Ratchaprapa Dam and Koh Lanta

Our floating bungalows viewed from a kayak

Foreign teachers of Nakhon!

Fifty farang teachers piled in a double-decker bus to head to Ratchaprapa Dam for a much deserved three-day weekend of fun! The time on the four-hour bus ride was passed with early morning karaoke, chats about life and staring out the huge window at the sights of Thailand. We realize the journey is well worth is once we arrived at the dam. We piled in four long tail boats and after an hour-long wet/scenic ride we arrived at the bungalows at last! Thus began our two day adventure at Ratchaprapa Dam.

Andrew and I decided to book the cheap hut rooms that provide the most character. After throwing our bags in the bungalow and changing we jump off our deck into the warm, clean, lake for a swim. Soon the floaties come out and everyone jumps in to start the floating party! Those without floaties find a place to rest in the 42-meter deep water on a floating log submerged at the perfect level once everyone was sitting on it. The boys found a way to make the party active by jumping off kayaks to catch a frisbee. Yes, Andrew participated and he was quite successful. He made the crowd cheer with a few back flops into the water just to catch the frisbee.

I nearly forgot it was raining during this floating party. The water was so warm and we were so excited to be there that the rain didn’t matter. In fact swimming made the rain more bearable than not swimming. The lake was warmer than the air.

When the sun went down we headed to the dinning hut to play games and wait for dinner. Our meals were included in our price so we weren’t expecting much but once dinner came we were pleasantly surprised. They brought out more food than we could even imagine eating and it was absolutely delicious. After dinner we played even more games. Andrew dominated at chess and I had a successful first try at Apples to Apples. I enjoyed learning new games as well as teaching new ones.

The bungalows are run on a generator so at eleven the power was turned off. That was my cue for sleeping. It was nice to have a reason to go to sleep because the next day I was up early and ready to explore the beautiful National Park. Just after breakfast I grabbed a free kayak from the resort and Andrew and headed out to explore. After a while of enjoying the beauty and staring up a huge limestone mountains our group turned back and we were left alone to explore the coves and take pictures of the beauty. The water there was so still and dark blue and clear that the sky, the mountains and everything above the water was perfectly mirrored in the water. It was stunning. We just sat there for a while to admire where we were and to keep the water still to enjoy the reflection of the beauty multiplying the awe factor by two. Kayaking in this beautiful national park makes it to the top of my list as favorite activity in Thailand. Check out the pictures and you’ll understand.  I was immersed in this beauty. Not once did I forget how lucky I am to be here.

Perfect reflection

The next day before heading back to Nakhon we took the kayaks out again but stuck in a group. We stopped to jump off trees in the water. I did not jump but Andrew did flips off the branches into the water. I decided I don’t like jumping off things in New Zealand when I did not like bungee jumping. Then we explored more coves. Some of the coves reminded me of horror films such as Anaconda and other lost in the jungle movies. I mentioned this and we joked about being in a horror film for the rest of the time.  Like if we were in a horror film we would think going down that dodgy narrow tree filled creek would be a good idea. If we were in a horror film the most scared girl would die first and so on. This continued until we quieted down to watch wild monkeys swing in the trees. See why I like kayaking?

See why I love kayaking?

I didn’t even mention my amazing afternoon nap on the porch after lunch our first day. I took the pillow from our bed and passed out on the wooden porch overlooking the water while everyone swam or napped also.  In fact one girl emerged from a swim and commented on how much she loved the fact that four cabins in a row had people relaxing on the porch.  It was the perfect weekend, a mix of fun, adventure, and relaxation. 

Tomorrow is already Friday and right after work, Andrew and I will head to the famous island of Koh Panagn for yet another three-day weekend (well for me now Andrew has a whole month off lucky duck). We’ll see if this place can top Ratchaprapa Dam, I really don’t think so. Not much can beat that beauty and the ability to jump off the deck of where you sleep into the fresh beautiful water and the use of free kayaks! But we shall see!

Monday:

And before I could edit and post this on Thursday evening Andrew came home and stole my computer for some important reason I am sure and then I went to bed.  But since I worked so hard to write this I am posting it days later, after our second three-day weekend exploring Thailand. This one did not top last weekend in beauty but it was pretty awesome and relaxing.

Due to storms on the east coast of Thailand we decided against making the scary trip across the ocean to the before mentioned Koh Panagn which is too bad because someday I’d like to go there. Instead we headed to the west coast toward the less stormy side and went to Koh Lanta. For those who don’t know, Koh means island. So we traded one island for another.

This weekend Andrew and I both had coughs so we did a lot of hammock reading and some motorbike exploring. The rental of the motorbike lead us to a story that again shows how awesome Thai locals are. We were driving along looking for “Lanta Old Town”. I suggested a couple times to stop for gas but the driver, aka Andrew, after peering at the gas gage said we’d be ok. But as you may guess we were not. We ran out of gas at probably the most empty part of the island.  Andrew remembering my suggestions to stop for gas asked if I was mad that we did not fill up. I said “no”, it was a pretty funny sight to see the two of us walking with our helmets on while Andrew pushed the bike and I could just feel a cool experience happening.

 A few foreigners drove by on motorbikes with out saying a thing for a kilometer (1/2 mile) of walking. Then finally a guy driving by sees us and turns around. In a few words he tells us to get on the bike and turn the wheel. We do so and I see him put his foot near mine on the foot pegs. He speeds up his bike and somehow with his foot and the power from his bike he pushes us another kilo to gas. He casually sees the gas station and says bye sends us gliding perfectly into the station and rides off after hopefully hearing our kawp khun mak kah/krap’s (thank you very much’s). He so nicely helped us and didn’t expect a thing in return, barely even a thank you. While Koh Lanta was beautiful, relaxing and interesting at times (like a pet monkey jumping on my lap at dinner, seeing a lunar eclipse, and taking a cooking class) running out of gas was my favorite part of the weekend.  I wish more people could be a helpful and cool as the guy who helped us. I strive to do that. 

With that story I head to bed, tomorrow is another day with my cute students then moving into our new house. We found a great house that I will tell you about later! I have to get my sleep to have energy to ready my students for our Christmas show! We have two weeks of Christmas themed teaching before Andrew and I fly to Chaing Mai (Northern Thailand) for Christmas and New Year. Andrew’s mom will get a lovely taste of Thailand when she joins us for New Year plus a couple of weeks!  Good night all! 

Loi Krathong is here and everybody's full of cheer.

