I plead The Fifth

(Note: The title is relevant, but we can't explain it any more for fear of being deported from the country. If you were with us Saturday night, you understand. If not, well just think of it as a meaningless title.)

At dawn….we ride!

After sport day, the rest of the week went by slowly even though it was pretty easy.

Wednesday was the day of the long boat races in Thawangpha so a lot of kids were not at school. We left a bit early that day to watch some of the races. The long boats are basically giant canoes rowed by a bunch of guys. The races take place on the Nan River, which has concrete stands where the races finish. On the day of the races the riverbanks on the more populated side of town are packed with people cheering on their respective teams and vendors selling snacks. On the other side, there is a market and a carnival-like atmosphere. There were even some carnival games. We watched a few races and then headed over to the market. Ethan tried a hot dog on a stick and I tried these angry bird shaped snacks on a stick. We are pretty sure they are made from tofu and cooked in hot dog flavored water. They were disgusting and we also didn’t know you could ask them to heat them up so we ate them cold. Never again. I bought a pair of purple Jasmine pants (3/4 pants that are tight at the bottom) at the market, after which it started raining. Everyone was packing up their stands so we decided to head out for dinner. The boat races were neat, but pretty boring overall. We didn’t know who the teams were and had no idea what the announcers were saying so it was only slightly entertaining.

Skye forgot to mention we went to Wat Nong Bua

On Thursday we didn’t have morning classes for some reason so I ended up only having 1 class and Ethan had none. It was nice, but mostly boring because we have to stay at school. Friday, was long and hot. My first period class had something going on so I didn’t have to go, but I had two classes at the end of the day. Having classes past 1pm is the pits because it’s sooooo hot. If I don’t have a fan pointed directly at me, I sweat miserably. It’s terrible. At the end of the day we went with one of the vice directors (not sure of his name) and his wife Kru Lin to rent a motorbike from their uncle. It made the torture of the day slightly less painful. We’d talked to the vice director about getting the motorbike the previous week, so the plan to do this had been in the works for a while and we were super excited. They drove us to one of the nearby towns called Chiang Klang where their uncle owns a repair shop. We chatted (more like smiled and nodded a lot) with the guy for a while and he showed us the motorbike. It’s red and relatively new so we were happy. Unfortunately, it was not ready for us to take just then, but they assured us it would be ready the next day. We crossed our fingers, but knew there was a possibility we wouldn’t see it again for a few days. We had planned to ride it to Nan the next day though so we really hoped for the best.

After the motorbike shop, we went out to dinner in the town closest to us, Pua. Pua is slightly bigger than Thawangpha, which is great because there is a large grocery store and more restaurants. They took us to this really nice place up on a hill that overlooks the main strip in town. We proceeded to have the best meal we’d had in Thailand yet. It was delicious! We had a vegetable/ground pork soup, cashew chicken, fried fish (that I didn’t eat) and stir-fried veggies. The cashew chicken was amazing and Ethan really liked the fish. During the meal we got to know the vice director and Kru Lin a little better, which was great despite our difficulties understanding each other. They told us about their family and asked us a lot of questions. We tried to ask them some questions too, but most of the time the point of the question was lost in translation. We got some interesting answers and a few times they just straight out told us they didn’t understand what we were asking. Anyway, it was a really great meal and we were grateful to get out of Thawangpha and eat some different foods that we really enjoyed.

This would be my favorite spot in Thailand to date...

Saturday morning we spent doing laundry and preparing for our trip to Nan. By some stroke of magic our motorbike was dropped off to us right at 12…exactly when we asked them to. We grabbed a snack at the market then headed out for Nan. We were planning on meeting a couple of friends (also in the program) there and were really excited to see them and hear about their experiences so far. It took us about 45 minutes to get there – we had to stop for rain twice (we bought ponchos in Nan, but I seriously wish we’d had them on the way). Once we got to Nan, we forgot our map to the hotel so we had to check the map at the tourist center, but we finally found the hotel (It is tucked into a corner on a tiny alley street so it’s hard to see). We pulled up and our friend Josie, who teaches in Wiang Sa (about 20 mins south of Nan), was already there. She helped us figure out how to get a room and then we headed up to the roof where a shaded area houses a hammock and some chairs. The hotel is really small, but we really liked it. For about $6 (200 baht) we got a small room with a queen size bed and a fan. All the rooms on the floor share the bathroom, but it was clean and spacious (there is 1 stall with a sink and shower and two toilet stalls). Once we had settled in, we hung out on the roof and waited for Caitlin and Kristin to arrive – they took the bus to Nan and had to walk to the hotel.

Once they got there and had settled in we headed out for some lunch, where we sat for quite a while talking about our different experiences and situations. It is nice to know that other people are going through some of the same things that you are. After lunch we hit up my favorite place in Nan, the smoothie shop! This time we got a maple nut mini-cake too. The smoothie and the cake were amazing. It’s a good thing we don’t have that in Thawangpha because we’d be broke. After our snack we headed over to the school where another friend from the program (Daylan) is teaching. She had mentioned that she was there playing soccer with some guys – we had no idea who she meant. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived because she was with a bunch of other westerners. Caitlin, Kristin, Josie and I gaped at them for a whole minute. Other native English speakers?!? How did we not know about this? She introduced us to everyone and Ethan joined the soccer game. We also met three people who are teaching in Pua that we had no idea were there. It blew our minds. While the guys continued to play we talked with the Pua people for a while about what they were teaching and how they liked Pua. Colin, Tristan and Kelly are really cool and we decided we needed to meet up with them since we lived so close.

At the local pizza place! Best find ever!

