Now in Thailand. Well Khao San Road anyway, almost Thailand!
Sitting here nursing the fading remains of a particularly evil Songserm hangover, that or someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat and I'm really confused. Boy this monitor screen is bright!
Caught up with Jenny and Andy last night, fellow teachers from Bali, also passing through this manic part of the world. I've been here a day now and feel completely at home. It's really good to be back in Thailand but I miss Bali already.
It's hard to believe its only two days since I was sitting on Kuta Beach, empty except for the hopeful hawkers with ice chests full of icy cold coke and water. The faithful and their boards are out in the water appreciating the near perfect sets rollng in with joyous regularity - I'd love to come back here (oops, go back) get a job and learn to surf. Fell off a friends board several times a few weeks ago, but just riding the foam on a surfboard is so much faster and more exhilerating than a boogie board. So maybe one day!
After a crazy last week of teaching with all my kids giving me their pens and ceremonies where the teachers thanked me very formally and talked amongst themselves about me at great length in Indonesian, I went to Lombok for a few days to check out another part of Indonesia and chill on the beach. It was really quiet. Like a couple of people at the bars in the evening and
empty restaurants, compounded by Ramadan which meant that people were rushing off to pray more regularly than usual.
I went out to Gili Trewangan, one of three islands off the north west coast of Lombok. The snorkling was amazing, thousands of different kinds of fish of a million different colours teeming all around and below me. The water changes abruptly from turquoise to ultramarine as the bottom drops off quickly to a couple of metres deep, coral stetching out about 30 or
40 metres from the beach and then a big wall dropping down to the sea floor and the main channel between the gilis (islands).
After being dogged by temptation for the past couple of months I was finally persuaded to give in and jump on a boat and go out for a dive. The first ten or twelve metres was a nightmare as my ears screamed at me and I fought back the panic. Its two years since I did my open water and my confidence was a tad lacking. But they buddied me up with a divemaster who was
really patient and then we saw a turtle swimming away from us, a dark silhouette against a translucent sea and I was in paradise. A few minutes later we saw a shark and I chased after it, my clumsy fins being no match for its graceful own. I kept getting left behind as different amazing things caught my attention: fish dancing around each other, a huge sea cucumber that
looked like the front of RMIT Storey Hall or the crazy new building opposite Flinders Station. I saw another turtle ambling along the coral below and dropped in to a respectful distance to soak in some of the wisdom radiating from her wizened face. Reflected on the difficulty of breathing when your lips are stretched between both ears. On the boat on the way back started
having bizarre thoughts about the grammar of diving. What's the past tense of the verb to dive? Is it dived or dove? Is dived past continuous and dove past perfect? If someone with a dictionary would let me know that would be fantastic.
Crazy thoughts continued on the plane the next day. Looking at a still frame of a plane on the tv that looked like it was falling out of the sky I realised I didn't know why they don't. Started thinking about sail theory, high and low pressure systems and I've just figured out basic aerodynamics and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself!
But I was feeling a bit tripped out anyway. Riding to the airport with Agus and Irma "Zombies" came on the radio and I had strange flashbacks of being in Thailand and not wanting to leave but having to go home because Dad was really sick. Now I was in Bali and really wanted to stay but "visa habis" and short of an expensive trip to Singapore and back or a job miraculously presenting itself (unlikly in the extreme with no qualifications and no tourists) I just had to
jump on that early morning flight.
What sort of sadist schedules a flight for 12:05am and makes you arrive in Bangkok at 3am (4am my time) with no sleep and guesthouses trying to charge you a whole days rent to sleep in a room before 7am.
So now I'm feeling brave enough to challenge breakfast and win (or is it lunch?) and then figure out the rest of the day.
Tomorrow I have to see a man about a dog or a woman about a job. Might have a few days casual work as I figure out what I'm doing here in Thailand and the meaning of life. Feel like I'm waiting for something important to happen but it hasn't found me yet. Two years after I left everything changes and everything stays the same. Or maybe everything just changes. Miss
Dad a lot at the moment and I need to find a way to be near the water. But first I need to eat.