Up north in another country

Can this still be Thailand? The answer, undoubtedly, is yes. Chiang Mai however, is certainly a horse of a different color than the Southern life we have grown accustomed to. Gone are the sticky big cities and chaos, and instead there are symmetrical ponds and walkways and SO many food options I might even look forward to a meal! Chiang Mai is truly the gem of the North, and I am so happy to be spellbound by its charms!
So different from where we've been, where the weather is more ruthlessly hot, the people have more lingering eyes, and the surroundings are slightly less green and certainly more flat. It is like we have entered an entire different country, and yet, somehow this is STILL Thailand, but I am beginning to understand why their is a pride war between North and South, they could not be more different! The words and dialects differ, the food is different, and the North is so much CHEAPER, I am certainly ruined now!
It took far too long to arrive, TWO awful night buses and a sweaty, polluted day in Bangkok ( though we did treat ourselves to the new Sandra Bullock flick). But, upon arriving, things seemed to be in our favor. We walked along with no plans, and seemed to stumble on the most vibrant temples and adorable coffee shops. How nice to feel that putting pen to paper could be done in an atmosphere that is CONDUCIVE and not EXCLUSIVE to artistic creation! So, we sipped iced lattes and saw so many young monks in their bright orange robes walking beside foreigners with over sized backpacks and baggy, soaked through shirts. Oh, the joys of development!

Publish Post

After our 4 dollar Thai massages we found the sun was setting, and thus the biggest attraction of Chiang Mai (other than the Panda exhibit, which Thai people are OBSESSED with) was about to commence. So, we stocked up in Baht and trudged towards the Night Bazaar, something we had only heard about, and were thrilled to find a never-ending street canopied with shops selling the most beautiful artifacts, woodwork, souvenirs, and fabrics you have ever laid eyes on! So, naturally, we indulged ourselves......and my, were our appetites large! For over two hours we let sweat drip down our brows as we stared at the stalls, then each other, trying to let our logical, fiscal minds catch up with our ravenous impulse to buy buy buy!
The colors of the market, dangling white lights and villagers from the north dressed in native garments, silver headdresses selling woven bracelets and silver pieces, are enough to make you want to stay all night. After a weary day of walking and not sleeping we found our rhythm, and suddenly had vigor pulsating through our veins! Backpacks, dresses, wooden elephants, it all seemed so precious and necessary! Though people are pushy, there is a nice feeling in Chiang Mai, no shock factor. Thai people don't gawk at us; they are used to seeing pale, snowy skin. It is empowering somehow, to not be stared out so much, and it makes one feel so much more at home, like you can meet so many more Thai people and be on their level.
So, as you can probably deduce with your cunning intelligence, I have quit enjoyed Chiang Mai, and am disappointed the time allotted for its grandeur is so little, but there is just so much to SEE and DO in this vast country!!!!

Endless Endings

Yes, this is a juxtaposition of sorts, but it FEELS like our end here has been endless! We have now said goodbye to our students, after tears and an excessive amount of photos flashing peace signs, we are preparing our next journey. It seems we have been preparing to leave for almost a month, and now it is nearly upon us. This week will be filled with cramped muscles and dreaded pink books where I have to enter in ALL my 550 students' grades and marks for the semester. Needless to say, I will need an IV with a coffee drip straight to my cranium.
These last few weeks have been good though. One weekend we went to Bangkok with Beth, saw a ridiculous Will Farrell movie involving enlarged mosquitoes, and staying in a swanky skyscraper hotel and going to night markets. Last weekend an old friend of Christine's came to our beach with his buddy and we went motorbiking up north. We found, only in Thailand I swear, a temple that house hundreds of languor monkeys. So, after seeing them and peaking in some Buddha-filled caves, we headed on to find the most SENSATIONAL beaches in Thailand that seriously NO white people know about. In this idyllic fishing village, we watched a storm blow in as we soaked our feet in the lukewarm, shallow ocean waters, and it was like watching a giant paintbrush smear the colors of the skies downward. And the beaches we found had the finest sand that when you walked it made a screeching noise beneath your feet. We got there just in time to watch the sunset and roar off home on our motorbikes in the dark.
There are no words for the beauty this country possesses. There is something to discover at every corner, and the people are so wonderfully kind and simple in their happiness that you can't help but want to soak every bit of them up. I have loved living in the South, but am ready for my journey north in two weeks to the colder, mountainous portion of Thailand (formerly known as SIAM until the 1930's).
As things come to an end here, I find myself wondering if leaving this idyllic beach will be harder than I can imagine. Though at times I want to burrow in our room and not be stared at, perhaps I will miss feeling special and unique (as I am sure my pale skin will not be praised in the US). Where else will I eat piping hot noodle soup in blazing, humid weather and not think twice? Will I really only need ONE shower a day in the US, and not 3? Hard to imagine.........and yet, it is time to head back to reality. For Thailand, in many ways IS a reality, but is also a dreamland, and part of me wants to keep it like that in my precious, guarded box of my mind. So fragile and so incredibly challenging, I know I will return to this part of the world more than once more in the future. It is a home now, thanks to the kindness of the people and sway of the trees, and of course, I have to see my students again, if only to be called, "Teacher Kiss" once again!!!!

