Kanchanaburi part 2

Sunday was an early morning. After breakfast at the guesthouse restaurant (you know how much I love breakfast) we took the scooters out one last time to check out a temple we could see from the restaurant, just a little ways down the river. It was just a few minutes drive. It turned out to be a Chinese style Buddhist temple (the Chinese Buddha tends to be the fat one). I don't really know much about the difference between Thai and Chinese Buddhism. Thailand generally follows Theravada Buddhism, the oldest form of the religion. There wasn't much going on at the temple complex; I think it was still too early. 

Do you see that blue rectangle on the top tier of the temple? That shows the personal seal and royal cipher of HH Queen Sirikit. We think she may have commissioned the construction or was involved in some way.

The Chinese temples that I've visited here seem more ornate than the Thai ones, but much emptier. There was hardly anything going on at this one. Still, it was very cool to see. The decoration inside was pretty impressive.

the ceiling inside the shrine

Afterwards, we returned to the guesthouse, checked out, reluctantly returned the rented scooters, paid the bill, and walked back to the train station where we were going to meet the Thai family we were going to be staying with.

In Thailand, it is uncommon to be referred to by your family name. Everyone goes by their first name, or by a nickname. That's why I'm called Teacher Michael instead of Mr. Desrosiers. In the Mathayom office, we all just address each other by our first names, or sometimes give each other the title "Ajarn" for extra respect. "Ajarn" means "teacher", but is a title of honor. Mathayom is much more laid back and less structured than Prathom is. In the Prathom office they call the Thai teachers by their first names, but add the honorific "Phi" meaning "older brother or sister". That shows familiarity but still a degree of respect. It's often abbreviated to P'.

P'Ja is a Thai teacher at Prathom. She and Katie tutor together. Katie tutors English, and P'Ja tutors Thai language (literature, writing, etc). When she found out that we were going to be in Kanchanaburi, she invited us to come stay with her family who was also traveling there. Katie and Grant traveled with them a few times last year too.

I met P'Ja and her husband P'Chai. They also brought their son Boom and a close family friend, Joc, who is more like an uncle. After introductions, we got in the back seat of the car Boom was driving, with P'Ja in the passenger seat. The two men took another car and all the luggage. Until this point we had been in Kanchanaburi City proper, but now we were heading out to the Thai countryside in Kanchanaburi Province. We drove about an hour out of town to some bungalows owned by P'Ja's family friends.

After driving for a while we stopped at a little restaurant on the side of the road and the family picked up some food for us to go. A few minutes later we arrived at where we would be staying.

Thai countryside in Kanchanaburi Province

 We ate the lunch outside under a covered porch. They bought several different Thai dishes for us to try. I certainly wouldn't be going hungry over the weekend! Thai people are very proud of their food, and take great pride in stuffing farangs with as much of it as they can. After eating, we took a walk around the area. After the crowds, noise, and pollution of Bangkok, being surrounded by nothing but nature literally for miles on all sides was an amazing feeling. After walking to the MRT or going downtown for anything in the city I feel like I need to take a shower. Out in the countryside, everything felt fresh and clean. Fresh air is a rare commodity in Bangkok, one of the world's most polluted cities.

those dark hills in the far background are on the Burmese border

the bungalow I stayed in

The bungalows look small and primitive, but they actually had electricity, air conditioning, running water, and even a TV (although I never turned mine on).

We didn't do too much on Sunday. Mostly we hiked around for a while, and then had dinner outside. The family was super nice, and told us of their plans for the next day. They wanted to make sure that we got to see and do as much as we possibly could on our holiday!

Kanchanaburi Holiday

Kanchanaburi is about three hours west of Bangkok by train. The train was to leave at 7:50. I and two friends, Katie and Kelsey, met in the lobby of our apartment bright and early at 6. Actually 6 o'clock doesn't feel that early anymore. That's the real world for you.

Anyway, there were only three of us. Everyone was invited to go, as we had been planning this trip for about three weeks now looking forward to the holiday. Some people had friends coming in for the weekend, and the others decided they wanted to take it easy around Bangkok for a few days. The week before the holiday, a few people changed their minds and wanted to come along, but at that point it was too late to make additional arrangements. You snooze you lose. 

train rolling into Bangkok

Sorry, that sounded mean. It actually would have been nice to travel with the whole group, but we had a good time on our own. Anyway, we got to the train station around 7 after taking a taxi through the city. A one-way ticket only cost B100 which is beyond cheap. We were early, and decided to walk through a nearby market to look for breakfast. That turned out to be a mistake. It was not touristy at all. Basically, there were just piles and piles of raw meat and weird intestines next to buckets of vegetables. We made a 180 and went to 7-11 for breakfast sandwiches instead.

