Hello Family and Friends,
I hope the new year of the Dragon is progressing well for everyone. After two months in Thailand I am getting very settled, though in a rainforest eco lodge (with a school for special kids) not far from the border with Burma/Myanmar but more on that shortly.
Though sad to leave the great island of Penang I was looking forward to the change in cultures. My travel included a short overnight stay in Bangkok so I took advantage of an airport hotel. Being game I ordered Papaya salad for dinner and asked for it to be not too spicy. It still blew my head off and was a great start to a diet of chilli hot food. Not all the food here has chilli in it but there is nearly always some dried/pickled chilli, chilli sauce, fish sauce with chilli and garlic and Tabasco sauce on the table if you want to add heat to your food.
The island of Ko Samui where I went to finish my Teach English course was a bit of a disappointment, though I am sure there are nice spots away from the main tourist beaches. There is rampart development of resorts with little consideration of environmental and social issues along with plenty of girlie bars and thumping nightclubs. As I had over a week to kill before my training I visited Ang Thong National Marine Park (where they filmed the movie ‘The Beach’) in a day trip that concluded with an elephant ride at a small cultural park.
The study was all pretty easy and the couple of practical teaching lessons were fun. Apparently I am reasonable at organising a structured but flexible lesson, which runs on-time and can explain things simply to the students.
I had a few big nights at the end of the course with a stagger back to my bungalow around 2am after our graduation party. This made the boat trip, with Scottish drinking pal Leon, to Ko Pha-Ngan (home of the full moon parties) the next day a bit of an effort. Especially as the ocean was rough and the boat was overflowing with young backpackers. Leon is a muso and has a friend who runs a Jam Bar on Ko Pha-Ngan which we visited. I only managed to hang out at the bar until 10.30pm but as I was staying in accommodation very nearby I did not get much sleep until the music stopped at 3am. Next day was Christmas Day and I caught the first boat back to Ko Samui to sleep.
Unfortunately no family or friends could join me on Samui for the rest of the festive week so I travelled back to the mainland and caught a bus to the west coast. After one night in Ranong (a popular place for foreigners to do a visa run into Burma/Myanmar) I started three weeks of volunteering at TCDF Eco Logic which is located in a small village surrounded by plantations and rainforest.
Following the New Year weekend we had a great group of fresh volunteers come along. They were all keen to help slog it out, swinging hoes, breaking ground for new vegetable gardens in the tropical sun and heat, finishing of course with plenty of cold beer some evenings. My birthday was a special celebration with this wonderful group and a Scottish volunteer couple put together a great blog about their week with us.
TCDF is the Thai Child Development Foundation which has a school for physically and mentally handicapped children with several associated social, health and livelihood projects. Eco Logic is the commercial eco-tourism / working holiday / volunteer side of the business that was formed to raise funds to support TCDF which runs on donations.
At the end of my volunteering the organisation was searching for a volunteer host for three months to look after the guests and volunteers. As I have about that time to fill in before the new Thai school year starts, when there will be plenty of teaching jobs, I thought I would stay and help them out.
I took a break in Ranong though for a week and went to the hot springs, the island of Ko Chang and experienced the night street markets combined with Chinese New Year celebrations. Into my third week now of being the host at TCDF and my latest bunch of volunteers are around 20 and very inexperienced with garden work. And even though I have a separate room in the dorm it can be challenging on the nights the young ones want to stay up late and play music.
So I will be here for at least another two months, in a region with islands, national parks, and local culture not impacted by international tourism (plenty of local tourism for the hot springs) that is only five bus hours and ~$6 from Phuket. Air Asia has some cheap flights from Gold Coast to Phuket for around $600 Aus and any visitors would be very welcome. I can take you on a grand tour of great local sites.
