It’s funny, before I
left Canada, I would imagine how things would be in Thailand. Needless to say,
some things are pretty close to how I imagined them, and other things I never
could have fathomed. Crazy... But I’m just feeling philosophical. And I’ve also
realised that before I left, I wasn’t too happy with my life in Canada... I
mean, I had been trying SO HARD to get a job and nothing panned out. I was also
worrying about the future, and was becoming much more uncertain about what I
wanted to do. I also got out of a pretty crappy 10-month relationship that I
now realise had a much larger effect on me than I thought: on my self esteem, on
my trust/faith in people, and on my general happiness. But, I’m now starting to
get over all that. I realise when I look back that I felt like I had given up
on a lot of things. Some people say that people who go to teach in Thailand or elsewhere
are immature and avoiding following the typical path we are all supposed to
take: go to university, find a job, make lots of money, find a boyfriend, get
married... and whatnot. I feel like I TRIED to follow this path, but it didn’t
work out. And it made me feel like a bit of a failure. I mean, you can only try
so hard before things just seem hopeless. And I left like I tried so hard at
EVERYTHING, and that it made no difference. Now, I’m happy. I’m happy with my
job, I’m happy with the people I get to spend my time with... I’m happy with my
life. And so much of it I feel like just HAPPENED and I didn’t have to try
super hard. l A couple weeks ago, my coordinator said to me, “I saw you smiling
in class – you looked so happy!”. That’s when I first realised that I WAS
happy. Hmmmm... And even though 4 of the foreign teachers are leaving at the
end of the month, and things will likely be different a lot sooner than I’d
like, I just wanted to take this time now to state how I’m feeling now, and how
my outlook has become a lot brighter.
ANYWAY so the weekend of January 26-27, I went to Ko Samet
for the 3rd time with a bunch of the foreign teachers. It was the
full-moon weekend, so we heard that there would be some festivities going on.
Sounded like fun. On the Friday night beforehand, so January 25, I went out for
dinner and drinks with some fellow teachers, Laura, Bank, Deaw and Golf. We
decided to go to a restaurant called House of Beers, or HOBS. I got a ride from
Deaw and Golf from school, and we picked up Bank on the way. Laura was already
in Bangkok getting her Indian visa, so we met her there. The restaurant/bar was
in a mall called Central Rama III. The “Centrals” are a large mall...chain? in
Thailand. There are several Central Malls , and they are all massive and pretty
nice – MUCH nicer than most malls back in Canada. Anyway HOBS was pretty cool,
although expensive. But they had imported beer – had my first Hoegarden since I
arrived. Hmmm... Also ordered French fries with tasty dipping sauces, cabonara,
and a large chunk of pork. Laura and I were amused as normally when we go out
with the Thai teachers, we go to Thai restaurants. But this was definitely a
Farang restaurant. After dinner, I made my way to Karima’s – the plan was to
leave early from her house for Ko Samet. It took FOREVER to get there – I was
also sick at the time with a flu-like virus, so was exhausted when I arrived.
Laura and I
Bank, Deaw and Golf
In the morning, Karima and I got up around 6:30am to make
our start. First, we had a maple syrup party: I had one little thing of real
maple syrup left and I brought it to her apartment. We ate it with French toast,
and it was SO GOOD. Mmmmm... At 7:00am, we left for Victory Monument, where we
caught a mini-bus to Ko Samet. I was feeling pretty lousy, so I slept for most
of the time. The one thing about mini-vans is that when there are Farangs in
them, they will often stop at random companies to try to get us to buy tickets
or tours. Fortunately, I knew what we needed to do to get to the island, so we
didn’t get screwed. We arrived at the port around 11:00am or so. At this point,
it was pretty drizzly and miserable. For some reason, whenever Karima and I go
to the beach together, it is always rainy and stormy. But it looked like the
sky was getting lighter. We then took the ferry to the island.
Once we arrived, we went to Naga guesthouse, to meet Anna
(from my school) who had arrived the previous night. We were all damp from the
sawng-tao ride there and hard started raining harder. We decided to find
somewhere to go for lunch and wait for the rain to stop. At the restaurant, we
also met up with our other friends: Michelle, Ricky, Alex, and Rebecca (who all
teach in Rayong). We decided to go to the beach despite the rain. The one good
thing about the stormy weather was there were some pretty good waves to play
in. I spent most of my time trying to keep my bathing suit from falling off – I’ve
lost about 12 pounds since arriving in Thailand. It was lots of fun – jumped,
flipped and body surfed. My friends had also started drinking at this point: I
was feeling a bit feverish, so I decided not to push my luck. I was also really
tired of being sick (I had been for about 1.5 weeks at this point), so I hoped
by not getting to crazy, I might get better sooner. Thankfully, the rain
cleared up and we had a lovely afternoon sitting on the beach.
Karima and Anna
Anna, Karima, Michelle, Alex and Ricky
In the evening, we decided to go to the next beach over for
dinner. We met our friends at their hotel room (significantly nicer than ours
lol) and waited on their balcony. At one point, we made friends with a kitten
that came to visit. SO CUTE. We had a nice dinner on the beach, and a nice talk
about life. After that, we went back to our friends’ room to top up our drinks.
From there, we basically wandered the beach all evening. While we were walking,
Karima say a flaming beer bottle she decided she needed to have. It was
actually pretty awesome, made for a good prop. Ricky was also giving us piggy
back rides. We basically wandered up and down the beach, drinking (except for
me lol). At one point, I made a snowman out of sand while we were sitting on
the beach. A little later, we stopped in a bar/club, applied body paint and
danced like loons. By the end of the evening, we ended up at a shisha bar on
the beach. It was quite late at this point, and the bar closed...But left us
sitting on the beach with our bean-bag chairs, table, and hooka. Weird. Was
nice, but I was super tired and still not feeling well. My friends decided to
go for a night swim, but I felt this would make my illness worse, so I stayed
on the beach. We had also somehow made friends with a few of the local stray
dogs – they barked at anyone who walked by. So I decided it was safe to have a
nap in my chair. I’m cool... We did eventually head back to our hotels for a
few hours of sleep.
In the morning, we met with our friends for lunch. We were
all exhausted, and wanted to get home at a decent hour. So we basically left
for the ferry after lunch. It took us a while to walk there and whatnot – also stopped
for fruit and postcards. For whatever reason, we were put on a small boat for
the ride back – but it was fine. In Ban Phe (where the port is), we caught a
mini-van back to Bangkok. I am pretty sure I slept the entire way. From Victory
Monument, Anna and I took a taxi back to Phra Pradaeng – it also took forever.
But we made it back home in one piece. Hooray for yet another awesome weekend
in Ko Samet!
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