A sign at the station: Before across please be ware. This is why my job is important.

The train was fine. For such a short ride, you could only buy a third-class ticket. That meant we were sitting on hard wooden benches. Luckily it wasn't very crowded, and we got seats facing each other with room overhead for baggage. The windows were all opened, and I got a great look at the country as we rolled along. Besides Bangkok, most of the country is still pretty rural. We got into Kanchanaburi around 11. After waving off taxi drivers who were pestering us to give us a ride, we made the five minute walk from the train station to our guest house. The place where we stayed was located on the infamous River Kwai. There was an open air restaurant on a covered wooden deck, and we had lunch before setting out to see some sites.

the guesthouse on the River Kwai

When she found out that we were going to be visiting Kanchanaburi on the holiday weekend, one of the Thai teachers at Prathom invited us to come stay with her and her family (Katie tutors English with her). That's why the others weren't able to come along after we had already made plans. They wanted to arrive on Sunday, but we had wanted to see as much as we could, and took the train a day early to maximize our time. After lunch we got the crazy idea to rent motor scooters. There's hardly any traffic in Kanchanaburi, it's a small little town. We decided scooters would be a fun and easy way to see as much as we could. I hadn't ever ridden a scooter before, but it was really fun!

I looked kind of like Speed Racer with my helmet and sunglasses on. It was pretty dorky, but safe! I think one of the girls may have taken a picture, but I don't have it. If it turns up I'll definitely post it on here.

Kanchanaburi is the site of a lot of World War II history. 100,000 Allied POW's died constructing the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai. Our first stop was the Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery where British, Australian, Dutch, and one Canadian solder are buried. It was constructed after the war by the Allies and is very well maintained.

unknown Allied soldier

Allied War Cemetary

Next we took the scooters a few minutes out of town to see the Death Railway and the Bridge.

a stretch of the Death Railway just past the bridge

Bridge on the River Kwai

There's really not much to say here. If you know your history, then you'll understand the gravity of the site. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

It actually turned out to be a fairly emotionally exhausting afternoon. Kelsey bought us ice cream bars at 7-11 and we scootered back to the guesthouse for dinner and bed.

I don't want to end on that note though. Dinner was really good (I had spaghetti).

And here's an interesting fact; even though it's spelled "Kwai", the name of the river is actually pronounced "Kwae" in Thai (rhymes with "way"). There's even a local movement to change the Romanized spelling of the word. It's funny, because the word "kwai" in Thai actually means "buffalo"!

River Kwai (Kwae) - that's the view from my room!

Midterm Week

Hey everyone,

I just got back from a great relaxing holiday in Kanchanaburi, in the west of Thailand near the Burmese border. I'll be writing about it later this week. I did a ton of things, so I'll be splitting it up throughout the week.

The reason I was in Kanchanaburi this weekend though, was because we had a long holiday. Last week was midterm week. The students came to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On those days we had to proctor several different tests (not our own subject). On Tuesday and Thursday, the students stayed home to study, and we teachers had workdays to grade the midterms. The whole week was really laid back and kind of fun. I'm a really fast grader. Most of my tests were multiple choice, and once I get into a good rhythm, I can have the whole test memorized in a few minutes. I had finished most of my grading on Thursday, so Geoffrey and I hung out at the bank for a while drinking that weird green drink. Honestly, I think Geoffrey just makes up excuses to go to the bank so that he can drink that stuff. Friday was boring. I only had one test to give (just an hour). Geoffrey wasn't there, so the office was really quiet. I've just been listening to a podcast about British history.

My students did really well on their exams. I'm very proud, especially of my M2 Main class; everyone in my class got A's on the departmental midterm. It was super easy, but still!

This weekend marked the official start of the rainy season, and the period known as Buddhist Lent. Because of that we had a national holiday, and school was closed on Monday and Tuesday. I had spent one night in Pattaya when I visited Koh Larn, but this was the first trip I've taken outside of Bangkok for any real amount of time. I just got back this evening (Tuesday). I had a great time, and I feel ready for a new week at school, especially since it's only three days!

