I last posted about Laos and that adventure was nearly 3 months ago. Time has passed so quickly, it's unbelievable. Over the past 2 and a half months or so I' ve had my bouts with homesickness, and at the time, time seemed to be moving so slowly. Looking back now, with homesickness cleared up for the most part, the days passed in a snap.
That's what will happen when you stop traveling and start working. Joining the working, professional world in Thailand has been pretty eye opening. Joining the Thai teaching force has also been quite exciting.
So now, after about 2 months of traveling and getting my feet wet with Thai culture, language, food, islands, beaches and other great tourists attractions, I am settled into a great town called Rayong, on the eastern side of the country on the gulf of Thailand. Southeast of Pattaya and a bit northwest of Ban Phe, if you're looking on a map. Ban Phe sees a lot of traffic due to the fact that in order to get to Koh Samed, a popular weekend island getaway, one must take the ferry from Ban Phe.
Rayong is a cool town and I'm really enjoying living here. I've been here since October 23rd. I began teaching October 26th, and since then it's been hard to catch my breath sometimes! I am joined by three other new teachers through AYC and I traveled down to Rayong from Bangkok after our seminar with two of them. My new best buddy is a woman named Teresa, a Filipina dentist turned teacher. She has lived in Thailand for nearly 6 years now, and with the help of her and significant other Wat Chai, I was settled into a room in the same building as her the same night we arrived in Rayong. Wat Chai drove me, Teresa, and Mateo from Bangkok to Rayong. I realized that in 2 months time that was the first free ride I got. Ha! not that I'm complaining, transportation is quite cheap here, but just an observation.
We all teach at the same school, Watpapradoo School. I'm really liking it so far, everyone has been very welcoming and helpful, teachers and students alike. There are many school customs that I am still becoming familiar with, but I'm really enjoying my job. I teach Mattayom 1, 4, and 6 students, which translates to middle school and high school ages Mattayom 1 is 7th grade, Mattayom 4 is 10th grade and Mattayom 6 is 12th grade. I never thought I'd be teaching high school when I thought of myself teaching in Thailand, but here I am! And I really like it. Because the students are older I can get to know them and joke around with them. One thing I'll say right away is that 7th graders are the same the world over. And that's all I'll say on that subject. :)
My school is huge. I think there's nearly 3,000 students that attend Watpapradoo School. Now how many of those are actually in attendance everyday is a different matter. The attendance game is always fun, especially when you get into the 'higher' sections of any given class. How the sections work is like this- Each grade (M1-M6) has many levels- the highest being M1-1, M2-1, M3-1 and so on and so forth. 'slash 1' means those students are..um, the best. They work hard, they speak english really well, they come to class and they are well behaved. Sometimes. The sections go up to 15 for some classes. And, let's just say that 50 minutes with say, M3-15 might make you want to cry. I do not have any M3 students (roughly 9th grade) but my fellow English teachers do, and often times they return to the teachers office looking very down. But I'd say for the most part, Thai kids and students are really sweet and they are a lot of fun to be around and teach. But, when you have a class of 50 or 60 kids who are talking all the time, drumming on desks, talking on their phones in class, walking around, going in and out of class, and in general just not paying attention to you it can be discouraging. My largest class is 51 students. This has made me rethink how I plan lessons and restructure my activities. Now, I'm not saying I've been totally successful. When your students arrive nearly 20 minutes late for a 50 minute class and you need to assess 51 students on a conversation exercise, after you've given them a lecture on a new topic, you start to abbreviate things. I don't know if I'm painting the best picture of school life, but this is just the realities. I like what I do, I like my students, and these behaviors just start to feel normal, I don't think it's strange anymore that my students arrive 15 to 20 minutes late sometimes! I like them all same at the end of the day. Crazy how it goes once you've adapted to things. So in short to paint a picture for you- I teach M1/1, M1/2, M4/2, M6/1, M6/2, M6/3, M6/5, M6/7- that equates to 18 hours per week. All the M6 kids I see for two periods a week, M4/2 I see three times a week, M1/2 I see 4 times a week and M1/1 I see once a week. Sometimes I might not see some classes at all due to holidays or special events. Just this past week, our last week before midterms- when we were all under the assumption that we would have a full, normal week- we would have class everyday and have all of our classes. Well, Tuesday that changed. Wednesday we had no classes, just a work day, and Friday the 8th and 9th period was cancelled due to a...I don't even know what it was. Something about the students getting money and buying school supplies. All I saw were kids playing soccer outside. Not being sarcastic at all. Needless to say, it is a running joke that you will never have a full week of school or classes in Thailand. There are many national holidays and events at school. The school day starts at 7:50 with the flag raising assembly and goes until 4:30. 9th period begins at 3:40. Isn't that insane? It sure feels that way when I have 7th graders at 3:40 in the afternoon when they've had 4 periods straight since lunch. I usually arrive at school in between 7am and 7:30, and I leave between 5 and 6pm. We can leave at 4pm if we don't have a 9th period class.
