Literally paradise

Another day, another adventure, that seems to be how things go here. Something fun, something funny, something absolute driving you to the edge of your sanity. For me it's been the welts of mosquito bites that cover almost the entirety of my legs. I should have taken a picture of them yesterday when they were in their glory. We are talking 2 inches across. They just kept getting bigger as the day went on.

This weekend we went to Kanchana Buri. On the way, Loren stopped for a corn pie. Think McDonald's apple pie, but with cream corn instead of apple filling. There are so many funny foods to try. Last weekend we tried hotdog flavoured chips. They tasted disturbingly like hot dogs.






The view on the way out of the city was beautiful..hazy mountains in the background:



We stayed at a wonderful hotel with nice pool, but we didn't spend much of the day there. Saturday morning we were off to the Floating Markets by 7am. Here's our boatload of people: Me, Jen, Shelley, Ashley, Lisa and our tour guide Jang (missing is Loren Braul):


They took us by some houses and smaller parts of the market, where boats would go to the houses to sell their wares:


And also to the bigger parts of the market that were crowded with people and tourists:


We learned that if you touch something you have pretty much bought it. This is how we accidentally bought some elephant key chains. We picked them up to look at them, and then our boat driver just left us waiting there while the woman bartered with us. It went something like this, "You like, 500 baht" Us: "no" The lady: "450" Us: "no, we don't want them," The Lady: 200 baht," us: "We don't want them," The lady: "100 baht, us:"I guess if we don't buy them we can't leave"


So it was a busy morning, but we didn't stop there. That afternoon we were off to the Tiger Temple. A monastery where the monks have an animal sanctuary that is open. Sort of like a zoo, except without cages.... Loren pet a tiger:


Then I worked up the courage to pet a tiger. I even pulled its tail, see: you can tell it didn't like it because it's roaring and about to claw my leg. Just kidding.


There are these amazing vibrant red trees everywhere. I finally got a close up at the sanctuary.


There were beautiful roosters there. They were actually one of the most stunning animals, in my mind.

And there were water buffalo. Naturally when I saw them I said, "everybody has a water buffalo, mine is fast but yours is slow." Only one person got it. We laughed together.


To illustrate our proximity to the animals, I took a picture of Loren with some camels. Honestly, we probably could have pet some of them, and people were feeding the antelope. It was pretty crazy.


Ah yes, our mode of transportation (when not in vans)... Sawngthaews (song t-ow). Basically, these are pick-up trucks with seating and a roof. I was on the end, which is the best spot because you can see everything and the wind cools you down. I was not angry, I was just trying to look cool...


Kanchana Buri is on the river Kwai (pronounced kway not kw-i). Which is the site of the famous bridge over the Kwai, part of the Thai-Burma railway that was built by Japanese prisoners of war during WWII. You may have seen a movie about it. Anyway, we only took pictures at night:


Then on Sunday we headed over to the resort where our opening retreat was held. The resort was probably about a half hour from the Burma border. It was a great way to get to know some of the Thai teachers at the school. They had the most beautiful welcome for us, where they gave each of us a hand-made flower lei. Here I am receiving mine.


And Loren and I together.



The resort was absolutely gorgeous. Here we are in the hugest pool. The water was the perfect temperature, as I'm sure you can imagine.


And we tossed the disk around for a while, which turned into diving for it. Naturally this led to Loren laying out across the pool. I believe this may be the finest form I have ever seen:



And the classic shot from the balcony of our hotel room:



Some of the Thai teachers performed a traditional dance for us at our evening meal.


What I failed to mention was the actual team building activities that we did during the day. They were basically like those Asian extreme challenge shows. It was insane. We had to walk across bamboo raft walkways, paddle actual bamboo rafts, walk across ropeways overtop of this lake, go down a zipline. It was really fun, but we all sustained mild injuries. Here is a serene morning after picture of some of the course:

Ah yes, and the crazy spider I saw. It had to have been at least the size of my palm, at least.


And now it's back to reality for a few more days. We are finally getting into yearly plans, and the resources are flooding in from every direction. It should be lots of fun and I am getting excited about teaching, though nervous as well.

List

Alright, it's what you've all been waiting for, a list. A list of some of the things we've seen here, good and bad:

1. Elephants walking down a major (i.e. 4 lanes each direction) road way. (Jill: It was Rama II, just outside Campus 2). Just walking down the road with people on their backs.

