Merry Kissma!

It was a lovely Christmas in Hua Hin. It was hot, and I had to teach three classes, and then perform for the Christmas assembly. It was pretty odd, but I feel like they do Christmas right here. It's all about games and songs and fun. There's no rush to buy a million presents and spend money and worry about calling them holiday trees. I think it works because adults don't care about the holiday, so the national understanding of it is based on children's perspective (read: Santa Claus and presents and snowmen whatever those might be).

I had a great time singing Jingle Bells with the kids, because they scream "Jingle Bells Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way!" and then mumble "Oh what mmm it is mm mmm m mm m m m mm m m m " then scream "Hey!". I realized quickly that it was useless to explain a "One horse open sleigh" as most American kids don't really know what that is.

The highlight might have been when I told the nativity story in the simplest English I could muster, and then gave a little quiz with prizes. First question: Who was born on Christmas 2000 years ago? The first kid sprints up, I give him the microphone and he proudly says "Santa Claus". See? Kids aren't any different here than they are in America.

A Little More on Laos

I wasn't kidding when I said that the bread in Laos was super exciting. There were sandwich carts all over the place, and we got the most delicious sandwich I've ever had! It was a baguette loaded up with mystery meat, various sauces (one spicy, one sweet), lots of cilantro, and some veggies. It may sound sketchy, but it was sooo good.

The other interesting thing about Laos (okay, probably the legitimately interesting thing) is that it is a communist country. There are hammer and sickle flags everywhere. The one touristy thing we had time to do was climb the Patouxai arch, a monument to honor fallen soldiers. It was a pretty impressive monstrosity.

Now we're back in Hua Hin, getting ready for the week. We have to teach all week. No Christmas break for us! Although we may or may not have Friday off, due to some meeting. I have been asked to choreograph the kindergarten Christmas dance for the Christmas celebration on Wednesday, and Richard is playing Christmas songs at his school. I had one dance practice so far, which involved ten tiny girls in Santa hats, lots of miscommunication, one child breaking down in tears, and a whole lot of Cute. Christmas is definitely recognized and celebrated, but more as a Western spectacle than anything else. I'm getting a little sad to be missing Christmas at home, but we have some friends here in town, so we'll make sure to celebrate. Happy holidays!

Visa Run

One of the big hassles of living in Thailand is the struggle to stay legal. Richard and I knew we'd have to do a visa run at some point. We got a 60 day tourist visa before coming to the country, but we need a non-tourist visa to legally work. We were always planning to get this visa in Bangkok. It takes about three weeks to process, so we were planning on putting in our paperwork, and then dashing to the Myanmar border for a stamp to renew our tourist visa while the non-tourist visa finished processing.

However. Our coordinator here insisted that we needed to go to Laos to get our visa. This was news to us, and was going to be a much more expensive trip than we had budgeted for. After explaining that we really couldn't afford to go to Laos, our coordinator offered to pay for a van to take Richard and me, along with the three other teachers from our program who are in Hua Hin. to Laos.

So, here we are in Laos! We took the van overnight, got to the border at 5 am, and spent the day until about noon waiting in various lines to get into the country and get our visa processed. After a nap, some food and some coffee, we're ready to explore Vientienne, but we've only got a night here. We pick up our paperwork tomorrow, and head back to Thailand.

Laos seems pretty cool. There are baguettes everywhere. Good bread is hard to get in Thailand, so this is very exciting. Apparently northern Laos is beautiful, but we have no time to see it. Hopefully we'll get a chance to come back. That's my only insight so far. Bread! Mmmm. I'm pretty sleep deprived.

Happy Monkey Day!

This morning, Richard informed me that it is monkey day today. So happy monkey day! Speaking of monkeys, Richard and I saw a bunch yesterday. We took a songtow to Kao Takiab, and there are monkeys who live at the Wat there. Kao Takiab is a mountain that juts right out into the gulf, and there is a beach right next to it, so after climbing a mountain and seeing some monkeys, we played frisbee on the beach. Living in a place with both mountains and beaches is pretty exciting.

