transport? dolphins? snorkelling? sarong? fruit? massage? hotel? restuarant? AHHHHHHHH

We truly are in the land of multi-talented people. We've been in Bali for the past week and everyone here seems to do everything. Every man here drives a taxi, is a snorkelling guide, can take you dolphin watching, works in a hotel...all at once... and has a wife or sister who sells sarongs or fruit. The problem is that their entire industry is based on tourism, and we are here in the extreme low season, meaning that people are basically doing anything to get money. It's actually quite stressful, knowing that a person's entire daily income rests on whether or not you buy their necklace on the beach. We are in Lovina right now, and on our first day here, we were the ONLY tourists on the beach. We didn't have one moment of peace because as soon as we would say no to one vendor, another would come along trying to sell their necklaces, sarongs, wooden boxes, or other trinkets. We haven't been back to the beach since. The other thing about this place is that their major selling tactic is to introduce themselves and ask you your name, which is fine, but gets a little weird when you're walking down the street and every local is yelling your name and asking how your day was and if you want to buy their stuff. They make it so personal, it almost feels awkward not to buy from them (which is exactly what they want, we realise, but it is really hard!) Krista actually had an encounter today with a guy who had talked to us about going dolphin watching. He confronted her because we booked it with someone else and was angry and saying, "I can't believe you'd do this to me," when we hadn't ever said that we would go with him.

The saddest part about all of this is that we are the ones who have caused it all. We, as tourists, have come into their country and created a place filled with endless restaurants, hotels, and street vendors. These people base their whole lives around the tourism industry, and when there are no tourists, they actually have no way of making a living. One guy selling wooden boxes on the beach told us that he hadn't sold anything for the past two weeks, and I believe him and felt bad, but I really didn't want to buy a wooden box, but didn't want to be condescending by just giving him money...it's hard to know what to do.

On a lighter note, here is what we have been up to for the past week. We started in Kuta, which is ultra-tourist town, and never seems to have a low season. It is a total surfer town, and it was fun to watch ther surfing from the beach. I was actually going to try surfing, but on the day that I was going to try, the weather wasn't that great and the waves were massive, so I chickened out. From Kuta, we took an evening trip to Uluwatu to see a sunset fire dance up on a hill, which was pretty cool but, unfortunately, we did not get the best sunset.

After Kuta, we headed to Ubud, which is the cultural centre of Bali. There we did a LOT of shopping (far too much, but it was all jewellry, so it all fits into my bag). We also took a silversmithing class there, which was really fun, and designed and made our own silver pendants. After that we came to Lovina. On the first day we lay on the beach which was interesting because it is all black sand. That seems cool at first, but once it gets to be the middle of the day, it is no longer fun because the sand is so scorching hot that you can't even run to the water without shoes. After being harassed for the whole day, we decided that we needed to find some different activities, so we went snorkelling off of Menjangan island yesterday. We bought a waterproof camera, so hopefully we will get some good underwater shots.

That night (which was last night, or this morning) at 2 am we woke up to start our trek up Mt Batur, which is an active volcano. We had to drive for two hours, then climb for two hours to make it to the top by sunrise. It was a beautiful sunrise and was cool to walk along the mountain and see steam pouring out of holes in the side. Some tours actually take eggs up with them and cook the eggs using the steam coming out of holes that they carve on the side of the hill. Our tour was supposed to do that, but we had some issues with our tour guide (issues such as our "English speaking guide" could basically say, "ok," "volcano," and count in English....he was a fabulous wealth of knowledge. It was quite frustrating to walk past other groups getting great histories and explanations of the mountain, while our guide would just point and say, "volcano". Oh well, such is life.

Tomorrow we're going dolphin watching and snorkelling. I was a bit wary of the dolphin watching at first, because it warns in all of the books that some tours completely disrupt the dolphins and just chase after them as fast as they can so that the tourists are guaranteed a sighting, but yesterday we met a man who is really passionate about the dolphins and says that he does not like to do that. He said that he will not guarantee that we will see a dolphin, but he takes his boat out and just parks in places where they usually congregate in hopes that they will come...he says that he almost always has sightings, but refuses to chase after them, so we decided to go with him. After the dolphin watching we're going snorkelling again, this time around Lovina.

