Thanksgiving came and went. No one cares about the Pilgrims here, except us farangs. So we ate a fabulous meal at the Pullman Hotel where I wasted no stomach room on turkey, but filled it to the brim with the pasta bar, salad (a rare commodity here) and dessert after delicious dessert.
Apparently I say annoying a lot. My coworkers pointed it out and now it annoys me how much I say it. Not only because it’s a boring token word, but also because it must mean I am complaining a lot, and I really do not have much reason to complain these days. Neuki taught me a word for annoying in Thai which is guwan deen, but she failed to tell me that it is not a direct translation. I found out after I said it in class that it is not exactly G-rated.
So I went to Cambodia and it was great. I traveled from Thailand with the help of a new Cambodian friend appropriately named Mom. She helped me dodge the overzealous tuktuk touts at the border, took me to a hotel, to dinner, and literally fed me dessert with her own spoon. Mom and I parted ways in the beach town of Sihanoukville, though I had already met some Canadian pals and had quite the adventurous bus ride. A crazy drunk Italian Mario-brothers-look-alike attempted to hijack our bus wielding a small knife, after threatening to pee on the head of the driver when he failed to pull over promptly for the guy to relieve himself on the side of the road. We did eventually pull over and got a really nice moonshot of crazyman as he unnecessarily dropped his pants to his ankles. It was not until the rest stop that the attempted hijacking occurred. (Luckily, I was off the bus and got to watch from the sidelines). We left the guy at the rest stop and he chased our bus with his knife threatening to find us and cut certain body parts off. Anyways, I got along with the Canadians really well except that one guy doesn’t believe in human-induced global warming and littered on the beach just because there was already trash on it. Let’s just say, I had a word with him.
For those of you who are not aware, there was a genocide in Cambodia in the late 70s and I spent two days in Phnom Penh visiting Tuol Sleng or S-21, a former school converted to a prison and torture chamber, as well as the Killing Fields where thousands of people were executed by the Khmer Rouge in their attempt to rid the country of educated people and their families. I had just finished reading First They Killed My Father which is a book written by a survivor of the genocide and I was really glad to have the book to provide me with a background to the horrific story. No one really knows how many people were killed, but at least one million, so many that everyone in the country knows someone who was killed. Despite this incredibly recent tragedy, Cambodian people are the friendliest people I have encountered since the African village. On the whole, they speak pretty good English and although there is some petty crime I found everyone to be incredibly kind, from Mom to the questionably intoxicated tuk-tuk driver that drove Mere and I around the Angkor Wat Complex. Ah, Angkor Wat. There is really nothing more to say than Go. Just go. Sunrise over Angkor Wat. I checked that off my life list, but somehow seeing it again is back on the list. Is that allowed? Greedy? I knew I would love that temple, but I had no idea how amazing the rest would be. Mere and I spent two days exploring the ruins and it was incredible. Each temple had something unique to offer and some were downright mind-blowing. Have you seen Tomb Raider? Guess where it was filmed? Angkor Wat aside, Cambodia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Rice paddies and palm trees as far as the eye can see.
So now I have been back in Khon Kaen more than a month. Teaching is frustrating because of the book that was chosen, a regrettable mistake in the Language Institute, but one that cannot be changed without incurring huge financial kickback. It is above the level of comprehension of even my best students. I supposedly teach six sections of the same course but in reality teaching 20 Radiology students who come prepared and already understand some English is radically different from teaching 45 Engineers, 42 of which are male, at 4:00 to 5:30 in the afternoon. They pretty much eat me for a pre-dinner snack, refusing to do anything I ask. But, I still love the students and just when I am about to give up, we have a class that seems like a breakthrough, even if all I do is get them to participate in a silly game.
The weather has really cooled off. Since I am used to South Bend, I thought I would never say that I am cold here. I went so far as to bet Alison that I could go the whole winter without saying it is or I am cold. Well, I lost the bet already. In looking for an excuse as to why I did not want to go to the dance bar, I said I was too tired and cold to go. Shoot. I guess it might have dipped into the 50s the other night and it feels much colder to my body! I bet 50 would feel absolutely balmy to some of you right now. During the day it is always in the 70s with a cool breeze and a bright sun like those once in a while days at ND where everyone crowds on the quads and throws Frisbees. Let me tell you though, my internal calendar is really confused about Thanksgiving.
I am learning to read and write Thai! Haha, it is pretty hilarious, but I know all the basics. It is proving to be difficult, but I guess not as bad as I thought. It is really rewarding and gives me another perspective on language altogether. The more I learn, the more complicated the language becomes and I realize how royally I have been slash still am screwing it up. Let me just say that the word for far is glaai, said with a falling tone, and the word for close is glai, said with a low tone. Really? Really? Come on!
Neuki moves on Monday and that is going to be a major bummer, but Cait, Jess, and Sha arrive on December 21st which will be here in a jiffy and for that I am so thankful! <3
Friday, November 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Photos of the Trip
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| Midterm Break in 200 |
There is the link to my web album. There are plenty more amazing photos, especially because Jess took some too (more of which I am in so they are obviously great)...but they will have to wait.
Blog about Cambodia soon.
Monday, October 19, 2009
"The thing that annoyed me most on this trip is my haircut..and Vietnam."-Jess
Partly it was our fault, poor planning and decision-making (or lack there of). Partly it was luck (or lack there of again.) I am not writing off the whole country, much more of which I'd still love to see, but our time in Northern Vietnam didn't quite live up to the high hopes I had.
Despite some of the sights being closed on Mondays, Jess and I filled our first full day in Hanoi. We got scammed by multiple cab drivers, visited the Temple of Literature, dined for a good cause at Koto, and saw the changing of the guards at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (very odd since Ho's bod is in Russia for it's yearly visit with his similarly-preserved comrades, Lenin and Stalin). Back near our hotel in the Old Quarter, we checked out Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem lake, St. Joseph's Cathedral and dined again at an Indian restaurant we now call "Rat Kitchen." Guess why?...Yup, a rat ran plumb through the restaurant while we waited for our food. On the subject of food, to my surprise, we did not like the Vietnamese food much. We probably just did not know what to order (and they specialize in meats, which we were not eating) but it was not up to par with Vietnamese I've eaten outside of Vietnam. Actually, it was so disappointing that Jess and I returned to Rat Kitchen a second time. Can you imagine? We figured rats must just be everywhere if they were in that seemingly-clean place. Hypothesis confirmed. We saw two rats in the airport on our way out!
I'd been sold on Halong Bay since seeing a stamp-sized add on the side of my facebook page. Cheesy, but I'm sure the Google image would do the trick for you too. And, don't get me wrong, it is incredibly gorgeous. But we got unlucky (or all the photos on Google are photoshopped) because the sky was a hazy gray the whole time which really fogged up our view. Maybe nearby China was wafting over some factory air. But that, combined with the trash floating in the sometimes oily water, did not exactly add to the bay's beauty, which we had predicted would be astounding enough to keep us occupied looking around so that the boat (referred to as a junk, which it was) did not matter much. Disregarding previous warnings in order to save a couple lousy bucks, we went with the cheapie 3-day tour. Oooooops. You get what you pay for. It felt more like a school field trip than a vacation. Lots of busing around, loads of hurry up and wait coupled with terrible food and customer service.. not that Jess and I were expecting royal treatment, but it was downright b-a-d. At the end, my passport was held for ransom by one of the guides because I was refusing to pay for a beer that was mistakenly added to our tally. He really sent me over the edge in a country where public outbursts are frowned upon. Straw that broke this camel's back. I feel like I am making it sound awful so insert here warm thoughts of me knowing how lucky I am. And, we did have a good group: Some Germans who loved PDA (I just ran into them in Cambodia to show how the SE Asian backpacker scene is a small world), a Belgian on his last 3 weeks of a year- long world-tour (in Belgium, you can take a "career break" during which the government pays you to do roughly whatever you want!!??!?) four Brits on the beginning of their year-long trip, a Korean mother and daughter, and the strangest woman I've encountered in a while and her friend Gary who called her "Mama" and excused her behavior saying, "Mama not right in the head. Mama need medicine."
After Halong, with the literal and figurative bad taste lingering in our mouths, we made the very last-minute decision not to head South to Hue and Hoi An like we had planned. I feel like I need to justify our reasoning, which leads me to believe I feel some regret, but money, time, and monsoons were factors.So, we spent a non-Monday in Hanoi seeing Museums (Museum of Ethnology and Hoa Lo Prison where McCain was held as a POW... I am certainly not saying it was a day at the spa, but it looked better than how the French had previously treated the Vietnamese inmates there) and headed to Ninh Binh.
As a place to escape crazy Hanoi, the city of Ninh Binh did not thrill us, and Jess was overly peeved about these little bugs falling from the ceiling at our hotel's restaurant, but just outside the city we found some gems. We biked to Tam Coc where someone rowed us down a river through beautiful rice paddies and cliffs reminiscent of Halong Bay. We also biked to Bich Dong (yes, you read correctly), a temple in a cave that we were allowed to enter despite being in shorts. Whew, it would have been a lot of stairs for a rejection. We ate lunch at a place that served dog, cat and goat penis, all of which you have to order a day in advance... Shoot! What lack of foresight.
We spent the next day in Cuc Phuong National Park which features a really old tree and an ancient tomb in a cave. Our day began with a very rainy tour of the primate rescue center. As we walked along the mud path to get there clad in our mildewy ponchos Jess goes, "Bear, I am worried about the rest of our trip in Vietnam." Literally one second later, extremely loud thunder boomed, echoing Jess's hesitation with ominous and hilarious timing. The oh-so-anticipated primate tour lasted three minutes and the rain muffled the guide's explanation to the point of noncomprehension.Following the thunder omen and because of a monsoon coming from China, we decided to forgo our trip to Sapa, a beautiful mountain town that would surely be no fun in the rain since trekking and views draw the tourists. We threw in the towel. Doneskies with Vietnam. We left the next morning destined for Thailand and a couple days of recovery time on easily accessible Koh Samed. The mighty fine Thai meal at Ekkamai bus station in Bangkok assured us that we had finally made a right decision this time.
Though we lacked sleep due to extremely moist living conditions, our last days together were very peaceful... until we had to sprint the should-be-20-minute-walk from our guesthouse to the ferry landing through puddles of squishy mud with all Jess's stuff in tow. The boat had just pulled away when we arrived, but reversed to pick up my sweaty and frazzled cousin. I was truly sad to see her go and am really missing her. Some will be shocked to know that we did not have a single fight, and our only almost-fight was about the wad of dong we left Vietnam with, only to discover Thailand does not exchange it...figures.
I am in Cambodia now and it is a wonderful place and I have much to say, but I'll save it since life is about to slow back down and I will have plenty of time to recount my adventure. Thanks for reading! Sorry for the negativity.
Despite some of the sights being closed on Mondays, Jess and I filled our first full day in Hanoi. We got scammed by multiple cab drivers, visited the Temple of Literature, dined for a good cause at Koto, and saw the changing of the guards at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (very odd since Ho's bod is in Russia for it's yearly visit with his similarly-preserved comrades, Lenin and Stalin). Back near our hotel in the Old Quarter, we checked out Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem lake, St. Joseph's Cathedral and dined again at an Indian restaurant we now call "Rat Kitchen." Guess why?...Yup, a rat ran plumb through the restaurant while we waited for our food. On the subject of food, to my surprise, we did not like the Vietnamese food much. We probably just did not know what to order (and they specialize in meats, which we were not eating) but it was not up to par with Vietnamese I've eaten outside of Vietnam. Actually, it was so disappointing that Jess and I returned to Rat Kitchen a second time. Can you imagine? We figured rats must just be everywhere if they were in that seemingly-clean place. Hypothesis confirmed. We saw two rats in the airport on our way out!
I'd been sold on Halong Bay since seeing a stamp-sized add on the side of my facebook page. Cheesy, but I'm sure the Google image would do the trick for you too. And, don't get me wrong, it is incredibly gorgeous. But we got unlucky (or all the photos on Google are photoshopped) because the sky was a hazy gray the whole time which really fogged up our view. Maybe nearby China was wafting over some factory air. But that, combined with the trash floating in the sometimes oily water, did not exactly add to the bay's beauty, which we had predicted would be astounding enough to keep us occupied looking around so that the boat (referred to as a junk, which it was) did not matter much. Disregarding previous warnings in order to save a couple lousy bucks, we went with the cheapie 3-day tour. Oooooops. You get what you pay for. It felt more like a school field trip than a vacation. Lots of busing around, loads of hurry up and wait coupled with terrible food and customer service.. not that Jess and I were expecting royal treatment, but it was downright b-a-d. At the end, my passport was held for ransom by one of the guides because I was refusing to pay for a beer that was mistakenly added to our tally. He really sent me over the edge in a country where public outbursts are frowned upon. Straw that broke this camel's back. I feel like I am making it sound awful so insert here warm thoughts of me knowing how lucky I am. And, we did have a good group: Some Germans who loved PDA (I just ran into them in Cambodia to show how the SE Asian backpacker scene is a small world), a Belgian on his last 3 weeks of a year- long world-tour (in Belgium, you can take a "career break" during which the government pays you to do roughly whatever you want!!??!?) four Brits on the beginning of their year-long trip, a Korean mother and daughter, and the strangest woman I've encountered in a while and her friend Gary who called her "Mama" and excused her behavior saying, "Mama not right in the head. Mama need medicine."
After Halong, with the literal and figurative bad taste lingering in our mouths, we made the very last-minute decision not to head South to Hue and Hoi An like we had planned. I feel like I need to justify our reasoning, which leads me to believe I feel some regret, but money, time, and monsoons were factors.So, we spent a non-Monday in Hanoi seeing Museums (Museum of Ethnology and Hoa Lo Prison where McCain was held as a POW... I am certainly not saying it was a day at the spa, but it looked better than how the French had previously treated the Vietnamese inmates there) and headed to Ninh Binh.
