Career Purgatory on the Andaman coast.

Oooooooooo, been a long time but I still love you all long time :)
So where was I? Oh yes, the job... well that didn't work out too great I'm afraid. I'll skip the details, they're hideously boring especially when you lived them on a 14 hour minibus journey like I. But the general jist is that the darn thing just weren't organised well, I wasn't conned; not in the slightest. I just fell a victim to standard Asian senses of time and explanation. So where am I? Phuket, not Phuket Phuket as I'm not a 50yr old expat on the look out for hookers or am I Sweedish. I'm staying in a fantastically local place in the south of the island. About as local as you can get as I'm staying with a Thai family in the local gypsy village where people don't speak thai and I'm sleeping on a matress on the floor, just like Nepal then ;)
I've been traveling with this amazing Cambodian/Thai girl called Nen for the last 5 days, she was on the minibus that took all us failed teachers down south hitching a ride down for a holiday, although she actually owned the minibus as one of her many many businesses in this country. After everything Trang-wise went down the toilet and due to the facts that I liked her and I really didn't like the sound of another 14hour minibus journey back to Bangkok the morning after the 14hour minibus journey from Bangkok, I decided to stay down south. We found a quiet little bungalow on a deserted beach on the East-coast (presently at a critical tsunami danger!) and chilled out for couple of nights. Then we came here and I'm having a fanstastic time. Phuket (again not Phuket Phuket) is beautiful, with fantastic beaches rolling out into the rough, deep blue Andaman sea. At night we cook dinner and visit her friends in a local reggae bar where the evening brings live, intermate jams and complemtary beer and the other thing you might find at a reggae bar. She is fantastically cool, stunning and I'm very happy I'm spending this time with her.
So the next move? Not exactly sure yet, I was told by a friend that he could potentially sort me out with a job near Chaing Mai at a school he will be teaching at and had taught at two years ago, same pay and free accomodation and gym membership? That sounds swell, but according to the TV last night, Chaing Mai and it's surronding area and mostly underwater and with a tropical cyclone heading over from Papua New Guinea it doesn't look like that is going to get better, but we shall see... how knows kayaking to work in a rudementary boat made of petrol tins and rope could be a laugh.
Yes it is getting wet out here, every day now the tears of Buddha fall to release a new generation of everything that could possibly bite you to peices but it doesn't half cool things down. Last night we slept to the sound of the storm hammering onto the corregated iron roof, it was incredibly hynotic and before long I was lost in a daze I haven't experienced since my flight to Kathmandu, proper rest, no strings attached and a breakfast of oily fish and the garlic bbq praws of last night to wake up to. I love gypsy villages. So I guess my exciting and romantic last few days have shadowed the very true fact that unless I find a job soon I can kiss this country a hugely premature goodbye. I don't want to do that, and I do want to teach. But I have to accept that if things don't work out then things don't work out. Nem has offered me a job running her bar in Bangkok as a temporary solution to this predicament. I'm taking it and will continue to look for teaching work up there, even if it's a full time job or just a couple of conversation classes a week I will be happy to get the practice.
But things could be worse, I could be in Connor's position. I've been in regular contact with him recently and things, as predicted, have gotten worse back in Boudhanilkantha. Connor is in trouble and is hiding out away from the orphanage outside the city, I can't be too detailed because I know some Nepali people could have access to this blog and you never know who knows who. But he is in trouble and possibly has people looking for him, and all he did was try to help 19 wonderfully special children who have had a shit life... I miss them greatly, not a day goes by without me thinking of them and although Thailand is everything I've known it to be and more, a side of me wishes I was back there in the front line rather that recieving emails every day about how fucked up everything there is. Again I can't go into detail but there is a plan and hopefully if all goes correctly (which is a giant leap of faith to make throughout Asia, let alone Nepal) things may resolve. We shall see, I trust you are all praying for the future safety of these innocent children and of a good-hearted man in the front lines of corruption. This will be concluded, happily or tragically I cannot know. It seems only western children have a concept of a compulsive happy ending, I'm sorry to end this on such a note but it's occupying my mind.
Mango trees with monkeys in them, there that's a bit happier.