After that, the plan is to head back to Kuta for a few more beach days (where we are not harrassed nearly as much, and where the sand does not scorch the bottoms of your feet) and then heading back to Thailand for another two weeks. After that it's back to Canada. I'm really looking forward to going home, but the first thing that everyone is saying as they return home from Thailand is that it is freezing, so I'm going to have my sweaters and jackets ready! See you all soon!

the everyday hilarity that is Thailand

Two posts in two days, I'm doing pretty well. I have sold my refrigerator and other random things in my apartment to one of the Thai teachers that I work with. It's actually a perfect deal for both sides because I get to sell some of my stuff, and they get to buy good used stuff at a really cheap price. Yesterday she came over to pick up the refrigerator and other stuff. I had asked her how she was going to move the fridge, but she said that her friend had a vehicle that she could use. So we went upstairs to get the fridge and when we came back down there was a vehicle but it was.....a tuktuk! I have included a picture of a tuktuk for those of you who don't know what it is. It is a three-wheeled vehicle about half the size of a car. As you can see in the picture, there is a very small metal ledge at the back of the tuktuk, which is where they put the fridge. Then they used bungy cords to secure it to the back of the tuktuk. I actually thought that they whole thing was going to fall backwards, but the tuktuk seemed to hold its own. Then they loaded everything else into the tuktuk, which included a large laundry rack, some garbage cans, a fan, and other miscellaneous items, along with three people, into the back of the tuktuk. I was tempted to ask them to wait while I ran upstairs for my camera because they seemed to be actually defying the laws of physics. These are the things that I am going to miss about Thailand, you never really know what you are going to see on an average day. Maybe I can move all of my furniture with only my bike in May...

Lao and Cambodia

Well it's been awhile since I've posted anything, but it has been kind of crazy over here. We got back from Vietnam, worked for a few days, had a long weekend, worked for a few more days, then left for ten days in Lao and Cambodia. I have pictures from my trip, but blogger has been really slow lately, so you can hopefully see them by following this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040&l=02809&id=517427346
The reason that we just had a ten day holiday is because of the Songkran holiday that just occurred in Thailand and surrounding Buddhist countries. During Songkran people basically have huge waterfights in the streets for days on end. It's really fun if you're prepared for it, but can be horrible if you're not and you have any kind of electronics on you! We literally had everything ziplocked for our entire vacation. We started off our ten days with an overnight bus to Lao. We went to Vang Vien where the major attraction is tubing down the river. You rent an inner tube and float down the river for the day. If you don't stop, it takes around 3-4 hours depending on the current, but there are bars with ziplines and rope swings along the banks, so we stopped quite a bit. It was really relaxing and tons of fun on the ziplines and swings.
After Laos we took an extremely long bus to Cambodia. We only had two days started in Siem Riep where we went to Angkor Wat, which was massive and beautiful. After a long day of walking through ruins, we went to donate blood in the children's hospital. The hospital was started by a Swiss doctor who asks that young tourists who don't have a lot of money donate blood.
The next day we hopped on yet another bus and went to Phnom Penh. Our day in Phnom Penh was probably the most depressing day of my life, but was really important for us to see. We began at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, which is the former site of the Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison. We learned all about the Cambodian genocide which killed an estimated 2 million people. We heard stories of the horrific things that they did to people and saw pictures of all of the people killed during the genocide (like the holocaust, they took pictures of each prisoner to document the sick things that they were doing and these individual pictures were all displayed in the museum. It was really haunting to walk past row after row of mugshots knowing that all of these people had died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge). After the museum, we went to see the killing fields, where they actually killed the prisoners.
After the killing fields, we went to visit an orphanage, which completely broke all of our hearts. We drove up expecting at least a building, only to find basically a shack under a tin roof. When we got out of the vehicle we didn't really know where to go, but the kids came running out to greet us. They grabbed our hands and led us into the orphanage. They were all so happy and were really excited that we were there. They showed us around and then started playing music and putting on a dance performace for us. At first we felt kind of weird sitting and watching them dance, but they all seemed so excited to have an audience and liked it even more when we took pictures. We were really glad that we went, but it was completely heartbreaking to see all of these children. Some were orphans, and others came from families that were unable to take care of all of their children. The volunteers seemed really nice and taught the students English, classical dancing and boxing.
Now I'm back in Bangkok for a few more days before I leave forever! I cannot believe that my time here is over, but sadly it is. I have tons to do in the next few days and I'm actually quite stressed about it, but I'm sure it'll all happen somehow. On Saturday we're heading down to Koh Phanang and then we;re hanging around there for a few days before Krista and I head over to Bali for a week. After Bali we're coming back to Thailand to hit the south again and to see Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, etc. I'm sure the time will fly and I'll be back in Winnipeg, maybe before some of you even read this!
See you soon!

