Update from China

Wow this is overdue!

I have been in China for just about 6 months and I am finally going to write about it.  After 3 months here I actually wrote part of a blog post and then never finished it.  I have no excuses except for procrastination and laziness.

Anyway I live in a city called Tianjin.  It is the 6th largest city in China by population boasting just about 14 million residents.  It's about 50 miles south of Beijing and has a nice skyline (when you can see it).

Tianjin at night.  This view is about 10 minutes walking distance from my apartment.

I will go back and describe the beginning in the next post, as my job and life here have changed a bit since I first arrived.  Currently, I am working in 3 kindergartens instead of the 2 public schools I was teaching at originally.  I am not sure of the exact reasoning, but I have been told that due to some changes in the English portion of the University entrance exam here in China, many parents don't feel the need to pay extra money to have a foreign teacher come to their children's school.  As a result, I no longer have the same gig and now I am kind of stuck teaching kindergarten until my contract expires on May 31st.  It isn't all bad though.  They are cute and always excited to see me walk in the room.

I only teach about 11 hours a week right now, so I have an ample amount of time to do other things.  I am doing some private tutoring as well as casually studying Chinese and Korean during my free time.  I am ashamed to say that I didn't make a real effort to learn Chinese until the past month.  Prior to this month, I recorded some useful sayings and words on my IPhone, so I could say some basic things, but that was about it.  Now I am studying adjectives and actually know about twenty with good pronunciation.  In the past few months I have actually made about five Korean friends and even more Korea acquaintances. This is possible because there are many South Korean students studying Chinese at the universities here in Tianjin. There are also about 12,000 permanent Koreans living and working in Tianjin.  It is very interesting to be friends with Koreans because we are foreigners here together.  They also have shown me where to go to get good Korean food which has been delightful since I am in love with Korean food.


As for my current situation....

Right now I teach in 3 different kindergartens.  I teach 20 different classes of students, 9 classes only once a week and the other 11 classes twice a week.  The class lengths are 15 minutes for the 3 year olds, 20 minutes for the 4 year olds, 25 minutes for the 5 year olds and to 30 minutes for the 6 year olds.  I really enjoy teaching these little kids because they are soo happy all of the time and excited about life.  The only downside is the lack of working multimedia in one of the schools which has been an ongoing headache for me.  I have resorted to bringing my laptop and plugging it into the speakers there so we can sing songs and have fun.  I have found my grove teaching young kids and I think I am actually becoming quite good at it.  My treasure trove of funny faces that I perfected as an obnoxious preteen have come in handy here and the students can't get enough of them.

Singing the "Hello Song" with my 3 year olds.

As far as social life here in Tianjin it has only been getting better and better each month.  In the beginning, I really did not have many friends, but as my network has grown I have been making more friends all the time.  I also discovered a nice expat bar owned by a Canadian guy and his Chinese girlfriend that has a nice vibe and attracts many of the other expat teachers and English speaking Chinese locals.  In the past two months 4 of my friends in Tianjin (3 Chinese and 1 Englishmen) have either moved to another area of China or moved abroad, so I have been making even more new friends since. I thought it would be rough after they left, but to my surprise I actually have more friends now then I did when they lived here.

This couple moved to Canada! The amount of help I received from these two was simple amazing!  I can not thank them enough,

From the second week of January until the final week of February I did not have work, so I applied to work at a winter camp in Beijing.  The camp held classes from January 20th to the 28th and from February 6th to the 10th.  I was looking to make some extra money, and stay busy and the Beijing camp actually paid me 170 percent of my full months normal salary in Tianjin for only 14 days of work. The camp was three 90 minute classes and a 90 minute English corner (An English corner is when Chinese students and teachers can sit around and talk to me in English about whatever they like).  The one major frustrating thing about the camp was the horribly prepared power point presentations that were given to me for each topic in the class.  They were literally useless and the huge ability, and sometimes, age gaps of the students in my classes made things even more difficult.  The good thing was that I got to play and invent a ton of different games to try and make the class interesting for the students and fun for me as well.

Below the students had to describe a picture, in English, to the poor soul who had to attempt to draw it.


More games!

I also got to live in Beijing for a few weeks and see what the Big Big city is like.  This was the only snow I saw this year.  Not even half a inch!!

