Gong Xi Fa Cai - Year of the Horse

恭禧发财

Today is the first day of the Lunar (Chinese) New Year. It's very important in Thailand. 2014 is the Year of the Horse. Happy New Year for the second time!

马年 Central Plaza Lat Prao

Teacher's Day 2014

We went back to school today. Although the political situation hasn't changed in Bangkok, we took back roads to school and made good time avoiding most of the traffic.

 Today is Teacher's Day. Most schools in town have the day off, but not us. We're making a statement or something. Honestly, I'm happy to be back. I'm getting worried about finishing all the material I need to cover.

Teacher's Day is apparently different from Wai Kru Day. It's way less of a big deal, and in fact we didn't even know it was Teacher's Day until our boss texted us to wish us a good one.

The students sang the Wai Kru Song at assembly and presented Ajarnyai with flowers. Other than that it's just a normal day. I only have one class on Thursday, so it'll be an easy week.

Happy Teacher's Day!

Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor - October 2013 (100th Post)

Today is Wednesday, the 15th of January. On Monday the 13th, the city shut down. This has prevented us from going to school for the past three days, although we're hoping for things to be back to normal tomorrow. I was going to try to write a post explaining the political situation, but I think that BBC does a much better job than I could. I'll try to keep everyone updated if the situation changes.

In the last few days I've just been hanging around my street, since our intersection is one of the ones that has been shut down. This has given me time to have a look over this blog and try to organize my posts a little better. I realized that I've been a bit remiss in talking about my holiday to Cambodia back in October. I took a four-day vacation to see one of the most famous sites in the world, and it hardly got a mention in a three-month update. In my time off I've decided to try and catch up on that. 

 

Let's go back to October 2013...

My trip to Cambodia was probably the most random and spontaneous decisions that I've made in my life. I had returned from Hong Kong just a few days before, and was doing laundry in my building when my friend Kelsey (who teaches at Prathom) came in.

 

"How was China?" she asked.

I told her that I had had a great time and asked what she had been up to.

"I'm think I might go to Cambodia tomorrow. Want to come?"

 

"Ok."

 

That was at 8 pm the night before. I got packed, and met with Kelsey in our building's lobby at 4 the next morning. That was literally all the planning we did before we left. Luckily I had decided to get a multiple entry visa.

We caught a taxi for Hua Lampong station, planning to take the earliest morning train to Aranyaprathet, the Thai border town where you can most easily cross into Cambodia. We got to the station without any trouble, but as we were trying to buy tickets, the agent informed us that all east-bound trains were closed for the week due to track maintenance. Kelsey and I sat down on a bench and consulted Google.

We learned that we could take a bus from the Southern Bus Terminal at Mo Chit, really close to where we had just come from. We got another taxi, and were at the bus station by five where we booked two tickets on a first-class government bus to Aranyaprathet leaving about five minutes later. The bus tickets cost about four dollars apiece.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Cambodia

Weekend at Ajarnyai's

Over the weekend my twelve American colleagues and I were invited to the home of our school's headmistress in the country outside of Kanchanaburi. Ajarnyai (that's what we call her; it means "head teacher") arranged the whole weekend for us.

We left directly from school. Instead of our normal vans, the school had arranged what we call the "leather vans" to take us (because of their interiors). It's only about a three hour drive from Bangkok, but we got to spread out and get comfortable.

our headmistress' home

We got to Kanchanaburi as it was getting dark, but the home is about fourty-five minutes out of town in the country. Ajarnyai 's beautiful weekend home sits on some land overlooking the River Kwai. It was too dark to look around after dinner, but I was up early the next morning, and got to take a walk around the grounds before breakfast was served at 7.

After tea and Thai-style rice porridge, we were taken to the infamous River Kwai Bridge on the Burmese "Death Railway." I've already written a little about this.

River Kwai Bridge

We couldn't stay too long at the bridge. Ajarnyai had arranged a Thai lunch complete with dtom-yum soup (traditional hot and sour shrimp soup) for us outside by the Erawan Waterfall. 

