Joel: We still haven't managed to get an internet connection set up at home but it's in the pipeline. In the meantime, I'm now sat in the wonderfully cool, air-conditioned environment of Takhli's finest internet cafe, perhaps the only sign that the town exists in the twenty-first century. It's a national holiday today so Rakhi and I have just had a bit of a wander around the area, up to the local park with a beautiful lake and bridge, and now back into the main part of central Deadwood.

My first two days of school went really well. We were both prety organised heading into Tuesday morning and my first day went without any hiccups. We have desks in the main English office which we share with eleven other teachers. There are fans but it can get pretty hot in there - rumour has it that next week they're fitting air-con primarily for our sake but I'm sure all the other teachers will be prety grateful for it too. It hasn't rained for three days and it's really quite hot now.

My first classes were great. The students are streamed into classes of the same level and even the lower classes were really cool and keen to engage with the lesson. I started by telling them a bit about me and was amazed that in every class, when I said "My favorite fotball team is..." and held up a picture of the Liverpool crest, there were whoops of appreciation. From what I can gather, over half the students are Liverpool fans then the rest are split between Man U, Chelsea and a few Arsenal. Which luckily makes me a bit of a cool teacher right away. The classes are big - some over fifty - but it seems like a really good school. The is a resource room with loads of PC's connected to the net and wireless which is useful. Fritz told us that the last Thai school he worked in had one computer for everyone. Pi Apple told us that most teachers in the provence want to work at Takhliprachasan because it's such a good school and I believe her. There's a great atmosphere about the place.

Another thing that's really nice is that the director (or principal) is a woman and she seems really friendly. I sure Rakhi will particularly come to appreciate this after having to deal with that ass-hole in Korea. Also, we discovered that the mayor of the town is a woman. Two immediate examples of the difference between Thai and Korean society. In this respect at least, Korea has a long way to go.

Since we arrived at our house to be greeted a various creatures, Rakhi has had her ups and down regarding her feelings about the situation. I've now got used to seeing little jin-juks (geckos) on the walls of our kitchen and we've managed to get on top of the insect problem (using non-Buddhist methods) but each day brings a new experience. Yesterday was perhaps the most freaky. Rakhi opened the door to the spare room before immediately closing it and shouting that she'd seen a scorpion. I had a quick look myself and was able to confirm her suspicions. It was only small, like the length of my finger, but it was still a scorpion. I didn't really know how to deal with it and couldn't find anything in any books about it so decided to go with my tried and test bowl on the top and slide some card underneath approach. I didn't get it first time but it wasn't as fast as I feared so was able to get it on the second attempt. I'm still not sure how dangerous it was but suppose I'm now going to be even more careful to remember to check my shoes before putting them on.

Tomorrow, we're going to head into Bangkok for the weekend. There's a van we can that only takes two and a half hours that we're told is much more comfortable than the train and it can pick us up from school at four o-clock. I'm really loking forward to geting boat along the river and checking out the sights of old Bangkok.