I was very pleased to have the opportunity to work at this camp, even if it brought me some headaches, because the extra infusion of cash gave me the security to take a 10 day trip back to South Korea and surprise my former school and all my old friends who still live there.  Even after the flight and spending in Korea I still saved over $1,000 of my winter camp paycheck.  Granted my trip to Korea was very inexpensive because the director from my old school allowed me to stay at his home and I had breakfast there each day.  Not just that, but a lot of my old friends decided to pay for many of my meals.  My primary reason for going there, aside from visiting friends and enjoying the food, was to help my old coteacher prepare our kindergarten class for the big end of the year presentation.  I like to think that I made her job easier and the kids were very happy to see me.  All in all I had a wonderful trip to South Korea and it gave me even greater perspective about my life there and my current situation in China.

In heaven!!!!

Another thing I have been enjoying is teaching private tutoring.  Right now I am teaching two 4 year olds and a 7 year old on Tuesday night and Saturday morning.  Not only is it good money (25-35 USD an hour), but it has allowed me to see Chinese families in their own home.  They have been very welcoming to me and have fed me lunch and dinner and shown me great kindness.

I will post again soon!

I promise!!

Matt

Koh Chang

On May 2nd, while sitting at my resort's bar on Koh Phangan, I asked a traveler drinking with me her thoughts on where I should end my trip in Thailand.  I told her I was going to have about five extra days at the end of my stay in Thailand, between my sister leaving and my flight to Vietnam, and I wanted her input on where I should go.  She seemed like the person to ask, as she had visited Thailand some absurd number of times, and also lived there for a stretch as a scuba instructor.  I told her I wanted something that wasn't too far from Bangkok.  She didn't hesitate with her answer, "Koh Chang", and from that day on I was set on finishing my time in Thailand there.  After researching a little about the island, I was even more excited to go there.

Koh Chang is the second largest island in Thailand after Koh Phuket, but unlike the developed Phuket, Koh Chang is still mostly jungle.  About 85 percent of the island is part of the Mo Koh Chang National Park and is protected and wild.  The interior of the island is mountainous rain forest with many waterfalls and hiking trails.  Before World War II, Koh Chang was only inhabited by some families that made their living growing fruits and coconuts.  Due to its location close to Bangkok, and near the Thai and Cambodian border, it would be a relatively short journey for me and very convenient to get there.

On May 24th, I woke up and was once again solo in my travels.  My sister Caitlin, who I had spent the last 10 days with, had left the night before.  She got picked up by a shuttle to the airport after dinner.  After she walked away, I sat there alone for about thirty minutes and felt quite lonely.  Although I had traveled to Thailand alone, I spent the first week and a half with a Niels, the Dutch guy I met on Koh Phangan, and the rest of the trip with my sister.  I sat there with a beer and was contemplating my next move.  I had options because my high school friend Jason was living and working in Thailand in a small city to the Northeast.  He said I was free to visit whenever, but I also wanted to get back on an island because I really enjoyed the south of Thailand.  Remembering my research about how undeveloped Koh Chang is, I knew that I had to go there.  After finishing my beer, I took 5 steps over to a travel agent conveniently located within the restaurant.  I purchased a ticket to Koh Chang leaving first thing the next morning.

After breakfast, I waited to be picked up in front of my hotel by a travel company.  Right on time, a man came walking up to my hotel with my name on a piece of paper and told me to follow him.   We then stopped a few hotels down the road from mine and picked up another traveler who was still finishing his breakfast.  We were brought to a small van and driven around the block to where many travelers and a few buses were waiting.  After loading up, we were off and stuck in wonderful Bangkok traffic.  Luckily I was sitting next to an interesting Australian fellow and right behind a guy from Tasmania and his German girlfriend.  All three of them were quite interesting and I enjoyed the couple describing there travels in Nepal and India.  I chimed in a few times when they asked me some questions and we had a nice time making friends.  It turned out that the couple was also going to Koh Chang and the Australian guy was heading to Cambodia. After we arrived in Trat, near the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, all the travelers going to Koh Chang waited in a bus station while those traveling on to Cambodia got on another bus.

Following a short wait in the bus terminal, we were put on a ferry to Koh Chang.  The island is not very far from the mainland and it was clear in the distance immediately.

Not long after the ferry left, I was standing alone watching Koh Chang approach, and the Tasmanian guy from the bus came over to me and asked if I wanted to try to locate accommodation in the same area of the island with him and his girlfriend.  I was, of course, welcome to the idea since I knew that one of the best parts of traveling is the fellow travelers you meet along the way.

