settling in at Jang-Wat Sing Buri

Internet speed here is reasonable and I have been able to get more done within the last hour than I have in the last two weeks, administratively speaking. When we were thinking about coming here I thought I would say goodbye to smart phone luxury for a while but that no longer seems prudent; I will probably get a Blackberry operational on our first visit to Bangkok in February. Live like the locals live. Just because Thais have EDGE does not mean things are all so luxurious.

We are sticky when we sleep because our air-conditioning consists of an 80s era fan. We shower at least twice a day, sometimes more, like the Thais. Unlike the Thais, we never stop sweating. I drip so much sweat that my weight surely fluctuates by half a pound or more daily. Our host family has an instant water heater but we both take cold showers. The toilet is American style, but without TP, offering instead a little sprayer similar to what you have in your kitchen sink. Squat toilets are not hard to adjust to, butt-water in your hand and soggy underpants however do require some adjustment.

Erin is getting eaten alive by mosquitoes as expected, me only in the feet (hairy is good here). When the sun goes down the vampires come out and they are not good looking older men but small winged insects. We now eat supper inside which I think is somewhat unusual, at least with our host family. In bed early to feed the mosquitoes that manage to get through our window screens, we are out of bed at 550 AM to shower before tamboon, or making merit, with the monk. This happens every day and we spoon rice into his large pot and place bagged market food into his deep silken bag. It is my understanding that the Buddhists here believe that merit can be collected by doing good things throughout someones life. They feed us tons of food starting immediately after Tamboon which is good before language training in the morning and technical training in the afternoon. Language is exhausting to learn at this pace. I have had head aches from this that can only be compared to the aftermath of some exotic drug.

We need to get home soon so a few more quick ones: Chang, Singha, and Heineken are cheap and available. We ride about 10-15 miles on our bikes per day. The thing about Thai people being super friendly could not be more true, they are awesome.

Until next time, RED