Merry Christmas…Thai style!

I should begin by explaining the phrase “Thai style,” as it is one of our favorites. Most important is the pronunciation, which is: “Thai styyyyy,” since Thai people almost never pronounce the final sound in English words. Anyways, it simply means something that acts, looks, or actually is Thai. Anything from architecture, to the way one dresses, to the adding of spicy powder to my dinner can be “Thai style.” At first we thought that Pan coined this phrase, but when we visited our friends in another province they were also saying it, after hearing their teachers use it. Most often we hear the phrase in regards to our clothing, and receiving a “Thai style” comment has become somewhat of a contest, as we try to see who can receive more or who can guess when one will be given out by Pan. Pan is very unpredictable though as there will be days when we’ll wear something that we bought in Thailand, obviously expecting a “Thai style," and we won’t get it. Then some days we’ll wear random clothes from America that don’t look in any way Thai to us and Pan will surprise us with an “Ohhhh, Thai styyyy”. When I’m desperate I’ll just flat out ask Pan if I look Thai style, that’s pathetic though and doesn’t count. Emily and I have inserted this phrase into our vocabulary and overuse it on many occasions. So anyways, Christmas this year was Thai styyy, because we were in Thailand, of course.

When Emily and I found out that the Teach in Thailand program was from October to March one of the first things we realized was that we would be gone for Christmas. We were expecting it to be a lonely holiday as most Thai people are Buddhist and because it would be the first time we would be celebrating without our families. It ended up being quite the opposite, helped by the fact that it is in the 80s here during the day and we did not hear any Christmas music or see any decorations unless we were in a big shopping mall, and therefore weren’t constantly reminded of the holiday season we were missing. We were also pleasantly surprised to learn that our school does celebrate Christmas, by canceling classes and filling the day with various fun events and performances.

Emily and I got to school bright and early on Christmas Day to talk with our families on Skype before the day’s festivities began. We had been put in charge of directing both the English Club in singing two songs and the 7th grade class in a performance of the nativity play. As for English Club, each semester the students pick one academic club to be a part of and on Tuesday afternoons they meet for two periods. Students pick English Club because they think it will be easy and require little effort on their part since the foreign teachers (Emily and I) just play games and sing songs with them. Therefore, picking English Club does not necessarily mean that a student loves learning English and it definitely doesn’t mean that they want to sing English songs in front of their whole school. This made practicing with them a bit difficult for us. The two songs to be performed were “Que sera, sera,” which all of Thailand has become obsessed with because it is played in a new television commercial, and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. We had been practicing “Que sera, sera” ever since the first club meeting, so the students easily had that memorized by the time Christmas came. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” was introduced only a few weeks before Christmas though, and the students were expected to learn both the lyrics and hand motions (that Emily and I made up). The song was a bit tricky for them as some of the lines are a mouthful and the CD version we had was pretty fast. Their stage performance on Christmas Day was mediocre at best, since the 12th grade students (our best English speakers) did not show up and somehow English club sprouted several new members that we hadn’t seen since the first or second meeting. Emily even swears that one girl sang that wasn’t even in the club at all. We also didn’t have microphones and some even sung with their heads down (“OMG, singing with English Club is sooo embarrassing!”). During “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” somehow every student forgot the hand motions and had to look backstage at Emily and I to mimick our motions, meanwhile turning their backs to the audience. Good try English club!

As far as the nativity play, I would like to point out that there is no drama club at our school, full of students who enjoy acting. Therefore, we had to randomly pick a class to be our cast, forcing students, who never volunteered themselves as actors, onto a stage in front of their peers. We weren’t asking too much of the students though, as Emily narrated the entire play and the students just had to act out what she read, but it is very hard to get 7th grade boys who don’t like drama and don’t speak English to cooperate. They spent most of their time using their props to hurt each other, as I looked over at one point to see one of the shepherds using his staff to put the angel Gabriel in a headlock…very respectful. We also only had time for 2 or 3 short practices, and sometimes half the cast would be missing. Overall, we lacked the ingredients for a successful play, but we tried our best, and since the students are only in 7th grade anything they do is pretty cute. So even though the students turned their backs to the audience the entire play, the baby Jesus, which was actually a stuffed frog wrapped in a blanket, had to be handed on stage because Mary forgot it, and our music wouldn’t play, the audience still clapped at the end and everyone was smiling…and we were just happy that it was over! Here is a video link to some excerpts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUIsjDBdOHs

Throughout the rest of the day random events went on in celebration of Christmas and New Years, although with some events we couldn’t really see the connection. For example there was a Korean fashion show that concluded the day. Thai students are obsessed with anything Korean. They love their fashion and their singers and think that Koreans are very beautiful, supposedly because their skin is lighter and their noses are smaller? Anyways, a bunch of students dressed up like Koreans and showed off on stage while the rest of students voted for a winner. Emily and I also cracked up at a random poster we saw that said “Merry Christmas from Koreans” on it along with pictures of Koreans pasted on.

After school Pan picked us up to begin phase 2 of the Christmas Day celebrations which included going out for dinner and then going to the club “Highlight." Yes, Pan is 51 years old and she has been talking about going to this club with us on Christmas Day ever since October when she bought the bottle of whiskey for the event. She brought us into town and dropped us at a guesthouse, “The Mansion,” where we would stay the night after going out, since no one would want to drive us all the way back to the Jungle House. Pan then went home to get her daughter, Poon (side note: I love Poon), before scooping us back up to bring us to dinner where we met Sutham and Janwit, a member of the school board (he was also the leader of our Thanksgiving field trip). We went to a place called “Log Home,” which looks just like its name and is a nice restaurant with an expansive menu of both Thai and American fare. Poor Poon had to endure the obnoxiously American dishes we ordered to share, like French fries, fried chicken, and spaghetti. She ate everything without complaining but then had to order a Thai dish after we were done so she could actually eat something that she liked. This was the second time we had been to Log Home with Pan, and the last time we were the only ones there so we had sung karaoke. Pan decided that we must sing again, but this time we were not alone, and were instead seated next to a party of about 10 people, that included a few Thai VIPs, like a well-known doctor, aka too important to be annoyed with our bad American karaoke singing. Pan was therefore turned down by the waiter when she asked if we could sing, as his boss apparently didn’t want to lose the VIPs’ weekly business forever. But once the doctor heard we wanted to do karaoke he waved his magic wand and we were able to. Our song requests went ignored and instead they played Christmas song after Christmas song for me and Emily to entertain them with. The doctor even sang a Thai karaoke song in between…because everyone in Thailand loves some good karaoke no matter how important they may be. Our singing certainly didn’t bother him and his friends too much though because when we were leaving they told us we were invited to join with them at Log Home every Friday...score!

