Look at me, only one month late on my blog! What a pro.
This month marks my 9th month in Boston. About 6 months of that has been below freezing, windy, snowy weather. I've had a really rough time adjusting (60 degree Texas winters anyone?).
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| Remember this picture from fall? |
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| Same lovely white gazebo building. It's safe to say the charm has receded. |
Instead of focusing on how wretched the weather was, as a Christmas present to myself I bought a ticket to Thailand with a short trip to Cambodia. Man, was that ever a good idea.
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| First day arrival - Koh Samet |
The 20+ hour flight was actually quite bearable, I would go so far as to say it was borderline pleasant. Maybe I'm getting used to long-haul flights! I had a stop in Tokyo, then landed in Bangkok late the next night and stayed in an airport hotel so I could get an early start the next morning. My friend Grecia had been in India for several months (
here's her awesome blog) and agreed to meet me for the majority of the Thailand/Cambodia adventure, so it was time to meet up with her at a small, nondescript bus stop in downtown Thailand. Despite the lack of phones/wifi for whatsapp, my expertise in frantically communicating the idea of "bus stop"with wild bus-driving hand motions delivered yet again, and we met up with minimal drama.
Bus stop:
We bought some fruit from a vendor on the street for sustenance on the 3.5 hour bus ride (tiny bananas, guava, elusive apple/pear blend that we didn't know the name of and could not remember nor pronounce when taught to us several times). The bus ride was amazing and went fast because Grecia and I had to catch up, both of us had made some substantial life changes in the past year!
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| Apple/pear/je ne sais quoi |
The bus took us from Bangkok to Ban Phe, a small coastal town with ferries that go to various islands. Our destination was Koh Samet.
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| Bus route and duration |
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| Ferry from Ban Phe to Koh Samet - about 30 peaceful minutes |
I was so desperate for sun I was hanging out of the window on the ferry trying to soak it all up. The shy teenager working on the boat gestured for me to go sit on the front of the open part of the boat ("the
starboard crow's nest," for those less acquainted with the salty, grizzled life of the seaman) and I happily obliged. When we landed on the island, we hopped on a truck with some danes to make our way to our little bungalow.
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| When we cooed at this (rather miserable) cat, the boys running alongside it dutifully held it up for a picture. Well, if you're going to hold it up anyway... yes I'll take a picture! |
Despite getting there around 4-5pm, we went straight to the beach. From there we had dinner on the sand (maï thais and pad thai) as the lanterns twinkled in the leafy beach trees and the wind whipped our hair around as it came in off the gulf of Thailand.
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| Maï Thais |
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| Fresh crêpes and beer |
As if this experience were not magical enough, in the distance we heard the tell-tale fuzzy bass notes and fearless off-key warbling of karaoke.
Someone was on the same beach doing Thai karaoke, and we didn't have plans for the night. Naturally, we promptly went to investigate.
Sure enough, there was a bumpin' party at one of the beachfront bungalows. We swayed in the sand next to the party, just enjoying seeing such a surreal scene in front of us, for about .00005 seconds before the party-goers (a motley crew of mid-20's to elderly thai people, who we later found out were all teachers from a clearly amazing school) grabbed us, gave us drinks, and started teaching us traditional thai dances.
Can you please try to imagine how amazing this was? Let me help.
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| A passionate performance. |
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| Finally got the hand motions down. It's harder than it looks! |
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One guy clearly more into than everyone else, aka my life story.
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We learned an awesome new song because of these
Karaoke boyz.
**The
original is by the industrious group "Job 2 Do." Note: you will get this in your head and then try to sing it from memory in Thai and it will be nonsense. It still feels awesome.**
At a certain part in this video, you will see an awesome girl dancing with her husband. Her name is "G" (stands for a different spelling of Gisele) - she and her husband are both from the Philippines and both teach at the school. She can sing karaoke like no other.
After dancing for hours we were invited to have (more) drinks with the teachers and school directors. Thai lessons were exchanged for English lessons. Strange drinks were tried, stories were told and toasts were made ("Cheung gao!"= "cheers!"). We left that friendly group with appreciation for the once-in-a-lifetime experiences they had shared with us, face muscles tired from smiling, and the beach a thick pit of sand churned over and over by dancing, happy, bare feet. That was our first night in Thailand!
