Laura's Year in Asia = Fun Stories

Just got back from a weekend in Chiang Mai. Met up with Nick, Maeve, Paradie, and Ece for one last party weekend before everyone leaves Thailand. It was the BEST weeekend i've had in Thailand for a while. Since we had all been to Chiang Mai before and done the tourist sights this was purely a weekend to a) get away from teaching b) eat western food c) not speak thai. I know I might be sounding a little whiney and ungrateful, but it's hard to explain how difficult it is to live day after day in such a different culture. And those people who have traveled through Thailand usually follow the tourist trail, or only spend a few days/weeks in a remote area. So it's a little different for me after 4 monhts.... I do love it here, but I need these "Chiang Mai Breaks" once in a while lets just say.

Anyways we got there Friday night and proceeded to get some good ol' burgers and beers at the Chiang Mai Saloon then go straight back to our Apartments and watch HBO and the Disney Channel (brought back some great TNBC/TGIF memories). Great night. The next morning we went for breakfast at Starbucks (haha I know every backpacker is just cringing right now, but the frap i had was incredible) and then wandered around the Ta Pae gate area buying english books and getting AMAZING pedicures(Christine's Salon - free advertising for it since they were so incredlbe!) A little shopping at the Airport Plaza mall, and wandered the night market for last minute gifts. We then got ready to celebrate Maeve's birthday (well ONE of Maeve's birthdays) and started the night off at an interesting "greek" restaurant that overserved us liquor and gave Maeve 8 (yes 8) roses. Good times and cheap food though. Then tuk-ed it to the nightclub Bubbles which is so fun. It tries to be all upscale-Caprice styles, but really there are just a lot of grubby travelers under black lights there. Kept the night moving by heading over to the afterhours club Spicy which was....interesting. Maeve and Nick had the moment of the night when they tried to do what can only be called a dirty-dancing move where Maeve jumped off stage onto Nick, and then they both proceeded to fall all over everyone/everything. Great times. We almost got in a fight with one of the many Thai-escort ladies there when she was trying to get around me, but of course she's like 4'5 and i'm 5'11 and I couldn't hear her. Maeve said she pushed me, but I really couldn't feel anything..haha. Maeve, Nick and I then tried to go to Karaoke but like always the Tuk-tuk driver just took us on a wild ride to nowhere and then scammed up out of our money after saying he understood us and then, "oh no i no understand..." argggghhhh. We got back to our apartment in time to watch America's Funniest Home Videos though.

The next day we spent ALL DAY IN BED. Watching HBO (lucky us...a marathon of Entourage!!! SO the best show on TV right now) and eating crips. A chill night followed and I spent the next day at the Indian embassy getting my visa, which they processed wrong obvisously, but nothing I can do about it. Made it back to Wiang Sa that night to find that the river levels have gone down and school is back in session. We have a few funerals to go to this week, but other than that I think my last two weeks will be semi-back to normal.

That's a phone booth and a billboard on the right and a house on the left. DEEP!

Well the past week has been interesting. Nan Province has been hit by the worst flooding in 25 years. And the city of Nan (25km away) and my village of Wiang Sa have been some of the hardest hit. Wiang Sa is situated in a valley between the Nan river and the Sa river, good for when you're growing rice, bad for when the river rises 10 meters above its banks. On Sunday it started to rain pretty hard, but I didn't really notice it that much since it was more like Vancouver-constant-grey-sky rain rather than Thailand-intense-but-short-black-cloud rain. It continued all night and by Monday everything was flooded. It wasn't so bad in Wiang sa at that time, so we all showed up for school, even though there were no students! Although in Nan, our friends Nick and Joss had to canoe to their school which was 8ft underwater. Of course all day Monday it kept raining and the rivers around Wiang Sa just kept rising. Miranda and I were out of drinking water, and all the water pipes were shut off for who knows how long, so the we tried to make the trek to Tescos in Nan that night.

The river, that usually you couldnt even see from the highway, was right up against the edges, and pouring over in some sections. Every house along the road was flooded up to the first floor and people were everywhere trying to move their possessions to higher ground. We made it to Tescos, but of course so had everyone else so there was little water and basic rations left. We stocked up on what we could and then tried to make it farter into Nan to check to see if our teacher Noot's uncle was ok. We got stopped at an army checkpoint where the water was about 4ft deep over the highway. We took one attempt in Mel's truck to go through it, but had to abandon that 1/2 way and carry the provisions through river/highway to his house. The TV stations had all their sattelites and flood lights set up, and couldn't resist the shot of a farang wadding through the muddy waters with TESCO water bottles balanced on her head. So, i'm apparently a star on iTV now! We made it home barely, and it kept raining through the night...so school has been cancelled indefenitly now. Tuesday and Wednesday I tried to keep busy by going down to the part of Wiang Sa that has been hardest hit and help out. It's hard though without being able to speak Thai. Plus the government and army seem to have things under pretty good control with lots of rescue shelters set up in the Wats for people to go to. I did spend a few hours handing out food to some of the people who have chosen to stay in their houses on the second or third stories. But there isn't much to do until the water starts to receed. Today the weather is a little more sunny and warm so the water has receeded in some areas, and there is layers and layers of mud left behind. Its going to be a messy clean up. We haven't had running water in our house for 4 days now either, so the lack of showers and clean clothes are starting to show!!!

