Ayutthaya

After about a month back at school in the new semester without having left Bangkok since Samut Prakan, it was time for a weekend trip. Ayutthay, the old capital of Siam is easy enough to get to for a day trip, but I've only been there once before. I've been wanting to go back, and I finally found the time last weekend.

tuk-tuks in Ayutthaya are different from Bangkok's

Ayutthaya, the City of Kings, lies on a small defensible island in the Chao Phraya River. From 1350 until its defeat by the Burmese in 1767, Ayutthaya was one of Asia's most important capitals, and with a population up to 1,000,000 by the 18th century, it was one of the world's biggest and most powerful cities.
Now it's a quiet little town just a short train ride from Bangkok. The glory days of Ayutthaya are long gone with the dawn of the Thonburi Kingdom, but the city still retains its charm, found among the ruins of the palaces and temples, the sheer size of which display the ancient kingdom's past splendor.

After getting off the train and crossing the river on a rickety little 4-baht ferry boat, I rented a bike to best explore the Ayutthaya Historical Park. My first stop was the ruins of the famous Wat Mahathet complex.

got a coconut

Wat Mahathet was once an important royal temple and monastery, but was destroyed in the sack of Ayutthaya. When the Burmese captured the city, they decapitated many Buddhist statues as a symbol of their complete victory.

One of the most famous is the face in the tree. A dropped Buddha head was swallowed up by the growth of a bodhi tree, making it doubly sacred. Perfectly upright and very mysterious, the face looks serenely out over the ruined city.

still got my coconut

There's very little shade in the historical park, although it's starting to get cooler. I spent over an hour wandering around Wat Mahathet with a coconut, trying to imagine what the city was like before its destruction.

the ruins of the main temple

The historical park is a really popular destination with Thai weekenders from Bangkok. It's free admittance for Thais, but 50 baht for foreigners. I guess it's fair. The two-price system still bothers me, but less so since I technically count as a Thai because of my work ID.

One really big prang seemed to be one of the most intact. You can climb the steep stairs and go inside. Once inside, my friend Kate and I immediately felt a really weird creepy feeling. There was very little ventilation, and the place was dark and dusty. An information sign told us that we had walked into the largest royal crypt in Ayutthaya. 

Once a great treasure trove, most of the riches of Ayutthaya's crypt have been looted or moved to the National Museum. This was by far the best preserved structure in the historical park, and really interesting to look around. I didn't get to go inside any of the ruins last time I visited the city, so exploring a little more in depth was a cool experience for me.

you can't see it, but we've both got coconuts

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving Day! Of course Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Thailand, but that won't stop us from celebrating. One of the big reasons that the school employs foreign teachers, aside from giving the students a chance to interact with and learn from native speakers, is to share our culture. With our new culture-based curriculum that gives the four of us total freedom in our listening/speaking classes, we've really been focusing a lot on holidays lately. Last year on Thanksgiving we were a bit at a loss as to what to do. It was in the midst of Thailand's political turmoil during the "protest days," and when we did have class, students were regularly missing. The schedule was so unpredictable that we kind of gave up trying to prepare for our early morning class and told the students in our M4 listening/speaking class to bring some snacks for our own Thanksgiving feast. Though we were missing several students and the food selection was incredibly random that day, we still had a good time.

After the success of last year's Thanksgiving party, we wanted to try again with our M4 class this year, which would actually be on Thursday! I'll admit, James, Ryan, and I (who have taught this group of students for the past two years) were not expecting much from the students this year. It's been difficult to get them excited about things (Kate was way more optimistic). When the students signed up to bring really complicated food to our party (like spaghetti), we thought that they really didn't take our class seriously at all.

M4 listening/speaking is the only class that is taught by all four of us American teachers. We are the most cohesive group of foreign teachers out of the three schools (primary, secondary, and vocational) and we make a great team. I'm really thankful for my coworkers who have become some of the best friends I have in Thailand.

I have to take back all my trepidation about this year's M4 class. They went all out! I still can't believe how much effort they put into having a class party. Our menu this year included spaghetti (that guy really followed through), ice cream, frozen banana pops (how they kept it all cold until last period is a mystery to me), hamburgers (a big bag of them from McDonalds), KFC (like last year, meant to represent turkey), sushi, donuts (Krispy Kreme), and cases (cases!) of sodas. When a group of boys walked in with at least ten boxes of pizza, my jaw was pretty much on the floor. I'm totally blown away with this year's Thanksgiving party.

