The Cambodian Bus

There is nothing romantic about a land border, particularly the one between Aranyaprathet and Poipet. I've done this crossing before, but it's not an experience that I specifically relish.

Every 90 days, a foreigner with a work visa must either leave and reenter Thailand, or report to the government building at Chaengwatthana to "check-in." I've tried to avoid checking-in this year, and with trips to Burma and Singapore, I've been doing well. My 90 days are almost up though, and I won't have much time to check in after New Years due to the upcoming academic fair. Without New Years plans, I decided to take a last minute trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Ostensibly I'm here to keep my visa valid, although the truth is I kind of wanted to go on a mini-adventure before going back to work after New Years.

Recently, Thailand and Cambodia introduced a direct bus service between Bangkok and Siem Reap. I arrived at Mo Chit Bus Terminal at 8:00am and boarded my bus. The interior was a gaudy lacy orange and blue, and paintings of the Buddha and photos the king were pinned to the ceiling. King Sohanouk, not King Bhumibohl. This was a Cambodian bus. That means that the steering wheel was on the left. Cambodia drives on the right side of the road, so there is a very confusing moment at the border when traffic switches to the other side of the street. 

The bus staff handled our visa applications for us, and provided a decent breakfast and lunch. We had a long and frustrating delay at the border as we waited for all the passengers to clear immigration, but finally arrived in Siem Reap by 5:00pm. 

For ฿750 directly to Cambodia, it's not a bad deal. Siem Reap is a nice town, if you can ignore the child beggars who swarm to sympathetic foreigners like flies to honey. Especially on Pub Street, the hub of the western travelers. Siem Reap seems to be a nice, fairly western, and decently cheap place to visit. Everything is charged in USD though, so that's weird. 

I'm staying at a quiet little guesthouse atop an Irish Pub called Molly Malone's. Suzie and her family stayed here over Father's Day, and highly recommended it. The small private room is clean and comfortable. Though I didn't do anything today except sit on a bus, I'm exhausted. I don't think I'll visit the ruins again, but rather this time I want to explore Siem Reap itself. I'll be counting down for the new year here in Cambodia tomorrow, but for now I'm tired. I'm going to sleep well tonight. Traveling overland is stressful and tiring, but it's nothing that a hot shower and a comfortable bed can't fix!

Sport Day

I recently learned a new Thai expression which translates rather poorly as "losers are monks, winners are evil." This is good because today was Sport Day. I don't remember why, but I didn't write about Sport Day last year. That's surprising, because its one of the bigger events of the second term, and the last thing we do before leaving on our New Year holiday.

The students are divided into four teams: green, orange, purple, and pink. Last year I was on Green Team, but this year I was moved to Orange Team. Besides the normal field day-type events (e.g. running, potato sack race, tug-of-war, etc.) the teams compete in a really elaborate cheering competition. Each team chooses a theme. This year Green was "Under the Sea", Orange was "Harry Potter", Purple was "Rome", and Pink was... what I believe to be "Construction". Their theme was a bit hard to tell.

Geoffrey practicing his hula

Geoffrey and I were on the same team. The other Ajarn Farang were all on the other teams. Even though I was Orange Team, many of my best students were on Purple Team, and asked for a photo. They did quite well in the cheering competition, and from the beginning, I could tell that it would be close between Purple and Orange.

Purple Team cheer squad (Rome)

Like last year, I somehow got signed up for the dreaded "Iron Man" competition. James was signed up to represent Pink Team, but he somehow got out of it. The Iron Man is the worst sporting event ever devised. Last year I ran it and came in third place (out of four teams, so I wasn't the worst). You are tied to a partner at the wrist and must run a lap around the field while competing in a series of challenges. This year we had to run, eat bananas, do pushups/situps, run, drink a bottle of water, spin in circles twenty times, run, eat snacks/drink a can of pepsi, run, put lipstick on one another (the worst part), and sprint to the finish. I was paired with the German teacher. I honestly think that we would have had a chance, but she couldn't get up after we spun around. I'll admit, I felt terrible, but I wanted to win so badly! We really could have done it... In the end, we took home bronze medals again. Well, at least I'm consistent. She got the lipstick up my nose, because we were really rushing at the end. It took a long time to clean up, but its better than last year. Last year there was nail polish too...