There have been quite a few casualties, mostly due to the fact that people can't get to the clinic or hospital because of the flooding. Some are really hitting home too....It's actually pretty sad becasue the director of my school lost his Mom on Monday, and then one of my students in Pratom 1 died on Tuesday, she was one of the smartest little kids in the class and its so sad to see her family (her sister is in Pratom 6 at our school too). But the whole neighborhood is really helping them out.

Anyways, hopefully everything will start to get sorted soon with the worst of the weather over with. Miranda and I are meeting up with all the other GAP volunteers this weekend in Chaing Mai for one last party before we all go our seperate ways. Should be fun. Then next week who knows if i'll be teaching or cleaning?

# posted by Laura Davies : 12:31 PM  1 comments

Last weekend was a long weekend in Thailand (Queen's Birthday therefore also Mother's Day) So the all the teachers at Sriwiangsawittayakarn decided it's time for a road trip....Thai styles. All Miranda and I knew before hand was that we were going to be picked up at 2:30am Saturday morning and we were going north.

Well of course they didn't pick us up until 4am, and then we drove for 45 minute and parked on the side of the road for 2 hours - no idea what we were waiting for. So far Miranda and I were really happy we woke up at 2am for this. Then we drive for a few more hours (as I dozed in and out of consciousness...) and ended up at this Wat in Pha Yao (or P-YO! As the cool people call it) and proceeded to go through the rituals of getting blessings and good luck for our trip. And went to the pond where we fed the most disgusting cat-fish things in the world.

It was still about 8am, so we got back in the car and drove for another hour to a Wat just outside Chaing Rai. It was pretty spectacular, a famous Thai artist has built it from scratch using all the profits he has made selling his paintings worldwide. Trying to get some good Karma (and he makes no secret about how much he's spent on it: 30 million baht and 4 years) Of course it has the obligatory "hell" display that all Wats have, this one was a bit more original as it was a bunch of cement hands and faces reaching out from the ground as you walk over a bridge. Kinda crowd-surfing styles.... Then we had Thai noodle breakfast with icecream for dessert and headed in the car for another 3 hour drive. This time to Chaing Sein which is a border crossing to Laos. We hit up the markets along the Mekong river which was fun. There were TONS of Chinese imported foods with some of the funniest slogans I have seen yet. The teachers bought about 50 kilos of apples and sunflower seeds...And I bought a couple packs of Giant Pocky Stick packages.

Then it was a 30 minute drive to the Golden Triangle. This is where the corners of Thailand, Laos and Burma/Myanmar (Burma is the internationally recognized name, but the illegitimate government has renamed it the Union of Myanmar...In Thailand it goes by Myanmar) all meet along the Mekong river. And China is only 200 meters up north. It used to be the centre of all opium production and smuggling, but lately there are more farangs there than Opium Caravans.... It's sorta one big amusement park but less rides and more Buddha statues. I of course checked out the immigration office. Other than maybe the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, I'd say that would be one of the worst Immi postings you could get ;) The opium production has been basically eradicated from Thailand as one of the Kings big development projects has been to introduce crop-substitution programs for the farmers in the Golden Triangle area. It has worked quite well from a Thai perspective, but basically it has just pushed the cultivation and production over the borders to Laos and Burma. Anyways from our carnival-side in Thailand you look across the Mekong into Laos, and its all shabby boats and grass huts. Then on the Burma side there is a HUGE Casino that basically welcomes all the Farangs with their money. Not the best thing though since the Burmese government is so corrupt and actually illegitimate (the democratically elected president Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house-arrest by the military dictatorship) most of the money that tourists spend in Burma goes right into their pockets. So the international community and Aung San Suu Kyi have called for a Tourist Boycott of Myanmar. It's a tough choice though because many people also say that travelers can help out the oppressed Burmese people by going there and shopping at local markets and staying at locally owned guesthouses rather than government owned ones.... It's just a matter of being responsible about your spending and being aware of the consequences of your presence. Anyways political situation or not - It didn't seem to be stopping people from going over there on speedboats with crash helmets incase of impact with debris that causes these boats to "disintegrate on impact"

From the Golden Triangle we headed to Mai Sai, the official border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar. Over 600,000 people cross a day mostly to sell goods at the markets. Basically Mai Sai is what the Peace Arch border crossing would be if Bellis Fair was literally ON the big lawn. And if Bellis fair sold 90% illegal things. The market is described as, "A place you can find anything and everything to get you arrested at Customs on your way home" And its true. Weapons, counterfeits, people, narcotics, etc. You get the picture. A former Customs Inspector's Paradise!!! (I of course was there strictly for research) I spent most of the afternoon on the Thailand side checking out the cheap sunglasses and watches, then crossed over into the Burmese side, by jumping accross a river since my Thai visa is a single entry, but Burma was more of the same stuff so headed back. I almost got stuck in Burma though since the 3pm rain storm made the once-small river turn HUGE. Luckily I got over just in time. I ended up with three pairs of sunglasses, a fake Adidas watch, a Film Rattapoom CD, and way too much Chinese candy.