The best part was the big surprise we had planned. Last year, Ajarn Suzie (one of the first Baylor teachers to arrive in Thailand when our program began) invited us all over to her home for a homemade Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, this year she wasn't able to host the party. Her son went to our school in primary school, and is the same age as our M4 students. The students all went crazy when he and his mom showed up at our party!

On Wednesday Suzie brought a delicious homemade pumpkin pie for our office, and today she brought two more for the party. It really feels like Thanksgiving. I told my students that if I couldn't be home for Thanksgiving, I'm really happy to be spending it with them. "We're like your big Thai family," one student told me.

To Make a Buddha

One of the very interesting events at Loi Kratong River Fest was the exhibition of the casting of a new golden Buddha image in front of Wat Arun (The Temple of the Dawn). While my friends and were making the circuit between the participating temples, we were drawn to the crowd and colorful flames outside Wat Arun. We got there just in time to see the craftsmen pouring the molten gold into a mould.

Though we didn't get to participate in the creation of this statue, it really was a community event. While the gold was being poured, monks chanted blessings over a white string that ran through the crowd and connected to the mould. Afterwards, the crowd cut the string into pieces and passed them around. I got a small section of the blessed string.

There was to be another Buddha image cast the next night, and all of the people visiting the temple at this time got to participate in some small way in the creation of this second statue. The wax model, which would be used for the creation of the mould, sat on the ground, and anyone was welcome to come forward and either add a coat of molten wax with a paintbrush, or remove some wax with a file. The image, created by hundreds of hands, will be imperfect. I suppose this has some sort of symbolic meaning, but at the present I'm too tired to try to work that one out!

Michael's Totally Unbiased Review of the School Cheering Competition

Cheering is a big deal at my school. The students get really into it. Sometimes I wish they put as much effort into studying English as they do into choreographing cheer routines. The students cheer at pretty much every event. Wednesday was special though- it was the school-wide cheering competition, and it gets intense. In fact, there was quite a scandal last year. Most of the students will admit that M4 should have won, however the M2 class won. This year my favorite class M5 was determined to take home the trophy and claim the top spot from their M3 rivals.

The judges this year included several Thai idols (pop singers) and a famous actor who is pretty involved around our school. The competition was fierce, and the school has been in high-excitement mode all week as the classes practice their cheers while trying to keep them secret from the other grades.

the class at one point formed themselves into a lotus

Teacher Kate (a former Baylor cheerleader who was super into this event) and I went down to the assembly hall to watch the competition during Wednesday club hours. M2 drew to go first, followed by M5. As soon as M5 performed, I had high hopes for them to win. They were incredibly well-organized and completely in synch in their complicated routine. M5's theme was "World Cup", and their routine consisted of World Cup songs and country cheers, which brought me back to my time spent in South Africa which was still riding high from its time hosting the 2010 games. Back in 2011, you couldn't go into a store or restaurant in Stellenbosch without hearing that Shakira song.

The other classes were good, but nobody could top M5's routine. In the end, M4 came in 3rd, M3 (the rival) came in 2nd, and M5 took home the giant 1st place trophy. When the principal announced the winning team, there were actually tears of joy from some of the girls. They finally won after so many years. I could tell that they worked hard; they deserved it. I'm very proud of my class! Afterwards they called me over to take a picture with them.

#winners

*Of course, I don't really play favorites. I'm just very proud that my English Main class won the competition. There are students in every grade who I really like*

Volunteer Day

To be honest, more often than not I have no idea what's going on at my school outside of my classroom. Generally, unless a piece of information directly pertains to us foreign teachers, memos, announcements, etc aren't translated or conveyed to us. I've learned to be flexible and just accept things as they come up. For example, this week my colleague Ryan and I were asked to coach the English debate team. The meet is next week. We have two periods to prepare three students to debate in their nonnative language.

 

More on that later.

This weekend was one of those events that is apparently a huge deal, but I had no idea about. On Friday I asked my M2 (8th grade) students if they had any fun plans for the weekend, and they told me no because they had class-wide volunteer work on Saturday. That afternoon, James (who knows the most about what's happening on account of his Thai wife and proficiency with the language) asked me if I would be interested in helping out. Although I teach nearly every grade (M2-M6) in the secondary school, I'm the M2 main English teacher (and see them for 6 hours a week including Main and Listening/Speaking class), so I thought it would be good for me to go along.

