Thursday, September 28, 2006

Why the Amazing Race Doesn't Come to India

Well it's still definitely the first three weeks because everyday here in India we say the 'F-word' about 1 billion times. But the F-word here in India is Frustration, everything is just so frustrating that it makes you feel like you've gone crazy some times. Anyways I could go on and on and make this whole blog about the trials of travel in India, but you wanna hear the fun things I'm sure.

We spent 4 days in Bodgaya looking for the enlightenment that Buddha seemed to achieve. Makes sense too, you'd need to be in a completely meditative state to find peace amongst India. Justina and I were wondering what it would feel like to achieve complete enlightenment, and the closest we could come up with was the taste of a cold Fanta (in a bottle of course) after a hot Indian day. Well, it finally got sunny, and we spent some of the days wandering the Mahabodhi garden and temple, sitting under the bodhi tree and watching Tibetan monks going through their nightly ceremonies at the Tibetan temple. Justina has come down with some weird throat infection thing, so we also spent a fun morning at the clinic surrounded by ants and medical waste.

Then we had to truly Amazing Race it out of Bodgaya to begin our journey to Darjeeling. It's hard to explain how daunting this task is, but I might be able to blog you through it. First we had to somehow get from Bodgaya to Gaya. Not too easy as you may recall my previous blog about the potholes, cows and general chaos that involves street level journeys. We got in an autorickshaw, that up until now have only held Justina and I .....With 12 other people. Brought back some great memories of Mowbray minibuses in South Africa. Bouncing along the dusty roads for a good 45 minutes we arrive at the train station. Here is where Phil would have explained the "detour" choice we had. We could either take a 3 hour local bus to the provincial capital. This was the faster option, but with a big unknown because we've never been on a bus in India, and their reputations are less than stellar (think 1/2 the passengers riding on the roof). The second option was to get a local train ticket to Patna. This would involve trying to figure out the ticket purchasing system WITHOUT a tourist quota office (those who have been to India know how easy the quota system makes everything). And then figuring out what platform/train/carriage to go on since everything is in Hindi. I don't know what Fran and Barry would have done, but Justice and I chose the train. Somehow we ended up in the unreserved ticket line up for Women, full of men though, and got a ticket for what sounded like a 1pm train on platform 4. Well we waited (and even waiting in India is frustrating because every single pervy man - and woman - is staring at you constantly) and around 1:30 a train rolled in. Now I've been warned about taking anything other than first class in India, but we had little choice. Onto the 3rd class carriage with about 10 people hanging off the outside, to push our way to 2 1/2 seats. Which we glady took up and refused to move even an inch. People were sitting above us on the luggage racks, out the window, and on each others laps. No aircon, little fan action, and a train that stopped every 5km made for a long, hot and dirty 3 hour journey.

Once we got to Patna, we had 6 hours to kill before our overnight train to NJP (luckily we had booked this one at a quota office in Varanassi!) we thought we'd try to brave the streets and find a place to eat. Well we attempted to cross one road, ok 1/2 a road, and made the smart decision to pay a rickshaw driver 10 rupees to pedal us across it. Believe me, no chickens were crossing this road EVER. Well we ended up at a sweet aircon 3* hotel who opened the restaurant and internet cafe for us to use. Best Dal, Nan and Fanta dinner ever.

After 5 hours in the lobby, and another rickshaw ride, we were back at the train station catching our night train to NJP. We were so excited to just get into our aircon car and fall asleep on the fresh sheets...What do we find? Only a tour group of 80-somethings IN OUR BEDS! Of course they paid quadruple for their tickets and private tour guide than we will pay for our whole three months, so they felt fine not moving or even checking their tickets. Justice and I were not having anything of it and after some stern talks with the conductor got two similar beds in a different (but still AC) car. I hit the pillow like a rock. The night passed with random families sitting on my bed and hiding Justina's shoes, nothing that is out of the norm for India. We got to NJP quasi-refreshed and it only took 2 trips to and from the tourist info to the rickshaw stand to figure out where to go. Another long hot rickshaw ride with us two crammed into the small seat and our bags piled ontop, we were at a Jeep stand, where we could hire a jeep to take us up the mountain to Darjeeling.