We left Mai Sai to go to Doi Tung, the Royal Villa. Built by the King of Thailand for his mother to come back to when she is reincarnated. It's an amazing garden about 20X the size of Vandussen. Incredible. And on the top of a mountain so you can see the whole Chaing Rai province valley. So nice, and they had the best coffee shop I've been to in Thailand there (Starbucks quality for sure) By this time it was about 5pm and we got back in the cars and drove for 5 more hours back to P-YO! To have dinner. It was the most uncomfortable dinner I've had in Thailand. Just the fact we had been traveling for 20 hours, no one was in a good mood especially Miranda and I, so when the teachers and director kept talking about us in Thai and saying "SING SONG SING SONG FARANG FARANG FARANG" we didn't have the normal patience to deal with it that we usually do. That and the food was pretty bad....Yuck. So over to sev we went to have our own diner of snickers and chips. Then we got in the car and drove the 4 hours back home (took the long way for some reason...) to Wiang Sa, where we arrived exactly 24 hours after we left. Like I said, a Thai-style Road Trip is definitely unique!

I spent all day Sunday cleaning everything I own in Thailand, as it has all become covered in a layer of mold. Nice. Luckily I learned the Thai word for bleach fast. Monday I went to get a bunch of passport pictures for India and Nepal visas, and in Thailand passport pictures are taken like Sears portraits. A whole big show with makeup and mirrors, then they retouch them and airbrush them before printing them out for you. Although they airbrushed me WHITER than I am..... Oh Thailand! Only 2 more weeks of your crazy shenanigans!!!

Last Saturday my school held its annual English Day Camp, well annual since they've had GAP volunteers at the school. Basically an English Camp is a day for the students to have fun, play games, sing songs all in English (theoretically).

Nick, Joss, and Paradie (the other GAP volunteers placed up north here) came to help out, so we had a decent camp ratio of 5 volunteers to 150 thai students. Some english camps there is only one native English speaker who is expected to run the camp themselves, so having five of us much easier!!! I have participated in a few English Camps while i've been here in Thailand, but this was my first time organizing and helping run one. A little different, but not much since my Thai teachers really helped out and took care of most of the annoying organizational stuff. We had 5 stations that had 5 different activities focusing on basic English conversational skills.

1. Telling time
2. Listening
3. Holidays
4. I like/ I don't like
5. Nationalities

So groups of 30 Pratom 4/5/6 students would go around to each station and play the games run by us volunteers. We did Christmas Bingo, The "hello" game, What Time is it Mr.Wolf, and other wordsearch style games. It was actually pretty easy and fun at sometimes!! The best part though was when we had all 150 kids together and we'd teach them some of our favourite english songs, like the banana song or the som tam song you get all those kids dancing around...its pretty hillarious. Of course we ended off the English camp with the obligatory autographs, pictures, and certificates that every Thai event needs to have. Our certificates this time were really colourful, but of course they spelt our names wrong (Laura Daviesse and Marper Harper) and our little envelope of pocket money - 500baht (same as one week's wage for me!). After I signed every single kids book with my name, email, canadian phone number, birthday...etc. I don't know how they're planning on calling me in Canada, but its pretty funny anyway.

After the english camp we biked back to my place with the kids following us and wanting to play more games...But us volunteers piled into the back of a teacher's pickup truck and headed into Nan for a celebratory dinner at the Runway Restaurant where I proceeded to eat more than I ate during hte whole month of July. It was soooo good. After dropping Nick and Joss off we went to Tescos for the 15baht DQ blizzards that are my life now!! And back home with Paradie to watch Traffic. (which I rented thinking it was Crash...I told you my English skills are slowly diminishing) After the exhausting Saturday English Camp, the rest of the weekend I spent sleeping and finishing (finally) Anna Karenina. Now its Monday at 2:45 pm and since i'm done my teaching for the day I'm heading for a massage. 2 hours for 50 baht (ohhh $1.50) It was a tough day today.... ;)

Even the Monks have gone Vegas on us. Instead of the old sticks-in-a-tin way to get your fortune told at this Wat in Nan, you put 10 baht in to this machine and it whirls-twirls and does a few sparkley things and gives you your fortune. I Love it.

And yes those are disco balls in the corners.