More soon when our travels begin, one week from today!!!

Burns and Buddies

Wow! So much has happened, so many people have come and now gone!

Our little stretch of sandy home has been extremely busy lately, what with Kyle, CJ, and Beth coming here. Our house was loaded up with foam pads, blow up beach mattresses, and far too many people for one bathroom.

We started out our adventures with a trip to the ocean, carrying rum in one hand and coke in the other. Standing neck deep in the warm salty Thai waters, we were experiencing one of those unreal moments of perfection, that has been painted with a special color you can't ever quite describe to others. In the midst of that phenomenon, Christine let out a shriek that still makes me ill, and we all sprinted for the beach. When we got out, Christine had a large red welt on her upper thigh/butt. She was in tears, and we were all panicking at what creature had attacked her (and so close to us as well). After out favorite bar tender, Tong, came to the rescue and diagnosed it as a Jellyfish sting, he collected the local leaves of the beach and put them with vinegar, a poignant mixture that helped to reduce the swelling. After that incident, and a few torrential rain pours, we headed to the island of Koh Tao where we basked in the lazy ambiance of the small, undeveloped isle. We had one big day of snorkeling where we went FOUR times in a six hour period, and for the first time in my life, I saw a shark swim next to me. It was small, mind you, maybe only four or five feet long, but it still had a way of making you feel helpless and unbelievably vulnerable.
We also introduced our Chico clan to the wonders of Thai live music and clubbing. This I am afraid, can never fully be captured by the written world, and will remain one of those unique Asian mysteries that only once you have visited this bright place can you fully understand. I will say, however, that Thai songs have such a similar tune to one another that I can fully immitate almost every one (though of course me re-enactments are me saying Thai-like words that in actuality are out of tune gibberish).
On top of our island adventures, we found some amazing, bright, snake-stair cased Temples that make you feel dwarfed and insignificant in that intoxicating way that only grand Holy edifices can. Buddhism is never pompous though, on the contrary, the Monks are known for living simplistic lives, and they rely FULLY on their local communities to donate all their meals for them. They wander the burning asphalt roads like lanky orange flames. They are barefoot with a look of such peace that you want to hover around them on the off chance they may be mumbling some ancient secret that your lips could hope to mimic.
Another highlight recently, was the parade our school put on. Sriyapai, our school, is very well-known throughout the province and is especially famous for the opulence of its parades. This year, it seemed, was no different. Every kid was dressed up in elaborate outfits as we marched the streets of Chumphon for about 5km. Of course, the farangs were dripping, but we had big moist smiles none the less! I was a cowgirl (see Facebook for pics) and Christine was a baseball player (the theme of being "American" was of course obligatory). To see lines of children waiting for us to pass and screaming at our arrival was somewhat surreal, and only amplified by the fact that whole event ended in a stadium where the athletic events dominated the day.
It is strange though, because, upon writing these memories, I tend to forget how in the moment they are rather hard to digest. They are like eating an ice-cream cake from Baskin and Robbins, you love it, and eat it greedily at first, but after one slice the sugar starts to go to your head. Sometimes, you keep eating, because you want so badly to enjoy the treat, and to make the next piece as good as those first savory bites, but alas, you cannot, because there is a human limit for happiness. You can only be wide-eyed and whelmed for so long before you must emotionally hibernate. Needless to say, Christine and I are still learning how to process all these unique Thai moments, we are like a 98 Mac that tries to keep up with a 2009 model.
So, for now, we are not going hungry, emotionally or any other way.
More soon...........