When the game was over we decided we’d go to dinner and then out to one of Nan’s “clubs.” We had to walk back to our hotel though, which really isn’t far, but it was super-hot and highly uncomfortable. We had the motorbike to take to dinner and the club though so our pain was only temporary – that motorbike is like a breath of fresh Michigan air and makes life here infinitely less sweaty. Dinner was amazing. We had cashew chicken, spring rolls, deep-fried kale, and this really strange but delicious chicken “quesadilla” - for lack of a better term – type thing. It was cut into wedges like a quesadilla and filled with chicken and other things, but it was wrapped in some sort of crunchy breading and fried. We loved it. They also ordered fish, which Ethan said was the best he’d had here – even better than the fish he had in Pua! (Ethan- there were also a number of rounds of beer bought and we ate everything Thai style, meaning family style) After dinner we biked down the road to a carnival/market. There was a ferris wheel, merry-go-round and carnival games. They also had a Muay Thai boxing ring set up and two young boys were the fighters. It was entertaining for a few minutes, but we left the boys there to watch while the girls wandered the market. This was definitely not your average Thai market. First, there was a stand selling bugs to eat, then there was a tattoo stand, followed by a stand selling the cutest miniature bunnies I have ever laid eyes on. They were like teacup bunnies that fit in your hands. They had a few in cages ready to sell and they all had little outfits on. We knew full well that this was highly inhumane, but we couldn’t get over how cute they were. The guy selling them picked one up that was asleep and we all about died. We had to get out of there before someone bought one. The rest of the market was fairly normal. They had clothes, fake watches and fake sunglasses, random food items and such. We found a place that makes Thai ice cream, which is finely shaved ice covered in a mixture of dairy products and flavors as well as your choice of toppings. It was good, but I prefer real ice cream.

Once we had escaped the market we headed to the “bar mall,” which is an area of town where all the bars are located. It was highly overwhelming, but pretty cool too. It’s essentially a wide road where all the bars are open air and all facing the middle. Since they were all playing extremely loud music it was hard to hear anyone so I mostly people watched while everyone chatted around the table. We saw more westerners to my surprise and got to talk to more people about what they were up to in Thailand. Once everyone had their fill of the bar, we went to the “club.” It was less a club and more a bar with live music. It was entertaining watching the band sing American songs really poorly and listen to Thai songs that we had no idea what they were saying. The experience was interesting to say the least and by about 1 am I was ready to go. Finally got my wish at 2:30, but when we stepped outside it was raining and I had to drive the motorbike back to the hotel. I was also the only one who knew how to get back. Sweeeeeet! We hopped on the bike and I pleaded with Ethan not to sway (he was a bit inebriated) as I have had about zero practice driving the thing with him on it. We headed out into the rain, Ethan and I on the motorbike and the three girls on their bicycles. It was pretty hard to keep the bike steady while going slow for the bikers and having 200lbs of Ethan (E- 195 pounds!) on the back, but we made it back...And I was quite proud of myself. 

The following day Ethan slept off the night til about 11, while I ate breakfast with Josie. After Ethan ate we went to one of the many temples in Nan that overlooks the city. The stairs to the top were torture. (E- 305 in all. I counted on the way down) We stopped numerous times, but it was well worth it. The view was amazing and the giant gold buddha watching over the city was really cool. After the temple we hit up the department store, grabbed lunch at the pizza place and headed back to Thawangpha. It was a lovely weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed getting out of our little town. We're also looking forward to hanging out with the cool people we met. :]  

chasing waterfalls + sport day

After our first “full” week we wanted to relax and see some of the sights around Tha Wang Pha. We knew there were a few waterfalls around the area and thought we’d check one out on Saturday. In the morning Ethan went for a run and ran into one of the deputy directors (assistant principles). He talked to him about going to the waterfall and the deputy (we still don’t know his name) offered to drive us. This was great news since we had no idea how to get there. He told us to he would meet us at 1pm to go to the Sila Phet waterfall.

So we got lunch and waited around until about 12:30. We walked over to the school and wandered around looking for Mr. Deputy. He was nowhere to be found. Hmmmmm? So we found a seat at one of the gazebos in front of the main office and waited. We had no idea where he was or where we were supposed to meet him so we just waited. At about 12:50 a truck pulls up and honks at us. It’s him. And his whole family. Crap! We did not realize this was going to be a family outing. We climb in and his wife (who works in the math department) introduces us to their son, daughter and her mother. They brought a picnic basket, a bunch of snacks and drinks. We’re not sure what we were expecting about this trip, but a family picnic definitely was not part of our expectations. Oh well…

We arrive at the waterfall and, like most tourist places here, there is a small market area where people are selling snacks and drinks. We walked up to the bottom of the waterfall and the deputy sees some friends of his across the river. He points and motions for us to cross. Hmmm… crossing a flowing river that’s about a foot and a half deep with a bunch of stuff in our hands. Should be interesting. We waded through the water slowly and carefully and made it to the other side unscathed. The deputy’s wife (can’t remember her name either) made lunch while their kids swam around in the shallow water. (Ethan- There was a Physics teacher there that was putting some whiskey back and ended up bringing the deputy director and me a number of rounds of "shots in a cup." More on him later.)  It was really quite beautiful despite the random piles of trash lying around. After a while we decided to walk up to the river to see more of the waterfall. It ended up just being more of the river, but it was slanted down so they call that a waterfall. Aside from being slightly creeped out by the jungle surrounds it was a nice walk. When we got as far as we could go we saw a bunch of kids jumping in at a deep part. Naturally, Ethan wanted to join in, so I watched while he jumped in a couple of times.

Jumping in the waterfall!

It started sprinkling after a while, but we figured it wasn’t a big deal so we stayed. The kids on the other hand started packing up and heading out. Should we go too? We didn’t really get why they were leaving. They were already wet from jumping in. By the time we were done contemplating the situation it started pouring. We high tailed it back to the picnic sight and helped the deputy and his wife get all the stuff around and started across the river. The teacher with the whiskey had a few too many drinks and fell over a few times as he was crossing. It was hilarious. He had the picnic basket, but by the time he got to the other side he had less than half of the things in the basket than he started with. Everyone thought it was really funny. Including us. We made it across again without falling over and made for the truck as quickly as we could. By the time we got there the rain had let up and it seemed like our rush to get out was all for nothing. We ended up leaving anyway and went back through the random cloud that was pouring down rain on the way back.  Overall, it was an awkward, but mostly enjoyable couple of hours with the deputy and his family. Now that we know how to get there, I imagine we’ll go back.

