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.
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