As a place to escape crazy Hanoi, the city of Ninh Binh did not thrill us, and Jess was overly peeved about these little bugs falling from the ceiling at our hotel's restaurant, but just outside the city we found some gems. We biked to Tam Coc where someone rowed us down a river through beautiful rice paddies and cliffs reminiscent of Halong Bay. We also biked to Bich Dong (yes, you read correctly), a temple in a cave that we were allowed to enter despite being in shorts. Whew, it would have been a lot of stairs for a rejection. We ate lunch at a place that served dog, cat and goat penis, all of which you have to order a day in advance... Shoot! What lack of foresight.
We spent the next day in Cuc Phuong National Park which features a really old tree and an ancient tomb in a cave. Our day began with a very rainy tour of the primate rescue center. As we walked along the mud path to get there clad in our mildewy ponchos Jess goes, "Bear, I am worried about the rest of our trip in Vietnam." Literally one second later, extremely loud thunder boomed, echoing Jess's hesitation with ominous and hilarious timing. The oh-so-anticipated primate tour lasted three minutes and the rain muffled the guide's explanation to the point of noncomprehension.Following the thunder omen and because of a monsoon coming from China, we decided to forgo our trip to Sapa, a beautiful mountain town that would surely be no fun in the rain since trekking and views draw the tourists. We threw in the towel. Doneskies with Vietnam. We left the next morning destined for Thailand and a couple days of recovery time on easily accessible Koh Samed. The mighty fine Thai meal at Ekkamai bus station in Bangkok assured us that we had finally made a right decision this time.
Though we lacked sleep due to extremely moist living conditions, our last days together were very peaceful... until we had to sprint the should-be-20-minute-walk from our guesthouse to the ferry landing through puddles of squishy mud with all Jess's stuff in tow. The boat had just pulled away when we arrived, but reversed to pick up my sweaty and frazzled cousin. I was truly sad to see her go and am really missing her. Some will be shocked to know that we did not have a single fight, and our only almost-fight was about the wad of dong we left Vietnam with, only to discover Thailand does not exchange it...figures.
I am in Cambodia now and it is a wonderful place and I have much to say, but I'll save it since life is about to slow back down and I will have plenty of time to recount my adventure. Thanks for reading! Sorry for the negativity.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Lovely Land of Laos and a shaky beginning in Vietnam
Usually I sit down to write this blog full of excitement to share great memories and experiences that I have had. Like I said, we loved Luang Prabang after 3 hours...actually probably 3 minutes, even as we walked waaaay past our hotel with our packs on, too proud to take a tuktuk or ask for directions. But that is simply not the case in Hanoi. We hate it after 3 hours. But before I rant about Vietnam, I will recount the gloriousness of Laos and then maybe I will cool down, literally and figuratively.
Luang Prabang was simply magical. The French left their architecture, their baguettes and their crepes, the Buddhists are responsible for the temples and monks and Mother Nature provided the Mekong River and the surrounding mountains. After the French peaced, there were plenty of buildings just screaming to be turned into guesthouses and cafes and so the tourism began, but somehow, maybe because Laos is still sort of off the beaten path, it's very tasteful tourism at this point.
While in Luang Prabang, we walked the whole city on foot (it's becoming a pattern of ours to see more than we intend to due to wrong turns, poorly-scaled maps, wandering interests, etc.) tested the eateries, explored tons of wats, visited the National Museum, and climbed up hundreds of stairs to Phu Si temple to watch the sun set and get a view of the whole town. One day, we rented mountain bikes and went 15km to Tad Sae waterfall. Although I cursed the bicycles the whole way there, and while we pushed them up a giant hill on the way home because even 24 gears were not enough, and again the next day when my bottom was black and blue, the overall experience was wonderful.
Parting with the city even temporarily was difficult, but we ventured outside of LP to two different villages. After picking up many bicycles from the songtaew driver's house, hitting a chicken, and getting a flat tire, we arrived no worse for the wear in Nong Khiaw. The mountain scenery was even prettier than what we had seen before and our trip really hit a high note. Jess and I could not shut up about how great Laos is. We explored a cave which sheltered over 100 villagers while the USA dropped bombs on Loas during the Vietnam War. We could see what looked like small lakes dotting the rice paddies, but they were holes left by the bombs. That night, as Jess and I sat on the porch of our bungalow overlooking the Nam Ou, we contemplated why everyone who is able would not want to travel like we were...live out of a backpack, forget the finer things in life...until we went to bed on the equivalent of floor boards with sheets over top. I really mean it this time, THE WORLD'S MOST UNCOMFORTABLE BEDS. The next day, with stiff necks and spasming backs, we packed ourselves into a wooden boat like sardines and went an hour and a half up river to Muang Ngoi Neua. We also hiked to caves there and drank some BeerLao with some other falangs and Penny, the hilarious and talkative guesthouse owner who told long stories about former guests peepeeing the beds.When choosing Penny's place from the Lonely Planet, Jess said, "rat-free or river-view, my girl?" I went for rat-free...but we still had a view of them being grilled-up outside.
Luckily, when we returned to LP yesterday our big backpacks were still under a bench at our guesthouse where we had hidden them two days before. We checked off some last-minute things to do while in LP, did a little shopping at the handicraft market (definately the most laidback of its kind in Asia), and made sure to leave the LP cuisine scene on a high note.
Now that I wrote all that good stuff, your eyes are probably getting tired, so you can stop reading now and spare yourself the negativity.
Since entering Vietnam 4 hours ago, we have been scammed, harrassed, and almost run over many times. Additionally, we attempted to check-in to a hotel that told us they would have a room in 30 minutes. Two hours later, it still was not ready which was fine by us because by that time we had noticed that the Prince Hotel was probably just a nice-looking brothel. Furthermore, the air quality here is waaaaaay worse than in Beijing. Our new German friend told us that spending one day in Beijing is the lung-damage-equivalent of three packs of cigarettes. I think that is an exaggeration, but I want to get my lungs out of here after the must-sees which, by Murphy's Law, are all closed on Mondays, the day we planned for sighseeing in Hanoi. And lastly, gone are the days of endless choices for deliciousness so that making a decision is the hardest part of eating. Instead, we are looking for meatless options in a city that eats dogs. The squirrels in Laos made me a little sad, but I will just die if I see Fido-on-a-stick.
In other news, the conversion rate is 17,634 dong to a dollar, Notre Dame squeaks by again and Jessie Walker turns the big 2-3.
Post Script: since writing this, we have come around on Hanoi a little bit thanks to daylight hours, an upgrade in hotels, and a few good meals. ; )
Luang Prabang was simply magical. The French left their architecture, their baguettes and their crepes, the Buddhists are responsible for the temples and monks and Mother Nature provided the Mekong River and the surrounding mountains. After the French peaced, there were plenty of buildings just screaming to be turned into guesthouses and cafes and so the tourism began, but somehow, maybe because Laos is still sort of off the beaten path, it's very tasteful tourism at this point.
While in Luang Prabang, we walked the whole city on foot (it's becoming a pattern of ours to see more than we intend to due to wrong turns, poorly-scaled maps, wandering interests, etc.) tested the eateries, explored tons of wats, visited the National Museum, and climbed up hundreds of stairs to Phu Si temple to watch the sun set and get a view of the whole town. One day, we rented mountain bikes and went 15km to Tad Sae waterfall. Although I cursed the bicycles the whole way there, and while we pushed them up a giant hill on the way home because even 24 gears were not enough, and again the next day when my bottom was black and blue, the overall experience was wonderful.
Parting with the city even temporarily was difficult, but we ventured outside of LP to two different villages. After picking up many bicycles from the songtaew driver's house, hitting a chicken, and getting a flat tire, we arrived no worse for the wear in Nong Khiaw. The mountain scenery was even prettier than what we had seen before and our trip really hit a high note. Jess and I could not shut up about how great Laos is. We explored a cave which sheltered over 100 villagers while the USA dropped bombs on Loas during the Vietnam War. We could see what looked like small lakes dotting the rice paddies, but they were holes left by the bombs. That night, as Jess and I sat on the porch of our bungalow overlooking the Nam Ou, we contemplated why everyone who is able would not want to travel like we were...live out of a backpack, forget the finer things in life...until we went to bed on the equivalent of floor boards with sheets over top. I really mean it this time, THE WORLD'S MOST UNCOMFORTABLE BEDS. The next day, with stiff necks and spasming backs, we packed ourselves into a wooden boat like sardines and went an hour and a half up river to Muang Ngoi Neua. We also hiked to caves there and drank some BeerLao with some other falangs and Penny, the hilarious and talkative guesthouse owner who told long stories about former guests peepeeing the beds.When choosing Penny's place from the Lonely Planet, Jess said, "rat-free or river-view, my girl?" I went for rat-free...but we still had a view of them being grilled-up outside.
Luckily, when we returned to LP yesterday our big backpacks were still under a bench at our guesthouse where we had hidden them two days before. We checked off some last-minute things to do while in LP, did a little shopping at the handicraft market (definately the most laidback of its kind in Asia), and made sure to leave the LP cuisine scene on a high note.
Now that I wrote all that good stuff, your eyes are probably getting tired, so you can stop reading now and spare yourself the negativity.
Since entering Vietnam 4 hours ago, we have been scammed, harrassed, and almost run over many times. Additionally, we attempted to check-in to a hotel that told us they would have a room in 30 minutes. Two hours later, it still was not ready which was fine by us because by that time we had noticed that the Prince Hotel was probably just a nice-looking brothel. Furthermore, the air quality here is waaaaaay worse than in Beijing. Our new German friend told us that spending one day in Beijing is the lung-damage-equivalent of three packs of cigarettes. I think that is an exaggeration, but I want to get my lungs out of here after the must-sees which, by Murphy's Law, are all closed on Mondays, the day we planned for sighseeing in Hanoi. And lastly, gone are the days of endless choices for deliciousness so that making a decision is the hardest part of eating. Instead, we are looking for meatless options in a city that eats dogs. The squirrels in Laos made me a little sad, but I will just die if I see Fido-on-a-stick.
In other news, the conversion rate is 17,634 dong to a dollar, Notre Dame squeaks by again and Jessie Walker turns the big 2-3.
Post Script: since writing this, we have come around on Hanoi a little bit thanks to daylight hours, an upgrade in hotels, and a few good meals. ; )
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Hair massacres, slow boats, and other happenings in the lives of Erin and Jess in Thailand and Laos
I'm writing this from the slow boat to Luang Prabang, Laos and indeed it is a slow boat. We boarded around 11 am and will dock around 7 or 8 this evening and then repeat the process tomorrow tacking on a couple hours for a grand total of 18.
The trip has been great and the lack of plans has been going semi-smoothly so far, knock on wood.
Jess arrived in Khon Kaen last Saturday and Neuki took me to the airport to fetch her. Naturally, we headed straight for the mall to eat suki which is Jess's second-favorite meal so far. I showed Jess a bit of my neighborhood and we had a mini planning session before she passed out. That was when we started freaking out about not having enough time in each place and we decided to leave on the night bus Sunday instead of Monday. So, with our new departure looming, we spent Sunday running errands. Jess still got to see my office, meet my Thai tutor and friend Gee, eat another delicious meal, and go back to the mall for some bowling with Neuki, Toffee and Meredith before we got on the 11 hour bus to Chiang Mai.
We arrived around 7am and immediately caught a minibus to Pai. I somehow managed to sleep for 90% of the windy journey through the mountains even after sleeping 9 of the 11 hours from KK to CM. We almost lost our lunches on that same minibus ride on the return trip which makes our sleeping feat on the way to Pai seem all the more incredible.
Pai is there-are-no-words good. It is a tiny town tucked away in the gorgeous mountains of northern Thailand. It is small enough to explore thoroughly on foot in a couple hours, but filled with coffee shops and arts and crafts shops and restaurants so that one could keep him or herself occupied doing nothing there for a while. It is becoming pretty popular with tourists and we did meet some cool ones, but I hope tourism does not ruin the magic of the place like it tends to do in Thailand. We stayed at a place called Aqua Resort and got a pretty good price since it is still low season. It is a really tranquil setting about a mile or 1.5 outside of the town. We got our fairshare of exercise since we did not rent motorbikes like most tourists, and the walks to and from town really allowed us to take in the scenery. Photos of stunning mountains and green rice paddies to follow.
Looking back, we definitely could have stayed in Pai for another day, but we opted to leave after two and a half days since we had seen the whole town, did some hiking, and gotten a good feel for the place...I hope to get back there at some point.
When we got back to Chiang Mai with no guest house reservations, the lack of Peters-planning bit us in the butt. We got stuffed in a dingy and sweltering room on the fifth floor of a stinky guesthouse with the world's most uncomfortable beds. We also had our first bad meal in Thailand that night after wandering for an hour on a quest to find an Indian food place recommended, though we are not sure why, in the Lonely Planet Guide. At least we learned our way around almost all of old Chiang Mai that first night...no better way to get to know a place than to get lost in it! I just recommend doing it in a cooler (temperature) environment and with a less cranky-if-she-has-not-eaten travel buddy.
With most of the bad luck behind us, we moved guest houses in the morning. The upgrade to Julie's brought a much nicer room with it's own bathroom and a crowd of really fun people and a helpful staff (well worth the extra 50 baht). Highlights of our stay in Chiang Mai listed in order of occurrence include:
1. Getting confused for a mother and daughter pair. If that is not funny enough... upon further investigation, I was told that I looked 41 because I have wrinkles around my eyes. Later, Jess did not deny the existence of said wrinkles but acknowledged them as laugh lines...ha ha
2. Our night out at this area referred to (I think by more people than just us) as the reggae garden.
3. Wat Suan Dok which is a temple originally built in the 1300s with a beautiful buddhist cemetery with ornate white stone graves. We sweated up a storm here and needed some refreshing so we headed to...
4. Nimmanheiman Road which is a sort of posh street with cool cafes and shops. We spent an hour playing rapido in iBerry, a quirky little ice cream shop recommended by a friend. For those of you who do not know, rapido is a card game Jess and I have been playing for ages. We are in an ongoing battle of rapido and yahtzee ("kniffel" to the Germans on our boat). After iBerry, we had amazing Thai massages, and to top off our day of indulgences, we proceeded to eat the best meal of our trip so far (yes, we have them ranked. That should not surprise you since Jess and I are into ranking systems and really into food). The place was this Thai vegetarian restaurant and we were the only customers in their trendy and serene little garden.