So, midterms are upon us, and it has been a busy few weeks preparing. Another reason I stay so late at school besides just simply trying to gather my head at the end of a school day is because we have a Christmas show coming up at school and I am working with Teresa and a group of our M4/2 students to perform a skit for the show. The show will be on the 24th, Christmas Eve day. We have midterms Monday through Thursday, and then the show Friday morning, and then classes after that. No Christmas Eve off at my school, but some schools do have off. But, our skit- and I'm very proud to say this- was written by yours truly, and is an adaptation of Dr. Seuss's famous children's book- "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". The kids have been working really hard, and it's going to be great. I'm really excited for them. Thai kids are so creative and hard working. The first week we met to practice they volunteered to come in on Saturday to work on the props and backdrops, and they had all their lines memorized by Friday of that same week. Awesome. I may have written the lines, but they have contributed way more on the creative side. It's really cool working with them, they're really sweet. I may be tired at the end of the day, but I always enjoy my time with them. I really feel like I'm connecting to these kids and getting to know them. They're also teaching me a little Thai! Free lessons, what a perk.
But just being in school everyday has taught me so much. Being settled and being surrounded by Thai people has helped me learn a lot of Thai. I can now order food, talk about food, ask what things are, ask how much, and say hello and thank you, and "I don't understand". That sounds like so little for being here for nearly 4 months, but learning the Thai language is hard! If you don't get the tone right you sound like a doofus. There's high tone, mid tone, low tone, neutral, falling and rising tone. You can say the word 'ka' or 'mai' with different tones and be saying a completely different word each time. With some words you can even compose a sentence with the same word but just saying it a different way. When I practice saying Thai words with my students I think I'm saying it right, but they keep correcting me! Ahh, getting there...It's a lot of fun though. When I try to speak Thai to people sometimes they just laugh or smile. They're so polite.
So, back to Rayong. It's a pretty big town, and near the sea. There are beaches here, but according to locals they're not that great for swimming. It's always breezy here which is great. It's about 2-3 hours from Bangkok (depending on traffic) and about 30 minutes to Ban Phe to lay on the beach or to take the 30 minute ferry to Koh Samed to lay on even better beaches. Farang and Thai alike frequent Koh Samed, it's so close and easy to get to.
On my weekends I try to get out of town and adventure to other places, but I also like to wander around the downtown of Rayong and get to know the city. The people are very friendly, and I've even been invited to join the family to whom I take my laundry for dinner some nights. As I was walking to the shop where I use the internet by my apartment last Sunday night, I passed my laundry shop and was stopped by one of the ladies. A new girl was sitting with them, and she started speaking to me in English. She said that she is a friend of the family and she comes to visit and help with the laundry business every weekend or a few times a month. She's 25 and her nickname is Nick, and she is very friendly. I'm excited to say that she has potential to be my first actual Thai friend who is my age! Everyone is very friendly here sure, but it can be difficult to make friends. So I was very happy when she gave me her email and facebook, and invited me to come back and eat dinner with them next time she was back in town.