Another Banana

I came back from lunch today to find:

This isn't over, Geoffrey.

Bangkok Fun Run

It's 10:00 AM on Sunday Morning, and I've already been up for six hours.

Today was the Bangkok Rainbow Run, a charity fun run raising awareness for people with special needs in Thailand. Cherry, a Thai teacher in the Mathayom English office invited us to participate in the run a few weeks ago. I've been pretty excited, this is one of those things that makes you feel like you really live somewhere; you don't do a fun run on vacation. Cherry took our t-shirt sizes and color requests to her friend who was involved with planning the run last week.

Lumpini Park at 5:30 in the morning

The three of us from Mathayom plus Gennie from Prathom signed up to run. The run started at 6, but we met in the lobby of our apartment at 4:30 this morning. After catching a taxi for the fifteen minute ride to Lumpini Park, it was about 5 o'clock. We found the starting line and waited for the race to begin while the sun began to rise. It was super early, but there were lots of people out to run, including lots of farangs!

getting ready to run!

It hasn't been hot lately, and it felt especially good so early in the morning. I clocked in at 31:11 for my 5K. I was thirty seconds behind Ryan, and thirty ahead of Rachel. Not bad! The cool thing about Lumpini is how much is always going on, even early in the morning. As we ran we saw groups of older people practicing Tai Chi with swords and fans, and we ran past a few zumba and aerobics classes too.

Team Mathayom (and Ginny) at 5:45; purely by coincidence all three of us from Mathayom ordered blue shirts

As I crossed the finish line someone handed me a medal, a cup of water, and a kiwi with a little plastic kiwi spoon. It took me a little while to figure out how to use it...

The run had lots of sponsors, and they had all set up booths and were giving out free snacks after the run. I got a yogurt and a small chicken pie for breakfast. They also had ice cream, but it was so early, and after running three miles that didn't sound good to me.

A little after 7:30 we got another taxi to take us home. It is much quicker, and splitting it four ways is actually cheaper than taking the MRT. Plus it's more comfortable. We wanted to leave Lumpini pretty soon after the run. There was a political rally going on there today, and we didn't want to be involved with that at all. I don't think I've mentioned the red shirts, yellow shirts, white masks, and red masks yet, but maybe one day I'll put my international relations degree to good use and try to explain the political situation here. It's complicated.

So now it's 10:30, and it feels like late afternoon to me. I'll probably take a nap soon.

The time I broke into a Thai prison... sort of

After leaving the Snake Farm on Friday, Katie and I had wanted to visit the Thailand Corrections Museum. The museum is closed on weekends, which is a real shame. The Corrections Museum, as you can probably imagine, showcases the history of the prison system and various methods of "corrections" employed by Thailand throughout the years. That's right, it's a museum about the history of Thai torture.

We got to the old prison to find that the majority of it has been turned into a park. All that's left are some walls and a few watchtowers around a small courtyard with a few old buildings. We realized quickly that the park wasn't where we really wanted to be, and made our way towards the watchtowers.

There were no signs or arrows telling us where to go. The watchtowers and walls were pretty dilapidated looking, and we walked the perimeter trying to find a way inside. I don't know how we did it, but we somehow ended up going through a weird alley and walking through a back door, ending up inside the courtyard! That's when we found out that the museum was actually closed. There was a guard, but he was just sort of hanging out in a hammock inside a gazebo, and just sort of waved to us.

After breaking back out of prison (walking back through the weird alley), we didn't really feel like going back to Lat Prao. It was still early afternoon, and none of the Prathom teachers would be back yet anyway. The prison was just outside of Chinatown, and using the power of Google, we found a well-recommended restaurant inside the nearby Shanghai Mansion Hotel. I hadn't had any Chinese food since coming here, and it was cool to get to use chopsticks. In Thailand they don't use chopsticks, just a fork and spoon.

All in all a pretty eventful day. We ended up just taking a cab back to the apartment since it was raining again. It's too bad about the museum being closed, but I'll try to go back sometime. It sounded pretty interesting. At least I got to see a little bit of Chinatown, an area I hadn't been to before.

Why did it have to be snakes?

Today was English Camp at Prathom. That meant that the primary school teachers had to go in to work today and do fun English activities with the students. They've been stressing out about it all week, and I found another reason why I'm glad I'm at Mathayom. They had to work late yesterday, which left four of us, me and Rachel from Mathayom, and Katie and Charnel from Vocational to ride the van home. The Prathom teachers were gone all day today too, and since Rachel and Charnel had other plans, Katie and I decided to go do some touristy things around the city.