Ok, we get in the jeep with 9 other wonderful people and off we go for the said 3 1/2 hour ride. Literally 5 minutes into the ride Justina and I have the conversation about the drivers apparent lack of braking skills....hmmm....30 minutes later we're all parked on the side of a cliff while Mr. No-breaks fixes the car after he rear ended another Jeep. Great. It was a welcome pee break, but little else. On the second attempt we spent the next hour winding up and down through the foothills of the Himalayas on a road that makes the Sea to Sky hwy look like the I-5. Even calling it a road is stretching my beliefs a little. Landslides, families, and the odd cement truck made it nearly impassable at some points. We got held up in a small town along the road that was having a ceremony for what we think was a dead-baby wrapped in white cloth on a bamboo stretcher. The ceremony just happened to walk along the entire road for about 1 hour. Stop-Go-Stop-Stop-Stop.... I could go on forever about this jeep ride. But eventually we made it to Darjeeling and the driver just kicked us out at a random point in the middle of some bazaar. Now Darjeeling is a hill-station. Literally a town built on a steep steep hill. It's very spread out and there are no straight roads or even roads in general. We had no idea where to go or what to do - except head up. So with our huge bags we begin what seems like the Mt. Everest trek, until we find a guy who has a rope. Turns out we hired our first sherpa of the trip!! He straps BOTH our bags together and throws them over his head and off we go up and up and up to our hotel that we picked. Turns out its on the TOP of the mountain. Oops, a good 60 rupees spent though.

One hotel was full, the next was beautiful - Hotel Long Island (free advertising) - we have a HUGE room with two beds and some snoogle-ly blankets because if I didn't mention IT GETS COLD HERE!!! We're about the altitude of Whistler village, so its like September there, warm during the days but sharp and cold at night!!! I'm back in my climatic-zone! We wandered the town last night to find the best restaurant I've been to on this trip. Literally a hole in the wall it was a Tibetan couple who had a kitchen and a few chairs that were packed with locals. The walls were lined with Avril Lavigne cutouts and Tibetan prayer flags, and puppies were crawling at our feet. We squeezed into a table and ordered two Thukpas (hearty chicken vegetable noodle soup) and Tibetan bread. It was the greatest meal ever. I dunno if Vancouver has Tibetan restaurants, but go if you can.

Other than that Darjeeling is my new favorite place in the world. Right up there with Luang Prabang and Maputo. We're probably staying for 5 days since there is so much to do here. Sunrise over 4/5 worlds highest mountain peaks, toy train rides, tea planataion tours, sky rides in gondololas.... Only thing that would make DJ more perfect is if my pictures would upload....But alas no where in the world is that great ;)

ps. Check out Justina's blog for a hilarious recount of our 36h travels across India....Its great.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

What Would Buddha Do?

Justina and I found the answer at the intersection of Buddha rd. and Temple st. here in Bodgaya, India. It's where Buddha came to develop his theory of enlightement, and the Bodhi tree that he sat under is still here today. (well a decendent, it was something like 6th century AD) Its a really cool place, that is a little more laid back than the bigger cities we've been in. But its still full of the hassles inherent in India, electrical power is intermittent at best, probably on about 3 hours a day. And lots of beggars and touts just getting in your way. Getting here was another day long adventure that I don't even think I can begin to blog - but we drove THROUGH a garbage dump and the potholes on the road were so deepI swear we were half way to Vancouver. Last night at 7pm when we decided we needed some chips for dinner, we wandered out of the hotel and just about started a riot. White girls on the loose!!! The hotel manager followed us around to make sure we were ok. Its a funny place here.

Justina has come down with a little something, so we're taking it easy here - probably wander the dozens of temples that Buddhist countries have set up here (I actually said Sawadeekaa today!) and go to the Zen meditations at the Japanese temple at 5pm. Then we've got an intense 48-hour travel period to get to Darjeeling... Himalaya views and great tea awaits.

ps. Happy birthday Heather and Megan!!!!!