Ride Sally ride!

Well, maybe not Sally (that one is for you Mom) but I sure did ride! Not a horse, as I sometimes do, but an elephant! It has been twelve years since I dared jump on the majestic animals, and the last one was at Marine World so it didn't really count.
My wondrous elephant trek began on the island of Koh Phangan. It is a lovely island where the beaches are long, white, and uncrowded. The tourists were much different on this island than the last Christine and I went to, where, as her Dad calls them, white men are with "rentals." I nearly wet myself when he belted out, "Most people rent cars on vacation, but in Thailand you can rent women!"
Ahhhhh so true Gary, so true. Christine's parents arrived over a week ago and we left for the island on a blistering day where the sun was high and strong and the ferry ride was long and bouncy. But, after a life-threatening and back-breaking tuk tuk ride to the northeast part of Phangan, we arrived to our rooms which were all glass windows facing the ocean. We explored the beach and the room and discovered many quaint beach side restaurants as well as outdoor (private) showers and no door on the bathrooms in the rooms. But, the views were incredible, and indeed there is something to be said about pulling up your blinds in the morning, with some ferocity mind you, to let the rippling aqua water pierce your sleepy eyes.
After two days of vegetating, we decided to do an organized trip and that was where we saw the blessed creatures that we got to ride (see photos on facebook for a visual play by play). There big brown eyes and sagging tough skin was all too familiar, but what I hadn't remembered was the hair the sprouted all over its monstrous body. And, of course, Christine and I got the rebellious one that continued to wander into the jungle and off the path, causing more than a few scrapes from nearby bamboo branches.
After our cowgirl riding we then spent the day on the beach and snorkeling in a small cove, where the fish were plentiful and the coral was bright. It is amazing how you can dip your face into the water and the world is silent. It constantly amazes me how beautiful our oceans are, and I am reminded how desperately we need to conserve them.
On Tuesday we found out school was cancelled that Thursday and Friday because of Swine Flu (I know I know, how wonderfully horrible) so we took the parents to another beach on the mainland by where we live and proceeded to swim in their hotel pool and frolic about in the cool water like children!
Now, we are preparing for our friends to visit; one from Orange County, one from Germany, and one coming from Espana, though ALL are Chico people, born and raised!
So, here comes the never-ending craziness that will ensue starting Thursday, and we are SO ready to have them here to remind us we DO have amazing people in our lives!
More later........ ;-)

Malaysia, you can have your Dengue!

Yes, I have resorted to confronting entire countries, especially ones that may or may not have given me Dengue Fever. But before we discuss that.....
Malaysia was a wonderful escape for Christine and I. We left on a sticky Saturday night from Chumpon and jetted south to Hat Yai, right on the Malay/Thai border. After very little sleep, we arrived at 4:30am, blurry-eyed and stumbled to the nearest travel agency to wait four hours for the bus to Penang. We were surprisingly upbeat though, as we struggled to eat coffee and runny fluorescent eggs, perhaps because we were so grateful to have escaped all the drama and ridiculousness our lives had been encompassed by. From blow-ups in the office between our never-ending male colleagues, to receiving wool traditional Thai outfits that they actually expect us to WEAR in this heat, we were ready to go to another country, and to an island at that :-)
After border control and a few nauseating hours in a hot bus, we found a bustling little island that looked like something of a relic. The buildings, though crumbling, were somehow highly enchanting. There were no sprawling beaches, but instead were pockets like Little India where Bollywood reigned King and the booming music and poignant colors put on a show throughout the night. It was like being in India, and was a cruel teaser at best. We had such amazing Indian food which we ate with our hands in the true native fashion, and with our full bellies we wandered back to our fabulous hotel where the a/c was blasting and Internet was included. Most foreigners admit that, at times, they need to indulge in something a little more like home, and for us, Penang was just that.
Thai culture is, indeed, very unique, exotic, and tantalizing, but I am a California girl that is spoiled in her ability to eat international cuisine and see different color skin, hair, and eyes. Penang, being an old British colony and part of the East India Company, is a perfect little melting pot.The Chinese dominate the island with both people and cuisine, but Indians sneak their potent curries in, and of course the Malaysian thick brown noodles and language is the slightly crooked backbone. It is a strange body makeup, and yet it functions so well, all as one!
Our two days there, though by definition were for VISA purposes only, were delightful. We saw so many Temples and Mosques and loved walking into fancy hotels like we were actually staying there. The water was lovely too, though not accessible, and we had one afternoon where we ventured down precarious wooden planks to the fishing boats and saw many floating homes. I have to say though, the architecture was my favorite. It was breathtaking and decrepit all at once. These amazing, almost Southern balconies leaping from columns on big white houses that have mold and weaving vines crawling all over. It was the perfect juxtaposition of old and new, as the skyscrapers and newest stark white hotel loomed above us with the thick Malaysian heat........oh what a trip we had!!!
But, I digress......