I knew this would happen. I would start work and become slack on the whole blog thing. It already happened to Andrew. He now calls this my blog and he makes guest appearances. I wish he’d make more appearances.

Loi Krathong was this Thursday, November 10. It’s a holiday in Thailand held every year on the night of the full moon in November. Loi Krathong celebrations started on Monday at my school with my students learning about Loi Krathong and learning a dance to the song. The dance is beautiful the way the hands are moved so gracefully. The Loi Krathong song is quite catchy I found myself humming it all week then singing it once I found the English version to play for my students during my English lessons.

On Thursday all morning classes were canceled and we spent the morning making krathongs. The krathongs are made from a piece of a banana tree trunk and banana leaves. Once the base is formed the krathong is decorated with three pieces of incense, a candle and flowers. Then money, finger-nail and hair clippings are put in for luck. Before I made my own krathong I helped my students make theirs. I was looking forward to helping them make theirs because from what I heard from experienced foreign teachers, the kids can’t do it themselves, so I was excited to make 24 of them. My Thai co-teacher was great at telling the kids to be very careful with the inch long nails they were using to connect the beautifully folded leaves to the banana tree base of their krathong. And Thai teachers prepped all the leaves the day before because they are hard for little ones to fold. So the students did surprisingly well making their own krathongs, they turned out beautiful, which in Thailand is very important even for four year olds. So I helped by taking unnecessary nails out of the krathongs to save the world instead of making 24 krathongs. I enjoyed making mine later that day though!

My students attaching folded banana leaves to the base of their krathongs. 

A finished krathong made by a little girl in my class.

Loi Krathong is a holiday for Thais to send floating (loi) vessels (krathong) to the river goddess to thank her for water and say sorry for using and abusing water. Traditionally the krathongs were made from decomposable products but with the invention of staples and nails the krathongs are often made with those. The students in my class used nails and staples. I made mine at school so mine had staples and nails too but I replaced my nails with wooden toothpicks once I got home. I couldn’t bring myself to put twenty nails in the river for the fish to eat.

Once the sun had set and the full moon was shinning bright in the sky, Andrew and I hoped on the motorbike and drove to the festival. Driving in my excitement heightened as I saw hundreds of lanterns floating in the sky. After walking around the stalls selling food, clothes, toys, krathongs, we found someone selling lanterns. It was fun to let a lantern into the sky. It was a bit scary though. There’s a small window of opportunity to let the lantern go in between it being full of smoke and it getting too hot to hold. We made a wish as we let it go. While these lanterns are cool they are very dangerous. I saw three lanterns get stuck in trees. Luckily, the trees are extremely wet here in rainy, humid Thailand so they did not catch on fire. I also saw a few lanterns fall back down and almost land in the crowd of people. It’s bad luck for your lantern to fall so people try to avoid this. But if you are inexperienced in letting the lantern go this could happen to you.  Andrew and I had the help of Thai girls who advised us to lower it to the ground to allow it to fill with smoke.

Our wish lantern.

After the wish lanterns we headed down to the water to set our krathong free. Apparently Loi Krathong could loosely be called the Thai version of Valentine’s day. All the Thai ladies at my school asked me if I’ll put my krathong in the water with my “friend boy”. One lady told me she’s going to sleep instead of to the festival because she doesn’t have a boyfriend. It’s meant to be good luck for couples to bring it to the water together. So we lit the incense and candle, made a wish and placed the krathong in the water. It was very cool to see everyone putting his or her krathong in. Many were holding it up to pray with it first. It was very interesting but very crowded, so crowed as I stood back up I almost caught my hair on fire on a little girl’s candle in her krathong. It wasn’t the first time that night I felt I might catch on fire. I wonder what the injury rate is on this holiday.

The festival also had a beauty pageant complete with girls in beautiful Thai attire and a fireworks show. The fireworks were so beautiful paired with the hundreds of lanterns in the sky. A lady standing next to me saw my big smile during the fireworks show and said something in Thai and the only word I understood was soowai (beautiful), I said ‘chai (yes)’. Loi Krathong was a beautiful holiday and increased my love for living in Thailand. I feel so lucky to get to experience such awesome things. We have no holiday like this in America and not only did I get to go to the festival but I saw how the Thais prepare for the holiday at school.

I love my job! My students are absolutely adorable. One boy picks me a flower everyday on the way back from lunch but he doesn’t pick it right so he shoves a handful of petals into my hand but the thought is so sweet. At first I really wanted to teach kids older than four because four year olds can only be taught so much but these kids are so sweet and cute. Since they are so young I have to try very hard to make my lessons entertaining. I have been spending my plentiful prep time getting creative with how to teach the alphabet, counting, and various English vocabulary words.

It’s a bit of a challenge to have students that I can barely talk to. One day I was trying to ask a student to come back and sit in his chair because he wasn’t finished and (aww so cute) he was so confused he just sat down on the floor where he was standing. After a short chuckle I said no and pointed to the chair. Little confusions like that happen all the time. There’s this one boy who says “yes” to all of my questions in his cute lisp, it’s adorable, but I’m still waiting on the million dollars he promised me. In some ways it’s sad not being able to talk with my students. But it’s also kind of cool because I can’t understand them when they fight or whine. It truly makes my day when the kids talk to me with sentences I taught them. We have been learning weather the last few weeks and the other day one little boy came up to me while we were outside and said “teacher Jenny, it is windy”. I taught him that. :) 

It’s awesome to be in a job where I enjoy my students and I have enough prep time to make enjoyable lessons. It shows me that teaching really is a job that’s meant for me. I just hope once I get back to California and teach there that the love doesn’t get lost in all the politics of state testing and one hour per week prep periods. With that being said there are challenges working in Thailand as well. Here beauty is more important than learning. I have to ask my Thai co-teacher to sit down while the kids are working because if I don’t she’ll do their work for them even if it’s coloring the tree on the sunny day picture. I send homework home and it’s obviously done by the parents to make it look like their child is smart, it’s very frustrating. This just shows one difference between the two cultures and the differences in the cultures is why I wanted to live here in the first place!

If you’re interested in Loi Krathong, here’s the awesome song. It’s the English version so you can learn a bit about it too. YOU TUBE LINK: Loi Krathong English Song

Thailand Floods, Paradise and Teaching

Many people have been messaging us on facebook about the floods in Thailand.  Here’s the deal. The floods are in Northern Thailand. I hear most about Bangkok and Attuthya but many areas are affected. We are a 12-15 hour train ride South of Bangkok so we are not experiencing those floods.  The only way my daily life has been affected so far is that the grocery stores are out of some items because it’s hard to ship the goods. I have met some people from Bangkok that are here in Nakhon seeking refuge while the government figures out a way to let the flood water out of the city.  This has proven to be a difficult process.  Some areas of Bangkok are fine but others do not sound good. I really hope the floods get cleared up soon. I feel bad for everyone affected.

