Just in case any of you are jealous...

to hear that I am writing this post still damp from swimming in the tropical waters at the beach, let me make you feel better by telling you about the double mosquito bite on my leg. For the first few days I didn't get bitten at all, and I thought perhaps Asian mosquitos didn't like me (what a bonus). My complacency was foolish however, as I was bitten 8 times by 1 mosquito in the middle of the day on Friday, when I thought I didn't need to be covered head to toe in DEET because it was a very long way from evening.

6 out of these 8 bites have been nothing more than irritating. The last two - on my left leg - have merged into a sort of super-bite, and caused my leg to swell up dramatically. I have been entertaining myself for the last couple of days by looking down to see what colour it's gone now. Currently its kind of purpley-red a bit like someone's kicked me really hard. Alice, who is in my room said it was the worst reaction she'd ever seen to a mosquito bite - a rather dubious distinction I feel. (Oh and don't worry Mum, I've been taking every anti-histamine going so I don't think it'll need amputating after all...)

The situation at the school I'm working at is far from ideal - I think a lot of this is down to the general crapness of the Thai education system. Everyone I've talked to about it is not exactly mad-keen on the way it's organised. The main problem is that you need practically no qualifications/only really low results to become a teacher so the teachers (as far as I've seen) are really disinterested and do the same things with the kids over and over. The next problem is that it is very important to Thai culture for them not to complain and for them to save face. This means that if you express concerns or have a good moan, they will smile, listen sympathetically and nod along and then go away and do absolutely nothing about it at all.

In my school, the way the kids learn - by copying from the board or reciting, is really unimaginative and makes them unimaginative too. It's hard for me and the other volunteer teacher I'm working with (he's called Jacques and is from another organisation), because the children have no permanent English teacher, only volunteers, so there is no way to give them continuity from one teacher to the next. They're supposed to get this continuity either from the curriculum, or from the workbooks they have. However, the workbooks are far too hard for them to use in a productive way, and the curriculum bears no relation to the books and is itself simplistic and unhelpful.

With this in mind, I've basically decided to do my own thing. However, I haven't quite got round to this as yet, because practically all the children went on a camping trip from Wed-Fri, so I haven't actually had any lessons for a while. Apparently this happens a lot. Someone I met who runs a language school nearby said that he heard of one school that had so many days of in one year that they lost a semester's worth of teaching. This doesn't surprise me. One of the few lessons I have given started late because the children in that class were outside having an improptu (or so it appeared) meditation class.

Tomorrow, I will start actually teaching instead of just being eaten by the local insect life, so I'll let you know how that goes.

To end on a positive note, it's really beautiful here. Last night some of us went to the beach and just lay looking at the stars - those country folk present were really surprised at my astonishment at seeing a shooting star. I always find myself impressed to see even a stationary star in London, let alone a shooting one. I've never seen one before. After that we attempted to go for a swim (which was made rather challenging by the fact that the tide was out), and had Thai noodle soup from a street vendor. This was delicious. I hope to have many more evenings like that one.

Hope all is well with all of you, and Lia, what is the Penguin song when it's at home?

I know it's humid here because...

I can hardly read the time through the condensation steaming up my watch. Also my hair is rather frizzy these days, a fact not helped by frequent 50 mph rides clinging on to the back of a bus (for bus read motorized trolley).

Apart from the downsides of the heat, I'm enjoying things so far - in fact I'm writing this covered in sand, because I just spent a couple of hours lounging on Ao Nang beach, trying to remove some of the English pastiness from my skin, cooling off intermittently in the sea (unsurprisingly much nicer than a dip in the Atlantic).

I'm recovering now from the initial anxieties of getting here in the first place: the rather incompetent taxi driver to Heathrow; the hour and a half delay on the first flight; the half an hour delay on the second flight; the 45 minute wait for my baggage which I used to envision (in my slightly hallucinatory, jetlagged state) my bags being unloaded in Moscow or somewhere while I sat forever in Krabi airport forever, staring at an endless, empty conveyor belt.

Now all I have to worry about is avoiding the chillies in my dinner, oh... yes, and teaching a class full of Thai children without, apparently, the aid of another teacher. That should be interesting. My first day of school is Monday, and I suppose I will find out then how capable I am. And I should be optimistic. Perhaps children here aren't as cruel to their teachers as they are in East London.

The children apparently like lots of games and songs during their lessons, but being a rather misanthropic person myself I don't know anything useful, so if anyone out there in internet land has any ideas feel free to share.

Anyway, I hope you are missing me already and continue to do so. Love to you all. I'll keep you updated unless I get tied up in a mangrove swamp by rampaging Thai schoolchildren.

To begin somewhere

Hi all,

I've decided to start a blog of my travels to alleviate the risk of my mother ringing interpol (in the fine old family tradition) while I'm away because she hasn't heard from me recently and the postcard I sent/forgot to send/forgot to buy failed to arrive. Since I haven't actually been anywhere yet, I have nothing interesting to tell you so far, except that I have already spent vast sums of money buying gadgets and gizmos in travel shops in the insane hope that they will come in handy for something or other. I'm also wondering how exactly to calculate the things I want to pack in litres...