Summer
Wow, I've been really out of touch lately and I apologize for the lack of posts within the last two months. Is anyone still reading this? I'll try to do a quick recap of everything that I've been up to during my summer here in Thailand.
Since graduating from Mattiyum 6 three months ago my life suddenly got really busy. In the beginning months of this year AFS was reluctant to let us foreign students travel the country on our own without any grasp of the language or how the transportation system works. I certainly don't blame them for keeping us on a short leash then.
I had heard from past exchangers to Thailand that after you get over the hump, after those first challenging and confusing five months, things tend to get a lot easier and more fun. They certainly did. These last couple months were definitely the highlight of my life in Thailand adventure, and probably the most fun I’ve ever had. I was completely on my own. All I needed was a plan, a group of friends, my Lonely Planet Guidebook, and I was there. I had never experienced this much freedom ever before and it felt really great to be on my own.
I spent a week in the deep south in Satun Province with seven other AFS friends. Satun is right on the border of Malaysia and on the west side of the southern peninsula. It is a province of mountainous forests and more than 80 beautiful surrounding islands protected by Tarutao National Park. It took me roughly 24 hours of bus travel to get there from Nan. I almost went mad listening to the onboard Thai karaoke and watching the overdubbed foreign films for hours at a time. Why do they have to use the same voices for every single dubbed film?
After arriving in Satun I noticed two things different about the south immediately. First, the weather was much hotter here. I stepped off the air conditioned bus and the humidity hit me like a brick wall. Second, the southern dialect that the people were speaking was a lot faster than that of the central and northern dialects – from what I’ve been limited to this whole year. I had a lot of trouble understanding what they were saying and often had to ask them to “พูดชาๆ” slow down.
We stayed on the mainland for a couple days and went cave exploring, hiking, kayaking, and swimming through a river in the jungle. After that we took a two hour ferry ride to Koh Lipe, a small, fairly remote island on the Andaman (west) coast of Thailand.
Fishing boats docked at the Satun port
The island was amazing - very few farang, white sand, and quiet beaches. I actually never saw one overweight farang in a speedo, it was great! The few farangs that were there were backpacker type. A lot of them had been living on the island in bungalows for years. On the second day on Koh Lipe we all hopped in a long tail boat and went snorkeling with a guide and a couple other Thais along for the tour at about six different islands and got some real nice sunburns.
Pure paradise
A longboat on Koh Rokroy
We spent our the majority of ours days on Koh Lipe swimming, being lazy beach bums, eating delicious southern Thai food (a lot of curries), exploring the island, and meeting all of the island people. What an amazing life some of these people have! I met one Englishman who has been living in a single room hut on the island for the last 15 years. He left his family, job, and life back in England to come live on Koh Lipe for the rest of his life.
After leaving Satun I took a bus back to Bangkok and stayed with my American friend at his wealthy host family’s house for a week. His host Dad is a Thai General in the Bangkok Police force and drives a brand new BMW. What a change from Nan to see Lamborghinis and Porsches parked around the neighborhood! All I've ever see in Nan are buffaloes and mopeds and run down trucks. Ha! I was pretty envious of the big screen TV’s, the fast internet, the air-conditioning, the in house maid, etc. but I still love my small minimart house here in Nan. I wouldn’t give up my life in small town Nan for anything. A week in Bangkok is way more than enough for me. My wallet and I were both exhausted by the end of it. I couldn’t imagine living there for the year.
Everything is really, really cheap here in Thailand but you’d be surprised how fast $200 can run out from all the traveling touristy stuff I had been doing. With the last 400 Baht (around $13) I had left I hopped on a 10 hour bus back to Nan were I spent a while laying low, spending time with my family and friends and saving money.
The hot season was here now! During the day the temperature was up around 95-100 degrees (37 degrees Celsius for all you Europeans and Thais) with humidity! I spent most of my days down at Nan River swimming and jumping off bridges with friends to escape the heat. When I wasn’t doing that, I was tutoring English three hours at a time on the side to four wild kids at their house for some extra cash.
About halfway through the year my Thai Mom taught me how to drive a motorcycle and gave me one of the two at our house to use. This was great to be able to get around town and ไปเที่ยว on my own and not have to rely on my friends to pick me up all the time.
After my money and I were recharged from the two week excursion in Bangkok and the South I set off for Chiang Mai with my three friends Poté, May, and Nest. The first few nights I stayed in the cheapest/dirtiest hotel I could find – roughly $4 per night. The water reeked of iron, no A/C, cockroaches, mosquitoes, lights didn't work in bathroom, etc. Awesome! Just my kind of place. I was really keen on saving money at this point as you could probably guess. As long as there was something in the room that somewhat resembled a bed I could sleep there. I had at first planned to stay just five days but I happened to meet up with four friends from Satrisawat School who invited me to stay with them in the apartment they were renting for around $70 per month plus utilities. The room had A/C, cable TV, and hot water. How could I refuse such an offer! The short stay I had at first planned ended up turning into the better part of a month. Fuse, Jim, Dream, Drive, Poté, and I split the cost of the apartment which came out to practically nothing per person in the end.