Orange Team cheer squad (Harry Potter)

Our cheering squad did very well. I have no idea how long they've been working on their cheers and setting up their bleachers to represent their themes. Of course, this was much more important to everyone than midterm exams, so it's no surprise that this is where the students' efforts have gone recently. While there is a core cheerleading squad for each team, the cheer competition involves all the students in the bleachers performing their cheers while the cheer squad dances/acts out a story/performs the complicated routines on-field. It seems that the students care more about cheering than about the actual sporting events.

Sport Day was fun, not just for the students, but for the teachers too, since we get to compete as well. We got to leave early today, and we get the rest of the week off for the New Year holiday. When we return, we'll have to work on the dreaded Academic Fair, but I don't want to think about that just yet.

by the end of the morning, I had once again become "Teacher Tomato"

Nakhon Rachasima

my colleagues

Last weekend was really busy. Besides going to Ampawah on Saturday, I took a day trip to Issan with some of my teacher friends, Namtip and Cherry, and their families on Sunday. Issan is the general name for the provinces which make up Thailand's northeast region. We went to the southernmost part of this region, but it still felt very different from other parts of Thailand I've visited. I've always wanted to head to the north, but besides my trips to Mae Sot, I haven't had the chance. 

We went to the Jim Thompson farm. It's only open to the public for its winter flower and culture displays for a few weeks out of the year. Nakhon Rachasima is in a hilly part of eastern Thailand, and it was sunny, but cool and windy.

Besides the flower festival, the farm is home to a traditional northern-style wooden village, which serves as a showcase for Issan food and culture.

Issan village

my new friend... I think he may be a ghost, but I'm not really sure

Besides trying all the the spicy Issan food, you can also learn how to husk and sift rice, or watch a silk spinning demonstration.

silk worms

silk demonstration

After lunch we left the Jim Thompson farm and drove an hour away, just west of Khao Yai National Park. We stopped at Flora Park, a flower garden which was hosting their annual Christmas festival. It almost felt Christmassy, as it was just a little bit cool, and they piped in Christmas carols throughout the park.

It honestly didn't feel like we were in Thailand. Cherry and Namtip joked that we were in Holland. I really enjoyed myself on the day trip. It was quite nice and stress-free having a driver to take us there, and its not somewhere I would have thought of or been able to get to by myself. I haven't been traveling around Thailand as much as I would like. Maybe that will be a resolution for the new year: see more of the south of Thailand, and head up to the north. The year is coming to a good close. While the last month or so has been very busy and stressful, I've been having a good time. I think the next quarter will be much calmer. We'll see. First, we have to get through the Academic Fair (more on that later).

White (Elephant) Christmas

 Merry Christmas, from Mathayom English!

It's not exactly fun to have to work on Christmas Day, but this year we ajarn farang made the most of it and approached the holiday with a kind of manic excitement, that while admittedly a bit forced, actually ended up making for quite a festive Christmas... until our sugar crash around 2pm. Actually, I didn't really mind having to go in to work today. If I'm going to be away from home, I can't think of anyone I would rather spend Christmas with than my friends from the Mathayom English Department.

We are returning midterm exams to the students today and tomorrow, and our crazy schedule (I was scheduled to return two important exams during the same period block) was interspersed with Christmas festivities. Last year we didn't really do anything for Christmas, and it was lame and boring. This year, we all decided to be as festive as possible... we even broke the rules by wearing red instead of yellow today! There were no official Christmas activities at Mathayom (there's a really stressful Christmas show every year at Prathom), but we basically had a day-long Christmas party in our office.

Geoffrey dug out his old Christmas cassettes, and I spent a good half hour trying to get our cassette player to work. Suzie came in to the office today to bring us all our Christmas gifts: homemade peppermint bark!

Rudolph, Santa, elf, and James

Suzie has been teaching a special conversation class to the teachers over at our vocational campus, and today she had planned a lesson about Christmas with a "present stealing game". We can't call it a "white elephant" exchange, because that actually refers to an event during the American Civil War when King Rama VI of Siam sent war elephants to Abraham Lincoln. It was a nice though, but not a very practical or useful gift. Suzie had wrapped several little things to use in her lesson, but just before lunch the vocational school called to cancel their lesson today. Instead, we played the white elephant game in our office. We had a lot of fun, and it didn't matter that everyone walking past our office looked in at us like we were crazy.

We successfully kept the spirit alive all day, despite the afternoon sugar crash. Luckily I keep a bottle of Tylenol in my drawer, and we passed it around the office. It was hard to stay awake to get through my final 2:40 class this afternoon, but all the students were so sweet and excited to wish us a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Bangkok 2014!

