Disclaimer: The following is an email I sent to friends and family in December 2013, preserved here for posterity.

Subj: Long-awaited update for Borneo and Thailand [Part 2: Thailand]

This is my first stop with non natives.  They're an English family that is running this wakeboarding resort with their 3 kids (6, 4, and 4 months). They have the only boat on the entire lake because this is still a third world country so that's cool. The dad is an ex water skiing pro and they've had the top wakeboarders and wake surfers stop by (not while I'm here). He has also coached some guy (Mos? Moss? Maz?) into the number one Thai golfer in the world who Tiger calls Thaiger. 

The kids are monsters. They both got a bunny to take care of and about 26 hours later the 4-yo's died of a broken neck. His replacement bunny died two days later of unknown causes, then a day after that, the other kid's bunny stopped breathing. The 4-yo is also prone to screaming, throwing things at peoples faces, crying for no reason, and pulling his pants off. The 6-yo is a little better. We have a good relationship where he asks me to transform his Transformer he just got for Christmas and sometimes we play good vs evil with some other toys too. 

Every day they make me jump on the trampoline with them which is actually nice because it gets me ready for the cold showers (although lately it's warmed up and I'm sweating without jumping up and down.  Sorry about all that snow you guys are getting.  It looks like I'm skipping winter this year). 

The food. The food is just amazing. They employ an awesome Thai woman, Par, who cooks all the meals and they are always incredibly delicious. I look forward to dinner starting at 7am. Fried spicy fish, chicken curry, papaya salad, Thai mussels, tom yum; it's all so good. 

I thought Christmas would be more depressing, but they included us in all the traditions, so I didn't miss home quite as much. I helped open packaging, made a Lego helicopter, and put the batteries in the Furbies (which I immediately regretted). I also got a surprise opportunity to help Par in the kitchen by checking if the turkey was done (she had never cooked one before).  The feast was even bigger than usual. 

Six days later, we feasted again for New Years. They had a full pig roasted on a spit (a pig that I helped pick from a farm the day before) which was surprisingly delicious. 

I've had 2 other wwoofers join me. My first week was shared with a French girl, and now I'm working with a Japanese girl, which is convenient because Japan is next, on January 20, so I'm picking her brain. I've also met dozens of wakeboarding customers from all over the world who are all very awesome. 

It's not over yet, but so far I've created an herb garden, a chili garden, a cinder block and cement compost area, cleared an area for an aloe vera garden, seen a scorpion, walked a goat, grown even more silly facial hair, raked lots of leaves, learned how to wake surf, had a Thai massage, gone fishing without hooks, consecrated a spirit house, read a book ("Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Cuelho), offered food to monks, and watched dozens of plants go from seed to seedling, or green to flowering under my tutelage. 

Sorry for the delay and fewer pictures, there's no wifi here so this is all on my phone. 

As always, feedback is required. It really does make my day to get an email from a friend.  What's going on in your life? 

Aun Aprendo,

Colin

PS: books I read in Nepal:

• "Siddhartha" by Herman Hess
• "Golden Gate" by Vikram Seth
• "This is It" by Alan Watts
• weird short stories by Umberto Eco

And in South Africa:

• Various Paul Graham essays