This is Katie's second year here, but Bangkok is so huge you can't see everything in a year. We looked in our guidebooks and decided to visit the Thai Red Cross and Snake Farm; it's something most of the Prathom girls weren't interested in seeing anyway.

The Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute was founded in 1912 by King Rama VI. The institute is the headquarters for the Thai Red Cross, and was originally founded as a rabies research and treatment clinic. In 1922 the king started a special project in the research of snake antivenom. This was especially significant as at the time two of the princes and the princess were born in the Year of the Snake. (Coincidentally, 2013 happens to be the Year of the Snake again!)

The Snake Farm as it's commonly called, is one of the world's largest facilities for the research and production of antivenom.

Katie and I left our apartment at 10:15 this morning, and caught a taxi to take us to the Red Cross HQ. Because of the way the subway system is laid out, sometimes it's quicker to take a taxi. We didn't realize that it was graduation at one of the big universities in town though, and we were in the car for nearly an hour. It's ok though, because taxis in Bangkok are really nice, and super cheap. On the ride we realized that we had taken a class together at Baylor!

Warning: Snake Pictures!

It only cost B200 for admission to the Snake Farm. That's really reasonable, especially since it's kind of a tourist thing. The admission money goes towards research. The snake researchers hold a show twice daily where they show different types of snakes and demonstrate how they milk venom for the production of antivenom. The show started at 11, and because of the traffic we unfortunately missed some of it. We did get to see them show several snakes though. We sat on outdoor bleachers and watched as a snake handler showed off the different species while a scientist talked about each snake first in Thai and then in English.

highly venomous pit viper

The first snake that we saw was a small green pit viper. The snake handler had him wrapped around a stick, and as the snake began moving towards him, he calmly pulled it back down the stick or just switched hands. That snake is highly venomous. They are partially arboreal, and sometimes drop down off of trees. They're really dangerous, and they live here in Thailand.

Not every snake they showed was venomous though. Another snake they brought out was a certain species of rat snake. It's not venomous, but can be aggressive. The handler demonstrated this by putting the snake on the ground and jumping back as it tried to strike. He did this a few times, jumping around the snake so the audience could see it from different angles. It was super fast! As soon as the handler picked it up though, it became calm.

At the end of the show the snake handler and the announcer brought out a huge python. It was big and really calm, and they had us line up to take pictures with it! 

learning stuff at the snake farm

Holding the python wasn't creepy or scary at all; the snake was actually really friendly, as much as that's possible. It's amazing how heavy he was though. I put him across my shoulders, and I could feel that he was all muscle. There were probably forty or fifty people at the show, almost all tourists. Not everyone had their pictures made, but some of the littlest kids were the bravest. It was so funny to see a tiny seven or eight year old girl with this giant snake wrapped around her!

After the show we got to walk around the snake farm. It had started to rain a little, but not too much. The area we were allowed to walk around was sort of like an outdoor zoo with habitat exhibits set up that you could look down in. There were lots of different types of pythons, one big grey one called an "elephant trunk snake", and some anacondas.

Then we went inside the education center. The entire first floor was a serpentarium, and we spent a long time looking in the glass cages and reading the information signs about the different types of snakes. There are some really cool colorful snakes that live in Southeast Asia (most of them are venomous).

The second floor had exhibits about snakes. The first section was all about toxicology, and had some really gross photos. The next part was about snake mythology in different cultures. The symbol of a snake eating its own tail to symbolize eternity was developed in Mesoamerica, ancient Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, and Asia independently!

After that there were exhibits about snake eggs and their life cycle, and then there were skins and skeletons. It was all really interesting, and presented in a really professional way. The work that they do at the Snake Farm is really helpful. Even today, people die every year in the region from snake bites. There are over 180 different species of snakes in Thailand alone. I don't know how many are venomous, but the antivenom produced at the Red Cross center saves a lot of lives every year. I've never been overly fond of snakes, but the whole thing was weirdly fascinating. It was something that I've really been wanting to see, and wasn't disappointed. Guys, I know so much about snakes now. Did you know that king cobras are one of the few snake species that cares for their young?

It was early afternoon when we left the Snake Farm. We still had a lot of the day left and wanted to go to another museum that sounded interesting.

Spoiler: the museum was closed. We did have another interesting adventure in Bangkok though.

