Malaysia, truly Asia

That is the slogan for the ad campaign for Malaysia, which constantly plays on English television here (when we see English TV, which is only in hotels on the weekends). I have that slogan in my head today because we booked flights to Malaysia for our vacation at the end of October! I am quite excited because that is coming up soon, and we hadn't really planned anything concrete for our trip, which is from October 13-29. We actually weren't even thinking Malaysia until a couple days ago. We started looking into it and now we have booked flights. I think it's going to be a really good time, we're spending part of our trip on Penninsular Malaysia (the part that borders Thailand...don't worry, we're not going to Northern Malaysia which is where the terrorist activity has happened), we're staying around Kuala Lumpur and surrounding areas. The rest of our trip is going to be spent in Borneo, which is the island part of Malaysia that has lots of jungles, caves, beaches and snorkelling. There are apparently jungle cruises that you can take where you spend three days going through the jungle, seeing the sea turtles, and going to traditional longhouses, which sometimes house hundreds of people from one tribe. Around Kuala Lumpur a guy from school was telling me that he went on a night-time firefly cruise. There are only three places in the world that you can do this, and there are thousands of fireflies all flashing, and they apparently slowly begin to synchronise their flashing. He said that it was one of the best things that he had seen here yet, so I am really looking forward to that.

Last night, a bunch of us from all three Lertlah schools got together and went to the German brewery. We couldn't really figure out what was German about it, but it was still fun. There was no cover charge and there was a full show with dancing, singing, people flying on high wires, it was crazy and really fun.

Today we are going to Ko Samet for the weekend, where we will meet up with Ilda and Louis. It is now the rainy season, so we are hoping and praying and crossing our fingers that it will not rain! Hope everyone has a good weekend!

monkey mountain

I am currently enjoying a fairly relaxing day because, as I said last time, we have no kids this week due to foot and mouth disease. I can now finish my report cards and prep for the upcoming October camp at my leisure, which is very nice!

This past weekend, we went to Hua Hin for a relaxing weekend on the beach...it was fabulous. We weren't sure how the weekend was going to go, though, because when we arrived on Friday night it was POURING rain harder than I have seen in Thailand so far. My entire backpack was drenched because it had been under the bus and I guess the rain got under there and soaked everything, it was gross. It was fairly sunny the next day when we got up, though, so we spent a good day at the beach (until it started to rain again at around 3, at which point we packed up and headed back to the hotel to hang out in the pool) That evening we went to the night market, which is always really interesting, and packed with people!

On Sunday, we had a really entertaining day because we went to monkey mountain.
You take a tuk tuk up a big hill and, at the top, there are just monkeys roaming around everywhere. There is a monastery at the top, and there are monks everywhere...in fact, my friend Kristen got a picture of four monks playing poker, which is completely illegal in Thailand (all gambling is illegal), it's a great picture.

At monkey mountain, you can pay 50 baht for a basket of bananas, peanuts, and corn with which you can feed the monkeys. Krista, who is my new hero, did it and it was hilarious. Kristen and I were way too scared, but Krista got right in there and fed them. The monkeys went nuts, they were climbing her, jumping on her head and fighting with each other to get the food. The man in charge kept on kicking and hitting the monkeys when they got too aggressive, which I think only aggravated the monkeys more, but Krista held her own, so it was alright. I got some better pictures with Krista's camera...at one point she had one monkey on her head, another monkey crawling up her leg, and another two monkeys fighting at her feet over a banana, it was great.

Alright, time to get back to work, I posted more pictures on yahoo, so you can look at those if you want.

if it isn't one thing, it's another

So we got Wednesday off because of the coup, worked on Thursday and Friday, and now, unexpectedly, we have next week off! Why, you may ask? Because of Foot and Mouth disease! There were a few cases found in the kidnergarten building, so the entire building has no classes next week! This is the PERFECT time for this to happen, because we just finished testing and are doing our report cards right now. We also have October camp starting the following week, so we have a lot to do next week! It's, obviously, not good that foot and mouth disease is going around, but it is good timing. One of the possible cases was a kid in my class, though, so I'm hoping they caught it before it spread...
Anyway, we're off to Hua Hin this weekend for Krista's very first Thailand beach weekend! Should be a good time!