2. Packs of dogs everywhere. Some of the ugliest dogs you can imagine. One evening a pack of 5 dogs started following me and another girl and one nipped at my hand. Then more people came along so they stopped.

3. Geckos. Everywhere. Tonnes and tonnes of them on the sides of buildings and walls.

4. The aftermath of a serious motorcyle accident. We were on a major highway out of Bangkok and I don't think the person survived. It was really jarring. So many people ride these motorcycle/scooter things everywhere, there are no traffic rules and few people wear helmets. Going down a major highway at fast speeds between other vehicles you don't have much of a chance in an accident.

5. Many interesting fruits. Mangosteens, rambutans, dragon fruit, durian, etc.

Okay, just a quick list for now. We're off to Kanchanburi in 2 hours. We are planning on climbing a waterfall tomorrow morning and either going on a safari or going to a tiger temple in the afternoon. Should be lots of fun!

slideshow

Hua Hin pics

This is how we got to Monkey Mountain...all to save a baht!
Actually I found out later other people had rented a van for 50 baht a person. It has air conditioning and legroom. But thats ok because our tuk-tuk cost 55 baht a person and we had to ride up the mountain in shifts because the tuk-tuk wouldn't have made it otherwise. Infact, the driver had to stop at a gas station to put air in his tires before making an attempt.

Ice cream sandwiches. In case it isn't clear, that is a hotdog bun my icecream is on. Add a little sweetened condensed milk and peanuts and you have a tasty snack. The offered to add rice but we declined.

There was a European bakery in Hua Hin so Lori and I didn't have to eat eggs for breakfast again. However, our daily diet is short on vegitables so fruit for breakfast will have to suffice. That is a mango there and we also ate many mangostiens, rambutans, pineapple and watermellon. They also have rollkuchen, well not really, but a comperable breakfast food consisting of deep fried dough. The green stuff that is almost gone is a sweet pudding thing we ate with the rollkuchen. Thai food includes a lot of sugar and oil (apparently lots of the oil is pork oil which is one of the many challenges of being vegitarian in Thailand.)



We spent a lot of time at the beach even though the weather was rather mild and even rained a little. Thankfully the tan is coming in nicely.

Fore more pictures of our adventures, visit picasaweb.google.com/lbraul

Picture catch up

Here are come pictures to bring you up to speed on our adventures.



This was our view of Alaska



This is me feeding a monkey near Hua Hin.

and Lori doing the same



and a cute little monkey on Grandpa Buddah

Sawatdee Ka

Sa by dee my?

Kow jai mai?

I guess not. I just asked how you are doing, then I asked if you understood what I said, except I uber Anglosized the spelling for you. Our vocabularies are growing by the day. More and more we can communicate basic information, and be understood by others. Yesterday I explained to the cab driver where to go (Macro Bang Bong...it sounds unintelligable in English, but those were the directions). And not only is our vocabulary increasing, but so is our ability to understand basic social cues.

Thailand is very sanook (this means fun). Everything is so logical, which is to say, I am in heaven. So much is based around respect and caring for one another. Everyone smiles. Everyone helps. The one thing I find extremely difficult is social order. Because we are pharangs (foreigners) our misinterpreted and incomprehensible words and actions are sometimes ignored, and we are given grace - so our place in the social order is sometimes negligable. On the whole, however, teachers are very highly respected. Because of this, people who know that we are teachers are always helping us. When Loren and I arrived at our second apartment someone carried our two heaviest bags up 8 flights of stairs. I knew it was heavy, but it would have been rude for me to try to take the bag because in doing so I would have communicated to him that he was not doing a good enough job. I think that humility will be one thing I will learn this year.

