Leaving Prangku

Leaving Prangku and all the friends I have made there was very hard! I miss them all very much (in the American sense -- I think it means something else in Thai) and will treasure them and my experience there always. I hope, in fact to see them all again before I finally depart from Thailand, though I don't know if it will happen. (This is not the best photo of me ever, but a nice one of most of the other people!)

I am having a hard time adjusting to being a tourist after living in PK for so long. It is very strange to be surrounded by white people again. Nice to be able to speak to them, but they look very odd. And I miss the real Thailand. After six weeks I feel most at home in the back streets and restaurants and markets where the Thai people go, rather than where the tourists go. Except for the fact that I don't speak Thai! (though I have been going to Monk Chats and talking with the student monks who are all very helpful and are dedicated to working on my vocabulary! (One of them even gave me a Thai name -- I now have two!)) The tourist life has a directionlessness to it that I find disturbing. I am reminded of the title "the unbearable lightness of being."

More about my continuing adventures soon! Tourist life, here I come!