back to work

So things are officially back to normal...except some of the streets are still lined with soldiers. Honestly, if this whole thing would have happened on a Saturday (and I didn't have anyone in Canada to tell me what was going on) I would have had no idea. In fact, my Thai teacher told me today that she went into work yesterday because she had no idea that anything was even going on! Poor woman bused all the way to school and had to turn right back around and go home! We are so far from downtown, there is nothing happening here. We decided to go downtown tonight because a guy at my school lives down there, and said that everything is perfectly safe. We were on the bus and as we neared downtown, sure enough, there were a bunch of soldiers lining the medians and one of the major bridges in the city. We were actually really wishing that we had our cameras out but, alas, we passed the soldiers without even a picture. As you can tell, it really isn't all that scary over here. Ilda said that there are a lot of soldiers out by her place, which is also far away from downtown, but also by the airport, so a slightly busier area than ours.

I got confronted by my grade four homework class today about whether I liked Thaksin (the ex-prime minister)or the king better. I really have no idea about Thai politics, but I do know that Thais LOVE their king so, obviously, I said the king, then they all smiled and said that was good. They even made me little cards that said, "Long Love the King" (not my spelling mistake...theirs), and "Tuk sin get out" (I think it's supposed to be Thaksin get out...they're in grade four)I asked them who they liked and they all looked shocked and said the king "of course", they were in grade four and they were going on and on about how Thaksin was corrupt and how he hated Thailand and was bad for Thais, etc, etc. They were pretty politically aware for grade fours, that's for sure...that, or brainwashed by their parents...probably a combination of both.

Anyway, everything is back to normal as far as we know, so everything is safe and, as far as we can tell right now, there is no need to worry!

To quote one teacher in the staffroom today, "this was the most boring coup ever! We only got one day off of school!"

alive and well

It is now 2 in the afternoon on the day after the take-over and things are pretty much normal. For those of you who don't know what is going on, the military overthrew the Thai government last night while the Prime Minister was in New York. Apparently this Prime Minister is quite corrupt, and rumours of a coup have been circulating for weeks, but we didn't think that it would actually happen.

This all happened downtown in the exact area where we ate supper last night. We left downtown at around 9 and it all started around 10. We just checked, and the very street that we walked down last night is now filled with Thai soldiers and tanks. Apparently groups of more than five people at a time have been outlawed because of rioting, and you can get six months in jail for just walking in a large group. Crazy, but kind of scary. I have never been more happy to live in the outskirts of the city!!!

This all actually worked out quite well for me, since I didn't have to go in to school today. We were awake last night from about 3 am, when we first heard about the situation, until around 5 when we finally went back to sleep. I was a little worried because the school has my passport for visa purposes right now, and we weren't sure at all what this whole situation meant (ie. if we would need to leave the country). I called my boss this morning, and he said that the school was closed today, and that we shouldn't really worry because things would get back to normal soon.

So I went back to sleep and slept until 11, and then we went walking around because we were bored of being inside. We had been told that all of the businesses would be closed, but everything seems to be open, and all of the buses and taxis are running as usual.

I looked on the Bangkok Post website (www.bangkokpost.com), which is the English newspaper here in Bangkok, and it gives a lot of information, including English translations of the statements given by the new "government". We live right at the edge of the city, so we haven't seen any tanks, soldiers, etc. Everything is happening downtown, which is about an hour away and which happens to be the main tourist area. I can just imagine the backpackers on Khao Sarn road, which is right downtown, coming out of their hostels and going to see the Grand Palace, only to see tanks driving around the streets, it would be pretty scary if you didn't know what was going on.

I'll keep you posted as to what is going on, but you probably know more than I do since they have cut most television stations because (old) government officials had been giving interviews to BBC and CNN, and the military, obviously, didn't like that very much. As far as I know, the king has not yet made a statement, which will greatly affect the outcome of everything, because the military claims to be doing this all in the name of the king.