The city we live in has a different climate to the rest of Thailand. Nakhon is just beginning its rainy season unlike all the other areas in Thailand that are just ending theirs. I have heard this town floods. And after two days of rain I already see large puddles of water on the streets. It’s due to poor drainage planning and mass amounts of water falling from the sky.  Just last night we were eating at our favorite street vendor restaurant now named “Nancy’s restaurant” because our friend Nancy and her family own it and work there. Anyways, we were enjoying delicious food and all of a sudden it starts down pouring. Soon after the down-pour it starts to thunder and lightening.  This was the closest I’ve ever been to being struck by lightening. The lightening was right over our heads and we could tell because right after we saw the lightening it would thunder extremely loud. Apparently the distance between you and lightening can be measured by the number of seconds between lightening and thunder.  So basically we shoved our food in our mouths while I said mai chawp (no like) to the storm over and over then headed home. I am mentally preparing myself for this weather for the next two months as well as flooding in our town. But hopefully it won’t be Bangkok style flooding.

I hope I’ve cleared up the concept of flooding and can move on to more awesome topics: paradise and teaching!

We spent last Friday through Monday in Krabi and Railay.  Railay is stunning.  I already put pictures on facebook.  The “pretty beach” on Railay peninsula was probably the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. It was amazing but crowded, even more crowed than it probably should have been because many travelers travel plans have been changed due to floods. Railay is a peninsula, but due to limestone mountains in the way, the only mode of transportation to the area is via boat. This made it even more stunning because there were no roads. I saw a total of three motorized vehicles while walking around, such a refresher from crazy traffic.

My favorite things from the weekend: Seeing monkeys. Climbing boulders to see awesome views. Riding a long tail boat.  Floating on my back in the ocean to stare at incredibly limestone cliffs. Seeing the floating fishing village. Swimming across the bay to an island. Watching the sunset on the beach. Searching for phosphorescence . Making new friends. I could get into more detail but it would mostly just be me saying it was beautiful. The pictures speak for themselves.

I started teaching two days ago! I really enjoy it! I am having a lot of fun getting to know my 23 students and my Thai co-teacher. I am LOVING the prep time. Since it’s a bilingual school, half of the lessons are taught in Thai so half the day I get to prep! Such a luxury that is LONG gone from California schools. So far most of the kids are very shy and I have a hard time talking to them. But I have high hopes that they will open up. Today after I pretended to be Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon and sang some songs they seems a bit more open to talking. The language barrier is also an issue in the talking thing. My students have awesome nick-names (which are nick-names like Jenny is my nick-name); Pear, Plum, Pooh-pa, Palm, Mi Mi, Nee Nee, Toey. Aw they are too cute.

Two notable Thai cultural differences are currently on our minds. One, why do Thais keep giving us little gifts? In the past week we have received four desserts from Thais. Three from our friends and one from our neighbor. We hardly know our neighbor. I just read on-line about it and I guess it's just for fun, to say hello, or thank you. It's very casual but now we are unsure what to do back. Give gifts I suppose. Two, we realized the soap I bought here in Thailand was bleaching our skin white. I was careful to read the ingredients because I was warned of this but nothing jumped out at me that said this will turn your skin white! So we used the soap for two weeks unknowingly and I actually did notice I was losing my tan. I thought it was because of my religious use of sunscreen after three summers in a row. But in fact later I noticed a small picture I could not see when I purchased the soap that had a girl with dark skin in a before picture and the same girl with light skin in the after picture. We just returned from purchasing Johnson's baby soap in hopes that the Thai's do not want to bleach their children's skin. We gave the whitening soap to our Thai friends and they are very happy, hey we did give a gift!

Off to sleep. Must be well rested to teach those children! 

Thai Friends!

Last night Andrew and I were eating dinner at our local place. The same restaurant that the elephant would come to but it hasn’t been there in a long time L.  Anyway we enjoyed our delicious meal of BBQ chicken, rice, and papaya salad. Just before we asked for the check a group of five girls sat next to us. Being friendly Thais, they said hello to us. We started talking with Ma, a girl who knew English well and we ended up staying to talk to them for an hour longer. They are very friendly.

Sitting at a street restaurant near our house

They give compliments to us all the time. Ma is the only one who speaks English well enough to communicate but with her English and our nit noy (little) Thai we can talk about a lot of things. That night we asked them where to find a bigger house. Andrew and I are looking for an American type apartment with a kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom and bathroom. Not a studio/hotel like we have now.  They offered to help us find a place. So tonight we met them to search for a new place to live.

This time only three girls came Ma, Nan, and Koy. They are all 26 and work together at a road building company. Nan wants to learn English so she can travel to England but she doesn’t know much yet. Koy is very funny, she doesn’t speak much English but I can tell she is funny. Ma is the easiest to talk to and is awesome too. I know if we could speak the same language we would be all be great friends. But even with the language barrier we are becoming friends.

Tonight they took us to look at another apartment like the one we have. We said we wanted two rooms so they showed us two rooms across the hall from each other that were exactly the same. I’d compare them to hotel rooms. We then had to explain that we want one room for sleeping and one for eating and living, in the same apartment. Someone once told me that the Thai language doesn’t have a word for living room so I don’t think living rooms are very common. Since this word doesn’t exist this was hard to communicate. Ma even called her friend who knew English well to translate what we want. We communicated with him as a translator over the phone for 10-15 minutes. It was very nice of him to help.

I’m pretty sure the only way to get another room is to have a house not an apartment. I’ve seen living rooms but only in farang (foreigner) houses. We’ll see. We are looking at a house tomorrow. Part of me is thinking maybe we should just live like the Thais do. It is VERY cheap to live in a mansion (the English word used for the apartment we are living in). It was a total of $150 USD for this month and Andrew’s job pays for $130 of that. We paid $20 USD in rent for two people last month. Maybe we should just make it work in the studio/hotel room, see what it’s like to live like the Thais do and appreciate all the rooms when we get home to America (and not appreciate the price). The reason I wanted to live abroad in a foreign country (more foreign than New Zealand) was to get to know the culture. I suppose this is how.