We spent the remainder of Saturday doing nothing. We spent all of Sunday doing more of nothing. I wasn’t feeling well, so we literally just spent all day lying around.

Tuesday was Sport Day here at Thawangphapittayakhom School. Sport Day is similar to field day, but with a few extravagant twists. The students have spent the last few weeks preparing for sport day. They even changed the school schedule so the students would have an hour at the end of the day to work on their various sport day projects. There were 6 different teams for sport day (we’re not sure how the kids are split up for the teams because there were students from every grade on each team) and each represented a different color. The teachers are also put on the different teams (not really sure how they decide this) and we were allowed to choose which color we wanted. Ethan was on the orange team and I was on the green team. On Sport Day the teams compete in track and field events as well as choreographed performances. Each team has a set of bleachers, which are decorated in their color and have giant painted surrounds. The surrounds are made of heavy paper and held up by bamboo – kind of like billboards. Every day after school the students have been practicing their performances, painting their surrounds, making props, practicing with their instruments and doing all sorts of random things to prepare for the days festivities.

The morning Sport Day parade!

On sport day, which started at 7:30am, the marching band and each team gather on the main street for the parade that officially starts Sport Day. Each team had a different theme and a bunch of random decorations. Some had floats and some just had a truck with some banners and students on it. Some were playing music and chanting and others just walked. It was a spectacle. We followed the parade on motorbike, which eventually ended up on the soccer field, and followed it back to the school. Once there, the band performed and they raised the various flags (one for Thailand, one for the school and one for the province of Nan – we think). A couple of people got up and spoke to the whole school – we have no idea what was said. As teachers we were allowed to hang out under the pavilion and watch all of the events. Thankfully there were snacks (delicious mini banana muffins) and water. At one point someone brought a couple of fans, which were lifesavers because even in the shade it was unbearably hot.

We watched the morning events and cheered for our teams. A lot of the kids ran without shoes on and some of them would randomly pass out or just stop running. We felt bad for them…it was so hot, but they would get rushed off the track, get a bunch of people to fan them and drink a bunch of water and before you knew it they were back on their feet. Each event was split up by age level so events like the high jump, javelin and discus took almost all day. They handed out medals as events were ending, which was pretty efficient, except there had to be someone to present the medals, which ended up being whichever teacher or staff member was nearby at the time. All four of us had to present medals at least once. We went out to lunch with one of the English teachers Kru Noi. She is one of my favorite teachers here. She’s always joking about things and making fun of us. I almost left my sunglasses at the restaurant and when I got back to the car from retrieving them she said “Oh my God. How old you are today?” She’s hilarious. Anyway, when we got back from lunch the events got much less exciting and the four of us just sat there in a post-lunch stupor for what seemed like forever. At one point I went back to our room and fell asleep for 10 minutes. It was bliss.

Skye-ke handing out the Gold.

During the afternoon events the students who were in the stands would do various chants and sing songs even though they were all playing music extremely loud (Ethan- They are 100% obsessed with Gangnam Style here and each team played it at least 5 times.) The performances were the last event of the day. They were entertaining, except the last few were interrupted by my least favorite event – the teacher relay. I had been dreading this since they told us about it last week. It was an 8 x 50 so we only had to run 50 yards, but just standing out in the sun for 5 seconds causes me to break into the most disturbing sweat attacks ever. I also had no shoes to run in and my plan was to say “Ehhhh sorry can’t run…I don’t have shoes!”, but no one seemed to care. Well Kru Rin said something about it hurting my feet, but then just walked away. Thanks for your help!! This was not going to be pleasant. They rounded us all up and told us what lane to run in and my teammates told me I’d be running 5th, which changed to 6^th and back to 5^th and then 6^th again.

They shot the gun and the first people were off. I was already drenched in sweat from just standing there. The baton got to me and I attempted to run fast, but I really have no idea how fast, or slow, I was going. Fortunately, the guy I was handing off too moved toward me so it was over much faster. In the end, the green team got 2^nd (yay!) and I didn’t hurt myself or sustain any serious damage due the intense amount of sweat that was expelling from my body. I got a seriously cheap silver medal for my efforts and a pat on the back from one of my teammates. After that they announced the winners for each age group and for the performances (I think). They were given trophies (all of which had soccer players on top) and giant boxes of cookies and various snacks. (Ethan- the orange team didn't fare too well in the relay as one of our teachers fell over just before she could pass the baton on, but THE ORANGE TEAM DID TAKE HOME THE GRAND PRIZE TROPHY OVERALL! FIRST PLACE! I also participated in the 100 yard dash among teachers, but the "ready, set, go" or whatever it was was in Thai so I got a terrible start and ended up 4th out of 8. Oh well, I have never been accused of being fast.)

All in all, it was a long, hot and entertaining day. While some of it was incredibly boring we would much rather have done that than teach that day.

From L to R: Team Red, Yellow, Orange, Purple, Green, and Pink

Farang ride motorbike (and first week of teaching)

It's Friday!! Hallelujah! It's been an.... interesting week.

We got the motorbike back on Monday and spent quite a bit of time practicing our motorbiking skills (ok...Ethan was driving the whole time so I didn't practice, but whatever) and riding about town. The motorbike makes a world of difference here because it's just too hot to walk or pedal bike. Anyway, we also started teaching on Monday!!

The entrance to the school complete with roundabout (freshly painted, but usually has a bunch of red arrows to show you which side to stay on), Buddha on the left, and a student on a motorbike getting to school on a Saturday. The students here love being at school before and after school and apparently on the weekends too...