Let me know if you hear anything over there!

coup d'etat

hey guys, apparently there is some crazy stuff happening downtown. I live in the subburbs, so I can't really notice anything going on, but I can hear the "patriotic music" faintly playing, which is really creepy, since all you usually hear is traffic. Ilda called me at 3 am and told me to call home and tell them that I was alright because apparently telecommunication is going to be shut down at 4 am. I guess there are tanks rolling around downtown and the military has taken over while the Prime Minister is out of the country. Ilda said that schools and businesses are shut down tomorrow, but we don't really know. I don't have a TV or radio, so it's hard to know what's going on, but I did get internet so I was able to check the CBC and Bangkok Post websites...you will actually probably know more about what's going on than I will in the next while, since apparently the military has taken over the television stations. Ilda said that CNN and BBC were still reporting, and my friends in the building have a TV, so hopefully we can watch that tomorrow. Anyway, I am safe and fine right now, I'll update when I can!

crocodiles and dinosaurs

So yesterday I saw a dinosaur and ate crocodile...I'm not kidding.

First of all, Krista is here, and that is very exciting. She is doing really well, and I've even got her speaking a tiny bit of Thai. Yesterday we went to the mall to buy her a cell phone. We decided to get some food, so we went to the grocery store. As we were walking through the aisles, there was a woman giving away free samples of meat. We decided to try some, it was just tiny pieces of deep fried something dipped in chili sauce--it tasted pretty good, kind of a combo between chicken and fish. Anyway, we had just swallowed when a man walked past and looked at us, smiled, and said, "oh...you eat crocodile!" I looked at him kind of funny, and he held up the package of meat and, sure enough, there was a little cartoon character of a crocodile on the front. So we ate crocodile. I'm glad that I didn't know that beforehand because I think I enjoyed it a whole lot more not knowing...you never really know what kind of meat you're eating here.

As for the dinosaur, we really did see one. Here is a picture:

ok, so the picture isn't working right now, but I will upload it tomorrow so that you can all see.


It's hard to see how big it really is, but I swear it was the same size as me or larger...even the Thais were turning to look--that's when you know that it's special. Anyway, we were walking past the pond, and this massive thing started coming out of the water. It was pretty cool, I wanted to get closer, but as I stepped forward it looked right at me and did not look overly friendly, so I decided against that.

Alright, so maybe the dinosaur thing is debatable, but we were pretty sure that it was a Komodo dragon, and other people at work confirmed that they had heard reports of Komodo dragons in Lumpini Park (which is where we saw it). Some still claim that Komodo dragons were around with the dinosaurs, so from now on I will say that I have seen a real live dinosaur just wandering around in Bangkok.

I am almost finished my exams, which means that I can actually see my kids again! The exams are all one on one, so basically for the past week I have been giving my kids something to do, and then leaving the room with one kid at a time. It's really good to be able to assess the kids individually, but I feel as though I haven't been in the classroom for such a long time. It's crazy how attached I have become to these kids. We can't even speak to each other, yet I feel as though I understand what they are saying most of the time. Whenever I don't, I just say mai cow jai (which means "I don't understand" in Thai) and they either laugh hysterically because I am speaking Thai, or look really sad and hurt because they don't understand why I don't understand.

On a completely different note, I just randomly checked the Winnipeg weather today, and saw that it was raining and six degrees...must be fun! We actually had crazy rain today, worse than I had ever experienced here yet. My homework class actually ended early because it was raining so hard that kids needed to get home before it started flooding...kind of like shutting down the school for a snowstorm back home. It only ended up raining for about an hour, but when it rains here, it pours like nothing I have ever seen.

Jill, if you are reading this, I got your package today and it was fabulous...everyone in the office is jealous of my stamps so thank you thank you!!!!

Pattaya

We just got back from a fabulous weekend in Pattaya. Pattaya is actually a pretty dirty city, filled with prostitutes and gross old men who come to help these prostitutes make their living. We stayed on the "family" end of the city, which was nicer and much quieter. We were planning on staying at one hotel, but when we got there, she tried to charge us way more than she had charged our friends when they had stayed there the weekend before. It ended with her getting angry with us and telling us to never come back, which was fine because the place was gross and there were hotels EVERYWHERE! So we walked about half a block down and found a really cute hotel with an owner who spoke really good English. We were trying to barter on a price when Henrik, who we were travelling with, started talking to the guy in Danish. Henrik is from Denmark and, it turns out, so was this owner...Henrik could tell from his accent. Of course, after this happened, we got really good deals on the rooms and the staff were all really nice to us.