Friday, September 22, 2006

"Everything in India Has More Spice"

....Is what the mother of the family who shared our sleeping berth on the 15 hour train from Agra to Varanassi. We lucked out with a sweet aircon 3 tier train. So so so exciting to have something work out. Well, I should start from the beginning of our day. As I wrote the last blog entry, there were multiple power-outtages in Agra, and we were told to get off the internet after only 45 minutes of use. Then the guy tried to charge us for 1.5 hours that we supposedly used according to his secret book that he writes in. After being up since 5am and dealing with 37* heat with no power (fan or AC!) Justina and I had enough. We absoultley fought tooth and nail with this guy about how unfair and dishonest he was being, and the funny thing was he kept adding on the blatent lies! It was just typical of what we had been experiencing the days before and we didn't want to take it anymore. We wouldn't leave without getting our money back and kept up the arguing. After about 30 minutes - he gave in and gave us our money back (20 rupees, not even a dollar, but such a symbol!) It was incredible the feeling that we had of beating an Indian at his own game.

So if anyone is keeping score at home it's now India 11 : Justice and Lifa 2.

We left our hotel around 8pm to find the biggest street party taking place along the maze of streets in Agra. Huge floats dipicting the Hindhu gods, cows, goats, camels, elephants all combined with thousands of people with fireworks wandering around. It was hectic to say the least, but Justina and I got into it and bought a crazy hat with a whistle and partied our way to find an autorickshaw.

We sat on the concrete platform leaning against our backpacks, drinking chai tea out of clay cups watching the cows, women in neon pink saris walk by and I really felt that I was in my element. I was just so excited to be actually doing this - ahh its hard to explain but after all the hassles I realized that I am enjoying every second of this trip and can't believe I'm here.

So now we're in Varanassi, basically the holiest place for Hindus to come. Most come here to take a dip in the Ganges. Others come to die since death here means you are freed from the reincarnation cycle. It's a crazy place that I don't think I can even blog properly. There are Ghats that line the river where bodies are cremated (if people have enough money, if not they're just thrown in the river) and the whole riverside area is a maze of alleys no bigger than 1m accross, so if a cow is heading towards you - find a silk shop to jump in fast. Every turn is another surprise and it's hard to know if you should look up (to find signs), down (to watch for the big cow droppings), in front (to avoid the millions of touts yelling at you), or behind (to see if Justina is still alive) There is also a distinct smell here that can't be explained properly without you actually coming here. And unfortunatley I just don't have enough rupees to send for you all to experience this! We took a day trip to Sarnath, a place of ancient Buddhist ruins where Buddha came after his enlightenment. It was a really cool place to check out, but the 40 minute ride through Varanassi to get there in an autorickshaw was the highlight. It's amazing how few systems there are in India, and how many people there are just doing nothing. Justina observed that there are no machines here to do things, and just as she said that we came to an intersection where instead of a traffic light, there is a box for a policeman to stand in and direct traffic. I guess with a billion people hanging around its cheaper to get a bunch of them to do the work rather than install and upkeep the machines....

Internet and electricity in general has been more off than on here in India. So pictures aren't going to be forthcoming until I find a reliable internet cafe that wont charge us extra to upload pics (any way to squeeze a bit more money out of you...honestly.)

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Whoa India!!


Delhi: I met up with Justina at the airport, and amazingly we were able to find our way to the prepaid taxi booth and ignore most of the annoying touts around us. This is where our luck ended, our driver (and his random friend) would not stop trying to sell us other hotels, other tours, telling us he didn't know the hotel, the roads were closed, it was 5km too far, etc... Less than an hour in Delhi and we had to turn our bitch on to 11. It's hard to explain what Dehli is like because by putting it into coherent english words makes it normal, and that is the one thing Delhi is not. We spent our first night staring out our window at the scene infront of us on the Main Bazaar in Parahgnaj (the picture above) The next morning we awoke to the honks and moo-ing and shouting that creates the soundtrack to Dehli-life. It took about 3 hours to get up the courage to do our first acclimatization walk. And what a shock it was. Stepping out the door you are just a target for everyone and everything. A 5 minute walk around the block felt like an hour. We found refuge in an aircon cafe and re-energized with a few fantas and roti. Our next acclimatization trip found us eating dinner on one of the many rooftop restaurants along the Main Bazaar, enjoying the food we point-and-pray ordered but mostly enjoying the view of the chaos below. Day two was much more adventurous as we tried to get some visa situations sorted out at a few government offices. All I can tell you about that is civil servants in ANY country are grouchy, unhelpful and just plain frustrating to deal with. We tried an afternoon excursion to the Red Fort in Old Dehli, but the rickshaw (a bicycle with a big seat on the back peddled by an old man) took a wrong turn and we spent 45 minutes in delhi rush hour on the back of a bike. Fear factor should make a show about it. All in all Delhi was an experience and it toughened us up for the rest of India for sure. Constant stares from everyone you pass, numerous power outtages in 37*C humid heat, and the fun of barging Indian-style.