5. Going to this bar on the river called Brasserie to hear some of the best live music we have heard in a while. The opening band had a female singer with a ridiculous voice and the main attraction was a trio playing classic rock. The guitar player was incredibly talented and so captivating because he was a tiny Thai guy with a huge overbite that gave him the goofiest grin while he performed. It was so funny to hear such a raspy bluesy voice come out of this guy.
6. The Thai cooking course which we arranged at the time it was scheduled to begin...while we were still in bed. After Jess declined to be picked-up by car, we speedily dressed and hauled it a couple blocks on foot to discover we were the only students that day. We began with a market tour to get the ingredients and then went to the kitchen which was outside in a really shaded area. We made so many delicious things (since we do not love fish, there was a lot of chicken on the menu)... Green curry, cashew chicken, fried chicken cakes, red curry chicken baked in banana leaves, tom yam with shrimp, pad Thai, spring rolls and custard inside a pumpkin. It was all delicious and Jess is still talking about how someone cleared away the cashew chicken she was saving for later.
7. Small world experiences. My friend Mary just moved to LA to teach High school English as part of the Alliance for Catholic Education program. Think Freedom Writers. Anyways, Mary's roommate Sean, also an ACE teacher, has a girlfriend who just moved to Thailand to teach. Mary has been saying how well we would get along and encouraging us to make contact with each other via email. No need. As I sat down to write postcards, one of the few American backpackers started chatting with me and it took us about 10 seconds to realize that we had stumbled upon each-other. Her name is Lili and she had two friends with her. Jess and I had a lot of fun with them our last day in the city. I still cannot get over the coincidence.
8. Haircuts. Definitely our poorest decision to date. I have been needing one for ages and have been nervous about the language barrier in Khon Kaen and the precious mane that I had painstakingly grown out for the past two years. Needless to say, it is gone and what is left ain't pretty. I would be complaining more, but Jess had a little more trouble. First, the lady washing her hair got it so tangled that she proclaimed she could not brush it. Four people, including Jess, were needed to comb it out. Have you ever asked to brush your own hair at the salon? The Thai women are not used to foreign hair, but Jess's really threw them for a loop. After all was said and done, Jess had received quite the cut involving many, many inches of golden locks on the floor and a new layered do. It actually looks nice but it was a drastic "trim" and it might make her look a little younger. Oh, when the man guessed 41 for me, Jess got 17 and that was before the haircut. We both agree that our cuts really messed with our images, but lesson learned and it will grow back...by the time I'm 30.
9. Right before the bus to the border, we went to the Saturday walking market which was full of arts and crafts and delicious treats. It was a really good way to end our stay in Chiang Mai. Tourist-activity-wise, we did not do as much as we could have in the city which actually feels like a big town but we know it pretty well now since we explored it all on foot.
This morning, we had some meal issues, including stolen fried rice lunch boxes, inedibly fishy papaya salad and extremely expensive sticky rice that tasted like cement even before we discovered the ants steamed into it. So, besides being hungry and a little uncomfortable on the wooden benches, we are very happy. We are really looking forward to arriving in Luang Prabang, though taking in the scenery for two days on a boat is definitely a good way to see this beautiful place.
Since writing this, we made another day's journey on the boat and arrived in Luang Prabang, or Heaven. After three hours here, we are in love. It is so quaint with it's French colonial architecture and hardly any cars and it is right on the Mekong. There are lots of tourists here, but somehow it is more tasteful tourism than in Thailand. We are so excited to drink delicious coffee, eat French bread, do some trekking, and really just soak up the atmosphere for the next week.
The trip has been great and the lack of plans has been going semi-smoothly so far, knock on wood.
Jess arrived in Khon Kaen last Saturday and Neuki took me to the airport to fetch her. Naturally, we headed straight for the mall to eat suki which is Jess's second-favorite meal so far. I showed Jess a bit of my neighborhood and we had a mini planning session before she passed out. That was when we started freaking out about not having enough time in each place and we decided to leave on the night bus Sunday instead of Monday. So, with our new departure looming, we spent Sunday running errands. Jess still got to see my office, meet my Thai tutor and friend Gee, eat another delicious meal, and go back to the mall for some bowling with Neuki, Toffee and Meredith before we got on the 11 hour bus to Chiang Mai.
We arrived around 7am and immediately caught a minibus to Pai. I somehow managed to sleep for 90% of the windy journey through the mountains even after sleeping 9 of the 11 hours from KK to CM. We almost lost our lunches on that same minibus ride on the return trip which makes our sleeping feat on the way to Pai seem all the more incredible.
Pai is there-are-no-words good. It is a tiny town tucked away in the gorgeous mountains of northern Thailand. It is small enough to explore thoroughly on foot in a couple hours, but filled with coffee shops and arts and crafts shops and restaurants so that one could keep him or herself occupied doing nothing there for a while. It is becoming pretty popular with tourists and we did meet some cool ones, but I hope tourism does not ruin the magic of the place like it tends to do in Thailand. We stayed at a place called Aqua Resort and got a pretty good price since it is still low season. It is a really tranquil setting about a mile or 1.5 outside of the town. We got our fairshare of exercise since we did not rent motorbikes like most tourists, and the walks to and from town really allowed us to take in the scenery. Photos of stunning mountains and green rice paddies to follow.
Looking back, we definitely could have stayed in Pai for another day, but we opted to leave after two and a half days since we had seen the whole town, did some hiking, and gotten a good feel for the place...I hope to get back there at some point.
When we got back to Chiang Mai with no guest house reservations, the lack of Peters-planning bit us in the butt. We got stuffed in a dingy and sweltering room on the fifth floor of a stinky guesthouse with the world's most uncomfortable beds. We also had our first bad meal in Thailand that night after wandering for an hour on a quest to find an Indian food place recommended, though we are not sure why, in the Lonely Planet Guide. At least we learned our way around almost all of old Chiang Mai that first night...no better way to get to know a place than to get lost in it! I just recommend doing it in a cooler (temperature) environment and with a less cranky-if-she-has-not-eaten travel buddy.
With most of the bad luck behind us, we moved guest houses in the morning. The upgrade to Julie's brought a much nicer room with it's own bathroom and a crowd of really fun people and a helpful staff (well worth the extra 50 baht). Highlights of our stay in Chiang Mai listed in order of occurrence include:
1. Getting confused for a mother and daughter pair. If that is not funny enough... upon further investigation, I was told that I looked 41 because I have wrinkles around my eyes. Later, Jess did not deny the existence of said wrinkles but acknowledged them as laugh lines...ha ha
2. Our night out at this area referred to (I think by more people than just us) as the reggae garden.
3. Wat Suan Dok which is a temple originally built in the 1300s with a beautiful buddhist cemetery with ornate white stone graves. We sweated up a storm here and needed some refreshing so we headed to...
4. Nimmanheiman Road which is a sort of posh street with cool cafes and shops. We spent an hour playing rapido in iBerry, a quirky little ice cream shop recommended by a friend. For those of you who do not know, rapido is a card game Jess and I have been playing for ages. We are in an ongoing battle of rapido and yahtzee ("kniffel" to the Germans on our boat). After iBerry, we had amazing Thai massages, and to top off our day of indulgences, we proceeded to eat the best meal of our trip so far (yes, we have them ranked. That should not surprise you since Jess and I are into ranking systems and really into food). The place was this Thai vegetarian restaurant and we were the only customers in their trendy and serene little garden.
5. Going to this bar on the river called Brasserie to hear some of the best live music we have heard in a while. The opening band had a female singer with a ridiculous voice and the main attraction was a trio playing classic rock. The guitar player was incredibly talented and so captivating because he was a tiny Thai guy with a huge overbite that gave him the goofiest grin while he performed. It was so funny to hear such a raspy bluesy voice come out of this guy.
6. The Thai cooking course which we arranged at the time it was scheduled to begin...while we were still in bed. After Jess declined to be picked-up by car, we speedily dressed and hauled it a couple blocks on foot to discover we were the only students that day. We began with a market tour to get the ingredients and then went to the kitchen which was outside in a really shaded area. We made so many delicious things (since we do not love fish, there was a lot of chicken on the menu)... Green curry, cashew chicken, fried chicken cakes, red curry chicken baked in banana leaves, tom yam with shrimp, pad Thai, spring rolls and custard inside a pumpkin. It was all delicious and Jess is still talking about how someone cleared away the cashew chicken she was saving for later.
7. Small world experiences. My friend Mary just moved to LA to teach High school English as part of the Alliance for Catholic Education program. Think Freedom Writers. Anyways, Mary's roommate Sean, also an ACE teacher, has a girlfriend who just moved to Thailand to teach. Mary has been saying how well we would get along and encouraging us to make contact with each other via email. No need. As I sat down to write postcards, one of the few American backpackers started chatting with me and it took us about 10 seconds to realize that we had stumbled upon each-other. Her name is Lili and she had two friends with her. Jess and I had a lot of fun with them our last day in the city. I still cannot get over the coincidence.
8. Haircuts. Definitely our poorest decision to date. I have been needing one for ages and have been nervous about the language barrier in Khon Kaen and the precious mane that I had painstakingly grown out for the past two years. Needless to say, it is gone and what is left ain't pretty. I would be complaining more, but Jess had a little more trouble. First, the lady washing her hair got it so tangled that she proclaimed she could not brush it. Four people, including Jess, were needed to comb it out. Have you ever asked to brush your own hair at the salon? The Thai women are not used to foreign hair, but Jess's really threw them for a loop. After all was said and done, Jess had received quite the cut involving many, many inches of golden locks on the floor and a new layered do. It actually looks nice but it was a drastic "trim" and it might make her look a little younger. Oh, when the man guessed 41 for me, Jess got 17 and that was before the haircut. We both agree that our cuts really messed with our images, but lesson learned and it will grow back...by the time I'm 30.
9. Right before the bus to the border, we went to the Saturday walking market which was full of arts and crafts and delicious treats. It was a really good way to end our stay in Chiang Mai. Tourist-activity-wise, we did not do as much as we could have in the city which actually feels like a big town but we know it pretty well now since we explored it all on foot.
This morning, we had some meal issues, including stolen fried rice lunch boxes, inedibly fishy papaya salad and extremely expensive sticky rice that tasted like cement even before we discovered the ants steamed into it. So, besides being hungry and a little uncomfortable on the wooden benches, we are very happy. We are really looking forward to arriving in Luang Prabang, though taking in the scenery for two days on a boat is definitely a good way to see this beautiful place.
Since writing this, we made another day's journey on the boat and arrived in Luang Prabang, or Heaven. After three hours here, we are in love. It is so quaint with it's French colonial architecture and hardly any cars and it is right on the Mekong. There are lots of tourists here, but somehow it is more tasteful tourism than in Thailand. We are so excited to drink delicious coffee, eat French bread, do some trekking, and really just soak up the atmosphere for the next week.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
In other news...English Camp Photos
I put up an album of photos from English Camp. I forgot to write about this terrible place we went the last day. I forget the name; it might be The Pattaya Center for Animal Cruelty. We paid to see this awful crocodile show...I am sure the crocs were on tranquilizers. There were tons of tigers and bears and zebras all in really small, smelly cages. It was the most awful place. Anything to make a buck over here.
There are also a lot of photos of students doing this Price is Right obstacle course Meredith and I made. It was pretty hysterical until it got extremely hot and we felt bad making the students do it at all.
There are not too many photos of me (disappointing, I know) but you can see me trying out some Thai poses in a couple near the end. Thai people LOVE to pose for photos and have really funny ways of doing it. I am really bad at it, but in this album you can see me trying to make half of a heart with my arms. That is a favorite one over here. Enjoy!
There are also a lot of photos of students doing this Price is Right obstacle course Meredith and I made. It was pretty hysterical until it got extremely hot and we felt bad making the students do it at all.
There are not too many photos of me (disappointing, I know) but you can see me trying out some Thai poses in a couple near the end. Thai people LOVE to pose for photos and have really funny ways of doing it. I am really bad at it, but in this album you can see me trying to make half of a heart with my arms. That is a favorite one over here. Enjoy!
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| English Camp (the Aquarium, an obstacle course, and animal cruelty) |
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thai Ghost Movies and Flexi Girl
It is my last week of teaching for the semester! How did that happen?!
I spoke to Jess who arrives here next Saturday and I think we will leave for Chiang Mai on the Monday night bus. We are very excited, but not very planned. I think we will have a session when Jess gets here. She is more like her mother and our grandfather than she pretends, so I am confident that we will have some sort of alphabetized-color-coded-calendar-meets-map after a few hours of work. I couldn't think of a better person to be my travel-buddy and I can't begin to imagine what our adventure has in store...Some hiking, eating, three days sitting on wood benches on a "slow boat" to Laos and a lot of sweating with no aircon in Vietnam, I think.
This friday I went to see a Thai movie. It was supposed to be a scary movie. Neuki warned me that I would need her to sleep over for a week after seeing it. Most of you know that I really hate scary movies, but since my coworkers invited me, I thought I should go to advance the friendships and because I didn't want them to know I am a baby. My bodily reaction to fright is to laugh, and I laughed the whole time, but mostly because it was so NOT scary that it was funny. It was about ghosts and karma, and that stuff doesn't usually scare me the way that murderers do. There is also a possessed "Took-Gaaay", which is a big gecko that we have here. I slept alone Friday night and did not wake up sweating in fright at all. I'm so proud of myself. One thing that I forgot to say about Thai movies when I wrote about Harry Potter is that everyone in the theater must stand for this song that honors the king at the beginning of the movie. It's like the Star-spangled Banner before a sports game, I guess. Photos of the King doing good things and scenic landscapes flash while the song plays. Another interesting window into Thai culture. One more thing, they sell shuttlecocks and ping pong balls at 7-11, how convenient!? I never knew why they called it a convenient store until now, but I am ALWAYS looking for a shuttlecock. They don't sell nail polish remover or peanut butter, but who needs those things when you have odd sports paraphernalia?
