Beaches to Mountains: April 2010

The weekend before our English classes ended at R35, Wilson and I began a PADI Open-Water Diving course. Day 1: Watching modules and taking quizzes. Day 2: Getting familiar with the equipment and skills in the pool and taking the test.

The following weekend, after our office closed, we and Emily, who was already PADI certified, boarded a boat for the Similan Islands. We stayed in the Islands for 3 days and 2 nights, with the opportunity for 10 dives.

Battling some serious motion sickness from day 1, I only got in 9 dives, but they were awesome. The first 4 completed my PADI certification (whoo!) and each one after that had something special about it too.

I think these pictures from the trip will explain it better than I can. We rented an underwater camera, but our instructor took better pictures than we did, so many of these came from him.

P.S. Wilson took most of the pictures that appeared on my last two blog entries. He has a fabulous blog as well. Check it out at http://wilsoncecil.wordpress.com/ .

And now for the diving pictures...

Emily and Wilson

There were many different kinds of coral and fish. It was an underwater garden!

Can you see the top whisps of the Lion fish?

Camouflaged Rock Fish!

Giant Moray Eel

This encounter confirmed that they are in fact as grumpy in the wild as they seem in tanks.

On our last day we saw several Giant Manta Rays! They must be the most graceful animals on the planet. Drifting out of the blue and disappearing back into it, they were completely in control of the situation and actually seemed quite curious about us too.

This is me a bit startled and not really sure what to do one particularly large ray appeared right behind our group.

Here are are some videos too!

It's been quite a while since my last post, so I'm attempting to catch up on the last couple of months within the next couple of blog posts.

Most important of all the updates is that my year-long teaching post at the R35 school is now finished! The end came quickly in a whur of preparing final exams and puzzle playing after school.

If you or anyone you know is intersted in a term (4 month) or year long English teaching position, check out http://www.r35eslexperience.com/index. It is challenging in many ways, but an good learning experience, and if you are not already a teacher, a great way to gain a better appreciation for all that teachers do. It's also an excellent opportunity to live immersed in a different country and culture.

Though I have done quite a bit of traveling about on the weekends, one of the best parts about living in another country and not being a tourist, is just staying home.

Wilson, Emily, and I made fine dinners for ourselves, with market fresh produce.

When we didn't feel like cooking there was always the reliable local restaurant fondly called Babette's after it's owner's name. At Bapette's, I've watched her grandson, Pan, progress from rolling, to crawling, to walking. After much coaching, I can now usually get a square high-five from him when I stop by. He's a real cute kid. Shown below with him mom and dad.

Before I get to the food, Pan's father has a unique job. He mades beautiful bird cages that are ubiquitous around southern Thailand. The birds inside kept inside are used in singing competitions where the winner can make a pot of money depending on how many people participate. In a rural area the birds are also a sign of high status similar to little white fluffy dogs. I've not seen a bird competition, but I was told that the judge is usually a deaf man.

Now to the food...
One of my favorites at Babette's is "grapraow moo," minced pork pan fried with basil and chillies, on top of white rice of course.

There are a few other places to eat that are located on the beach, so more expensive because they attract visiting beach-goers and foreign tourists. It's nice to splurge on a meal every once in a while though. Some of my favorites on the beach are:

"kaeng kiow wan gai," green curry with chicken;

"kaeng masaman gai," Muslim curry (roasted cumin) with chicken and potato;

and "som tam" or "yaam malakor," spicy payaya salad.

There are also some delicious deserts to be had as well. In Takuapa, the town about 15km north of Bangsak, there is a woman who sells what I believe is the best mango sticky rice in all of Thailand.

At the markets, there are also stalls selling delicious "roti," pancakes with bananas and nutella, or any other number of combinations.

One of the joys of being home is finding all manner of creepy crawling critters. I'm convinced this humongous spider was trying to get inside, surely to attack.

Also living on my front porch, or rather the roof beams above my porch are two tukae geckos. This picture is of one at Wilson's bungalow, not mine, but it looks very similar.

The exciting part about my tukaes is that they layed eggs! Unfortunately they did so inside my kitchen, so when the little tykes hatches it was a bit crazy. Tukaes prefer to be left alone like most reptiles and eat their insects, but tukaes can also be quite agressive. Known to carry diptheria, tukaes will usually bite and hold on to anything moving that they think will fit in their mouths.The babies are a bit ambitious.

Much smaller than tukae eggs, I found some house gecko eggs in my grocery bag one day while at the beach.

In February, the burning began. Near the height of the dry season, people begin to burn off their feilds in a controlled and systematic manner so that new grasses can grow, and I imagine to prevent any uncontrolled fires from starting unexpectedly. Some of them were spectacular to watch.