After dinner it was time to drop Poon back off at Pan’s house, because although she is old enough to go out she had absolutely no interest in doing so. I guess she didn’t feel up for watching her Mom dance to Thai pop music in crowds of people 30 years younger than her...understandable. Sutham also took a pass on the invite to Highlight, so that left Pan, Janwit, Emily, and myself. Pan made poor Janwit be the designated driver, saying that it was his duty as a member of the school board. We told her that we had a hard time believing that part of his job description said “Designated driver for Farang and Pan whenever they may need one,” but we were thankful nonetheless. To describe Highlight, it has both an outdoor and an indoor section. The outdoor section is more of a restaurant and has a live band until about 10pm, which plays nice slow Thai songs and caters to older Thai people. The inside is basically a club, with high tables and no chairs and live bands starting around 10:30pm that play fast Thai pop hits from the radio. It is hard to find anyone over the age of 30 inside, as it is a place where Thai young adults go to dance, drink, and hang out with friends, so we were surprised that Pan had agreed to come with us. She had said that she had been once before though, so we assumed she understood what she was volunteering for. Once she asked if there were chairs inside to sit down we realized that she must have only been to the outside section. The inside was going to be a little too loud and overwhelming for her and Janwit, although she did come in a few times to do some hilarious dance moves with us that included lots of “spirit finger”-like hand motions. The rest of the time her and Janwit acted as our babysitters as they sat outside while we were inside enjoying the band. It ended up that the only free table was right by the windows, directly across from where they were sitting, so they were able to see our every move, ready to pounce if any funny business went down. Pan had also invited the secretary from the front office of our school, Camp, after we mentioned that last time we had gone to Highlight we had run into him. We had previously thought he was a student teacher just helping in the office, maybe 20 years old or so, but it turns out that he is actually 27. I still have trouble believing this, but this may be due to the fact that he has braces. Anyways, Pan got to send him into the club with us, so she didn’t have to endure it but she knew we weren’t alone in there. He ended up being a hoot. He looooved to dance and was teaching us the moves that go along with the popular songs. He also taught us that the first verse to the Thai version of “Jingle Bells” is translated as “Jingle bells, jingle bells, cats eat fish.” I guess the Thai weren’t too impressed with the real words and made up their own instead. It should also be pointed out that Camp could have won an award for best smiler, as he smiled the entire time we were at the club…a very precious boy indeed, our new Thai BFF.

All in all, our Christmas Day in Thailand was more jam-packed than we could have ever imagined, and we certainly weren’t lonely. We did miss the traditions we are used to, but just this one time we felt ok being away from home, as it gave us the chance to celebrate the holidays in a totally different and fun way.

Chula-bots, Borders, and Biting Insects

Hello followers, (and all those who read regularly and are afraid to become a follower). If you can’t tell from the title, this weekend was yet another eventful one!

Two weeks ago when we visited Jessie in Chiang Rai, her teachers repeatedly mentioned the English Camp that would be taking place on the 17th, and how much they are in dire need of native speaker teachers. We politely declined at the time, due to the fact that we weren’t planning on making another trip to Chiang Rai (about 4 hours) and we were nervous taking more time off from teaching. Turned out that things got desperate over at Rong Rian Chulabborn, and native speakers were bailing right and left, so enter Kru Erin and Kru Emily to save the day! (Plus we got an official letter from Chulabhorn for an excused absence from Hangchat, and our bus tickets paid for!)

We arrived back at lovely Chulabhorn on Thursday evening and had a chance to visit with some of our long-lost CIEE program-mates, (whom we had never met before!) and some of Allison’s fellow Fulbright Scholars, nine Americans all together who would be working at the camp.
The English Camp was for Matayom 2 only, (8th grade) because they are the only class at the school that doesn’t have the pleasure of being taught by a native speaker regularly. After a 7 am breakfast (pork and vegetables over rice . . .Yes that’s right, dinner for breakfast is typical in Thailand, Gilman) we had a chance to get a look at the kids over in the meeting hall. If I wasn’t impressed by these kids before, I certainly was after that encounter! As each of us introduced ourselves to the group, (a simple, ‘Hello, I’m Emily,”) the kids applauded and shrieked wildly in absolute glee. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. At Hangchat, when Erin and I say “Good morning’ to the kids, we get occasional glances in our direction, completely laughed at, maybe a smile and a very quiet ‘Good morning teacher,’ as a response. The Chula-bots were in utter ecstasy to be in our presence. (I call the Chulabhorn students Chula- bots, because they are so incredibly smart, well-mannered, and eager to learn, as if they have been programmed for success by the Princess herself).

We spent the day on Friday manning a station, and doing our assigned activity with each of the 8 groups. I should add that the genius theme for English camp, that Jessie and Alison came up with, was the Solar System, so each group was a planet and each game involved something Space-like. The Cha Cha Slide became the “Space Boogie Station,” so cute and clever. Erin baked in the sun while playing shooting star hopscotch, or something similar. I baked in the sun while hosting a constellation game show, or something similar. If the game show finished early, I would ask the kids to sing for me (a common theme in my life these days). Here’s a clip of a Thai song and dance that all the kids are doing these days. We heard the Hangchat kids sing it a few weeks ago on Sports Day. Here is "Venus" singing on command. Love those mutant ninja turtle headbands!

Friday night we took all the kids to the Night Bazaar, to ‘practice their English.’ In reality, the kids shopped and got their BB guns repaired. A few completed their assignment of interviewing “Farangs” at the market, asking where they were from, etc. ‘Where are all the Thai teachers,’ we were wondering at one point. Look no further than the food stands, great supervision. When the kids left at 8, the Americans stayed, took in a Gateuey show (a ladyboy spectacular-spectacular extravaganza,) ate roti (Thai fried dough, most likely my favorite food here) and had a few drinks. Then we went to listen to some reggae at Peace Bar. It’s all about the reggae here in Thailand, and I’m sort of loving it!

On Saturday we watched and judged the kids’ skits. They were really weird. Many involved some really awkward young teen slow-dancing. Others involved lots of baby powder, used in lieu of a fog machine. One had Michael Jackson in it. All involved lots of shrieking and swooning. All in all, it was sort of like being asked to choose in which manner you would prefer to die – all so painful, how do you choose?

Then we got presents, a phenomenal buffet lunch at a fancy hotel (complete with both cake and ice cream,) and some hugs from the Chula-teachers.

Saturday night, we met up with yet another CIEE-er, (Wow! Reunion!) and made our wonderful return to Teepee Bar and then back to Peace Bar. Erin met some British teens (19, but still, some of our students are almost 19!) and she liked to pet their heads and call them ‘her little nuggets.’ We all did our fake British accents and disgusted them with our crass American ways. At some point during this very eventful night, I was attacked by some sort of demonic breed of insects. I’m going to have to blame it on Teepee Bar, just because that place is violating more health codes than exist, and we were sitting on mats on the floor. The next morning, I woke up with approximately 75 large red bites covering my calves and ankles. I will spare you a photo, but I will say that they are getting grosser and itchier by the day. Thank you Teepee, for the lovely souvenir.

Sunday, (after some banana pancakes of course,) Erin and I hopped a bus to Mae Sai, where Thailand borders Myanmar. We were told that we must visit this town because of the unbelievable shopping opportunities. Although the town itself isn’t all that scenic, the shopping was something to experience. Market upon market was lining the streets selling everything from transistor radios to cashews to kiddie pools. I got to practice my bartering, (“Pang ma! Lok noy ka? Nitnoy? Mai dai, Sawadi ka!” Shut down!) and we got a killer view from the top of a mountain Wat (temple). When we came down from the Wat, a random man made us smile for a picture, first one of Erin, then one of the two of us, far away shots, then close-ups. If only my students were so captivated!