pictures

here are some more random pictures of our trip

Nicole and Krista thinking about crossing the street

Nicole and Krista crossing the street

Nicole and Krista excited to have successfully crossed the street
water puppets in Hanoi

in the cave in Halong Bay

getting ready for bed on our overnight train

kids taking care of kids in Sapa, quite sad.

when Krista asked our tour guide if these dogs were safe for playing with, she said, "

this man was jealous that we were only taking pictures of the kids, so he asked us to take his picture, fixed his hair, and posed. Very cute.our Sapa group

in Hoi An

Hoi An market

Hoi An market

the place where we bought all of our clothes in Hoi An

carrying anything and everything on a motorbike

crazy carpeting on the sand dunes near Mui Ne...these boys carried our crazy carpets and our shoes...and laughed at us as we came back up the hill covered in sand.

at the sand dunes, post-slide

in the tiny Cu Chi tunnels near Ho Chi Min city. They were so small that we couldn't even stand up straight...and people spent years here! They were dark and very small, so Kristen and I were very proud of ourselves for making it through.

Vietnam

I can't believe that my trip is almost over! It feels like we've barely been gone, but also like we've done so much in the past week and a half. We started in Hanoi and I must say, I'm glad that I spent some time in Thailand before hitting this city. The traffic is absolutely insane! I've gotten quite good at just walking right into oncoming traffic and assuming that the motorbikes (there are very few cars here) are going to drive right around me...and they always have, so far anyway.

traffic in Hanoi

We didn't do much in Hanoi, other than buy a ton of bootlegged movies for super cheap (I got the entire series of Seinfeld for $10...and it actually works!) After Hanoi we headed down to Ha Long Bay, where we took a boat tour of the bay.

Ha Long Bay

We spent the first day just sailing around and seeing the sights, then we slept on the boat (which was fun, except that Krista and I had an uninvited visitor, we're pretty sure in the form of a rat, in the middle of the night in our room. We heard it scratching at the foot of my bed, and there was no power so we couldn't even turn on the lights to see in our windowless cabin...it was really quite horrible and scary). The next day we took a tour of some really huge caves and grottos before heading back to land and back to Hanoi. at the caves in Ha Long Bay

We were back in Hanoi for a few hours before boarding an overnight train to Sapa, in Northern Vietnam. We spent two days there hiking and learning about the culture and the people.

the countryside that we hiked in Sapa

It was really interesting, and we had a fabulous tour guide named Gom who was only 17 years old, but one of the wisest people that I had ever met. We spent most of our two days with her and she told us about her village, her culture and her life. She told us about how her parents had arranged a marriage for her, but she didn't want to get married so she convinced her future husband to call it off (this was the only way that it could be called off) She also talked to us about how she felt that it was unfair that women had to do most of the work in the village while the men did very little. It was really interesting to hear her perspective on things, because she had grown up in this little village that had now been turned into a tourist attraction. She had a very intersting mix of perspectives because she was constantly surrounded by the culture of the tourists that constantly passed through the village, which had made her question the ways of her own culture, but still had a lot of respect for her culture and the traditions of her village. She also had some of the best English that we encountered, and had never taken an English lesson in her life. Everything that she knew she had learned by talking to tourists. She took us hiking all through the countryside and even took us to her own village to show us her house and introduce us to her family. I would say that Sapa was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.