After we looked at the mansion we all went to eat dinner. We drove for a long time (in a real live car. not a motorbike). Andrew and I were talking about how far it was from town. The girls asked if we were scared. We were driving outside of town on dark streets but I wasn’t scared, I was just trying to orient myself. They worry about emotions a lot and said “don’t worry we friend.” I trusted them.  But we drove so far I’m not sure I could find the restaurant again.

They took us to an awesome restaurant by the river. I think the name of the restaurant translated to House of Love.  I did love it there. We let them order for us and tried many types of food. I tried everything. We had a lot of fish and chicken. One dish looked like small pieces of fried chicken but then I tried it and it had the texture of bone. Ma used her electronic translation device to tell me it was tendon, or chicken elbow. That was the only thing I did not like. The rest was good. We ate a lot of food. I was the most full I had been in a long time! Thai food portion sizes are usually small but in this case we ordered many dishes. I wonder if my table manners were ok. The girls kept filling up my plate and soup bowl. I didn’t do that :/ maybe next time I should. Dinner was very nice. We talked a lot about school, parent’s jobs and traveling. It’s surprising how much you can talk about with a language barrier. These topics were discussed with some confusion but we learned about each other.

Dinner w/ new friends!

On our way home we dropped Koy off first. She showed us her house to see if we want to live in her complex. But again it was a one-room place. She also invited us in to sit and showed us pictures of her wedding. Her wedding pictures were very beautiful. They are Muslim so her dress covered everything but her face. Although everyday she doesn’t wear the thing to cover her head because it’s hot she said. Her husband was wearing a Lamba Chi Alpha fraternity rush shirt. Not sure where he got it. I don’t think he understood my explanation of what it was. I don’t think he understood me at all actually.  I really need to learn Thai.

In one of Koy’s pictures she had a picture of a farang (foreigner) in a bathing suit. She made a comment about the bathing suit not covering the girl’s body at all. I said I had one and tried to explain that it’s a cultural norm to wear that kind of bathing suit. On the ride to our house I tried to ask Ma what she wore swimming. I think she said a one piece and shorts. I’ve always thought about how it’s odd that we don’t want people to see us in our underwear but we will walk around in the same coverage in a bathing suit. It really is kind of weird and not a cultural norm in Thailand like in America and other western-type countries. I need to buy a one piece and shorts so I can swim laps at the local pool!  Which reminds me to tell you I found an aerobics class! I’m so excited to go! It’s only 5 baht that’s like 18 cents!  

I hope to spend more time with these girls. It’s interesting to learn about their culture from them. Tonight they asked us why we live in Thailand. Our answer was to learn about Thailand, rien. It’s cute some of the things they say in English. I giggle at sentences like I giggle at children’s sentences. You know they make sense but they aren’t quite right. Ma kept asking if we were boring. We had the hardest time trying to explain that she should use the word bored. And that we weren’t bored, we were contently listening to them speak quickly in Thai. 

Food, Religions, Nature and Wildlife (aka monkeys and huge lizards) of Penang

I haven’t blogged this week because my keyboard on my laptop broke. It was sad. I debated bringing my awesome laptop to Thailand for months before we left. I was really happy I decided to bring it until my “t” stopped working. Well at least it’s nothing 250 baht couldn’t fix. I now have a shinny new external keyboard. Bright green complete with Thai and English letters! This blog will contain all the T’s that my heart desires. TTTTTTT  J

Our trip to Penang, Malaysia was quite nice. I really enjoyed it. In order for Thailand to process our visas we had to leave the country so we had to go to Penang Malaysia where our schools sent the paperwork to the consulate for us. We made the most of our time and explored the lovely island.

Here’s a little Penang information. It’s a city in Northern Peninsular Malaysia. It is part on an island and part on the mainland. The longest bridge in Asia connects the mainland and the island. We spent all our time on the island because islands are awesome. Many cultures have tried to make Penang their colony including; England, China and India. The island had so many cultural influences it made it a unique place to visit. I’m sure we didn’t get the full Malaysian culture experience but we sure had a nice time talking to the locals in ENGLISH and eating amazing Indian, Chinese and Malaysian food.

I really enjoyed the food in Penang. Thai food is awesome but eating it for three meals everyday gets to be a lot. I can only eat so much rice, grease and sodium. That’s not all that Thai food is but it’s a lot of what I find to eat out there on the streets of Nakhon. It was refreshing to try new foods. Indian food is awesome. I think what I liked most about Indian food is the fact that their religion doesn’t allow them to eat pork or beef so all the meat was delicious white meat chicken. Not random parts of pigs or cows I don’t want to eat let alone want in my soup, like here in Thailand. While the food was awesome so was exploring the island.

The first day in Penang we bought a bus pass and started off to see the island. We took the bus to Penang Hill. I mentioned it a bit in my “Quick hello from Penang” blog. It was a super steep train ride to the top with incredible 360 degree views of the island. I am glad we decided to spend the sixty Malaysian ringgit ($20 USD) to get to the top of the hill.

View from Penang Hill

Later that day we visited a mosque. I had to enter on a separate entrance and wear a long black robe to cover my entire body. The women have a tiny prayer room compared to the men. Also a man was talking to Andrew forever and at first I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk to them because I was a woman. After waiting for a while I went up to them again and realized it was ok. But the first time I went up to them another guy told me to walk along the sides of the mosque, like I wasn’t supposed to stop and talk to men inside. Islam is an interesting religion.

Since the island has so many different cultural influences we saw many types of religious worship areas. Buddhist Temples from Thailand, Burma and China, Hindu temples from India and Islamic mosques from India. I think I already said some of this in my last blog but as the teacher in me knows repetition means you learn it!

The next day we saw a beautiful floating mosque. The mosque was built over the ocean and was absolutely beautiful. Again I wore long black robes plus put my scarf over my head to cover my whole body and entered from the women’s entrance and saw the smaller women’s prayer room. This room didn’t even have a view of the ocean like the men’s awesome prayer room. I’m still trying to understand the rights of Muslim women. And I’m also not trying to offend anyone with these statements; I am just stating what I saw. Actually the guy Andrew was talking to in the first Mosque was leading a conversation on how Christianity and Islam are very similar religions.  Not sure where the women’s rights got lost.

Floating Mosque

Covered up less than some of the women(hair) the random bulge is my purse. 

