Phuket and Thai Christmas

Last week was midterm week at Suksanareewittiya School.  Fortunately, our coordinator is awesome and signed us in every morning so we were free to travel.  One of my friends and I decided to travel to Phuket.

Phuket is easily the most famous beach in Thailand.  It is one of the spots I knew I would have to hit while I was here.  Because it is so far away (12 hours by bus), last week was really one of the few chances I knew I'd have to get there.  We decided to leave Saturday and come back on Friday morning to be home in time for Christmas.

Like I said, the bus ride was extremely long.  It was an overnight bus so it goes a little bit faster once you fall asleep but it was a long time nonetheless.  Don't get me wrong, the bus was not your average bus.  The seats were spacious and reclined all the way back and they gave you enough leg room to be comfortable.  Unfortunately, no matter how comfortable a bus is, 12 hours is a long time.  Needless to say, by the time we arrived, I was thrilled to be there.

We arrived at about 6:45 am and needed to find a way to the hotel that we had previously booked.  A few friends had stayed at this particular hotel the weekend before so we trusted their suggestion.  It turned out to be great.  The owner was a nice lady who helped us plan a few day trips to the surrounding islands.  The hotel was also located right in the heart of the nightlife area and only a short walk from the beach.  It really was a great place.

The first day I relaxed at the beach and worked on my bronze.  I should mention that Phuket is in the Andaman Sea which is part of the Indian Ocean.  I thought it was pretty cool to be swimming in the Indian Ocean.  That night I explored town a little bit.  It was crazy.  There were literally hundreds of bars packed along one main street and the streets branching off of it.  The street was packed with performers and lady boys (far too common a sight in this country).  The bars had women (or men trying to be women) outside trying to attract male customers.  They paid absolutely no attention to females but every time a white guy walked by they all tried to pull him in.  This wasn't just at one place though.  It was everywhere.  I eventually picked a place to go that seemed to be a little bit more relaxed.  It was going on midnight at this point and I knew that the Giants game was set to start at 1:00 am Thai time.  I convinced the bartender to try to find the game (I would have loved to watch any NFL game but I was very fortunate that the Giants-Eagles game was the one that the Australian Sports Network was showing live).  I really enjoyed sitting there and watching the first NFL game I've seen in almost three months.  Around 2:30 the bar decided to close so I was forced to head home.  However, it was halftime and the Giants had a pretty substantial lead so I felt confident that they'd get the win.  You can imagine my surprise when I woke up the next day to find out that they completely blew the game (and now what's looking like their season as well).

The next day, I had a great time relaxing on the beach.  It was certainly nice having no responsibilities.  The following day, we took a trip to the nearby island of Koh Phi Phi.  It is also one of the more famous islands in Thailand, mostly because the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach was filmed there.  We took a guided tour of the island and had an awesome day.

Arriving at Koh Phi Phi

The beach at Koh Phi Phi

Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean

The remaining two days of the trip were a lot of fun for the most part.  They both involved a lot of relaxing during the day and heading out to the main strip at night.  The only setback occurred when I got the worst stomach bug I've had since I arrived in Thailand.  Normally, this wouldn't really have bothered me much, however, I had a 12 hour bus ride to endure.  I managed to make it home in one piece but it was a long, long trip.

Christmas Eve was pretty quiet.  Our coordinator was nice enough to realize how much we'd be missing our families so, although she is Buddhist, she invited us over for "Christmas Dinner."  Despite the fact that this was the first time I've ever had pizza on Christmas Eve, it was a nice gesture.

Christmas morning I woke up and was able to Skype with my family.  I really enjoyed it.  It wasn't fun not being home but Skype made it pretty easy to feel somewhat included.  After Skyping, I headed out to Mass.  Although the taxi got lost on the way and we were a bit late getting there, Mass was very nice.  It was in English which was certainly helpful.

After Mass a bunch of us got together at a beautiful hotel room in downtown Bangkok that we decided to splurge on in celebration of the holidays.   The place was really awesome.  It had three bedrooms with king sized beds, three separate balconies, a living room and dining room, and a full kitchen.  We had a blast attempting to make a Christmas dinner.  We had buffalo wings and deviled eggs for appetizers.  Then we had rotisserie chicken, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and salad followed by cookies and brownies.  It was really delicious.  We spent the remainder of the night watching Christmas movies and having a little gift exchange.

Our Christmas home

Delicious, homemade Christmas dinner

All in all, Christmas was pretty good.  I certainly have a new appreciation for having the holidays with family, but we managed to make the best of it over here.

In a few hours I have a very special visitor arriving in Bangkok.  Jen will be here for New Years and for the first week of January.  I've been looking forward to her visit for weeks now and I couldn't be more excited.  We are traveling to one of the islands this coming weekend and probably into central Thailand next weekend.  There will be a long post and many pictures coming after that.

Kanchanaburi and Erawan Waterfalls

This past weekend was another three day weekend (they really don't like to work over here) so a bunch of us planned to do a little bit of traveling.  We decided to go to Kanchanaburi.  My thousands of loyal readers all around the world will remember that this was where we rode the elephants during orientation.  However, Kanchanaburi has a lot more to offer than just elephant rides so we decided it was worth a longer visit.

Ever since the disaster with the hotel room in Lopburi, my main objective when searching for a place to stay while traveling is cleanliness.  I've decided that it's worth a 15 minute walk to the main row of bars if I'm sure I won't wake up covered in bed bugs.  This being Thailand, a country where the norm for cleanliness is far lower than anything we are used to at home, my goal can sometimes seem ambitious.  However, after enough searching and reading many reviews, I am usually able to find a place with a good reputation that is relatively cheap.  I know anyone who has backpacked before probably thinks I'm being lame but in my opinion it's totally worth it.  Anyway, we really hit the jackpot in Kanchanaburi.  We found a great place run by a nice lady named Apple.  All of the rooms were brand new and spotless.  Although it was a bit of a walk to the bars, I was extremely happy with our hotel selection.