Richard and I have both been at our schools for a week, and things are going pretty well so far. I haven't really had to teach yet, but I start for real tomorrow. Richard had to teach on his first day, with no time for lesson planning. But it seems like it's gone pretty well. We're both realizing that classroom management with kids who know practically no English is going to be challenging, but we'll do our best. I'll write more about my school after I've been teaching a little longer.

Now that we're not staying downtown, Richard and I are starting to really like Hua Hin. The weather has been beautiful, the beach is gorgeous, and the sea food is plentiful, delicious, and relatively inexpensive. Our coordinator here treated us to this meal last week. Mmmm.

And here's me on the beach at Kao Takiab:

Kids with a dog on the beach:

An elephant, just walking down the road:

And the principal of my school, with a dog in a car:

There was a random dog show at my school on Friday. My school is really close to the palace where the royal family stays when they're not in Bangkok. Apparently the dogs who performed were the grandchildren of the King's favorite dog. It was pretty entertaining.

So that's it for now. I hope everyone has a great monkey day!

Hua Hin is like Florida but more Thai, so don't worry

We moved into our apartment yesterday. It's a spacious studio apartment (oxymoron, right?) in a neighborhood full of students. I'm sure we'll take some exciting pictures as we spent 1500 baht at the local Walmart equivalent decking it out. It was interesting to learn that in Thailand, even in the most westerner friendly store in town, non-fitted sheets do not exist.

Our neighborhood is nice and Thai, people stare at us when we walk by instead of trying to get us to buy suits and massages. In short, it's nice and what we wanted.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My birthday was pretty fun. We had a bunch of people down from Bangkok for the weekend. We went out Friday night, I had a bit too much SangSom (it turns out, it doesn't take much), and did not win my birthday party, as no one should do.

Ouch

So, now I'm the girl who let her boyfriend climb out of a window in the middle of the night, and didn't even wake up when he left this hole in the roof about a story below us. Sorry, Richard.

The government was voted out! New elections! Exciting.

We're in Hua Hin now. It is such a beach town. So much like Florida. We're staying at a guest house until Saturday, when we get to move into our accommodations. And then we start working on Monday...

Crazy story

After a late night celebrating the end of our course we went to bed. At some point during the night, during a dream, I found myself climbing over something and reaching for the ground with my foot. I couldn't reach it, so I hung from the edge and let myself drop. After I found the ground, I walked around a little and scoped out my surroundings, then I tried to climb onto something else, and started falling. I caught myself, pulled myself up, and woke up.

After I woke up, I realized that I had climbed out my third story window, dropped onto the corrugated metal roof of a building just outside mine (breaking through the metal, walked around on it, tried to get onto the balcony of someone else's hotel room, fallen through the metal there, and pulled myself up. At this point I'm fully awake, in my boxers, bleeding, and stuck on top of this roof. I walked all around it trying to figure out how to get down, but short of shimmying down a palm tree, I can't figure anything out. So I lie on the roof until I hear someone walk by and I call out in Thai and English, "Help!" Eventually someone from our program hears my voice and calls the front desk. They come and let me into a side window and I scramble half naked back to my room.

It takes about a dozen bandages and gauze pads to get me covered up, by that time it was about 5:30am. I went back to bed (with the windows and doors locked) and woke up a bit of a wreck at noon. I eventually decided that, even though my cuts weren't that bad, I'd rather not get tetanus, so I went to the emergency room. There was no wait, and I got my cuts cleaned a tetanus booster, all for 100 Baht (about $3). I paid the hotel 800 Baht ($25) for the substantial damage to their roof and now all I have is a bruised heel, a handful of small wounds, and terror of falling asleep to show for the whole ordeal. I am really lucky that that's the worst that I've got.

As far as I can tell I've never sleepwalked before. I know my sister used to a long time ago. I talk in my sleep pretty regularly, but this is just crazy. It's good to know, I guess. I can make sure that I keep windows and doors locked. I could sleep handcuffed or in a tight sleeping bag or something, but that may be overkill. I'd be a lot more terrified if I hadn't heard Mike Birbiglia's story on this episode of This American Life.

Anyway, I'm fine now. Of all the weird things to happen in Thailand, I sure wasn't expecting this.

