Pray for Mojo...

Lopburi

Nov 24-25

This past weekend, we decided to go to Lopburi for the annual Monkey festival. Lopburi is known for the monkeys that hangout in the city, and every year, they put on a Monkey Festival in November. We decided this would be fun to check out. 

We left Phra Pradaeng Saturday morning around 11:00 am – we had decided that we just wanted to spend the one night in Lopburi. We took a taxi to the Mo Chit (or northern) bus station, where we met with Karima. There was a large anti-government protest taking place in Bangkok on Saturday, so we were worried about traffic. Side note: the protest was nothing to be concerned about. The current Prime Minister of Thailand is Yingluck Shinawatra. The controversy that surrounds her is based on that her brother is the deposed Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 for corruption and abuse of power by a military coup. Although he is living in self-imposed exile, many believe he still controls the party his sister leads. By the way, Yinglucl Shinawatra was democratically elected in 2011, by a large majority. So that was the main reason for the protest, and that the government has been ignoring insults to the monarchy. But, despite all that, the ride went smoothly, and took a lot less time than we thought! 

The bus station was massive: it reminded me more of an airport than a bus terminal. There were over 100 booths to buy tickets, and you can only buy tickets for certain locations at certain booths. We eventually found the right booth to buy our tickets, and we made our way to our platform. This was my first time taking one of the government, or big, buses (basically the same size as a greyhound). After a bit of waiting (things generally don’t leave on time in Thailand), we were on our way. The ride there took a LOOOONG time – longer than the 3 hours it was supposed to. I think it took more like 4.5 – we made lots of stops and waited around a lot.

We eventually arrived in Lopburi – the plan was to stay a hotel a little ways away, and we didn’t know how to get there. Erin called the hotel, and they sent one someone to meet us, which was very kind of them! The man from the hotel told a sawng-tao driver where to take us, and paid for our trip. The name of the hotel was the Lopburi Residence Hotel, and it was quite nice and very reasonably priced. We paid 600B for a room (300B per person), which included the use of the pool, air-conditioning, and breakfast in the morning. As far as we could tell, all the other guests were Thai. We decided to go for a swim – the pool was quite nice but chilly!

We then made out way into town to find a place to get dinner and drinks. We stopped on the way at a general store and bought some beer for the walk. The lady gave us straws with our beer, so we decided to use them. It wasn’t so bad! It took us quite a while to walk into town (about 45 mins I think), but we eventually made it. We stopped at the 7-11 for more beer, and then wandered around in search of a restaurant. While we were wondering, we had our first monkey sighting – they were eating garbage that was put out on the road. We ate dinner, got more beer, then went to the local bar. We saw many other people from OEG, which was nice! Most of the OEGers ended up at the bar, which I think was the only bar open at the time. We also talked to some French tourists, and I attempted to speak French. Winning... they said we spoke well but I suspect they were lying. But we had a good time at the bar!

We left around 12:30am I think, and discovered that the sawng-taos and taxis had stopped running. So we started to walk back to the hotel. Laura and Anna managed to flag down a random Thai driver, who said we would drive us. In other words, we hitchhiked. Winning... But the driver was really nice. He took us to the bus station, which was close to our hotel. We walked the rest of the way. At this point, I had developed some unfortunate hiccoughs, and spent most of the walk back laughing, snorting, and hiccoughing. Karima tried to scare me at one point, but all that accomplished was I stumbled and broke my flip-flop. I did the zombie-walk for a while (dragging my foot in an attempt to keep my flip-flop on) but eventually gave up on that. Fortunately, we were close to the hotel.

The next day, Karima and I slept in until 8:30am, and went for breakfast. We ate lots of toast and pineapple. I may break down at one point and buy a toaster, but I’m holding out for now. But I love toast... Mmmm. Around 11:30am, we all headed into town to see the Monkey Festival. On the way, we stopped at the bus station to try and buy our ticket, but there was only one big bus leaving for Bangkok that day... So we decided to take a mini-van/bus from town.  The Monkey Festival took place at the Khmer ruins in the middle of town, called Prang Sam Yot. There was an elaborate display of fruit laid out, as well as many hundreds of stuffed monkeys. It was neat to see the monkeys – but you only think they’re cute for about 2 minutes. Then they start stealing your food, biting, and jumping on you. So the novelty of them wears off pretty soon. One person we know from OEG was bitten pretty badly, and had to go get rabies shots. I didn’t want to have to do anything like that, so I didn’t want any monkeys to climb on me. One jumped on my backpack, but jumped off pretty quickly.