If you remember from my previous post about Kanchanaburi, the Bridge Over the River Kwai is located just north of the city.  When we went to the bridge during orientation, it was getting very dark so my pictures did not turn out as well as I hoped they would.  I got a few better ones this time around:

I don't know if I'd trust being on that train going over a bridge that has been blown up so many times.

Right next to the bridge was the Kanchanaburi WWII Museum.  I'm not really sure why it's called that because it's pretty much just a collection of random things in four big buildings.  We lost interest pretty quickly.  Friday night we wound up checking out the bar scene of the city.  I was surprised to see how many expats there were living in Kanchanburi.  It is not uncommon at all to see Europeans, usually older men with Thai wives (I'm sure the women are in it for love), living on the islands but Kanchanaburi is in northwestern Thailand, not on the ocean.  Whatever the reason for them being there, the Europeans run some fun bars.  Many of them have live music while others have western sports on the TV.  There is a strip about a mile long with numerous bars.  We had a really fun night just checking out the different places.

Saturday was the real highlight of the trip.  We got up early (despite our fierce hangovers) and headed an hour and a half north of the city to Erawan National Park.  The park is famous for the Erawan Waterfall.    This is a seven-tiered waterfall located along a 1.5 mile hike up a mountain.  It was amazing.  Each tier has its own fantastic waterfall.  I knew heading into it that it would be cool but I was totally unprepared for how unbelievable the waterfalls would really look.  While swimming in one of the pools below the fifth tier, one of my friends remarked that these are the type of natural swimming areas that five star hotels try to model their pools after.  We really had a great day doing the hike.  The first tier was very cool but it was entirely overshadowed by the second tier.  The second one was what I imagine when I think of the classic picture of a waterfall.  After that, the next really cool one was the fourth tier.  It had a natural rock slide that we had a lot of fun sliding down.  The fifth tier was definitely my favorite one.  It was big waterfall with a bunch of beautiful pools spreading out over the rocks in front of it.  The seventh one was also very cool.  It is definitely the biggest and is also the most famous.  The best part was that every time we started to get really hot and sweaty from all of the hiking, we'd approach a new tier and jump in the water.  I must say, though, my only problem with the falls was the fish.  The water was crystal clear so you could see everything moving below you.  This wouldn't bother me except that the fish wouldn't leave you alone while you were swimming.  One of the things I've noticed in many of the hair and nail salons around Thailand  is a thing called a fish massage.  I guess you put your feet in a tank and the fish eat the dead skin off of the bottom of them.  As disgusting as that sounds, the pools at Erawan had hundreds of this kind of fish in them.  Whenever you would plant your feet to get in or out of the pool, you could feel them nibbling away.  It was really just a bizarre feeling.  Anyway, that being the only downside (albeit one that you got used to after a few minutes anyway) I can honestly say that going to Erawan was one of the best things I've done so far in Thailand.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Tier Two

Tier Four with the rock slide

Feet Eating Fish

Tier Five. My favorite one.

The pool below Tier Seven

Me in front of Tier Seven

After a long day at the falls we were all pretty exhausted.  However, we rallied and had a really fun night out on the town again.  Overall, Kanchanaburi was one of my favorite trips so far.  I was with some great people and we had an awesome time.  

In more recent news, tonight I attended the wedding reception of one of my coworkers.  It was a great example of the cultural differences that exist between Thailand and the U.S.  It was a fun time but it wasn't like any other wedding I'd ever been to.  It was actually held in the auditorium of the school where I teach.  It is apparently a tradition to avoid hiring a band and instead have the guests sing karaoke all evening.  These are just a few examples of things I found amusing throughout the night.  All in all it was a nice event and I was glad to be a part of it but it certainly did not hold up to the standard set by a Hickey family wedding held just a few months ago.

Tomorrow I head to Phuket, the most famous beach in Thailand.  The students have midterms next week so I get the week off because they don't make us proctor the exams.  I have a really tough life over here.  Phuket, and the neighboring island of Koh Phi Phi, are supposed to be pretty incredible so look for some cool pictures sometime after Christmas.  I think this will be my last post before the holiday so I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas.

The King's Birthday

I’ve fallen a week behind with my posts so this one actually covers what happened last weekend, not this past weekend.  I plan on catching up this week, so look for another post coming in the next few days.

A few of us spent the week scrambling around trying to figure out where we were going to travel.  We felt like we needed to travel because it was going to be a three day weekend in celebration of the King’s birthday and we didn’t want the opportunity of a longer than usual trip to pass us by.  However, after many failed plans (it seems that because of the day off people had booked trips well in advance and every hotel and bus was booked) we decided on taking advantage of all that Bangkok had to offer for the holiday.

Saturday, a bunch of us got together at the bus station and took a quick trip north of the city to the International Balloon and Adventure Sports Festival.  We had heard a little bit about the relatively new festival and decided to give it a try.  It actually turned out to be pretty cool.  We spent the afternoon doing some white-water rafting.  It certainly wasn’t the most intense river around but it was still a lot of fun.  

That night, the festival had a hot air balloon show.  I imagined this would involve them actually taking flight but it really didn’t.  What they did instead was light the balloon’s torches to the tune of various John Williams songs.  

It was really fun seeing these giant hot air balloons light up in sequence with the music.  Overall, it was a pretty nice day trip.

