Cambodia

Now that teaching is over, I have some time to do some serious international travel all around Southeast Asia.  My travels will include three segments.  The first leg of my tour took place this past weekend with a trip to Cambodia.

I was really nervous about heading to Cambodia.  The country has only really become stable in the past ten years and even in that time it has had its share of problems.  I had read that the border crossing is a real pain in the neck and many of the officials at the border are very quick to charge outlandish fees.  It didn't help that every time I'd mention to one of my Thai co-workers that I was heading to Cambodia they'd groan and say "good luck with that." This reaction was probably due to the fact that Thailand and Cambodia aren't the friendliest of neighbors and as recently as two weeks ago shots were fired between the two armies at the border.

Despite all of this, a group of five of us set out to make the trek.  We decided it would be a good idea to head to the border on Thursday night and stay on the Thai side of the border that night. This would allow us to cross the border very early in the morning on Friday and beat all of the buses that leave Bangkok at 7 am to make the five hour trip.  We picked a cheap little motel in the border town and got a good night's sleep.  We woke up at 6 am and grabbed a tuk-tuk to the border.  Our plan worked out flawlessly and we had no trouble crossing the border.  The fees that they charged us were the correct ones and all of the instructions I had read beforehand were easily followed.  After crossing the border we needed to take a taxi the 150 kms to the town of Siem Reap.  Despite the fact that the taxi certainly overcharged us a bit, we were all thrilled to make it to our hotel without any major problems.  We considered it a pretty big accomplishment after all of the horror stories that we had read.

Siem Reap is the home of the famous ruins of Angkor Wat.  We knew that we didn't have enough time to explore many areas of the country so we went straight to the country's top dog.  Apparently, the ruins, which are hundreds of years old, are the result of the tradition by the ancient Khmer kings that each new king must build a bigger and better temple than his predecessor.  This, naturally, led to some pretty impressive buildings over time.  All that I had read/seen about the temples got me pretty excited to check them out.

After arriving in Siem Reap and getting settled at our guesthouse, we decided that we didn't have enough time to explore the ruins that evening but we'd make a full day of it the next day.  So instead, we spent Friday evening trying out the local beers at a pool bar in town.  Cambodia actually has some pretty delicious beers.  After having the same two Thai beers for the past six months, it was a real treat to try a few of the Cambodian options.  Okay, all of the Cambodian options.  Two that stand out in my mind are Black Panther Stout (the best name/can design award) and Angkor Wat Beer.  Despite the deliciousness of many of these beers, none of them compared to the joy I felt when I opened a cooler at one convenient store and saw an ice cold Budweiser staring back at me.  My buddy Lee and I were pretty thrilled about that one.

Lee and I with one of our favorite Cambodian beers.

Okay, enough about beer.  The real star of the weekend was the the ruins.  We woke up at 4:45 am Saturday morning because many of my fellow travelers wanted to see the sunrise at the temples.  We had arranged for a tuk-tuk driver to drive us around all day for a grand total of 15 dollars (surprisingly, Cambodia uses US Dollars as the default currency).  Our driver, Boran, picked us up at 5 am and we headed to the ruins.  I am not a morning person but I must say, seeing the sun rise over the temple ruins was pretty awesome.  After watching the sunrise, we headed inside the main temple, Angkor Wat. (To be clear, the area is know as the Angkor temples but there is also a specific temple, the most notorious of them all, named Angkor Wat.)  Angkor Wat was pretty spectacular;  it's absolutely enormous.  The work that must have gone into the place must have been tremendous.  Pictures are the only things that can really do justice to it so here they are:

Sunrise over Angkor Wat

The ancient temple of Angkor Wat

Inside Angkor Wat

After visiting Angkor Wat we grabbed some breakfast and Boran took us to the best ruins in the area.  There are over 50 temple ruins at Angkor so we needed to limit ourselves to the ones that sounded the coolest.  Of the ones we saw, two stick out in my memory.  The first was Bayon.  It was a labyrinth of crumbling walls and staircases.  There were hundreds of people walking around the temple while we were there but it was still very easy to get lost and find yourself in an abandoned hallway or an empty courtyard.  The coolest part about the temple were the giant pillars made of stone that had huge faces carved into each of the four sides.  Here are some picture of Bayon:

Bayon

Giant face pillars

It was like a maze.

