Dear Charles #14,

how did i come to be so blessed by living in such an incredible country? as i looked out over the sunset on the rice patties near my house the other night, i couldn't help being awe-struck by the beauty of this country. i have been richly richly blessed by such a beautiful place.
i had the opportunity to go down south to a beach called hua-hin for the first part of song-khran last week, and experience another fantastic portion of this country. the journey starts however with the trip there: the night train.

if your thoughts automatically turned to harry potter, and the hogwarts express, we are one in the same. i have never been on a train before, and as i am in the process of reading the series of harry potter when i first heard we would be riding a night train i got child like giddiness at the thought of sitting in a little cart and snacking on chocolate frogs, or 'berty-bott's every flavor beans'. the only unfortunate thing for me is i am in thailand, not in a magical fantasy novel. instead for me i got thai tea, rice and mysterious fruit that looked like a giant maggot but tasted something like a grapefruit.
as we approached the train and i pulled out my ticket to see what platform we were to board on, the tiniest part of me was indeed hoping to see 'platform 9 3/4' but alas. we were to board on platform 3, and muster up the excitement to squeeze onto the train that would be our home for the next 14 hours. i was unable to attain ced excitement.

so i settled into my seat, with my bags at my feet thinking what i could do for the 6 hours proceeding the making of the beds. i decided to take a walk through the train and check out the other compartments, hoping to feel better about my own and to see if the extra 3 dollars was worth it for the bed i paid for. it turned out it wasn't...all the compartments were carbon copies of the one previous. can't someone be upper class even in thailand!? jheese! last time i pay $18 to get across a country...

so after my brief walk, i made my way back to my seat and pulled out my good friend harry potter and got ready for an enjoyable few hours of quality time with him. that didn't last long as my fruit smoothie and 2 waterbottles full of agua finally caught up with me. i dont know what i was anticipating the bathroom on the train to be like, but once i opened the 60 lb. steel door and caught a peek, i knew i was walking into one of my better 'foreign country bathroom stories'. anyone who is uncomfortable with light-hearted potty talk so skip the next few paragraphs.

so the toilet was surprisingly, western style, which is hard to find in thailand. for some reason the thai people think that squatty potties are still a good idea. (someone needs to come educate them) i scanned the perimeter and tried to think up a game plan for the most efficient way to get the job done, with the least amount of contact with any hard surface, including the walls. after a few minutes of standing 'surf-board style' (as to balance myself and not fall over with the jerking movements of the train) i had no choice but to begin the process. unfortunately for me i didn't think through the apparel i was wearing before entering the situation, as i started to un-do my thai style pants which expand to about 4 times the size of a normal person....i was looking at the difficult task of holding all that fabric from touching the grimy floor, standing in a way that my bottom didnt touch the urine lined seat, and avoiding grabbing hold of the stained hand hold next to the toilet. all the while fuming at the train driver for not anticipating my predicament and stopping the fast moving hunk of metal.
let me just say that boys have no idea how good they have it. i've made my peace with the fact that i will never have such an easy bathroom-going experience, but every once in awhile, as in situations like this one, i relapse a little.

so i was doing all that i could, but there were just too many factors preventing me from having anything short of miserable experience. my future was beginning to look a little brighter being almost done, when tragedy struck. the train made one jolting motion and all was lost. it's surprising to me how domino-like affects can happen in moments of turmoil. i was thrown to the side, forcing one hand to the nasty rail and the other to surprise, dropping my pants to the floor. in my stumbling motion my foot got away from me and tapped a lever on the floor that i found out controlled the sink in the tiny room, dousing me, and the small roll of toilet paper left, with dirty train water. in shock of water coming flying at my face i made the fatal mistake of closing my eyes. note to all: when is such a situation, closing your eyes and becoming momentarily blinded to your surroundings is detrimental. i lost what little control i had left of my limbs and landed harshly on the toilet seat. (inner dialogue once i felt the cold on my rear: "yeah..this would happen..") i jumped back up as quickly as i could, to discover that the startling jolt had meant that the train had stopped to let on more passengers. i staggered around and looked to my left where, obviously there was a window looking out on the docking platform and a heap of thai people looking curiously into the barred window. the situation generously finished itself off with the realization that the toilet paper was ruined, and that my flip-flop had somehow come off in the mess, leaving my bare foot resting on the floor half in a puddle of something wet...the contents of which i didnt care to investigate.

the train staff came around to make the beds a little while after that and i climbed the thin piece of metal meant to be a latter, i think, to my bunk ready for a nights rest. you can only guess that didn't come. as i was on the top bunk, i was right next to a fan, and the light..neither of which they turned off. i also had the pleasure of being right by one of the doors to the train that wasn't properly closed by whatever fool came through it last, and heard this door debate whether or not to be opened or closed all night by the wind rushing frantically outside. it was a good experience though..?

we finally made it to bangkok at about 6:30 am the next morning, and got into vans that were to take us down south about 3 more hours away. i tried my best to redeem some sleep that i had lost the previous night, but felt like we were there before i could shut my eyes. when we got to the hotel i snatched the key to my room and ran like the wind to the air-conditioned room i knew was awaiting my stay. that air-conditioning was not turned off for one second of the week that we stayed there. amazing.

so the week at the beach was incredible. just as i pictured it would be. i went down that afternoon and spent the evening there watching the blue green water run up and down the white sandy beach. as was my routine everyday that week. wake up late, walk down to the beach, set myself up on a chair, lay in the sun until sweat was coating me and take a break in the cool water. repeat as necessary.
the walk back up from the water to my seat was a brutal one because by that time the sun had heated up the sand, i'm guessing, to about 310 degrees...resulting in what was a common sight on the beach: a casual walk, that picks up a little, paired with a face of anguish, breaking into a full run to the nearest shade.

so all week was just super relaxing and awesome. the families that i went down with are all really neat people. two of the families have 16 year old sons, who are some of my students. they are pretty typical 16 year boys - you can assume that i was the subject of some torment at their hand during the week. including but not limited to: sand down my swimsuit, squirt gun to the face, wet sand to the face, rapid-fire dunking in the pool, pinching, punches to the leg, target of flying cockroaches, etc etc etc. but they are really high-class gentleman. *cough* *cough*

there certainly are more stories from the week but seeing as this is the longest blog i think i've ever posted, i'm going to spare you and maybe write more next time. also more fun things have happened in the last week since i got home which i hope to write about soon.
i had a little post-trip depression, leaving a beautiful tropical beach, for a stunning rural mountain city. *sigh* oh the hard life. no, the reality of the post-trip depression was leaving free air-conditioning for a tiny room with a rotating fan. i will never take AC for granted again.