We took a taxi early Saturday morning to the place where the event would be held. It was one of the princess' initiatives; an annual luncheon for the disabled with job fair booths set up to help them find jobs. The students delivered food and drinks, while the teachers cooked the meals. James and I found some of the other young teachers from our school and helped prepare noodles. I was told to wear a school polo, but I missed the memo about which color to wear. I was literally the only person from our school not wearing yellow. In fact, many of the teachers were wearing the famous "Bunny Shirt" (that Geoffrey always wears to the airport to make himself easily identifiable). Needless to say, I stood out. Maybe that's a good thing. It's always good to be noticed by the school administration at these extracurricular events.

spot the farang

Despite the heat, it was fun to hang out with the other teachers. We stayed for about three hours until the luncheon was finished. I think it sets a good example for the students to see James and me there as well. Many of our students are very privileged, so a day of service is good to show them that not everyone is as lucky as they are. Also, it turns out that I can make a tasty bowl of noodles.

Khon Performance

Of course we wouldn't have a full third week of school either. Like I said, this is the fun semester. On Tuesday, afternoon classes were cancelled (giving me a day off from teaching), and instead we went on a school-wide field trip to watch the Thai Khon Performance at the Thailand Cultural Center.

The Khon Performance (sometimes referred to as "Thai opera" or "mask dance" is an event our students attend every year. I thought I had written this last year, but I couldn't find any references looking back at my old posts.

my colleagues and me with one of the performers

The dance, a famous Thai performing art, was originally only performed in the royal courts. As such, it uses a royal Thai dialect, and is seen as an upper-class entertainment. It's also really long. The show took around three hours to tell a very short story, and is full of elaborately and gracefully choreographed dancing. After the show, many of the teachers asked us if we had been able to stay awake! Several of them confessed that they themselves had dozed off.

It's fun to see the students outside of an academic setting, even if its still part of a school event. They seem much more relaxed and open with us outside of school. After the show, my colleagues and I walked to the nearest MRT station, and some of the older students (who could leave on their own and didn't have to take the bus back to school) walked with us and explained the story.

ลอยกระทง Loi Kratong

As if Music Day weren't a big enough distraction from my work, this week was Loi Kratong, the Thai festival of lights honoring the river goddess. This year Loi Kratong Day fell on the 6th of November (the full moon), but there were celebrations along the river for a few nights leading up to it. I went out on Wednesday night and then again on Thursday for the festival itself.

I worked late Wednesday and met two friends of mine, Chinese teachers from my school, outside the gates of the Grand Palace. From there we walked to the Chao Phraya River. The Thai Ministry of Tourism organized River Fest 2014 on the days leading up to and including Loi Kratong Day.

our picture got on the official @loikrathongthailand twitter

Several different temples along both banks held cultural exhibitions relating to the festival, with regular express boat service across the river. After enjoying some traditional Thai desserts and taking a selfie for the event's official Twitter feed, we headed across the Chao Phraya to Wat Arun.

a lit barge passing in front of Wat Arun

The whole river was aglow that night with a parade of colorfully lit barges and spectacular fireworks being shot off regularly throughout the night. Although the night had a chaotic, festive atmosphere, there was still time to find peaceful moments amid the chaos to reflect on the traditional meaning of the festival.

a temple shrine

We visited each of the ferry stop to see all of the exhibitions- the riverwalk highlighted Thai desserts and handmade kratongs, an open-air cinema played a classic Thai film on an old projector with the actors doing a live dubbing outside Wat Arun, Wat Kalyanamitra had a performance of a famous Chinese opera, while Wat Prayun presented the temple orchestra beneath its UNESCO World Heritage Site chedi. We ended our first night out quite late, at one of the quieter and more reverent temples, Wat Phra Chetuphon for the Chong Pa-Rieng (floating lantern ceremony).

my friends and me

There weren't many people at the last temple, as it was getting so late. Dozens of small candles floated in the peaceful water beneath a string of colorful lanterns, and my friends and I bought three candles of our own to float.

There were seven different colors of candles, corresponding to the days of the week. I chose a yellow candle for Monday, the day of my birth. We lit our candles, floated them, then sat quietly in the tranquil peacefulness underneath the almost-full moon. This would be the most peaceful and meaningful moment of the festival.