So, life is happening. Things are good, and I'm happy here. I finished Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume and I've just started Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. This will be the second time around for Siddhartha. I think it's just one of those books to read again. I read it a few years ago, but now that I'm in Asia I was drawn back to it. Thanks mom, for putting that one in the package! I was so excited to get those packages- just like a camper at Minikani, I was so pumped.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Laos
Hello friends!
It's been long overdue, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Laos. I am really busy these days with teaching and lesson planning that my time to write on my blog has shrunk quite a lot. But without further ado...
I left Chiang Mai for Laos on October 11th and arrived October 12th. I was across the border by 10:30am. Whoo! The bus ride to Laos left something to be desired...it was really cheap, but looking back on it I could have splurged a couple hundred baht more for something more comfortable. I will not longer take the cheapest bus possible. The seats were really cramped, there wasn't a bathroom on the bus and the aircon was not the typical icicle blast like it usually is on thai buses...it felt like the air was trickly through the vent. I was seated next to a young mother whose baby was about three. He was slipping and sliding all over her lap all night and while at first I thought they were both very sweet and beautiful, at around 1am I didn't really appreciate the baby's head in my side. Oh, and the mom was throwing up in a plastic bag periodically, and my seat wouldn't recline. There were about 4 babies on board and at least one of them was crying at any given moment. And I was scolded for having my headlamp on when the lights were off. I couldn't sleep so I wanted to read! It was a little miserable, but now I've got the story to tell! The ride was about 11 hours long.
So, after the initial bus ride, I arrived in Udon Thani, then took another bus to Nong Khai- the border town to Laos on the eastern side of Thailand. I made some friends on that bus ride- Kiril from Israel and Phoebe and Gemma from England- who I spent my time in Laos with. Throughout the bus ride from Udon Thani to Nong Khai, the bus stops to pick up locals, and as we neared the border, the bus was stopped several times. Tuk tuk drivers hop on and just say 'Laos, Laos, border...Friendship Bridge' to try and get you to get off and ride with them to the border and cross to the Friendship Bridge (everyone crosses the friendship bridge to get into Laos). They act really desparate and give off the feeling like this is your last chance to get to the border, when in actuality you'll just stay on the bus until the end of the line- or until it takes you to the bus stop, at which point you can find some kind of vehicle to take you to the Friendship Bridge. Anyhow my new friends and I decided to get off the bus shortly after we passed the turn for the friendship bridge and hopped in a tuk tuk. Only a short time into our tuk tuk ride the driver stops at a little tourist tout rip off type thing and we are told to get off here to get into a minivan that will take us to the border. Sorry friend, but you're gonna take us all the way to the border. Scam averted. We get to the border and then we fill out the exit paper in our passports to leave Thailand and get our passports stamped out of Thailand. We passed through the checkpoint and hopped onto the shuttle bus that carries you across the Friendship Bridge. I guess at that point we were in no-man's land. That bus ride was pretty quick- 10 minutes or so- and I on it I met two American guys who I happened to run into a handful of times through my short stay in Laos. They were both teachers in Bangkok so it was cool hearing their stories. We all hopped off the bus when we got to the Laos border and filled out our paperwork to receive a Laos visa. 35 USD and 15 minutes later...Visa acquisition accomplished and we 4 crossed into Laos! Hooray! Of course we hopped into another tuk tuk which carried us to our guesthouse. A crazy Canadian man who has been living in Thailand for 8 years was also packed into our tuk tuk and that ride will never be forgotten. He's been living and working in Bangkok for a long time, and he was pretty obsessed with it. He had to come to Laos for a visa run because he changed jobs and therefore needed a new work permit. One must obtain the NON B visa to obtain the work permit. Anyhow- this man said he did not like coming to Laos because they don't have Burger King or McDonalds. I'm not joking. He was quite friendly and talkative, but I was pretty stunned by the fast food chain comment, and the fact that he would not stop hitting on Phoebe! Indeed she is really sweet and cute, but honestly we were all getting a little embarassed for her. He has been around Thai women and thai people for too long that I think the etiquette for talking to/flirting with Western girls was somewhat fogotten...Needless to say it was hilarious ride. We saw him later near our guesthouse and we sort of had to pretend not to hear him when he called after us.