Samut Songkram

Like last year, we Ajarn Farang were invited to accompany the Australian exchange students on a trip for their last day in Thailand. They've been here for a few weeks staying with their friends in M5 who went to Melbourne in April. The Aussies have been pretty busy these few weeks, but they spent quite a bit of time at our school too. They sat in on one of our classes to help our students practice their English conversation skills, and even helped us with a major project. The two teachers, Jan and Claire, are so nice, and it's been fun getting to sit and talk with them at lunch. Jan visited last year as well, and it was good to see her again.

Sometimes it's frustrating traveling with our school, because we have no idea what's going on. This trip was great for two reasons: 1) since it was a trip for the Australian students, everything was said in English, and 2) we did pretty much the same thing we did last year, so it was predictable. Predictable is good. It's quite refreshing in Thailand. First we went to Benjarong Village where they make the traditional Thai ceramics. We toured the workshops and showrooms, then got to paint our own. This year we painted plates. Again, we signed our names in gold.

amazing artistry

After a delicious Thai seafood lunch overlooking the water, Ajarn Virulh (head of international affairs) and Ajarn Piyawan (head of the English department) took us to the train market. This place is really cool, because its a market built right on top of a train track. As soon as the whistle sounds, the vendors carefully fold up their shades and push their wares back towards the walls. It's a popular destination with tourists. You can actually stand in the market as the shopkeepers close up, and they'll lead you to a safe place to stand while the train passes. We saw it last year, but this year we were much closer. In fact, as the train started approaching, I suddenly had the terrible feeling that we wouldn't make it! We stood with our backs to the wall of the building behind us as the train chugged past literally inches in front of our faces. It was so close that I actually reached out to touch it as it went by.

After the harrowing train market, we went to the palm sugar plantation. Unfortunately, they weren't making the sugar at that time. We took a tour while our guide explained about the sustainablity projects at the plantation and how it's meant to encourage the local economy while providing quality goods (not just sugar, but all sorts of soaps, lotions, oils, etc), mostly to ship back to Bangkok.

We ended the day with a few hours to explore the floating market at Ampawah. I wasn't hungry after our giant lunch, and neither were Kate or Ryan, so we walked along the river looking at the shops. At dusk we all gathered together again for a firefly watching trip along the river. It was a little disappointing, as there weren't as many fireflies as last year, but it was fun anyway. I brought a jacket this year, as I remembered how cold it got last year!

I hope that our visitors have had a great time in Thailand. To be honest, we weren't so impressed with the Australian students last year. They didn't really seem to want much to do with us American teachers. This year the students were very friendly and fun. One girl had some trivia game app on her phone, and they played it with us on the bus. It was really nice to get to hang out with them; sometimes it feels good to be surrounded by English-speakers.

we must be turning Thai... obligatory Ampawah sign selfie

Goofrey's Birthday

I shouldn't find this as funny as I do

I had way too much sugar today.

It started this morning when our assisstant headmistress sent our office a very nice yule log from the Mandarin Oriental bakery as a Christmas present.

On top of that, today is our boss's birthday. Geoffrey, our fearless leader, always makes a big deal about other peoples' birthdays; he is always dragging us around the school to sing to teachers or administrators we don't really know. We wanted to do something nice for him today, too.

We prepared while he was proctoring his exams this morning. We have a lot of midterm exams to grade right now, so naturally we took as much time as we could to distract ourselves from actual work. The Thai teachers brought him a cake, and Ryan, James, Kate, and I made cards (we had forgotten to buy an actual card at the store).







The cards were mostly references to some of Geoffrey's stock sayings, notable "British is best", and referencing America as the "wrong side of the Atlantic". He likes to tell the story of how a student once spelt his name "Goofrey", which is a nickname we have adopted to calling him whenever he is acting goofy. Ryan addressed his card to "Goofrey". We made do with our old black-and-white printer and some Union Flag-colored markers.

"that's true" he said when he read my card

Enlisting the help of our top M6 student, who rounded up twenty or so of her classmates, we snuck into the lunchroom while Geoffrey was getting his lunch from the buffet. Somehow, this giant group of students stayed quiet waiting until he turned around, at which point they burst into "happy birthday", and we gave Geoffrey his cake and cards. I'm very impressed with how well that went! They are great kids, and they really made it special.