After we saw the mosque we went to a nearby beach and cooled off in the water. I have a list of oceans I have swum in going. It’s almost ten! This swim added the Malaysian Straight to my list. After the beach we bought some fresh orange and lime juice. Then waited for the bus at a place the juice makers said was the bus stop. But after twenty minutes of waiting a bus drove by and wouldn’t stop. We then learned it was in fact not a bus stop. So we walked on the narrow winding highway to the Tropical Spice Garden. It was probably a kilometer or two walk but was pretty scary because we were pretty much walking in traffic. In my month in Asia I have learned that walking in traffic is a necessary evil so I am learning how to do it. It gets less scary as time goes at least until you see a crazy driver.

Actually the drivers on Penang weren’t too bad. Most people I saw on motorbikes actually wore their helmets instead of just keeping a helmet on their bike in case they see a cop or not having a helmet at all, like here in Nakhon/Thailand. I also noticed the people in Penang were much quicker workers. For example, we went to a guest-house and asked to see the room before we paid. We wanted to see it because it was a cheap place and to test the hardness of the bed. The guy literally ran us to the room so we could see it then ran back down. If this event were in Thailand the person would have leisurely walked us there and talked to us for five minutes in our room before slowly returning to work. This example also applies to food service as well. The street vendors just worked faster. While this reminded me more of home, it also led me to appreciate the laid back attitude Thais have. Their attitude is so refreshing. I think a lot of people could benefit from adopting some of the “mai bien rai” attitude (translation: never mind, no worries)

The Tropical Spice Garden was very nice and beautiful we saw really cool plants and enjoyed walking through the forest. Sadly since our home has no kitchen we did not get any spices. I miss cooking! Although it is quite nice to not have to worry about the chopping and the clean up for the same price or less that I could cook a meal at home. Thailand is quite nice for skipping out on chores that are necessary in the states. Laundry here is pretty awesome. We just hand our bag of dirty clothes to the land lady and she’ll wash, dry, fold and iron the clothes. It’s between $2 and $4 USD per week for this, depending on the amount of clothes. Not bad because it saves the hassle of finding a washer, somewhere to hang dry the clothes and folding them and having wrinkled clothes at work because I sure wouldn’t buy an iron while I live here for only a short time. I told my mom about how laundry and food is in Thailand and she wants to move here.

 The next day we took the bus to the national forest. Right next to the entrance to the national forest is a floating fishing village. The only way to the village is by boat but we walked on the pier to see it closer. It looks like an interesting life to live in a house on the water with beautiful views of the national forest and the ocean right outside your home.

Andrew sitting on the dock. The floating fishing village is in the background.

Walking through the national forest was awesome. We only went about two kilometers in and back but we saw monkeys, beaches, forests and huge lizards the size of Andrew’s leg! The first ½ of a kilometer was paved and easy but once we crossed a bridge we entered the real forest. Walking through this real forest in sandals was quite entertaining. Luckily I bought some awesome Birkenstocks at the weekend market in Bangkok and they were comfortable and easy to walk in. This kind of walk was more of a dance than walking. I say dance because you have to step in strategic ways much like dance moves to step around mud, over tree roots, on stones, and away from bushes. I want to go back with the correct shoes and clothing and explore. By the end of the walk I was sweating like crazy. Not because I was breathing hard but because I was moving in the heat and humidity that is South East Asia. I am quite used to sweating like crazy here. Luckily this summer at home in California I did a bit of Bikram Yoga and am very used to looking like I showered in sweat. Gross but fact.

After the national forest, we ate the best Indian food from a street vendor. They made us the Indian version of crepes, I forget what it was called. We had a savory one with veggies and a sweet  one with bananas and chocolate. Then we ordered a fresh coconut and fresh lime juice. We were very excited to put the lime in the coconut and twist it all up.  Indian food in Penang made me want to go to India on our next break from school. Eastern India is quite close to Thailand and we should be able to fly there for less than $200 USD. Not bad if you ask me. Hopefully we will make it happen. It’s actually hard because our schools have slightly different breaks.

Not wanting the day to be over we tried to take the bus to another activity but some busses stopped running at that time of day then we waited for an hour for another bus and by time we got to the next place, the Penang Botanical Gardens, it was dark and creepy so we went back to the hotel. Luckily we went back to the botanical gardens the next morning before we got our visas and returned to Thailand.

The botanical gardens were awesome. The place is beautiful and green. We walked around for about an hour. We took beautiful pictures with the low battery camera. On our walk out of the park just after the camera died. We literally walked past a group of twenty monkeys. There were five cute monkey babies! Some of the monkey moms saw people walk by so they had their babies hold on to them by hanging upside down holding onto her back while she walked on all fours. The older male monkeys walked around scraping a rock on the ground. We were an arms length away from these monkeys. I knew all weekend when we noticed the battery on the camera was low on Penang Hill on our first day that once the battery died we would see something awesome and I was right. Now I know I should bring my six-year -old camera on trips as back up or the charger for Andrew’s newer nicer one. Maybe packing extremely light isn't always the best idea.

One of our last pictures. Yes we are adorable but wouldn't a picture of twenty monkeys be cooler, if only we knew.

After the botanical gardens we had our last hurrah with the bus system in Penang by walking for twenty minutes looking for the bus stop to take us to the hotel. We made it back just in time to pick up our passports now each with an awesome page sized sticker from the Thai government granting us our non-immigrant B visas. Then we hopped on the mini van to head back into Thailand.

This bus was full of other travelers. Which was quite a change from the vans we take from our home Thai town of Nakhon. It was nice to talk to them. One girl from Korea told me I looked like Kirsten Dunst. That’s one I’ve never heard and I think it’s just how it works, you see someone and try to compare them to someone you know, or something? We also talked to her about interesting military stories from Korea.

Talking about the mini van from Malaysia with the travelers reminds me of what happened just before all our fun in Penang. Our bus from Nakhon not only transported people, it doubled as a UPS delivery service. We kept stopping along the way to pick up packages and drop off packages. On one of the stops one of the boxes started falling out of the van. This wet cardboard box had developed a hole so out fell the contents. Ah this just shows the laid back attitude of Thais right here. Inside this box were crabs. Live crabs. Like to cook and eat. So the driver and a passerby on the street pick the crabs back up and put them back into the box and off we drove to deliver those. Soon after the driver needed to get a box from under my seat. This box had strategic holes in it, so who knows what was alive under my seat the entire three hour ride. Luckily I sit with my feet up most of the time. It makes me laugh. The crabs were delivered to city called Hat Yai. We spent the night in Hat Yai, Thailand on Monday night after our adventure in Penang because we arrived to late to catch a connected mini van to Nakhon.  Guess what we ate for dinner in Hat Yai? BBQ crab. A whole BBQ crab. We wonder if we delivered that very crab a few days before.