After we had had enough of the monkeys, we had lunch – delicious omelette from a small local restaurant. Some OEGers told us about these really nice sunflower fields a bit out of town we could check out. We didn’t want to leave just yet, so we decided to go. To get there, you basically have to find someone with a truck to drive you. We walked all around, but couldn’t find anyone who would charge a reasonable price. We were about to give up, but we found a motorcycle-taxi driver who also apparently drove a truck. So we piled into the back of his truck – it was kind of set up as a sawng-tao, with 2 benches and a covering. The drive took about half an hour, I think, and it was a lovely ride. We eventually turned off the main road, and just when we thought these fields were a figment of someone’s imagination, we arrived. The fields were gorgeous – sunflowers are probably my favourite flower. They are so happy! The fields were full of them, with mountains in the background. After we had our fill, we scraped the mud off our shoes with sticks (channelling our inner monkey), climbed back into the truck, and went back to town. We decided we were ready to leave, so we hopped onto a mini-van, and were on our way back to town.

The ride back to Bangkok was a lot shorter than the way there, and I slept most of the time. We were dropped off at Victory Monument, and ate at the McDonalds in a nearby mall. I don’t think I can eat McDonalds – it was iffy back home to start with, but here, since I only eat Thai food, it’s even worse. It gave me pretty bad stomach cramps. But I survived. We managed to catch a taxi, but not until after the rain started... Now, if you are a family member, you must promise me you will not freak out. We were near our apartment, and our driver stopped abruptly. I was just looking to see what was ahead, when WHAM! We were rear-ended quite forcefully by another taxi. We were all fine, but the vehicle was no longer drive-able as the bumper was dragging. The entire back was completely crunched. We found another taxi to take us the rest of the way – I wondered if we should stay as witnesses, but we likely wouldn’t be able to communicate/be any use. And it was pretty clear what happened... We made it the rest of the way home without incident. And so ended our fairly eventful weekend!

Mmmm... Open-faced club sand wedge

Foooooooood

Gaeng Massaman at Kian's

So far this week, teaching has been... teaching. Things are going relatively well, some classes are better than others, and sometimes I have a great time. Other times, not so much. For example, Wednesday morning was terrible, but the afternoon was great. Oh well, and as the Thai’s say, “Mai bpen rai”.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while about the food in Thailand, and what I’ve been eating on a regular basis. So here is my insight into Thai food. I’m realising also that, fortunately, Thai food is one of my favourite cuisines, and I think I know why. It’s like they took the best from several cultures: delicious stir-frys, scrumptious soups, and fantastic curries. These are all foods I love at home, and here they are all SO GOOD.

For breakfast, I normally eat bread, nutella and banana OR a whole-grain cereal I found. Nutella here is relatively expensive, but it was on sale the other week at the Big C so I bought a couple large jars. Worth it! Cereal is also relatively expensive here, but damnit, I wanted to eat something with whole wheat and limited amounts of sugar. You don’t find a lot of whole wheat or fibre-rich food in Thai cuisine, so I eat my fancy cereal. Woo!

Lunch is eaten at school. The school has quite a large cafeteria, although here it’s called a “canteen”. Every week, I exchange money for plastic tokens, which you can use at the canteen/cafeteria, or in the small school shop, where you can buy snacks, drinks, school supplies, and other odds and ends. For lunch, typically eat the noodle soup. This soup consists of rice noodles, various flavours that the lunch ladies add, bean sprouts, morning glory, and chicken or pork. They also have beef sometimes, but it doesn’t look especially encouraging. You don’t find a lot of beef in Thailand, as there are few cows. Cheese is even rarer. You can find small blocks at the Big Cs or Tesco Lotuses, but they are expensive. They also have a bunch of other dishes, like fried chicken, omelettes (very big in Thailand), and various stir-fries and/or curries. I mostly stick with my noodle soup, for it’s very tasty.

 

Lunchtime is from 11:00am to 11:50pm. Most Thai people get up quite early to get to work or to drop their children off at school. Most students arrive at school from 7:30am to 8:00am. So lunch generally happens earlier than at home. Most days I’m finished teaching by 1:30pm: needless to say I usually get hungry in the afternoon. I’ll normally have a snack consisting of Thai yoghurt, Thai chips or cookies when I feel like junk food, or fruit. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the fruit here is amazing! In the market, there are several fruit and vegetable stands, where you can buy just about anything. My favourites include watermelon, rambutans, Thai mini-bananas, pineapple, and mangosteens. You can also buy strawberries (which aren’t as sweet as back home), oranges, dragonfruit, grapes, and other mystery fruits. I LOVE rambutans. They are also just fun to buy because they look so crazy. As you can see below, they are bright redish-pink, and have lots of hair things. To eat them, you have to crack open the skin with your fingers, and twist it apart. Then you eat the fruit, and spit out the pit. I think it’s mostly the process of eating them that I enjoy.