In the afternoon Suzie came by to pick up her midterms and help me write a rubric for our M6 writing class. She brought cupcakes for Geoffrey too. Suzie is great because she often brings delicious baked goods to our office. It makes the holidays feel a little bit more like being at home.

The Royal Projects

Chitralada Palace is divided into roughly three parts: the school, the royal villa, and the royal projects. The royal projects is actually the thing that makes Chitralada so special, in my opinion; it is the only "working palace" in the world. His Majesty the King (the only monarch in the world to hold patents for some machinery that he designed) has long had a special interest in agriculture, and instituted the royal projects as a research and training institution to improve the development of his kingdom. Today, Chitrlada shops can be found at some of the upscale malls and at both airports in Bangkok. Products sold inlude, among other things, silk, soaps, lotions, and honey.

experimental green energy 

Chitralada is especially famous for its dairy. Each day the students get a milk break, and even we teachers have gotten the habit of going on an occasional midmorning "milk run" to the campus store. One notable product are the milk tablets, which are shipped out to poor areas to help children who don't have proper access to dairy. As a result, this young generation of Thais is much healthier and stronger than before, and the previously high rate of lactose-intolerance among adults has decreased drastically as the children are getting exposed to proper levels of lactose at a young age.

Today was the first "dead day" of the term. Midterms start on Friday and continue on Monday and Tuesday. There were no students at school today, so we had a nice laid-back day of grading and taking care of administrative business. The weather has been perfect recently, and we have finally opened the windows in our office and shut off the air. This morning an administrator finally brought Kate, the new teacher, her official ID badge. To celebrate, she, Ryan, and I went out to the projects store for Chitralada ice cream after lunch. (You can't walk around the palace grounds without an ID badge, so she has had to stay at the school.)

I knew they were there, but I had never walked through the royal projects before. They were really interesting to see! I forget how big Chitralada actually is, since I spend all my time at the school campus. Today we went on an adventure exploring the projects, and got to see where the honey is produced. We also got to walk past the dairy. Most of the cows were dairy cows and were kept away in a special area, but we did get to get close to some water buffalo who had been wallowing in their mud puddles. They were really friendly!

friendly buffalo

Mince Pies

It's almost Christmas! Last year Christmas Day fell on midterms, and it was pretty uneventful. It's on midterms again this year, but this year is going to be different. I'm going to make Christmas really feel like Christmas! I'm not just visiting Bangkok; I live here. I plan on celebrating and doing it right!

Each luxury mega-mall has tried to outdo the others with its tree and decorations, Starbucks has released its Christmas Cookie Latte (highly recommended as a blended drink), and Christmas music can be heard everywhere. You might think that all this would make the holiday feel a bit empty; nobody really celebrates Christmas here like we do at home. It's amalgamated with New Year and its mostly for the benefit of the foreigners, but I think it's totally possible to find the real meaning of Christmas amidst all the commercialization.

My Christmas really began last night at Christchurch, the heart of Bangkok's English-speaking expatriate community. I joined the celebration for the annual carol service, a short Anglican liturgy consisting of readings and carols by candlelight, led by the Vicar, Father Tim.

The service drew quite a crowd for the little church, and no surprise; what followed was a cherished annual tradition. After the service we all went to the fellowship hall for mince pies and mulled wine.

mince pie

Between this and Remembrance Day, I have to say, that I really like the way the British do things. They seem to make and keep traditions better than those of us born on the "wrong side of the Atlantic" (as my boss Geoffrey likes to put it). I'm not sure I had ever had minced pies before, but I sure like them. The mulled wine was great too!

Geoffrey going in for a fourth or fifth pie

It's been a little cool lately, and in fact some mornings have actually been kind of cold! I dug my little Christmas tree out of my wardrobe and set it up on my desk last week. It's really feeling like Christmastime now.

my little tree

Monkey Mountain

Buddha blessing the sea

My boss Geoffrey likes monkeys. When he found out we were going to Hua Hin, he suggested we visit Monkey Mountain, a hill overlooking the sea on the southern end of Hua Hin beach. A short tuk-tuk ride took us to the top of the mountain, where there was a small souvenir market, a temple, and lots and lots of monkeys.

climbing the steep steps to Wat Khao Takiab

Although most foreigners call it "Monkey Mountain," the official name is Khao Takiab, Chopsticks Mountain. I don't know why. In any case, the small temple Wat Khao Takiab sits at its peak, looking out over the sea.