What else? Another heavenly feature in our neighbourhood is the smoothly lady across the street from school. I get pinapple banana shakes, with fresh fruit for 15 baht (50 cents) at lunch. Our neighbourhood is great. We live almost kitty corner to the school, so the longest part of the walk is getting down the stairs from the 4th to 1st floor of the apartment. Across the street from the apartment one way is some sort of restaurant, which I haven't visited. Next door to her is the smoothy lady, and next to her is B's - the restaurant we have almost always gone to for lunch (so far). Across the street the other way is a bog. Then just down the street is a 7-11, the pad thai lady and the noodle man. About a 5-10 minute walk toward the busier streets is a great evening market, filled with clothes and food. Actually a lot of delicious, interesting food. Loren and I have been doing our job as Mennonites and shopping around to find the best deals. This means that we are trying to figure out about what everything is worth - even though we never really buy anything but food. I'd say a reasonable amount to spend on a nice shirt is 200 baht (just over 6 dollars), and a dress maybe up to 350 baht (around 11 dollars). The other day when we went to a night market in Hua Hin I asked a lady how much she wanted for a dress and she said 500 baht and I got really offended and just walked away - already pretentious about it even though I've only been here a few days, am pasty white and don't speak the language at all. Oh well, I just had to laugh at myself about it a little.

Otherwise, normal life is just beginning. We started University class yesterday, and we are slowly being immersed into school life as well. Yesterday someone described life here in an articulate way. She said it feels like you are a guest in someone else's home. You feel somewhat uncomfortable and unsure where the bathroom is. But we are learning these things quickly.

Hua Hin

Our first weekend in Thailand and it was off to the beach. While Hua Hin is not the nicest beach in Thailand, it is close to Bangkok and still vey nice. The weekend was our unofficial retreat to kick off our time. I know what you are thinking, 2 days in Thailand and already it was time for a break. It was a good time to interact with student teachers from other campuses that we won't see very regularly and also to get to know the teachers at our campus better.

Hopefully we will be able to post pictures soon, but for now it will have to suffice for me to say that it was certainly a memorable weekend. We spent time with Monkeys, saw some monks and went to a lot of night markets. It was interesting bartering on some goods and, while we didn't buy anything (except a piece of fabric at the last minute) we did get to practice our numbers. 1-10 is coming along and almost 1-100 but anything above 1000 I don't get or when prices are 199 (nung roi gow sip gow) it gets complicated. Our phrase book has come in handy but we keep forgetting it when it would really be helpful. Also, it tends to include more words than necessary as Thai is a fairly simple language. There is not a lot of conjugation of verb tenses which makes it easy to learn. There are tonal differences but for us Farangs, it doesn't really matter if I say it wrong. The worst that could happen is if I say bad instead of road or white instead of rice.

Pictures coming soon...

Lertlah, Our House and the Soi

Well, we have arrived. After some initial issues with housing, we have settled into our 2-room apartment in "Our House," an apartment building across the street from our work. We were put in a hotel room about a half hour from Lertlah when we arrived. There are a lot of other teachers that live there as well, but for some reason we were given a room we had to pay for by the day, instead of the month. The first building was called Kornkarn and it was in a very interesting part of Bangkok. The Soi (Soi is "street" in Thai) was very interesting and venders were everywhere. There was lots of excellent food (we had the best pad thai for dinner one day) and things to buy. There was also a huge department store (Tesco) nearby with every possible amenity and an outdoor market that was also had a lot to offer. Unfortunately, Kornkarn was really far away from where we work so we decided to move to a different apartment building called "Our House." We initially thought only bachelor sweets were available but we managed to get a 2-room apartment for about $200 a month. Unfortunately we don't have a guest room anymore but we also don't have to commute to work. We will post pictures of our house soon, once we get our laptop up and running.

We have had two days of orientation at Lertlah school. This is where we will be teaching. Lori will be teaching P4 (grade 4) but I am still not sure what I will be teaching. On the first day I was sent to Campus 2 while Lori was sent to Campus 1 because no one knew where I was working. Fortunately they didn't give me a job at Campus 2 either so I went to Campus 1 and hopefully I will get to stay here (we did move into our new apartment afterall.) So far we are getting our personal things in order like banking, shopping, phones, etc. We didn't buy a phone yet but we will and will share the number. Apparently incoming minuites are free so once it is up and running feel free to give us a call. The time change is 12 hours to Winnipeg, 10 hours to Kelowna and 2 hours to Korea.

So that is all for now. We are safe, getting over jet lag and enjoying the food. This weekend we are going to Hua Hin, a beach resort, so that should be pretty good as well. For those of you who have noticed the difference in temperature between Winnipeg and Bangkok, Winnipeg will get up there eventually. So far we haven't experienced anything Winnipeg doesn't get for at least a week or two in summer.