Sunday came and Bangkok was all done up for the King’s birthday.  People were everywhere.  All over the city people were gathering to celebrate and get ready for the night’s fireworks.  We wound up walking over to a park that had a big parade planned.  Somehow a bunch of us got separated.  My friend Lee and I were trying to catch up with everyone and wound up actually walking in the parade.  We are pretty sure that the people in charge of security didn’t know how to speak English so they just didn’t bother telling us to get behind the barricades.  It was very funny being surrounded by Thais while the two of us were so clearly out of place and holding beers as we walked.

Lee clearly doesn't fit in with this group

After we met up with everyone else we watched the fireworks show.  It was pretty awesome.  While the show was going on people began launching lanterns into the sky.  They are basically miniature hot air balloons.  A small fire is connected to a bag-like piece and the heat of the fire causes the bag to rise into the sky.  It’s really amazing to see these things start to fill up the sky all over Bangkok. 

I couldn't get a good shot of all of them in the sky but this is a close up of one of them.  They launch these things for every celebration.

We ended our night in the backpacking district of Bangkok.  This is basically a place with a lot of bars and a lot of foreigners.  It was a really fun night and the best part was that I was able to come home to my own apartment rather than a hotel room.

Crazy Monkeys

Last weekend, I planned on having a relaxing time in Bangkok.  Some friends were coming into town and I was actually looking forward to the chance to hang out around the city and come back to my own apartment on a weekend night for a change.  Friday night everything went according to plan.  A bunch of us got together at a great place downtown and then they all came back here for the night.  Saturday, however, everything changed and I'm really glad it did.

My friends convinced me to join them at the "Monkey Festival" in the city of Lopburi.  I knew nothing about the festival but after some convincing arguments I figured, when else would I have the chance to attend a monkey festival?  So off we went to this city two hours north of Bangkok.

The only regret of the trip turned out to be our last minute decision making.  Apparently, this festival is the biggest event of the year in the small city so naturally all but the worst hotel were sold out.  And when I say worst, I mean it.  It was nasty.  I actually had to go out and buy insect killer when we first got there.  I guess I was bound to stay in a disgusting place or two during my time here.

But other than that it turned out to be one of the most fascinating experiences of my life.  The entire city is inhabited by wild monkeys.  They are EVERYWHERE.  They climb on all the buildings and street poles.  More often than not if you look up at the telephone wires while walking down the sidewalk you will see a monkey hanging up there.

It was really crazy.  There are so many monkeys that the shop owners all have b.b. guns.  Whenever a pack of monkeys blocks the entrance to their store or restaurant they go outside and shoot them to scare them off.

Apparently, these monkeys have been around for centuries.  The ruins of an ancient temple sit in the middle of the city and the town puts out food for the monkeys everyday at ten a.m. and four p.m.  I guess despite how annoying the monkeys are on the street, they bring a lot of tourism to the city so the residents want to keep them there.

So it was into this environment that we arrived Saturday night.  The first thing we saw regarding the monkeys was this sign:

Definitely foreboding but we were certainly intrigued.  Only a few minutes later we came upon the temple ruins where the monkeys congregate.  It was insane.  There were monkeys everywhere.  It was actually a little bit scary thinking that these packs of wild monkeys could just come right up to you.  We managed to get to our hotel (it barely deserves that title) safely and then actually met up with a lot of people from orientation.  I think there were about 25 people there who were part of the program. That was a nice surprise.  We had a great night comparing teaching stories and telling each other about the great places we've traveled to.

Sunday morning, the real fun started.  This was when the actual festival took place.  The festival is always during the last weekend of November and it is a way for the city's residents to give thanks to the monkeys for bringing tourists to the city.  It's basically monkey Thanksgiving.  We made our way back over to the temple ruins and found the place swarming with both monkeys and people.  We wound up surrounded by the very same monkeys that seemed so intimidating the night before.  It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The town puts out trays and trays of food and the monkeys just take whatever they want.  I found it hilarious that they actually set up a few tables with chairs and covered them with food and drinks.  I watched one monkey desperately trying to open a Pepsi and when a guy tried to help him he slapped him across the head.  Eventually, the monkey got it opened and seeing a monkey drinking a Pepsi is almost as funny as seeing it slap a guy.  The monkeys were actually pretty friendly, as long as you weren't trying to steal their food.  Some of them would even jump on peoples' backs and try to open their backpacks.  One of them stole my friend Lee's sunglasses and actually put them on.  We all had a blast.  It was definitely something that could only possibly take place in Thailand.  It really was one of the top three experiences I've had over here.  The pictures below show some of the madness.


The table is set:

A monkey with some manners:

Monkeys with no manners:

Crazy monkeys:

Hungry monkeys:

He is definitely in charge of the crew:

Stephanie and her monkey friend:

The coolest monkey around:

This past weekend was the King's birthday so I'll have a post about that coming in the next few days.  In the weeks between now and Christmas I'll be heading to Kanchanaburi and Phuket.  There will be plenty of pictures and much to talk about from those trips.

Teaching Update

So far, teaching has been outstanding.  Originally, I thought it would be an interesting aspect of this experience but that I would enjoy the traveling and living in a different culture a lot more.  I'm not entirely sure that that is the case though.  While I can't go so far as to say this experience has me wanting to be a teacher when I return home, I do feel like it's one of the best things I've ever done.  I really love being in front of the classroom.

Sure, there are some classes that are a real pain.  My first Matium 3 class (the same age as freshmen in high school) on Mondays is terrible.  I leave the class very frustrated every week.  It seems that no matter what kind of lesson I plan, they don't pay any attention and they just continually talk amongst themselves and do whatever they want.  Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to teach a pack of monkeys.  I think in the future I'm going to need to be far stricter with this class than with any others.