For dinner, I go to the restaurant near the corner of the main street and my alley, Kian’s. This restaurant is in the typical Thai restaurant style – the cook (Kian) has a little area at the front where she does the cooking. Her area consists of a couple portable burners, a fridge or two, counters for chopping, and various other surfaces. You would never find anything like this back home, and most people would probably consider it appalling. But all the food is fresh, and Kian cooks and prepares the food with care. There’s no menu – you can either ask for a specific dish, or Kian will tell you what she has that day. I have a few favourite dishes: Gaeng Massaman (a delicious orange curry with potatoes), Pad Thai, Pad Kapao (stir-fry with basil and garlic), Pad King (stir fry with garlic), Gaeng Sapparot (pineapple curry), and Pad Piawan (sweeter stir-fry with pineapple, cucumber, and others). The vegetables  in the dishes vary depending on what Kian has that day. Sometimes there’s lots of cauliflower, other times, there’s lots of carrots... But everything I tried has been delicious. Most of the time when I go, Kian will name a dish and I’ll go with that. I want to try everything she has! Everything has been very tasty. Usually we order things “Mai Pet”, which means “not spicy”. However, sometimes it still feels like someone has hit you in the face with a brick wrapped with chili peppers. I’ve started asking for thing “nitnoi pet”, which is a little bit spicy. I do love spicy food, but I’m afraid of “Thai spicy”, which is much spicier than home! All the meals at Kian’s are 30 Baht, and this includes water and rice. You can also buy beer and other drinks, as well as various odds and ends she has hanging on the walls. Kian’s husband is normally at the restaurant, as well as her granddaughter, Amy, who is crazy and has an aversion to pants. There are also the other regulars, but I’m not sure who they are. A couple cats also hang around. 

Kian doesn’t speak much English, so our conversations are normally broken phrases of English and Thai, as well as lots of gestures. The other day I was trying to explain that I loved curry, and I think it involved me saying “I love curry... Gaeng!”, giving the thumbs up, saying “aroi” (delicious), and listing the curries of hers I tried. I think I got my point across because she said something and named another curry, which I said I will try next time. She will also ask us where we’re going for the weekend and how the other foreign teachers are doing. Whenever we walk by, we make sure to say hello. It’s nice having such a friendly place to go everyday!

I have yet to try many Thai desserts but I can tell you how much they love sugar and sweet things. Everywhere in the market, you can find pastries, cakes, doughnuts, these jelly fruit things, jelly fruit thing sugar soup, sticky rice and more. I’m not huge on sweet things, so I haven’t been tempted to try these yet, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. There are these cookies I enjoy, which are almost identical to a type of cookies I used to love at home. It’s the vanilla cookie with the strawberry jam circle in the middle. I need to stop buying them because I’ll eat an entire package right there. Mmmm...

On average, I spend 20B on lunch, 30B on dinner, and whatever I’ve bought for groceries for breakfast. So I spend about $3 a day on food – not too shabby! I have yet to try the fried insects and scorpions you can get, but maybe at some point...

Nooo... I heard it on Baywatch

Hua Hin

This past weekend, I went to Hua Hin with my friend Karima. Karima is living right inside Bangkok, and hadn’t taken any trips yet, so we decided it was time for the beach! 

Hua Hin is a beach and town about a 3 hour drive from Bangkok. In the 1920s, the King at the time “discovered” the beauty of Hua Hin, and would vacation there. Now, it is mostly a tourist beach destination. It is also an active fishing area and one of the main draws to the area is it’s seafood.

On Friday night, I took the bus into Bangkok – the plan was for me to crash at Karima’s so we could make an early start the next day. It was my first time getting into Bangkok by myself, and it went relatively smoothly. I took the 138 bus from my area to Mo Chit bts station. The one small hiccup occurred as I was trying to get off the bus. I went to get off, and the Thai bus attendant came over and said we weren’t at Mo Chit yet (when I say “say”, I mean it was a mix of Thai and English and lots of gestures). But I could SEE we were there, or I was at least where I needed to be, as I needed to catch another bus to Karima’s place. Just so you know, Mo Chit station is part of the BTS skytrain, so the station is massive and hard to miss. And the last time we look the 138 to Mo Chit, the attendant also said we weren’t there yet and told us to stay on... We ended up in the middle of nowhere. So I tried to tell the attendant it was fine, and I would get off here. He started talking loudly in Thai and I had no idea what he was saying. But I knew I could get off, so I just walked down the steps and hopped off. At this point, the bus had started to drive away, but we weren’t going very fast.