How Many Farang Can You Fit In a Tuk-Tuk?

At least six, but probably more. (Ben's up next to the driver taking the picture). And a teaser: Richard's got a crazy story coming up soon...

All done with the practice kids....

We got through the test batch nicely. After a week of teaching short lessons to (relatively) well prepared and behaved children, we start in Hua Hin on the 8th. That gives a week to chillax until we get started. Also, I hear there are lazy stray monkeys all over Hua Hin. That sounds so eerie and awesome, I don't really know what to say.

But as far as teaching goes, my lesson on Tuesday was discouraging, but the rest of mine went well enough (on my self evals they hovered between C- and C+) and the other teachers have been giving me enough positive feedback that I've resigned myself to the fact that I may do okay at this. Laura's a star, she doesn't need any reassurance or anything, she's great. But I think I may be able to hang. Also, compared to everyone else in our program, we've got a pretty posh teaching situation. Only 250 kids in the school, 30-40 per class, estimated 18 contact hours a week and minimal outside class work (no leading English clubs or teaching in English camps, just "gate duty", whatever that is). And if it's terrible, we'll just go to the beach every day and play with the monkeys.

Thai Thanksgiving

I was a little sad to be missing Thanksgiving at home, so I decided to pamper myself on Thanksgiving day. After I finished my lesson planning, I went to get my first Thai massage. For 100 bat (3 dollars), I got an hour's worth of pummeling, stretching, and kneading. I was warned that Thai massages are a bit intense, but it seriously hurt! About half of the time it felt really good, but the other half was incredibly painful. Knees and elbows were used, and my body was contorted into positions that I didn't think were possible. I felt pretty good when it was done, though.

Some people were going downtown for a Western-style Thanksgiving dinner, but the rest of us went to get a more traditional Thai meal of soup in clay pots. All of the ingredients came on separate plates, and we added them one by one to let them cook. It was delicious. We even had a guitarist playing some great music in the background. It wasn't the Thanksgiving I'm used to, but it was a good substitute.

The political situation in Thailand has been a bit intense as of late, but we haven't been very affected by it. Traveling into Bangkok is a but challenging, but Richard and I may be able to get to Hua Hin without going through Bangkok. It will be interesting to see how the conflict works itself out. The government seems to be trying hard to avoid violence, but I think the police are starting to try to clear protesters from the airports today. Here's a more qualified source on the subject: BBC News Article

In other news, Richard and I finished our teaching practice and we're now completing a Thai culture course that we need to legally teach in Thailand. We spent most of today learning how to make toys and bamboo flowers. Not too strenuous. We finish the course tomorrow and then we have a week before we start teaching. Teaching! There's Richard at teaching practice. The kids at our second school were freakishly good. I saw Richard teaching twice and he did a really good job, so don't believe his horror stories. It will be sad to say bye to all the people we've spent the last three weeks with. We ended the course with some crazy karaoke, and then tomorrow, we all go our separate ways.

Teaching?

"It's been really fun" - Laura

I can't believe we've been in the same school.

This teaching thing is crazy. I didn't sign up for this. What's going on? Since when do kids not know the word 'sad'? It's like they're not even trying. Always jabbering on in their silly nonsense talk and "reading" the curliwigs that are all over the place. Honestly!

But seriously, I have hope, but my lesson today was terrible. It's kind of embarrassing how badly it went. I undershot their abilities and underprepared for them to sneak away, stock up on straws, and hit each other with them. The guy after me didn't even get to any material because he just had to focus the kids. I'm dumb.

I am excited about Hua Hin, though word on the streets is that there are kids there too and I will be expected to be around them in some capacity. Dammit!

