bar, not only are these guys Thai Rastas, but they're Thai Rasta cowboys. That's right, Rasta cowboys. Not only do they run a bar, but they have a leather shop that specializes in making moccasins, cowboy boots, belts, holsters, and other leather stuff. Parked out front is an old broken down van where they hang the belts from, a few shoe racks sit next to the van displaying the boots and moccasins, and next to that is the little leather shop where they make everything. Pretty cool. And to model their craft they have a handful of pictures that line the pool table that feature the guys wearing their leatherwear and posing as cowboys and indians. Amazing. I think I will buy a belt before I leave.

NAI HARN BEACH

On the very southern tip of the island of Phuket is Nai Harn Beach. This is where I have been living for the last couple of weeks. Phuket has its share of bustling tourist towns, but luckily Nai Harn Beach is a little more on the quiet side. The beach is real pretty and the water is so very pleasant. The waves that hit Nai Harn are actually pretty big and occasionally the beach will be closed to swimming if the swell is too dangerous. Luckily there is a lagoon on far side of the beach full of calm, turquoise blue water, it's like a massive salt water swimming pool. Little kids splash about and it's the perfect place to sit submerged in chest high water with an ice cold beer. Just off the beach is a sparse grove of evergreens where a handful of restaurants have set up tables. It's a great place to grab lunch during class, sheltered from the sun with a warm breeze coming off the ocean. The hotel where I have been staying is across the street from all this, pretty cool.

There are 29 people in my program training to be English teachers and we've just started our last week of training. Two weeks down, one to go... then all of a sudden I will be standing in front of a classroom of 40 kids trying to sound smart. Shit. Three weeks isn't a lot of time, but for some reason I feel like everything will be ok. We've had a few practice sessions already, my first two were in a juvenile detention center. It wasn't bad at all. Well, the first one was pretty rough, but the second time around was a million times better. I think the learning curve will be pretty big, I mean, once I get thrown into the classroom for real I won't really have much of a choice but to figure it out. Today I taught at an orphanage, it was rad. The place was called The Youth Football Home, it's an all boys orphanage that revolves around soccer... just my kind of place. The kids are so well behaved and very smart, and they all run around in little soccer jerseys. I think some German soccer fanatic started the place, I also think I will try to volunteer there for a little while if I can, room and board provided, nice!

I will find out this week where I will be placed. Rumor has it that most of us in the program will be in and around Bangkok. I will take what comes to me, but I have to say, the last couple of weeks have been pretty nice staying in this little beach town...