We were told last week that we would have to introduce ourselves at the morning assembly. So we were kind of prepared for that, but it was still humiliating getting up in front of the entire student body as well as the staff and speaking a language that many of them don't understand. But it was over quickly, so we got over it. We spent the following hour or so in a meeting with the teachers we'd be working with, Kru Rin and some other English teachers. We went over our schedules and (Ethan and I) met our Thai co-teachers. We learned quite quickly that there English was not so good and that we were going to need to hear their names several more times to remember them.

Since we missed the first two periods on Monday I only had two periods to go to and Ethan only had one. It was a nice way to ease into teaching subjects in English. I teach 3 different levels of math and Ethan teaches biology, chemistry, and general science. The Thai school system works a bit differently than (I would say) most American schools. The secondary level is grades 7-12 - they call them matyoms 1-6. Within each grade there are different levels as well, which are designated by a letter a-h (a being the highest and h the lowest). So I teach matyom 4a, b and c as well as matyom 5a and h and matyom 1a and b. Each class does not meet every day, so it's a little confusing, but they gave us very helpful charts so we know what class we have and when it is. Ethan teaches a variety of grades and levels too. Some of the levels (as far as I can tell) are about the same as far as the behavior and skill level of the students, but there are some that are markedly different in skill level.

Another Buddha on the school grounds and one of the four academic buildings.

Each teacher expects us to help them teach math or science in English in a different way. One of my co-teachers has only had me explain some words and concepts in English, while one of them is having me create and teach the entire lesson (very daunting at first, but it went well...I think). Ethan is working with one teacher who barely speaks English and hands the class over to Ethan half way through (Ethan- without notice and with the words, "you teach now.") So it's a huge adjustment from what we are used to, but we are slowly figuring out how to make our way through each day. The hardest thing is knowing if the students understand what you're teaching. We try to talk slow, enunciate and use words they understand, but when you say "Do you understand?" Some say yes and some just stare at you like "What did she say?". (Is this real life?)

Tuesday was a holiday (Ethan- The holiday was for King Rama V, who is known as one of the greatest kings of Thailand and a king of kings. He really did a lot of amazing things and sounds very intelligent. One example is how he looked at America abolishing slavery and went about it slightly different to prevent a civil war. Look him up. He's also the king depicted in the movie, "The King and I."), so we tooled around on the motorbike most of the day and hung out. There isn't too much to do here in Tha Wang Pha, and Nan was just too far for a Tuesday. We took the bike out of town and when we felt like we were getting into no man's land we turned around. It was a nice break from the same things we see everyday. The mountains are incredible and it was all we could do to not just take off for them. :] We love mountains (except when we have to ride pedal bikes over them).

Taken from the English building looking at the Math building. The tile is new (you can see workers in the background on a Saturday) and they are doing a lot of other work on the school grounds to prepare for the princess to come to our school next month.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty uneventful except for the wild goose chase to find somewhere to exchange the last of our US dollars. In order to get our work permits here the school has to send in a bunch of paper work as well as our passports, diplomas, transcripts and extra photos. So I asked if they wanted our actual passports or if we could make copies because we needed at least one of our passports to exchange money. Kru Rin was sure that we'd need to give her our passports and send them in and who knows how long it would take to get them back. So we asked if we could go when we were both free to exchange money. No problem. The head of the math department said she'd take us so we hopped in her car, but when we got to the bank they told her that none of the banks in Tha Wang Pha exchange money. Well that's highly inconvenient. But then another lady told her that the bank in Pua (the town north of us) exchanged money. So we got in the car and 10 minutes later we were in Pua - its actually bigger than Tha Wang Pha and we decided we needed to come back sometime to check it out - where they exchanged our money. By the time we got back Rin was in a meeting so we decided to wait until the next day to give her our documents. We gave them to her today and as I walked away she said "Do you want your passports?" I replied,"Don't you need to send them?""Oh no! We just make copy!!" - Things like this happen every day here. We are still getting used to the Thai phrase "mai pen rai" which means "its ok. no worries."Which brings me to another mai pen rai situation...

Picture from the Muay Thai ring with the football field in the background. The entire school gathers at the football field at the start of each day for the morning assembly. They listen to the King's anthem and the national anthem as the flag is being raised.

 When we got back to our apartment today Kristin, who's apt is right next to ours, noticed that her water wasn't working. There had been a construction crew here putting in some new bathrooms so we assumed they shut the water off and forgot to turn it back on because no one's water was working. So we went down to check it out, but couldn't figure out how to turn it back on. That same construction crew was now working at the school, so Kristin and Caitlin went to attempt to explain the situation. They seemed to know that the water was off, but didn't tell them when it would be back on. So Caitlin called Rin and told her to which she replied "Yes. No water anywhere! We have some though if you want to take a bath." (which means a bucket and a sponge). So apparently all of Tha Wang Pha has no running water and no one's in a panic about it or freaking out. Another situation in which all we really can say is "mai pen rai."

Mama mia pizzeria

Mâi pét – my favorite/most useful Thai phrase. It means "not spicy"! Almost everything they eat here is spicy. Sometimes it’s a little bit (nít noi means little bit) spicy and sometimes its out of this world, burn your esophagus and bring you to tears spicy. I’ve never tried anything more than a little spicy and even that was too much a few times. We did decide to try a bunch of different Thai snacks yesterday. We had delicious rice cakes, muffins, peanut brittle, banana chips (tastes like potato chips, but without the salt), and these tiny cookie sandwiches with sticky jam in the middle. They were all pretty good, but I like the little cookies and the rice cakes the best.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned that lots of Thais drive motorbikes, which are a mix between a moped and a dirt bike style bike.  Some of the newer ones are actually mopeds or vespas, but they are more expensive.  All of them have extra long seats so you can fit 2 normal sized people on them, or 4 Thais, a baby, the dog and their groceries.  We were in the unfortunate circumstance of not having a motorbike for the last few days. Our coordinator, Kru Rin, brought hers over last week so we could practice riding it (it somehow ended up back at her house over the weekend. Inconvenient).