Teaching Practice

Richard and I have had two days of teaching practice so far, and it's gone pretty well. We were initially surprised at how low a level the kids were at. Richard was teaching a lesson on emotions, and he made a happy face, and asked the kids how he felt. They knew "happy," but when he drew a frowning face and asked the same question, the kids were stumped. "Face" was the best answer that he got. But we both got through our lessons pretty well. I had really little kids today, and they were so cute! They know a lot of basic words, like animals and colors, but have a lot of trouble with sentences. It's been really fun. The kids have been pretty well behaved in my group, but Richard encountered some terrible behavior today. Like kids anywhere, they'll start hitting each other, speaking out of turn, etc. And when they get excited, it can be difficult to settle them down. But at the beginning of the lesson, they all say in unison, "good morning teachaaaaa." And at the end, "thank youuuuu teachaaaaaa." Cutest thing ever. But, as Richard says, "cute is dangerous." I'm gonna have to be careful.

Right now, I'm in one of the millions of cafes that surround the university here. This might be the only one I've found so far that serves affordable food, serves coffee, and has wi-fi. I wish I'd found it sooner. It's lovely. I'm getting used to this lifestyle. Having a full-time job again is going to be a shock! But hopefully a good one.

Oh, and some news! Richard and I will be teaching in Hua Hin (see picture above). It's a beach resort town. It's fairly touristy, but is supposed to be really nice. A lot of Thai people go there for vacations, so it won't be all farang (foreigners). There are lots of beautiful beaches around there! We're pretty excited.

Muay Thai Pictures

Here are the promised pictures.

Tiny Boxer (grinning with victory):

Blindfolded Boxer:

Kick to the head!

Bpai! Bpai! (Go!) Richard and I cheering.

Ladyboy:

That's about it. It was a great show. We went to a cool reggae bar afterward. It was fun.

Still having a blast! Teaching practice begins on Monday. Hopefully it will go well!

Muay Thai with Cabaret

We went to a Muay Thai fight Monday night that was followed by a Ladyboy Cabaret. Where it was clearly targeting tourists, it was real fighting and real ladyboys.

We paid 350 baht to get in (a whopping $10.50) and had to fight to get the table we'd reserved, and after sitting a while, we noticed that the first fighters couldn't have been older than 8. What have we gotten ourselves into? Luckily that fight was relatively short and moved on quickly to real adults kicking each other in the head. Other highlights included a match where 5 blindfolded guys duked it out with one sighted referee making trouble. The real fights were pretty exciting, and Laura, who claimed to only come for the cabaret was standing and cheering and taking pictures at the most grisly moments. She does have bloodlust after all. Maybe we'll take a class together one of these days and she can take out all that latent rage.

Next came the ladyboy cabaret. It was like a normal drag show at first, with cheesy American pop, lipsyncing, makeup and camp. Then the tops came off, and those were boobs. Wow. Quite a show. Pictures will come soon.

Day Off!

We had six days of class this week, so Richard and I wanted to make good use of our one day off. We decided to hike to Doi Suthep, a Wat on top of a mountain that we can see from our hotel. On the way out of town, we ran into Adam, a guy in our program, so we set off together. Things started off well. We came upon Wat Phai Hin within five minutes. It was a beautiful Wat, and there were about a dozen young monks playing in the yard.

We kept walking, and found ourselves on the grounds of a fancy restaurant for tourists. There was a waterfall! We climbed up it for a while, but it didn't seem to be a faster route up the mountain.

There's Richard and Adam at the waterfall. Things got a lot more difficult from this point forward. Every direction we went. we ran into an entrance to the Chiang Mai Zoo, and no one seemed to be able to tell us how to get to the Wat. Finally we backtracked a ways, started out again, and found a trailhead! We followed a trail up the mountain for about half an hour and then found the Wat Palat. This isn't the Wat we were looking for, but it was really cool! In addition to the normal assortment of beautiful Buddha statues, there were also old, stone figures wrapped in orange cloaks, and other statues of various people and creatures. I need to learn more about the stories behind these statues.

We decided that to try for the other Wat another day. We went to the Sunday Walking Market in the afternoon and I spent too much money on pretty things. We really liked this market, though. The night market in Chiang Mai turned out to be really touristy and kitschy, but the Walking Market was pretty laid back.

You have to barter for things, and its really easy to get caught up in the moment and spend more money on something than you're planning on. I think I still managed to get a couple decent deals. Anyway, enough of these rambling posts about pretty things. Next up: Thai Boxing and Lady-Boys.