Before the journey home on Monday, we made our way to Sop Ruak, (after a broken sandal emergency, during which Erin saved the day by running across the street and buying me the ‘ugliest flip flops she could find’). Sop Ruak has become known as the center of the Golden Triangle in Thailand. The Golden Triangle is really a stretch of thousands of kilometers of land covering Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, where opium harvesting and production was most prevalent in Southeast Asia. Now Sop Ruak is basically not much more than a tourist attraction, although there were some cool Disneyworld status statues, a somewhat interesting museum, and again, some more great scenic views across the Mekhong River. And I have finally found a circumstance where being a Farang has its benefits. In our Sarng tao-ous (taxis) and buses, there were frequent police stops and drug checks. All the Thai people had to show their ID cards and papers, to ensure there is no illegal border hopping going on. Erin and I are white, obviously not Burmese, so they didn’t give us a second look. What if I was transporting drugs across the border? Maybe I was adopted by a Burmese couple . . . come on guys, cover your bases!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Erin and I will be celebrating by drinking Johnnie Walker at the club with Pan and ‘some math teachers.’ Unconventional, yet unforgettable I’m sure. We’re missing everyone a lot, go outside and make a snow angel for me.

Pai in Love

This past weekend we continued our travel outside of Hang Chat by visiting the town of Pai, which is a little over 4 hours northwest of us, up in the mountains. To get there we had to take a bus to Chiang Mai and then a van from Chiang Mai to Pai. The road from Chiang Mai to Pai is famous for its 762 curves…meaning Emily and I were crammed into a 13 passenger van speeding around 762 sharp turns on narrow, steep roads for 3 hours. We had read online that the trip often causes passengers to get sick…and we were so very lucky to witness this in our own van. The girl was very dainty and Thai about it though, because I didn’t even notice it was happening. In any case, Emily and I kept our eyes closed for most of the trip to avoid doing the same.

Our trip started off on the wrong foot when one of the seats we bought for the van to Pai had also been accidentily sold to another person. Of course since we are foreigners we had to be the ones to wait and take another van. After the two hours we had to wait for that van, we had to wait another two hours to get on a van with available seats. We were saying that if the same situation had happened in America, both of our tickets would have been refunded and we probably would have been given free tickets to ride the bus in the future. In Thailand, you get one of your tickets refunded (which only saved us about $2 each) along with a big smile and apology...fine, we’ll take it.

To set the scene…the best word to describe Pai is “chill”. Everything and everyone is extremely relaxed and it’s a bit hippiesque. It’s also small enough that you can walk just about anywhere and it seems to exist entirely for tourists, with the downtown full of shops and restaurants all geared towards visitors. Most people were extremely friendly and everyone seemed to know one another, even if they’d only been in town for a couple of days. Emily and I quickly found out the truth in this when, after just one night in town, we started recognizing people the next morning while we were walking around. The man driving by on the motorbike was the guy who had played guitar at the bar the night before and the girl dancing by the stage had previously been our waitress. It became almost comical as we found ourselves waving to people and had people coming up to us asking us if we were going to be at a certain place again that night. It was certainly a very homey place. People are so at home, in fact, that many even wore sweatpants and ski hats to the bars…where you sit outside on pillows by fires and listen to live music under the stars. Perfection.

When we finally arrived in Pai it was already dark and we still hadn't found a place to stay. The other couple weekends that we have traveled we have called the guesthouses listed in Lonely Planet (our Bible) the day before we arrive, but when we tried this for Pai they all said that they were full. We decided we would just have to walk around when we got there, guesthouse by guesthouse, asking if they had room. We quickly realized why it was so impossible to find a room…the town was completely packed! There were so many people squeezed in the streets that our van could hardly get through. We got dropped off randomly on the side of one of these busy streets and started looking for a place to stay. It was a pretty pathetic scene as we got turned away, one place after the next. We were informed that Pai only became so touristy, especially with Thais themselves, two or three years ago when two Thais films were made there, causing a lot of people to want to visit (“Pai in Love” was one of these movies, hence the blog title, and the fact that we fell in love with Pai!). Long story short: we ended up staying across a river and up a dirt hill will no street lights (thank goodness for my new flashlight purchase) in a little village of “bungalows” aka camping 5 feet off the ground. It was not what we were hoping for, but we had no other options unless we wanted to sleep on benches.

For all our trouble getting to and finding a place to stay in Pai we rewarded ourselves with cheeseburgers for dinners. We usually try not to eat Western food as it is more expensive and kind of pathetic to do while you’re in a country with such great local food, but that night it was necessary! After dinner, we stopped for a quick drink at a bar with a live band full of random old Thai men. They happened to be on their last song when we arrived and ended up talking with us after. Somehow the lead singer, Nong, who wore dark glasses even though it was dark, scheduled Emily to sing a song with the band the next night. He was just our first of many new Pai friends.

On Friday, we woke up early in hopes that we would beat other travelers to the guesthouses to find a more suitable place to stay for the next two nights. Luckily, after a hearty breakfast of banana pancakes with honey (which seems to be the only thing we order whenever they are on the menu), some good luck came our way and we found a lovely guesthouse called “Mr. Jan’s” that happened to have just one empty room. We almost jumped on poor old Mr. Jan we were so thankful to have found a nice place without much trouble. The funniest part was that when we arrived, a sign was hanging up that said “FULL”. Thankfully, we decided to check just to be sure.

Next, we decided to take a trip out to the hot springs we had read about. I did some Wikipedia’ing upon return home and I found out, if anyone is uninformed like we were, that hot springs are like any other natural spring, but the water in them is heated deeper in the Earth’s core than the water in cold water springs. The deeper water seeps into the Earth’s crust, the higher temperature it reaches as it comes into contact with hot rocks. Ok, enough science for one post. There are no traditional taxis in Pai, but instead motorbikes that are driven by people with yellow vests that say “Taxi”. It made for a thrilling ride as we drove about 15 minutes up and down hills that were surrounded by beautiful fields and mountains.

We ended up being the only foreigners at the springs, which meant we were the only ones in bathing suits. For some reason, Thai people refuse to buy bathing suits. It may have to do with their modesty, but they take it a little far…they won’t even wear shorts and a tank top but usually don long pants and shirts. In any case, the hot springs were super relaxing. It was just like being in a big hot tub. We even saw a Thai family using the springs as an actual bath, bringing soap to clean their naked toddlers.

The next activity on the docket was Yoga with “Mama” (pictured above). Holy cow was this lady on another planet, but she was certainly entertaining. She was in her 60’s, a half Thai, half Indian wonder, with a weave of long hair down her back and anklets that jingled as she walked. We entered her “studio” to find it absolutely covered in tchotchkes, beads, and tapestries along with dozens and dozens of pictures of herself from her younger years when she was a model (her glory days). Her age didn’t hold her back from doing some pretty impressive yoga moves, though. It was a two hour session but half of the time we were supposed to be meditating, during which time Mama would mysteriously disappear, probably to finish some household chores. Mama’s cat was also participating in the yoga, occasionally sitting in our laps and rubbing up against us while we were twisted into pretzel positions. After yoga, it was snack time. It had been advertised on the signs Mama hung up around town that her lessons came with a free Indian meal. We may have to report her for false advertising as all we got were Thai rice cakes and oranges, but she did make up for it with her bizarre life advice. Some of her topics included: how to get rid of a hangover, a.k.a. “how to make bad day into good day” and how we shouldn’t slouch because not only will we develop bad backs but we are also causing the fat in our stomach to put pressure on our internal organs which will make us ill (questionable logic…).