Once we arrived on the island everyone had to board taxis since every town on the island is located on the opposite side.  The taxi ride was awesome because of the jungle landscape and beautiful vistas as we made our way up the step sides of the mountains.

We decided to find a place to stay on Lonely Beach, near the South East tip of the island.  After wandering around and checking out a few options we decided on some rather nice places on the beach.  We negotiated with the guy working there and got the rooms for 300 baht each.  If this had been peak season I imagine the rooms would probably cost 600 to 800 baht a night, so we got quite a bargain.

On my first night I had an encounter with a huge cockroach in my room that was quite cunning, but after some patience I tracked him down.  That coin is the size of an American quarter.

Most critters never make it into the rooms because of the dozens of Geckos that are patrolling the outside walls of each bungalow.

The island is very beautiful!

I spent the next 4 days on Koh Chang relaxing and exploring the island.  One day we rented scooters and drove all the way to the other side of the island and did some exploring.  We also stopped at one of the islands most famous waterfalls and went for a swim.  The park where the waterfall was located charged Thai people 50 baht to enter the park, but 200 baht for foreigners.  This was met with a bit of frustration from my fellow travelers, but I wasn't bothered by it.  The way I see it, this place is their country, so they should have easier access to it.  Not only that but 200 baht (6 dollars) is less money to me, relative to my income, than 50 baht (1.50 dollars) is to them, so I just shrugged it off.  It isn't that I work any harder to earn a higher income than they do.  I actually think many work much harder than I do and only earn less because I work in countries where the cost of living, and therefore the incomes, are much higher.  I am sure many others don't agree with my point of view, but I thought it was a non issue and paid without a second thought.

During our trip around the island, my companions' scooter ran out of fuel, so we had to hunt for a shop selling fuel.  On these islands the fuel comes in old glass bottles that you can either pour directly into the tank or carry along with you for future use.  After refueling, and stocking up on water, we continued around the island.  Eventually we reached a dead end because the road that circles the island's coast does not go all the way around.  So when we reached the end we were forced to turn around.  Before we turned around we parked the bikes and walked on an awesome little boardwalk that goes through some wetlands.  It was amazing!

On the way back we stopped to eat.  There are very few people on this side of the island, but the ones we met were really friendly and happy to cook us a meal.

Once back on the populated, southern side of Koh Chang we stopped to take some pictures before descending back onto the beach level road that is lined with resorts and restaurants.

Even from the area in the picture above we were far below the highest peaks on Koh Chang that you can see in the picture below.

I highly recommend Koh Chang to anyone visiting Thailand!  I am happy that I made the decision to go there.  It is a little bit out of the way if you are traveling to the Phuket area, but if you are in Bangkok it is a really easy island to get to.

Into Cambodia

June 16, 2013

8 am

I repacked my backpack in my hotel room in a Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) like I always did before traveling to a new city.  First, to make sure I had all of my essential things and also to ensure that there wasn't anything in my bag that wasn't supposed to be in there.  I made my way downstairs and into the alley outside the hotel.  The hotel was run by a very small woman, of about 35, who was born with deformities to her hands, arms, legs and also had crossed eyes.  She was only about 4' 6" and she couldn't walk properly.  Her birth defects were similar to the pictures I had seen in the Vietnam War museum of children born after their mothers' were exposed to Agent Orange and other defoliants that America dropped on Vietnam to strip the forests' of their leaves.  I don't know that her birth defects were the result of such chemical contamination, but I certainly never saw anyone in America or anywhere with such strikingly similar birth defects to the pictures I had seen.  She slept in a room on the ground floor of the hotel, and when she wasn't cleaning, she spent her time in a neighboring building with other women who ran hotels nearby.  I gave her the key, thanked her, and then was off to breakfast and to the travel agency down the block where I had purchased my bus ticket to Phnom Penh the previous day.