The rooftop of Shanti Lodge, sometimes the Taj needs a little pinch.

After 3 days in Dehli we decided enough was enough and headed down south to Agra, home a la Taj Majhal. A 6am 2nd class train ride squished between a German engineer and 3 Indian army officers (WITH wooden muskets straight from the American civil war in hand) it was a long 3 hours. But we arrived in Agra to find a pretty nice autorickshaw driver who only tried to sell us one tour. We decided on one of the budget hotels around the Taj area, and didn't expect much. But we were SO surprised to find that not only do we have a big clean room with a powerful fan, a nice COLD shower (trust me no need for hot water here), but the most incredible rooftop restaurant with the BEST Banana Lassi (yogurt banana and milk shake) with cashew nuts, raisins, coconut and choclate sauce on top!!! The view is mediocre as you can see from the picture ;) We spent the late afternoon watching the Taj, and the cows, rickshaws, motorcycles, colourful saris, and camels wander the streets below.

Me....the TAJ!

Agra itself is such a change from Dehli, much quieter, and we've found a great way to deal with the touts who are everywhere, yelling "NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in their face may seem rude to Canadians, but its the most polite way to do things around here. Justina has also found that acting crazy and doing a little dance scares them away enough. Today we woke up at 5am and walked down to the Taj to check it out at sunrise (and before the heat of the day) So incredible to just be there. It's huge and impressive and just a completely awe-inspiring masterpiece. 3 hours, and over 100 pictures later we had done the whole grounds and were suitably impressed. Still early in the day we decided to check out the huge/red Agra Fort. We had an exhausting 3km ride to the fort, and by exhausting I mean exhausting for the 80 year old man peddling Justina and I in the 35* heat. He gave up 1/2 way home and we had to walk the last km. We took the "long" route home through the local area winding our way through the streets of Agra, lots of kids running with us shouting hello and trying to get us to pet their monkeys...very India. On to Varanassi (the Ganges river) on the night train tonight!


Friday, September 15, 2006

Vang Viang: The Town the Lonley Planet Built

Well Well Well.....


Did I mention in my last blog post that I loved Laos? Because J'adore it even more now. On my last day in Luang Prabang I hiked up the 300+ steps to the wat in the middle of the town - over looking the Mekong river and mountains...so beautiful. Then went to give blood at the local red cross - Not quite the same as Cambie street, but fun nonetheless. You get a free massage afterwards! That afternoon me and some of the slow boat people took a tuk-tuk out to the waterfalls around Luang Prabang. There are no words that can explain what they looked like. Even 'waterfall' sounds too ordinary. It was an amazing afternoon swimming in the crips clear water jumping off the multiple terraces and trees.

The next morning saw a few of us head down to Vang Viang, a town about 200km away, but on Lao roads that means at least 7 hours. Within the first 20 minutes on our bus 50% of the Lao passengers were sick and there was a moat of puke running down the centre isle of the bus. It was a disgusting ride to say the least. Unfortunate because the scenery was incredible. If you could forget how dangerous the actual road was, the limestone karst cliffs and lush rainforest valleys were incredible in the early morning mist. We arrived in the town of Vang Viang (or VV) late afternoon and proceeded straight to the first "friends bar" we could find. VV is full of these bar/restaurants that instead of chairs, have beds that all face 2-3 TV screens and play Friends episodes (or Simpsons) 22 hours a day. No joke. Its great for veging out - but doesn't do much for the conversations! There are a lot of travelers who hate VV for that reason, but as I discouvered there is SO much more to that town if you look past the travel agencies, seedy guesthouses and friends bars. It's an outdoor mecca where you can do anything from rock climbing, river tubing, kyaking, caving, trekking...sometimes all in the same day!