I also managed to get the bus to Karima’s area without incident. I met her at the stop, we got some ice cream from McDonalds, and walked to her apartment. We went to bed fairly early so we could leave ASAP in the morning.

Saturday we woke up a bit before 7 am – that’s one good thing about the early start for the school day here, you get used to getting up early  - and took a taxi to Victory Monument. There you can catch mini-buses/vans to just about anywhere. We found a bus, bought our tickets and were on our way. The ride took just under  hours, and was mostly south west. We arrived in Hua Hin around noon, I think. We walked from where we were dropped off to the grocery store, Tesco lotus. After a quick stop there, we found a really cute guesthouse to stay for the night. It was called Ramayah and it was very nice. We paid about 800B for the night (400 each) and had AC, a private bathroom, a balcony, and a pool. And it was also about a 20 second walk from the beach. So we dumped our stuff, and headed down.

The beach at Hua Hin is lovely. Like Ko Samet, it had lovely white sand and palm trees along the sand. The water was a bit colder, which I didn’t really mind! We had lunch on the beach and went for a swim. We also walked along the beach into Hua HIn town, which was much nicer than walking on the road. There were the usual vendors walking along the beach, as well as Thais on horseback, offering rides. There were some other tourists there, but it was much quieter than I expected. I guess it is still the low season. 

In the evening, we went for dinner in the famous night market. They close down one of the roads in the town, and stalls open up. I always love walking in markets: there is so much to see! We bought dinner from a street vendor, and it was delicious. We also didn’t feel like spending lots of money at the fancy restaurants. Many of these restaurants had very cool displays of the available seafood: fish, shrimp, crustaceans and huge Thai lobsters. For desert, we got banana and nutella rote (similar to a crepe) and it was also delicious. We also stumbled upon a "fish spa" - this is where you put your feet in a tank of little fish and they eat the dead skin off your feet. It was very bizarre! and cool! After, our feet did feel very soft.

After the market, we walked around the bar district to find a place for drinks. However, all of the bars were occupied by middle aged white men and their Thai “girlfriends”, so we were not to keen on these places. It also started to pour rain. At this time, we went into the nearby Hilton hotel, and disrecetely rode the elevator to the top floor. There was a great view of the city, as well as the storm over the water. Worth it! Once the rain died down, we walked along the beach back to our hotel.

In the morning, it was quite stormy. It rained for a bit, but once it stopped, the wind was still blowing and there were lots of angry looking clouds. We went for a long walk down the beach towards a temple/shrine at the point. The water was all wavy and choppy – it reminded me of Ipperwash Beach on Lake Huron when the wind blows from the north. It was pretty cool. Eventually, the beach ended and seawalls took over. It wasn’t deep by the walls, but we decided we’d rather not get swept out to sea, so we turned back. We went for a swim in the hotel pool, then packed up our stuff. We checked out, had lunch in the town, and caught a van back to Bangkok. The ride was fine, but I’m pretty sure our driver was on crack. He was driving ridiculously fast, and weaving around other cars. We were also in the very back, so we were jostled around quite a bit. But we survived!

We arrived back in Bangkok around 4:30PM and I decided to head back home. I took the BTS to a bus stop that would take me back to Phra Pradaend. I had gone into Bangkok this way before, but left the city by this route, so I was nervous about being able to find the bus stop. But, I found it really easily and a bus arrived about 30 seconds later. It was a nice evening ride, and I arrived back home safe and sound.

Hua Hin was lovely, but the next time I travel, I want to go somewhere other than the beach. Also, if I had to pick between Ko Samet and Hua Hin, I would pick Ko Samet – it was more natural (it is a national park). But it was a lovely weekend, and great to finally get to do a trip with Karima!

You've Attained the Rank of "Pussywillow"

Scout Camp

On Thursday(Nov 6), I went to scout camp with my p3s. Earlier in the week, my coordinator said I wouldn’t have to teach the p3s as they had scout camp. The next day, she asked if I wanted to go and help out at the camp. I replied, “Yes. Yes I do”. Thai schools all have scout programs – the students will wear the scarves like the ones scouts and girl guides wear at home. They learn drilling, outdoor activities, songs, and whatnot – rather like back home. The younger kids will just have “scout days” but the older kids will go on 2-3 day long retreats. 