Ethan was the first to try and, like a lot of things he does, he picked it up right away (after coming pretty close to crashing into a ditch, but that’s neither here nor there). Since our apartment is so close to the school, Rin told us to take the bike to the futbol (soccer) field/track to practice with more room and on softer ground. She failed to mention that there would be a bunch of kids over there practicing for sport day – more on that later. So they all watched while we attempted to learn to ride the motorbike.  Rin taught Ethan how to change gears, so naturally when he felt comfortable he tried 4^th gear out. Rin was dying the whole time saying “Tell E-tan slow down! He go too fast!” Anyway, after Ethan I tried. It was easier to balance than I thought and I figured Ethan would be driving me anyway so I let the other girls try after only circling the track twice. It took them a little longer to feel comfortable on it, but they got the gist.

Like I said somehow the motorbike was taken back to Rin’s house so we were unable to use it over the weekend. But we didn’t let that stop us from exploring. We decided we wanted to check out Nan city, which is about 30 miles south of Tha Wang Pha. Rin told us that that we could catch the bus across the street from the school or the blue truck. We still aren’t really sure what the truck is called, but if you’ve seen Hangover 2 it’s the thing they ride to the temple in with the monk. If you have no idea what I’m talking about it’s basically a small truck with the bed turned into two benches with a roof on it. The bus is supposed to come every hour, on the hour. We figured it would be late given Thais general disinterest in timeliness, but we got there on time just in case.

We waited until about 10:25 when the truck showed up. We decided to take that rather than the bus because who knows when it would show up! (Ethan- The truck filled up and I gave up my seat at first chance to a woman so I could ride standing on the back of the truck. I got what I wanted and scored some karma. That's big in Thailand!) It was a nice drive to Nan and we spent the day wandering around checking out the various temples and markets. We found the best smoothie shop ever (It’s actually called The Best Bakery) and decided we would return to Nan if only to visit The Best Bakery. We checked out one of the many temples in Nan called Wat Phumin. It was small, but very beautiful and had some pretty crazy old murals on the walls. I'm sure they told some epic story or something cool, but who knows. It's pretty amazing how ornate the temples here are and how much detail goes into every inch of it. The giant golden Buddha's are cool too. We wandered around for a while longer, passed by two more temples and after that decided we needed food. In our Lonely Planet book one of the places to eat served pizza and other random Italian food. Thus, we made it our mission to find the pizza! We walked to the location on the not-so-detailed map and it was nowhere to be found. We walked up and down the street it was supposed to be at least 3 times (I was drenched in sweat head to toe). (Ethan- At one point we came across a truck with a flat tire. One guy got out of his truck to help, but the truck didn't budge. Cue huge American, comparatively speaking. We got the truck out of the intersection and after 20 yards I got nervous as to how far he wanted the truck pushed. Keep in mind, it is NOT cold in Thailand. I asked the other guy, "How far?" and he replied, "further." Crap! We pushed it to the side of the road right after though and that was that. Karma +2 for the day.) Finally we stopped and asked some locals, who, after much pantomiming and broken Thai on our part, were able to tell us that it had moved and drew us a map of where it was. Yay!

After a very long, sweaty pilgrimage we found mecca! It looked like your average Thai restaurant, but they had sombereros on the walls (they had no Mexican food so this was confusing) and the menu consisted of pasta, pizza and traditional Thai food. Ethan and I got margherita pizza. It was good and definitely satisfied our pizza craving (for the time being). We weren't really sure where to catch the bus home, so we wandered back up the street we came into town on and hoped that the bus would pass by. We ended up at a bus stop, but the blue truck came first so we took that instead. 

After our eventful Saturday we were exhausted, but had to get food somehow on Sunday. We ended up walking into town, which is about a mile and half (normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but it's bloody hot here!). Anyway, we ate lunch there and got a box of frosted flakes (called Frosties here) for dinner. It was the first time we tried the milk here and it was ok. It tasted more like vanilla soy milk than actual milk, but whatever. 

Tha Wang Pha

Sawatdee - means hello in Thai! The last couple of days we have been attempting to adjust to our new life in Tha Wang Pha (pronounced Tah Wahng Pah). We arrived here at about 4am on Thursday after a highly uncomfortable 10 hour van ride from Bangkok. We unloaded the van to find out that our accommodations were not yet ready for us. So we stood around for about 15 minutes waiting for someone to tell us what to do. After a while (about 10 minutes of not having any idea what anyone was saying) our coordinator Patarin (or Kru Rin...Kru means teacher) told us that they didn't want us to stay there because they had just painted and it smelled like paint. We were in no mood to move our stuff anywhere, so we told her we were fine with it and that we are used to that smell. After that debacle, we dropped our stuff and slept for a couple of hours.

I woke up abruptly to music playing over loud speakers. Very loud music in a language I did not understand. What the hell is going on?!? Ohhhh it's the school! Our apartment is located on the school grounds and every morning starting at 7am they play music and make announcements. We haven't yet figured out why, but the kids here love being at school. They are here by or before 7 and don't leave until like 5. This idea is foreign to us. We're used to kids scrambling to get out as fast as possible. We're used to getting out as fast as possible!! Anyway, Thursday we ate lunch with some of the teachers and Kru Rin took us on a school tour. Lunch is an interesting story. Thais like to eat every meal family style. So they cook or buy a bunch of different dishes so they have a smorgasbord of food to choose from. Instead of dishing themselves up a plate though, they just grab whatever they want with their hands and eat it - rarely using utensils. This is not something we were familiar with and we struggled to feel comfortable just grabbing at food that people we didn't know were about to eat (and also having other people's hands in what we were eating. It was strange. They also are obsessed with making us try everything. "Skye! You try...not spicy!!!" or "Skye! You try little bit! Little bit spicy!" It's overwhelming and most of the food they eat is spicy. They also think that Ethan is a bottomless pit and shove food in his face to finish it. They say "E-tan! Kill it! Finish!" It's hilarious.