Yesterday, Alison, Mere and I went to see "Beijing Acrobatics Show." I had been under the impression that it was associated with the Olympics, but it was not. Anyways, it was really cool, sort of Circe du Soleil-ish. They had four motorcycles inside this little ball driving in circles and upsidedown. Meredith, the physisist, was not as impressed as I was because she could explain how it worked using formulas. Something about the three types of velocity. How boring. There was one girl, "flexi-girl" as Alison called her, who must have had rubber for a spine. At one point, there was a pole on stage with a soft covering on the tip, like a sock or something. Flexi-girl put the sock in her mouth, kicked her legs over her head so far that her gluteus maximi rested on her forehead. Oh, and, all the while she was spinning plates on her legs and arms so the only thing touching the ground was the pole that she had in her mouth. Shannon Traeger, I have some new moves for us to try in couple's yoga.
Tomorrow I am going with the Business English Department to the Pullman Hotel (that's the nice one) for dinner to demonstrate Western manners. My mom sort of freaked out when I told her this. It's drink on the left, bread and fork on the right, start from the inside, put your elbows on the table, chew with your mouth open and put your napkin on your head, right Mom?
This could be my last post before I head out next Monday, but hopefully I can post as I travel. Thanks for reading!
I spoke to Jess who arrives here next Saturday and I think we will leave for Chiang Mai on the Monday night bus. We are very excited, but not very planned. I think we will have a session when Jess gets here. She is more like her mother and our grandfather than she pretends, so I am confident that we will have some sort of alphabetized-color-coded-calendar-meets-map after a few hours of work. I couldn't think of a better person to be my travel-buddy and I can't begin to imagine what our adventure has in store...Some hiking, eating, three days sitting on wood benches on a "slow boat" to Laos and a lot of sweating with no aircon in Vietnam, I think.
This friday I went to see a Thai movie. It was supposed to be a scary movie. Neuki warned me that I would need her to sleep over for a week after seeing it. Most of you know that I really hate scary movies, but since my coworkers invited me, I thought I should go to advance the friendships and because I didn't want them to know I am a baby. My bodily reaction to fright is to laugh, and I laughed the whole time, but mostly because it was so NOT scary that it was funny. It was about ghosts and karma, and that stuff doesn't usually scare me the way that murderers do. There is also a possessed "Took-Gaaay", which is a big gecko that we have here. I slept alone Friday night and did not wake up sweating in fright at all. I'm so proud of myself. One thing that I forgot to say about Thai movies when I wrote about Harry Potter is that everyone in the theater must stand for this song that honors the king at the beginning of the movie. It's like the Star-spangled Banner before a sports game, I guess. Photos of the King doing good things and scenic landscapes flash while the song plays. Another interesting window into Thai culture. One more thing, they sell shuttlecocks and ping pong balls at 7-11, how convenient!? I never knew why they called it a convenient store until now, but I am ALWAYS looking for a shuttlecock. They don't sell nail polish remover or peanut butter, but who needs those things when you have odd sports paraphernalia?
Yesterday, Alison, Mere and I went to see "Beijing Acrobatics Show." I had been under the impression that it was associated with the Olympics, but it was not. Anyways, it was really cool, sort of Circe du Soleil-ish. They had four motorcycles inside this little ball driving in circles and upsidedown. Meredith, the physisist, was not as impressed as I was because she could explain how it worked using formulas. Something about the three types of velocity. How boring. There was one girl, "flexi-girl" as Alison called her, who must have had rubber for a spine. At one point, there was a pole on stage with a soft covering on the tip, like a sock or something. Flexi-girl put the sock in her mouth, kicked her legs over her head so far that her gluteus maximi rested on her forehead. Oh, and, all the while she was spinning plates on her legs and arms so the only thing touching the ground was the pole that she had in her mouth. Shannon Traeger, I have some new moves for us to try in couple's yoga.
Tomorrow I am going with the Business English Department to the Pullman Hotel (that's the nice one) for dinner to demonstrate Western manners. My mom sort of freaked out when I told her this. It's drink on the left, bread and fork on the right, start from the inside, put your elbows on the table, chew with your mouth open and put your napkin on your head, right Mom?
This could be my last post before I head out next Monday, but hopefully I can post as I travel. Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Just put some eggs
I am feeling the pressure to make my blog extremely awesome. First of all, Mrs. Bannon, my sixth-grade teacher and the cornerstone my English grammar knowledge, is now a loyal follower of this blog. Secondly, my oh-so-clever-and-remarkably-witty-bestest-pal Abigail Catherine Bertrand Poats is now settling into her Princeton in Asia post in Beijing and she, obviously, has upstaged me with her blog. It is a lot funnier than mine and I only read the post that she wrote before she left America. I have a feeling Abby's blog will get increasingly funnier as her Chinese students discover she is the world's most gullible person. God help her. I will include the address if you promise that you will only read her blog in addition to mine because I cannot stand to lose followers. Plus, I know some of you have just started the monotony of the rest of your lives at a desk and will be looking for things to make it look like you are working. (Poatsinpeking.blogspot.com) Third, Magee is in the Dominican Republic for Peace Corps, and although her blog has more grammatical errors than mine, it is filled with wonderful descriptions of her life which seems way more interesting than mine and she has the whole e.e.cummings lowercase style thing going on which really makes her blog cool. I am super jealous that she speaks Spanish because she has already had more fun encounters with Dominicans than I have had with Thai people in three months. I REALLY want a charismatic 13-year-old to take me off the street, put curlers in my hair, and play dominoes with me!
Just now, when I told Neuki that I needed to make my blog extra-super-dee-duper, she said "just put some eggs." This, I think, is a semi-joke possibly related to a saying in Thailand which might have something to do with the fact that anything is better with an egg on it. I mean, not everything, but as far as meals go, I agree. Even before I discovered the Thai obsession with egg which is "kai" in Thai, I had my own love affair with adding a fried egg to everything I could put in my mouth in South Africa....pizza, bananas, croissants with brie, hamburgers, endless possibilities for deliciousness. I know how to ask for an egg prepared in many different ways in Thai because all Thai food is better with egg.
So, it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy. Some of the classes that I was complaining about before have been postponed or cancelled but I have new ones in their places. I am currently teaching a class on interviewing to Engineers which pretty much consists of me taking things from the ND career center website and giving it to my students, no plagiarism involved.
Last weekend, I was an honorary member of the Business English Department's English Camp in Rayong/ Pattaya. Pattaya is a beach that is the Thai equivalent of Ocean City. It is pretty much the armpit of the country, but camp was super fun. The Business English students speak English very well, so it was nice to actually get to know some students personally. The older students hazed the freshmen with the typical eating bananas and hard-boiled eggs with chillies inside, painting their faces, rolling in sand, chanting things and weird rules, etc. There was the standard binge drinking one night, scolding the next morning, and secret drinking the next night. The last night, after slightly painful skits and karaoke, I was lucky enough to witness the initiation ritual of the faculty. Of course, I cannot say what it was, but it involved taking care of an egg (more eggs, ha) for the weekend. The students whose eggs cracked were physically and mentally tortured at the hands of a fourth-year with a megaphone in front of the rest of the upperclassmen who were pretending to be extremely mad about the broken eggs. I mean, how could the freshmen be trusted in the faculty if they can't take care of an egg?? Tears were shed out of pain and group-bonding and finally all things were made dandy again with candles and singing...typical. Ms. Frank could have designed the ceremony herself (shout-out GV '05).
Now I am back to the grind in Khon Kaen. I am really working on my Thai, but the stars have to align for me to be understood. I have to remember the word, remember which of the five tones it has AND...here's the kicker... actually get that tone to come out of my mouth correctly. This gets increasingly harder with the number of words I attempt to string together. BUT I know the days of the week, lots of food, the colors AND...drum roll please... I can write my name, first and last, in Thai!
This weekend I will judge a debate competition from 8:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and hopefully find time to clear the mud I have on my pig's tail, meaning grade a ton of papers. I also need to do some serious planning because my adventure begins in three weeks. Jess arrives the 19th and we will set out as soon as possible. I cannot wait.
Love you all. Choop choop. Kiss kiss.
เอริน(Erin) เมอร์ฟื (Murphy)
Typing that name just took me longer than writing the whole rest of the blog!
Just now, when I told Neuki that I needed to make my blog extra-super-dee-duper, she said "just put some eggs." This, I think, is a semi-joke possibly related to a saying in Thailand which might have something to do with the fact that anything is better with an egg on it. I mean, not everything, but as far as meals go, I agree. Even before I discovered the Thai obsession with egg which is "kai" in Thai, I had my own love affair with adding a fried egg to everything I could put in my mouth in South Africa....pizza, bananas, croissants with brie, hamburgers, endless possibilities for deliciousness. I know how to ask for an egg prepared in many different ways in Thai because all Thai food is better with egg.
So, it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy. Some of the classes that I was complaining about before have been postponed or cancelled but I have new ones in their places. I am currently teaching a class on interviewing to Engineers which pretty much consists of me taking things from the ND career center website and giving it to my students, no plagiarism involved.
Last weekend, I was an honorary member of the Business English Department's English Camp in Rayong/ Pattaya. Pattaya is a beach that is the Thai equivalent of Ocean City. It is pretty much the armpit of the country, but camp was super fun. The Business English students speak English very well, so it was nice to actually get to know some students personally. The older students hazed the freshmen with the typical eating bananas and hard-boiled eggs with chillies inside, painting their faces, rolling in sand, chanting things and weird rules, etc. There was the standard binge drinking one night, scolding the next morning, and secret drinking the next night. The last night, after slightly painful skits and karaoke, I was lucky enough to witness the initiation ritual of the faculty. Of course, I cannot say what it was, but it involved taking care of an egg (more eggs, ha) for the weekend. The students whose eggs cracked were physically and mentally tortured at the hands of a fourth-year with a megaphone in front of the rest of the upperclassmen who were pretending to be extremely mad about the broken eggs. I mean, how could the freshmen be trusted in the faculty if they can't take care of an egg?? Tears were shed out of pain and group-bonding and finally all things were made dandy again with candles and singing...typical. Ms. Frank could have designed the ceremony herself (shout-out GV '05).
Now I am back to the grind in Khon Kaen. I am really working on my Thai, but the stars have to align for me to be understood. I have to remember the word, remember which of the five tones it has AND...here's the kicker... actually get that tone to come out of my mouth correctly. This gets increasingly harder with the number of words I attempt to string together. BUT I know the days of the week, lots of food, the colors AND...drum roll please... I can write my name, first and last, in Thai!
This weekend I will judge a debate competition from 8:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and hopefully find time to clear the mud I have on my pig's tail, meaning grade a ton of papers. I also need to do some serious planning because my adventure begins in three weeks. Jess arrives the 19th and we will set out as soon as possible. I cannot wait.
Love you all. Choop choop. Kiss kiss.
เอริน(Erin) เมอร์ฟื (Murphy)
Typing that name just took me longer than writing the whole rest of the blog!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Photos
Here is the link to my photos. Right now, I cannot seem to make them turn the right directions. Sorry!
Not much is going on in my world right now. Thailand has beautiful butterflies and nothing to dry your hands with after you wash them in the bathroom.
I have to run or else I will miss the last bus!
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| Erin is in Thailand!!! |
Not much is going on in my world right now. Thailand has beautiful butterflies and nothing to dry your hands with after you wash them in the bathroom.
I have to run or else I will miss the last bus!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Saturday, August 25th. I'm on a bus to Bangkok again with a belly full of all my favorite Thai treats: fried rice, frozen coffee, and roti. We even had a send-off/standard-Saturday mall trip for ice cream, but I practiced self control and watched the crew eat the sundaes this time. The word ice cream in Thai is "I-deem" like ice cream with a weird Thai adaptation. Computer is "khom piew duh" with the accent on the third syllable. There are a lot of these sorts of words in Thai and they make me laugh because the emPHASis is truly on the wrong sylLABle. Usually, the last one. BrowNIE and cooKIE!
I just fell down the stairs while descending from the upper level of this bus in a desparate dash for the hong nam. The bathroom on the bus is best characterized as tolerable, yet avoidable, if possible. It's not the worst I have seen which was in a bus station in Malawi but that's another blog entry. Anyways, embarrassment takes on a whole new personality here. Thai people will do anything to "save face" and therefore no one even laughed at (or with) me after the fall; they just avoided eye contact while I awkwardly giggled and assessed the damages which, by the way, are fairly minor but a little painful. I hope the people on the bus at least laughed to themselves at my expense. I might be reading too far into this, but the fall has shaken me to the core. You see, lately, everything has been going my way. Almost scarily so. I'll silently or not so silently complain about something and POOF! Problem miraculously solved. I have been saying that when and if my luck does a 180, I am in huge trouble. I sure hope my little spill isn't a sign from God that the game is up.
This was an extremely busy week at school because I was trying to get grades finished, prepare my 103s for their midterm, and prepare for the week when I get back. I am scheduled to teach some extra classes this coming block. One should be easy because there is no curriculum and it's only on Monday mornings. It's sort of a summer camp for Vietnamese students. The other, though, is a course on how to give presentations for the Commitee for Social and Economic Development (of Thailand??). Consdering I happened to major in those two disciplines, I can see where one miiiight assume I am qualified to teach this course. Whoever "one" is has no idea that I can BARELY work PowerPoint and generating a graph from Excel may as well be rocket science. I kid, but it should be interesting. It's two hours every night for a week which is not what I am used to either. Normally, I am more a messenger of a predesigned and inflexible curriculum than a teacher. To make next week's matters more interesting, or annoying, the curriculum for my beginning speaking and writing classes completely neglects to account for midterms week. Rather, the syllabus pretends the students will be in school as normal, learning up a storm. In reality, my naksuksas will be taking tests and then flocking home to various destinations. Since a writing block is only 6 classes and a speaking block 8, that's a fairly significant portion and those classes will definately have to be rescheduled in our "free time.". You try coordinating a good time for extra classes with 40 college students who don't speak English.
