Backlog 3: Pratet Thai

So I'm here in Thailand, and for all the emotional baggage I associate with this little slice of Asia and the anxiety I harbored about finally arriving here, it's been great. I went first to Koh Tao, which lures you in with promises of whale sharks and then does not produce a single one (not even a small one or an old slow one or anything) but which does boast some really pretty little bays in ten thousand shades of blue and quite a few exotic marine fauna, such as the blue-spotted ray and the black-tipped reef shark. I saw the latter while snorkeling by myself, and, perhaps preditably, was completely and totally terrified. Whoever thought snorkeling alone with sharks would be a fun game plan has probably not snorkeled alone with a shark. I repeat: terrifying. Kind of like when I was 8 and I saw my first needle fish in Hawaii and screamed at the top of my lungs right into my mom's ear because I thought it was a murderous moray eel or something equally nefarious (I've since been told that no one else alive is actually scared of needle fish but I just don't see how that can be true).

I also learned how to night dive, which got off to a rocky start because we went out in a windstorm with giant waves crashing over the boat and panicky scuba divers throwing up left and right, and our instructor decided the proper course of action would be to jump right into the rollicking darkness and descend before any of us were ready so that we promptly lost him in a dark, churning sea of chaos and didn't all catch up until we were all 10 meters under water.... kind of unnecessary stress for your first time breathing underwater in the pitch black, if you ask me, but what do I know. We finally got organized, though, and then it was incredible. We got to watch 4-foot long barracuda hunt rabbit fish by the light of our dive torches, which made me feel a little guilty because the rabbit fish are pretty outmatched as it is without our help, but then again it's not really my fault that the barracuda is an awesome natural born killer who knows how to work an advantage. So there was some carnage, but I guess that's life.

From Koh Tao we took an overnight bus to Bangkok which arrived at the delightful hour of 4:15 am, a fine time to be introduced to an overwhelming new place when you haven't slept all night, but then we checked into the nicest hotel I can ever imagine myself paying for (we got an amazing deal on late stays and it was still more than I've ever spent on lodging, Dana you would have disowned me) and cruised around Bangkok for a couple days, visiting Buddhas and indulging in all kinds grilled meats on sticks. We also got to go to the weekend market which is just too fabulous to explain. I mean any place that devotes 47 different shops to displaying all the varieties of elephant themed coin purses on the market can't be anything less than paradise, really, can it? I don't think so.

Next I took the overnight train to Chiang Mai, hurtling through a blurry green landscape at top speeds of almost 20 or maybe even 25 miles per hour, surrounded by 19 year old British backpackers all wearing the same crappy Thai beer t-shirts, and found my way to the YMCA International Hotel from where I write you tonight. This is where I've met my Volunteers in Asia group and begun the neverending fun of group training exercises, always my favorite. But that's a topic for another edition, because it's getting late and tomorrow I have to lie by the pool all day and watch butterflies play in the sunshine so I should try to be well rested for that.

Love to you all.