That night we made sure to go back to the bar Emily was scheduled to sing at. As a warm-up, she sang “Jolene” with a younger English guitar player, and it sounded just lovely. I did my non-karaoke-loving friend duty by taping all of her performances. Her first song with the band, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, also went well, but three songs in one night up may have been pushing her luck, so as Emily said about her rendition of “Country Roads, Take me Home”, “We only watch that video without audio”. Emily demanded we leave the bar after that, although I told her no one seemed to notice she wasn’t exactly in tune…c’mon, it’s Pai, no worries!

We continued to bar hop and met lots of interesting people, we even busted out our Thai dictionary to entertain some locals with our horrible pronunciation, the word “superman” being our favorite as its Thai translation is “poo-mee-um-nahd-lae-kawhm-sah-mahd-nur-ma-nood”. Riiiight.

The next day was an early one as we were going “white water” rafting. I feel like I’m always using quotation marks when describing things here, but this is due to the fact that almost everything we do ends up being totally different than what we were expecting. Translation: we thought we would actually be seeing some “white water” on our trip. To explain, Thailand has a wet season that lasts from June to October, and for the other months of the year it almost never rains. Therefore, since it has been 2 months since the rainy season ended, water levels in the rivers have gone down by about 6 feet. White water rafting quickly turns into paddling yourself down a river in a raft. During wet season, the trip, which is a 25 mile stretch, takes only 4 hours to complete, but it took us over 7 hours because the current was so much slower. This meant it was up to Emily and I, the Thai couple with us, and our guide, Taka, to paddle almost the entire 25 miles, give or take a few small currents that pushed us along. Although near the end of the trip there was some action, with faster currents and some small drops. Overall, we were taken by surprise at how much of a workout we ended up getting. We decided that if we were ever asked if we had been white water rafting, our response would be: “We thought we were going this one time in Thailand…”

That night we continued making our rounds. At first, we tried randomly choosing places that we thought looked cool, but they were all empty. Then we started talking to an American girl around our age who informed us that everyone goes to “BeBop” to start the night off and listen to live music until 1:00 AM and then moves on to “Bamboo” until whenever they can’t stay awake anymore, as it doesn’t close until the last person leaves…supposedly. Once we went to the bars in the Pai nightlife “line-up” we actually began seeing other people and making more friends to wave to around town. At BeBop, Emily got to sing yet again. This time as a back-up singer with a couple of Thai girls who Emily said were hogging the mic, rude. The band she sang with had a lead singer with an awesome voice…he is supposedly semi-famous in Australia.

Overall, our weekend in Pai was very busy. We left on Sunday morning after another banana pancake and hugs from all our new friends who told us they would be awaiting our return. As Emily put it, “People were sadder to see us leave Pai after 3 days than they were to see us leave America...", a bit of an exaggeration, don’t worry, we know you miss us, but it was a good, relaxing weekend with some very friendly people. If you made it this far, God bless you for reading this super long post!

Chiang Rai Styyyyyyy(le)

This past weekend we embarked on a true Northern Thailand adventure. We thought we had Monday off from work, for the King’s Birthday. Turns out Hangchat Wittaya chose to observe the holiday the following Friday, to create a more extended weekend for themselves. Did they inform us of this change more than 4 days before? No. Tough cookies. We’re skipping school and going to Chiang Rai.

Chiang Rai is in the far north of Thailand, very near the Burmese and Laotian borders. Sadly, we didn’t make it to the golden triangle. I think another trip to Chiang Rai is in the cards. We had heard that this city was sort of a smaller version of Chiang Mai (which we love). Plus, our wonderful friend Jessie from the CIEE program is teaching just outside the city. Who wouldn’t want to visit!?!

After a 4.5 hour bus ride, Erin and I arrived in the city, grabbed lunch, and took a TukTuk to Princess Chulaporn School, ‘Rong Rian Chulaporn,’ school for robots, to meet up with Jessie. Her school really couldn’t be any more different from good ol’ Hang Chat Wittaya. At Hang Chat, students don’t pay attention and have quite an aversion to speaking and learning English. At Chulaporn, students read and discuss racial issues in Huckleberry Finn (in English!) At Hang Chat, students motorbike off campus asap, and skip class whenever possible (when the Farangs are teaching). At Chulaporn, students live on campus, and are almost NEVER allowed to leave. In fact, when our TukTuk dropped us at the main gate, three handsome young students came right over to us and said in perfect English, “Excuse me, can I help you?” Yes, you can help me. Clone yourselves and come join my classes at Hang Chat Wittaya.

We were quickly introduced to Alison, Jessie’s lovely roommate who is in Thailand through the Fulbright Program, teaching these little Thai Einsteins, Thai-steins. After we dropped our bags at their jungle house, we rode into the city for some shopping and eating. The market is open every night and offers tons of clothes, crafts, jewelry, chotchkies, etc. I bought some ‘play-pants’ which are actually Thai ‘fisherman’s pants.” I call them play-pants because the students wear them on any fun days at school (when they can be out of uniform). They are actually pretty ugly and VERY Thai, but probably the most comfortable things ever. Erin bought LOTS of jewelry, and got scolded at by a merchant for not trying to barter. Stupid farangs. After shopping, we sat in the open food court area listened to music, chatted over a beer tower, and ate lots of tempura fried food. AROY MA! We’re talking fried carrots, fried broccoli, fried green beans. Heaven. Then we venture to "TeePee Bar." Another story for another day. Too much for one post.

The next day we set out for our trek, which was organized by the Hill Tribe Museum (thanks to Jessie and Alison for a great find!) The Hill Tribes are a group of native people who live in the mountains, and are really removed from the rest of Thai society (generally speaking). They are not able to become Thai citizens until they are 15 years old, prior to that, they have a “Hill Tribe Card” that gives them access to certain things. In the past they were sort of on the fringes of society, but apparently the current king has done a lot of work to better their conditions and opportunities. We were led by our guide Pooh, who basically didn’t want to be there (we think,) but there were no other available guides. But Pooh was awesome and we were lucky to have her! In our group we had John, from England, and Walter and Witska, a dating couple from the Netherlands. I think John was frightened by how loud our voices were and how much we liked to videotape things. Walter and Witska were just very large and blonde.

The trip is best explained through pictures and this handy video I made, but here are some highlights:

Boating down the Mekhong River . . .gorgeous scenic views!

Elephant trekking . . .Yes that’s right. We rode on elephants yet again! I’m becoming more comfortable on an elephant than in a car! Also, I was on an elephant with Jessie and our mahout basically forced her to ride on the neck for two reasons (we think). 1. So that he could get a good grasp on her behind when he pushed her up there. 2. So that he could go on an elephant riding first date with me, during which he liked to touch my knee (but then would get nervous and take his hand off). Also during our elephant trek, our mahout and Walter and Witska’s mahout made an interesting sort of discovery. They found something on the ground then started laughing and counting it. I think drugs. Not sure.

Hiking . . .Holy Toledo, I will never be a hiker. But I tried my best, and that’s all that matters (that’s what I tell the students, after all). On the second day, it was a pretty grueling uphill hike for a good 45 minutes. It was a near death experience, I’d say, and I had to force the group to take a couple of extra breaks at my expense. Holy lung capacity. Plus I’m clumsy to begin with. I trip over things in my bedroom. Throw in some roots, thorns, rocks, and a narrow mountain path and you’ve got yourself a train wreck. As Erin said, “I can’t walk behind you because with each step, I feel like I’m watching your death.” But in the words of the old civil rights activists, “We Shall Overcome.” Our trek leader was an elderly Akha man who wore flip flops (on the first day, at least) and carried bags of bread and food in his hands. He carved us some awesome bamboo walking sticks. He was never out of breath and never broke a sweat. He’s probably been hiking that path since the womb.

