Happy Halloween!

Halloween in Thailand

First post in a while - mainly because last semester wasn't TOO exciting. I didn't travel that much, and there weren't a lot of fun holidays to write about. BUT! Now it's the start of my last semester in Thailand (granted I get accepted to teacher's college in the all), and the winter semester has many more opportunities for fun!

Halloween is sort of celebrate in Thailand, but definitely not to the same extent as Canada. People will have Halloween parties, and go out, but that's about it really. And some schools will do small Halloween activities. Normally on holidays, I like to make a craft with my students. I don't do crafts very often because I have to buy all the supplies myself, and it can be quite time consuming. But Halloween has always been my favourite holiday, so I wanted to do something special. I decided to have my students make Jack-o-Lantern hats - which I especially liked because it gave them sort of a costume. So, I spent about 300 baht on supplies, and 3 hours cutting up the paper into smaller pieces. But it was so worth it!

( PSI had also planned to wear a costume, but all the teachers at our school have to wear black and white as the head of the Thai Buddhist monks recently passed away. So I decided a costume wouldn't be appropriate)

Here are some pictures for your amusement:

Mother's Day is in August Now

Mother’s Day

In Thailand, Mother’s Day is celebrated on August 12, as the 12^th is the Queen’s birthday. To celebrate, many businesses put up beautiful displays of Queen Sirikit, as well as new banners and flags on the streets. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest holidays in Thailand.

 Her Majesty Queen Sirikit

 The week before Mother’s Day, I planned activities to do with my classes to celebrate. For Prathom 3, my co-teacher P’Nii, planned to make little cards out of paper plates with the students. Prathom 4 can handle a bit more complex activities, and I have noticed the students love making things out of origami. So I found a cool idea for a card with origami flowers.

On Thursday, we made our crafts. Observe the below pictures:

The other foreign teachers and myself were told we would be dressed in formal Thai clothes for the Mother’s Day assembly on Friday, August 9^th. I will now write a bit about the Thai clothes. Most Thai women are not very curvy... A bag of long skirts were brought up for us to try on and needless to say, none of them fit. I was trying to wiggle into one when I heard a large RIP! So it was not the best few days for our self esteem. But eventually some skirts that fit were found. I had to wear a different skirt, as I was to lay a bouquet in front of a portrait of the Queen. So by fit, I mean I squeezed into my skirt, and couldn’t really do it up at the top. Close enough. But the clothes were beautiful, so it was worth it.

Friday morning, I woke up early to make my hair look pretty. At school, we put on our clothes, did final hair and makeup touches, then went down stairs. As usual, we look lots of pictures. All the Thai teachers were dressed in their best light-blue outfits – light blue being the Queen’s colour. Everyone looked lovely.

The assembly started around 8. First, the administrators placed their bouquets in front of the Queen’s portrait. Eventually, we (the foreign teachers) went up. Mr Wayne and I placed the bouquets, as we had been at the school the longest. The whole process was a little stressful – we had to curtsey and look dignified a lot. (the previous afternoon, we had a rehearsal. It was... ok). This is how it went: walk to stage – curtsey – walk up the stairs – place bouquet – curtsey – walk off stage. With many, many people. But it went smoothly! Hooray! After, the marching band played the Royal family’s anthem – which is an amazingly beautiful song. (They play the song also when you see a movie in theatres – by the end of it, I either feel like crying or cheering.) Next was a really neat Thai drumming show – featuring a couple of my students in P4. It’s customary that drumming also includes traditional dance. It was very well done – a great performance!

 Mr Wayne and myself - we are the most senior foreign teachers (Mr Wayne - 8 years, me - 9 months) so we got to place the boquets

 I was really hoping that my skirt WOULDN'T explode

Above ad below photo cred - Amnuayvidhya School

The photo shoot followed the assembly. Naturally.

Mink, Wayne, Deaw, P'May, Me, Krista, Aubin, Taylor, P Aey, Jenny and Mr Brian (head of the English department)

Taylor, Me, Wayne, Dr Srirean (like the principal), Mr Brian, Aubin and Krista

All in all, an interesting holiday to be part of.

Chiang Rai Part 2 - Aka Parents: You Trained Me Well

Chiang Rai part 2

And so continues the epic saga of my trip to Chiang Rai. 

On Sunday July 21, I had a trip booked in rural Chiang Rai. I booked my trip though an independent travel company called Ban Meing Home Stay. The trip was to go through the rural hill tribes in the area. It was easily one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was picked up from my hostel around 9:30am by the guide, Mr Tao. We hopped into a sawng-tao with Tao’s wife, Mary, and the other participant, Alang from Guatemala. Tao and Mary are originally from Myanmar/Burma  - Tao has been living in Thailand for 17 years. They are also part of an ethnic hill tribe minority, so they were able to speak the languages of the towns we visisted.

The trip started with a boat ride up the river to the mountains near Chaing Rai. Our first stop was a large hill tribe town called Roi Miot. This is  a Karen village, and the largest of the villages in the area (about 1000 people live there). At this town, we went for a short elephant ride, and also saw some large snakes. I wasn’t interested so much in the elephant ride, but it was part of the trip.

