I can think of a lot of things to call Saito, but "reasonable"... that's a new one

Trip to Kachanaburi

Oct  23-25

This was the part of the orientation where we took a side-trip to Kachanaburi, a province a few hours west of Bangkok. We left the hotel on the 23^rd in our monster-buses. The drive itself was interesting. Just outside Bangkok, we drove by several VERY nice gated communities, and many much smaller houses that look like they were thrown together with random pieces of wood and metal. Although several of them had satellite dishes... Remember that picture of a shrine I posted a little while ago? This is called a spirit house, and they are for wandering spirits to reside in. This way, they will be less likely to run amok, and haunt people. You see these spirit houses everywhere:  on residential streets, in front of individual houses, in parking lots of office buildings, by gas stations... the list goes on. They are quite beautiful. 

We arrived at the Pavillion hotel in Kachanaburi at around 8:30-9:00PM. The hotel was beautiful – Kachanaburi is known for its natural beauty, and the hotel had many open-air spaces. It also had quite large grounds, containing 2 pools, and went right up to the shore of the River Kwai (pronounced Kwaeh, “kwai” is a water buffalo in Thai, I think). The first night, I went for a swim and it was lovely after a long, hot day (so far, the temperature has been in the mid-thirties each day)(and very humid). We also saw our first monkey from our balcony! Other wildlife spotting included many small geckos (everywhere), and various birds. 

The next day, we went to the Taweechai Elephant Camp, which are quite popular for tourists to Thailand. It was really neat seeing them – they are so majestic... Cute too. The OEG staff had also assured us that the elephants at this camp were treated well. We started our visit with an elephant ride around the camp. First you had to awkwardly climb into this bench, perched like a saddle on top of the elephant. Each elephant had a Thai rider as well. It was hard to balance at first, you rock back and forth a lot on the seat. But they had a seatbelt (which is more than I can say about much of the transportation I’ve been on so far...). The trail led down into the river as well: it was fun to see the elephants spouting the water from their trunks. After the ride, we saw the “elephant show”, which consisted of 3 elephants playing harmonicas, twirling hula hoops on their trunks, shooting baskets, and more. You also got the chance to be lifted in the air by the elephant (with their trunks) – many of us had “elephant burn” on our arms from hanging on so tightly!

 I'm so graceful...

Finally, we had our rafting adventure down the river. To get to the departure point, we rode in the back of a pickup truck with benches. At the departure point, we were given poorly fitting life jackets – this was probably the only safety measure of the endeavor. You just tried to ignore the fact that when you went to tighten the straps, the clasp would come unbuckled. We laughed because if this were happening in Canada, we would have had to sit through a safety presentation and probably sign several waivers. Not so much here! The water was very calm anyway. So 6 of us piled onto a bamboo raft, followed by our guide. After a bit, we were allowed to jump in and be carrier by the current. This was lovely after the heat of the other activities. Our guide liked to smack his paddle on the water near one of us, pretending it was a crocodile. The scenery was also gorgeous – the banks were lined with many tropical trees and plants, with mountains in the background. Eventually, we landed a ways down the river and were taken to back to the camp.

Riding Elephants!

Rafting along

Once we were finished at the camp, we were taken to the historic Bridge on the River Kwai location. This site is infamous for being a POW forced labour camp in the World War Two. Now the bridge is now made out of metal, and Thai trains use it regularly. While we were walking across the bridge, a train passed by – you had to huddle onto these small “safety platforms” to let the train pass. It was interesting. On the other side of the river, there was a large temple (“wat” in Thai), which we wandered around. There were also some large trees that had offerings in front of them, for the tree spirits. As we were leaving the site, we drove by the Allied War Cemetery as well.

I will also take the time to mention that I’ve started to use the “squatter” toilets here. I know you really wanted to know that. You’re welcome. The trick is to imagine that you are just in the woods somewhere.

In the evening, we were treated to a dinner cruise on a floating restaurant. They eventually started playing music, and basically turned the restaurant into a club. At one point, it started pouring. Naturally, we all thought it was a fantastic idea to dance in the rain. It was one of those moments that is so spontaneous – it takes you by surprise, and I’m sure many of us will remember it for a long time to come. How often can you say you had a dance party in the pouring rain (and thunder... in the middle of a river. NBD) on a floating restaurant on the River Kwai?

We were eventually taken back to the hotel, where a karaoke party was being held for us. In conclusion, a very long and very fun day. 

The next day, we were taken back to Bangkok to meet our school coordinators. It was also at this time we had to say goodbye (for now) to all the friends, acquaintances, and people you still hadn’t met yet. Hopefully we will be able to meet up to travel, but I was sad to see the friends I had made go their separate ways. Oh well, that’s why we have Facebook! Anna and I met our coordinator and another Thai teacher, hopped in our school’s van, and were on our way. The traffic was very heavy, as it always is in Bangkok. I’ve been terrible at checking times so far, as you may have noticed – I also barely know what day it is – so I don’t know how long exactly it took us to drive to our school. We are at Amuayvidhya school in Phra Pradaeng, still fairly close to Bangkok but we are technically in another province, Samut Prakon. Whoever it was that said Phra Pradaeng was quiet lied – it is very busy with people, cars, stores, and as always, motorcycles. We were taken to our apartment, met our landlord (who is very nice and even offered to drive us to a good restaurant), and began to settle in. We are literally down the street from the school, which is great. Nearby is also a bustling road of shops, several temples, and a park. We are basically under the King Rama IX bridge, which is a very interesting bridge. We ventured out to the main road near us to buy some things for our apartments (which are bachelors and quite nice) and it was... more than an adventure and a half. Everything was a challenge – going to the grocery store, buying towels, navigating through the people... even crossing the street. Needless to say, I felt quite overwhelmed to be tossed into this new environment after being pampered at orientation. But we will adjust, I’m sure. I will post more later about our neighbourhood, but this post is already long enough. 

I will finish by saying that I had a fantastic time at Orientation, but this is where the real adventure begins!

P.S. It currently takes about 10 million years to update pictures on the wifi I'm using at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to upload more soon.