Phew

Greetings from Chumphon (pronounced Chew-pon apparently)!  My travel is, for right now at least, over.  When I last wrote my message in Bangkok, I think I was still feeling the effects of 23+ hours of travelling.  And no sleep.  The first few days here were rough on my system, what with the 11 hour time change.  When I said I had over 20 hours of daylight, I meant it.  I woke up in Columbus, Ohio at 7am.  I can't recall if the sun was already up then, but if not, it rose not long afterwards.  I left Columbus at 10am, landed in Chicago at 10am their time, took off at noon for Korea, and landed in Korea at I think 2pm, then took off for the last leg of my journey.  When I was finally able to leave the airport at 11pm in Bangkok, the temperature was a mild 81 degrees.  The locals were all wearing long pants and light jackets as I was shedding every outer layer possible.

After catching a supremely expensive cab (30$ american), the cabbie dropped me with all my bags on Kaosarn road.  If any of you have ever seen The Beach, this is the busy, touristy little road that Leo started on.  It's a little disconcerting, and I was, for the first time in my life, a little concerned about being robbed.  Luckily, I found a very nice Hostel with individual rooms, free wifi and free coffee in the morning.  I booked the room for two days.  Each night was 600 baht, or roughly 15$ american.  I could have found a place much cheaper, but frankly I was tired and needed somewhere to drop my stuff.  I'd noticed some nice looking little bars while strolling through the night market and I needed to do some important research on Thai beer.

I strolled down the road, drinking my new Singha beer (in Bangkok, a 40oz costs 80 baht, in Chumphon, 35).  I bought a bag that I was hoping to send back to my mother eventually, a skirt, a second beer and a dress.  Finally, the toll of 23 hours of travel, one sleeping pill that had no effect as a three year old was kicking my seat for 13 hours and two beers took over.  I sent off a couple quick emails letting people know I arrived safe and somewhat sound, then crashed.

Only to wake up at 6am!  Sigh.  Stupid body, telling me I shouldn't sleep till 7pm. Well, not one to waste time, I got up, had some coffee, chatted with some people on facebook and hit the streets.  I wandered long enough to find a 7-11 to get some drinking water, found a temple type thing, then caught a taxicab over to the school.  I guess it was a busy day there, so I signed my contract, they took me over to open up a thai bank account, told me where to go to get a phone and bailed.  It was all very exciting.  The girls at the store spoke no english whatsoever, but very thoughtfully set up the phone I paid them for, put in minutes and handed it to me, and I was off again.  Bought a train ticket for the next morning, got on the subway over to an IT mall, and picked up a cable for my computer.

I have been told that this sort of behavior right off the plane from halfway around the world is impressive.  Honestly, I just took people at their word.  The head of HR here is from Turkey and he told me that this is the safest place he's ever lived and the people here are really really nice.  Kat explained to me that the thinking is if a white person goes to their store or restaurant, it means that a Thai person told them about it, and that they will tell all the other white people to go there.  It's like a good luck charm.  They're very superstitious.  When I bought a skirt the other morning, I was the first sale of the day, so the shop keep rubbed the money I gave her all over the merchandise for luck that day.  Very fun.

The train was somewhat less fun.  It probably would have been beautiful scenery, but I've done so much traveling.  And I didn't have a window seat.  And my neighbor was a really weird german guy who kept insisting that we had gotten on the wrong train.  I almost missed my stop, too.  They don't announce which stop they're at, but I happened to be on the phone with Kat and I was going to tell her where I was to better plan when she should meet me at the station.  In the rain.  Sigh.  It's supposed to rain till wednesday.  Right now it's just spitting, but we can't really go anywhere because her scooter has a flat tire and won't be fixed until tomorrow.  Not much to do but drink some beer, sing some karaoke and hopefully dance a little bit.  No sense in going to Koh Tao until it's a little bit nicer.  On the upside, the Taiwan trip might be back on.  With luck I'll be able to get my visa there and put another stamp in my passport.  And, you know, understand a little bit of the language.  Around here I can say hello, thank you and no, I don't want that.  These are important phrases to know, though.