A Lazy Adventure Day

It was a lazy adventure day if that is really a thing. Spontaneous trip to Phitsanulok was canceled because.....well......I fell asleep. We ended up watching a little bit of Doctor Who and ate snacks for meals. Then I took a tuk tuk to the bus station and that was adventure. We had to walk 15 minutes before we found a single tuk tuk. Then I got to the bus station and learned bus tickets are not always right. I ended up on a double decker bus, which was something I was trying to avoid the entire time I was in Thailand. First off, I never should have expected to avoid them together. And the reason I was trying to avoid them is because my fellow teachers told me that taking one, especially through the mountains makes you feel like the bus is going to tip over. The entire time. And on that point they were correct. The bus shakes worse than a rickety wooden roller coaster. Side to side, side to side. There was even a point I had to grab onto a handle so that I would not be dumped unceremoniously into the aisle and I was not even sitting in the aisle seat. Then, I go and fall asleep. WHHHHHHAAAAAPPPP! That would be the sound of my head doing a little more than tapping the window. WHHHHHHAAAAAAAPPPPP! What?! I fell asleep again? WHHHHAAAAAAAPPPPP! Okay, that is enough. I am staying AWAKE! It really didn't help that there were very few lights both inside or outside the bus. And I decided to think about the bus ride as a really long roller coaster. Shoot, I might even be willing to give those another go when I get back.

So I manage to get back to my city with at least a few functioning unbruised brain cells. I am tired and just really want to go home. My usual motorcycle man does not work on Sunday evenings, so I had to catch a different motorbike taxi. I tell a younger dude where I want to go and we were off. So, younger guys like to go fast on a motorcycle. They like to weave between and around cars more and race other young men. I was starting to get concerned and then I had two wonderful thoughts. Neither of us have a death wish so he is not trying to kill me and secondly, if he tosses me from the bike, he knows he is not getting paid. So that made me feel a whole lot better. I do know he went over that last speed bump fast just to see if I would squeal. I did come off the seat a little but it is going to take more than that to get me to squeal. And he gave me a good price too. I did not even ask what the rate was before I got on because I was willing to pay and outrageous amount if someone would just take me home. But nope, he was nice and when they have already dropped you off they can pretty much name any ridiculous amount since it was not pre-negotiated. So just a new experience for the list.

Three things that got left off in my previous post, though I am sure there are more and I am just not remembering them. Friday night I laughed sooooo hard. Enough to almost fall out of my chair hard. So I was with three of my other teachers and had asked them if they have figured out how to flush a squattie potty yet. One of them had and explained it to me. Then, we realized that two of my fellow teachers were totally not sitting/squatting on the squattie potty right. Omg we nearly died. Second thing: When we walk as a group, many times we are single file just because of the narrow sidewalk and various obstacles. We were walking around and up and I noticed the teacher in front of me taking odd steps to get where we needed to go. I mirrored the steps, though confused as to why the steps were odd. We walk a little further and the teacher turns around and says, we just walked over a baby snake. Oh. Lucky I followed without question. And then finally, for about half an hour, we teachers amused ourselves with the things someone from America is going to say and do when they get here. All of us are awaiting the first American visitor for any of us, just to hear the stories of "They did THAT!!" and "Did they really say that?!" I know it is mean of us, but it amused us for half an hour. And I can write down all the things we talked about but even if I wrote them down and someone read it and came over here, they would still do all of them. Don't worry, I was there once and if you visit you just have to learn how to laugh.