Empty courtyard

The second very memorable temple that we visited was Ta Prohm.  It is known as the jungle temple.  The temple was built deep in the jungle and is now so old, and so worn down, that giant trees actually grow out of the walls and on top of the temple.  This one, like Bayon, was so enormous that it was easy, and really fun, to get lost in the temple.

Ta Prohm

Awesome

It's falling down

After grabbing a quick lunch and seeing a few other temples, we were exhausted.  I think Boran was a little bit bummed when we asked him to take us back to our guesthouse.  He was a great guy and we had a lot of fun with him throughout the day.  Upon arriving back at the hotel, we all crashed for a few hours.  We woke up around 6:30 pm and headed to the market so the girls could do some shopping while Lee and I continued our taste of Cambodian beers.  We had a really fun night that night on "pub street" in town.  I actually ran into a guy I knew from high school.  It certainly is a small world.

The next morning we woke up and headed straight to the border.  The trip home was definitely a little bit longer than the one on the way there but it wasn't terrible.

Overall, I was thrilled with Cambodia.  The people were amazingly friendly and always willing to talk. In fact, they spoke far better English than any Thais I've met, and I really enjoyed my time in the country. I know I only saw a small portion of the it but, nonetheless, it was a great experience.

In about an hour I head off for the second leg of my Southeast Asia tour.  I will be going to Laos with my friends Lee and Stephanie.  After four days in Laos we head to Vietnam for a week where we will meet up with some more friends.  Following that, I'll be traveling through parts of Thailand, most likely Southern Thailand, before finally heading back to my apartment around March 14th.  It will definitely be a great three weeks.

The End of the Ajarn (Teacher)

I still have another two months or so before I head home, but I've come to the end of a very important part of my time abroad:  Tomorrow will be my last day of teaching.  Truth be told, it's kind of bittersweet knowing that I won't be in front of the classroom anymore.

In one sense, I'm glad to be done with it.  Trying to teach English to Thai students while only being able to speak a minimal amount of Thai myself was incredibly frustrating at times.  If nothing else, I've learned a tremendous amount of patience from this job.  Although most of the students really were fantastic, there were certain classes that I definitely had a hard time enjoying.  These classes were often filled with students who constantly talked and misbehaved.  Trying to talk over fifty kids who are speaking a different language can get pretty annoying.  In addition to the language barrier and the behavior issues, the fact of the matter is that I just didn't see a number of my classes enough to have a noticeable impact on them.  Each of my twenty classes has fifty kids in it and I saw each class only once a week.  If I was able to see every class, every week, it still would have been hard to have an impact on all 1,000 of my students.  Add to this the fact that I almost never had an entire week full of classes.  There were days off, or at the very least periods off, almost every single week.  I'm certainly not complaining about this and I'm thrilled I was able to take advantage of my days off, but the point is that my work with the students seems to have been largely unsuccessful because of it.  For example, I saw my Friday morning classes a grand total of seven times.  A miracle worker would have struggled to teach these kids anything of substance in that limited amount time.

On the flip side, I really did love teaching.  Ninety-nine percent of the students were fantastic and unbelievably respectful.  Walking down the hall and getting a wai  (I would have called them Asian bows before I came here) from every student that passed was a really good feeling.  The fact that every time I walked into a classroom, all the students stood up and said "good morning teacher" in unison and remained standing until I said "good morning class, you may sit" was pretty awesome.  The fact that they all stood once again before I dismissed them and said "thank-you teacher, see you again next class" was just icing on the cake.  In addition to the the joy I got from the students, I really enjoyed the actual act of teaching.  It was a great feeling to see in the eyes of a class of fourteen-year-olds that something I had spent the last five minutes trying to explain was finally clicking.  There were many times where I'd walk out of a classroom so pumped because I knew that the kids got everything I was saying and the lesson was a complete success.  That kind of visible reward, while frustrating when it's absent, is amazing when it's present.