a baby that we met along one of our hikes in Sapa

After Sapa, we headed down south to the city of Hue. We were only here for a day, and mainly went to see the caves where the Vietnamese people lived during the war. It was crazy that people lived in these tiny tunnels for up to five years, I was scared and feeling clausterphobic and we were only in there for 20 minutes!

the tunnels near Hue

After Hue we headed down to Hoi An, which is the tailor capital of Vietnam. They make everything and anything that you want in a matter of hours. We went a little crazy and had to actually book our bus tickets in order to force ourselves to leave! We spent a ton of money, but got a ridiculous amount of clothing. The best part was that we could design the clothing ourselves and they would make it exactly as we wanted. We got shorts and shirts for $10, dresses for $12 and pants for $15, it was great. I even got a pair of leather boots (real leather!) custom made for my feet and legs for $30. It was hard to leave, but we knew that it was time...

Krista and I in our new tube tops

Now we're in Nha Trang, the most beautiful beach in Vietnam, and it's raining! We went to a spa this afternoon with mudbaths and hot mineral pools for about $4. I still can't get over how cheap everything is here!

We're leaving Nha Trang tomorrow and heading on down to Saigon/Ho Chi Min City to visit some more war sites and museums before heading back to Bangkok on the 25th.

It has been a whirlwind, but I have had a really good two weeks. I am looking forward to going back home to Bangkok to see everyone again and to be back in my apartment. I have really begun to feel at home in Bangkok and I think that it is going to be quite hard to leave. I only have two more months left here, one in Bangkok and one travelling the South of Thailand. It seems like a long time, but it's going to completely fly by!

I'll try to post some more pics when I get back to Bangkok.

my really cute kids dressed up for the year end concert

going to Vietnam tomorrow, so much to do, no time to write...hopefully will write from Vietnam!

Hi Jess

pictures

the Doi Boy Cabaret in Hua Hin...yes, these are/were all men, the one on the left looks exactly like Celine Dion

My kids in the ballroom at school, definitely my favourite place!

wow my kids are cute!

broken down

I spent an hour and a half on the side of a busy highway on Sunday night. We had spent the weekend at Hua Hin and were on our way back to Bangkok when the bus pulled over to the side of the road. I was half sleeping, so I didn’t really know what was going on, when the bus driver started yelling something in Thai. Immediately, all of the Thai people on the bus jumped up and started to get off the bus. We had no idea what was going on, but then noticed that smoke was billowing from the front dash, and started to clue in. We all ran off the bus and watched as the bus smoked and the driver stood ready with his fire extinguisher. The bus didn’t actually start on fire, we think that it just overheated, but there was definitely a lot of smoke. So we proceeded to wait for our replacement bus, which ended up taking an hour and a half! It was horrible and quite annoying. Other than that, it was a really good weekend. The weather was perfect, the people that we went with were fun, and the food was really good. We even ended up going to the Doi Boy Cabaret, which is a lady boy show where they wear elaborate costumes and where they did a particularly good Tina Turner impersonation. It’s really too bad that the smoking bus is how we ended the weekend, because other than that, it was a really great two days.

On a completely different note, I have a new favourite fruit. I first tried it at our cooking class in Chiang Mai and have been hooked ever since—it is called the mangosteen. Although the name is similar, it does not look or taste at all like a mango. The outside is a hard dark purple and the inside looks like soft garlic. I have been told that you can find it at Superstore, and it just came in season here, so you should go see if they have them because they are delicious!