Of course everyone goes to VV mainly to do one thing. Tube down the Nam Son river. They've got the setup down pat for sure! You walk 10 meters down the road and rent a tractor tube for the day. Then you jump in a tuktuk and drive 20 minutes to the drop off point. You get in the crisp river and in less than 2 minutes you're at the first BEERLAO bar. The bars use long bamboo sticks with tubes attached to pull you in and if you buy a Beerlao or Laolao you get to use their "funpark" as much as you want. The Funparks start at the first bar as a bamboo platform about 5m in the air, and a zip line straight into the middle of the river. Its so fun!! And going down is only 1/2 the fun, when you surface you find yourself 20m down river and have to fight to get to the shore and climb up the sharp rocks...to go again!!! The same theme continues for the next 5 or so bars, with the fun parks getting bigger and bigger. The best is the third bar that has a 15m trapeze that swings you accross the river and its a matter of deciding to let go at the begining when you're going really fast or after a few swings when your fingers feel like they're giong to fall off. The 4th bar has a big swing that fits 4 people on it. The fifth bar is a surfboard (ok shack door) that you can surf the river current on, the sixth bar has a 10m diving board....You get the point. There are also caves that are a bit inland from the bars, and after a few jumps into the river exploring the caves is relaly exciting. Tubing down the river itself is supposed to take 1.5 hours, on our first day we spent 8 our there. I loved it so much that I went again the next day!!!! I could barely lift my full bottle of Beerlao though my muscles were so sore and legs so scratched up!

I also did a 2 day lead rock climbing course while I was there in the mornings before tubing. It was really fun as there were only 3 of us plus the guides, and th scenery was incredible. I learned the basics of lead climbing, and more importantly learned that I need to start working out some more if I want to do anymore climbing!!!

After 3 days of tubing you really get to know every traveler staying in VV, that combined with the rest of our slow boat crew ariving serisously ment that I couldn't walk 1m without running into someone at the Luang Prabang Bakery or Corner Cafe or Namlao Discotheque. Lots of long nights with Irish, British, American, Austrian, Canadian, Chilean, and South Africans drinking snake whiskey and beer lao. It was hard to leave, but that ticket to India is burning a hole in my backpack! I'm in Vietnane right now, and back to being in love with the incredible Lao cities. The cute little cafes mixed with dirt roads and torn up sidewalks with tuktuks and Beerlao signs everywhere. I just love it. With the teeny bit of Thai I speak combined with the teeny bit of French, I think I almost am considered fluent in Laos! Now if only I could find a use for my Afrikaans.....

I've only got 100,000 klip left and 24 hours to spend here in Vietiene - I'm pretty sure 99.9999% of it is going to be spent at the incredible bakeries here though!!! I'm staying at a really nice guesthouse right on the river, and got to eat some incredible meals at the little cafes that line the semi-paved streets here. I wandered to the Arc de Triumph that the Lao government built with concrete donated by the US to build roads...burn! They also built it 10cm bigger than the one in France just to spite their former colonial rulers...double burn!

(and I just put up all my Laos pics in a webshots album, check it out cuz it took me 2 hours!)


Monday, September 11, 2006

It's Time to Switch to Laolao We've Been Drinking Beerlao All Night

In Laos, Safe sex means having a condom ride shotgun in your tuktuk.

