Leelawadee (Jackie)

All of my M2 and M3 students have left with their skinny red sticks and braided socks on week long Scout field trip, leaving the Mattayom floor exceptionally quiet for a change. Even though over half of my classes have been canceled, I am required to be here all day, every day, without anything extra to do. Today’s boredom was my fault, I should have brought my kindle instead of my laptop, the internet is just too slow here to get anything done.

On the bright side, all the extra time allows me to spend even more time in my newly found sanctuary, a café called Leelawadee. It’s a little oasis of a café next door to the school with wifi where I have already spent 10+ hrs this week slowly sipping on REAL coffee, bumming about, and reading during my ‘prep’ periods. There are water fountains, small koi ponds, and even the highway that runs a few yards away is veiled by a profusion of hanging vines and willow-esque trees . It’s quiet and peaceful unlike anywhere inside the school and is a great retreat from the regular chaos caused by 1,200 students.  I am already a regular there (like most Farang teachers) and almost exclusively order iced coffee, because nowhere else in Phuket have I found anything remotely close to what we call coffee in America. The stuff the street vendors will pour is made as follows: 3 seconds of pouring condensed milk into a small glass, a couple spoonful’s of sugar, a splash of nescaf, more sugar and more condensed milk. My jaw nearly dropped the first time a girl poured this for me on the street! Even the Thai iced tea we know and love at home is what they serve as ‘black tea’ here. There is no option of just hot water and leaf. This has resulted in an exceptionally funny and devastating conundrum because though all drinks here are made with an amount of sugar that would make even a 10 yr old cringe, there are no decent dessert options anywhere in Phuket! Just gelatin based treats that are not actually treats at all.