After lunch and our tour we went back to our apartment to find them putting in furniture. Yay! We got a desk, a wardrobe, a vanity, a bed and an old refrigerator. The bed is hard unfortunately. It actually might be worse than the 1" air mattresses we sleep on while biking. Yea...definitely worse. Anyway, it has a bunch of storage so it's convenient. The wardrobe is not made for two people, but we only had like 15 hangers anyway. We took a shelf from an unused apartment to put the rest of our stuff in. We are living very minimally. The good thing about our apartment is it was just cleaned and painted so there really aren't many bugs.

We did have a gecko find its way in through the bathroom the other day while we were watching a movie. Now geckos are not scary, but when they're in your living quarters it just makes you uncomfortable. They can hide anywhere and they're just wiggly and creepy. Soooo naturally I kinda freaked out and made Ethan attempt to shoo it out with me. We used our broom to nudge him, but he just ran up the wall and behind the wardrobe and on the ceiling and made a couple suicide attempts by jumping form the wall to the floor (he might have even jumped into our clothes on the shelf, but we can't be sure). I giggled and shrieked the entire time. It sounded like we were trying to kill a nasty bug or spider. Nope just a harmless little gecko. Anyway, Ethan gave up and somehow I got him to go in the bathroom. I quickly shut the door and put towels under it. My hope was that he would go back out the holes in the wall (the "ventilation") in the bathroom. Still haven't looked in the bathroom.

So that brings me to the bathroom situation. Most people use squat toilets here in the boonies. They are essentially a hole with a porcelain surrounding on which you put your feet. When you're done you use a bucket (or if you're lucky a bowl and a bucket) to "flush" the toilet by pouring water down the hole. Oh! And toilet paper is BYOTP (bring your own TP). Both the hotels we stayed at had normal toilets - they get a lot of foreigners who aren't used to squatting - so we hadn't had to deal with this at all in Bangkok. My first experience was at a rest area on the trip to Tha Wang Pha. It was terrible...mostly because I didn't have any TP. So when we got here we knew we could get stuck with squat toilets. Well not only did we get stuck with one (the girls we are with both have regular toilets) but it doesn't work! There is also no sink or shower in our bathroom. So we have been using the empty apartment's squat toilet and shower.

Funny but kinda gross squat toilet story: I haven't really been having many good poops since we got here. So I was hoping this would continue until they got us a real toilet. But as luck would have it, my tummy started rumbling yesterday. Within minutes I knew I would have to either really destroy one of the girls bathrooms or ..... use the squat upstairs. I knew it was going to be really bad so I headed upstairs. I looked at the squat for a minute then decided there was no turning back...I'd gone too far. I got into position on the stand and realized I was way to high up. There was no way I was going to do this without it splashing (ohhhh that's digusting!) everywhere. But it was well on its way out. I panicked! Oh god! I had to sit down! Argggghhhhhh nooooooo! It was so weird. Thankfully it was over faster than I thought. But I still had to flush. It was almost as unpleasant as sitting there. I used almost a whole bucket of water to flush. It was arguably one of the most unsatisfying experiences I have ever had. I went back downstairs and just sat there. I think I was in shock. I really hope they get our toilet soon.

So that's the squatter. As you can see, the shower is also quite sketchy. The shower/toilet/sink room is pretty common here and once you get used to showering where you poop and brush your teeth it's not too bad. You get water everywhere, but it dries pretty fast. (The best thing about it is it's really easy to clean your bathroom because it's just one big shower that you can spray water everywhere. -E) And honestly it's so damn hot here and you're always so sweaty that showering is like the best thing ever regardless of how you have to do it. We haven't had any bug issues in the bathroom...and hope to keep it that way. Our living situation is obviously a work in progress, but if we can live with the bathroom for a while I think we'll be OK.

Elephants!

Orientation - Hi! It's a another very hot day here in Thailand! For those of you who want to know all about orientation continue reading, if you don't then well you'll just have to wait for the next post.

Our first day of orientation was interesting. We had one big group meeting and then split off into three different groups. Group A was for primary teachers and groups B and C were for secondary teachers. Ethan and I were in group B. We sat through two hours of TEFL training (aka teaching english training) and two hours of basic Thai language lesson. The TEFL training was interesting, but since both Ethan and I were told we'd be teaching subjects it was hard to really see how it much it would benefit us. They gave us basic lessons to use with students who don't know much english and told us where to start. It was very general and having gone through teacher education already most of it was common knowledge to us. We did learn some very useful Thai words though that we'll most likely need to use.

The Thai language class was overwhelming even though we didn't learn very much Thai. Thai is a tonal language, meaning every word or phrase comes with different tones. There are 5 tones in Thai and there are some words that are spelled the exact same, but when used with different tones mean completely different things. The Thai alphabet is still beyond my understanding. Way beyond. There are 44 consonants and 32 vowels I think. Why? I don't know. This phrase "I don't know" was the answer to a lot of our questions about the Thai language. Our teacher, Fiat - like the car-, is Thai, but speaks english very well. He also speaks Spanish and a few other languages - he put us all to shame. It was embarrassing. Anyway, we would ask him why Thais spell things certain ways or use certain phrases and he would just say "I don't know, just the way it is!". He's a character and we all grew to really like him. Anyway, after that first lesson we just felt brain dead. It was an information overload to the max extreme. Fiat also taught us a lot about the Thai culture, which was very interesting.