We headed to Vientiane, the capitol and checked into our guesthouse and got some lunch. Over the course of the next few days we bounced around to various markets and tourist type things like the Victory monument which is neat but a little bit of an eyesore up close (the plaque on site actually degrades the structure a bit- the monument was not finished with all the original intended materials- instead it was completed with concreted given to Laos by the US earmarked for building roads or something else- and the structure has fallen a bit into disrepair.) I also spent a lot of time at the Thai Embassy trying to apply for a NON B visa.
After a few days in Vientiane we headed to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a beautiful town- luscious greenery all around, and the landscape becomes more mountainous as you head north from the flat capitol of Vientiane. However, Vang Vieng is also a western town. It's as if some strange universal force has scooped up the young white folks from the US and Europe and then dumped them- already in their bathing suits- into the town of Vang Vieng. The town is famous for travelers for its drinking and tubing extravanga. You get to float down a river in an intertube and stop at bars along the way. American pop music is blaring from the speakers of every bar, and you can stop if you please and drink a bucket of some kind of rum concoction. It's what you make of it I guess. I did indulge in this crazy experience, but I came out alright in the end and I lived to tell the tale. I have checked that off my Southeast Asia bucket list and I don't really think I need to do it again. But I was with my friends so that was fun.
The next day I left to head back to Vientiane to retrieve my free! tourist visa from the Thai Embassy. I was an expert at getting to and from that embassy at that point. With that out of the way, I spent the rest of my time in Laos with my friend Sylvie who I met in Bangkok, then met up with again in Chiang Mai by coincidence and we had a good time catching up on the experiences we'd both had since we parted ways in Chiang Mai. We rented bikes and rode around town which was fun. I think the coolest thing I did in Laos was in those last two days with Sylvie. We rode our bikes to a temple and got to practice meditation with monks. We sat with some 15 other people- farang and asian- and listened to the monks talk to us about the practice of meditation and then we meditated. Then we practiced walking meditation- which was cool. There is a special way to walk when doing walking meditation, and I'd never heard of walking meditation so that was neat for me. Then we did seated meditation again, and then there was a question and answer session. Very cool. I was inspired to meditate more on my own after that, and I try to meditate every night before bed now that I'm settled in my own place.
The next coolest thing occured just after the meditation. At the same temple (the name escapes me now) there are Lao massages offered (not by the monks don't worry!) and a steam room. Sylvie chose a massage and I chose the steam room. The whole operation was set up in a traditional Lao style house- raised on stilts. The steam room was heated with a fire below the house. When I pulled back the curtain after stepping through the wooden door of the steam room I felt like I'd stepped back into Ancient China. I was expecting to see a group of rotund Chinese men, but instead there sat a lanky German fellow in his 40s. We had some nice conversation about travels and his time living in Thailand. We sat on wooden benches and danced our feet along the wooden floorboards to keep them from getting too hot. Although he was only sitting about 4 feet in front of me, I could not make out his face at all, it was so steamy. It felt nice to end the day with a good steam. I stepped out, took a deep breath and drank some tea. After I'd stopped dripping sweat I changed out of my bathing suit and Sylvie and I exchanged stories about our experiences. We were both quite satisfied. We rode our bikes home and got some dinner. We both slept very well that night.
The next day it was time to part ways again, and I said my goodbyes to Sylvie. We weren't sure if we'd cross paths again in Asia. But, we now, I'll have a friend to visit in France!