Hopefully you guys are not getting bored with the entries. I did not intend on writing again until post-Koh Samui, but I darted out of my room in a whirlwind and I forgot a book...and deodorant, but that problem's been solved already. If those are the only two things, I'll be surprised and relieved. I do have my camera this time though!
August 1:
So, turns out my luck has not run out. Powerpoint 101 has been rescheduled for a few weeks from now, giving me ample time to prepare...and this past week has been wonderful. As I write this, I am half way between the pool and the ocean on a stunning beach on Koh Samui. I woke up early this morning to kiss Jessie and Alicia goodbye with my stinky moning breath, as Jessie said, and caught some more Zs before my last visit to the complimentary breakfast buffet.
Before Samui, Jessie, Alicia and I spent two days seeing the sights in Bangkok. Sunday, we went to Chatuchak market and I was able to use my Thai bargaining skills (which just so happen to have been the subject of last weeks tutoring lesson) to help Jessie acquire a beautiful wall hanging and Alicia score a really cool and equally large ring. We explored Khao San road, the backpackers' area, where I would have had us staying if the idea of me picking the sleeping arrangments didn't freak Jessie's and Alicia's parents out so much. But really, I was overjoyed at the digs that the Billings and Walkers chose. Monday, we went to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha, which is 46 meters long. We also saw Wat Arun, which is an amazing temple made of ornate pieces of porcelain which broke in transit from China. We visited Jim Thompson's house as well. Jim Thompson was an American who came to Southeast Asia during WWII. Though he was an architect, he was also a savvy businessman and he is credited with exposing Thai silk to Western fashion markets. After his mysterious disappearance in 1967, his house was turned into a musuem and houses beautiful art and furniture from all over Asia. Can you tell we took a tour? The rest of our time in Bangkok was spent eating in our hotel which was right on the river and had a great view or at other various eateries and navigating our way around the city on the skytrain or in taxis, half speaking English and half attempting Thai.
On Tuesday we came to Koh Samui which is an island in Southern Thailand. It is very developed and a little too toursity in some parts but you can imagine why. It's gorgeous. The island is popular with backpackers and offers a pretty happening night scene. Its also equally popular with families and honeymooners and the swanky resorts definately outnumber the hostels.
Jessie, Alicia and I may as well have been old ladies most days. We usually just lounged on the beach in front of our hotel which was tucked into a little cove, more private and removed from the rest of the bustling Chaweng Beach. We picked places to eat out of my Lonely Planet and we were never disappointed. One night, we saw a cabaret show put on by the ladyboys that Thailand is famous for. Yesterday, we took a boat to Ko Tao, another gorgeous island, which is less developed because its harder to get to. J and A snorkeled while I scuba dove. It was fantastic. Hands down the most amazing coral I have ever seen, great visibilty, warm water and I had a divemaster all to myself.
I was so sad to say bye to my pals, but all the R and R I have been getting is giving me a guilty conscience. I am excited to get back to Khon Kaen.
I just fell down the stairs while descending from the upper level of this bus in a desparate dash for the hong nam. The bathroom on the bus is best characterized as tolerable, yet avoidable, if possible. It's not the worst I have seen which was in a bus station in Malawi but that's another blog entry. Anyways, embarrassment takes on a whole new personality here. Thai people will do anything to "save face" and therefore no one even laughed at (or with) me after the fall; they just avoided eye contact while I awkwardly giggled and assessed the damages which, by the way, are fairly minor but a little painful. I hope the people on the bus at least laughed to themselves at my expense. I might be reading too far into this, but the fall has shaken me to the core. You see, lately, everything has been going my way. Almost scarily so. I'll silently or not so silently complain about something and POOF! Problem miraculously solved. I have been saying that when and if my luck does a 180, I am in huge trouble. I sure hope my little spill isn't a sign from God that the game is up.
This was an extremely busy week at school because I was trying to get grades finished, prepare my 103s for their midterm, and prepare for the week when I get back. I am scheduled to teach some extra classes this coming block. One should be easy because there is no curriculum and it's only on Monday mornings. It's sort of a summer camp for Vietnamese students. The other, though, is a course on how to give presentations for the Commitee for Social and Economic Development (of Thailand??). Consdering I happened to major in those two disciplines, I can see where one miiiight assume I am qualified to teach this course. Whoever "one" is has no idea that I can BARELY work PowerPoint and generating a graph from Excel may as well be rocket science. I kid, but it should be interesting. It's two hours every night for a week which is not what I am used to either. Normally, I am more a messenger of a predesigned and inflexible curriculum than a teacher. To make next week's matters more interesting, or annoying, the curriculum for my beginning speaking and writing classes completely neglects to account for midterms week. Rather, the syllabus pretends the students will be in school as normal, learning up a storm. In reality, my naksuksas will be taking tests and then flocking home to various destinations. Since a writing block is only 6 classes and a speaking block 8, that's a fairly significant portion and those classes will definately have to be rescheduled in our "free time.". You try coordinating a good time for extra classes with 40 college students who don't speak English.
Hopefully you guys are not getting bored with the entries. I did not intend on writing again until post-Koh Samui, but I darted out of my room in a whirlwind and I forgot a book...and deodorant, but that problem's been solved already. If those are the only two things, I'll be surprised and relieved. I do have my camera this time though!
August 1:
So, turns out my luck has not run out. Powerpoint 101 has been rescheduled for a few weeks from now, giving me ample time to prepare...and this past week has been wonderful. As I write this, I am half way between the pool and the ocean on a stunning beach on Koh Samui. I woke up early this morning to kiss Jessie and Alicia goodbye with my stinky moning breath, as Jessie said, and caught some more Zs before my last visit to the complimentary breakfast buffet.
Before Samui, Jessie, Alicia and I spent two days seeing the sights in Bangkok. Sunday, we went to Chatuchak market and I was able to use my Thai bargaining skills (which just so happen to have been the subject of last weeks tutoring lesson) to help Jessie acquire a beautiful wall hanging and Alicia score a really cool and equally large ring. We explored Khao San road, the backpackers' area, where I would have had us staying if the idea of me picking the sleeping arrangments didn't freak Jessie's and Alicia's parents out so much. But really, I was overjoyed at the digs that the Billings and Walkers chose. Monday, we went to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha, which is 46 meters long. We also saw Wat Arun, which is an amazing temple made of ornate pieces of porcelain which broke in transit from China. We visited Jim Thompson's house as well. Jim Thompson was an American who came to Southeast Asia during WWII. Though he was an architect, he was also a savvy businessman and he is credited with exposing Thai silk to Western fashion markets. After his mysterious disappearance in 1967, his house was turned into a musuem and houses beautiful art and furniture from all over Asia. Can you tell we took a tour? The rest of our time in Bangkok was spent eating in our hotel which was right on the river and had a great view or at other various eateries and navigating our way around the city on the skytrain or in taxis, half speaking English and half attempting Thai.
On Tuesday we came to Koh Samui which is an island in Southern Thailand. It is very developed and a little too toursity in some parts but you can imagine why. It's gorgeous. The island is popular with backpackers and offers a pretty happening night scene. Its also equally popular with families and honeymooners and the swanky resorts definately outnumber the hostels.
Jessie, Alicia and I may as well have been old ladies most days. We usually just lounged on the beach in front of our hotel which was tucked into a little cove, more private and removed from the rest of the bustling Chaweng Beach. We picked places to eat out of my Lonely Planet and we were never disappointed. One night, we saw a cabaret show put on by the ladyboys that Thailand is famous for. Yesterday, we took a boat to Ko Tao, another gorgeous island, which is less developed because its harder to get to. J and A snorkeled while I scuba dove. It was fantastic. Hands down the most amazing coral I have ever seen, great visibilty, warm water and I had a divemaster all to myself.
I was so sad to say bye to my pals, but all the R and R I have been getting is giving me a guilty conscience. I am excited to get back to Khon Kaen.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Harry Potter and Buttered Privates
I am currently in my office even though it's Sunday afternoon. At KKU when there is a holiday like two weeks ago classes have to be rescheduled. I did my best to reschedule as few as possible but the classes I missed twice needed a make-up, so today was the day. In my last class, Speaking 101, my students who are studying in the faculty of Medicine turned in a homework assignment. The assignment was to list names of food that correspond to different countries. Silly, I know, I did not think of it. I knew the students would use the Internet for help because how else are they going to know the English names for Korean foods and French foods, etc. I told them that was fine as long as they did not copy. I got a couple "jumbo combos, "Hardrock nachos," "Fantasy 12. Oz Burgers" and other obvious misunderstandings coming from copying from English menus. The kicker was when I got to the Chinese food section and found "butter many privates" and "France many privates" on many students' papers. Haaaaahaaaaa. I have no idea how this happened but I laughed till I cried and it made Sunday class totally worth it.
Yesterday, Meredith, Neuki, Ing, Pi Lenk and I went to see Harry Potter (in English) in Udon Thani, which is about an hour or two away depending on who drives. Ing drives like my mom and Pi Lenk drives like my dad and if you have ever been in a car with either you will know what I am talking about. Although it might sound crazy to drive that far for a movie, my coworkers said the crazier part was seeing a movie with the swine flu running rampant in these parts. Took my chances, I suppose.
I ate breakfast with Neuki who told me after I had ingested 75% of my fried rice and fried egg that we would be eating again when we arrived to Udon. We went to a great Vietnamese food place then to the mall for Harry. The theater was really nice and the tickets cost us 140 baht, which is 4.5 USD. There are seats for 120, but we decided to splurge for the extra arm room. They offer candy and popcorn like the USA, but you can get many flavors of popcorn and the prices are only slightly inflated compared to the food and drinks outside the theater. The movie was good and it was a nice escape for three hours. After the movie, we took hilarious photos in one of those booths (probably a breeding ground for H1N1) and then headed home.
Other than that, it was a fairly normal week. I have been busy catching up on grades which are due in a week and preparing my students for their midterms. I will have more visitors during midterm week when Jessie and Alicia will pop into Thailand before heading to China. We will go on some fun beach excursion and you will hear about it afterwards. How lucky am I?
My Thai is progressing very slowly but it's ok. I have 30 new vocab words to memorize for my next session with Gee, my tutor, and each one liberates me a little more.
"Wanee sanook maak" which means today was a very fun day and you can say it when you are saying goodbye.
Rak maak,
Ting Tong
P.S. I said Ellen last time because some Thai people pronounce Erin like Ellen so I introduce myself like that to some people now. BUT everyone has a nickname in Thailand and I want to be "Ting Tong" which means crazy, but not necessarily in a bad way. Maybe like Ding Dong. Ching Chong means pee pee, so I have to be careful.
P.P.S. Some of you will be happy to know that Neuki has begun to call me Bear. It makes me feel at home. Most often, she precedes "Bear" by "Gummy." Although its a little endearing, I think it could also be in reference to the kilos I have been packing on. I REALLY like the food!
Yesterday, Meredith, Neuki, Ing, Pi Lenk and I went to see Harry Potter (in English) in Udon Thani, which is about an hour or two away depending on who drives. Ing drives like my mom and Pi Lenk drives like my dad and if you have ever been in a car with either you will know what I am talking about. Although it might sound crazy to drive that far for a movie, my coworkers said the crazier part was seeing a movie with the swine flu running rampant in these parts. Took my chances, I suppose.
I ate breakfast with Neuki who told me after I had ingested 75% of my fried rice and fried egg that we would be eating again when we arrived to Udon. We went to a great Vietnamese food place then to the mall for Harry. The theater was really nice and the tickets cost us 140 baht, which is 4.5 USD. There are seats for 120, but we decided to splurge for the extra arm room. They offer candy and popcorn like the USA, but you can get many flavors of popcorn and the prices are only slightly inflated compared to the food and drinks outside the theater. The movie was good and it was a nice escape for three hours. After the movie, we took hilarious photos in one of those booths (probably a breeding ground for H1N1) and then headed home.
Other than that, it was a fairly normal week. I have been busy catching up on grades which are due in a week and preparing my students for their midterms. I will have more visitors during midterm week when Jessie and Alicia will pop into Thailand before heading to China. We will go on some fun beach excursion and you will hear about it afterwards. How lucky am I?
My Thai is progressing very slowly but it's ok. I have 30 new vocab words to memorize for my next session with Gee, my tutor, and each one liberates me a little more.
"Wanee sanook maak" which means today was a very fun day and you can say it when you are saying goodbye.
Rak maak,
Ting Tong
P.S. I said Ellen last time because some Thai people pronounce Erin like Ellen so I introduce myself like that to some people now. BUT everyone has a nickname in Thailand and I want to be "Ting Tong" which means crazy, but not necessarily in a bad way. Maybe like Ding Dong. Ching Chong means pee pee, so I have to be careful.
P.P.S. Some of you will be happy to know that Neuki has begun to call me Bear. It makes me feel at home. Most often, she precedes "Bear" by "Gummy." Although its a little endearing, I think it could also be in reference to the kilos I have been packing on. I REALLY like the food!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Living on a VIP bus
Where to begin when there's so much to say. I write this from my seat on the VIP bus to Bangkok where I have spent most of my time in the last week.
Last Friday, Meredith and I left Khon Kaen in the afternoon and arrived at the crazily crowded pre-Thai-Buddhist-Lenten-holiday Bangkok bus station at night. We followed the only westerner in sight in order to borrow the police officer that she had commandeered who apparently spoke enough English to guide her to her destination. After five minutes of pointing on maps and saying Koh Chang (pronounced "Chung") in as many tones as I could, we were led to the ticket booth. We waited around a little, were led through a small hole in a chain link fence, over a small trash dump, through a stray dog village and finally aboard the overnight bus to Trat where we'd catch the first ferry in the morning. I slept a little but it was hard because nightmares of sliding off the road in a monsoon were only partly dreams. After a fairly short but very moist songtau ride from where the bus dropped us, Meredith and I arrived at the ferry station where we were greeted by the first familiar faces I had seen since Chelsea's departure.