Teacher teacher!!!

This is what I am called, in class, by 50 new students every hour. They LOVE to yell TEACHER and even more so, they love pointing out my pale skin and curly hair. Never have I been stared at this much in my entire life. I mean, fair enough, Christine and I whizzing by on a motorbike is definitely a sight to see, but when you are one of 20 white people in a city, everything is amplified. But the students are so excited to learn, they want so desperately for me to give them a sticker or to write something on their paper that they are literally FALLING over me at my desk. Their entire school system is based on "perfection" so when I write GREAT! or something to that effect, they are downright giddy. Of course they are mocking me left and right, in Thai of course, but my skin is pretty strange looking (and shockingly this is the most tan I have ever been in my life). I am greeted by thousands of students a day, with big smiles and pointed fingers. 500 of the students are mine, and I really do adore them. They are so easy to make laugh, and though they scream and punch each other, they always let me get through the lesson and the gems in front make the ones in back a bit more tolerable. Our school is called Sriyapi and we have 3,500 kids who on some days where girl scout and boy scout outfits, or military and nursing ones.
The biggest downfall, is that there is no A/C so we are always sweating. However, each day gets a little cloudier and cooler so it is getting better. At the end of the day though, I get to race back to my ocean oasis called "The Cabana" by the Thais, and everything slips away with that perfect rhythm only the ocean can create. I take my shoes off and walk bare footed to the sand, and sink into the earth!!!
We just moved out of our old jungle abode and are now in a new and improved house that doesn't have two-foot long snakes or bed bugs like the last one. We really love it, and it even has a kitchen so we have been cooking Thai food in the evenings and watching wax drip from candles resting in beer bottles while we laugh at the crazy things our students did that day. We are all such teachers, boasting about favorite ones!!!!
So, as the rainy season approaches we all are taking a deep breath and exhaling the heat from our lungs so we can inhale the freshness of the falling water. We are going to try and embrace the rain and not let it hinder us in any way! I think ocean kayaking is on the itinerary for this weekend..........

More stories from the classroom soon ;-)