The beach at Pattaya is not very nice, so we took a ferry to an island about 45 minutes away, which has a really nice, quiet beach. On the ferry, we started talking to this German guy, who was married to a Thai woman. The next thing we knew, they were arranging for a sangthaew to take us to the beach on the island and helping us get around. Travelling tip #1-make friends with the locals and your trip will be 100% better and you'll see much better sights!

It was great, they took us there, showed us where to go, and then arranged for all of us to be picked up at the end of the day. One of the Thai women saw that I wasn't wearing a hat--she said that she was a nurse and wanted me to use her umbrella so that I didn't get heat stroke. Thai people are so nice. We spent the day at the beach, which was fabulous, and then went back to Pattaya for barbeque (they have a buffet of raw meat and vegetables, and they put a barbeque in the middle of your table so that you can cook it yourself, it's really good!)

After supper, we decided that we wanted to go out and see the town. It's dirty and gross, but we had to go see it for ourselves. When we got downtown, it was crazy, there were neon lights everywhere and just tons of people. We walked around for awhile and we saw one street that said "boyz town". We walked down the street and realised that it was the gay men's district. We went into one of the bars and sat down for a drink. It was hilarious. At first, everyone was staring at us, but after awhile, it was really good. We actually felt more comfortable in there than in most other places because we didn't have to see any of the old gross men picking up twenty something Thai girls.

There was one waiter who was helping us a lot, and he told us that he could show us some other clubs that we could go to in Pattaya. He said that he would even take us there if we wanted. When he said that, Kelly looked at him and said, "...wait a minute, do you want us to pay your bar fine?". He looked kind of sheepish and then smiled. (By the way, Kelly knew about bar fines because she just finished reading the book "Private Dancer," which is a really good novel that tells all about the prositution industry in Thailand...it's the next book that I'm going to read) Paying someone's bar fine is basically like hiring them...like a prostitue. Kelly screamed and then started laughing and we all said that we were not interested and he just shrugged and kept talking to us. It was weird, but pretty funny, and he didn't try to push us at all, he seemed fine with it.

After we left the bar, some of the people that I was out with went dancing, but I was tired and decided to go home. I didn't want to take a taxi because it was expensive doing it on my own (expensive being about $3 Canadian), so I took a motorcycle taxi! It was awesome, I hadn't been on one yet because I was too scared to do it in Bangkok with all of the traffic. It was great, and much faster than a regular taxi because it could go beside all of the cars when they were waiting at lights. At first, I wasn't really sure how people stayed on, because they never put their arms around the drivers, but I realised that there are handles under the seat that you hold onto, and it feels totally safe. I was even wearing a skirt, so I had to sit sideways, and I still felt safe. I'm definitely going to take motorcycles more often, only on weekends though, I don't know if I would ever feel safe on one in Bangkok!

Sunday was rainy so we slept in, did some shopping, bought some more DVDs, and went home in the evening.

Now I'm back at school and I'm doing exams for the next two weeks. That's right, I teach three year olds, and we're doing exams. Basically I ask them their name, to count, to say some of the alphabet, things like that. It still feels weird giving these kids a grade at such a young age! Welcome to the Asian education system, though, it's all about grades (actually it's all about high grades...if you can't get them on your own, you cheat). Oh well, I made my exam super easy so all of my kids will do really well, although I already had one this morning who didn't know his name! I couldn't believe it! I was sure that they all knew their names, but when you have a class of 25 students and you're only with them for an hour and a half per day, you never really know where they're at.

This is now super long and I am really impressed if anyone actually read to the end of this...I don't know if I would have! I hope you're all doing well in your first few days of school!

hoof and mouth disease?