I boarded a night bus headed back to Bangkok for my seminar to start teaching. The ride was pretty uneventful- american movies, lots of air conditioning, and generic oreo cookies. I arrived on Khao San Road in Bangkok Monday morning and made my way to AYC office to set up a bank account. The traveling and living out of a pack was soon coming to an end...in about a week I would be relocated and settling into some new, more permanent digs.
More to come on the seminar and location change!
It's been long overdue, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Laos. I am really busy these days with teaching and lesson planning that my time to write on my blog has shrunk quite a lot. But without further ado...
I left Chiang Mai for Laos on October 11th and arrived October 12th. I was across the border by 10:30am. Whoo! The bus ride to Laos left something to be desired...it was really cheap, but looking back on it I could have splurged a couple hundred baht more for something more comfortable. I will not longer take the cheapest bus possible. The seats were really cramped, there wasn't a bathroom on the bus and the aircon was not the typical icicle blast like it usually is on thai buses...it felt like the air was trickly through the vent. I was seated next to a young mother whose baby was about three. He was slipping and sliding all over her lap all night and while at first I thought they were both very sweet and beautiful, at around 1am I didn't really appreciate the baby's head in my side. Oh, and the mom was throwing up in a plastic bag periodically, and my seat wouldn't recline. There were about 4 babies on board and at least one of them was crying at any given moment. And I was scolded for having my headlamp on when the lights were off. I couldn't sleep so I wanted to read! It was a little miserable, but now I've got the story to tell! The ride was about 11 hours long.
So, after the initial bus ride, I arrived in Udon Thani, then took another bus to Nong Khai- the border town to Laos on the eastern side of Thailand. I made some friends on that bus ride- Kiril from Israel and Phoebe and Gemma from England- who I spent my time in Laos with. Throughout the bus ride from Udon Thani to Nong Khai, the bus stops to pick up locals, and as we neared the border, the bus was stopped several times. Tuk tuk drivers hop on and just say 'Laos, Laos, border...Friendship Bridge' to try and get you to get off and ride with them to the border and cross to the Friendship Bridge (everyone crosses the friendship bridge to get into Laos). They act really desparate and give off the feeling like this is your last chance to get to the border, when in actuality you'll just stay on the bus until the end of the line- or until it takes you to the bus stop, at which point you can find some kind of vehicle to take you to the Friendship Bridge. Anyhow my new friends and I decided to get off the bus shortly after we passed the turn for the friendship bridge and hopped in a tuk tuk. Only a short time into our tuk tuk ride the driver stops at a little tourist tout rip off type thing and we are told to get off here to get into a minivan that will take us to the border. Sorry friend, but you're gonna take us all the way to the border. Scam averted. We get to the border and then we fill out the exit paper in our passports to leave Thailand and get our passports stamped out of Thailand. We passed through the checkpoint and hopped onto the shuttle bus that carries you across the Friendship Bridge. I guess at that point we were in no-man's land. That bus ride was pretty quick- 10 minutes or so- and I on it I met two American guys who I happened to run into a handful of times through my short stay in Laos. They were both teachers in Bangkok so it was cool hearing their stories. We all hopped off the bus when we got to the Laos border and filled out our paperwork to receive a Laos visa. 35 USD and 15 minutes later...Visa acquisition accomplished and we 4 crossed into Laos! Hooray! Of course we hopped into another tuk tuk which carried us to our guesthouse. A crazy Canadian man who has been living in Thailand for 8 years was also packed into our tuk tuk and that ride will never be forgotten. He's been living and working in Bangkok for a long time, and he was pretty obsessed with it. He had to come to Laos for a visa run because he changed jobs and therefore needed a new work permit. One must obtain the NON B visa to obtain the work permit. Anyhow- this man said he did not like coming to Laos because they don't have Burger King or McDonalds. I'm not joking. He was quite friendly and talkative, but I was pretty stunned by the fast food chain comment, and the fact that he would not stop hitting on Phoebe! Indeed she is really sweet and cute, but honestly we were all getting a little embarassed for her. He has been around Thai women and thai people for too long that I think the etiquette for talking to/flirting with Western girls was somewhat fogotten...Needless to say it was hilarious ride. We saw him later near our guesthouse and we sort of had to pretend not to hear him when he called after us.