Land of Smiles

Greetings from Thailand!
The weather is absolutely amazing here, that is if you like sweating and heat so thick you can drink it like a fruit smoothie. A nice change though from the Baltic weather we've been surrounded by most of our trip. We arrived after a rather peculiar if not precarious start which included Bangkok being on International news with their riots over former PM Thakskin. According to the media, Bangkok was under siege, as was their airport, and we stood in Munich with our heads tilted up towards the big screen as we and forty others that realized that CNN was replaying a story filled with guns and mayhem in our destination city. Of course the Germans seemed unfazed, and to be honest after a big pint of beer things seemed less worrisome than earlier. We contemplated not getting on the plane, and were convinced we may have to teach in Vietnam instead, and then we arrived in tropical Bangkok with Buddha statues and open arms. Everything was fine, and my already wavering faith in the media has been dropped to an even more skeptical status.
Of course, we also landed during the Thai New Year which turned out to be an interesting if not moist event. We were soaked with buckets of water during this holiday which celebrates and remembers the dead. The Thai people go to these tall, pointed statues where they put the ashes of the dead and all around them build many identical sand castles. It is also a time where monks pray intensely to Buddha, and local people pour water over him (as they do to the people too). So, after two days of acclimating to the heat and time change in our "hot box" room (which was three feet by seven and had NO windows) Christine and I packed our bags and headed south to Suratthani for a job interview. While we awaited an answer from an employer we went to the island Koh Samui. What an adventure! The beaches were white and endless and the sky melted into the ocean in a nearly redundant view of perfection. The best part was that we had ocean side bungalows where, when the rain raged down on us like BB guns, we sat on our thatched porch and just listened. Never have I heard thunder make such a cacophony of noise in my life. It was like an orchestra above us somewhere in the pink and purple lightning, making even the waves seem silenced. The rain was more like a mist of needles than anything I had seen, and on multiple occasions I was the last person standing on the beach, letting myself be covered completely with warm rain.
Of course, there are always good stories about the beach, and our favorites are the bed bugs that ate us the first night, and the GIANT three inch long cockroach that took over our room the third. Though, I must say the most shocking surprise of all were the white men on the back of motorcycles with Thai women clinging behind. I must say, I was warned of this, but to SEE it over and over again caused me to, more than once, give some dirty stares to equally dirty male individuals.
In Suratthani Christine and I lived for the vibrant night market. At seven, as the sun went down, the many eclectic vendors popped up selling everything from mint milk to Dior eyeliner. We ate Pad Thai every night that was made by the most wonderful older Thai woman. She had such an effect on us! She mixed the noodles, sauce, and peanuts on a large wok about two feet in diameter and the heat evaporating from it was a wonderful scent of grease and sweet chilies. She grew to know us, and greeted us with a hearty smile that we eagerly returned one hundred fold as only Americans apparently know how. After turning down the job through the Suratthani office, we decided to take a leap of faith and head back to Bangkok to sign with the company called AYC Thailand who would place us in public schools in Chumphon (still in the south but three hours north of Suratthani).
The train ride was something I won't soon forget. We bought tickets three minutes beforehand and noticed a plethora of foreigners unusual for that part of Thailand. We bought the third class tickets which were about seven dollars, and watched as everyone else (the white others I mean) got onto the first and second cars. We were on the 16th. I still think we are perhaps the first white people EVER to have done this, and never have we been more stared at in our lives. Open mouths, large, deep brown eyes pierced us as we waddled down the rows covered in our two cumbersome packs. The blondie and red head then sat down and OH the faces of the Thai couple who had to be next to us! Clearly they feared being ostracized by being in our vicinity. But, we won them over in the end and they were truly the most beautiful young pregnant couple ever. They touched our lives with their sweetness and clear love for one another, and being on that train for twelve hours, 9pm to 9am, was something I would never trade. Half the people laid on the ground on newspapers, barely fitting under the metal seats, and yet it was like a community. Everyone was eventually sprawled, touching a stranger, and as the night air blew in they dropped into an easy sleep as Christine and I fidgeted with our long legs and pale skin. Finally, we decided to lie on the ground with nothing, and the couple next to us, after we dozed for about thirty minutes, ended up throwing a jacket over us (like we could ever be cold in Thailand) to comfort us. Bless them! I am continually fascinated with language, or the absence there of, and how I can speak not a word of Thai, and the couple not one word of English, and yet we truly became friends after that journey. I think they need to to see white people in the third class as much as we needed to see what the third class entailed and how Thai people travel their country. So, we learned from each other, through tilted smiles and many hand gestures, and somehow I could start to hear the rhythm of their young love, as they could sense the joy for life that lay within us. Somehow not using words made it so much better, and as we hopped of the train in Bangkok to a gloomy, humid day, they leaned out the window and gave us a hearty wave. I guess it may not seem like one of those things that should really impact someone, in fact it was uncomfortable, smelly, boring and strange, and yet these things are all what make the trip worth taking; THESE things are why we are where we are and are loving it! It is not always easy, but damn it, it makes one hell of a story. And of course, I do enjoy sharing a good story :-)
So, we are sitting in Bangkok, eating more iced coffees than is wise, and just recently signed our lives away to teach until the end of September. Our guesthouse has enough fans to make the air reminiscent of cool, and the colors, as usual, are poignant and uplifting, similar to the food!
That is all for now (my fingers are cramping and you MUST bee tired of my rambling.....)
Sawasdeeka!!!