Thailand

Thailand

Thailand, who knew this would be the most fantastic place I've seen on earth. The mountains rise strait our of the water to hundreds of meters high. Caves form at the water line leading to secret passages under the mountains. The water is a clear, blue and green like it's an emerald sea. With all the sea caves, coves and hidden lagoons you can see why pirates came here to hide their stolen treasure. I can't imagine I'll ever see anything as beautiful as this paradise again.

We're Here

When we arrived five days ago into Krabi town my first impression of Thailand was rough and dirty. There are very rich homes standing right next to dumpy looking slums. Krabi city had young guys and girls cruising up and down the streets on scooters and open air restaurants with all kinds of funny smells coming out into the street. It felt hot, exotic, dirty and kept me a little nervous.

Real Pirates?

Our trip to the resort was a 40 minute ride in a long tail boat powered by a car engine strapped onto the end of a long pole with a propeller on the other end. Speaking of pirates the men who recruited us to get into their boat didn't look too different from what I picture a pirate to be. Then at the last minute the other couple got impatient and we had to bribe not to bail out on us so we didn't have to pay the whole fair. As the boat made it's way through this most fascinating part of the world I began to realize I was living the dream I've had since I first saw pictures of palm trees leaning over perfect sand beaches. The long boat bumped as it beached between the mangrove trees on the shore and we had arrived at our Thailand paradise.

Mixed Messages

Thailand really is a miss match of the rich and poor. As we leave our beautiful resort to reach the beach on the other side of the causeway we need to pass some piles of garbage and shanty homes along the way. There are power lines wrapped together and hanging 4 feet off the ground. At the far end of the beach we had to walk through the water so as not to trespass on the resort that starts at $650 a night. But down a path hidden at the far end of this beach you can walk to another beautiful beach and it was here we found the monkeys. Or they found us.

Getting to Know the Locals

I was sitting on the rail and this big monkey walks up and sits three feet from me. Now of course monkeys are the primary carriers of rabies in this part of the world so the first thing I did was run away. This big guy wasn't worried about me though as he calmly walked over to Eileen's coke, which I was supposed to guard, dumped it over and drank it back. As I'm watching this audacious theft his little buddies in the tree over me gave me another heart attack as they drop to the lower limbs and start demanding their tribute. Buy the time his whole troupe arrived we were becoming good friends. One climbed down a branch onto my arm and walked across my shoulders to get a banana. Another got excited about being left out and almost removed my swim suit as he climbed to my waist. Finally the first big guy got tired of games and strutted across my lap to grab the last two bananas for himself! I took them back before he walked back across. He then leaned over, put his hand on my knee, so we could have a little heart to heart about who really needs the bananas.

Secret Treasure

On my last morning I finally climbed the mountain that has a lagoon hidden in the centre. It was an almost strait climb up the rocks which formed a natural ladder. I met two spider monkeys guarding the passage as I climbed the first 20 feet. At the top of the pass I stepped on a line of tiny ants that was one inch across and streched back and forth until I lost it in the jungle. The narrow crevas down into the mountain was even mor trecherous as there were three vertical sections each 15 feet high. There were little natural steps in the rock to navigate this and the last section had a tunnel to climb down through. At the bottom of this desent was a shallow pool that stretched across the floor of the round chamber deep in the mountain. The white stone walls were thick with ferns, palms and trees yet they reached strait up to a round circle of blue sky over my head. I've seen some increadable cathedrals in Europe including the Vatican. I've never seen a temple as breathtaking and solem as this. Since I had the place to myself I felt compelled to sing a hymn which echoed to the top.

End of an era

So our first semester here in Korea is over and we are three weeks into the new one. I just thought I'd share some highlights

LEARNING ABOUT VIRGINS

Yes, it's true one of the words on the many word lists was virgin. "Teacher, what does virgin mean?" But the time I was done half decided they'd lost their virginity because they sleep with their brother or sister in the same bed. I changed my line to something about moms and dads and I don't think I included anything about babies being born and I left it at that.

JUST LIKE MOMMA TOLD YOU

Contrary to popular belief they don't really love school more than the kids at home they just have no choice. Remember when your mom told you to feel lucky because in Asia the kids go to school 6 days a week and you didn't believe her? It's all true. My last class of middle school students leaves the school at 9:50 PM and sometimes I get home before their buses leave. And Saturday when I go out the streets are full of school students with their uniforms on heading to private tutoring sessions. My Favorite was marking a journal about having a time machine. This kid is in grade 4 and all he wanted was to be 5 again. "All I do is school now and it makes me want to die." That's what I used to think and I never even did my homework.

ROCKSTAR

I love my kids (most of them). If you ever want to feel like a rockstar though you've got to teach the grade ones. I've got two classes of the little cuties and they drive you crazy. Can't sit still, can't stop talking and can't stop pretending that their pencil is a space ship as they act out their own little movie drama on their desks instead of doing phonics! But they love their teacher. I walk in and they cheer themselves horse. I leave to teach the next class for one hour and then we walk everyone out to the bus. As we leave I'm spotted by my grade ones and they lose it like they haven't seen me for weeks! Teacher! Teacher! Goodbye teacher!!!!! Goodbye! High fives teacher! Bye teacher!! If I ever wondered what it's like to be in the spot light you've got to spend time with the little rug rats.

HERE COMES THE SUN SHINE

I know I have no sympathy here but -10 is cold when everything you do is outside. They don't build for the cold like at home so when you go out you usually spend hours of your time with three jackets on. All the markets and sights are outdoors. So the fact that it's warming up has been fantastic. I've climbed the mountain behind our apartment a couple times and it was so beautiful. I put a couple pics on facebook if you'd like to look. Eileen is actually off to Japan this weekend to get the new visa straightened out and says she saw mount Fugi. Things seem to be finally settling into a routine. This Sunday is our last training session to spend our Saturdays working in some of the orphanages here in Seoul. Next Saturday we are taking a week of our holidays and heading to Thailand. Should be very good. We are sad we can't be home for our new church building but I guess we'll let you all break it in for us. Just remember we need to keep the pews!

Cheers, Randall& Eileen,

PS these are videos that I took to show Eileen the view from the mountain They are not spectacular quality but you can see our neighborhood in Seoul! It was a smoggy day and it started to snow by the time I got to the top.

MOUNTAIN 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTbEQCEls0g

MOUNTAIN 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0jwc2o0TsY