So the other day I came into my classroom and one of the Thai teachers was checking the fingernails of all of the children and then saying something to them in Thai. I had no idea what was going on, but that is usual, so I just figured that this was another weird Thai thing. Then I noticed yesterday that the entire Kindergarten building smelt like cleaner, and noticed that the Thai teacher in my class was washing all of the tables and toys with Dettol. This was also strange but, again, strange things happen here on a daily basis. I asked someone why all of the toys were being washed and it took awhile for her to figure out how to say it in English, but she said that a child in the school had been diagnosed as having "hoof and mouth disease". So apparently there was a case of foot and mouth disease in our school, which is why they were disinfecting everything and talking to all of the kids about the cleanliness of their fingernails (because this is apparently how it is spread).

There was also a rumour going around that a kid in our school had the bird flu, but our boss swears that it is untrue. There was a case in Bangkok, but it was not at our school. Either way, the cafeteria is no longer serving chicken, which I guess is good, but that just means that there is a whole lot more fish, which I am not a fan of because I am pretty sure that is what gave me food poisoning. The fish here is also not served how we are used to it. Most of it is in the form of fish balls, which are in EVERYTHING and absolutely disgust me. You can also get entire fish, that I think are salted and roasted or smoked somehow, complete with tails, heads, and eyes. Gross.

This weekend, we are going to Pattaya, which is usually described as the Red Light District of Thailand. It is prostitute city, but there is also a really beautiful beach right nearby, so that is why we are going. Other people from school have gone and have really liked it, so hopefully it'll be a good weekend.

Krista comes in one week and I am really excited to see someone from home! Hope all of you teachers and students out there enjoyed your first few days of school, I've enjoyed all of the first year, first day teaching stories, keep them coming!

that would make too much sense

"When hearing the alarm and the main office announces emergency messages, such as "This moment the school is having fire emergency without reason". The teachers have to lead students out of the building immediately. Everyone stops all activities to prepare to move out. If you stay far away from fire place you can take shoes for safety."

"If you see smoke notice sign or smoke from the smoke producer machine. You should to turn back other way if haven't other way to use, please tell children should to stoop down or crawl when smoke to lower."

These were just some of the instructions that they gave us for the fire drill the other day. I swear they just type these into one of those translating programs and print them without reading. They have an entire office of English teachers, but never ask us to edit. It is little things like this that make my day more enjoyable. There are hilarious signs like this one all over the school.

One of my favourite signs is the one in all of the bathroom stalls that says "no feet on the toilet." When I first got here, I was confused, but now I really appreciate that sign. I have probably mentioned before that Thai people use squatter style toilets. The school has mostly Western toilets, but most of the kids have squatters at home, so when they see a Western toilet they don't really know what to do. There have been a few times when I have gone to the bathroom and there have been dirty footprints on the toilet seat...so this sign actually makes a lot of sense, even though it is written in English, so most of the people can't read it anyway (I hadn't thought about that until right now, anyone who is reading the sign in English probably doesn't need to be told not to put their feet on the toilet seat...they don't really think these things through here).

Another thing that they haven't thought through in this country are the escalators. In Canada, when you get on an escalator on the first floor, you can usually just keep going up to the top because all of the escalators going up are beside each other...it just makes sense. In Thailand, they do not have this organisation. You never know which way an escalator is going to go. Often, you will be coming down, and the escalator right beside yours will be coming up...essentially both leading to the same place, which means that you have to continually get off of the escalator and look around for the next one going down. I know this sounds kind of whiney, but it is quite annoying when you are on the fourth floor and want to get down to the first, because you have to zig zag through the whole mall to get there...usually it is just easier to find an elevator, even if it is across the mall, and go down that way.

So this past weekend, we just hung around Bangkok and didn't really do much. On Sunday, we went to Ilda and Louis' and sat by their pool, which was fabulous. It was nice to have a weekend of nothing, I haven't had one of those in a long time. It's not like it's very stressful when we go away, in fact, it's quite relaxing, but sometimes it's nice to just stay home. Also, on Saturday, I bought 11 movies for 1000 THB, which is about $25. It's great, there is a mall right by our house where you can get really cheap movies, and you can return them if they don't work (which is key...you can get movies much cheaper at other places, but they often don't work, so you're just wasting your money).

Oh ya, I think my phone number will be changing soon because the phone companies are adding an extra "8" to the beginning of all numbers because they are running out of numbers or something like that...I never really know what's going on, because most of the information is in Thai, but that is what I've heard, so I'll let you know if it changes. Hope all is well at home!