To backtrack a little, Christina and I have been living parallel lives for the past couple years. I met her in the study abroad office on our way out the door to South Africa and ran into her in glorious Cape Townian places like the streets of Mowbray, outside Babbo in Obs and most gloriously on the top of Lion's Head where we watched the sun set over the ocean and the full moon rise over the city last April. Back at ND our lives continued in this fashion with sporadic run-ins in not quite so glorious places. To make a long story short, Christina and her friend from home Danielle who I had met more than once (if the line for Fever and Pigtostal count) are teaching outside Bangkok alongside Clare who is a friend from St. Mary's College that I have known since freshman year. Clare, Danielle and Christina adopted us into their little posse of travelers teaching at Assumption University. Initiation began with beer for breakfast courtesy of Clare. Surprise me. (You can't hate it when you miss me so badly, can you roomies?) I cannot possibly explain how nice it was to be in a group of people who speak English as their first language and share a similar sense of humor. I laughed until I cried many times on the trip and there were some peed pants, though I can't say whose. I'm quite a bit more homesick, or peoplesick really, after the trip but equally as excited for all the travels that lay ahead. Yay!
I should not even try to describe how beautiful Koh Chang is. Google it. It's the gorgeous beaches and green jungles jutting out of the crystal blue waters that pop into a person's head when they hear "Thailand". Cheesy sounding, i know, that's why I should not have tried. Places like KC are pretty much the reason I wanted to come to SE Asia. I forgot my camera as I am known to do when I am going to see amazing things like thirty elephants cross the road to go swimming, ten lions lounging in the sun, or the entire city of Beijing, China and the Olympic Games. We had some serious amateur photographers in our crew so I'll get some pics ASAP and I miiiiiiiight be in some of them.
One day we hiked to a waterfall. This one put Tad Ton to shame. I again risked my life savings, or my parents', scaling algae covered rocks protruding out over jagged ledges and rushing water which I am sure is a danger outside my health insurance coverage. FYI Dad freshwater is dangerous because of crazy diseases I could catch... But I think only if it's stagnant. And there are 200 suspected cases of swine flu in Khon Kaen and all the dangerous places are marked with signs written in Thai...so I am in grave danger anyways. I think I might follow suit and get a mask.
Sorry. Back on track. We stayed two places. The first was a collection of straw huts on a pristine beach called Khlong Prao. I have seen some sickeningly beautiful beaches this year between Mexico and Costa Rica and this one is right up there. Absolutely awesome. Spectacular. Thesaurus needed. The place had delicious food but not much around it and we went to the more built-up White Sand to go out at night. I spent my 4th of July on a carpet on a beach watching a fire show. It was certainly more celebratory than eating Indian food and watching movies in Uganda which is what I was doing last year, but not quite sparklers and ice cream sandwiches at Lake Barcroft. I did rock my American flag tee shirt though.
I did not think things could get much better but I was wrong again. Twice as much per night, now an exorbitant nine dollars, bought us air-conditioned rooms with clean sheets, shampoo and toilet paper provided. AND a complimentary American breakfast. Toast!! We had a ridiculous view from our bungalow and spent our days on the beach or by the pool and our nights at the cool hostels and bars that dot the coastline and decorate the town of Lonely Beach. It has a very laid back traveler kind of vibe. Needless to say, I could have stayed for a while longer or maybe forever if I did not have all of you blog-readers to come home to or the guilt of having to make something of myself after paying ND tuition.
So I got back to Khon Kaen Wednesday night at 11 and I am half way back to Bangkok and it's Friday at 8. Tomorrow Alison and I are seeing Mae Naak which is a Thai musical about ghosts. Should be interesting. My goal is to not regret the semi-hefty ticket purchase which occurred a while ago...before I knew I would have just returned from an adventure and before I got used to the Thai baht. I am hoping to get to see some of my new found friends who spend their weekends in Bangkok. I can see this Friday night VIP bus thing becoming a pattern which is okay by me. Picture first class on an airplane. Uh huh there are even flight attendants and massage chairs. I'm eating a donut and there are certainly no chickens plucking at my little toes or dead fish on strings hanging over my head.
I know this was a long one but I am sure it took you waaaaaay less time to read it than it took me to write it...ON MY PHONE. Especially because the man next to me and I are having Thai lessons. I now know the word for divorced if yahhhhknowhatImeeeeeean. He just motioned asking for my phone number but does not speak a word of English, haahaaa.
It is now Saturday night and I am finally publishing this from my really cool hostel in Bangkok. The city is really really cool and the play was very entertaining. It was three and a half hours long, which was a little crazy, but I think it would have been out of this world if I spoke Thai. We did a boat tour today and I brought my camera so photos to follow. I did get to see my new posse of American friends which was very nice. I am glad they don't live in Khon Kaen because it's too easy to be with them. I would get complacent about my Thai...which is progressing. I had my first conversation in Thai while on Koh Chang and it was one of the most gratifying things I have accomplished in a long time.
Mucho rak,
Ellen ... which is what I may as well be named.
Post Script: my apologies for all of the passive voice and run-on sentences. I know only a handful of you care but I cannot be bothered with your opinions right now, even as an English teacher. I'd change it but I would be risking early onset arthritis in my thumbs.
Last Friday, Meredith and I left Khon Kaen in the afternoon and arrived at the crazily crowded pre-Thai-Buddhist-Lenten-holiday Bangkok bus station at night. We followed the only westerner in sight in order to borrow the police officer that she had commandeered who apparently spoke enough English to guide her to her destination. After five minutes of pointing on maps and saying Koh Chang (pronounced "Chung") in as many tones as I could, we were led to the ticket booth. We waited around a little, were led through a small hole in a chain link fence, over a small trash dump, through a stray dog village and finally aboard the overnight bus to Trat where we'd catch the first ferry in the morning. I slept a little but it was hard because nightmares of sliding off the road in a monsoon were only partly dreams. After a fairly short but very moist songtau ride from where the bus dropped us, Meredith and I arrived at the ferry station where we were greeted by the first familiar faces I had seen since Chelsea's departure.
To backtrack a little, Christina and I have been living parallel lives for the past couple years. I met her in the study abroad office on our way out the door to South Africa and ran into her in glorious Cape Townian places like the streets of Mowbray, outside Babbo in Obs and most gloriously on the top of Lion's Head where we watched the sun set over the ocean and the full moon rise over the city last April. Back at ND our lives continued in this fashion with sporadic run-ins in not quite so glorious places. To make a long story short, Christina and her friend from home Danielle who I had met more than once (if the line for Fever and Pigtostal count) are teaching outside Bangkok alongside Clare who is a friend from St. Mary's College that I have known since freshman year. Clare, Danielle and Christina adopted us into their little posse of travelers teaching at Assumption University. Initiation began with beer for breakfast courtesy of Clare. Surprise me. (You can't hate it when you miss me so badly, can you roomies?) I cannot possibly explain how nice it was to be in a group of people who speak English as their first language and share a similar sense of humor. I laughed until I cried many times on the trip and there were some peed pants, though I can't say whose. I'm quite a bit more homesick, or peoplesick really, after the trip but equally as excited for all the travels that lay ahead. Yay!
I should not even try to describe how beautiful Koh Chang is. Google it. It's the gorgeous beaches and green jungles jutting out of the crystal blue waters that pop into a person's head when they hear "Thailand". Cheesy sounding, i know, that's why I should not have tried. Places like KC are pretty much the reason I wanted to come to SE Asia. I forgot my camera as I am known to do when I am going to see amazing things like thirty elephants cross the road to go swimming, ten lions lounging in the sun, or the entire city of Beijing, China and the Olympic Games. We had some serious amateur photographers in our crew so I'll get some pics ASAP and I miiiiiiiight be in some of them.
One day we hiked to a waterfall. This one put Tad Ton to shame. I again risked my life savings, or my parents', scaling algae covered rocks protruding out over jagged ledges and rushing water which I am sure is a danger outside my health insurance coverage. FYI Dad freshwater is dangerous because of crazy diseases I could catch... But I think only if it's stagnant. And there are 200 suspected cases of swine flu in Khon Kaen and all the dangerous places are marked with signs written in Thai...so I am in grave danger anyways. I think I might follow suit and get a mask.
Sorry. Back on track. We stayed two places. The first was a collection of straw huts on a pristine beach called Khlong Prao. I have seen some sickeningly beautiful beaches this year between Mexico and Costa Rica and this one is right up there. Absolutely awesome. Spectacular. Thesaurus needed. The place had delicious food but not much around it and we went to the more built-up White Sand to go out at night. I spent my 4th of July on a carpet on a beach watching a fire show. It was certainly more celebratory than eating Indian food and watching movies in Uganda which is what I was doing last year, but not quite sparklers and ice cream sandwiches at Lake Barcroft. I did rock my American flag tee shirt though.
I did not think things could get much better but I was wrong again. Twice as much per night, now an exorbitant nine dollars, bought us air-conditioned rooms with clean sheets, shampoo and toilet paper provided. AND a complimentary American breakfast. Toast!! We had a ridiculous view from our bungalow and spent our days on the beach or by the pool and our nights at the cool hostels and bars that dot the coastline and decorate the town of Lonely Beach. It has a very laid back traveler kind of vibe. Needless to say, I could have stayed for a while longer or maybe forever if I did not have all of you blog-readers to come home to or the guilt of having to make something of myself after paying ND tuition.
So I got back to Khon Kaen Wednesday night at 11 and I am half way back to Bangkok and it's Friday at 8. Tomorrow Alison and I are seeing Mae Naak which is a Thai musical about ghosts. Should be interesting. My goal is to not regret the semi-hefty ticket purchase which occurred a while ago...before I knew I would have just returned from an adventure and before I got used to the Thai baht. I am hoping to get to see some of my new found friends who spend their weekends in Bangkok. I can see this Friday night VIP bus thing becoming a pattern which is okay by me. Picture first class on an airplane. Uh huh there are even flight attendants and massage chairs. I'm eating a donut and there are certainly no chickens plucking at my little toes or dead fish on strings hanging over my head.
I know this was a long one but I am sure it took you waaaaaay less time to read it than it took me to write it...ON MY PHONE. Especially because the man next to me and I are having Thai lessons. I now know the word for divorced if yahhhhknowhatImeeeeeean. He just motioned asking for my phone number but does not speak a word of English, haahaaa.
It is now Saturday night and I am finally publishing this from my really cool hostel in Bangkok. The city is really really cool and the play was very entertaining. It was three and a half hours long, which was a little crazy, but I think it would have been out of this world if I spoke Thai. We did a boat tour today and I brought my camera so photos to follow. I did get to see my new posse of American friends which was very nice. I am glad they don't live in Khon Kaen because it's too easy to be with them. I would get complacent about my Thai...which is progressing. I had my first conversation in Thai while on Koh Chang and it was one of the most gratifying things I have accomplished in a long time.
Mucho rak,
Ellen ... which is what I may as well be named.
Post Script: my apologies for all of the passive voice and run-on sentences. I know only a handful of you care but I cannot be bothered with your opinions right now, even as an English teacher. I'd change it but I would be risking early onset arthritis in my thumbs.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sundaes and Sundays
Hello Hello,
I am sitting in the lobby of my apartment building because it gets a better internet connection than my room. There is a loud echo because of the flooring. Cait and Sha said I sounded like I was talking from Heaven when we were skyping the other night. I wanted details about how Shannon was voted by her 750 classmates both "most likely to succeed" and "most likely to be a hip-hop mogul." I hope there is not a picture of a sweaty king, a stack of mysterious cardboard boxes, or multiple lizards on the walls of my apartment in Heaven, but the rest would be okay, I suppose.
Last weekend, Meredith, Alison and I went on a little girl-bonding adventure to Chaiyaphum, which is about two hours by bus from Khon Kaen. Alison and I had seen a show at U-bar on Friday night, so we yanked ourselves out of bed bright and early Saturday and forced ourselves onto a bus. The bus ride was amazing; the windows were down and I got a window seat early on in the trip. The scenery was undeniably Asian: rice paddies and their workers in circular, pointed hats. It was very green and pretty rural, despite a couple towns that pretty much all looked the same. Chaiyaphum, too, looked very similar to Khon Kaen, but smaller. We splurged on a really nice hotel, which cost us about 7 dollars each for the night. Saturday, we went looking for this traditional village where you can see people making silk the way they have for many, many, years. How many? I have no idea because we never made it to our destination. We bought some silk and we walked through some village, but we never actually found THE silk village until we passed it on the way home on the last departing song-tao...oh well. Saturday night, the hotel bar turned into the Chaiyaphum hotspot and we saw a live band and danced until the wee hours with all of the rest of Chaiyaphum's teens and twenty-somethings and one really friendly but slightly creepy old man who I have pictures with. Sunday, we went to a national park and saw Tad Ton Waterfall. Unlike Costa Rica, where half of the thrill was the hour long hike/climb to the scenic falls, Thai people don't like the outdoors, the heat, or exercise (okay, maybe aerobics). Thus, you can almost drive right up to the falls and get in. Even though the travel nurse told me not to swim in fresh water in Thailand, the current was moving swiftly, although not dangerously swiftly, and I assessed the situation as only mildly dangerous; I hopped right in and swam under the waterfall. The park's brochure makes the tiny thing look like Niagara falls, but it would have been easily jumpable if there were not so many jagged rocks below.