Do I think I'll choose to go into teaching as a profession when I get home?  Probably not.  But that doesn't mean I haven't absolutely loved the vast majority of my time as a teacher over here.  It has been a tremendous experience and it's definitely not something I'll ever forget.

Now that my nostalgia has been fully exhausted, on to a few fun things from the past week.  Last Friday there was a goodbye ceremony for my co-worker Jim and me.   We were told a few days beforehand that we were expected to give a goodbye speech to the entire student body....in Thai.  Seeing as I don't speak more than a few common phrases of the language, I knew I was screwed.  Fortunately, I was later told that the speech could be half English, half Thai.  I took advantage of this leeway and really didn't deliver much more than the opening greeting and the closing thank-yous in Thai.  The way I see it, asking me to give a speech in front of 3,000 people is one thing; asking me to do it in a language I don't speak is just plain mean.  Overall though, the ceremony was really nice.  First, the director of the school presented both Jim and me with gifts of flowers and an awesome traditional Thai shirt.  Then it was speech time.  Like I said, I used what limited Thai I knew and kept it short and sweet.  After the speech, a student representative gave each of us a gift from the student body.  Then, all of the students that we taught rushed up to us with roses and thank-yous.  It definitely fell in line with the reasons I described above as to why the students are so amazing.  The celebration ended with a ton of pictures with various people, many of which can be seen below.  Needless to say, I felt pretty important.

Receiving my gift from the director

Speech time

Official student gift

Picture with the administration

Gifts from the students

Jim and I with our coordinator, P'Moo, and one of my co-teachers, P'Noi.

Some members of the English Department

The one other fun thing that happened this week was my involvement with the teachers' volleyball team at my school. I guess each year six local government agencies (three schools, the public electric company, the court system, and the police department) compete in various athletic activities.  I was asked to play on the men's volleyball team for my school.  Heading into the match I really didn't know what to expect.  I was however, pretty pumped when I was given my own uniform with the school's name written on the back. Upon arriving for our first match and viewing our team I noticed that we looked alarmingly like volleyball's version of "the little giants."  Unfortunately, life is not a movie and we got pretty annihilated.  We played our second, and consequently final, match this afternoon and once again it wasn't pretty.  That being said, I really had a blast during the two matches.  All of the other teachers in the English department get really into the events so they came to watch.  They told me all week that they were going to come "cheer me up."  I finally had to tell them that I needed to be sad before they could cheer me up but would love it if they would come "cheer me on."  We had a lot of fun at both matches and I really enjoyed the chance to get to know some of my fellow teachers a little bit better.

Now that teaching is done I have quite a bit of traveling coming up.  This weekend I head to Cambodia to visit the famous Angkor Wat with a few friends.  If you've seen the Angelina Jolie movie "Tomb Raider," you've seen Angkor Wat.  It's supposed to be pretty amazing.  Two weeks ago, Thailand and Cambodia were involved in a bit of a border skirmish so I'm hoping we don't run into any problems.  I've heard that the area we are going to is quite safe but it should be intriguing nonetheless.  Expect an interesting post on that topic next week.  At the end of next week I begin a two week long journey through Laos and Vietnam followed immediately by a week in the south of Thailand.  It should be a pretty awesome few weeks.  There will definitely be some very long posts when I return.

Thai Visitors

My apologies for the long delay between blog posts.  The truth is that after Jen left there was very little to blog about for the remainder of January.  I didn’t take any trips and mostly just hung out around town.  I was actually really glad to have a few quiet weeks without traveling.  Although the area around my apartment can certainly get a bit boring, it was nice to have a few weeks to relax and catch up on sleep.  That being said, I was definitely ready for some fun by the end of the month.

Fortunately, I was in luck.  My Mom and my Aunt Noreen arrived for a visit on the 27^th of January.  I was thrilled to have more visitors.  They are both busy ladies so they were only able to stick around for a week but we certainly made the most of their time here.

