Last of Thailand

Okay, that title is decieving because I am now in India and have been here for 6 days, but I want to take this chance to write down some of the notes I took in my last week and a half in Thailand. Jake and I traveled to Railay Beach first, then up to his old village in the Northeast.

(These are the notes, in order of when I wrote them down, which is out of order from when events actually happened.):

Issan

• The neon lights of gas stations look out of place juxtaposed against seemingly endless kilometers of rice paddies.
• A loud CLANK! like an anchor against metal, and then the bus filled with smoke. A worker hurried to teh back to open a window but the only explanation Jake and I have gotten is "mai ben rai." But now we are driving about 20 mph toward the village.

The Village

I am sitting in Jake's 2nd family's living room while he showers with a bucket (surprisingly refreshing!) and I am running around in circles with Pii Thian, a relation to jake's host father, Paa, though that relationship is unknown. Both Pii Thian and Paa have English-Thai dictionaries in front of them and are picking words at random to teach me. It goes something like this:

Pii Thian: Farmer

me: Farmer?

PT: Farmer

me: Farmer

PT: Farmer speak English, chowna speak Thai

me: chow now

PT: chow naaaaaa

me: chow naaaaaaaa

... and so it goes. It's funny to think of Jake spending 6 weeks doing this, learning Thai in this way.

Railay

Before we went to the village, we had 4 nights in Railay Beach. On the first we stayed in a shabby treehouse, three floors up. To get to our 3rd floor we had to climb a ladder. On the 2nd night electricity went out at the "resort" and we were forced to use candles to climb said ladder. I got very nervous that one of the hundred or so people would make a mistake with the candl;e in the middle of the night, and we would be trapped in our 3rd floor room. Jake shared my anxiety, so that night we moved, and for just 200 more baht ($6, split between the two of us), we went from a supremely cramped, dangerous situation to a spacious room, with hot water and a balcony.

Our entertainment on Railay was slow. Whereas we were used to the beaches of Thailand being hubs for nightlife, Railay didn't have much to offer.

We went rock climbing, the main attraction of the island and the most fun. For 800 baht we rock climbed for half the day in some of the most gnarly rocks I have ever seen. Unlike in America, where before you attempted to climb actual rocks you would get an hour or so of lessons on tying knots, belaying, etc., we were more of less thrown into the situation untrained. Our guide was a master, who knew every hold on every cliff face. I relied on him to tell me whre to put my foot or hand, and though at times be as much as 75 feet below me, he would shout up, "Abby! Right... hold byu your right knee..." and sure enough, there it would be!

Of our 4 days, we had exactly one taht was picture-perfect, no rain. Jake and I chose on that day to treat ourselves to a real resort ($90 a night), where we exploited all their services, from the man who retrived our luggage from the second hostel to the breakfast in bed they didn't really offer. It was fabulous, just lying around on th enicest beach on the island, reading and relaxing.