I had been planning on going to Laos this weekend because Meredith had to renew her visa, which requires leaving Thailand and I said I would accompany her. Since I will be traveling the next two weekends, I decided to lay low instead. Meredith ended up coming home yesterday and we went on another Saturday mall excursion with the crew (Neuki, Ing, Toffee who is Neuki's boyfriend, Leng who is Neuki's brother's friend and a potential boyfriend for Ing). It seems to be becoming a pattern to eat huge sundaes at the mall on Saturdays with that crew. After the ice cream, we had a little Guitar Hero session in the arcade, which was fun for me since I kept winning...which only makes sense since there is no possible way that Neuki or Toffee could have accumulated as many hours in the arcade playing Guitar Hero as I have in the dorm or my house over the past years...or it would have been a pretty pricey feat at 10 baht a game. After the mall, it was torrentially raining, so we rented some movies and went to Meredith's for my first home-cooked Thai meal. We made suki, which is the same thing as a hot pot, like I talked about in my previous blog. It was even more delish at home, but we were all dripping with sweat since the house does not have air conditioning downstairs and we were inhaling soup like there was no tomorrow. Today, I ate some vegetarian food, graded some papers, sat and read at the most marvelous coffee shop, went to the campus night market and went on a "run" if you can call jogging for fifteen minutes before my body gave out a run. Good Sunday.
I began lessons with my Thai tutor on Friday. I have homework, too. I have to memorize some possible answers to the question "khun ja pai nai?" which literally means "where are you going?" and "pai nai maa?" which is "where have you been?" These are common greetings in Thailand, like "How are you?" for us. Right now, I could say "pai talaat maa kha" and "chun ja pai rian kha" which would be "I came from the market" and "I am going to study," which I really should since I had to look at my sheet to figure out how to say that. Everything in Thailand ends with kha (for women) or khrap (for men), which makes the sentence more polite, but is used most times. There is a lot of respect around these parts. For instance, we call Leng "Pi Leng" which is a sign of respect for someone even slightly older than you. I told Neuki that I would call her "Pi Neuki" if she wanted me to since she is 23, but she said no. She also lets me touch her head which is not allowed in Thailand either. She's a real nonconformist, haha.
My love to all of you.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
June 18th, 2552
Hello my loyal followers,
You can see some photos below. There are captions if you put your mouse over each photo. Enjoy! And no, that is not a typo. It really is the year 2552 here. The Thai calendar is different...its B.E. or Buddhist Era. The year is based on the death of Gautama Buddha...So, I am 543 years and 11 hours ahead of the East Coast.
“Ohhhkay so….” When asked if I am loving it here, I have to be honest, I forget to realize that I am loving it. My routine has become just that, a routine. By no means am I claiming that I have seen all there is to see in Khon Kaen, but I feel like I have settled in here in much the same way as I settled in to South Bend: I have what I need, there’s stuff to do, but I am not rushing around seeing the sights or anything. Whereas in Cape Town, I had a “bucket list” of things to do before I left (and could have made one for 10 years of things), I don’t think such a list will be needed for Khon Kaen. My list of things to do here involves more personal-growth goals, haha. At the end of a busy day I have to stop myself just to say, "You're teaching in Thailand, that's so weird... and awesome."
Last weekend seemed like any ordinary weekend in South Bend (minus a few people who I miss terribly): two trips to the mall, lots of eating, and out to the bar on Saturday. There is not an English movie theater in Khon Kaen, at least not until December, or I'm sure a flick would have been included in the weekend’s activities. Khon Kaen does not offer an endless strip of chain restaurants like the thriving metropolis of Mishawaka, but there are probably more places to eat within walking distance of my apartment than in all of Indiana…and downtown Khon Kaen has many many more. On Friday, Neuki, her boyfriend Toffee, Frank, Jeff, Meredith and I went to this “hot pot” restaurant. I love hot pots now. Basically, you order what you want to eat and it comes raw. We had some shrimp, some meat, some noodles, some tofu and tons of vegetables. Then, you place some food in a your own personal ladle with holes and submerge it into a pot of boiling water that is being heated in the middle of your table. When it’s cooked, you put it in your bowl, add some broth, season it up the way you like it and eat it. It’s sort of like making your own little “cup of noodles.” De-lish.
The bar we went to, U-bar, is apparently the nicest bar in the city and neither the crowd nor the décor caused me to think otherwise. It’s funny; there were two live bands during the night, but no dance floor. If people danced at all, they did so between tables. Mostly, people sat on small stools at small tables drinking whiskey and coke. Don’t worry about lines at the bar, you simply buy a bottle of Johnny Walker to share with your pals and the waiters continuously refresh your drink with more ice, whiskey, or coke while you listen to fantastic Thai pop music. I tried to have one of my new favs play on my blog but to no avail. Hopefully, you will be able to experience the magic soon. Neuki translates songs for me and the teenage heartthrobs in Thailand are singing about all the same stuff they sing about in the USA: mostly exciting new love and broken hearts.
Neuki has also been teaching me Thai idioms, which I think are very interesting. Here is what I have learned so far.
- An old cow chewing new grass = robbing the cradle…Happens often here with old Western men and young Thai women.
- Mud covering the pig’s tail = procrastinating, digging yourself into a hole with homework, etc.
- You can’t cover a dead elephant with a lotus leaf. Neuki’s example: If you do something bad and then you try to make it better or make excuses, your mom might say “you can’t cover a dead elephant with a lotus leaf.”
- A frog under half a coconut = living in a bubble; sheltered
- Riding an elephant to catch a grasshopper = doing unnecessary things, being illogical.
This week, I spent most of class time learning my students’ names. I have 161 students right now. Despite using their nicknames, I manage to mispronounce almost all of them. Even when their names are American words like Dear, Bank, Mix or Big, I apparently say them wrong. A lot of students have sound effects for names: Pla, Aui, Au, Ou, Oy, Aum, Aof. I also have two Nongs, one Nang, a Noo, a Nood and a few Nooms, not to mention a student with almost every letter of the alphabet from A to Z as a name: A, P, K, Y, O, M, you name it. I have three Tums, a couple Toms and a few Tops. Even though Thai people have more distinctive and unique features than the people I saw in China, they all have dark eyes, dark hair, and my students are all in uniforms, which really complicates the name-learning thing. Today, I took their pictures so I have little flashcards for them now and should have their identities mastered by the week’s end.
I also found out first hand how Thais think cheating is helping others. I had two groups of students in different classes perform the exact same dialogue that they were supposed to have written themselves. The group mentality thing…
I do not “talk Thai” yet. Since I am tone deaf, I am at a great disadvantage. I start my Thai tutor soon and am looking forward to it almost as much as my next good bagel though when that will come, I do not know.
No class today because it's Wai Kru, which is a holiday designated for students to honor their teachers. I am bowed to (or “wai”ed, pronounced “why” not “way”) many times throughout my normal workday, but this day holds in store intense bowing and probably some flowers. I am trying not to get used to all the respect I am shown here…
If I do not die crossing the 10-lane road on my newly-acquired bicycle, I will write again soon. If I do, this blog will be extremely morbid.
Chun rak kuhn…That’s I love you.
Erin
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Aerobics: The Universal Language
Sa wat dee kaa,
Yep, yesterday I went to aerobics. Picture at least 50 Thai women under a pavillion next to a 7-11. And me. And Meredith, another Princeton Fellow, who is equally as uncoordinated as I am. I am not sure if I can blame the fact that I could not follow on the intensity of the teacher or his counting in Thai because the truth is it was fairly similar to an aerobics class in the States (except that it costs 5 baht or 1/6 of a dollar!) There was even techno you would hear in the States, mainly multiple re-mixes of the YMCA, Cher, and Dragostea din tei ("Maya heee Maya whoo Maya haaa maya haaa haaa"...Should ring bells to you if you are under the age of...30??...or a raver...or an intense work-out-er...and ESPECIALLY if you spent a large majority of weekend nights in high school loitering in 7-11 parking lots listening to Romanian techno like I did). The funny thing is that aerobics class takes place outside at 6 pm, which is around the time that the rain should start during the rainy season (now). Yesterday, the rain held off until class was over, which only meant that the humidity was palpable in the 85-degree air for the hour-long jazzercize meets ballet meets kickboxing meets yoga session. Oh, and it's inappropriate to show your shoulders or most of your legs in Northern Thailand so many people were in pants and long sleeves. Even in my semi-scandalous attire, I was literally soaked head to toe in sweat after 10 minutes...and Thai people don't sweat so it made my freckled, uncoordinated, already really out-of-place self stand out even more. Regardless, it was the most fun I have had since I have been in Thailand and I am going again today. It is a must-do in Khon Kaen and I am looking forward to having my able-bodied visitors join me.
Neuki (reference previous blog: first and only Thai friend, nicest person I have ever met) came with me to aerobics, which is not something she normally does. Her mom, on the other hand, goes every day. After class, I met Neuki's mom, "Shenai," and discovered hers were the feet that mine were attempting to copy during class. Shenai teaches Physical Chemistry at KKU and their house is on campus. She offered Meredith and me a ride home and since it was thundering we accepted. Instead of taking us directly home, we went to dinner at T-Bone Steak House, which is an all-you-can-eat buffet that costs 109 Baht (a little more than 3 dollars), a semi-expensive meal here. There were all kinds of American-y things to choose from: steak, pork, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, french fries, green beans, spaghetti, fruit, veggies and tons of Thai delicacies as well. After the meal, we had some fruit that Neuki had been carrying around all day with the intention of giving to me, since she knew I had never tried either a mangosteen or a rambutan. Rambutan is golfball-sized and spiky on the outside, sooo cool-looking. On the inside, it looks a bit like a delicately-peeled grape, but whiter and with a pit. Tastes sort of like a lychee. A mangosteen, "the queen of fruits," is one of the most delicious things I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. On the outside, its purple with a green stem. On the inside, its white and divided into small sections. It tastes a bit like passion fruit...hard to describe but de-lish. I know it does not do much good to describe the taste of these interesting fruits with other interesting fruits, but it's the best I can do. Here, you can buy a kilo of mangosteen for a dollar. I am not sure what it would cost you Statesiders, but it's worth it to try! Wikipedia says about mangosteens: "Botanically an aril, the fragrant edible flesh can be described as sweet and tangy, citrusy with peach flavor and texture."
This week flew by. Teaching is still going well. My students' ability-levels vary a lot both in the classes and between classes of the same level. Now that I am beginning to understand which classes are more advanced and which students understand English best and can help translate, things are getting a little easier. Apparently English is seen as just something to get through by most Thai students who will probably stay in Thailand to work and will not need much English in their real lives. The students who will need English, like business students, (who apparently all want to be flight attendants, haha) some of the medical students, and other various faculties, are not in my classes...Great, I get to teach English to kids who, for the most part, think of it as a formality and do not give a rat's behind about it. That being said, some of my students are working hard and showing a desire to learn the language. My beginning speaking students literally DO NOT SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH! It's hilarious. We started with hello and goodbye. It's a pretty easy way for me to monitor their progress and my abilities as a teacher when they started with zero words in their lexicon.
I have pictures to post but the Internet has been a little whacko at home and I keep forgetting to bring my camera to work. Hopefully, they will be up soon.
I am thinking lots about all of you, especially the Murphys who are all gathering together now for Colin and Emily's wedding. If I figure out how to bi-locate in the next 48 hours, I'll be there! Otherwise, enjoy. I know that "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" is going to be the best ever since you all have been practicing since January.
Chok dee la gorn,
Erin
Yep, yesterday I went to aerobics. Picture at least 50 Thai women under a pavillion next to a 7-11. And me. And Meredith, another Princeton Fellow, who is equally as uncoordinated as I am. I am not sure if I can blame the fact that I could not follow on the intensity of the teacher or his counting in Thai because the truth is it was fairly similar to an aerobics class in the States (except that it costs 5 baht or 1/6 of a dollar!) There was even techno you would hear in the States, mainly multiple re-mixes of the YMCA, Cher, and Dragostea din tei ("Maya heee Maya whoo Maya haaa maya haaa haaa"...Should ring bells to you if you are under the age of...30??...or a raver...or an intense work-out-er...and ESPECIALLY if you spent a large majority of weekend nights in high school loitering in 7-11 parking lots listening to Romanian techno like I did). The funny thing is that aerobics class takes place outside at 6 pm, which is around the time that the rain should start during the rainy season (now). Yesterday, the rain held off until class was over, which only meant that the humidity was palpable in the 85-degree air for the hour-long jazzercize meets ballet meets kickboxing meets yoga session. Oh, and it's inappropriate to show your shoulders or most of your legs in Northern Thailand so many people were in pants and long sleeves. Even in my semi-scandalous attire, I was literally soaked head to toe in sweat after 10 minutes...and Thai people don't sweat so it made my freckled, uncoordinated, already really out-of-place self stand out even more. Regardless, it was the most fun I have had since I have been in Thailand and I am going again today. It is a must-do in Khon Kaen and I am looking forward to having my able-bodied visitors join me.
Neuki (reference previous blog: first and only Thai friend, nicest person I have ever met) came with me to aerobics, which is not something she normally does. Her mom, on the other hand, goes every day. After class, I met Neuki's mom, "Shenai," and discovered hers were the feet that mine were attempting to copy during class. Shenai teaches Physical Chemistry at KKU and their house is on campus. She offered Meredith and me a ride home and since it was thundering we accepted. Instead of taking us directly home, we went to dinner at T-Bone Steak House, which is an all-you-can-eat buffet that costs 109 Baht (a little more than 3 dollars), a semi-expensive meal here. There were all kinds of American-y things to choose from: steak, pork, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, french fries, green beans, spaghetti, fruit, veggies and tons of Thai delicacies as well. After the meal, we had some fruit that Neuki had been carrying around all day with the intention of giving to me, since she knew I had never tried either a mangosteen or a rambutan. Rambutan is golfball-sized and spiky on the outside, sooo cool-looking. On the inside, it looks a bit like a delicately-peeled grape, but whiter and with a pit. Tastes sort of like a lychee. A mangosteen, "the queen of fruits," is one of the most delicious things I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. On the outside, its purple with a green stem. On the inside, its white and divided into small sections. It tastes a bit like passion fruit...hard to describe but de-lish. I know it does not do much good to describe the taste of these interesting fruits with other interesting fruits, but it's the best I can do. Here, you can buy a kilo of mangosteen for a dollar. I am not sure what it would cost you Statesiders, but it's worth it to try! Wikipedia says about mangosteens: "Botanically an aril, the fragrant edible flesh can be described as sweet and tangy, citrusy with peach flavor and texture."
