I'm back in the States and I'm feeling pretty fine. I'm also feeling a little anxiety to be back at school where my friends don't recognize me. I'm good though.

Well I am excited to say that I am on my way home. In 4 days I will be getting on a plane at Suhuanabum Airport in Bangkok and then bouncing to Hong Kong, LA, Chicago, and finally to RDU...

I am excited to see my family again... I am ready to party like I'm 21... ready to watch the NCAA's... I've hit Cambodia, I've hit Isan, I've hit Similan, and now I'm gonna hit the states again.

I have had the experience of a life time... and I'm 20... I'm very, very lucky...

If you want to feel alive try what I did last night...

1) Take a $1.75 speeding motorcycle taxi through the congested streets of BKK, 2) get hit by a bus(it was just a nudge - no damage, but I didn't expect it - and the screeching tires didn't help), 3) go on to Victory monument and sit down, 4) enjoy the view - if you have ever been you know what I mean...

:)

Now I have been hit by a bus and survived both in Surat Thani and Bangkok(in the southern and central regions). Now I just have to find a way to get hit by a bus and live in Chiang Mai and I will have the illusive tri-fecta... I love Thailand...

I am back on the Thai side already after 5 days bouncing around ancient Angkorian temples and not-so ancient crappy Cambodian roads. The trip was not so epic as I had dreamed but I did end up saving some money. In the end the guy I was going to go with on the really big trip backed out... Sucks but I've moved on.

On the way to Siem Reap and back you are offered up a constant reminder - you aren't in Kansas no more Toto(for that matter, you're not in Thailand anymore). After catching a taxi from the border city of Poipet(a haven of sleaze, casinos, and various illicities that can be carried out in the border areas but no where else) you hit the road. The taxis are mostly used toyotas that have been imported from surrounding countries(as any kind of native machinery is pretty hard to come by in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia). I'll be honest, my next car - hmmmm, probably a Toyota. These things are champions. You can hit a wall of gravel and you'll still pop up without loosing anything vital. I know because we did - there AND back... The car we were in was 16 years old and running pretty damn strong. We were passed on the way there by an 11 year old model which was considered a "nice" car.

So - I don't care anymore. Step aside FUBAR-Ford, I'm buying into the Tough-ass-Toyota Revolution(term copyright).

When it seemed apparent we would survive the trip I relaxed and started asking(more like pestering) the driver a bunch of questions in broken Thai about the Khmer language. He was a nice guy. I tipped him well (50 cents).

Siem Reap(the town that exists ~10km from Ankor Wat) is a nice-ish place. It wouldn't exist even remotely in the same fashion if Angkor Wat weren't a few stones throws up the road. Its pretty big with a lot of bars and some nice places to sit and "hav a cuppa Teeeea" after a long day at the Angkorian Temples. I'm not the only one who was suprised to see that the secret, ancient, deserted, temples of Angkor well there not so secret or deserted anymore. 24 hours a day there seemed to me a constant flow of tourists travling in and out of the main Temple(the one in all the pictures). If you go a little bit farther afeild you can get to some places (my favorites) where you may be one of only 10 or 15 people exploring the temples.

There is a lot of archeological stuff going on at the temples which is nice to see. I got to see some of it going on.

Oh we also got to see the biggest lake in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Its called the Tonle Sap Lake. Its huge. It looks like an ocean and actually the Thais call it 'Talay Sap' and 'Talay' is Thai for ocean. That was a fantastic experience I wont forget. As you travel from the town of Siem Reap south to the lake the land changes from dried up and dead brown-yellow to a pleasant light green color to a water-soaked, vivid and gripping green.

You really get to soak it in slowly... as you climb (20 minutes) up the big ass mountain weazing and begging the mountain for mercy. When you get to the top, you are hansomely rewarded(as is so often the case). A sunset over the Tonle Sap is a moment of zen waiting to happen.

Despite the tourists I highly recommend Angkor. Its not very hard to get there or stay there as long as you are willing to sacrifice a few comforts(like balance and your perception of where is up and down). But it is expensive in the city itself. When I ventured with my travling companion, Josh Phelps this time, outside of the city, away from the farang(westerners), I felt my body relax, my comfort level rise and I automatically was treated better by the locals. We asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us where he eats out and he did. It was cheap, clean and filling. Thats life.