Erawan Waterfall

the fourth tier at Erawan

Then it was back in the vans for another stop and a hike down the Huay Mae Khamin, which locals insist is the superior waterfall. At the national park you enter from the top of the mountain and can hike down a pretty gentle series of trails following the waterfalls to the bottom. Ajarnyai, the assistant headmistress, and a part-time English professor who teaches in our office met us at the bottom. They are in their late 70's, and aren't so much into hiking!

Huay Mae Khamin Waterfall

They are however into shopping. After the waterfalls they insisted on taking us to Ajarnyai's favorite jewelry shop. Most of the girls bought something. When the shopkeepers saw who we were with, they offered pretty generous discounts!

Back at the house, Ajarnyai served us another traditional Thai dinner after we had some time to walk around. The assistant headmistress has a house about a five-minute walk away from Ajarnyai's place. We got the chance to see her home too. It's built in the traditional Thai style, much like the Thompson House. In fact, the home itself is over one hundred years old, and she had it moved piece by piece from Ayutthaya! 

our assistant headmistress' house - they film Thai dramas here!

Before dinner, I sat by the river for a while. The River Kwai (pronounced "Kwae"- it means "tributary") flows north to south near the Burmese boarder. Ajarnyai's home sits on the eastern banks, and offers an unreal view of the sun setting in the west.

The River Kwai at sunset

This morning I was up early again. While the girls were all getting ready, Ajarnyai invited me to join her for a walk through her orchards. She had served fresh fruit with each meal, and showed me the different trees where it was grown. She had papaya, mango, star fruit, mulberries, and probably lots of other fruits as well.

I think we all feel really honored that such an important person from the school was so kind and hospitable to us.

Happy Birthday to my School!

This morning we had a special assembly to celebrate our school's "birthday." It was founded in 1955, so the school is 59 years old.

Even though it's Friday (blue day) we all were asked to wear yellow to mark the special occasion. A group of about ten monks led the school in prayer and chanting, then a senior monk blessed the students and teachers by sprinkling us with water, as you can see in this not very good photograph I took.

Annual Football Match 2014

Yesterday was the big game: the annual school football match played by Chitralada School and SatitChula, the Chulalongkorn (Chula) University preparatory school. The game is played in the Bangkok National Stadium at Chulalongkorn University.

Because of the game, we only had first and second periods yesterday. The students were so excited, that I didn't really bother to try and do any lessons. Instead, I had my M4 class explain some of the rules to me.

We had a very early lunch (10:30), then got on busses and vans to take us to the stadium. 

The first hour or so of the game was a cultural presentation by the students of the two schools. Some of the girls did a traditional Thai dance, then a group of students performed a Chinese-style lion dance. Each lion had two students inside, one working the eyes and mouth like a giant puppet.

We sat on one side of the bleachers and SatitChula took the other side. All our teachers wore blue; the SatitChula teachers wore pink. 

SatitChula won the coin toss, then one of the lions climbed the bleachers to the VIP seats. Our headmistress dropped the ball into its mouth, then the lion returned to the field to put the ball in play.

Chula (pink and blue) and Chitralada (blue and yellow) teams

I've mentioned how big of a deal the cheering is. Not only were the students in the stands all doing their synchronized cheers, but our school had a small group of elaborately-dressed cheerleaders who were dancing nearly the whole time.

I'm not even sure how much the students were even paying attention to the actual game, to be honest. There was too much other stuff going on. At the half they passed out juice to the students and boxed sushi lunches to the teachers, and both schools cheerleading squads put on their big shows.

In the end, SatitChula won 4-2. My Thai isn't great, but I think the announcers said that this is the 19th year they've played this game. I'm told we have won once. 

The students were amazingly good sports though. It was really interesting to watch. They didn't seem to care if they won or lost, and they were helping the other teams stretch out and giving high-fives on the field. It didn't seem really very competitive, just fun.