Akha Village . . . Really amazing! They had some electricity (on porches and in bathrooms, not in bedrooms,) but it was still a very primitive village of about 200 people. Most villagers can’t even speak or understand Thai, and only speak their Akha language. The older women in traditional gear loved selling their wares. Those hats can weigh up to 8 pounds! Some of the most interesting customs include the fact that the women and men live separately, and the men can have multiple wives (maybe 5?) Also, twins and flowers are taboo subjects (we read that on the sign, not so sure of the reasoning on the flowers). I bought a bracelet and got a free blessing with it, hopefully not for a baby like Witska got. We had some delicious food cooked by Pooh and some of the village women, green curry chicken and Thai spaghetti sauce with pork over rice, and the freshest pineapple I’ve ever eaten! We even got to take part in an Akha Welcome Dance around the fire, joining hands and dancing (Walter was not a fan, and Erin struggled to keep him in line). We ‘slept’ in the village overnight, as much as we could with crowing roosters inches from our heads, before finishing our hike on Sunday.

Overall, a once-in-a-lifetime weekend, worth the near –death hike. I felt like I had jumped inside my Cultural Geography textbook. Great stories for the grandkids. Enjoy the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD32dJvkuD4

Pai this weekend :)

Happy “Thanksgiving”

Ok, so we are a little behind considering Thanksgiving was almost two weeks ago, but better late than never…and we experienced our most unusual Thanksgiving to date this year, which always makes for a good blog post! Thanksgiving Day happened to fall on one of two “Sports Days” at our school, which are similar to “Field Day” in America. Although in America, at least at our school, we only had a half day for such events, while in Thailand they apparently need two full days without classes to get all their sports in. Since we had no classes to teach and we didn’t serve much purpose at the event (although I did wear my sneakers and a sporty outfit hoping someone would let me join…didn’t happen...boo!), Pan decided we could take a half day and go on a “field trip” with her in the afternoon. The reason “field trip” is put in quotation marks is because, usually, a field trip indicates a trip with some sort of exciting destination… maybe a zoo, or a foreign food restaurant, or at least a decently interesting museum, but our Thanksgiving field trip was to, drum roll please…a Thai power plant!!! I know it sounds thrilling…our reaction exactly, but we didn’t ask any questions and just went along with it, because you never quite know what is going to happen on an adventure with Pan.

I should note that one of the members of the Hang Chat school board, Mr. Janewit, is also a head honcho at the power plant, so he had told us we should visit, so it wasn’t totally random that we were going…I guess. Anyway, the power plant is enormous, as it serves all of Central, North, and Northeast Thailand. It is located in the district over from us on acres and acres of land. The scenery surrounding the plant was actually very beautiful with green rolling hills and little lakes, which we found out later were all manmade…takes away from the beauty a little bit, but we took a lot of photos (with Pan’s camera) anyway. Janewit held a personal photo shoot with me and Emily, having us pose in front of various trees and halfway down hills, hiding between flowering plants…he had me and Emily cracking up with his dead serious instructions: “Ok, now go into the flowers…no, further in”.

After the photo shoot we were taken to the power plant museum where tours are given about the history of the plant and how power is made, etc. We jumped in on a tour that was leaving just as we arrived…unfortunately it was for a group of Thai nurses and therefore was conducted in Thai. After a few too many videos in Thai and getting shut down by the tour guide when we tried to watch an exhibit in English, we moved on to the engineering building…try to contain your excitement! Here, we had a bunch of nerdy (no offense) Thai engineers explain things to us that we wouldn’t have understood in English, and therefore definitely couldn’t understand in their broken English…for example, how water is heated and cooled in different machines to produce energy…? We visited a few “work stations” (think men resting and a suspect bottle of liquor spotted) and looked at a few boards with lots of switches and lights...you know, very important-looking things.

Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, the best part of the day occurred after the power plant tour was over, on our “coffee break” at the golf course clubhouse. This “coffee break” turned into a whole lot more than drinking coffee, that’s for sure. I think the golf course just happened to be on the power plant’s land and isn’t necessarily associated, but Janewit said he was “boss” and we would could have anything we wanted at the golf course clubhouse…wait, did someone say KARAOKE? Of course, it was Pan! Pan is obsessed with karaoke but tries to play it cool and pretend that the reason she asks anywhere and everywhere we go if they have karaoke is because she knows Emily loves it…which is also true. Since day one, everyone here has known about Emily’s love for karaoke, and I always like to quote her: “Once, I even won a karaoke contest…I got 50 bucks!” It had been a month and she still hadn’t gotten to show her skills…but the time had finally come! So at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, on what happened to be Thanksgiving Day, at a Thai power plant, in a golf course clubhouse, we ate steak, french fries, and various other delectable treats while singing karaoke to an empty house with two 50 year olds (for anyone reading this that is at or above this age, you are not old, don't worry...just saying).

Most restaurants in Thailand have the same karaoke system which includes a computerized database full of many Thai and English songs…you just type the artist or song title and it pops up if they have it. Emily would probably like you to know that most of her go-to karaoke songs are not available, so she has to be creative…this sometimes forces her to pick songs out of her range, but she always makes it work, even in less than ideal karaoke settings…what a trooper! Once you find a song you like you can just press enter and it starts to play. Or if you are Pan you can find lots of songs you like and select them so they play one after the other. Emily thought Pan would sing one song and then she would go, and they would switch off…but just as Pan’s songs would end and Emily would go to take the mic, another of Pan’s songs would start to play and she would keep right on singing. At one point, I think she sang four songs in a row…it was too funny. I took many videos of both Pan and Emily singing, they put on a great show for their audience of two (Mr. Janewit and myself) with their dancing, hand motions, and facial expressions, but they were on Pan’s camera. Curiously, they were not included in the email she sent with all the pictures from the day…maybe she didn’t enjoy the fact that I was bursting out laughing in the background while taping her singing old American love songs?? I would also like to note that prim and proper businessman, Mr. Janewit, even grabbed the mic to croon for us. We thought he was just saving Pan from singing alone, but then he started singing solo ballads and we knew it was more that that. Yes, I also sang a couple songs, including a duet with Emily to “Summer Loving”, obviously necessary!

Just your typical Thanksgiving Day in Thailand…we hope everyone else’s was just as eventful!

"Trouble is a Friend" . . .

There will be a Thanksgiving update (with pictures from Pan's camera) coming soon. I have to leave that one to Erin.

Exciting update people! WE HAVE FOUND THE CATCHY SONG!!!

The reason we couldn't find it was because IT IS AN ENGLISH SONG. That's right, an English song. So one of two things was happening. Either the Thai singers are so bad at their pronunciation that we thought it was a Thai song. Or perhaps more likely, it has been translated into Thai (as is a common practice) and it is sung in Thai at the bars.