After I surprised them at the airport, we all headed to their hotel in downtown Bangkok.  After a good meal and a lot of catching up I went back to my apartment and let them get some much-needed sleep.  The next day was a Friday and I thought it would be fun if they came to a few of my classes.  They arrived at my apartment in time for a quick lunch from the lady I go to everyday for noodles and rice.  After the meal (I think they liked it even though it was very spicy), we headed over to school for my last two classes of the day.  The first class, 3/10, was fantastic.  The class is one of my smarter classes and is generally pretty well behaved but always a little chatty.  But with the special visitors they were definitely showing off.  During class we played a game and I think they really enjoyed having the help from our guests.  Overall, the class was really cooperative and involved in the activity and I was very proud.  The second class that my visitors attended was 6/1.  For that class, we listened to speeches that the students presented.  They all did a great job and this class was very well behaved as well.  I think my Mom and Aunt Noreen really enjoyed attending classes.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t showing off for them a bit myself.

That evening, after a brief rest for the jet-lagged travelers, we headed back to the airport for a trip to the Thai island of Koh Samui.  Koh Samui is advertized as one of the most beautiful islands off the coast of Thailand so I was very excited to check it out.  We arrived late on Friday at the Marriott Resort on the island.  After spending the last four months staying in various backpacker hostels around Thailand, this place was heaven.  They could have given me a cot in the janitor’s closet and I would have been ecstatic.  What I got was a little bit better.  Being Peter Hickey’s son certainly has its perks. We had booked a regular hotel room at the resort but because my Dad stays at Marriotts during all of his business trips and the reservation was booked in his name, they upgraded us to a “private pool villa.”  It was the coolest room I’ve ever stayed in.  The bathroom alone was bigger than anywhere else I’ve stayed in this country.  And the best part was that we had a small pool all to ourselves. Who knew that all of my dad's time traveling for work for the past thirty years would pay off for me in Thailand?

Our "villa"

Our own pool

Hotel pool

Hotel beach

Hotel beach

Hotel sunset

The next day the weather was not so great.  There were clouds in the sky most of the morning and by noon it was raining.  I decided to hit up the spa and got a nice massage.  I really have it rough over here.  The sun did come out for a few hours that afternoon so we managed to get a bit of beach time.  That evening we had a great dinner at one of the restaurants at the resort.  I think my Mom was a little bit grossed out that during my time in Thailand I’ve developed the ability to eat a whole grilled fish right off the bone.  I’m actually not so bad at getting past the scales and avoiding the little bones.  I haven’t, however, acquired a taste for the eyes just yet.

The next day the weather again wasn’t too great so we capitalized on the chance to take a tour of the island.  We saw some interesting things but overall I wasn’t very impressed with the tour.  I took a few pictures of the wats (temples) on the island, a pretty cool waterfall, and a monk that died while praying and was later mummified in that position. Those pictures (and a few others) can be seen below.  That night we went into town and got dinner at an Irish place.  It was actually really good.  Afterward, the two party animals and I closed out the hotel bar (at 11 o’clock).  It was a very fun night.

Chinese Buddha

Chinese temple

Koh Samui Waterfall

They aren't in the Bronx anymore.

They refused to ride an elephant.

Mummified monk

Proud beer drinker

Finally, on the third day of the trip the weather cooperated.  We had a beautiful day relaxing on the beach.  I even got a nice sunburn to commemorate the trip.  Sadly, that night we had to hop on a plane and leave Koh Samui, I had to teach the remainder of the week and my Mom and Aunt Noreen still hadn’t seen much of Bangkok.

Tuesday afternoon, after teaching, I met them in downtown Bangkok.  They had spent the morning doing some heavy shopping in the silk and silver districts of Bangkok.  I did a bit of shopping myself, taking advantage of their opinions to help me get my sisters’ Christmas presents.  Sure, it’s late for Christmas but I won’t see them until April so the way I see it I actually bought them early.  I'm such a great brother.  After shopping we had a fantastic dinner at a hotel on the Chao Phraya River in downtown Bangkok. 