Taking a week off from blogging is overwhelming, there’s so much to say! I have one week left of vacation then I start working! I am excited to start earning money again as well as to get to know my students! For now I’m off to help Andrew with his lesson planning for his middle school students!  

-Jenny

Quick Hello from Penang

We had to use our precious travel time to go on-line because Andrew had to check in with work. I decided to use the rest of my internet time to give a quick update on our travels in Malaysia. Our visa takes two business days to process but since we got here late Thursday night we have to wait until Monday afternoon for our visa to be finished. So we are stuck in Malaysia until Monday or Tuesday, literally, they have our passports. That's why Andrew had to check in with work he has to miss work tomorrow and Tuesday.
This isn't such a horrible place to be stuck though. We are maximizing our time by seeing all the cool sights on the island. On Friday we went up to the top of Penang hill for 360 degree views of the island. The way up this hill was either to walk in sandals or take a train up. We took the train. The train was almost at a 90 degree angle with the hill, it was pretty scary to look at from the bottom but on it I felt safe. The views from up there were awesome.
We've seen a few Mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples here.
We relaxed on a nice beach.
We've tried some awesome food. I'm proud of myself for being more adventurous. Now I am just pointing to pictures and trying what they give me. I'm not sure I would eat these things again but they filled me up in my time of need. There is a large Indian population in Penang and we've had Indian food for most of our meals. It's delicious. Indian food portions are much larger than Malaysian or Thai food portions. They give us probably three servings of rice each then ask us if we want more when that's gone. We ate one meal off a banana leaf instead of a plate. very neat. Last night we tried a Malaysian dessert, I'll tell you about that later.
You see it's the same price for 0-30 min of internet so I figured I'd get my money's worth but now time is running out and it's time to go see the National Park. Hopefully our camera battery lasts through the rest of our time in awesome Malaysia.
Oh yeah I also wanted to say I'm sorry for my cranky blog from when I was sick. I am usually a very positive person but being sick and stuck in bed changes my attitude. Now I am back to laughing at the "bad and ugly" things.
Bye bye!

Nakhon to Penang

Quick blog!

Waiting for an episode of ‘How I met your Mother’ to finish loading via our slow Thai internet and thought a blog would be a good way to pass the time.  Dani you would be proud- we’ve almost finished all of season one!  Jenny is a good sport and watching them again with me as she has seen all the episodes all ready. 

We are off to Penang, Malaysia tomorrow!  This trip is part fun and part business.  Jenny and I got our paperwork for work permits sorted out and need to leave the country in order to apply for them.  It is weird, I know, but Thailand is full of odd rules.  And I don’t have time to discuss the craziness of Thai bureaucracy leading up to getting the paperwork for the permit, that would take an entire blog and I should probably have a few drinks while writing down the events that transpired.  For another day and another blog!  It will be a good one though.

We are both looking forward to this three day trip.  We’ve been told the food there is amazing and to check out the shopping and beaches.  Also, English is widely spoken- another plus.  Jenny and I are trying to plan out our itinerary but we’ve had a lot of success winging it in Thailand so far.  Why mess up a good thing?

Our bags are packed and we’re ready to go!  Only thing left on my mind is to find out what girl Ted will be obsessing over and the awesomeness that is Barney (How I met your Mother reference).  Until next time!

Andrew

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good, I’ll get better, someday, somehow. The bad, I’ve had a cold for three days. The ugly, the cold turned into the flu two days ago, making five days of sickness.

The good, exercise. The bad, exercise when sick. The ugly, exercise when sick turning a cold into a flu.

The good, clean sheets after two weeks. The bad, no blankets. The ugly, a having fever and no blankets.

The good, speaking a little Thai. The bad, apartment owners not understanding your Thai. The ugly, apartment owners not understanding your Thai even when you use a translation book.

The good, apartment owners allowing us to borrow sheets and blankets. The bad, paying a cleaning fee at the end of the month for said sheets. The ugly, not knowing if asking for clean sheets to use while they wash old sheets will cost double the price.

The good, being stuck in bed leads to writing a blog entry. The bad, the blog talks about bad and ugly things. The ugly, new opinions on Thailand may be formed.

The good, cheap street food. The bad, unsanitary conditions at most street stalls. The ugly, unknown meat and other products in said food.

The good, nice, yummy fa-rang restaurants. The bad, food is five times the price at nice foreign restaurants. The ugly, my boyfriend likes to save money so we don’t dine at these restaurants as often as I would desire.

The good, I agree in the saving money idea. The bad, I like pizza and wannabe but decent Mexican food. The ugly, I don’t eat at these restaurants for every meal.

The good, some street food is actually better than restaurants. The bad, these places speak only Thai. The ugly, we end up with unknown food delivered to our table and Andrew eats it.

The good, squat toilets (because I don't have to risk touching the toilet seat). The bad, dirty bathrooms. The ugly, no toilet paper.

The good, toilet paper in your purse. The bad, toilet paper can’t go into toilets. The ugly, no trash cans in stalls.

The good, water to rinse in said bathrooms. The bad, hose sprayers are commonly used in these bathrooms to clean your parts. The ugly, buckets of water to use in less fancy toilets.

The good, pictures of squat toilets. The bad, buckets of water to rinse with from an unknown source of water. The bad, not knowing how to use said buckets or aforementioned sprayers either.

Ok I lied, I found the source of the water, the new questions are; how clean is this water and how long has it been there and should I use it to clean my areas?

The good, I wash my hands. The bad there's no hot water. The ugly, my hands don't get clean and I get sick! (anyone want to donate some hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes?)

The good, cool wildlife. The bad, lizards on the walls, anywhere and everywhere. The ugly, rats scurrying by you in restaurant just after you finished your meal there.

The good, I am improving my bug squashing skills. The bad, when I feel a bug on me it's most commonly not my own hair like I would find in the states, it's usually an ant. The ugly, I have twenty plus mosquito bites on my legs from forgetting bug spray the other night.

The good, owning transportation in a city. The bad, a city in a developing country has horrible smog. The ugly, your transportation is a motorcycle and you are forced to breathe smog.

The good, owning transportation in a city. The bad, inadequate forms of public transportation. The ugly, being afraid to drive said transportation in city traffic.

The good, living as close as possible to beautiful world-known islands and beaches such as Ko Samui. The bad, living in a dirty city instead of on those islands or beaches. The ugly, the city is famously known as an ugly city.

The good, cheap transportation in and out of city. The bad, crowed or dirty vans or trains. The ugly, feel carsick from the crazy driving.