'Emily! Erin! How did you make this amazing discovery?' Well, we were out in Lampang on Saturday night with Lun and her undercover cop brother (Erin and I intended to go out on our own, but they informed us that no cabs run after 8, because the cab drivers have to go home to their families . . .don't get me started). We were sans motorbike, so we had no choice but to accept the offer of a ride to and from the bar (and some middle-aged company at the bar). So here we were, out with two 40+ year old people, drinking Heinekens, watching the Thai college kids dance, and lamenting the loss of our youth. All of a sudden the song comes on at the bar. "THAT'S THE SONG! THAT'S THE SONG!" I shouted, giving Erin a swift punch in the ribs. "THAT'S THE SONG!!!" We began shouting like lunatics. "OhhhhhOhh!" Lun responded in the Thai way that I would have to imitate in person. She sprinted to the DJ booth and came back with an artist, and a title that did not make sense. "He says it is Lenka. The song is "And Two More is Friend." Ok, whatevs Lun. At least we have an artist!

Let me also add that Lenka is very very very big here. She is an Australian singer (supposedly) who is most well known for the song "The Show." The students are obsessed. Pan is obsessed, it is her ringtone.

I arrived at school this morning, googled Lenka, and . . .ahh haaa "Trouble is a Friend." Makes sense! Download this song people, it's amazing.

More about the weekend? Still no pictures and Erin does not have the correct battery charger still :( So REALLY no pictures. Tar - anytime you're ready to mail my camera . . . I foresee a several thousand baht purchase in my future. I will try to paint pictures with words.

After our VERY exciting Saturday night with Lun and Pi Sak, we slept in Lampang. We had planned to meet up with a friend on Sunday to do . . .well we didn't know what. Let me introduce Mike. He is from China, and is finishing up university in Lampang, majoring in Thai. He teaches Chinese once a week at Hangchat Wittaya, which is how we met him. He is 100% adorable and nice with "an angelic face" as Erin and I like to say. In addition to Chinese, he is fluent in Thai, and I would say pretty conversational in English (although he brings his electronic translator with him when he spends time with us). So I called Mike on Sunday morning and said "What do you want to do today?" "I love fishing," he responded. Fishing it is then. He gave us a tour of his college campus, he bought us lunch at a little "Chinese restaurant" across the street, (basically less spicy Thai food) then we went fishing with him and his other Chinese friends, and two American friends who are also teaching English in Lampang (yesss, we can speak our rapid-fire English for a whole afternoon!) Let me add that at the restaurant, an older Thai woman approached me, began and began poking my skin in disgust. She seemed to think my freckles were some sort of skin disease. "I was born like this! It's okay!"

I will now paint a picture of the fishing event with my words.

Small aqua-teal pond, lined with palm trees.
Gorgeous orange setting sun after a perfectly clear 85 degree day.
Chinese college students sharing some Singha and laughs.
Inappropriately loud Americans eating ice cream and rice.
Stray dogs and cats begging for food.
Thais with hats and masks (don't let the sun touch your skin and make you dark . . .) reeling in fish after fish.
Smiles all around.

At the man-made pond, you are allowed to catch fish (quite large fish!) but you must throw them back. I didn't fish. I ate ice cream and talked to the Americans. Overall, I'd say as close to a perfect Sunday as you can get. I wish I had a camera. Download "Trouble is a Friend."

Peace

Cultural Day = A Day at the Circus

Last Monday was “Cultural Day” at our school. This was a day sponsored by the Social Studies department when classes were cancelled while activities went on to celebrate Thai culture, past and present…I think. Honestly, Emily and I only found out about Cultural Day a few days before it occurred and it was never really explained to us, so we really had no clue what was going on most of the day. One thing we were informed of was that our presence was requested in the parade through the center of town, which kicked off the start of the day. We slowly found out that they actually wanted us to lead the parade and do so while wearing traditional Thai attire. We were given about 6 items that made up this outfit, with no instructions as to how to don them. A miniature piece of white cloth was supposed to be our “shirt”, while a large colored sheet was supposed to be our “skirt”. We were also given a sash, some fake beads, and a silver belt. With the help of many safety pins and binder clips we were able to attach the pieces to our bodies, only praying that they wouldn’t fall off mid-parade.

Unfortunately, we were only running on about 4 hours of sleep for this big day, since we had to catch the 5 AM bus back to Hang Chat after our weekend in Chiang Mai. We were nervous we might not make it back in time to get to the parade and we didn’t want to let everyone down… I mean, how could the parade possibly go on without us leading it?!? Luckily, we made it to the center of town with a few minutes to spare, enough time for the teachers to take a million and a half pictures of us. They each took turns standing next to me and Emily, one by one, with the teacher taking the picture switching in for the teacher that had already gotten a picture with us. The hilarious old gym teacher even made us pose for head shots on his camera phone as we squinted into the sun. We were told later in the day that the reason the teachers were so much more excited to see us today than they ever had been before was because it is very exciting for Thais to see foreigners in their traditional garb.

Without delay, the parade began at 8 AM with me and Emily at the lead, holding a sign displaying the name of our school. Technically, we were not the very first people in the parade, as there were parade announcers in a van ahead of us. It seems that every Thai parade is lead by or has multiple vans with their back hatch open exposing speakers that emit the sounds of announcers to the crowd. We had no clue what they were saying, but every so often we would hear our names being said…hopefully they were saying something nice. Anyways, we were given no instruction (as usual) as to how fast to walk or if we should be stopping every so often, so we just strolled along at varying speeds. At one point, someone from the van had to jump out and tell us we were walking too fast and then the students behind us would periodically tell us to speed up or slow down. The funniest part was that the traffic was not stopped for the parade, so there were cars coming at us from the opposite side of the road and passing us from behind the entire time. We didn’t have much of a crowd either, only a few people with young children waving on the side of the road. The purpose of the parade seemed to be more for fun than for entertaining the town. Side note: it felt about 90 degrees throughout the parade even though it was only 8 in the morning, and we were staring into the sun the entire time. So you can just imagine what Emily and I looked like as we were squinting and sweating but all the while trying to wave and keep a smile on our faces, as we were told this was our chance to be formally introduced to the town.

While the parade was going on, the students that were not a part of the parade remained at school to set up huts in which they displayed their Thai culture project, which seemed to fall into two categories: either selling a Thai food they had made or displaying boards with research they had done on some Thailand-related topic. When we got back to school after the parade we were told to just “walk around” and see everything. We tried to visit every hut, eating and drinking lots of different things to the point of belly aches, telling every grade their food was very good, no matter what it tasted like (we are desperate for them to like us so that they will behave in class).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p06-e7xPMpI

The day was basically a circus, with students running free throughout the campus, doing as they pleased. There were also many performances throughout the day, with students dancing, playing the drums, and performing skits. Some of the more bizarre events that occurred were the “Somtam Dance” and the massage station. Somtam is papaya salad. It comes in many different varieties, but most are super spicy. You are basically not Thai unless you like this dish, so me and Emily are slowly warming up to it as neither of us like American salad, but we have found some less spicy kinds that we enjoy…sort of. Anyways, the dish is so popular it even has its own ridiculous dance and the older students performed it for everyone, while peeling and mixing and preparing dish. The dance is impossible to describe and therefore the Youtube video above has been included for your pleasure (notice the plates of Somtam on the table on the right). Who knew making food could be so much fun? The creepy zooming on the 'girl' with the sash is an attempt to capture "Ram," one of the ladyboy students (boys who dress/act like girls). Ram was truly in his element because he was allowed to wear girl's clothes (on regular school days he has to keep his hair short and wear a boy's uniform).