 Our Mahout and his little umbrella

 Rice paddies in Roi Miot village

After the stop in Roi Miot, we took the boat a bit farther up the river to Phasoet National Park. The main attraction for this park is the hot spring, which has been converted into a pool, similar to the hot springs my family and I visited in Southern France. After a soak in the warm water, we had lunch at a nearby restaurant. Lunch was accompanied by some wild fruit we found on the way – I can’t remember what it was called. They were VERY sour (but they are supposed to taste like that apparently).

 Tao and Mary gathering fruit

After lunch was when the real fun began. Ie this is when we started the actual trekking. This following part is directed to my parents/family: you trained me well. When I have the choice, I travel to the mountains/forest/national parks. When I am in these areas, the first thing I do is figure out a way to go hiking or biking into the middle of nowhere. SOME PEOPLE enjoy relaxing on the beach. Ha. I’m not happy unless I’m in the middle of the woods, covered in mud, and panting from climbing a steep hill. I look RIDICULOUSLY happy in all the pictures I took. 

Anyway the first part of the hike was a 5km walk to the nearest town. For the first little while, this was on a small paved road – but there were no cars, only a couple of motorcycles. We were surrounded by thick jungle on either side of the road. It was a very nice walk. Tao made us bamboo walking sticks with his handy machete-like jungle knife. After a couple kilometres, the road turned to dirt. As this is the rainy season (it had rained for about an hour earlier in the day) the road was mostly mud. No big deal. We eventually reached the first village – a Lahu village I believe (I lost track). This town was surrounded by terraced rice paddies. We also saw villagers cleaning bamboo shoots in the stream (to sell in the Chaing Rai city markets). Most of the houses were built of bamboo and use solar panels for electricity. We also saw a lady preparing birds from the jungle to eat. Not chickens or turkeys. Like average birds. In the villages, the inhabitants will eat anything they can get their hands on.

 Cutting bamboo walking sticks

 Washing bamboo shoots

 Stylish, no?

In the village, the road turned more into a trail, and the walk became much steeper. Yay! (i’m not being sarcastic haha). We got gorgeous views of the valley. During our hike, Tao made me a hat out of a large leaf. At one point, it started to rain a little bit so Tao gave us huge bamboo leaf umbrella (yes parents, I did have my raincoat). Every so often, he would pick a few leaves of various plants that the villagers use for remedies. It was very interesting. We walked through several other small villages: Lisu, Akha, Chinese, and others I’m sure I forget. It was breathtakingly beautiful. 

After the villages, we walked to a well known waterfall, Huay-Kaew. The waterfall was very impressive – the best time to go waterfall viewing in Thailand is during the rainy season. We also got to walk on these really rickety looking bridges. Fun times! Near the Chinese village, there are fields of lychee trees, as well as a huge Oo-Long tea plantations. 

We eventually arrived at the village where our guide’s home stay is located. He also helps run a school in the town that many of the villagers attend. The said they are always on the lookout for volunteers – I would LOVE to volunteer there. We shall seeeeeeeee! After sampling some jungle tea at the home stay, we were given a ride back into down by one of the village elders. Tao invited Alang and I to join him and his wife for dinner. So after a quick shower at my hostel, I was off again.

Dinner was fantastic. They made a combination of Burmese and hill tribe food. Dishes included shredded pork with banana-flower and garlic, a kind of curry/stif fry with fish and tea leaves, local vegetable soup and tea from bamboo cups. It was delicious. And it was so nice of Tao and his wife to invite us. BEST TOUR GUIDE EVER! He talked a bit more about his company – he worked as a guife for another company for any years and just started his own business a few months ago. So, if you are going to Chaing Rai, and want to do some trekking, I highly(!!!!!) recommend them.

July 22

Monday was my last day in Chiang Rai – I had a bus booked back to Bangkok that night. So I decided to rent a bicycle and explore a little more. First, I rode through ChIang Rai city and saw the rest of the sights I wanted to see (a park, the river, and a few other temples). Then I followed a road southwest out of the city to a nearby lake. After the lake, I decided to explore the back roads going south. I didn’t have any destination in mind – I was just exploring. The back roads were lovely – very quiet and natural. I also found a few isolated temples and gatherings of houses.

Around 1:30pm, I headed back into town for lunch. After lunch, I was feeling adequately baked by the very strong sun, so I decided to take shelter. I passed some time by getting a massage. Ahhh... After the massage, I went back to return the bicycle. On the way, I ran into the parade the town was having for Asanha Pucha. Many people in traditional costumes, and many elaborate sculpted candles. I stayed to watch for a little while, then went back to the hostel. I repacked my things, then caught a shuttle to the bus station. There I had dinner – the restaurant had a menu only in Thai. When I walked up, the owner looked at me nervously and mumbled something about chicken. However, I ordered something off the menu – she looked visibly relieved haha. After, I was sitting waiting for y food when a couple back packers came up. They were Dutch, I believe, and didn’t speak any Thai. I could see their conversation with the lady was going nowhere, so I went over and ordered their food for them. Go me! Haha! I enjoy being semi-literate :D.

So that’s it for Chiang Rai. It was the best trip I’ve taken in a loooooong time. I can’t wait until I can go back again!