Right now at school we are finishing up exams and starting to prepare for our year end concert. My class is doing “In the Jungle,” and “I like to Move it” and are all going to be dressed up as jungle animals. It has the potential to be really cute, and so far they are doing really well at learning the dance (I am working with another teacher and her class, and at one point in the song we have our kids doing the robot…it is the cutest thing that I have ever seen, we’ll see if they actually do it on stage!). Yesterday we didn’t teach any classes because our students were doing Thai testing. I went into the classroom during the test to pick up some papers, and the students were all sitting at separated tables doing exams that had come out of sealed grey envelopes, it was intense. These kids are three, I have no idea what they were possibly doing, seeing as they cannot read yet, but they were doing something because the test was at least five pages long. They did this testing all day long, I have no idea how they managed to keep them sitting for hours on end. I am definitely taking them to the playground for a long time today as a reward.

We were watching some skiing on our hotel TV this weekend and it made us really glad that we were heading to the beach! I’ve never been a winter sports person, so I’m not really missing the snow at all, I don’t know how I’m going to survive next winter!

Here are some other pictures that I tried to post, but weren't working at the time:

making Spring rolls

my beautiful ton yum and spring rolls

Freezing at the highest point in Thailand

no peeing on the mountain!

Three years old!

my kids

So much has happened in the past few days! First of all, on Thursday and Friday of last week, we had Sports Day at Lertlah, which is basically like track and field with cheerleaders. The cheerleading was by far the most important part too, and some of my kindergarten kids have been missing naps for weeks in order to practice. I had been told that the kids would be dressed up, but I was definitely not prepared for what I saw. There were little Jean-Bennets running around everywhere, little three and four year olds in fishnet stockings, boots with heels, heavy eyeliner, the works. It was crazy. This is a picture of my three year olds doing their routine. I still can't belive how decked out they were, it was unreal.

On Friday, we left Bangkok to spend our long weekend in Chiang Mai. My parents went there when they were here and absolutely loved it, as does everyone who goes there, so we were quite excited. We had a completely packed weeekend, and had a ton of fun. On the first day, we toured the city in the morning, and went touring factories around the area in the afternoon (we went to umbrella, silver, gem, Thai silk, and laquerware factories). That night we went shopping in the amazing market. The next day we took an absolutely amazing Thai cooking class. We learned how to cook all of our favourite Thai dishes...and they actually tasted really good! The best part was making chicken cashew and lighting our onions on fire, which is what I am doing in the picture. It was terrifying, but really fun. We also learned how to make pad thai, green curry, tom yum khun (hot and sour thai soup), spring rolls, and mango sticky rice. They also took us on a guided tour of the market, let us taste the different kinds of Thai curries and showed us all of the different Thai vegetables and herbs. At the school, they let us taste all of the Thai fruits that we had always wondered about in the markets, which was very interesting as well. The best part is that they are sending us a cook book with easy recipes for all of the dishes that we made, so if you're nice to me, I can make you good Thai food when I get back!

That night we went to the Sunday market, which is the most famous market in Chiang Mai. Things were ridiculously cheap and we bought far too much, but my apartment is going to be so beautiful next year with all of the decorations, wall hangings and pieces of art that I have bought so far, I can't wait to decorate!

On our last day in Chiang Mai, we took a tour that took us to the highest point in Thailand. It was 8 degrees at the top of the mountain and we were absolutely freezing. I actually took a picture of the thermometer because we were so cold. The coldest temperature on record there is -1, I didn't think that it got that cold in Thailand! The tour was good, but we were all super tired, so we were very happy that we spent a lot of our time in transit so we could sleep in the van! That night we went back to the night market, and bought even more stuff that we probably didn't need, but it was all so cheap that we couldn't help it. We got all of our stuff packed up and headed to the airport to find that our flight had been delayed! It was really annoying and the flight that was supposed to leave at 10:15 pm only ended up leaving at 12:45 am, which meant that we got to bed at about 3:30 last night, only to get up 3 1/2 hours later to come to school. So we are all pretty tired today, but it was worth it because of the great weekend that we had!