Wednesday is my easy day of classes.  I only have to teach the first two periods of the day so we saved the bulk of our Bangkok sightseeing for that afternoon.  We decided to take the river ferry to the various temples along the river.  We visited the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and, although it was my third time there, the private tour guide that we (ok, they) hired made it the best visit I've had so far.  We then visited a bunch of other wats along the river and, of course, they did some shopping.  We finished that night off with another fantastic dinner, this time at a steakhouse.

Appropriate clothes required at the Grand Palace.

They loved the climb up Wat Arun.

Thursday came and once again I had to teach all day but was able to meet them in the early evening.  I had heard about a place called “Vertigo Moon Bar” on the top of one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok so we decided to check it out. I figured it would be similar to observations decks and restaurants at the top of various buildings in America and would consist of floor to ceiling windows on all sides.  I was wrong.  The restaurant was actually on top of the building, in open air.  It was amazing.  The view was fantastic and the food was really good.  It was definitely an awesome experience.

Vertigo Moon Bar

Not a bad view

Lovely Bangkok

Enjoying the environment

It was even cooler when it got dark.

Unfortunately, Friday came and it was time for them to head home.  I don’t think they were too excited to head back to the frozen northeast and leave this 85-degree weather behind.  Overall, it was one of my favorite weeks in Thailand.  For one week I lived and ate like a king.  They treated me to some pretty fantastic meals and some great sightseeing.  I’m pretty sure that they had a great time.  I know I certainly did.

Jen's Visit

I was very lucky, and extremely grateful, to have an awesome visit from Jen for the past two weeks.  It was easily my favorite two weeks since I've been here.  Due to the fact that we were extremely busy while she was here, I haven't blogged in awhile.  So here is a rundown on everything that we did during her adventure in Thailand.

 
I should begin by saying that the adventure came very close to being made dramatically shorter and almost did not happen at all.  The big snowstorm that struck the east coast nearly wreaked havoc on Jen's trip.  However, she, unlike most people from what I understand, was able to make it out of JFK on her scheduled flight.  The hardest part was actually getting to JFK, due to many canceled buses and trains.  She managed to get there in time and made it to Thailand Wednesday night in one, very tired, piece.
 

Fortunately, Thursday was pretty much a day off for me.  The school had its annual sports day so there were no classes.  Sports day is basically a combination of what we would call field day at home and dancing routines similar to those in Red and Gold.  All of the students are divided into four teams represented by color.  Each team participates in the various athletic activities and creates dance routines.  It was really cool to watch my students playing sports but I must say I had less interest in the dance part of things.  It was also a nice time to give Jen a tour of my school. That night, my school hosted a New Year’s Eve dinner party, which gave Jen a chance to meet the teachers I work with (as well as get a taste of some Thai karaoke).  I think she enjoyed seeing that side of my Thai lifestyle.

Intense action on the track during Sports Day.

"The Yellow Airplanes"

"Green Magic"

My personal favorite..."Cow Blue"

That Friday was New Year’s Eve and we headed out early to catch a bus to the island of Koh Chang, in the Gulf of Thailand.  The five hour bus ride was no fun but it was well worth it; the island was amazing.  The beaches were relaxing, the restaurants were nice, and the bars were all fun.  We met up with a few friends of mine who teach in various places around Thailand.  I think there were 11 of us total, and we had a great time ringing in the New Year on the beach.  Jen and I even participated in a Thai holiday tradition which is to launch a lantern into the sky.  Sort of like a mini hot air balloon, the fire inside the lantern heats it up and causes it to rise into the air.  The idea is that you are supposed to send off your worries and hopes on the lantern.  We thought it was a fun and unique way of starting off the New Year.  Overall, it was a very relaxing weekend and a certainly a memorable New Year’s Eve.

