Merry Christmas from Bangkok!

Merry Christmas!

the big Christmas tree in Union Mall Lat Prao

Aussies at Amphawa

Every year out school participates in a student exchange with an Australian High School. In the spring, a small group of selected students goes to Melbourne to stay with and learn from their host families. They stay for a few weeks, and had just returned to Thailand at the beginning of last term (April).

In the winter, their Australian counterparts come to Thailand during their term holiday. We were supposed to meet them two weeks ago, but due to the "situation" in Bangkok, they put off that portion of the trip and went to the north first.

Last week, with school finally back to normal, the ten Aussie students and their two teachers arrived in Bangkok to stay with their Thai friends who had visited earlier in the year.

A few of them got to sit in on my M4 class, and taught my students how to say "hello, mate". Mostly, they've been busy doing tourist things around town, and we've really only seen them at lunch when the teachers eat with us at our table.

On Saturday, the three American teachers at my school were invited to go along with the twelve Australians and four Thai teachers on a day trip out of town. This was their last big day before our guests head home, just in time for Christmas.

We met at Vocational campus at 9 on Saturday morning, and took a big, comfortable bus about an hour out of town to a workshop where they make traditional Thai ceramics. The Thai style of painting ceramics is based on the ancient Chinese style. You can tell it's Thai though, because the Thai style has added gold to the design.

We got the chance to paint our own coffee mugs. It's not easy! Even though they already had the lines drawn for us, it was hard to keep the paint where it needed to be. I don't know how they paint all the tiny details on their ceramics.

They kept our mugs to fire, but we'll get them back. I'm pretty excited. I got to use gold ink to write my name. Now I won't have to keep using someone else's mug at work!

English department with our ceramics

Next, we had a delicious seafood lunch by the Gulf of Thailand. We couldn't take too long though, next we went to see the famous train market.

It's built on a railway track, and as the train approaches, everyone calmly moves their goods to the side. Once the train is past, they just put everything back out. It's really bizarre. You have to stand in this alleyway as the train passes inches in front if your face.

Next we drove to Amphawa to see a palm sugar plantation and learn how they harvest and refine the organic palm sugar to sell.

The big attraction at Amphawa is the floating village. Shops and stalls selling food and souvinirs line a river walk over the khlong, and if you want something to eat, you just call down to one of the food boats.

Amphawa

I spent a few hours walking around with my two colleagues and the Australian teachers, and then as it was getting dark, we all met up for a riverboat ride.

It's actually been a little cold in Thailand recently. It's freezing in the north, and in the 60's and 70's F down in Bangkok. It was especially cold on the river! The boat ride took about two hours, and they took us to a swampy area to watch fireflies once it was completely dark.

The Australians headed home on Monday, and now we are in the midst of midterms. We gave tests on Friday and Monday. There's another test day on Wednesday, and today and Thursday are study days for the students and grading days for us teachers.

Yes, we have to work on Christmas. We've gotten so much time off lately though, I don't really mind. At least we get a week off for the New Year after midterms are finished!

Long-Overdue Update

Hey, everybody.

So I thought I would get back in the game in time for the new year with a long and long-overdue update. Here's what's been going on in SE Asia lately!

1. After returning from my holiday in HK, I took an impromptu trip with my friend Kelsey to visit Siem Reap. We took an early morning bus to Aranyaprathet, crossed the border, and were in Cambodia that afternoon.

It was mostly just fields, the whole country was kind of flooded when we were there (including the hotel), and everything was kind of overpriced. On the upside, Cambodia is recovering well from a pretty terrible century. On the downside, the money situation was very confusing; everything was charged in a combination of Thai Baht, US Dollar, and Cambodian Rial at an exchange rate of r4000 to $1. The don't use any change, so if you pay in one currency, your change will come in the form of a lower bill in another currency. You end up with a huge stack of r100's, which are worth like $0.20 each.

Still, Siem Reap itself was nice. The main reason though was to visit the Temples of Angkor, especially Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. We just hired a tuk-tuk (literally the only way you could get around) for the day. We started at Angkor Wat at sunrise.

We stayed for three nights, and also saw Bang Melia -a much more remote and hidden temple ruin that you can literally climb all over and explore on your own. There was nobody else there except the park ranger. We finished up with a hike to a famous waterfall covered in ancient carvings; very cool!

2. The day after returning to school for the new term, we received word that Thailand's 100 year old Supreme Patriarch- the chief monk- had died. Out of respect, we ended up having to wear black for the month of November. This made us look really strange whenever we were out together as a group or taking the subway home from school, and got us lots of stares, especially from confused foreigners. We felt pretty cool though when we were already blacked-out for Baylor's game against Oklahoma (which we won 41-12).

the late Supreme Patriarch of Thailand

3. There's been some unrest in Bangkok lately regarding the "Red Shirts" and the "Yellow Shirts" (who are now the "Black Shirts"). It's very confusing, but safe for us as it has nothing at all to do us. We missed lots of school though, as the roads were closed due to protests. The PM has dissolved parliament, and everything has settled down as the country prepares for a new election.

4.  Even though we are in Bangkok, we still had a good Thanksgiving. We were resistant to having to work on Thanksgiving Day, so my three fellow American teachers and I decided to combine our M4 (sophomore) classes and have a party. We told the students to bring snack. It ended up being kind of like our own Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; we got: potato chips, mini sausages, lots of various Asian snacks that I can't describe well... one student brought mini pies, and one of the girls from my class brought us KFC, because it was the closest thing to turkey! This was all at 7:30 in the morning.

Thanksgiving party

It was win-win, the students got to have a party, and we didn't have to work on Thanksgiving. I was really impressed, at the end of the class, the students cleaned the whole thing up by themselves!

That evening Suzy, a fellow Baylor grad and part time Mathayom English teacher who lives with her husband and family in Bangkok, had all the American teachers over to her home for a traditional American Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, stuffing, lots of pie, and the BU/OU game streamed on their TV from youtube. (We are very excited about our Baylor season, if you couldn't tell.)

5. December 5th is the king's birthday, and just like we wore blue for the queen in October, we are to wear yellow for the month of December (the king was born on a Monday).

6. We got a long weekend for the king's birthday (Thai Father's Day), so I went with some friends to the south of Thailand for a few days. We took a night bus and a long ferry ride to the tiny island of Koh Tao (Turtle Island). It's famous for its diving, but we just rented a beach villa and hung out at the beach and pool at our near-empty resort. The water was a bit cold, but not unbearable. I guess it's off season, as we got a really reasonable deal.

We went into the little town for a dinner once or twice, but mostly just relaxed. It's nice to get out of Bangkok for a few days every once in a while.



quiet little Koh Tao

7. Now we're getting ready for midterms. It's a bit annoying; we'll be giving tests on Christmas Day! Oh well, when in Thailand... We have a short holiday coming up for New Year's though.