Funeral

Today is the funeral of the King's sister, Princess Galyani Vadhana. She died in January, but her funeral is just happening today. We were told that everyone would be wearing black today to show that they are in mourning. So, Richard and I dressed in black. Then we got breakfast in town. And no one was wearing black. But us. We feel kind of dumb.

Obamaaa

When we were in Bangkok two days after the election, every time someone asked us where we were from and we told them America, they immediately would say some variation of "Obamaaa! You like Obamaaa?" Last night when we were downtown for Loi Kratong, I saw this lantern with Obama's face on it! Since we keep writing about Loi Kratong, I might as well give some more details about that. It's a festival to honor Buddha and to give apologies to the river for polluting it all year long. People float lanterns into the sky and small banana-leaf rafts down the river as an act of letting go of all the bad things in life. There's one more day of the festival, so after that, things should return to normal, and I won't have to worry about firecrackers exploding in my face every time I walk down the street!

I'm enjoying the class so far. The best dialog yesterday was as follows:

A: My favorite drink is Mekong River Snake Whiskey. What's yours?
B: My favorite drink is _______.
A: Let's have a drink.
B: Sounds good!

We've been learning about some other basic warmups and activities. I hope we start learning the details of teaching grammar soon, but I think everything we've done so far will be useful. The whole final week of the course will be teaching practice, which is great!

So we came to teach...

We just got through our first day of teacher training, and it was quite an adventure. We spent a ton of time getting down these four-line dialogs that involved one fill in the blank. Here's an example:

A: I would like to be a doctor, what would you like to be?
B: I would like to be a ____________.
A: Good luck to you.
B: Good luck to you too.

Getting a room of college educated, English native adults to get through this exercise was hard. I can only imagine getting 50 rambunctious Thai kids through it.

After that, we went to see some more Loi Kratong festivities at the river. It was slightly less beautiful than the scene that Laura posted pictures of, but only slightly. It was also nice to see the locals shooting fireworks with the same care and consideration as Texans in the parking lot of a fireworks stand on the Fourth of July. There are hicks everywhere.

Bangkok and Loi Kratong

So, it sort of bothers me when people go abroad and start a blog and then don't write anything until they go to a cool festival, and then post a whole bunch of pictures. But that's what I'm going to do! My excuse is that we haven't had consistent internet access. But right now, Richard and I are in a cute coffee shop with free wi-fi, where I got maybe the most delicious latte I've ever had. I am happy to know that I do not need to give up my coffee habit here.

We spent a day in Bangkok after flying in. Bangkok: well oiled machine for ripping off tourists. Everywhere we went, we were harangued by people trying to sell us things for jacked-up prices. We didn't love it there, but we saw some cool things. The Grand Palace was beautiful!

Bangkok was a bit of a disappointment, but Chiang Mai is lovely! We're staying right by Chiang Mai university, and the area around our hotel feels like any college town, with tons of little coffee shops and restaurants. I put on a long skirt to go out, and was surprised to see Thai students in shorts and tank tops, and generally looking more stylish than I ever do. Most of the restaurants don't have any English on their menu, so it's been fun to try to order things in Thai. Richard has been very successful with that, but all I ever really say is "thank you."

Last night, we were lucky to run into another person in our program who knows English teachers who have been living here for a while, so we got a chance to join a big group of people heading out of town for the first night of the Loi Kratong festival. We crammed 12 people into a songtow with another 3 hanging off the back and traveled out to a big field where thousands of loi (hot-air paper lanterns) were released into the sky. With fireworks constantly being set off, it felt a lot like the Fourth of July, but without any safety regulations. Seeing the sky lit up with floating lanterns was surreal and one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.

Those photos don't even begin to capture it. Maybe I'll post a link to some better ones. Our certification course starts tomorrow, so we'll let you know how that goes. Sorry for such a long post! I'll try to be snappier from here on out.

We leave in 4 hours

This is Richard and Laura's Thailand blog. We are Grinnell College graduates, and after a year or two of less satisfying work, we are looking to doing possibly awful work on the other side of the world. We're hella looking forward to updating you all with pictures, stories, and other embarrassing hoohah for the next 6 months. Enjoy!