Dan, Jan, and Jess in Thailand!

Hi everyone! Dan and Jan and Jessica here in Thailand. We arrived on December 14th and have been going full blast ever since. After a little sleep in steamy and smelly Bangkok (it was about 98 degrees), we took the SkyTrain (elevated train) around Bangkok to the river then a nice ferry ride up through the center of the city. Got off and walked around by the Grand Palace, but couldn't go in 'cause I had shorts on.

Then, we took a 2nd class night train to Surat Thani, about 12 hours south, where Justin and Aleza live. They met us at the station, running up to us very excited. We were just as happy to see them at last. Found that their employers, the Doctor and P'nong, had prepared very nice rooms for us in a house across the street from Justin and Aleza's house. Jess had a room of her own, each with a nice big bed, air con, frig, and bathroom. Super and very generous! We got to see Justin's class on Saturday, and met some of his kids, very excited and fun. We toured Surat Thani a bit, the ferry docks, and night market and had great dinner.

The next night, The Doctor took all of the teachers, some staff, and us out to a fabulous seafood meal on the banks of the TaPi river outside of town. Wonderful food. Then, Justin and I found us a car to rent for a week, and Tuesday, Jess, Jan and I headed out for Khao Sok National Park. The drive was crazy as Thai drivers go either way on either side of the road. The car has the steering wheel on the wrong (to us Americans) side of the car, but then they drive on the wrong side of the road (usuallly). There are no apparent traffic laws or traffic cops. People drive both directions on both sides of the road, even on divided four lane highways. That, as you can imagine, takes a bit of adjustment. Mai Ben Rai! Essentially, the Thai for Whatever, or No Problem, or OK or ....

At the spectacular mountain national park, Jan and Jess both took an elephant trek which they agreed they will never have to do again. Muddy, steep, junglely, crazy, almost fell off kind of scary. Later that day we took a "long tail boat" ride on a huge lake in the park with cliffs towering over 1,000 feet straight up from the water. Think Lake Kincaid on steroids X 100. A long tail is a cleverly driven boat with an old auto engine on a revolving platform on the back of the boat, with a 20' long propeller shaft straight out of the engine on the back. Neat.

Next day off to Ko Lanta, an island south of Phuket on the Indian Ocean (Andaman Sea portion). Very laid back but being built up as we watched. It was hit pretty good by the Tsunami of 2003 and is just now back on its feet. Our bungalow was bamboo and well, bamboo. Floor, roof, walls all thatched and see-through (roof included, though it didn't rain!) The beach was great. Stayed two days of relaxing fun. Then moved about a mile or so to a nicer place when Justin and Aleza came to visit for the weekend.

Sunday, we all took a boat about 30 miles another remote island and snorkeled and explored all day. "Fabulous fish, shark, reefs and coral. The island was populated with many, many huge monitor lizards up to 7 feet in length. Think Komodo Dragons or small dinosaurs. Scary little guys when they want to scare you off. Back to Surat Thani on the crazy roads. A few easy days, one on a nice beach not far out of town. Then a very nice Christmas eve and a wonderful Christmas morning, all of us around the kid's cute little Christmas tree opening presents. Over to the head teacher's house for Bailey's and Bloody Mary's for the holiday and finally, another great Thai dinner.

The next day, Jess and I headed for Bangkok (we flew, rather than do another 12 hour train ride--the flight was 1 hour). We toured some awesome temples and had a pretty quiet night since we were up at 3 am. for Jess's flight to Tokyo. She made it home safe and sound (the next day) and I flew back to Surat Thani.

Our next adventure was to Ko Phangan, a really laid-back island that is the favorite of backpackers (group of which we were still 'technically' part of). All 4 of us got to go for 4 days and 3 nights. Night #1 we all did the big full moon beach party scene, though it was relatively quiet (only about 3,000 partiers doing much, much alcohol, some drugs, and lots of trance techno music at roughly 4.8 million decibels. But it was lots of fun, particularly the flaming jump rope event, at which drunken kids would jump into a swinging and very very flaming jump rope soaked periodically with kerosene. For hours, you could watch them knocked in the head or get their feet tangled in the flaming rope, with no apparent learning curve by anyone in the crowd waiting to try. Ah youth! and the ever-popular thinning of the herd.

Next day, we rented motor bikes and zoomed off the the north shore for more snorkeling and swimming. Same same next day, all with much Singha beer and fun. Went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant run by a guy from Chicago, then New Year's eve, we all (with one of the kid's teacher friends) went to an English Pub and ate, drank and played darts. The kids left on the motor bikes and we stayed and partied with a couple of English couples who lived there. Much fun. The kids went back to the Full Moon beach and partied the new year in with 20,000 or so others. Huge event. They sell bottles of booze and mixers in little kid's beach buckets, which you just pour the stuff into and add straws. Very useful also later apparently to puke into. Aleza said you would get quite wet walking along the beach at the shoreline, trying to skirt the crowd, but not from the surf, rather from the blowback from the hundreds of males who were peeing into the wind.

We all woke up a little slowly on New Year's day. Took a tuk-tuk (little open air cab) to the ferry, to the bus, to another tuk-tuk and finally made it back to the kid's home. Went out for another fabulous Thai meal for New Year's and the kids are back at work. We have been having a wonderful wonderful time with Justin and Aleza and wouldn't have missed this trip for anything. It is a bit bittersweet, however, to think that we probably won't see them again until next Christmas time. But we are so blessed to have had this time with them. We still have a week, but probably won't get another blog entry till we are back in the US. Happy New Year Everyone!