Well, I'm "back home" in koh tao again. I should know by the feel of the crappy keyboard under my fingers...
Not too much to say about bangladesh. I basically spent three weeks hanging out in a hotel room watching hbo. We arranged some containers on a barge and I learned how to signal the difference between boom down and chain down to a crain operator, but aside from that I didn't really learn much. Theoretically I could get called back, but based on my last experience, I expect the chance that they'll have things ready to equipment training before the end of this week to be pretty slim, and there isn't much point to sending me back there for seven days... So I expect I'll live out the rest of my trip here in home sweet home koh tao...
It's actually been a dream of a home coming. The last day or so has gone about as perfectly as one could imagine. After arriving in bangkok yesterday I spent seven hours on a local bus with 50 or so of my closest thai friends. The only other foreigners were a German man and his son (or so I thought), as chance would have it, sitting right behind me. The "father" asked me an hour or so into the ride in german wether I was german or english. I said "beide, oder das heisst ich kann beide, ich bin aber ami..." (both, or rather I can speak both. I'm american thoguh.) Then we launched into a bit of a conversation about whether or not the bus would make any stops along the way. I said with a seven hour bus ride and no bathroom aboard I couldn't see how it wouldn't... When we finally arrived in chumporn (a town anlong the coast where I was going to spend the night before taking a ferry over to koh tao) I asked if he knew his way around, and more specifically if he knew how to get to farang bar (a friend had recomended the hotel across the street). He did one better and said his wife and kids were picking him up and they could offer me a ride! Sweet!!!! It turned out his "son" was actually his son's friend and his son and daugther were already there to meet him. We all squeezed into a car and took headed over to a travel agent who they knew and with whom they were staying, and more importantly who arranged a room for me and a ferry ticket in the morning.
So I splurged. Stayed in a nice posh hotel with AC for 10 bucks and slept in until noon. Took the taxi (truck) with 20 or so of my best friends to the ferry and made it over here a little after three this afternoon. One of the girls on the taxi, who was clearly a regular coming back from a visa run, looked a bit familiar. On the boat I noticed she was reading a german magazine (yeah, I know, I'm such a stalker). When I got off the boat I saw her sitting around and asked (in german) how long she'd been on koh tao.
"A year. "
"Oh, really, where do you stay?"
"Chalok ban kao."
"Oh, wow, that's where I stayed too, no wonder you looked familiar, I must have seen you around. Where did you dive?"
"Big bubble."
"Oh, I know sophia. (blank stare) And Sandra."
"Yeah! Sandra. Did you do your open water with her?"
"No, but some friends of mine did."
Whatever, the details of the conversation don't really matter. The important part is -- I got a free ride out of it!!!! She was waiting for somebody who was coming to get her and offered me a ride back. It was the big bubble truck, but they didn't charge me -- the bastards at buddhaview would have... More importantly, it was a good feeling to be back where I knew people =) And that was only the start of my good luck streak. I asked how things were and she said busy ( i.e. good luck finding a place). Well, good luck was all I had. The first place I checked was the spot where I stayed last time. Right away I saw Heinz -- a fifty something northern german guy who instructs at a mostly danish dive shop and has a thai wife and a one or so year old girl name jenny. The "landlord" was installing a toilet in his place so I went around back and asked if he had a room for me. Nope. Oh well. Didn't expect one -- especially since I was only going to be there for two weeks. As I was walking away though they called after me. Apparently somebody had checked out that morning and he didn't realize it. He showed me the room and it looked fine to me so I took it! So I was back a few minutes and already I had a place to stay -- right next to the room I stayed in last time...
So like I said, it's good to be home again.
Tonight I met a few people from the new crowd. When I introduced myself I said, "Hi, I'm Jeff". Ok, This is something only Jared and his gang would get, but there are people I've introduced myself to as "Jeff" who simply say, "Hi Jeff, it's nice to meet you." Then half an hour later they discover I'm "Jeff Hansen" and suddenly they're like, "OH, you're Jeff Hansen! I've heard so much about you!" So tonight was a little bit like that. I've only once met one other Jeff on the island -- which given how many Jeff's I've known in my life is a bit strange. Nice, but strange. So a little after meeting me, somebody suddenly said, "wait, are you NAKED Jeff?" Uh, Yeah, I guess that would be me. Apparently I have a reputation and a whole new moniker for when I put my name up on the dive board =)
Ok, it's late, and I've decided to assist a friend on the last day of an open water course tomorrow -- he was assisting, but the instructor got in an accident, and as he's not an instructor it was all to convenient for him to take the course over, so I might as well take over as assistant =) And as it was raining buckets this evening, I didn't do much in the way of partying, so here I am closing the night out with a blog entry...
So I'll be off to bed now.
Let me just close with this. Yeah mom, I heard about the fact that Sanjoy's barbeque party is the weekend before I'm coming home. And yeah, I'm a bit bummed that I spent and extra 200 dollars to come home before the labor day weekend in hopes that we could hold it then only to find that they'd already scheduled it for the weekend before... But no, I wouldn't want them to change it on my behalf... Especially since some people won't be there for labor day weekend... We'll just have to have a second bbq party I guess. A welcome back party or something... Oh well.
By the way, I'm back in touch with Hina. She wants to see everybody. I told her she was invited to Sanjoy's bday, so invite her.
Good night all =)
