Some more photos from Tambon Liled(thats the correct spelling this time), Surat-Thani. I just made a return visit with my Thai mother and it reminded me I have some more photos to post. On my return visit I realized a real fondness for this place. It a very satisfying feeling to be able to relax and not pay for it in blood or feel like you are stepping on a whole bunch of toes in order to do so. Homestay is what makes it special. There are not a whole bunch of rules that say you have to do this or that (you can sleep all the time if you want to). You are taken care of by the host family/mother, your meals are cooked, your bed is provided you can fully focus on relaxation without distraction. I don't know why but hotels are just not the same.

So here is the mangrove forest that you take these sweet little (long-tail) fishermen's boats through. There is a great deal of wildlife and a bunch of trees all over the place. Nice...

Here is the local leader(name - 'Gam-naan') that I talked about(Poo-yai Baan in Thai). One could call him pretty bad-ass.

Here are the teachers and myself. Note the rediculous hat(s).

homestay house product number 1:

Here is the 'stank-ass shrimp paste' one of the most popular seasonal products in Southern Thailand. It smells horrible but the southern Thais(and Charlie, if you remember him) love it. What they do is leave out a bunch of fresh tiny shrimp for a couple of days until they begin to smell bad and then they bring them into the house*, mash them around with a big 'mash-ing stick'*, throw in some salt and maybe some water, put the paste out to 'dry' again for a couple of weeks (in the hottest months of the year mind you), bring it back into the house*, mash it about some more with the large mashing stick*, run it through a few more cycles of drying and mashing and when the (... the... the...) substance is sufficiently toxic to the senses... They put it in plastic containers and sell it for 15$ a kilogram******.

*(never would happen in america)

Its called 'Ga-pi' (or 'kung-ga-pi') and I love the stuff... (not really)

Here are some really old old old (did i say ancient?) people... They may be the founding men and women of Thailand... I don't actually know who they are and though my Thai is pretty decent now(after 7 months here in T-land) I couldn't understand a word that was coming out of their toothless mouths. But I loved them... These people had a story to tell... They are really old(did I say that yet?) and they have seen the changes that have happened around them (and they are THE most respected people in the local community hands down - isn't it nice to see that old people are still respected somewhere in the world?). They - probably - told the children the story of Tambon Liled starting from when they were just young spits jumping around with Stegasaurus.

The coolest thing about these people was that they used song to tell their story. When they spoke to the children in regular (inside) voices the kids must have understood about as much as I did(nothing - in fact, I doubt they understood themselves) but when they began their songs their pronunciation was perfectly clear(as though they practiced a lot... Though it still meant gobblygook to me).

This easily was my favorite hour of not understanding what the hell was going on in my entire life (there have been many in Thailand). The whole time I was thinking about how much I love old people (and I know these people were old because they are Thai and they look old... and if you are Thai and you look old you must be at least a quarter millennium old).

And then I thought, If more young people were like old people things might be better in the world (but only if they were like nice Thai old people - not mean bitter old people, we dont need any more of them please)...

I had an idea about how I might want to write a book sometime in the future about the world and its old people and some of the stories that they have and would like to share(copywrite). This was one of my "write a book about the world ideas" that I have sometimes.

But then I realized what a daunting task this would be. One would need to learn the language of all these countries first. Then learn the 'old-person' language(term copywrite) and then familiarize yourself with the local cuture, not to mention history. And, finally, actually go out and find all of these old people in the process of hiding away (who knows where?) until they die with all of those well-kept historical secrets locked in their silver(perhaps blue-dyed) heads. Also how would you go about asking people to help you find them? ("uhhh... could you tell me where I can find some really old people? I mean really, REALLY old")

Its a good idea and maybe I'll get around to it when I'm a Billi-jillionare... Oh, and when I can write.

Well, my oh my, certainly got off on a tangento grandisimo there...

Here is the future... Once again, I'm not sure what they are brainstorming (it escaped me ok?), but the kids spent the weekend thinking about how to translate the success of Tambon Liled to their own communities.

Here is a photo of something(what now? I'm not a Thai-language Virtuoso yet) that the student's brainstormed. Notice the strange enigmatic Thai script I am trying to shove into my brain.

Here is the mangrove's future... There is a replanting program that the community has undertaken to recover some mangrove destroyed by illegal waste dumping. This is also an attempt at a long term solution to overfishing (by providing habitat for more fish). Oh, I should mention that the lady on the left is called Tess-a-nii and she is pretty bad-ass as well. These guys all work pretty hard and they all come from the local areas.

Hmmm... looks delicious doesn't it?

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homestay house product number 2:

Yeaaaa... so these little buggies grow up in the trunks of those trees above and when they are sufficiently large they are manually extracted and fed to the frying pans and when the frying pans are finished super-searing them they are fed to people. Ahhh... What a pleasant image to end on...