A Series of Unfortunate Events - A Timeline of Thailand

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In light of the events of the past few days, I thought i'd give you all a quick snapshot of how the past two months have played out in the luck of Amy Benziger in Thailand

Day One: Miss connecting flight from LA to Taiwan. Sleep on the benches outside of an airport McDonalds. Pump up Enya on my ipod to drown out sounds of very nearby crazy people also sleeping on benches.

Week Two: Purse is stolen out of my room while I am sleeping. Go to police station to file a report, which consists of me writing down the account on a piece of notebook paper. Don't hold out much hope for recovery.

Week Four: Get sea lice all over my boobs from a night swimming in the ocean

Week Six: Fall in a cave and break my camera. Also severely bruise my forearm which results in a protrusion that resembles a third elbow for three weeks. Covered in mud from the cave, attempt to go home and shower but get into a motorcycle accident on the way. Difficulty explaing why I am covered in mud and bleeding prior to the accident to Thai police.

Week Seven: Accidentally burn my calf on the exhaust of a motorcycle taxi. Giant burn scar on my right leg. Kind of like a natural tattoo from Thailand.

Week Eight: Despite asking 5 different people, take a four hour wrong bus to the beach down South while trying to get home from Bangkok

Week Nine: Get purse stolen out of the basket on my bike by a man on a motorcycle while biking to dinner. Goodbye phone, ipod and wallet (#2). Fill out police report that consists of me writing my account on a spare piece of computer paper. Again, not exactly holding my breath with faith in the legal system.

Ongoing: Am followed by small Thai children yelling "hellohellohello" at me and am swerved at by honking cars (I don't know why they do this. It's a weird game of chicken. They always win.) Have come to realize that being white is apparantly HYSTERICAL!

How do you like them apples?

Despite this laundry list, I am happy to be here. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a really difficult day to day experience in terms of the language barrier and different culture. I'm taking Thai lessons which is helping a lot. I'm starting to enjoy teaching the older kids a lot more. I've realized that if I just play music then the lesson goes much better. Last week we did Otis Redding's "My Girl" for pronouns and this week we're onto "Monday, Monday" by the Mamas and the Papas for days of the week. The 6-8 year olds are still a nightmare. The one great moment was when a kid rushed into class late after lunch. They all baby powder their faces after eating and this kid had gone nuts with the stuff. He stopped to apologize for being late, but some must have gotten into his nose and instead of talking a huge sneeze came out. White powder flew everywhere. You probably had to be there, but I had to take a knee I was laughing so hard.

Random Weird Thailand Fact:
1) Most of the toilets are squat toilets and you use a hose after you're finished. The water pressure varies and some are pretty much the equivalent of an enema.

2) There's a big emphasis on dressing appropriately here. People dress in very tailored and conservative outfits for work and general day to day wear. However, every day I see men and women walking around in boxers and oversized t-shirts. It seems like the sentiment is that if you don't feel like dressing appropriately then don't bother to get dressed at all.

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