Same-same... but different

Okay, so I've been off the grid for almost a month now, and before I get into the madness that is Bangkok at the moment, let me fill you in on the last few weeks:

My course was a roller coaster ride, filled with the highs associated with teaching that I have discovered are absolutely exhilarating, and the lows associated with stressing out about gerunds and dipthongs (look 'em up and feel my pain). The people in my course have been amazing (minus the token nutter or two), and I wouldn't have made it through without their support. All in all, one of, if not the, most rewarding experiences in my life. I am proud to announce I passed my course as one of the top in the class, and I am officially a teacher now!

One of the main things I've learned about this place that's helped me brush the dirt off my shoulders more than once: TIT. Yes, TIT. This is Thailand. Wondering why all the kittens have crooked tails here? No problemo. This is Thailand. Wondering why the Thai police have allowed my friends and I to wreak havoc across this bloody island on our motorbike with a sidecar (which is completely illegal in its own right, never mind the fact that we are often piled seven people deep)? No worries. This is Thailand. Ladyboys, hookers, and farangs coexisting peacefully together over ever-warming Changs, Singhas, and Leos? Tit, tit, tit. Nothing ever needs further explaining, and it makes being lost in translation a little bit awesome. As we say here, "Same-same... but different."

I've done a tiny bit of travelling, including an amazing trip to the island Ko Phi Phi while Sean was visiting, where we snorkeled (somehow i still haven't been diving yet) with black-tip reef sharks, went cliff diving, and played with monkeys on the beach. You probably know this place as paradise: it was made famous as such in the movie The Beach.

The beaches on the island of Phuket are gorg as well, though my sometimes 16 hour school days have kept me pretty grounded during the week. Work hard, play hard. No complaints... well, at least in retrospect. There were definitely a few complaints concerning my wanting to kick phonology in the face, but that's another story.

A 7.9 earthquake hit Indonesia day before yesterday, and I was roused that morning to a tsunami evacuation warning, which was lifted a couple hours later after no wave was generated. Crazy. It's surreal when you feel the effects of the '04 tsunami here, especially because they are so subtle that they catch you off guard. For example: most, if not all third world countries I've been to have a high population of mangy, malnourished street dogs and cats. I noticed my first week that on the island 99% of the cats and dogs you see have collars and/or seem to be well-fed. Reason? The stray animal population was all but wiped out 6 years ago, and re-population has been slow. Dead coral still lines some beaches. Tsunami evacuation route signs abound. I can finally put a face to a name, so to speak.

Anyway, back to now. My visa expired yesterday, so I'm technically in the country illegally. Getting that fixed tomorrow when I fly with a buddy down to Kuala Lumpur (KL to it's friends), Malaysia for a visa run. After that, I fly with some girlfriends to Bangkok for Songkran, which is Thailand's biggest holiday and festival, basically a week long water fight. Awesome, right?!Only problem? Thailand has, yet again, decided to Viva la Revolución! Yeah. The opposition party, known as the Red Shirts for obvious reasons, have been calling for the resignation of the newly-elected PM for a while now, but the situation just escalated in the last couple of days, with states of emergency being declared in Bangkok and 17 of the northern provinces, including the one where Chiang Mai is located (our next stop after Bangkok). Tourists are not being targeted at all though, and hey, a little revolution never hurts, right? So we (the farangs) march on...

This is Thailand.