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.
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.
posted by PatRawle at
6:59 pm
2 Comments:
Glad you're getting to smile along with the work. Thanks for popping by recently to visit the blog - slightly less intellectual and cosmopolitan than your own. Here in London we seem to be getting constant rain and I am sure you've seen the floods in the rest of the UK so enjoy your warm weather whilst you can.
Hang in there Pat!.
Your team did well on the weekend against Birmingham!!!. The big one is this weekend when you come up against Stevie G & the boys.
Keep up the good work, you'll soon be prepared for Hogwarts.
Get yourself down to tne beach & show off yer milky legs before it's time to go home.
Speak to you soon matey, cheers.
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