Thailand is Amazing

There's something about the heat and humidity that makes everything sort of surreal. The rain is hard and lasts for days, but when it stops the streets are clear in a matter of minutes. Where does it all go? Creatures grow bigger than in the states, too. Huge beetles, dragonflies, butterflies seem like they're out of a storybook. And it's so green, I'm from Washington State and I've never seen such green!

There are some challenging things about Thailand. The language is really hard, something like 66 letters in the alphabet render it unreadable to me (I can recognize and pronounce exactly 1 letter) and the tones make it difficult to pick up even a few phrases. Add to that the fact that no one expects a white girl to speak any Thai, and even what I know I can say pretty well gets ignored most of the time.

Names are tricky, too. Most every Thai has a formal name and a nickname. Nicknames are in no way related to the formal name. It's not like Kate for Katherine, or Meg for Margaret. It's like Golf for Pongsakorn or DiNi for Thibhyana. No way to know, looking at one, what the other might be. This is especially funny when you get an email with 4 Thais CCed and you're told to contact one of them, using their nickname, for whatever your question is. You have no choice but to reply all, because there's no way to know who Noi is out of the list of names.

Cycling's an adventure too. There are loose rules governing roadways, but it's not unusual to have someone come up the wrong side of the street on their motorbike or to have someone parked literally in the middle of the road. At first, this irritated me, but now I think of it as an adventure. I know that I need to pay attention and be aggressive without doing anything stupid, and I know that I'll see some crazy stuff, and that's just how it is!

Those things are extremely random. But they are little things I like about Thailand. I suppose those are some of the things that make it feel like an exotic adventure.

Oh, Thailand.