The last thing we did that day was a Q & A with some former teachers. It was fun to hear about their experiences. That night we decided to test the local fair again and headed out to a different restaurant nearby. We ended up getting sweet and sour stir fried chicken, which was not exactly what we expected, but it was good. We actually ended up eating with two girls from the program, Alexis and Shannon. We talked about where we were teaching and all that jazz. They're pretty cool and we ended up hanging out with them more and more as the week went on.

With the first day under our belts we were feeling overwhelmed, but good about being in Thailand. Ethan was still kind of sick and ended up throwing up a few times that night. :[ But we heard it just takes time to get used to the food here so we didn't worry too much. The next day was pretty much the same as the first except we had a traditional Thai welcome ceremony at the end. It was pretty neat. (We each received a bracelet of white string in the welcome ceremony. There were 5 or so Thai's from our staff that would give us some words of wisdom while tying the string. I went to Fiat and he told me, "Thailand's future is our children. They are in your hands. And I trust them there." No pressure, right? -E)

The third day we had to get up at the ass crack of dawn to go to the Grand Palace. We had to leave at 7am so I think we were up by 6. The Grand Palace is where the King usually resides. It also houses the Temple of the Emrald Buddha and some other temples as well as museums. Sounds like so much fun right? Kinda. The thing about the palace is that you have to wear a skirt that covers your knees and a shirt that covers your shoulders, but is not sheer. Guys had to wear long pants. No flip flops! Ok this doesn't sound that bad. It was terrible. I have never been so uncomfortably hot in my whole life. Our wedding day was hot and I sweat a lot that day, but this was on another level. Sweat was pouring down my arms and legs and face at a continuously disgusting pace. The palace was incredible though. The amount of detail they put into some of the buildings and statues was mesmerizing. The Emerald Buddha, which is actually made of jade, was much smaller than I envisioned, but beautiful nonetheless. The whole palace was huge and we really only saw a small portion - maybe because our group spent most of our time in an air conditioned museum, but that's beside the point - but what we did see was crazy awesome.

That night we were treated to dinner and a show. It was really cool. We had a buffet dinner first, that included french fries - they weren't the best, but they tasted so good, and then we could say hello to the elephants, watch some performers do small shows or check out the little "village" that was set up to represent the different regions of Thailand. We said hello to the elephants. They were huge and hairy! I never knew elephants had hair. It feels like a very course bristled brush...who knew?! Anyway we walked through the little village and watched a lady weave a scarf. The show started shortly after that. It was like cirque du soleil, but more theatrical. We really enjoyed it, even though we were fighting off an intense tiredness. A few people fell asleep, but I was all eyes and ears. I loved it! It was about Thailand's history and the different festivals they have. There were lots of crazy costumes and they even had a "river" on stage. I wish I could have taken pictures, but it was strictly forbidden. (My favorite section was "Fiery Hell." It was real trippy. -E)

The following day we were leaving the hotel for Kanchanaburi. We had to pack all our stuff and store it at the hotel and bring a few days worth of clothes for the trip. It was harder than it sounded. Well Ethan didn't have a hard time, but it took me forever. Anyway, we had some classes that day, but as soon as the last one let out we boarded the bus for Kanchanaburi. It took three hours to get there and we stopped for dinner so we didn't get there until after dark. Dinner was interesting. It was mostly seafood so I really only ate rice, but they had what they call a shrimp volcano where they basically have some shrimp on a platter, put a tiny fake volcano on top and light it on fire. It was entertaining. Anywho, the hotel in Kanchanaburi was really cool. It was all open, which meant there were geckos everywhere - yes, geckos like the ones in the movie Madagascar - and cockroaches (we never saw one), but it had two huge pools and the rooms each had a private balcony. It was also located right on the famous Kwai river. (never heard of it?? Wha?? Shame. Google it)

In the morning we had to give lesson plan presentation and then we had lunch and left for the Taweechai Elephant camp! As soon as we pulled up there were three baby elephants out and everyone went straight to them. They were impossibly cute and charming too! The elephant camp involved an elephant ride and a quick bamboo raft trip. The raft trip was interesting and a lot of people took a dip in the river. We chose not to on account of the fact that Ethan's sister Lindsay got an infection from the water. We knew we were being over cautious, but it was also brown and just gross looking. Also, the elephants poop in the water. Ummmm yikes that's nasty. The elephant ride was awesome. Short, but awesome. They let you sit on the elephants neck too - I was a piss poor elephant driver...the guy kept yelling at our elephant. I felt bad. Anyway, after the ride they showed us all the tricks the baby elephants can do. It was so cute and hilarious. Ethan got a traditional Thai massage from the smallest one. It basically hit him with it's trunk a few times and then very gently stepped on him a few times. It was incredibly amusing. We were very sad to leave the elephants, but very excited to visit the bridge over the Kwai river.

 

The bridge was built by POW and slaves basically during WWII by the Japanese as part of the Death Railway (named so because of the many lives that were lost in building it). The bridge was bombed and rebuilt twice and the third time it was bombed they decided not to rebuild it. The bridge that is there now was built later I think. Anyway, it was pretty cool, but a huge tourist trap. We didn't really mind though because there was a huge market that was fun to look through even though we didn't buy anything. (There was a baby leopard just chilling at one of the stalls. Normal things. -E) After the bridge we were going somewhere for dinner, but hadn't been told where.

The bus pulled up to a restaurant on the river. It looked like your average riverside restaurant, but we were to soon find out it was not at all average. We found our tables and sat eagerly awaiting food. Someone mentioned that the restaurant was floating. We were in fact on a giant barge - that was easy to see. But then the deck connected to a neighboring restaurant started to move and sure enough it was being tugged by a motorboat out into the river. What?! Someone asked if ours was going to move and I was like "no way man this one is huge! that little bitty boat cannot pull this huge thing!" I was mistaken. As soon as we finished dinner we were being tugged out into the river by a litte motor boat. These barges were the size of larger mobile homes - not even joking or exaggerating - and ours was two of them side by side. We all sat out front as we went down the river and when it got dark the barge turned into a rave. Giant speakers blasted insanely loud music and the deck was turned into a dance floor complete with spinning colored lights and strobes. It was the craziest thing. If I hadn't been drenched in sweat from just sitting there I would have joined the dance party (it was hard to resist the urge trust me, but I was just not prepared to deal with the amount of sweat that would pour from every inch of my body). We had a great time watching everyone dance and be silly though.