However, these annoying classes are certainly just a small minority.  Most of the classes are just great.  I've established a very good relationship with all of the Matium 6 classes already.  Teachers are extremely well respected over here but I knew that it would be awkward to require these students, who are only a few years younger than me, to treat me the same way they treat the teachers who are in their 60's.  While they certainly are respectful towards me and do as I say, I allow the class to be far more casual than most other teachers probably do.  They know that they can relax a little bit in my class and we will have fun.  I actually feel like this helps me get more accomplished with them than if I was extremely strict.

I've also established a pretty good relationship with most of my Matium 3 classes.  Some, as I stated before, are not as good as others but most of them are outstanding.  The one that really sticks out to me is M3/3.  As I wrote in an earlier post, Matium 3 goes from 3/1-3/12.  Supposedly, the lower the class number, the less intelligent they are.  Obviously, this is not a system that would be totally accepted in the U.S., but it's the way they do things here.  In turn, many of the teachers here would have you believe that the lower the class intelligence, the more poorly they behave.  While this seems understandable, I find that there are certain aberrations;  3/3 is one of them.  They are just a great class.  They actually speak fairly good English and they really get into all of the lessons I plan.  I find myself looking forward to 4th period on Thursday every week.

Overall, school has been great.  Many of the teachers I work with are awesome.  They love talking to us Westerners because they all love practicing their English (and most of them really need the practice).  The students, for the most part, are great as well.  I have yet to walk down a crowded hallway without hearing a few students say "hello teacher" or (out of a few of the wise asses) "yo teacher."  Often times the students will bow to you as you walk by (this is called a "wai" in Thailand).

One of the things I found amazing is how many days off we are given.  I've now been teaching for almost five weeks and have yet to have a full week of classes.  Each week there is some event at school or some national holiday that requires an off day.  I love teaching but I'm certainly not going to complain about a day off here or there.

One of these special events took place last week.  The entire English department chaperoned Matium 5's visit to a Thai culture show.  It was one of the coolest things I have done so far.  The show was amazing.  The stage was absolutely enormous.  There were over 150 people in the cast.  The best part was that there was no speaking.  You didn't need to understand Thai to follow the show.  After a brief introduction in Thai and then in English, they did not speak again.  The first act of the performance showed the four main regions of traditional Thailand.  The second act showed the three areas of the Buddhist afterlife.  At one point a full, flowing river appeared on stage and stayed for the remainder of the performance.  I thought it might be a little shallow pool until an actor actually dove in and then three boats went speeding down it.  It was pretty incredible.

As I'm sure is clear, teaching has been pretty great.  I really have enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.  However, I have a lot of days off during the month of December so there will be plenty of new posts as I continue to visit new parts of the country over the next couple of weeks.

I've been asked by a few people about my address.  I'm told the easiest way to get things here is by sending it to my school.  That address would be:

Connor Hickey
English Department
Suksanareewitiya School
76/4 Moo 3.
Bangbon, Bangkok 10150

Loy Krathong

This past weekend, Thailand celebrated the festival of Loy Krathong.  It really is an amazing festival and I was thrilled to see it celebrated firsthand.

My excitement started early last week when the students and other teachers started telling me about the festival.  Although the actual day of the festival was supposed to be Sunday, my school celebrated it Friday afternoon.  I had many of my classes attempt to explain the meaning behind the celebration.  Eventually, I learned a few things about the holiday.  The focus of the day is the launching of "krathongs" into a body of water (anything from the main river in Bangkok to a bathtub is acceptable).  A krathong is a piece of banana tree stump decorated with banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and three incense sticks.

The launching of the krathong is supposed to represent a number of things.  The first is an apology to the river god for both polluting and using his water over the past year.  The second is to ask for forgiveness for our wrong doings over the past year.  Finally, it represents things you are asking the gods for over the coming year.

The other major event of the festival is the Noppamas Queen Beauty Contest.  It is named after the Queen who is given credit with inventing the first krathong.  For the contest, one girl from each class competed against the other girls her age.  They were all dressed in traditional Thai clothing and had their hair and makeup set in the traditional way.

I couldn't help but imagine the outrage that would occur in the United States if a school set up a beauty contest between a bunch of 11 year old girls.  Not only that, but each contestant (with one from each class and as many as 12 classes per grade, there were a lot of girls in this contest) was given a long introduction (in Thai of course) where their weight was included as part of the facts about them.  It just goes to show how different many cultures around the world can be.  While the beauty contest was going on, they also had a field day of sorts for the students (and teachers like me) that weren't so into the contest.  I really enjoyed hanging out with many of my students in a more informal setting.

Me and the two other Americans I teach with, Becca and Jim, were treated like celebrities the entire day. We were asked to dress in traditional Thai outfits for the event.  This was not too hard for Jim and I as we were only required to wear a flowery shirt (although mine looked like a cross between scrubs a nurse would wear and the shirts that the outside bartenders at Churchill's used to have to wear) but poor Becca had to spend all morning getting dressed by the Thai girls.  The picture below shows Becca and I with a number of our bosses and coworkers.  It also shows how much taller I am than the rest of this country.

After the beauty contest, we were asked to join the director of our school in a small parade over to where the krathongs were to be launched.  The school doesn't have a nearby river so they simply flooded an area of the parking lot.  I was skeptical of this at first but it actually turned out pretty cool.  The first picture below shows the krathong that was made for me.  The other pictures are of all of the krathongs (each class had one) floating on the man made lake.

After school, Becca and I headed out to meet some friends of ours in downtown Bangkok.  We were lucky to stay in a great room overlooking Bangkok's largest river for the weekend.  As I said, the festival was officially on Sunday but Friday and Saturday night both saw a lot of fireworks and river celebrations.

