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.