After a motorbike taxi picked me up and speedily brought me to where a bus was waiting, I was standing on the sidewalk unsure if I was supposed to enter the bus waiting there.  The motorbike driver had just stopped the bike and walked away without any sort of direction to me.  A few minutes later he walked over and handed me a bus ticket and drove off.  The bus was being loaded with all sorts of food, building supplies and other random items that you don't normally see being put on a passenger bus.  When it got close to the time that I knew my bus was supposed to depart, I approached someone who looked like they worked on the bus and presented my ticket.  He told me to get on the bus and asked for my Cambodian Visa.  I signaled by making an X with my hands that I didn't have one and said in English that I could get one at the border.  He spoke in what sounded like a harsh tone to me in Vietnamese that could have only been interpreted to me as "You don't have one? You need one! It should be on one of these pages!" as he flipped through my passport.  After the rant, he signaled for me to get on the bus and walked away quickly.  Now this was not what I wanted to hear as I was getting on a bus to a border crossing of two third world countries, but I knew that I didn't need a Visa prior to arrival at the border.  I had made sure of this before leaving South Korea and knew others who had crossed the border without one.  I even had a backpacker magazine with me, that I grabbed in Hanoi, that laid out all the Visa requirements for all the countries in South East Asia.  I knew I was right, so I wasn't too worried, but was wondering if I was the first American that he had ever taken across the border or if he just had a horrible memory.  Certain I was right, I took my seat, and eventually the rest of the passengers got on the bus. 

As the bus began to leave, they put a DVD in so we could all enjoy a movie during the ride.  As it was queuing up I was wondering if I would even be able to understand whatever was about to come on.  What is the chance they would play something in English as I was the only Westerner on the bus.  To my surprise, the DVD that began to play was "Vietnam in HD", a documentary about the Vietnam War.  I had recently seen this documentary, and knew that it showed all the horrors of the Vietnam war and America's treatment of the Vietnamese civilians. The video had Vietnamese subtitles, and it seemed to me that most, if not all of the people on the bus were Vietnamese. Needless to say, this was quite the awkward position to be in as I was the only American in their midst.  I couldn't even pretend to be Canadian because the man on the bus, as well as several others around me, had seen me with my passport out just a few minutes before.  Not once during the film did anyone on the bus look at me in a bad way or make me feel uncomfortable at all. 

 About 30 minutes after we left Saigon, the man working on the bus walked around and collected everyone's passport.  When he got to me, I reminded him very bluntly that I didn't have, and didn't need, a Visa and he said something very loud in Vietnamese and walked away without taking my passport.  I again read the fine print of my magazine that clearly said Americans did not need to get a Visa before arrival in Cambodia and told myself that it would be alright and this guy was just an idiot. I figured that he must have known that he could get me across the border otherwise he wouldn't be taking me on a bus to the border, right?  Unless he really didn't care if he had to leave me at the border to wait for a bus traveling back to Saigon.  About 30 minutes later, I could hear him on the phone as he was sorting out the arrangements for the rest of the passengers to get across the border.  When his phone call was finished he came up to me and took my passport without saying a word, but his demeanor had changed a bit.

When we arrived at the border, there were tons of people standing in a line pushing each other to get to one small window.  The man from the bus company had my passport, so I went to the bathroom and then stood in the back of the room and waited.  Eventually, he came up to me and I followed him back to where our bus was waiting. He signaled that I should stay by the bus and he got on the back of a motorbike and went across the border with my passport.  I sat there and watched many people pushing their motorbikes across the border, and I assumed they were not permitted to drive them through this government area.  I did see a few rule breakers, including the man who taxied away the man with my passport, cruise across the border and out of sight without a problem.  Maybe ten minutes later, he returned and handed me my passport with a colorful Cambodian visa freshly inserted inside.  I got back on the bus and sat down, breathed a sign of relief, and listened to some music.  Eventually, everyone else got back on the bus and we entered Cambodia and into some heavy rain.

After a stop at a restaurant, and a sketchy river crossing on a ferry, we eventually began to enter a more heavily populated area which I knew was Phnom Penh.  I booked my hotel in Phnom Penh using the Agoda App on my IPhone.  I knew when I arrived I would not have wifi and would need to be able to find my hotel without the use of my GPS, so I took several screen shots of the map Agoda provided of my hotels location.  Agoda's maps are not detailed at all, showing only outlines of roads and no names, but a few blocks away from my hotel were a few distinct looking roads, including a circle, and also a large river that I knew I would be able to recognize on a map when I arrived.  I took several screen shots from different zooms, to help me find it on my own if need be. This was just a backup and obviously my first option would be to show the name of my hotel to a taxi driver and hopefully they would take me there. 

