typhoons and tree houses

...or rather, tree house singular. but probably typhoon plural. there's a crazy one in the indian ocean right now, which is dumping heavy rain on us in phang-nga province (pronounced pang-a).

its the monsoon season, so typhoons are fairly regular. people seem to be more laid back about them than north carolinians are about hurricanes.

backing up, we flew for 36+ hours, NYC to seoul to phuket. seoul, the short time we were there, was great because we saw all these couples wearing matching outfits. identical tshirts, identical pants, the women always in heels, even with shorts. no one could figure it out, but then the very chatty korean i sat next to on the way to phuket explained that they were honeymooners and they dress alike when they leave on their trip. its the cutest thing, but somehow i think i will have a hard time convincing an american male to match me, no matter what the occasion.

we got to phuket in the middle of the night and then had an hour drive to our hotel in khao lak, one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami. everyone here is so friendly and smiley... we learned in orientation that the more you smile the better, as thais dislike confrontation and try to "save face."

we've spent two days in orientation and talking about workflow, which is journalist lingo for how we go about collecting and editing stories. we watched footage from the tsunami, taken by tourists in resorts close to ours. i learned that tsunamis are not tidal waves... they are basically series of very quick floods, caused by earthquakes. people die because they are carried out to sea before they have time to outrun the flood, not because a huge wave crashes down on top of a village. this doesn't make it any less dangerous, but it did change my perspective a bit.

we have our meetings in what's called the tree house, which sounds a lot cooler than it is, because its not really a tree house proper. trees grow through the porch. the resort we are staying at is built into the side of the hill and ends at the shore below. at times it feels like swiss family robinson, or jungle book, full of twisty vines and big leaves and straw roofs. i saw an elephant between the rubber trees today. my goal is to ride one before we leave.

the food is amazing and SO spicy... even for breakfast. we've been eating fruit, salad, and pad thai (noodles with fried vegetables and meat) in the morning, some kind of fried vegetables and rice for lunch, and last night we went to the viking restaurant, which i suppose caters to norwegians and swedes, not so much thais. jet lag seems to be worse the 2nd day as we were really tired from traveling yesterday and slept well. the time different is 11 hours, so we are flipped and afternoons and evenings are hard to stay peppy for.

we get our story assignments tonight or tomorrow morning and should be beginning on thursday... orientation is almost over, so must run to learn some more thai. sawatdeeka!

photos!