Then there was the massage station. The Thais are known for their massages, and apparently they teach them young here. One of the courses at our school is a massage class where students are taught to be masseuses. On Cultural Day these students were giving free massages to teachers. Emily and I could not believe our eyes when we saw students rubbing the feet of their teachers and even giving full body massages. I can’t say I would have ever gotten anywhere near the feet of my high school teachers…no, thank you! But we couldn’t pass up on this priceless opportunity so we jumped right in for an hour foot massage…don’t worry we aren’t slave drivers, we tipped a whole 50 baht (less than $1.50), which is considered a good tip (gotta love the exchange rate)!

Overall, with our lack of sleep, Emily and I were grateful for a “fun day” at school instead of classes. It is a lot easier to make it through a foot massage than a class full of energetic, paper plane throwing 14 year olds when you are tired from a long weekend!

One Camera Recovered!!

OK, exciting news! I forgot both my camera cord and charger in America (I brought a charger but it was for someone else in my family's camera, so I'm not THAT forgetful)! Anyways, my package finally arrived from home with both so we now have at least one functioning camera, since Emily's is still in Chiang Mai being fixed (it should be returned within a week). Although I don't have many pictures because we had being using Emily's, knowing that whatever pictures I took we wouldn't be able to upload, I did start taking pictures after Emily's camera broke. Therefore we will skip the Chiang Mai update for now until Emily's camera is returned.

No Camera, Day 7

Still no camera, or word from Tor. If Thailand has taught me anything so far, it is patience.

A few anecdotes from the week:

I have discovered my favorite class. M 5.3 (11th grade). This week only 8 of them were there (all girls, + 1 'ladyboy' - more to come on 'him' later.) The other students were at scholastic competitions of varying sorts. We had a "chill" day since it was the last period of the day and there were only a few kids. I taught them my famous continent song and then they wanted me to sing. "I don't know what to sing," I protested. "Sing song Christmas!" little Som chimed in. Did you say Christmas song?!? Obviously I will sing a Christmas song! So I serenaded the little cherubs with "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . ." They were captivated - then they told me I had beautiful eyes. Erin and I have decided that because people are always telling us we're beautiful, when we go back to America, we won't be able to adjust to being completely average again. We'll see.

Last night Erin and I hit the "disco" in Lampang with some new Thai friends who own a restaurant we frequent. We shared a bottle of whiskey and laughed as one man, about 1 foot away from Erin, just stared at her for the entire night. Then we looked around and tried to find me a "Thai boyfriend." As Erin says, if I get a Thai boyfriend it will be so entertaining for her, and this blog as well. Sadly, no digits were secured except for a girl who wants to be our friend. We'll take it.

In Boston, after a night of drinking, a common practice is to purchase and down an $8 sausage. Here, we went to a small restaurant for fried rice. Erin ate two heaping portions. In her words "each plate was enough to feed a family of 4 people." I was too busy making friends, singing Linkin Park's "Numb," and challenging Asians to ping pong tournaments to eat my rice. So Erin ate my plate and her own. Whiskey hangover? No. Rice hangover.

There is a Thai pop song that we really like. Think of the catchiest song you can. This song is 100 times catchier. We are sort of obsessed with it. I can't stop humming it. And the live bands play it at every bar - sometimes twice in a night! Of course, it's in Thai so we have no way of knowing the words, or even the name of the song. Today, Pan took us to Lampang for lunch and shopping. We are in such dire need of this song that we proceeded to visit every music store in the mall and hum, yes, HUM, the song to the teenagers who work there, to try to find out the name or artist. We got a lot of strange looks, but no song. We did buy a Carabao CD. Sort of like Thai hippie music - maybe Santana meets the Rolling Stones . . .? 50 songs on the CD and only $2.50! We will become Carabao experts! We will try to hum our catchy song to each of our classes on Monday. That's 800 students and 1600 ears that can perhaps recognize this RIDICULOUSLY POPULAR song that clearly we cannot hum properly.

Erin has a new hobby. She has purchased an English-Thai dictionary. She likes to read a Thai word to a Thai person, and see if they know what word she is saying. Pan calls this game "Talent America Erin." (I think she's going for "America's Got Talent with Erin!") Sometimes Pan calls for a "repeat," but Erin is doing surprisingly well. She is going to find a new competitor in Lun tonight, although Lun does not yet know about our fun new game.

Lesson plan for this week:
1. Play Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving song
2. Make the kids walk around and gobble like turkeys
3. Thanksgiving vocabulary word search
4. Draw hand turkeys

Life is good.

Bad news . . .

Hello!!!

After an amazing weekend in Chiang Mai (think, full body massage, mountain temples, red wine, whiskey, and market shopping) my camera seems to have bitten the dust.

On Sunday afternoon we visited a beautiful waterfall on Doi Suthep, a mountain, for a little sliding and swimming. Of course, clumsy Em fell in the water while crossing some rocks, and the bag and items within it got wet. Our Thai friend Tor (our driver for the weekend . . .we stayed with a very WEALTHY professor for part of the weekend) very kindly offered to try to get the camera repaired for me and should be mailing it back to me by next week. Tor is the bomb.

SO KEEP THE FINGERS CROSSED EVERYONE. Erin is also waiting for the battery charger and usb for her camera, so it might be a week or 2 until we get some pictures up here. Since stories tend to be boring without pictures, the blog might go on a brief hiatus for this time. We will be sure to keep notes on all of our experiences and update you once the camera situation has been resolved.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Kru Nate, Man or Myth?

Let me just begin this with a short note: Nate, if you ever read this at any point, you have made quite an impact on each and every Hangchat resident. Here is the proof.

Kru means teacher in Thai. I am “Kru Emily.” Erin is “Kru Erin.”

Nate was our predecessor. He participated in the Teach in Thailand Program last year and lived and worked at the Hangchat Wittaya for a full year. He left shortly before we arrived.

Apparently Nate is a Thai God. The people here are absolutely obsessed with him . . .I mean OBSESSED. Everywhere we go, especially restaurants, we can barely get our broken Thai greeting out before we hear the words “Kru Nate” echo from the mouths of both owners and patrons alike. I thought I understood at first. Nate was one of the few (VERY few) farangs in Hangchat for that year. We are now farangs in Hangchat. We are also teaching at Hangchat Wittaya, like he did for 2 semesters. They are comparing us to him. . .totally normal and to be expected.

It’s so much more than that. He’s sort of started a new religion around here, the Kru Nate religion. He has mesmerized the people with his whiskey drinking, soccer playing, Thai speaking, and motorbike riding ways. There are many legends circulating Hangchat about him. “One time, he paid for a group of his students to eat dinner at a restaurant.” “He would ride the motorbike all the way to Chiang Mai.” “He would start drinking whiskey at 3 pm.” He seems to have befriended everybody. The motorbike we ride is not “Sutham’s motorbike” or even “The Farangs’ motorbike,” it is “Kru Nate Motorbike.” Honest to God, the day we took motorbike lessons from Lun, she just kept repeating the words “Kru Nate motorbike” over and over and over again. She seemed to think it was very funny that we, veritable imposters, were riding the motorbike of Kru Nate.