It was definitely a great weekend to be in Thailand.  I really enjoy the chances I get to learn about Thai culture.  I was thrilled that the holiday fell during my time over here.  I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.  I'm very jealous that I can't be home to celebrate.  Eat some turkey for me.

Koh Samet

Sorry for the long delay since my last post.  It's been a busy couple of weeks over here between school, holidays, and traveling.  Over the next few days I plan to upload a few different posts about what I've been up to over the past two weeks.  First up, Koh Samet.

Koh Samet is the closest island to Bangkok.  Located just three hours away by bus and a short ferry, its very easy to get to for a quick weekend at the beach.  A few of us decided that last weekend would be the perfect weekend to visit the island we've heard so much about.

Many resources describe Koh Samet as an absolutely beautiful place but they also give a word of warning. Apparently, its close proximity to Bangkok causes it to be extremely crowded on the weekends, with both foreigners and local Thais.  Because we all had to teach on Friday, I was worried that we might not be able to get a room for the weekend.  Despite these fears, we headed to the island to see what would happen.  I'm thrilled that we did.

My coworker Becca and I departed immediately from school on Friday and met two friends of ours at the train station in the center of Bangkok.  It was surprisingly easy, and cheap, to get a bus down to Bang Phe (where we would catch a ferry to Koh Samet).  The bus actually turned out to be really nice. They gave us bottled water and snacks during the ride.  We arrived in Bang Phe knowing that we were too late to catch the last ferry to Koh Samet, so we met more of our friends at a hotel right next to the pier with plans to catch the first ferry to the island Saturday morning.  The hotel was run by an Australian and, although it was far from the nicest place I have ever stayed, I liked it because I had the opportunity to eat the most delicious cheeseburger I've had since I've been in Thailand.  This is not really a great accomplishment, I guess, because it only beat out one other cheeseburger for that award.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed having a meal without rice for a change.

We woke up around 7:00 am Saturday morning and headed over to the pier to catch a ferry.  Again, this was unbelievably easy.  I've found that many of the people on the islands speak far better English than people around where I teach.  This makes traveling a bit less hectic.  The ferry got us to the island around 8:00 am and we headed off in search of a hotel.  Two friends I was traveling with had been to Koh Samet a few weeks before this and they said there was a hotel that they had seen and would like to try.  The rest of us were all rookies on the island so we followed their lead.  They made a great choice.  We got a little cottage with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  It was a total of 1,400 baht (45 dollars) between six people.  We were surrounded by other travelers our age and we were only a five minute walk from the beach.  It really turned out to be a great place to stay.

We spent all day Saturday relaxing on the beach.  It was a beautiful place.  Perfectly clear, warm water.  White sand that looked like flour.  It was everything the guidebooks said it would be.

And despite the warnings, the island certainly didn't feel overly crowded.  That afternoon, a few of us decided to go on a boat cruise/snorkeling tour of the island.

It was a lot of fun.  The snorkeling wasn't the best that I think I'll experience while over here but the ride around the island, seeing all of the different beaches and cliffs, was really cool.

That night was one of the most fun I've had in Thailand.  We got dinner at a restaurant on the beach and were pleasantly surprised when fire dancers started performing.  They can do amazing things with the fire.

They performed for at least forty-five minutes.  It was really awesome to see.  After that, my buddy Lee and I headed over to the Mauy Thai boxing ring set up across the street from our hotel.  We had a lot of fun betting each other which fighter would win each fight.  Following that, we decided to test out the pizza place down the road.  It may have been the fact that at that point in our night we were hungry for anything, but it was outstanding.

The next day, sadly, we had to leave.  It was a quick trip but definitely worth it.  On our way home, the bus "broke down."  We found out later that it had in fact run out of gas.  We should have been tipped off when the driver started driving forty miles an hour and turning off the AC intermittently.  Only in Thailand would the guy decide not to stop until he could actually go no further.

Despite that small fiasco, the trip was an amazing success.  As I already said, there will be a few posts coming up in the next few days concerning teaching updates and Thai holidays.  Hope everyone is enjoying reading them.

First Week Teaching

Last week the semester finally began at my school, Suksanareewittiya School.  As I prepared my lesson plans for the week I tried to keep in mind all that we had been taught during orientation.  It was actually very hard to plan for the week because there were so many variables.  The laid back attitude of most Thais led them to tell us very little information about our classes.  As I've already posted, I knew I would be teaching M3 (the equivalent of American freshmen) and M6 (seniors) but that was pretty much it.  I had no curriculum, no schedule, and nothing really to indicate what I should prepare for.  I was just told to be in the office by 8:00 am on Monday.

Rather than teach them any particular vocabulary or grammar on the first day, I decided to keep my lesson to strictly an introduction of me and some activities to get them talking.  Because I had no indication as to their proficiency with English, I prepared the same lesson for M3 and M6.  I knew I would be able to add or subtract to the lesson both in terms of quantity and difficulty once I got an idea about each particular class.

So with my lesson plan ready and my clothes freshly ironed I set off to school.  It's conveniently located directly across the street from my apartment so the commute is pretty outstanding.  I arrived at my desk and was immediately handed my weekly schedule.  Seemed to me to be a good start.  I was then told that the first two periods were canceled because the students had an assembly.  Looking at my schedule, I noticed that, because the first two periods were cancelled, my first class of the day wasn't until 6th period.  This gave me time to relax but also allowed me to become increasingly nervous.  It didn't help that every teacher in the English department, upon learning that my first class would be M6/7 responded with an, "uh oh good luck."  Apparently, M6/7 is one of the worst classes in the school.  I was perplexed  when looking at my schedule and seeing various numbers like the 6/7 above.  It turns out that classes are grouped based on academic ability.  So for M3 it goes from M3/1 to M3/12.  For M6 it goes from M6/1 to M6/8.  I later learned that for M3, the higher the class number, the higher the class's academic ability. This confused me because I knew that M6/7 was a very bad class.  I was told that M6/7 and M6/8 (all athletes) are the worst classes in the M6 grade.  Assuming that it must work the opposite of M3 then, I asked if my M6/1 students were going to be my best M6 students.  I was told no, my M6/5 class is my best class.  So basically, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to the class number.  It is going to be one of the things I need to learn to deal with as the semester progresses.  The bottom line is that, like most teachers, there are going to be some classes I love and there are going to be some classes I don't really look forward to.