A couple of days in cambodia and I was ready to "get the hell out". I liked Cambodia, and will go back to visit my friend the Tuk-tuk driver named "Buun-san", but I missed Thailand. Whenever I leave this country I miss it. The people, the food, the weather, the culture, you can't get much better. I'm sure if I went back to the post when I came back from Malaysia I would find (at least) the same tone of love and admiration for my adopted country.

100% positive - I will miss it all come March 20th.

In about a week I will be finished up with my travels (seeing and saying goodbye to friends all around Thailand) and I will be heading back to the south to say goodbye to the family that has loved me as a son.

Wish me continued luck!

The latest news from this half of the world:

I just finished teaching a Thapput Wittaya and my last day of teaching kids on Saturdays is tomorrow. Tomorrow night I will be getting on a bus up to the Big Kon-Krete(aka. BKK, aka. Bangkok) to visit some friends for a couple of days. I will be staying at my family's(Who I love dearly) place in Bangkok.

After a couple of days of goodbye parties and coughing up black nasty-ass Bangkok air(I call the phenomena the 'Bangkok Scratch') I will be hopping on a bus to Aranyapratet(on the border with Cambodia). I will stay in Aranya for roughly a night(with more friends of the family) and then I will be heading in to the great country of Camboge(if you look that up in a french dictionary, that translates to Cambodia)...

I'll be making a grand, epic journey through Cambodia that I will be able to tell my great grand-kids about, that is, if I have any kids(if not I'll tell YOUR great grand-kids). Oh, and I'll be burning up what little money I made while here in Thailand in the process but hey, we're talking the jungle temples of Ankor Wat or 500 bucks(which are you gonna remember?). And yes, mom, I will budget enough money to get back to America with...

When I return to the Thai side I will be visiting some friend in Isan for a couple of days and then heading south again in early March to hopefully go diving(or at least snorkeling) in the Similan Islands National Park(a top 10 dive site in the world). I will then 'Sawat-di' (say goodbye to) my fantastic family with a big hurrah on March 14th.

My flight home is on March 20th from BKK to RDU. Strangely enough I will be leaving Bangkok on March 20th at about 9am and I will be arriving to Raleigh at about 11pm(with a total travel time of ~24 hours - tell me how that works and I will give you a cookie)...

Anyhow, I am missing the heck out of you all. I am preparing myself for my return.

I flipped through some photos of people back home and I'm itching to get back already. Not so sure I'm ready to go back to school, but maybe I wont worry about that right now. I'm certainly more ready now than I was 5 months ago...

Keep a date free on your calendar for me. March 25th...

I will do some updating in the next few weeks so do check back in from time to time... Marvelous... Indeed... Deeeeelightful...

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?

.

..

....

........

....

..

.

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...

Trip to Surat-Thani with my kids:

Here we are...

I made a trip last weekend with 5 students from my school to visit Surat Thani on the east coast of Thailand.

The subdistrict(Tabon in Thai) is called "Re-lat". Tambon Re-lat is a representative model of sustainable tourism in Thailand and the purpose was to demonstrate to the children and the teachers what values and interests are important to keep in mind when taking a stab at sustainable tourism.

It was a pretty successful trip. The community in Re-lat has strong (solid-rock) leadership and commitment from various sectors in the area. The shrimp farming businesses that threaten the mangrove and the wildlife were brought on board during the planning and discussion stages of building the sustainable tourism model. The shrimp farm waste that normally was deposited in the waterways and was contaminating the water, disturbing the ecosystem and killing the mangrove is now being sold to farmers to be used as fertilizer. This seems like a simple concept but even this small step takes serious effort to accomplish.

Most of all, Tambon Relat in Surat Thani provides hope for a different path...

Photos Here...

A teacher and myself enjoying some conversation... this trip brought together teachers and students from all over southern Thailand.

Another sweet sunset...

Monster shrimp. Kinda nightmare-ish. I bet they are delicious.

Here it is. As big as your head and could probably feed on you if it got hungry enough.

More photos are on the way...