Celebrating New Years

The view from the hotel

Sunset from the beach

Launching our lantern

Unfortunately, Monday came and it was time to head back to my extremely arduous job.  The good thing about returning to work was that Jen came to class with me on Tuesday.  I was really looking forward to showing off in the front of the classroom but when it came time to teach I was actually a little bit nervous.  It was the first time I've had someone in the classroom with me who could understand more than 25% of what I said.  I think it went pretty well though in the end.  I organized a "Pronunciation Bee" for the students.  Jen helped me prepare my lesson - we wrote out pairs of words with "R" and "L" in them and had the kids work to pronounce the difference.  For example, one pair was "RIP" and "LIP" another was "GLASS" and "GRASS."  I went around the room the same way you would for a spelling bee and had the students say each word in the pair.  If I, or my trusty guest judge "Ms. Jen", didn't think the students said it correctly, they were out.  She was a lot more of a stickler than I was, that’s for sure. 

"Mr. Connor" hard at work

Pronunciation Bee

Very few of them actually pay attention.

Wednesday was the only slow day during the time that Jen was here.  I had to go to the Department of Labor to finalize all my visa stuff and I dragged Jen along.  I find it funny that I've already completed more than half of my time in the country and only now has my visa stuff been finalized.  That's life in Thailand. We were able to salvage the afternoon by visiting one of my favorite temples in Thailand, Wat Arun. Then we got some dinner in the Chinatown section of Bangkok.

Wat Arun

I was able to get Thursday and Friday off so Jen and I took a little trip to my favorite non-beach in Thailand, Kanchanaburi.  As my loyal readers will remember, I've been there twice already.  Once was briefly during orientation and the second time was about a month ago.  I was so impressed with the Erawan Waterfalls, and Jen was so psyched to ride an elephant, that I knew it was a place she would love.  We had an awesome weekend.  We booked a tour that took us to the Waterfalls (I'll spare the details because I wrote all about the falls two or three posts ago), as well as elephant riding, bamboo rafting, and to the Bridge over the River Kwai.  Basically, it gave Jen a chance to do some of my favorite things that I've done so far in Thailand and allowed me the opportunity to experience them for a second time, which I was thrilled to have.

Jen at the second tier.

Us at the fifth tier.

Jen and our elephant

They're really not very comfortable to sit on.

Before leaving Kanchanaburi on Saturday we decided to do something that I've wanted to do since I arrived here but hadn't had the chance to do yet: we took a Thai cooking course.  Although I am certainly not a good cook, I actually really like to cook.  After eating so much delicious Thai food over the past three months, I knew I had to learn some of the secrets to making it.  The course was awesome.  They picked us up at our hotel and brought us to the restaurant where together all eight participants picked the four courses we would learn to make.  We decided on pad Thai, massaman curry, coconut chicken soup, and pork stir fry.  After our menu decision, we were taken to the market where the instructor showed us various Thai ingredients and told us about their uses.  Next, we headed back to the kitchen.  Our first dish was the pad Thai.  We watched the instructor make it and then had our shot.  After all four pairs made their dish we took them to the tables to eat and compare.  I'm proud to say ours was voted the best.  After this first course, we headed back into the kitchen and made the remaining three courses.  It was a lot of fun.  Between dishes, all of our work stations were cleaned and our ingredients were laid out for us for the next dish.  I felt like Emeril.  The curry and the stir fry turned out great but the soup was terrible.  I really dislike Thai soups so I figured I wouldn't be a fan of that dish.  Overall, it was a fantastic day and I'm definitely going to try to make some Thai meals when I get home.

One of the butchers at the market

Martha Stewart

I'm very focused on my work.

The end of Jen's adventure found us in the heart of Bangkok once again.  We took a riverboat up to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (basically the St. Peter's Basilica of Thai Buddhism).  I had been there during orientation when we were lead around by a tour guide and I now realize how much more interesting the place is with a guide.  We had fun but it was hard to really enjoy the buildings without hearing about their significance.   After the Palace, we headed the Chatachuk Market.  This is an enormous weekend market in Bangkok that has everything imaginable.  It gave Jen a chance to pick up a few souvenirs before heading home.

Unfortunately, Sunday night came and it was time for Jen to leave.  Although I was definitely sad to see her go, it was great to have spent the previous two weeks showing her all around Thailand.  We had a fantastic time.