I got home quite late on Wednesday night, but despite being tired I was determined to go out again on Thursday to float my own kratong on the day of the festival. My new colleague, Kate, and I crammed ourselves in the most tightly packed skytrain car I've ever seen to head down to the riverfront, from where we met our Chinese friends (including our friend, Chinese Michael) and caught a ferry to the very crowded but incredibly fun celebration happening at the Asiatique Market.

fireworks over the river

After shopping around the stalls, we each found the perfect kratong for ourselves. Kratongs can be either handmade or factory-produced. Some are made of flowers and some are made of hard bread baked into shapes of flower wreaths, turtles, or crocodiles. The bread krathongs will dissolve to feed the fish. I chose a green and gold kratong (sic 'em).

Sic 'em Kratong

After several hours spent enjoying all that the festival had to offer- Thai dance, Thai boxing, food, crafts, shows, live music, and lots of fireworks... it was time to float our kratongs. I bought a cheap plastic 10 baht lighter and we muscled our way through the crowds to a quiet area by the water. I lit the candle and incense, made a silent wish, and let my kratong float away down the River of Kings.

about to float my kratong

Remembrance Day

Lest we forget...

Today is Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday closest to the 11th of November, Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day in the USA), during which citizens from the Allied countries remember those who fought and died in the First World War, and all wars since.

After the 7:30 service and a nice breakfast at Christ Church, I headed to the British embassy, which holds a memorial service annually for citizens of the Allied countries. The vicar of Christ Church gets the honor of presiding over the service every year. Father Tim is a friend of my boss Geoffrey, and offered us a ride to the embassy in the black armored SUV that the ambassador sent to collect him. Father Tim thought it was funny, because in the past he had to ride to the embassy on the back of a motorcycle taxi. Arriving at the embassy, we were waved through the diplomatic entrance without even having to check in.

The service started promptly at 11:00 with a bagpipe rendition of "Scotland the Brave" by the British Club of Bangkok's Pipe Band, then Father Tim and British ambassador, The Honorable Mark Kent, led a short memorial service. Representatives from Bangkok schools, organizations, and military attachés from the embassies of other friendly countries laid poppy or other floral wreaths at the base of the memorial monument.

The red poppy is the symbol of Remembrance Day in Commonwealth nations, and I was given a paper poppy of my own to pin to my shirt upon entering the embassy, as well as a poppy tie pin which I'll keep for next year. Most of the British guests had their own silk poppies pinned to their shirts or jackets.

After the service the guests were invited to the ambassador's garden for what I learned was one of the biggest social events of the year for the British and English-speaking Bangkok expat community. Walking through the ambassador's residence to get to the garden, I looked in the guestbook. The most recent signature was from Yingluck Shinawatra, the ousted former prime minister of Thailand!

Betty

The British embassy, I found, is a wonderful world of Panama hats, lapel pins, and tiny sandwiches. The party, though open to all those from allied nations, was overwhelmingly British, and the close-knit English-speaking expat community seemed mostly to know one another by name.

the ambassador's garden

Having majored in International Relations in college, the highlight of my morning was getting the chance to meet and shake hands with the ambassador himself. Although a fairly formal morning affair, the garden party felt very relaxed. I was comfortable chatting with the ambassador, despite Geoffrey constantly announcing to everyone around me that I am, in fact, an American.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row."

Music Day 2557

Music Day is upon us again! I remember one of the first things that my boss Geoffrey told me when I arrived in Thailand was that the first term is when all the work gets done and the second term is the fun one. Really, nothing much gets done during the second term. We had only been back for one week when the school canceled an entire day of class for the students to hold their yearly rock concert. I'm not complaining at all; I love this stuff about our school!

This year went much the same as last year. My friends and I stopped by in the morning to watch the opening performances, then returned to our office to grade and make lesson plans for our new curriculum. We went back down in the afternoon for a while. The students really are very talented! Most of their songs were in Thai, but a few were in English. It felt like a real rock concert. All of the students had glowing bracelets and necklaces and they were jumping and dancing and singing along all day - for hours and hours! I have no idea how they have that much stamina. It wasn't surprising that there were quite a lot of absentees from class the next day.

Samut Prakan

After leaving the Ancient City, my friend Pink and I stopped in at the Samut Prakhan Crocodile Farm to watch the world-famous crocodile show. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the show. Two guys stood in an arena with shallow water and three crocodiles. They would do tricks like putting their hands and even their heads inside the crocodiles' mouths! I'm not sure how many crocodiles live at the Crocodile Farm, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a hundred. There is a swampy area with a raised boardwalk. As you walk over it, you can look down to see dozens of crocodiles floating lazily in the green water. It's creepy!