My coordinator told me to meet the students at school at 7:45am and to wear my normal teacher clothes (skirt and blouse). So I arrived in the morning, sat around, and then was told to go wait downstairs. After a bit of waiting, my coordinator came to find me and said we would meet my p3 co-teacher, Phi May, somewhere else. We ran into Phi May pretty quickly, and she said everyone was meeting at the park at 9am. My coordinator, Phi Tuk by the way, gave me a blue polo shirt with the school crest on it, and said I should go home and put it on, as well as trousers and a hat (it was now 8:20am). I ran to the market quickly and bought the first baseball cap I found – lots of mining was involved.

I met the students in the park at 9am. All the p3s were involved: 4 classes or about 130 students. First, the classes walked around the park in their class groups. I basically hung around Phi May and went where she went – most of the other teachers didn’t speak much English. Around the park, there are various work-out apparatus, and the students attempted to use them. There was a high bar, and the teachers and I tried to jump and grab it, but alas, we were all too short. I smiled for a lot of pictures, and in general, did not know what was going on. Also, all the other teachers were dressed nicely in their scout outfits – similar to scout leaders back home but with a bit more military flavour. They all looked very spiffy – I looked a bit like a schlump in my hiking pants, baseball hat, running shoes, and too-big polo. Oh well! Also, out of a weird coincidence, almost everything I had was blue: my shirt, my hat, my bag, my watch strap and my camera. I kept thinking "It looks like I have a weird blue fetish...".

 After the walk, the students were assembled by their class, and in lines of boys and girls (from shortest to  tallest). They did various drilling activities, like standing at attention and at ease. After that, we sang songs. The head scout leader man, Phi Nat, asked if I would “sing and dance with him”, and I said, “Ooooookay...”. So we sang and danced a song in English about greetings. I also danced with the students. Was good times.

Next came the snacks, and I was herded over to food area, which consisted of some mats spread over the sidewalk pavement. I handed out muffins to the kids while trying to sit awkwardly mermaid style. After snacks, the students rotated through various activities, including throwing balls in baskets, throwing balls to each other, playing with hula hoops and skipping. I was stationed at the skipping area and attempted to teach the students how to skip. Most of the girls knew how, most of the boys didn’t. But to their credit, most of them tried really hard! It was quite amusing. It was also about 45 degrees with the humidity, so after a while, I was super hot. Most of the kids would skip for a while, then sit down because it was too hot. But it was still fun.

 Lunch was served out of large pots brought from the school. We had a chicken and broth dish, omelette and rice. The teachers also had a bag of rambutans to share: I looove rambutans. After lunch, there was more drilling. Then, the scout leader player “Gangnam Style” through his mega-phone. For those of you who don’t know “Gangnam Style”, google it. Thai kids LOVE this song and the dance that goes with it. They took a boy and girl volunteer from each class, and they led the students in the dance. A couple of the boys (who I know from my classes and are trouble makers but smart) knew the WHOLE dance. It was hilarious. Then, they dragged me in front as well, and I attempted to do the dance with the students. Hilarious and embarrassing. 

After the dancing, the students made a house out of popsicle sticks. I helped them as much as I could by demonstrating. The students also set up an elaborate carpet of newspapers to sit on, and even took off their shoes. Definitely different than at home! I also had a nice chat with the Thai teacher of one of my classes – I didn’t think she spoke any English, but she actually speaks pretty well! We talked about travelling and teaching mostly. Around 3, I went home, as I was exhausted. Long but fun day!

P.S. Runner-ups for this post's title were:

How was jerk practice, boy?  Did they teach you how to sing to trees? And build crappy 

furniture out of useless wooden logs? Huh?

Oh, we're done for, we're done for, we're done diddely done for, we're done diddely 

doodily, done diddely doodily, donediddely doodily, done diddely doodily...

PPS As of today, I've been in thailand for one month. Crazy. 

We're done for, we're done-diddly done for, we're done-diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodly, done diddly-doodily!

Read more tv spoilers at: http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/the-simpsons/episodes/boy-scoutz-n-the-hood/page-2.html#ixzz2CeS7nL9d

We're done for, we're done-diddly done for, we're done-diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodly, done diddly-doodily!

Read more tv spoilers at: http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/the-simpsons/episodes/boy-scoutz-n-the-hood/page-2.html#ixzz2CeS7nL9

We're done for, we're done-diddly done for, we're done-diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodly, done diddly-doodily!

Read more tv spoilers at: http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/the-simpsons/episodes/boy-scoutz-n-the-hood/page-2.html#ixzz2CeS7nL9d