Banana Update

Geoffrey didn't mention the banana this morning, but it was gone from his desk. I also found another banana on my desk. Again, I think he brought it from home. This is a thing now.

Great American Rib - July 4, 2013

Independence Day!

Geoffrey liked the 'Merica collage we left on his desk and hung it up on the wall. He pointed out that only an American would misspell their own country.

On July 4 after finishing work, our driver dropped us off at the MRT as usual. Instead of taking the subway home to Lat Prao though, we transferred to the Skytrain to take us downtown.

For Independence Day, Katie invited us to all go out together for dinner at a place where the American teachers always celebrate. Great American Rib is an authentic American barbecue restaurant in Bangkok. It was founded by Americans and primarily caters to American expats. Every year they host a big Independence Day barbecue buffet. Eleven of us went in total, nearly all of the American teachers from my school. All three of us from Mathayom went, the Vocational girls went, and most of the Prathom teachers went as well.  Bangkok is great, and I really love Thailand. The culture is beautiful, and I really like the food. Sometimes however, it feels good to have a taste of home, especially on the 4th of July. I even ate my meal with a fork and knife, the American way! (In Thailand you eat with a fork and spoon. You use the fork to put food on the spoon, and then eat from the spoon. No idea why. It's weird, but you get used to it.) It's really fun living in Lat Prao because there aren't many farangs around and you can really get a feel for everyday life. That being said, it was awesome to be around a ton of Americans for the 4th.

Most "American" food in Thailand is nothing that you would actually want to eat. An "American Breakfast" I ordered once for example was just a slice of white bread and a hot dog ("toast and breakfast sausage"). Generally you're better off sticking with Thai food. Great American Rib is owned by an American though, and the food is authentic. For the 4th they had a huge all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet complete with brisket, pulled pork, ribs, cornbread, corn on the cob, apple pie... even sweet tea! It was just like being home. They even played American oldies!

Thursday is orange day

I hope everyone had a fun and happy Fourth of July! I had a blast with my friends here in Bangkok. Happy birthday, America!

Prank

Also, I hid a banana on Geoffrey's desk today.

Midterms and America

We got ID badges this week. Now we are free to move around the school grounds without worrying about getting stopped by security. Before this week we were pretty much stuck on the campus. Mathayom (where I work with my coworkers) and Prathom (where everyone else works) are right next to each other. In between there is a little bakery and a shop where you can get breakfast or a snack throughout the day.

Wednesdays are really nice because me and my other two American coworkers don't have afternoon classes, and we pretty much have the office to ourselves to grade or do whatever we need to do without our British boss distracting us.

Before I came to Thailand everyone warned me about Geoffrey. I came expecting the worst, but so far he's been really cool to work with. He's an old British guy who's been teaching in Bangkok since 1990. He's a lot of fun to work with, but really distracting sometimes. He's always singing, and he's basically a little kid.

For example, the other day they had fruit set out for us in the Mathayom break room right outside the English office. I make Geoffrey coffee every morning, and sometimes he'll bring me back a snack or something. On Monday he asked if I wanted a banana, and I said yes. He brought me a banana and I ate it. For the rest of the day, every time he walked by my desk he put a banana on it and walked away. Then he started hiding bananas under papers and things on my desk. On Monday he gave me six bananas in total.

On Tuesday when I arrived at work I found another banana hidden under some papers on my desk. They didn't have any fruit that day, and it was a different kind of banana than the day before. Geoffrey actually brought it from home; he's really committed to this joke. He thinks it's the funniest thing ever.

So we're working on putting together the midterm tests this week. We wanted to finish them up, so Rachel, Ryan, and I decided to stay late today to get some extra work done. It turned out pretty well, we didn't have to stay too late, and one of the Thai teachers, Mo, gave us a lift to the Skytrain.

After we finished our M1 and M3 tests, we thought we might prank Geoffrey for Independence Day (tomorrow). Every time he sees anything from the UK he just points at it and says "British". His favorite saying is "British is best." He tells me that every time I drink a cup of Lipton tea.

The three of us printed out a few American flags along with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and a picture of George Washington flying on an eagle, and arranged them on his desk.

July 4 update:

Geoffrey actually really likes the America collage, and hung it up on the wall. He also found out that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird and has been laughing about that all day. (By the way, the British national bird is the robin.)

Tonight we are going out for barbecue after work. Happy Independence Day!