The good, Andrew has this week off from work. The bad I'm sick. The ugly, this is one of the few times this year that we will  both have time  off.

The good, having necessary paperwork for the first process of obtaining a work visa. The bad, having to leave the country before the seventh. The ugly, Andrew doesn’t have his paperwork yet.

The good, getting to see Paang, Malaysia. The bad, being sick right before we have to leave the country before our tourist visa runs out and we are charged $100USD per day that we overstay our welcome in Thailand.  The ugly, (would be) Andrew catching this horrible bug right before we go.

The good, my fever broke as I typed this blog, The bad, having a fever and feeling sick makes me cranky. The ugly, I pass crankiness onto the blog world.

The good, seeing the good in the bad and the ugly. The bad, the bad. The ugly, the ugly.

I'm still posting!

I feel like I haven’t blogged in such a long time!  I have seriously meant to do some bloggin’.  The last week I told myself maybe three times that today would be the day I would sit down and finally write one.  It’s just that I’ve been getting tired when I get home from school and want to chill, or I have to lesson plan, or go out for a drink with friends… the list goes on.  Jenny has been doing an excellent job keeping up with what’s been going on in our lives.  We moved into an apartment, have done a little traveling, and purchased a motorcycle.  In order to not sound redundant I will try to focus on my experience teaching.  Maybe, if I find my writing groove, I’ll talk about the new people and friends we’ve made.

I don’t really know where to begin as I describe my first couple weeks as a 7^th and 8^th grade science teacher.  I like to teach.  It is a lot of fun to re-learn the things I’ve forgotten and break it down into more simple terms for the students. I enjoy coming up with lesson plans and I enjoy being responsible for someone’s education in science.   It is also very frustrating.  I preface the following by saying that I love teaching many of my Thai students.  They are fun and smart and understand what I’m talking about.  However, a lot students are rather lazy and won’t work on activities unless I am hovering over them.  Also, many would rather copy word for word from their neighbor than actually learn.  I’ve also found out the hard way that even if a Thai student has no idea what you are talking about, and I mean they don’t even understand the words that are being formulated out of your mouth, they will nod in agreement and pretend they understand.  This became very obvious as I gave a midterm to my students, which was failed miserably.  The entire time spent explaining concepts I would stop and say, “I don’t want to continue until I know everybody understands this”, which was always followed by a “we understand” from the students.  I really thought they understood!  I know better now that each one needs to be asked individually to explain what we are talking about which makes teaching incredibly sloooooooooow.

So I like teaching, but am frustrated.  I am sure all the teachers out here can empathize.

I’ll let you in on a little secret… I’m blogging during my lunch hour!  I have a class that starts in five minutes so I have to go.  If anyone is interested, my 8^th grade class is about to do an experiment with a ball and incline ramp, investigating the effect that ramp height and mass have on velocity and acceleration!

Andrew

        

Beaches and Orphans and Sparkles!

The beach in Khanom, gorgeous and oddly empty

This weekend Andrew and I headed 1.5 hours out of Nakhon to the nearby beautiful beach town of Khanom. We ventured there because the other teachers in Nakhon were helping out at an orphanage benefit and because we heard it was beautiful.  We hopped on a van from Nakhon to Khanom. We were last on and had to sit in the way back. They pack these vans overly full. The ride it was beautiful and great to see the surrounding area.

Once we got to Khanom, I hoped of the van way before Andrew. Throughout the ride I had inched my way towards the front so I could watch the road to prevent carsickness. Right away a motorcycle taxi said “50 baht Where you go”. This was when I realized we had no idea where we were going. Our plan to go into town with the other foreign teachers was ruined when we overslept on Saturday morning so I said “mai rue”  (I don’t know). We asked to be pointed in the direction of the beach and started walking. We texted the teachers to try to find them and in the mean time enjoyed exploring.

The exploration and the getting to the orphanage benefit was half of the fun. If we had only been in Thailand for a couple of weeks for a holiday then our attitude towards walking in unknowingly in the right direction for two hours would have been different. Since we have almost a year in this country we were quite happy to walk for a while in this new town.

After about twenty minutes of walking we found the beach. Andrew suggested walking in one direction down the LONG beach so we just walked at this point searching for a nice place to sit, swim and relax for a bit.  We were the only people in sight on this huge beach. It was quite nice to enjoy a beautiful beach with no one around. I was a bit put off by the fact that no one was on this beach. It was absolutely beautiful and my first thought was that it’s too beautiful to be empty what’s wrong with it. But we survived, enjoyed a nice swim in the clear, calm ocean water and continued walking.

Once we got hungry and thirsty, because this happens when you walk for hours, we decided to head up to the road to ask directions toward food. There, we learned the closest food is about a kilometer down the beach in the direction we were already headed. This food establishment happened to be the CC Beach Bar which we recently learned from text message that that’s the very place the orphan benefit was! I found it funny that we had walked for hours exactly towards our original destination without even knowing it and without veering off path. I’m glad we ended up walking because we got exercise, saw the sights, enjoyed the empty beach and saved a measly 100 baht on taxis.

We arrived at the orphanage benefit three hours late. But we jumped right in to help, well after some food and water of course. I laughed at the kids having a great time playing and splashing in the water. I talked to some kids about their face paint. Then I served as a human post for some races by holding the green team's flag. The green team racers had to run around me and back to their team. Holding the flag for these races was so entertaining my face hurt from smiling and laughing this whole time. One of the races involved the kids running with a egg-filed spoon in their mouths. Their faces were too cute during this race. Then four legged race was underway, in which Andrew loaned his two legs to be tied to two kid’s legs. It was hilarious to watch the teachers running with two kids on either side of them. Some teachers just picked the kids up and ran. Some kids were falling over, pulling the teachers down with them, everyone was laughing. It was so cute to see these kids having such a good time.  I heard from the other teachers who had actually been there all day that most of these kids had never even seen the beach. Which is so sad because they live in Nakhon and it’s RIGHT next to the beach! Some kids were drinking the ocean water because they wanted to take the ocean with them, aww.

I was sad when they left. But we all smiled and waved until the busses pulled away. There were about 80 kids there and they all had no parents and this is just from one orphanage in one town in one country. I can’t imagine, poor kids. They seemed so happy on this day but I wonder what everyday is like in their lives. It was odd though 95% of the kids there were boys. I’m not sure if it was an all boys orphanage or only the boys were allowed to come or if there’s something about Thai culture that would result in only boys being in an orphanage. I shall find out.

