Geckos sound like birds.

And their poop looks like mouse poop. And since they crawl everywhere, they poop everywhere—that’s the main reason we sleep under a mosquito net. There you go: more than you ever wanted to know about geckos.

So what’s it like living in the jungle house? It’s like camping—cabin camping, and it’s a good thing I love camping.

Every week or so we spray the crap out of our home with bug spray because it’s teeming. We’re told it’s worse than usual because of the rainy season. If you know me well, you’ll be surprised to hear that I’m slowly getting used to all the bugs. We’ve got our trusty flyswatters for killin’ time (which were ironically hard to find) and our straw brooms for cleanin’ time. Sweeping up dead bugs is a daily occurrence.

Another big event at our house is laundry. The jungle house was fortunate enough to be recently gifted a washing machine, brand spanking new! We hook that beautiful piece of equipment up to our sink, fill it up, let it run, drain it out the back door, fill it up again for rinsing, drain again, divide the load into smaller loads for the wringer, and hang them up to dry. (It sounds like a lot of work but it’s more waiting than anything.) If there’s one thing I didn’t think I’d be doing tons of in Thailand, it’s ironing—but boy do I iron the crap out of everything. You never realize how wrinkle-reducing a dryer is until you don’t have one.

Water is also an occasional chore. We buy our drinking water through the school—super cheap and relatively convenient. Sometimes we can get it as a case of 3/4-liter bottles, just pop a few in the fridge and let them cool. Sometimes we get these huge jugs (20 liters, I’d guess). They are crazy heavy and bulky. We have to fill up some smaller bottles to fit in the fridge.

All of the faucets only have one handle because water heaters are not common. The exception is the shower—Thai showers have a heating box with a sprayer. I’ve realized how unnecessary all the hot water is in America, coming out of every faucet, going down every drain. Seems really wasteful now that I know I can live equally comfortably without it.

[Funny side story: For the first week we were here, we thought our shower water heater was broken and we were stuck with cold showers. Despite the hot days, the nights get quite cool, and a warm shower is just the ticket to comfort. After getting one of the school janitors to take a look, he showed us that there is a breaker outside of the bathroom to switch on when we want power. Oops, didn’t see that there. Thanks, Jahndii!]

There are some things that we spend a lot less time on too, like getting/cooking food. Jack and I head to the grocery store for breakfast food and household staples like milk, yogurt, bread, and peanut butter, but for the most part it’s more convenient and cheaper to buy meals from local kitchens. So many people (it seems like half the population of Hang Chat) have their own restaurants, which are sometimes no more than some tables sets up in an open-air kitchen. They don’t really have names either, so we call them by the name of the cook: Baan Lung Dang=Uncle Dang’s House. Thais take great pride in their food and rightfully so. We haven’t been to a place yet where we don’t want to return. Obviously, most of the menus are in Thai so if we’re there without one our generous Thai hosts, we just ask them if they have specific favorites of ours. Turns out the language of necessity is the language of food. We’re getting quite good with our restaurant Thai.

Daily travel time is cut way down too. I live on the school campus, so it takes me about 5 minutes to walk to the English Department. It’s only a 3 minute moped ride to downtown Hang Chat and our fave hangouts. “Big city” Lampang is only a 15 minute drive. Even Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, is an hour and half by bus. (Waiting for a bus can be another story though. :)

Time spent seems to balance out. Even the daily “chores” are peaceful, so there’s not much to complain about. Plus I have Jack, who takes care of the house while I’m at work. I think it’s a fair deal.