After the crocodile show, we still had time to see the elephant show. The elephants are so smart! At the end of the show, members of the audience could buy bananas to feed them.

Since we were already in the area, Pink and I stopped in to visit the Erawan Museum. It's just as amazing the second time. It's really fun to travel around with a Thai friend. The locals know all the best secret spots, and can make sure that there are no communication problems. I had a great day exploring the province on the outskirts of Bangkok. I'm really happy to have gotten to visit some places I've wanted to see for so long.

เมืองโบราณ Mueang Boran - The Ancient City

I didn't get the chance to get bored after my holiday to Singapore. A Thai friend, Pinky, invited me to visit Mueang Boran (The Ancient City), somewhere I've really been wanting to see for a long time. It's in Samut Prakhan, about a 30-minute taxi ride past the furthest BTS stop. It really feels far away from Bangkok.

Mueang Boran is the third installment in the late Mr. Lek Viriyaphanat bizarre "Holy Trinity", the other two parts being the Erawan Museum and the Sanctuary of Truth. Like his other works, the Ancient City is a really special and unusual place. It's basically a giant 3D map of Thailand and is full of replicas of some of the kingdom's most famous buildings in the correct location on the map. Many of the buildings are replicas, but a large portion are actually the real buidings which have been saved from ruin, restored, and moved to Mueang Boran!

the market village

The market village, one of the first spots we stopped to explore on foot, is actually rebuilt and moved from its original location to the park. Walking through the shaded alleys, you can buy food or souvenirs at the little shops.

the Grand Palace

I easily recognized the mini version of the Bangkok Grand Palace! You are free to enter and explore the interiors of these buildings as well.

Some of the buildings I didn't recognize. I didn't feel too bad about this though, because Pinky didn't know some of them either. Although it was a hot day, riding the bicycles around to explore the park was so much fun!

Many of the buildings were palaces, some were houses, and a few were temples. It seemed possible that the temples were functional, as there was incense burning and my friend Pinky would wai towards the Buddha statues that we passed.

an old wooden house from Chiang Mai

We came to an old wooden house in the northern part of the park. The old house was authentic and had been moved piece from Chaing Mai. It really creeped my friend out. She said that she could never live in an old wooden Thai-style home because there was too much history there. It's really interesting, because that's what some of the Thai teachers said about our assistant headmistress' home, which had been reconstructed from Ayutthaya. They swear that it's haunted!

We ate lunch in a well-shaded northeastern Thai village. We had som tam and chicken with sticky rice. Aroi maak (very delicous)!

northeastern Thai lunch

Last Days in Singapore

Haw Par Villa

One really cool and kind of weird attraction in Singapore is the creepy and run down Haw Par Villa. Formerly known as "Tiger Balm Garden", it's an amusement park (without any rides or shows) which mainly features strange statues from Chinese mythology. The park was designed and built decades ago to encourage Chinese culture in Singapore.

Today it's free and open to the public. Although it has an abandoned feel, the place was swarming with tourists, even as it got dark and rain started to drizzle from the steely grey sky. Although I really had no idea what the majority of the displays represented, it was a bizare and really memorable attraction which even has its own metro stop!

Sentosa Island

Sentosa Island is called "Asia's Playground." This island is home to Singapore's Universal Studios, lots of big tourist attractions, resorts, and some artificial (but very nice) beaches. I didn't have the money nor the time to spend too long on Sentosa (which is easily reached by a boardwalk, a ferry, or a monorail), but I spent one afternoon looking around. This is the part of Singapore in which my students spend their time on their Singapore holidays.

Although the island is very touristy and commercialized, you can see some really interesting things, like the remains of some old British gun turrets which were constructed for the failed defense of Singapore.

Marina Bay

I spent my last evening in Marina Bay. I took a leisurely walk along the bay and watched the sun set. 

That night I watched the light show one last time. The next day was a blur, with an early morning flight, a rush downtown to pick up my new suit, and an evening wedding to attend. Singapore is a busy little city! It wasn't a restful vacation, as I kept very busy to pack as much as I could into a week. I had a great time exploring three new countries on my holiday, and Singapore is one of my top cities now. Farewell, Singapore!