The other thing I learned on Monday morning was that I am actually working closely with a number of other teachers and basically taking their class once a week.  So I see each class one time per week.  They take an English class every day but their "core teacher" teaches them the other four days of the week.  It is my job to focus on their pronunciation and speaking ability rather than their grammar and writing abilities.  Over the course of the week I met the other teachers in the office and also the five teachers (three for M3 and two for M6) whose classes I will be teaching once per week.  The thing that really shocked me was how poor many of these teachers are with English.  They know the ins and outs of the grammar side of things better than most Americans do, but their speaking ability is unbelievably bad.  It makes sense why they would want to give the students exposure to native English speakers at least once a week.  However, that being said, seeing so many students is a bit overwhelming.  There are 50 students in a class and I teach 20 classes each week so I see a total of 1,000 students each week.  Learning all of their names will be quite an achievement.

Armed with a basic understanding of how (I think) the system works, I was ready for my first class.  Many of the core teachers accompany us to our classes this week in an effort to keep the students from walking all over the new teachers.  The core teacher for my first class, along with three other M6 classes, is P'Noi.  She is very nice but I think I'm going to be more comfortable next week when I have the class to myself.  She spent the entire period translating everything I said into Thai.  Obviously, this is extremely counterproductive when trying to get them to learn English.  Other than that, the class went as well as I could have expected my first class to go.  The students were certainly as rowdy as I was warned they would be but my voice is loud enough that I was able to maintain control for the majority of the class.  Interestingly, this seems to be a problem for many Thai teachers.  They often use microphones to project their voice so that the whole class can hear.  I was offered my own microphone and speaker the first day but I declined.  I would not have enjoyed the restriction of having to stand at the front of the room the whole time with the thing in my hand. I prefer to walk around the classroom throughout my lesson.

After this class I had my first M3 class, M3/5.  My core teacher for this class is actually a young teacher  named Por who I've become friendly with over the past two weeks and she was very helpful.  She didn't translate anything until the students really couldn't understand something I was trying to explain.  Only then would she give them a hint in Thai to help them figure it out.  Por is certainly one of the better core teachers I work with.  Two of them actually don't even show up to class.  I prefer this because I like having my own control over the class and I feel like the students respect you more if they know that you can control the class without the help of a Thai teacher.  The final core teacher was definitely less than helpful.  She actually corrected, to the whole class, a mistake that I had missed in something that a student had written on the board.  Later she came running in and announced that class was over.  I waited until she left and then kept the students five minutes late because I was so annoyed.  Hopefully, it was just the first week and she will back off in the future.

Overall, the first week went great.  As nervous as I was Monday morning, I was actually extremely excited for each class by the end of the week.  I really enjoy being in front of the room and teaching these kids about my native language.  There were certainly some challenging classes.  The lower M3 class are really hard to communicate with and many of them just misbehave the entire class.  I keep reminding myself to have patience with these classes because I really feel like the system has screwed them.  They are put in these classes and its painfully obvious that many teachers don't give them half the effort that they give to the higher ranked classes.  How are they supposed to move up if the teachers don't give them the necessary tools to do so?  The other thing I realized when they misbehave is that I was enough of a smart ass in high school to know how to deal with the smart asses in the back of the room.  I actually like those types of students sometimes because it beats the alternative of having a whole class look at you and not respond to anything you are saying.  I usually just make the bad kids who sit in the back be the first ones to answer a question or read in front of the class.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are some really outstanding classes.  Many of the more proficient M6 classes are very good at English.  They are all 18 and 19 years old so I approach these classes a little bit more casually than I would otherwise.  Some of these classes are certainly going to develop into more laid back, conversation oriented lessons.  The better M3 classes are equally amazing.  There have been a number of them that I walked out of in a great mood because the students were so good and they clearly just got the lesson.  One class in particular stands out.  I had M3/11 last Friday.  They are a really smart class and I knew that they would be great with all the material I was going over.  Like I said before, the lesson plan was just basic introductory things.  One of the questions was "What is your favorite sport?"  I had one of them write it on the board and then I had them repeat it after me in unison. As many people know, the letter "r" is traditionally a challenge for Asian speakers.  In addition to this, they often confuse "v" with "w."  This class, for some reason, had particular trouble with the word "favorite."  As a result, I had a bunch of 14 year old Thais pronouncing "favorite" as "faw-o-lit."  For the life of me I could not get them to say it the right way.  As hard as I tried, they just couldn't do it.  After many attempts, the entire room was just laughing, as was I, because they all knew that they just couldn't say it the right way.  M3/11 is certainly a class I am going to be looking forward to this coming week.

Speaking of this week, we have off until Thursday.  Apparently, all of the Thai teachers must take the kids camping.  I don't know how this works with 3,000 kids but it should be interesting.  So now I've worked five days and I get three off.  I think I could get used to this Thai system.

I think I will be traveling this weekend to one of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand.  Should be a pretty great trip.  I've got a tough life over here, three days off and then a trip to the beach.  Expect a post sometime next week about how it went.