After the floating dinner/techno rave dance extravaganza we all hit up the hotels jankity (is this a word? of course not silly! But it describes the dilapidated conditions of many things in Thailand. Forewarning! I will continue to use this word!) karaoke room. Since I didn't partake in the dance fun I decided karaoke would be my thing and bonus! it was air conditioned! So pretty much all night I belted out pretty much every song they played that I knew and did a duet to "I wanna dance with somebody" with my new friend Jordan who went to Michigan. It was awesome. People kept handing me the mic when no one wanted to sing. And of course I took it. My other new friends Alexis and Shannon also helped me sing a few songs (such as "I want it that way" and "Total eclipse of the heart"). Eventually it turned into whoever happened to be in the room was singing the songs too - we had a great time watching the boys sing "uptown girl" and "my heart will go on". It was a great last night with the group.

The next day we slept through breakfast (I made it to breakfast just in time for two eggs. -E) , checked out, ate lunch and then headed back to Bangkok to meet our coordinators and head out to our schools.

Greetings from Thailand - The Land of Smiles

Pre-Orientation - Hello everyone! We've been in Thailand for 9 days now and we arrived in our town very early Thursday morning. So it's been a blast, but our new home is going to take some getting used to. Before I go into that I'll talk about orientation and stuff.

We arrived in Bangkok on the 9th very late at night. Our flight from Atlanta to Tokyo was 15 hours. We barely made it on the flight and it was late, so getting through security in Tokyo was stressful to say the least. But we made it! From Tokyo to Bangkok was 6 hours and we slept most of the time. When we got to Bangkok airport (BKK) the place was air conditioned, but we could still feel the intense heat that was waiting for us outside. We had been warned about the taxi drivers at the airport charging way too much to take us where we were going, but we were too tired and way too hot to try and argue with the guy so we overpaid, but we got to our hotel after a very intense taxi ride. Thais drive on the left side of the road, which is overwhelming already, but they also pay no mind to speed limits or the lane markers. Driving here pretty much makes no sense at all unless you live here. Anyway, I was slightly terrified, but we made it and I didn't vomit. Hooray!

We checked in to our hotel and were relieved that it was air conditioned. We were soaked in sweat just carrying our stuff to the door and into the elevator. The heat here is mostly humid heat - like 100% humidity. It's disgusting. It's comparable to walking into a wall of sticky air...think Michigan humid times 10. Ok I think you probably got the idea. Anyway, we pretty much dropped our stuff and went to straight to bed.

We spent most of the next day sleeping, but did take time get breakfast at the hotel and we wondered around the short street that the hotel was off of. It was very hot and we had no idea what we were doing. We went to 7-11 - there were two within 100 yards of each other - and also stopped at a coffee place to get on the internet. Both of these places were air conditioned. Hooray! Like I said we slept off our jet lag most of the day so after the coffee shop we passed out for a couple of hours, got up for dinner and then went back to bed. We decided we'd try some local fair for dinner, which was good, but we both regretted it somewhat when we found ourselves on the toilet the rest of the night. Ew.

We woke up very early the next day (the 11th) got breakfast and then checked in to orientation. This involved a 3 minute process where we hand over our passports and they hand us all of our information. We didn't have anything else to do that day so we decided we'd go to downtown Bangkok. Bangkok has these super-mega malls that we had heard so much about and really wanted to see. I also needed a hair dryer and we needed a converter plug for our computers. We took a taxi to the SkyTrain station and took a very squished ride on that to downtown. The downtown area was very overwhelming, but we got off the train right where 3 or 4 of these mega-malls were located. The first mall was 6 floors and had an aquarium in the basement floor. I really wanted to go obviously, but Ethan wasn't feeling well and thought our money would be better spent elsewhere. You win Ethan. Anyway, this mall was insane. It was soooooo big. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was too shocked by the intensity. The food court alone was the size of the Meridian Mall. Not even joking! ... ok that's an exaggeration, but whatever it was huge. This particular mall wasn't quite what we were looking for though. It was dedicated to really upscale stores that are wayyyy over our price range. So we decided to go to the MBK mall.

The MBK mall is nuts. I think there were 5 floors. Each floor was like a regular mall but in the "median", for lack of a better term, there were thousands of privately owned shops that you can barter at. This mall literally had anything and everything you could think of. There was a whole floor dedicated to electronics and every shop sold the same thing. Crazy. Just crazy. We bought a converter from a random shop and then went to a department store - that was also 5 floors, each floor was a different department - called Tokyu for a hair dryer. We bought a hair dryer for like $20, which was a bit more than I was expecting to pay for a travel size hair dryer. We chalked it up to the fact that we're in Bangkok and left it at that. The hair dryer was necessary.

After we left the mall we decided to hit up the "central park" of Bangkok. It was pretty and nice to get away from the smelly city streets. It did start to rain while we were there though, which wasn't cool. We also saw some iguanas - or at least that's what we think they were - that were huge. They were everywhere... it was strange. After the park we hopped back on the train and headed back to the hotel. We passed out til after dinner when we got back and woke up in the dark. We had missed dinner, but were really hungry so we decided to binge on snack food. In hind sight it was a poor choice, but we did learn a lot about the snacks here. Snickers aren't satisfying because the chocolate tastes wonky and oreos taste fairly similar to American ones. Also, their idea of barbecue chips is not the same as ours. They weren't bad, but I'm pretty sure they weren't BBQ.

Our first days in Thailand were behind us and we were very excited for orientation to start! :]