I Keep on Fallin'...

Despite a recent bout with the phenomenon affectionately known as "TD," which is traveler's speak for "traveler's diarrhea" (known as duan thong in the local parlance, literally translated to "walking stomach,") I am beginning to fall in love with the Big Mango. I'm not sure if it's the way my students say "tee-CHAAA, tee-CHAAA, please no mark late" as they shimmy into class ten minutes after it has started. Or perhaps it's the way people gracefully wai at me (see the Ronald McDonald picture below for an example of a wai) whenever I eat somewhere or buy something. Or maybe it's the thrill/terror of riding on a motorcycle taxi down the street, which entails riding on the back of a motorcycle while hanging onto the driver's shoulders as he weaves in and out of traffic, speeding up to hit rapidly-closing holes between trucks and busses or briefly posturing to play "chicken" with motorcycles coming the other way who are also driving down the center line, while I pray to every deity I can think of. Or perhaps it's dropping 20 Baht (about 50 cents) and getting a bag half the size of a standard plastic grocery bag full of a variety of wonderful fruits that don't even have names in English. Or maybe it's a combination of all of these things. Any way you look at it, I'm falling in love, and I'm falling hard.
One more thing to describe for you. First of all, the toilet situation in Thailand. Most places have the "squat and drop" style of toilet, not terribly different from the ones in Japan. On campus, thankfully, every bathroom has at least one western-style toilet, which I still prefer by far. Very few toilets have toilet paper on hand, and for those that do, there's a bit of a twist to what we're accustomed to back in the Western Hemisphere. The plumbing in most places is not equipped to handle toilet paper, so there's a small trash bin next to the toilet specifically for receiving the soiled tissue. It takes a while to get used to not just dropping the paper in, and as this hard to break habit could lead to toilet overflows on a frequent basis, it's a habit that you want to break quickly.
However, most Thais don't use Toilet paper. Beside most toilets, there is a spray nozzle, not at all different from the ones on kitchen sinks pretty much everywhere in the US. This spray nozzle substitutes for TP. I'm beginning to get used to this manner, actually, but you have to hang around a bit longer if you want your shorts to stay dry.
Anyway, enough "scat" for now. Some of my students gave me Roseapples (chompuu in the local parlance) and Jujubees in my classes. That was nice, and makes for a good breakfast. See the picture below.
Enough for now. Hail progress!