Halloween Penthouses

Last weekend was surely one to remember.  My friend Chris called me on Wednesday to tell me that he had managed to get a bunch of us a penthouse suite overlooking the river in downtown Bangkok.  We had planned on going out downtown for the weekend anyway but the prospect staying in a beautiful apartment made it even more exciting.  It turns out that Chris has close family connections to two very prominent Thai doctors.  One of them, in fact, performed hand surgery for the Queen of Thailand a few years back.  They had a spare apartment and insisted that we stay in it for the weekend.

Six of us arrived on Friday and had dinner with Chris's family friends.  It was a delicious meal, the plates just kept coming.  We were then taken over to the apartment.  It was amazing. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two large family rooms and two balconies on different sides of the building each with an outstanding view of the entire city.

Friday night we enjoyed ourselves at the apartment.  It was a welcome change for all of us after being in some pretty shabby surroundings for the past month.

Saturday was one of the more fun days I've had since my arrival in Thailand.  We were invited to a retirement party for the Queen's hand surgeon.  It was very cool to be a part of a celebration in a different culture.  Again, plate after plate of food was brought out to the tables until we just couldn't eat anymore.  Then the karaoke started.  It is a Thai tradition that whoever sings one song picks the person who will get up and sing the next song.  Inevitably, we were chosen so the six of us together sang "Hey Jude."  It is another tradition that the other people at the party present flowers to the singers based on how well they do.  We each got three flowers.  I guess it's better than getting booed off stage.

That night some of our friends from orientation came over to the apartment.  We all hung out there for awhile then headed to Koh San Road.  Koh San Road is known as the "backpackers' district."  It is notorious for its nightlife.  It certainly lived up to the hype.  They had giant stages set up in the middle of the street in celebration of Halloween and people were walking around in crazy costumes.  We met up with some more people from orientation, altogether there were about 20 of us, and we all had a blast.

The weekend was better than I ever could have imagined it would be.  Our hosts made us promise that we would come back and stay at the apartment soon.  I think that probably won't be a problem at all.

Hua Hin

This past weekend a few of us decided it would be nice to take a trip to one of the many beaches in Thailand.  A couple of us don't start teaching until next week but even the ones that started this week did not have to teach on Monday because it was a national holiday.  This allowed us to make plans to travel to a beach that is about eight hours away from Bangkok, called Koh Tao.  We were all very excited to have a nice relaxing weekend.  Unfortunately, we got to the main train station in Bangkok early Friday morning only to find out that all of the buses to Koh Tao were sold out.  This was obviously a buzz kill and in most situations, our entire weekend would have been ruined.  However, this being Thailand with its abundance of beaches, we just picked at different beach and got a van there.  The beach we hastily settled upon is called Hua Hin.

It turned out to be a fantastic decision.  The trip was way shorter than it would have been if we had gone to Koh Tao.  The town was fantastic.  Very small and a little bit more touristy than many places but everyone was very friendly and constantly tried to make us feel at home.  When we first arrived, we checked out a few hotels but none of them really appealed to us.  Fortunately, we stumbled upon one, Pattana Guesthouses, that turned out to be outstanding.  It is a small, family run hotel with antique, teakwood furniture all over the place.  The best part about it was that it only cost 250 baht a night.  This is a little bit more than 8 dollars.

After getting settled into the hotel, we headed down to check out the beach.  It was a great stretch of beach with chairs and umbrellas available everywhere.  Like most tourist places, there were vendors all over the place.  If you managed not to let them annoy you too much, the place was everything you could ask for in a tropical beach. The sand was white as can be and the water was so warm it felt like a heated pool.  We had a very relaxing few days.

The nights were also a lot of fun.  As I said, it was very touristy so there were a lot of young people around.  We made friends with a group of people from the Netherlands and sang a lot of karaoke with them on Saturday night.  That was also the night that a few of us worked up the courage, with the help of some beers, to try fried grasshoppers.  Once you got past the idea of eating a grasshopper, it actually didn't taste too terrible.  The texture, more than the taste, was what I didn't like.  Needless to say, while I'm glad I tried it, grasshopper is not something I'll ever feel the need to eat again.

Our spontaneous trip to Hua Hin turned out to be a big success.  If all of my weekend trips turn out to be this much fun, its going to be a quick five months.

Move In

Last Tuesday, after riding around on elephants all morning, Orientation came to a close.  That afternoon we all traveled by bus back to Bangkok where we were each picked up by our School Coordinators.  My coordinator, basically the liaison between my school and the program that hired me, is named Pee Moo.  Moo isn't really her name but it is the nickname she goes by because she, like all Thais, has an extremely long name.  Thais use the term Pee before a name when addressing a superior and Nong before a name when addressing an inferior.  So she is Pee Moo to me and I am Nong Connor to her.  Just another interesting cultural difference to remember.  Anyway, Pee Moo picked me and the other teacher from the program who will be teaching at my school, Becca, up around five o'clock on Tuesday.  It took us about 40 minutes to get from Bangkok to our small town of Bang Bon.  I was actually really pleased that it was such a short trip because many of my fellow teachers were sent as far away as 8 hours from Bangkok.  On the way home we stopped for our "welcome dinner".... at KFC.  Its a very popular fast food place around here and I guess it was a very nice gesture for them to take us to an American place.  Either way, the food was good and I didn't have to eat rice for the 100th time that week so I didn't mind.

The neighborhood where I will be teaching is interesting.  As I already said, its proximity to Bangkok is a huge plus.  Unfortunately, there is not much in the form of entertainment very close to me.  There are many food carts around and a very big market only a short walk away but beyond that there isn't going to be much to do in the evenings.  I'm a little bit worried about this but I feel like once school starts, I'll be busy enough.  I guess its a good thing I collected all those movies before I left.

