Thailand with Phil 2024

For those thinking about trying this delicious slice of Thai life and culture themselves, here are some things to note about Koh Chang and Kacha Resort: The rooms are elegant and spacious, and each has a veranda with chairs and table. Though our veranda is ground floor and looks out to a parking lot, most have views of the pool or the mountains. Along with the free breakfast at the resort’s restaurant, this is a steal at $62/night. Breakfasts are ample and designed to satisfy every taste. Heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables, with a variety of Thai meat/veggie dishes, rice, and soups, along with fresh eggs, oatmeal, waffles, pancakes, bacon, toast, croissants, and cold cereal. I usually breakfasted on an omelette, Thai vegetables, and a heaping plateful of fruit (grabbing a couple of chocolates as I left, for eating with tea later in the day). You can usually snag a seat by the long table overlooking the ocean. Wonderful views. Dinner on the beach is a treat. Just stroll north down the ...

It’s Saturday, March 9, our last full day here on Koh Chang. Phil is off on his motorbike again, exploring, and I’m reading, listening to audiobooks, and working on some writing. And thinking about our time here. C. S. Lewis’s book The Magician’s Nephew contains the description of a green, quiet wood where nothing much happens and where a sweet, mild drowsiness overcomes visitors to that magical place. There are many small pools amid the trees, each one a portal to a different world. But when one is in the Wood Between the Worlds, one forgets about the existence of the other places, and only feels drowsy and peaceful.  That’s kind of how spending these eight days on Koh Chang has felt. We are between hot, noisy, and polluted Bangkok; and chilly Minneapolis in the last barren days of winter. We’re in a bit of a magical place—tropical warmth, soft breezes off the Gulf of Thailand, gentle rain showers, the ocean waves moving rhythmically to the shore, hypnotizing and anesthetizing. N...

My husband is an enthusiastic but cautious motorcyclist. In Minnesota he ranges far up and down the state, and often into Wisconsin, seeking out winding country roads, woods, and lakes. However, we both had second thoughts about his renting a motorbike in Thailand. Watching the hordes of motorbikes zooming up and down Lat Phrao Road, swerving between lanes, squeezing between buses and vans, we saw the danger of renting anything in Bangkok. On Koh Chang, however, the pace of life and traffic is slower. Much slower. The road never gets wider than two lanes, and traffic is often sparse outside of the few small towns. The road circles most of the island, and anything leading off of that is often simply a dirt track. So Phil decided to give it a try. He has rented a nice little model for about $7/day and takes it for a spin every morning after breakfast, returning sometime in the afternoon. He has traveled all the way to the south of the island, exploring beaches and eating at roadside rest...

We are still in Thailand—but Koh Chang cannot be more different from Bangkapi in Bangkok: cooler temps, soft ocean breeze, no traffic sounds, no choking smog, no skyscrapers, no schedule. Just…here. Quiet. Green mountains, warm seas, and soft rain today. We flew into Trat on Saturday afternoon after a completely uneventful (thank goodness—I still worry when traveling in new situations) travel day. It was a one-hour flight from BKK, with the fields and orchards of southern Thailand stretching out below us in the hazy heat of a March afternoon. The clouds in Thailand seem different—harder, more compact and lumpy—than those of the American Midwest and Northwest. The tiny Trat airport was a delight. It looks more like a bungalow than an aviation center. If I had qualms about how we were to get from the airport to Koh Chang Island, they were unfounded. We were met with enthusiastic signs and invitations to rent a van that would take us to the ferry, across to the island, and drop us off at ...

It came at last, a day anticipated and also dreaded: the last day of class. Our final day of teaching English at Santisuk. Final day means party! We get to quit class half an hour early, order pizza or KFC (big treats here), and celebrate the month of study. My writing students presented the amazing blogs they’ve created, and we also wrote about how to solve the world’s problems. We then enjoyed four (!) large pizzas, which they managed to finish within the hour.  Our Level 2 class has dwindled down to one student in the past few days, due to illness of some students and a death in the family of another. But we celebrated anyway with ice cream and cupcakes, and at the end were reluctant to part. (Goodbyes are so hard.) Dream is a 2nd-year university student studying law. In the evening we joined another Level 2 class, students we’d taught in January. We have missed their smiles and laughter, and so we brought more cupcakes and sat in on the party. What dear students! And then the d...

This February I was privileged to teach a writing class at Santisuk. Though it included a slog through grammar and business writing (letters of complaint or appreciation, resumes, application cover letters, etc.), we ended with some creative fun: narrative paragraphs, story structure, memoir, travel writing, and even poetry.  I was surprised and impressed by the depth of thought my students put into their work—and the effort it takes to express complex ideas in a foreign language. The character in elephant pants and baseball cap is my dear husband, Phil, who often interrupted my teaching with a welcome joke, comment, or just plain nonsense. Everyone loved him. Our class included a university student learning animation, a former teacher and IT expert, a vacuum cleaner salesman, a young woman preparing to spend a year in Australia, and some highly creative people between jobs—and thus able to attend a 10am-12pm class during the week. I invited the class to hand in as much writing as ...