At around 4 pm we arrived in Phnom Penh and everyone got out of the bus.  I had absolutely no idea where in Phnom Penh we were or if we were anywhere close to the hotel I had made reservations with.  All of the Tuk Tuk taxis waiting were trying to grossly overcharge me.  One driver said he could take me there for 5 dollars and I immediately walked away.  He followed me for a few blocks and dropped the price down to 3 dollars.  Now this sounds like a ridiculously cheap taxi ride to me now, and I am sure to anyone else reading this, but they are not charging locals 3 dollars for a ride within the city.  Most Cambodians earn less than 3 dollars a day (Cambodian 2012 nominal GDP was $926 which is $2.56 a day) and certainly could not afford such a fare, but since I am a tourist they like to take advantage which is totally understandable.  In hindsight, I was just being stubborn to make the point that I wasn't a chump, but I didn't want to be ripped off and preferred to get there my own way.  Thinking back on it now, I would like to give money to every person I walked past there because they do live a life of poverty while my life is luxurious by comparison.  However, when you are immersed in that region for a few months you start to think of the fair value of goods and services there quite differently.  You begin to understand the going rate of things and don't want to pay 5 or 10 times the real price just because you can afford it.  I noticed that this mentality had taken over other travelers the month before, when I was in Thailand, and I didn't really care then, but after getting ripped off a few times I began to think the same way.  I knew I would pay more for some things, but if there was a way around it I would find it. So I began to walk and scan my surroundings.

A few blocks later, I saw what looked like a decent hotel, and walked in to see if there was a city map I could buy or take for free.  The girl behind the counter didn't understand English, but I was able to get across that I was in need of a map.  She signaled that she didn't have one, but pointed to one of the walls which sure enough had a city map hanging.  I walked over and compared my Agoda map to this detailed city map and  located the distinct road layout near my hotels location.  I asked her where we were now by miming and she scanned the map for a few minutes and then pointed to a location.  I immediately realized that it was actually quite a straight forward trip to my hotel, although it was probably 45 minutes or so by foot.  I took several pictures of this map with my phone, thanked her and made my way down the road.  I have always been good with maps and used to like to draw them as a child. With pictures of the city map in my phone I felt confident I could find my way without trouble. 

The walk across the city was a really cool experience.  There was a good shoulder on the road and I got to see more of the city than I could have if I quickly passed by everything in a Tuk Tuk. It was drizzling a little bit, but in that humidity it was a welcomed relief and I was able to find my hotel without much trouble.

I'll blog about Phnom Penh and the rest of Cambodia soon!

Day 1 on Koh Phangan

May 2, 2013

The resort I made reservations with on the mainland had a taxi pick me up at the port of Koh Phangan.  The taxi was a pick up truck with a covered bed and bench seats on both sides.  There were about five of us in the truck bed.  The man sitting across from me introduced himself to me as Niels from Holland and we had a nice chat as the truck took us to a more sparsely populated side of the island.  About 20 minutes into the trip, the other two or three people in the truck with us were dropped of at a resort.  Niels and I were told to remain in the truck because our resort was further away.  We eventually turned down a small driveway onto a hilly, unpaved dirt road that looked like it had been washed away during the last rain storm.  After an extremely uneven, bumpy ride, we arrived at our resort and were surprised to find that it was completely vacant except for the two of us.  Another surprise was that half of the resort was under construction.  Apparently the owner of the resort was not renewing the lease for one half of the property, so he was moving the restaurant and a number of rooms to the side of the property he owned.

After arriving, we got settled into our rooms.  I had opted for the cheapest kind of bungalow with no air conditioning.  The bathroom had a thatched roof and stone walls.  I could look over the walls of the bathroom into the surrounding jungle.  Animals could easily enter and exit my bathroom and there were a number of spider webs along the ceiling which was only a few inches over my head.  Niels, on the other hand, was in one of the nicest rooms at the resort.  It was a proper room with walls and a proper shower.  It was also situated in front of an in ground pool right along the beach.  After we showered, we met for lunch at the restaurant of the resort.  The burgers we ordered were not very good at all, but we both were happy to be on the island and relaxing.  We made small talk about our backgrounds and got along very well.  Niels had already been in Thailand for about two weeks.  He had traveled through the Northern Thai cities before venturing to South to Koh Phangan.  I found him to be quite interesting and a very nice guy.  I knew that we were going to get along well.

After eating, we decided to explore the island a bit.  It didn't take us long to realize that we had made a mistake choosing this resort.  If there were other people there it would be quite a great place, but because it was the low season the whole place seemed deserted.  We got a ride from one of the workers there and he dropped us off at a busier beach area along the Southern shore.

This is the view we had during lunch that first day.