My apartment is actually pretty nice.  It basically consists of one huge room and a bathroom.  No real cooking area but that's ok because I usually just get dinner from one of the street vendors.  They charge about 30 baht, 1 dollar, a meal.  Living on a budget isn't too hard here.  Within my apartment I have the biggest bed I've ever slept in.  I don't think its quite a king size bed but its close.  However, between school and traveling almost every weekend I don't think I'll be spending too much time shut in my room.

As I said in an earlier post, school starts next Monday, November 1st.  I think that is when I'll get a better idea of what my daily life will be like here in Bang Bon.

War Bridges and Elephants

The final few days of orientation were fantastic.  I had the opportunity to get to know some great people who have been shipped to various schools all around Thailand.  Plans are already in the works to meet up on the weekends.  In addition to the classes we had during the day, we were able to enjoy the city at night.  Bangkok has a notorious nightlife so each and every night was fantastic.  One night in particular though, was more memorable than the rest.  The last night of our time in Bangkok about fifteen of us decided to travel to the "backpackers district" in the heart of this city.  This area has some of the best bars available.  We found an extremely large bar/club called The Gazebo.  It consisted of one giant room with live music and a few different bars and another room with a dance floor.  Only after being there for quite some time did I realize that the "ceiling" was actually a bunch of blankets and we were in fact on the roof of the building.  It was really cool.  The two live bands played almost exclusively American music and they were spot on in almost every song choice.  It made me wonder if the singers even knew what they were singing or if they were just talented enough to learn the words to a song in a completely different language. Either way, they were all extremely good.  Unfortunately, I was waiting for some Bruce to come on but didn't get so lucky.  At the end of the evening I saw one of the funniest things I've seen so far in Thailand.  Two girls got into a fight and one threw her shoe at the other one.  This would be amusing no matter where I was but it held special significance here.  For one thing, Thais never show anger.  It is one of the most socially inappropriate things to do.  It is commonly referred to as "losing face" and can ruin your reputation for a long time.  Secondly, and more important, the foot holds an interesting place in Thai society.  It is considered the lowest part of the body, both physically and spiritually.  Touching another person with your foot or even pointing your toes towards an image of Buddha is one of the highest forms of disrespect.  Knowing these two cultural attitudes made me understand just how much the shoe thrower wanted to disrespect the other girl.

On our second to last day of orientation we left Bangkok and headed west to the city of Kanchanaburi.  This is the location of the famous Bridge over the Rive Kwae.  The bridge was really cool.  It is amazing to think of the thousands of slaves and POWs (many of them Americans) who lost their lives in the Japanese work camps building the bridge.  The Japanese wanted a way to get from Burma into southeast Asia during WWII in order to continue their conquest of that area of the world.  One of the high points of the war for the Allies came when they were able to destroy the bridge that the Japanese so highly valued.  It was getting dark as we were at the bridge but I was able to get a few pictures off before it was too late.

That night we went to a really beautiful hotel on the river.  It was surrounded by mountains in every direction.  It was also my favorite night of orientation.  Everyone from our group (80 people or so) hung out at the hotel bar.  It really did feel like these people who I had just met a week before had become good friends.  I guess thats what happens when you spend every minute of an entire week with people and they are the only ones with the same language and culture as you. 

The next morning was one of the most unique I have ever had.  I got to ride an elephant.  It was awesome.  Each elephant carried two people and a driver.  Eventually, the driver got down and we were able to sit in the "driver's seat" (basically on top of the head).  It was a very cool experience and not one that I will soon forget.  Experiences such as this one make me glad I put off entering the real world for a few months.  Pictures of me and my buddy Chris with our elephant, Soon Kun, are below.

After the Elephant ride we went bamboo rafting.  It certainly wasn't white water rafting but it was very cool to ride down a river tucked deep in the mountains and enjoy the surroundings.  Inevitably, we all jumped in and floated down the river with the rafts.

Overall, orientation was outstanding.  I met some great people and was able to do some amazing things.  If this is any indication of what the next few months in Thailand will be like, it will be a great time.

The Grand Palace and The Temple of The Emerald Buddha

I know it has been a few days since my last post, orientation got very busy.  We spent much of the time learning Thai culture and language and various teaching methods.  However, we were also given the opportunity to go on a few trips around Bangkok and the surrounding provinces.  The first of these trips took place last Friday.  We went to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

The Palace is the most revered place in the entire country.  This is not only due to the immense admiration that the Thai people have for the Royal Family but also because the Grand Palace is home to the Emerald Buddha.  The history of the entire Palace is very long and intense so I won't bore you with it here.  In particular though, the Emerald Buddha, while very small, has a meaningful history to the people of Thailand and has been the object of various wars between Laos and Thailand over the past several centuries.  Unfortunately, it is so sacred that it cannot be photographed.  However, if you look closely at the picture below you can see the inside of the shrine that houses the Buddha.  He is in there in the distance where you can see the light.

Beyond the Emerald Buddha, the grounds of the Palace were amazing.  There were awesome buildings and statures all over the area.  The intricacy of the designs on these buildings is beyond belief.  I've included some pictures below and more will go on Facebook but I really think that they don't do justice to just how amazing these buildings are.

After leaving the Palace, we headed back to our hotel to meet our school specific coordinators.  I am teaching with one other participant and we were both a little bit nervous to meet our coordinator.  The meeting went very well though, she speaks fairly good english, and I learned that I will be teaching English at the M3 and M6 levels.  These are equivalent to freshman and seniors in high school.  I have 18 classes per week.  I will start teaching on November 1st and finish at the end of February.  Should be a quick semester.

I have more to share about orientation, riding elephants, and moving into my new apartment but my internet is about to run out so those will have to wait.  Look for more posts soon.