I'm in love with Laos - not so much with these slowboats though


Just arrived in Luang Prabang after 3 days of grueling travel. First I left Nan on Friday, of course when they told me, "YES you can get a bus straight from Nan to Chaing Kong" in reality it was just a thai-yes. A Thai-yes neither confirms that they comprehend your question nor does is it an afirmative response to your question. It is just a sound they make. So I ended up having to transfer busses twice, once at the side of a road and another at a random bus staition where I was again the only farang for miles. I ended up 8 hours later at the Thai immigration check point, and they didn't want to let me leave since I had just renewed my visa...that is until it turned out taht the immigration office went to Sriwiangsawittayakarn school a long time ago. Once that was figured out I was expidted through and didn't even have to pay the bogus 20 baht "bribe". Got a small boat accross the mekong and checked into Laos immigration. Bought or visas there, whcih were supposed to be 15 day visas, but they gave us 30 day ones. Hm? Great. Met a British couple who I went out for dinner with, but Huay Xai is a really small town so we were back at the guesthouse by 9pm.

The next morning got on the 2-day slow boat that was to take us down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. (A much better option than the 20 hour bus ride on Lao-roads) There were about 25 other farangs there - all of us sitting on the 2-piece plywood seats. Not the most comfortable! We survived the first day of 7 hours though through lots of card games and the Beerlao service onboard. Our stopover was in Pak Beng which is a one road town filled with guesthouses and sandwich shops. A few british travelers and I followed some 17 year old girl from the dock to her family guesthouse, which was nice and cheap, but dark due to the lack of electricity. We went out for a great Indian dinner and lost track of time enjoying more Beerlao at a riverside restaurant and missed our 11pm cirfew and had to walk back in the dark and wake up the family to let us back in. Oops. The next morning we piled back on the slowboat (which in Asian style, got smaller and more uncomfortable) in the pouring rain and tried to prep ourselves for the 9 hour trip that day. It wasn't too exciting at all, more cards, more travel stories shared, and even flatter bottoms.

We arrived in Luang Prabang, the UNESCO World Heritage City, that evening and ended up at a beautiful guesthouse with friendly owners and a nice terrace to enjoy...more beerlao ;) I'm in LOVE with Luang Prabang, its an incredible city with such a nice feel to it. Lots of French colonial influce in the architecture and food (best bakeries here....I just had an apple croissant to die for) and its just a nice laid back river side town. Going to hike up to the temple on a hill overlooking hte city for sundowners tonight. And tommorow going on a trek to the nearby caves and incredible waterfalls. Probably throw in a few more pastries too...and some more beerlao ;)

Thursday, September 07, 2006

What/Where/Who/How Laura?!?!


Alright, time I explain a few things here I think...

Today is my last day of teaching at Sriwiangsawittayakarn and my last day living in Wiang Sa. Apparently we're celebrating with the Ovaltine truck coming to school and giving us free Ovaltine CRUNCH all day and playing bad thai pop music and carnival games. Anyways I digress....

Tommorow i'm catching a bus to Huay Xai, just accross the Mekong river in Laos. From there I'm planning to take the 2 day boat to Luang Prabang, see the waterfalls and bakeries there. Then go to Vang Viang to partake in the (in)famous river tubing/rope swinging/dock bar experience. Then kyaking to Vietnanne to go to more bakeries. (I got my travel plans from Megan and Heather...can you tell?) From there its an overnight train to Bangkok where I get to thai up some more loose ends until I fly out to India the night of September 17th

I'm meeting Justice at the Dehli airport and hopefully we'll get out alive to celebrate her birthday that night. (For future reference Justice = Justina and Lifa = Laura ...might get confusing) and the next three months will be filled with adventures in and around India, Nepal with possible detours to Tibet and Bhutan. Might be meeting up with Caitlin (from my Cape Town days) too in there.

I'll be blogging as much as possible - and hope to hear from you all!
See ya at Christmas

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

THAI-ing Up Loose Ends

(thanks maeve...)

So its all coming to an end...

My last week here in Wiang Sa i've been thinking a lot about what this experience was really like. I can't say I enjoyed every minute of it, but it also wasn't a complete disaster...how can I put it?

I absoultley love the people I've met. And it's hard to seperate those incredible experiences from the bigger role of the project, i'm not even sure if they should be completley seperated since our involvement in the community is a part of this project....But I can't say enough about Noot, Julie, Mel, Mem, Oil, Pa Pian, Uncle Jai, and all those other people who have such complicated names I will never be able to pronounce them....