We headed to Vientiane, the capitol and checked into our guesthouse and got some lunch. Over the course of the next few days we bounced around to various markets and tourist type things like the Victory monument which is neat but a little bit of an eyesore up close (the plaque on site actually degrades the structure a bit- the monument was not finished with all the original intended materials- instead it was completed with concreted given to Laos by the US earmarked for building roads or something else- and the structure has fallen a bit into disrepair.) I also spent a lot of time at the Thai Embassy trying to apply for a NON B visa.
After a few days in Vientiane we headed to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a beautiful town- luscious greenery all around, and the landscape becomes more mountainous as you head north from the flat capitol of Vientiane. However, Vang Vieng is also a western town. It's as if some strange universal force has scooped up the young white folks from the US and Europe and then dumped them- already in their bathing suits- into the town of Vang Vieng. The town is famous for travelers for its drinking and tubing extravanga. You get to float down a river in an intertube and stop at bars along the way. American pop music is blaring from the speakers of every bar, and you can stop if you please and drink a bucket of some kind of rum concoction. It's what you make of it I guess. I did indulge in this crazy experience, but I came out alright in the end and I lived to tell the tale. I have checked that off my Southeast Asia bucket list and I don't really think I need to do it again. But I was with my friends so that was fun.
The next day I left to head back to Vientiane to retrieve my free! tourist visa from the Thai Embassy. I was an expert at getting to and from that embassy at that point. With that out of the way, I spent the rest of my time in Laos with my friend Sylvie who I met in Bangkok, then met up with again in Chiang Mai by coincidence and we had a good time catching up on the experiences we'd both had since we parted ways in Chiang Mai. We rented bikes and rode around town which was fun. I think the coolest thing I did in Laos was in those last two days with Sylvie. We rode our bikes to a temple and got to practice meditation with monks. We sat with some 15 other people- farang and asian- and listened to the monks talk to us about the practice of meditation and then we meditated. Then we practiced walking meditation- which was cool. There is a special way to walk when doing walking meditation, and I'd never heard of walking meditation so that was neat for me. Then we did seated meditation again, and then there was a question and answer session. Very cool. I was inspired to meditate more on my own after that, and I try to meditate every night before bed now that I'm settled in my own place.
The next coolest thing occured just after the meditation. At the same temple (the name escapes me now) there are Lao massages offered (not by the monks don't worry!) and a steam room. Sylvie chose a massage and I chose the steam room. The whole operation was set up in a traditional Lao style house- raised on stilts. The steam room was heated with a fire below the house. When I pulled back the curtain after stepping through the wooden door of the steam room I felt like I'd stepped back into Ancient China. I was expecting to see a group of rotund Chinese men, but instead there sat a lanky German fellow in his 40s. We had some nice conversation about travels and his time living in Thailand. We sat on wooden benches and danced our feet along the wooden floorboards to keep them from getting too hot. Although he was only sitting about 4 feet in front of me, I could not make out his face at all, it was so steamy. It felt nice to end the day with a good steam. I stepped out, took a deep breath and drank some tea. After I'd stopped dripping sweat I changed out of my bathing suit and Sylvie and I exchanged stories about our experiences. We were both quite satisfied. We rode our bikes home and got some dinner. We both slept very well that night.
The next day it was time to part ways again, and I said my goodbyes to Sylvie. We weren't sure if we'd cross paths again in Asia. But, we now, I'll have a friend to visit in France!
I boarded a night bus headed back to Bangkok for my seminar to start teaching. The ride was pretty uneventful- american movies, lots of air conditioning, and generic oreo cookies. I arrived on Khao San Road in Bangkok Monday morning and made my way to AYC office to set up a bank account. The traveling and living out of a pack was soon coming to an end...in about a week I would be relocated and settling into some new, more permanent digs.
More to come on the seminar and location change!
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