I had originally chosen to come to Koh Phangan because a friend I knew in South Korea, named Sarah, was actually going to be on the island that week.  She and I had become friends after having discussions about traveling to South East Asia on a Facebook group for the foreigners in our local city in South Korea. She had given me all sorts of good advice and we ended up meeting and hanging out a few times in February right before she left South Korea.  She had already been in South East Asia for about two months by the time I arrived in Thailand and we had plans to meet up once I arrived.  She told me that around the first week of May she would be in Koh Phangan, so I decided it was as good a place as any to start my trip.  I didn't have any idea where on the island she was, so Niels and I just decided to wander around until she made contact with me.



We found that Koh Phangan was not nearly as busy as we thought it would be, but it was very beautiful.  We walked down the beach and asked others where we should go.  After getting a beer, we eventually made our way to a place that Niels had heard of on the South Eastern tip of the island called Coral Bungalows.  It was a nice place with a pool on the beach and many people there.  We decided that we would book rooms here for the following night.  There was a huge monthly pool party happening at this resort later that night.  Niels and I were not really in the mood for a crazy party because we were both extremely tired.  Niels had just endured literally 24 hours of traveling including a 12 hour train from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand to Bangkok and then an overnight bus ride to Southern Thailand.  After we had dinner and drinks, we watched the sunset, and made our way on foot to see what else was on this side of the island.  The island had a really relaxed and laid back feel to it and was mostly locals.

                 
                                                    

We walked around some roads, waiting to see a taxi to take us back to our resort.  It was not easy to find one that was not already full of people.  We eventually arrived at what appeared to be a small taxi hub and we sought out the first driver we saw and asked how much it would cost to get back to our resort.  After a nearly two hour showdown of egos between Niels and a taxi driver, over the price of the taxi ride back to our resort, Niels finally gave in.  Niels was pretty savvy about appropriate prices for transportation in Thailand and also pretty stubborn if he thought we were getting overpriced.  Witnessing this scene was really funny to watch because both men were extremely stubborn and I didn't really mind waiting because it was only about 9 pm. Niels only gave in after I pointed out that they were arguing about a few dollars and that this amount of money was not much to us, but it meant a lot to him.  Not to mention that he was working for someone else, so it wasn't like he was keeping all the money from our fare.  Once we got into the taxi we thought our day was over, but to our surprise, the taxi driver appeared to make a detour and then picked up his wife and young son.  Then he stopped for dinner, and also picked up a local father and son.  I would learn that this was pretty normal in Thailand, but on that day it seemed rather strange.  After almost 40 minutes in the bed of his pick up truck, we arrived back at our resort.

When we arrived, there were a few people at the bar of our resort, so I pulled up a chair and introduced myself.  Niels went to sleep because he was far more tired than me from his long trip from Chiang Mai. The bartender was a British expat in his mid to late 40's.  Sitting in front of him were a British woman of about 30 and a German man in his late 30's having beers.  About 20 minutes after I arrived at the bar, an Irish man in his 50's wandered up from the beach and sat next to me.  He was really drunk and the bartender knew him as somewhat of a regular.  The conversation that ensued was one of the funniest I have ever heard.  The Irish man insisted on talking about subjects that I wouldn't even think to say out loud, and the rest of us were tearing because we were laughing so hard.  The conversation ranged from blatant racism against all Thai people, sexual fetishes of tall women, various situations when he was arrested, and his insisting that he wasn't a pervert while bringing up subjects that would point to the contrary.  There was a point where he was actively insulting the British woman's uncle and she was laughing so hard she said that she would be angry later, but couldn't help hysterically laughing now.  

Eventually I made my way back to my bungalow and had to deal with the mosquito net that was bunched up over my bed.  I did my best to get the net around my bed, but it only left the very center of the bed untouched by the bottom of the net.  Also, the bed had a backboard that made it impossible to get the net to fully enclose the bed.  In fact, the one area of the bed that wasn't well covered by the net was right where my head was.  Following about 5 minutes of fiddling with the net, I figured I had it the best I was going to get it and got in.  Like out of a movie, the second I turned off the lights and got myself in the bed comfortably, I heard the fluttering of a huge bug underneath the bed.  I immediately sprung up and out of the bed, turned the light on, and searched under the bed for the source of the sound.  I couldn't locate the bug, but I knew that there had to be all sorts of critters in the room and I just had to deal with it.  I decided to put my earphones on and listen to music to deafen myself to the sounds of all the creatures sharing the room with me.  As long as I couldn't hear them I knew I would be able to relax and fall asleep.  It worked well and I was asleep quickly.

The second day on Koh Phangan was a Half Moon Party, and a much more interesting day.  Eventually I will get to blogging about it.