looking back over Hua Hin

the temple's spirit house

The top of the hill offers the best view of Hua Hin. The temple itself is very small; I only saw one monk sitting quietly inside, talking softly to the Thai family making merit in front of him. This particular temple seemed to be mostly maintained by a small group of nuns, shaven-headed, white-robed holy women who carried sticks and slingshots to ward off mischievous monkeys.

prayer bells

And mischievous they were! Our tuk-tuk driver gladly took us to Monkey Mountain, but not before moving his small icebox inside the cab with him. Through a series of pantomimes, he indicated that we should be careful of our cellphones and sunglasses. The monkeys are little thieves!

feeding time

Of particular interest to the monkeys was Kate's bag. Because we had left directly from school, she had forgotten to bring a purse and instead was carrying her belongings in a plastic 7-11 bag. The monkeys were very interested in that bag, and their ears perked up every time it made a crinkling noise. She got pretty freaked out by the monkeys, and in the end she made her boyfriend carry her bag. One monkey jumped on him to try to grab it, and he had to carry it under his arm in a way so that it didn't make any noise.

little monkey thinks he's a monk with a saffron cloth

I didn't really like the big monkeys. They seemed too aggressive. The little ones were cute though, and wanted to play with whatever they could get their hands on (we soon discovered that plastic bags were their favorite toys).

We left Monkey Mountain unscathed and with all of our belongings. The nuns made us laugh; just holding up their slingshots was enough to make the monkeys scatter! I guess the little guys have learned not to mess with them. The rest of the holiday was spent being lazy on the beach, and I loved it!

Hua Hin

Father's Day arrived, and not a minute too soon. This academic quarter has been a good one, but I needed a holiday. One of the teachers in our office owns a condo in Hua Hin, and she's been offering it to us for two years. Finally we decided to take her up on her offer and head to the royal resort town for the long weekend. It was the first time I've left Bangkok since my visit to Samut Prakan, and my first time out of town since Singapore.

Hua Hin is the nicest beach town close to Bangkok, and the Bangkok elite tend to flock there on holidays, and especially on Father's Day (HM the King's birthday) on account of it actually being the home of His Majesty. While it should only take 2.5 - 3 hours by bus from Bangkok to Hua Hin, one of the teachers warned us not to expect to arrive in Hua Hin until after midnight due to the holiday traffic. We decided that if it was going to take us five or more hours to get to Hua Hin, then we might as well be comfortable. We opted to take the train.

His Majesty's royal train at Hua Lampong Station

We took a taxi directly from school to Hua Lampong Station, and splurged on two adjoining first-class cabins. I've only ever travel third-class in Thailand. This was also the longest train ride I've taken here, and it was very comfortable. I would definitely travel this way again, preferable on a longer trip. We got to Hua Hin after 10:00 p m, and disembarked at the historic train station; Hua Hin was one of the first destinations connected to Bangkok via rail during the reign of HM King Chulalongkorn (Rama VI). All of Hua Hin seemed to be lit up in bright lights in honor of HM the King's birthday.

Hua Hin Train Station

The condo was spacious, and the view from the ninth floor was incredible. Although it was a holiday weekend, it seemed we nearly had the entire building to ourselves. One of the curses of being an adult is that I'm no longer able to sleep past about eight in the morning, so I had tea and toast on the huge balcony and watched the morning tide come in.

the early morning view from our balcony

My friends Ryan, Kate, and Wes (Kate's boyfriend who visited her on the holiday and came to the beach with us) were up shortly after, although we unanimously decided to do absolutely nothing on Friday and relax all day. It's finally "winter" time here in Thailand. I can honestly say that I didn't feel hot at all during my trip to Hua Hin; in fact on the night train back (couldn't get a first-class sleeper, but we got second-class non-aircon seats for about 1/5 the price instead) it was actually kind of cold. We spent a little time in the water, but I mostly enjoyed relaxing and reading on our balcony.

Monkey Mountain (famous Hua Hin landmark)

Of course, we all wore yellow on Friday. I even had a yellow "we love the king" t-shirt I had gotten the week before. At lunch on Friday, the owner of the restaurant came over to our table and told us "Thank you! Thank you for wearing yellow today!" with a big smile on her face.

In the evening we walked to the Cicada Market, an upscale night market with lots of food and shop stalls. Of course, everything was yellow.

a sea of yellow

We even enjoyed an appropriately yellow dessert for the occasion: my favorite mango sticky rice.

Happy Birthday!