This week flew by. Teaching is still going well. My students' ability-levels vary a lot both in the classes and between classes of the same level. Now that I am beginning to understand which classes are more advanced and which students understand English best and can help translate, things are getting a little easier. Apparently English is seen as just something to get through by most Thai students who will probably stay in Thailand to work and will not need much English in their real lives. The students who will need English, like business students, (who apparently all want to be flight attendants, haha) some of the medical students, and other various faculties, are not in my classes...Great, I get to teach English to kids who, for the most part, think of it as a formality and do not give a rat's behind about it. That being said, some of my students are working hard and showing a desire to learn the language. My beginning speaking students literally DO NOT SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH! It's hilarious. We started with hello and goodbye. It's a pretty easy way for me to monitor their progress and my abilities as a teacher when they started with zero words in their lexicon.
I have pictures to post but the Internet has been a little whacko at home and I keep forgetting to bring my camera to work. Hopefully, they will be up soon.
I am thinking lots about all of you, especially the Murphys who are all gathering together now for Colin and Emily's wedding. If I figure out how to bi-locate in the next 48 hours, I'll be there! Otherwise, enjoy. I know that "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" is going to be the best ever since you all have been practicing since January.
Chok dee la gorn,
Erin
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Chelsea follows me around the world...again
Yes, for those of you who know Chelsea Burns, it will not surprise you that she arrived on Thursday, three days after my arrival. For those of you who have not had the "pleasure," Chelsea is my friend from childhood/high school who joins (invites herself, haha) on my adventures. She showed up in New Orleans, twice to South Africa, and the list goes on...She just can't get enough of me. Actually though, she had her trip planned to Thailand before I did, and I am happy that she tacked on a little Khon Kaen time at the end. It's been fun exploring the city with her and really nice to see a familiar face, especially since hers is one I won't see for a while. She heads off to the the Peace Corps to do health education in Central or South America in January.
Since I last "blogged" I have gotten to know the city much better. Even though there are apparently 150,000 people in Khon Kaen, it seems like there would be more, because its fairly crowded everywhere. The city is not that big though. Yesterday, Chelsea and I practically walked the entire length of it, both on purpose and by accident. In the morning, I had a meeting to go over how to teach speaking and writing to beginners, took some hideous visa-sized photos for my work permit, and met Chelsea at this coffee shop near my house. We had some lunch at this place I had been before and knew that the waiter, Boy, spoke some English. Then we headed into town with the intention of seeing Khon Kaen National Museum. We eventually made it there, after some intense map-reading and gesturing sessions. When I first arrived here, I was instructed never to ask a Thai person to read a map because they are not taught how to...I have since experienced this phenomenon.
We made it to the Museum, blistered and sweaty, but in good spirits. The Museum is described in the Lonely Planet Guide as the first destination a tourist should visit. We were not at all disappointed, but it's pretty funny that this little non air conditioned Museum with only semi-correct English explanations is the city's best tourist destination. We learned about dinosaurs, cavemen, Buddhism and lots of things in between, and then headed to the city center. We visited the mall, bought some cheap DVDs, and poked around in an outdoor market selling everything from underwear to grilled bugs. We had dinner at a night market with another Princeton fellow, Frank, and this guy Jeff, who is here from New Zealand teaching at a grade school. We had pad thai for the first time since my arrival, mostly because that is one of the only foods I can pronounce and the consequences of a meal-gone-wrong at the night market could be gut-wrenching.
Next, I had my first visit to the Pullman Hotel, the nicest hotel in the city (formerly the Sofitel). I had my first karaoke session in Thailand, and potentially my first sober karaoke session ever. I know what you are all thinking...God bless those poor souls who were karaoke-ing with me. I know, I felt bad for them too, but they still forced me to perform even after hearing my terrible voice. I am sure they were asking the age old question (eh-hem, Jessie Walker) "You do know you are tone deaf, right?" On the way out, I had my first potential run-in with a Royal Princess, but our elevator was diverted for security reasons. Boo. My new and best Thai friend, Neuki, who is the coolest and nicest person I have ever met in my life (sorry everyone), drove us home, and Chelsea and I caught up on some much-needed sleep.
Today we lazed around for a bit, and then went downtown to this lake, Beung Kaen Nakhon, and walked around and had some lunch. We were constantly monitoring the skies, because it looked like it was going to downpour all day, but it never really did, and was sunny most of the time. Good day.
There will be pictures next time. I have already taken some of my street, my apartment building, my room, a song-tau, and an elephant walking down the middle of the road. For now, use your imaginations. No dreadlocks or tatoos yet, and I haven't turned into rice, but will probably start soon.
For now, I leave you with this. Be warned. The next charades game that I am a part of will be completely unfair. I will be the most supreme pictionary and charades player of all-time after this year. On Thursday, actually, there was some sort of mix-up, and I ended up with a class of eighty, yes 8-0, students. I taught them how Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum turned Bilbao, Spain into a vibrant tourist destination, and revitalized his career after some budget and scheduling trouble during the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. All with pictures and charades. Hahahaah.
Peace and Love,
Erin
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Getting here and being here...
I suppose a blog is an easier way to track my trials and tribulations than email, although I must admit even a mass email seems more personal than this. I am going to give it a shot...
This will be a repeat for those of you who have received an email from me so far...
So, I was delayed a whole day on my way here which was pretty nice, to be honest. An extra day to lounge around in D.C....The flights were uneventful: slept the whole way to London, sleepwalked (is that a word?) through Heathrow, slept half way to Bangkok with my head periodically bouncing off the shoulder of the giant Patrick (the nickname for the ex-pats who come to Thailand for the Thai women) seated next to me. I watched two movies and landed in Bangkok. I had some time to kill there, some bag trouble, but eventually made my way to Khon Kaen, which is only 40 minutes by air from Bangkok.
I settled into my apartment, which is basically a standard hotel room. Its marble-ish floors, two twin beds pushed together, a stand-alone closet, a desk, a small fridge, and a fairly good sized bathroom. The walls are a light mint green and the room came with three posters: two scenes of Thai beaches and one of seven asian men sitting on a fence. They don't use bedding here, just bottom sheets, which were provided. I never told them my nickname but they must have known because the sheets are bright green and blue with cartoon bears all over them. The green side is my bed, while the blue side is my home office. I am on the first floor so my "balcony" is in some bushes and breeds mosquitos but I can hang some of my laundry out there. My clothes will be washed and pressed daily for the exorbitant fee of 10 dollars per month, but touching other peoples' dirty underwear and socks is not something you do in Thailand so I will be on my own for those. My rent is 130 dollars per month (yes, that is exactly 10 percent of what my New York City-bound friends will be paying...) which includes my TV and internet, but not my airconditioning fee, which they'll tack on at the end. Considering its above 90 and sooooo humid you feel like you are swimming here, I could rack up quite the bill for the aircon.
I live in an area called Gon Sa Don, which is a popular place for students and faculty to live because it's close to school. There are food stands, restaurants, bars and shops. It's the Thai version of a US University with more of a college town than ND...myabe Ann Arbor or something... Most of shops you have never heard of but there is a 7-11 open 24 hours on my block, which has the necessities.
To get to work I take a song-tau, which I have been describing as the modern-day Thai version of covered wagons: a pick-up truck with benches installed in the bed and a metal covering overhead. It has been brought to my attention that it is often not easy to tell if I am being sarcastic in my writing. In this blog, I will try to stick to the truth. So, Mary, I was not kidding about the song-taus...or the aerobics. (yes, at 6 pm today I will be doing aerobics with old thai ladies next to "nung wang," the little lake in my neighborhood. If I do not die of heat exhaustion, I will let you know how it goes!) It's about a ten minute commute by song-tau to the University and maybe 15 to downtown where I went for the first time last night. We went to a popular ex-pat bar (Cheap Charlie's) for English trivia. When I say English, I mean English: half the questions were about either football, meaning soccer, or British history. Needless to say, I bombed, but it was fun and I met some other young people teaching around Khon Kaen.
So, school. Its hard to explain really. I have not come close to seeing it all because campus is HUGE. There are 30,000 students and faculty and the campus is fairly spreadout. I did not have any preconceived notions of what a Thai University would be like, but if I had, I would not have been too far off. They are not concerned about grooming or continuity of architecture like ND and the buildings are certainly not as pristine, but I am fairly impressed, but not overly surprised, by what I have seen so far.
I am teaching three sections of English 103: English for Academic Purposes II. I taught today for the first time and we are working on a unit looking at transformations. We read a passage about Frank Gehrty and his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and then answered some questions about it and worked on paraphrasing. Attendance took half of the class period since I was dealing with names like Watcharapol, Ninlakarn, Thitiporn, Thitipong, Chotrawee...and you get the picture. It was pretty entertaining to say the least. Lucky for me, all Thai people have "American nicknames." They are not like ones we have in the USA though. Here are some of the ones that I have learned so far: Oil, Blue, A, C, X, Aim, Key, Bank, Net, Far, View...and I could continue. I think any English word can be a nickname as long as its four letters or less. I met an "Arm" yesterday.
I will have three sections of 103, totaling about 90 students. I will also be teaching beginning level speaking and writing, which starts next week and I think will be even more challenging and hilarious than the 103s. Throughout the semester, I will have over 20 sections of those classes, but in different chunks of weeks. I think I'll have maybe 4 sections at a time for 4/5 weeks each. I am looking forward to the speaking sections most. At the end of each class I am having my students teach me some Thai. Today I learned to say "Excuse me/ Sorry" which is pronounced Khaw-Tot.
So Khaw-tot for this being so long. I will be updating frequently until I have more friends and classes...
Hope all of you are as happy as I am!
This will be a repeat for those of you who have received an email from me so far...
So, I was delayed a whole day on my way here which was pretty nice, to be honest. An extra day to lounge around in D.C....The flights were uneventful: slept the whole way to London, sleepwalked (is that a word?) through Heathrow, slept half way to Bangkok with my head periodically bouncing off the shoulder of the giant Patrick (the nickname for the ex-pats who come to Thailand for the Thai women) seated next to me. I watched two movies and landed in Bangkok. I had some time to kill there, some bag trouble, but eventually made my way to Khon Kaen, which is only 40 minutes by air from Bangkok.
I settled into my apartment, which is basically a standard hotel room. Its marble-ish floors, two twin beds pushed together, a stand-alone closet, a desk, a small fridge, and a fairly good sized bathroom. The walls are a light mint green and the room came with three posters: two scenes of Thai beaches and one of seven asian men sitting on a fence. They don't use bedding here, just bottom sheets, which were provided. I never told them my nickname but they must have known because the sheets are bright green and blue with cartoon bears all over them. The green side is my bed, while the blue side is my home office. I am on the first floor so my "balcony" is in some bushes and breeds mosquitos but I can hang some of my laundry out there. My clothes will be washed and pressed daily for the exorbitant fee of 10 dollars per month, but touching other peoples' dirty underwear and socks is not something you do in Thailand so I will be on my own for those. My rent is 130 dollars per month (yes, that is exactly 10 percent of what my New York City-bound friends will be paying...) which includes my TV and internet, but not my airconditioning fee, which they'll tack on at the end. Considering its above 90 and sooooo humid you feel like you are swimming here, I could rack up quite the bill for the aircon.
I live in an area called Gon Sa Don, which is a popular place for students and faculty to live because it's close to school. There are food stands, restaurants, bars and shops. It's the Thai version of a US University with more of a college town than ND...myabe Ann Arbor or something... Most of shops you have never heard of but there is a 7-11 open 24 hours on my block, which has the necessities.
To get to work I take a song-tau, which I have been describing as the modern-day Thai version of covered wagons: a pick-up truck with benches installed in the bed and a metal covering overhead. It has been brought to my attention that it is often not easy to tell if I am being sarcastic in my writing. In this blog, I will try to stick to the truth. So, Mary, I was not kidding about the song-taus...or the aerobics. (yes, at 6 pm today I will be doing aerobics with old thai ladies next to "nung wang," the little lake in my neighborhood. If I do not die of heat exhaustion, I will let you know how it goes!) It's about a ten minute commute by song-tau to the University and maybe 15 to downtown where I went for the first time last night. We went to a popular ex-pat bar (Cheap Charlie's) for English trivia. When I say English, I mean English: half the questions were about either football, meaning soccer, or British history. Needless to say, I bombed, but it was fun and I met some other young people teaching around Khon Kaen.
So, school. Its hard to explain really. I have not come close to seeing it all because campus is HUGE. There are 30,000 students and faculty and the campus is fairly spreadout. I did not have any preconceived notions of what a Thai University would be like, but if I had, I would not have been too far off. They are not concerned about grooming or continuity of architecture like ND and the buildings are certainly not as pristine, but I am fairly impressed, but not overly surprised, by what I have seen so far.
I am teaching three sections of English 103: English for Academic Purposes II. I taught today for the first time and we are working on a unit looking at transformations. We read a passage about Frank Gehrty and his design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and then answered some questions about it and worked on paraphrasing. Attendance took half of the class period since I was dealing with names like Watcharapol, Ninlakarn, Thitiporn, Thitipong, Chotrawee...and you get the picture. It was pretty entertaining to say the least. Lucky for me, all Thai people have "American nicknames." They are not like ones we have in the USA though. Here are some of the ones that I have learned so far: Oil, Blue, A, C, X, Aim, Key, Bank, Net, Far, View...and I could continue. I think any English word can be a nickname as long as its four letters or less. I met an "Arm" yesterday.
I will have three sections of 103, totaling about 90 students. I will also be teaching beginning level speaking and writing, which starts next week and I think will be even more challenging and hilarious than the 103s. Throughout the semester, I will have over 20 sections of those classes, but in different chunks of weeks. I think I'll have maybe 4 sections at a time for 4/5 weeks each. I am looking forward to the speaking sections most. At the end of each class I am having my students teach me some Thai. Today I learned to say "Excuse me/ Sorry" which is pronounced Khaw-Tot.
So Khaw-tot for this being so long. I will be updating frequently until I have more friends and classes...
Hope all of you are as happy as I am!
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