After the game, one girl from each school came forward to sing both school songs and do another Thai dance to the music. We stood for the royal anthem, bowed to the flag, and left. 

Seeing this game, I was really impressed with how differently sports competitions are approached here. I was also interested to see that students of all different grades seemed to actually be friends. The older students were organizing everything and seemed to be happily helping out the younger students. I don't know if it's a cultural thing, or if our school is just really close-knit. Maybe a little of both.

Big Game Tomorrow

Tomorrow is out school's annual football (soccer) match versus Chulalongkorn University Prep School. The match will be played at the National Stadium, and all teachers are expected to be in attendance wearing blue to support the school. The students have been practicing their cheers literally for months. Never mind that we missed so many days due to school closures, the students are not going to miss their cheering practice days. It's a big deal. In fact, the cheers are probably a bigger deal than the actual game. It's very interesting.

New Year's Eve in Ayutthaya

After midterms finished on Thursday, and we had a crazy sports day outside on Friday, we got some time off for New Year's. It's a really big holiday in Thailand, and most people leave Bangkok. Things can get a little expensive to travel at this time of year, so I didn't go very far away. On New Year's Eve I took a day trip out of Bangkok to Ayutthaya, the old royal capital of Siam from the 14th century until 1767 when it was sacked by the Burmese and the king moved the capital to Krungthep (Bangkok).

Ayutthaya is only a little over an hour away by train, and the ticket cost me a whopping 15 baht (about $0.50) each way. The old city was settled on a small island between three rivers, and you have to take a ferry across from the train station. That only cost me 4 baht!

On the island I rented a bicycle, and spent a few hours riding around. They gave me a map, and it wasn't too hard to find the way to all the historical sites; the island is only a few miles square.

One of the main sites to see in Ayutthaya is the Old Grand Palace, where the kings ruled Siam until the city was destroyed. Each of the historical sites are pretty cheap to get into; just over a dollar US. It annoys me a little though; each site is free for Thai people, but has a special "foreigner" price posted. It's the same in Bangkok, and probably all over Thailand. That's just one of the things you have to deal with as a farang!

Elephant tours and a modern temple at the Old Grand Palace ruins

the ruins of the Old Grand Palace

The most photographed site in all of Ayutthaya is a mysterious Buddha head grown over by a huge tree on the grounds of Wat Mahathet. They're not really sure how the head got there; but it's not too hard to guess. Whenever the Burmese would sack a Siamese city, they would go around chopping the heads off of all of the Buddha statues. It was the same in Kanchanaburi. Nearly all of the Buddha statues in Ayutthaya are headless. I imagine the head was dropped and forgotten, and over the last few hundred years, the tree just grew up around it.

at Wat Mahathet; this Buddha head is the most photographed site in the city

I spent a few hours in Ayutthaya, then caught the train back to Bangkok. The weather has been perfect lately. I had no idea that it could ever get to be in the 60's and 70's F here, but it's actually been a little chilly lately. It was a really great day to be outside. Ayutthaya is known for being pretty uncomfortable to visit most of the time, due to the heat.

The train back was pretty crowded, and I wasn't able to get a seat! I had to stand for the duration of the trip, but it's only about an hour back into town.

All in all it was a good way to spend the holiday and have a short adventure to wrap up 2013.

Happy 2014!

"I'd like to say Happy New Year to everyone. I wish 2014 to be nice to everyone. I wish everything will be better than 2013. Everything that's bad will go away. I hope 2014 will bring good luck to you all".

One of my students wrote this in my class as part of an essay about New Year's celebrations in Thailand. I thought it was a really nice message, and something that I wanted to share.

Happy New Year 2014 to all!

Where I've Been - 1 January 2014

Where I've Been - January 2014



Happy New Year 2014! In 2013 I went to Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, and Cambodia. I hope to be able to add a few more countries to this map next January 1st.