After the kids left Andrew and I searched for a place to sleep that night, we found a cute beach hut near the ocean, next door to the CC Beach Bar. It was convenient to be there because that night all the teachers met back up at the beach bar for a party. I enjoyed getting to know the other foreigners that choose to come to Thailand to teach. They have great stories and are pretty cool people.

After hours of talking with the fellow teachers, drinking and eating horrible wannabe burritos, we headed towards bed. Walking for two hours in the blazing sun then playing with kids then drinking takes it out of you. A couple teachers stopped us from leaving so soon because we had to experience the phosphorescence in the water first.  We had to seize this opportunity so we jumped into the ocean in the middle of the night to see a sparkling glow following our every move. We would look down in the water and see our feet sparkling. Then swim and see sparkles in our swimming paths. It was so neat! I had seen this phenomenon in New Zealand but it was only with my hand from a kayak at night on a cruise up in the Bay of Islands. Swimming and sparkles coming off of you is incredible!  I feel lucky to have experienced this. Andrew could explain the science behind the phosphorescence (or I could google it) but he’s too busy being a science teacher to write blogs. So you’ve got me!

Saturday was an awesome day even though no live pink dolphins were seen L Hopefully I’ll see a pink dolphin one day because I plan to not leave Thailand until I do!

A horrible picture of a pink dolphin statue, I want to see a real live pink dolphin!

            

Motorbike :D

We now officially have a motorbike! It’s pretty nice to have. Andrew uses it to get to work because it takes less time than the song-ta-ous and walking. We have taken it once across town to dinner. Andrew drove and I rode on the back! It’s pretty scary mainly because of the crazy traffic and drivers in this city. Also, I know Andrew doesn’t have the most practice driving a motorbike. I was much more nervous riding with Andrew than anyone else I have rode with in Thailand so far.

I have rode with three other people on motorbikes; one was a random Thai teacher. That’s actually a funny story. I turned up at a school for an interview last week and one person in broken English told me the English Program campus is across town and she’ll get me a ride. Then a motorbike with a Thai teacher shows up and I hesitantly hop on. He told me to trust him. I said that I really have to because in my country with ride with helmets. Not to mention I had to ride sideways because I was wearing a skirt.  I wonder if I should tell my family that I rode sideways on a stranger’s motorbike with no helmet but hey I lived to tell a great story. This story really shows how nice the Thais are.

I was less scared riding with stranger than I was riding with Andrew. I bet the guy I rode with grew up on motorbikes. Looking around Thailand you see families riding all the time and the kids are comfortable as can be. You see them eating and not holding on and not wearing helmets. Maybe 10% of kids I’ve seen on bikes have helmets. 50% of the time I see the kids without helmets parents are wearing one. I’m still trying to understand the logic there. Maybe kids helmets are hard to find or they grow out of them too quickly? I don’t know but someone should get all the kids in Thailand helmets.  Any takers? I didn’t think so. Well I bought myself a helmet and use it! And Andrew and his big head are still trying to find one to purchase but are borrowing one.

On the motorbike! It's an 07 Honda Click! 

I am finally eating at street vendors without Andrew. I have decided that the food is better at the street vendors and it’s 1/5 of the price of a “real” restaurant. My current criteria for eating from street vendors are that they have to have a wok and cook my food then. I’m not sure if I’ll graduate to eating already prepared food for a long time, if ever. The chefs are so nice. Yesterday where I ate my vegetable fried rice (ordered by using all my Thai food words rather than saying the Thai term for vegetable fried rice) the family was so cute. They had a baby girl a little over a year old. After I ate I was attempting to talk to them and they just handed me their baby. This shocked me, in America who would hand their baby to a complete stranger? She was adorable though! Today when I ate at a street vendor I tried to order pad-thai but ended up with white rice with chicken breast and soup and cucumber on the side (cucumber is always on the side). It was good but I really need to study the Thai words for food if I am going to continue eating at street vendors.

Last night was nice. I went to dinner at a pizza restaurant owned and managed by an Italian. Yummy! It was delicious. I went with two teachers from Andrew’s school that are originally from California.  It was nice because I could refer to towns in California and we all knew where they were. Also we ate outside during the sunset and the sunset was absolutely beautiful. I took a picture but it doesn’t capture the beauty.  During dinner we laughed about stray dogs coming up to the table. There are so many stray dogs and cats here!

Sunset in the city!

After dinner I met up with Andrew who didn’t come to dinner because he was busy playing basketball with his students (one of whom broke his glasses).  Together Andrew and I went to a bar with a guy Andrew works with and his mom. Taan is Thai, he speaks English and Thai, and he works at Andrews’s school to help the students who need to build their English vocabulary. Taan’s mother works as a director at a government school. They are very cool people. They brought us to a reggae bar. This bar was awesome. I loved the atmosphere. It was all outside. The tiles were painted beautifully. They had hammocks and instruments. Andrew and Taan played around on instruments for a while. They played some nice songs while I relaxed in the hammock. Some other fa-rung teachers came as well and we chatted with them about life.

My view of the guys playing from my hammock!

Awesome tiles at the reggae bar!

            Today I went into my future classroom. The kids are finishing up their first semester and did a performance for their parents today.  I was introduced to all the parents. They are very happy to see that I am here and going to be teaching their kids for the second half of the school year. I will be the third teacher this class has had. I really hope nothing horrible happens because I promised to stay until the end of March.  The parents are not happy with the school this year because of so many teachers in that classroom. They say it’s having a huge effect on their kids. I believe them; I bet it really confuses the little ones. I hope I can make up for lost time.  I’m already thinking of all the fun things I want to do with when school starts again in a month so I think I can make up the lost time.

            I love Thailand so much! I feel so lucky to be here! In a couple of hours I am meeting Andrew and other teachers at Andrew’s school and we are all taking a bus up north to a nice beach town. Here we will hopefully see the PINK dolphins that live there (oh my fingers are crosses five hundred times, I so want to see a PINK dolphin).  We will also hang out with the other teachers. And the coolest thing that we are definitely doing (the real coolest thing would be to see a PINK dolphin) is helping at an orphanage fundraiser. The far-rung teachers have been planning this for a while and asked us if we’d like to come help. Of course we said yes, it sounds awesome, I’d love to help orphans! We won’t have any designated duties but will jump in wherever needed.  I guess there will be a lot of games and activities for the orphans so we’ll get to play with them on the beach. Afterwards we’ll enjoy the beach and the beach town. But maybe I should tell about what we did instead of what we plan to do. See you in a few days blog!