Postcard from Phi Phi

This is a bit more like it. The teaching course has ended and now, finally, it's time to relax.

About a 40km boat ride east of Phuket is Phi Phi Don, the larger of two islands that appear out of nowhere in the middle of the Andaman Sea. The smaller one, Phi Phi Leh, is where The Beach was filmed, chosen no doubt for its idyllic isolation. We sailed past. It looked like a watery version of an Asda car park, packed with boats of all kinds queuing-up around the bay as film-struck sun seekers jostled for room on the iconic sand.

The main village on Phi Phi Don is unashamedly touristy. Brightly saronged and shorted tourists are flushed along narrow streets past shops selling all manner of tat till they tumble out onto the main beach on the other side. As wall sized photos in some of the cafes show, this is one of the spots most devastated by the tsunami in 2004. You'd not think it today: the place is buzzing and new buildings are still being thrown up before your very eyes.

I hopped into a taxi - a long boat water taxi - and headed a bit further east to the quieter Long Beach instead. I proceeded to get myself thoroughly sunburnt ending up looking like a matchstick: skinny white body with a bright red head.

As I was gently grilled on both sides, I had time to reflect on a fantastic five weeks in Thailand. I've mentioned the smiles before but, especially coming back to China, it's the attention paid to manners and politeness that I'll most miss.

There's one other clear distinction between China and Thailand. In the latter, foreigners are known as farang and in the former, laowai. But the Chinese use their word in a vaguely pejorative way and normally when they assume you don't know what they're saying. But the Thais go out of their way to embrace outsiders with, for instance, taxis carrying stickers hollering the slogan "I love farang". It's still oddly distasteful to be referred to as a foreigner in the first place but at least it's in a positive way!

A final difference: descending towards Chengdu airport, blue skies gave way to smog. It'll be a while till I see stars at night again. But, still, I've really enjoyed my five week long breath of fresh air.

Postcard from Phuket

I had a little stone in my shoe yesterday morning. It was really annoying. Nag, nag, nag, it went all day. Yet it was still there when I came home in the evening. That’s how intensive a CELTA teaching course at the ECC Language School is: there’s just no time to do anything but work.

So after three weeks I’ve not even seen a beach, not had as much as a sniff of the sea. No sipping cocktails of an evening in a beach hut as the waves kiss the shore but rather a first floor room in a Phuket boarding house overlooking (and overhearing) the main drag into town.

It was only when I got here that I discovered that Phuket town is nowhere near the sea anyway. Doh! All the white-sandy beaches are at least a bus ride away; the very best ones are a bus and a boat ride away.

Thailand’s great though. After China the sensation is the same as untying shoelaces that were too tight. Relief. It’s partly because I can get away with speaking English, I guess, which makes everything so much easier. But – surprisingly for a country under military dictatorship – there’s a feeling of freedom; people just seem happier. Above all, it’s the smiling that gets you (it's a way of life here to try and ignore bad stuff and just laugh at everything). So even if it's yet another tuk-tuk driver saying "Where you go?", you can't get annoyed and just have to smile back. It's therapeutic too; smiling makes you feel good.

It's yet another lesson learned among so many from the last few weeks.