Jon is in Wonderland

I haven't even left Suratthani for the last few weeks now. One day, at the weekend I just cycled on my magic yellow bike and went in a direction I'd never been before and found all sorts of crazy markets and things. I was looking round one market which had all sorts of fascinating plants and carvings and whatnot.

And one stall had all these small cages with funny little rabbits in. Except they weren't rabbits, they were too small and their ears were too short. Perhaps some kind of guinea pig? Except they didn't look anything like guinea pigs, really. Whilst stood there watching them and contemplating what sort of animal they might be, I realised that they were moving in a really awkward way; kind of mechanical and clunky. Robot-bunny-pigs?

But some of them were sat by the edge of the cage sniffing furiously, some were lying down and looked kind of dead but were breathing slightly and some of them were eating corn on the cob - as far as I could tell, actually eating it. They all seemed to know their bearings and never bumped into the edge of the cage and their movements, whilst kind of mechanised were random enough to make it look passable as real life.

So I looked closely at their fur and it looked real enough; white and fluffy and not too perfectly symmetrical. Then suddenly what really caught my eye was something I'd perhaps subconsciously tried not to notice, that they were each wearing little colourful jackets with a sort of traditional Asian patterned style.

If I could speak enough Thai I would have been able to ask the seller what the hell these things actually were, but instead I frowned and shook my head and stumbled away feeling a bit sick.

Later that evening I made the mistake of telling some of my friends and colleagues about the weird creatures, hoping they might be able to shed some light.

"Jon, are you ok? Did you go a bit funny in the heat?"
"Seriously, I promise you, they were there and they were eating corn on the cob and moving like this..." (demonstrates) "...and they were each wearing these little colourful jackets..."
"And did one of them invite you for a tea party?"

As luck would have it I was saved when we went for food later and a Canadian girl called Avalon turned up and after exchanging pleasantries told everyone "Hey, I saw the weirdest thing at a market earlier, there were all these little rabbit things in cages, except they weren't rabbits, they were more like..." etc etc.

Phew.

The monolith

A Thai family of four, crammed onto one motorbike pull up and park next to a food stall and after a quick 'sawa di krab' to the noodle lady, the man orders some food. Already this feels as familiar to me as a red-faced farmer stumbling into a pub and asking for a pint of Old Speckled Hen. Can't believe I've only been in Thailand for one month, it feels like about six!

I've just reached the point where I feel like I really know my way around. I already have my favourite bars - one where the owner Eb always pulls out a special armchair and steals someone else's table for me to put at the front by the big screen for the football. And GM bar which is basically as if someone has uprooted the Porter Cellar bar in Bath and plonked it into the centre of Suratthani, decorated with plants and tropical fish. They have acoustic music there and sometimes freestyle jamming sessions.

Teaching is up and down and round and round. The high school class of 39 students were really rude and obnoxious last Tuesday, but then eager and rather funny two days later. My previous favourite class of younglings, the Sharks, now has two new boys who are only interested in being ninjas and it's disrupting everything.

But one thing that went well was when I brought my guitar into the Sharks lesson for the first time last week. I hadn't expected the kids to be quite so excited about it - a massive cheer went up just when I got the thing out of its case! The next challenge though is going to be getting the buggers to actually sit down and sing ABC, rather than jumping around, theatrically squawking and reaching out at the guitar as if it's the monolith from 2001 - a space odyssey.

Work.

HELP!! I'm under siege from an army of beautiful girls. They're quite literally fighting for my affection and at the moment Grace is probably winning. She's totally crazy - with manic eyes and a cheeky, toothless grin. Yesterday I saw her whispering something in Thai to Kiki which must have been a secret arrangement along the lines of "you can sit with him for two minutes, but when I come back you have to move it". And Lucienne is warming to me more and more, ever since I sang ABC in a ridiculous high-pitched voice whilst trilling my lips. But my personal favourite student is Sei-Mai. She's incredible. All the other kids say things like "to-day-is-Thurs-day" and then Sei-Mai, the youngest at only 5-years-old says "Thursday 5 November November November!! Two...Two Thousand Nine! Hee hee hee! I feel hungry and tired and super!" Then she points at my arm hair and says "haha, monkey". I respond "hairy" and she mouths the word over a few times and then uses it constantly throughout the lesson. Like the raptors in Jurassic Park, you can see her working things out.

That group is called The Sharks, one of the younger classes at the private language school I'm employed by. There are ten students and most of them are excitable, confident young girls who seem to find me hilarious. I never thought I'd want to teach young kids, but it's absolutely amazing so far. I also teach The Squids who are about 11 years old and a very high level, they're a cool class too. It's not all easy though, I also teach at two high schools - at one I have a large class size of 39 students (but they are impeccably well-behaved and polite). And at the other high school I have a class of 25 absolute little shits. It seems to be a school where students go when they've been kicked out of every other school in the city. The worst student is a boy called Boom.

All good experience I'm sure, and no matter what happens there, I always have the sharks at the end of the day from 5:30 - 6:30.
So my day ends with me walking down the staircase with Kiki. "Kiki, how many steps?" And she jumps down each one, excitedly counting in her squeaky voice "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!..." etc etc all the way to "TWENTY-EIGHT! TWENTY-NINE! THIRTY!!...umm...umm...e-...eleven?"

Yes Kiki, very good.