Furthermore, the owner of every restaurant we go to informs us that Kru Nate ate there every single day, and he or she serves up Kru Nate’s favorite food in Hangchat. Is it possible that this God of a man was eating 7-8 meals per day? Keep in mind, he also ate at the “cantine” or cafeteria every day for lunch. (Of course he loved the cantine food the most). This larger than life character loved hot and spicy food, (the hotter the better, in fact) and tried every single menu item at every single eatery during his time in Hangchat (so adventurous). He would even use his superhuman strength and knowledge of the Thai language, (practically fluent by the time he departed,) to work at restaurants and help out as needed.

Last week we visited the restaurant of Lund Dang (Uncle Dang) who kept ordering us to send certain messages to Nate through the internet. We must tell him that Lund Dang misses him very much. Does he remember the noodle dish that he used to eat all the time? Lund Dang, at one point during our dinner, appeared at our table with a notepad that contained writing from this mythological man! Imagine, an actual tangible artifact! We read the few lines where Kru Nate had written his phone number and address, along with a couple of his favorite dishes at the restaurant. Then we had to look at a cell phone picture of him and say how handsome we thought he was. Everyone asks if we ever met him. When we tell them that we did meet him briefly in Bangkok, they look at us with a knowing gleam in their eye . . .as if saying, “Well, then, you get it.”

What impossibly large shoes to fill! Will we ever possibly be able to carve out our own niche in Hangchat after such a crater has been formed by this man? All we can do is try, and try we will. I will never be able to eat meals loaded up with chili peppers. I will never be able to converse in Thai. I will never enjoy eating pork liver, and I will never be able to eat 13 meals a day. But maybe, just maybe I will be able to work my way into these Thai hearts in some other fashion – my karaoke skills? My amazing dance moves? We will see, we will see.

Ridin' Dirty

When Emily and I first received our placement in Thailand we were told that along with housing we would be given both bicycles and a motorbike. We assumed that there was some sort of translation problem and there was no way they would actually be providing us with anything motorized. When we met Sutham, our director, at our orientation in Bangkok he told us we would in fact be lent his old motorbike (called a “motorcyke” in Thailand). When we told him that we had be warned by our program that we are not insured for motorbike accidents and should not ride them while in Thailand, he told us we didn’t really have a choice if we ever wanted to get anywhere on our own. We didn’t want to be prisoners in our Jungle House so we agreed to take the risk (please refer to old post by “Miss Independent” aka Emily).

The entire first week the other teachers kept asking us “Did you learn to ride the motorbike yet?” We didn’t know how they thought we were magically going to learn if none of them were willing to teach us but we would just laugh and say “No, not yet!”. Then, Lun told us that at the end of the week her nephew Dart (in an old post I thought his name was Dat, well I was wrong…this occurs often regarding any and all Thai words/pronunciations) would come over and teach us. The end of the week came and went and we realized that 19 year old college boys have better things to do than teach adult farang (quiz time: do you remember what this means from previous posts?...didn’t think so, it means foreigner!) to ride motorbikes that the Thai master riding as young children, even though it is not legal for them to drive them until age 15. But finally on Sunday Lun brought her 15 year old niece Dream (again, she was referred to as Din in a previous post, but honestly, they do not say “Dream” when they pronounce her name!) over to teach us. Yes, it is a little embarrassing to have someone that many years our junior teaching us, if you were wondering.

There are a few things you need to know about the motorbike. First, a motorbike is NOT a motorcycle. It is smaller and goes much slower, maybe 40 or 50 at its fastest, similar to a moped. Our motorbike is quite large as motorbikes go though, as it used to be ridden by our male director. Therefore, it is very heavy and takes a lot of effort to hold up or move. It is also very hard to start and requires you to throw all of your body weight into pushing the starter pedal (at first it took us about 15 tries to start it, which was extremely embarrassing when in public, but Emily seems to have the hang of it and we are down to about 2-3 tries these days). Lastly, it is extremely noisy due to its old age, and many people have told us they can “always hear us coming”…oh, great!

Dream held her motorbike lessons on a big field at the school. We were pretty fast learners, as we picked up the gear changing, turning, and stopping rather easily. Although honestly, since neither Lun nor Dream are fluent enough in English to know every word necessary for giving driving lessons, I’m not sure I really know what I'm doing. For example, I randomly change gears as I please, not understanding precisely how you decide when it is time (both Emily and I drive automatic cars). Emily practiced on Lun’s bike (which looks like a joke next to ours because it is so much smaller, it is the green one in the pictures) while I used ours (the red one). Lun is very overprotective of us and assumes we will crash and die at any moment so she made us drive in circles over and over and over, even though being on an open field wasn’t great practice for being on a Thai highway with other, much larger, vehicles (and on the left side of the road, too). She kept saying things like “Ohhhhh, maybe you should go slooower!” and anytime I stopped because I had had enough of practicing she would say “Ohhhh, maybe you should keep going!” Meanwhile, Dream laughed at us as our motorbikes jumped and jolted forward every time we changed gears. Finally, we had to tell Lun that we had had enough and were ready to hit the real roads! She started to panic (which she probably should have considering the only road outside the school happens to be a highway), but one more lap around the field and we were going to die of boredom. Emily jumped on the back of my motorbike (very brave move) and we made the super-long 2 mile journey to “downtown” Hang Chat.

In Thailand, motorbikes are driven all the way to the left side of the road, sometimes even on the shoulder if they are too slow (so obviously Lun had us driving here), so that cars can easily pass. We made it safely, with Lun looking back at us every 2 seconds to make sure we were still behind her.

It is now over a week later and we are basically experts…or so we like to think. So far I am the only one who has driven the motorbike out of the school’s property. Emily is capable but not confident enough to take it to the real roads yet. This is ok though, because I like driving and Emily is the pro engine starter…we make such a great team! We have still only gotten as far as downtown Hang Chat, so nothing over 3 miles, and it was just this weekend that we were granted the privilege of leaving our house via motorbike without a chaperone (Lun had been driving her motorbike from her house to ours and then driving ahead of us, even though her house is right in center of the downtown area, which is always our destination). Hopefully in the coming weeks we will start adding some distance trips, like going into the closest city of Lampang, which is about 20 minutes by car, so probably 30 or more by motorbike.

Please enjoy the video footage I captured of Emily’s first go on the motorbike.

Loy Krathong

Happy Loy Krathong everybody!!!



Loy Krathrong is an awesome Thai (Buddhist) holiday that occurs on the first full moon of November. This year it took place on Monday, November 2. Everybody in the community makes (or buys, if you're lame) "krathongs" or floats made out of banana tree trunks, banana leaves, and flowers. You top them with a candle and some spare change, then float them in the river to bring good luck for the coming year. Lampang is very well known for the Loy Krathong holiday because the river is a major part of the town. In addition to floating the Krathongs, people also light a small fire that is attached to a huge "balloon" (reminded us of the "boy in the balloon scandal" a few weeks ago back in the States) and float it up to the sky. Another good luck thing, I assume. I don't ask questions, I just do it . . .I figure I can use all the good luck I can get.



Pan and her daughter Poon took us to the center of town to join in the festivities after a wonderful steak dinner (THANKS PAN!!!!) and daiquiri shots - mmmmm. Enjoy the video (if it works . . .apparently I'm infringing on some copyright laws with the song?)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTkF3ndp_ao


And update, our address is as follows .. . .we live on the school's campus so things can be sent to the school


Hang Chat Wittaya School
166 Moo 5
Hang Chat District, Lampang 52190
Thailand


Ain't too proud to beg . . .SEND US THINGS PLEASE!