A Day in the Life of Us

Well since most of our posts are about the interesting exploits of travel and adventure, I decided to put one up about our daily life here along the border. We are officialy teachers and so a decent amount of our time is devoted to you guessed it: teaching. We both teach English for about four hours every weekday. Those actually are not bad hours you may say. And you would be correct. They are not bad.

That leaves us the rest of the day to explore other things. It may seem that we have tons of time to ourselves for relaxation but it is amazing how times flies. I seem to wonder everyday where the day has gone. Casey's organization was nice enough to give him his own computer with internet access for the time being so he has henceforth become addicted to it. He frantically checks emails hoping for some sort of communication, joins new networks and online communities, edits pictures and blogs, checks up on the happenings of the world, finds out new birding hotspot, learns about new travel and educational opportunities and numerous other things. He has vowed that he will pull himself away from it numerous times but he just cannot. Damn technology: it is just too interesting. It will actually be good for him to leave this place and once again no longer have instant access to the computer world. But in many ways it has been very nice for both Laura and he to once again become connected to a larger community and learn about some of those things they have missed in the past few years. But three months is enough. We soon be heading to Burma and will re-enter our own little happy world of ignorance and disconnect.

We also have time to enjoy the beautiful environs of own cute little mountain town. It is just gorgeous here and the weather has for the most part been pretty spectacular (save a few weeks with cough inducing and eye burning smoke). It has been fairly dry and the temperature has been splendid. Now we have entered the rainy season but even the weather now is more agreeable than the rainy season that we experienced in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Just about every afternoon Casey drags Laura along for a bit of running in our community through rolling hills and we are met with many smiles along the way. There is a cute little river which runs past our community and this is used by many locals and we have spent a few lazy afternoons here in little huts set up for relaxation. This may even be where Laura got her Staph infection. It is only about a thirty minute walk into town and sometimes we go in for a bit of exploration or an evening meal by lakeside. It certainly is a cute low-key town.

This area has also proven to be an amazing birding spot. Many mornings, especially on the weekends, are spent just walking around looking for our feathered friends. I cannot imagine what our neighbors think as they see the crazy white people wandering around searching in the air with binoculars. Are they trying to look in our houses? Are they some kind of spies? But it seriously has been a joy living in such a birdy place (certainly better than the Philippines). We have made a few ventures further afield, passing by many cute mountain villages along the way and overall I can say that I really enjoy this little corner of Thailand.

There is certainly much to do, but we have also spent a lot of our time relaxing and talking about nothing in particular. It has been a great respite for us and also a time to plan for the future. We both have so many things on our mind and things that we want to do but for now we have been trying our best to enjoy our little hill village haven.