First the teaching. After this I know i'll never go into teaching as a career, it's not that I dislike children or hate teaching itself, I'm just not cut out for the job. That is for sure. But it has also given me so much more respect for people who are actual teachers, and good ones at that. I look back at my experiences in high school and elementary school to those incredible teachers I had (Ms. Day in grade 5 at Southlands, Mr. Keenlyside in french at PG, Mr. Procyk in Biology at PG...etc) And i'm just even more amazed at their skills.

I think I would have appreciated the teaching aspect to this experience much more if I had acutally had some previous knowledge or training as to what I was getting into. I constantly compare it to swimming. If you're just thrown into a pool with no idea of what 'swimming' is, how to make the physical strokes, or have the knowledge of sinking or floating....you're going to hate every moment in that pool. But if someone explains to you how to float, and then introduces you to the skills needed to do the front crawl or tread water...well then the pool becomes a fun experience. In the teaching here I have defentily realized my limitations as an un-trained teacher. You can only do so many crossword and simon-says games, and the most frustrating moments are when you don't know how to teach a child vocab or sentance structure, things that would come with more training. So yes, I've defenitly gained a whole new respect for teachers, and not just in the fact they spend most of their days surrounded by little brats ;)

Also I've been thinking about this whole 'volunteering' experience. Anyone who knows me, knows i've been obsessed with everything international since I took my first POL260 course at UBC. the UN, MSF, Rwanda, Cambodia, Somalia, Diplomats, etc... and finally getting this introduction to the world of international volunteer experinces (be it the 'diet coke' Thailand GAP version or not) has been much more valuable for myself than any experiences i've had actually teaching.

It's hard to explain to someone who has never gone abroad for an extended volunteer placement, and i'm not trying to be cocky here or anything, but honest. In fact although lots of people think that its one big 'feel good' trip that by going abroad and volunteering your time and services you will come home feeling all fuzzy and good about your contribution to the world. Not really. In reality you learn a lot more about failure than success. It's hard to explain, but imagine you wake up every morning and think about what you have to do that day. Well not only teach english to kids, but give them the skills, confidence and will to use these skills to further their education and lives. Well, i'm pretty sure i'm not going to tick off that task as complete today. So before you even opened your eyes you feel that sense of failure. This isn't even taking into consideration the other tasks you have to do to get yourself through the day. Find food to eat (hopefully edible), try to get daily chores done with access to water/electricity/soap/gas (take your pic depending on the day). Not to mention the langage barrier. What about communication ? Just to ask a question or engage in a sanity-saving conversation with another person it takes SO much energy and effort to do.

It was VERY overwhelming having so much failure during my first few months here. Personally and through the project. Some of the hardest times I had emotionally were when I let the failures get to me and cloud my mind. What saved me was when I eventually came to the realization that I loved the failures. What seperated myself from someone who would let the continuing failures really get to them and cause them to give up and go home was the fact that I actually enjoyed the failures. And just because I encountered a small failure that didn't mean that the whole project was a failure either! That kinda sounds weird, but what really happened was that I realized I was involved in something so much more than a simple task that I could "complete" with "success". A project like this is ongoing and the failures aren't in fact true failures, but just the continuing challenges. And I love challenges. Even more than I thought I did before this. So while I may have said (ok while I did say, a lot) that this or that sucked or I hated something about the project - really I just was feeling the challenge of working through a task that seemed to have no forseeable goal in the near-future.

So I guess i'm trying to say that I didn't do this project for any sort of altruistic reasons. I wish I could say that I felt a moral purpose while helping out in the rural schools of Thailand, but honestly I got involved, and stayed involved with this project because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge of putting others needs before my own, and working through cultural differences. Selfish? Yes. But is it really? Like one of my favourite books right now - Hope In Hell: Stories from MSF in the Field - a MSF volunteer who has been to some of the worst areas on earth said: "I hated everything about my first assignment, but at the same time I loved every moment of hating it" I can't explain how true that is.

The first month I was sure that I would need to find another career. How could I possibly want to go abroad again and work in this type of environment?? No thanks. But now i'm as addicted as ever. Just no more loud thai kids 8 hours a day please....

That being said i've had an AWESOME last week, the first bit was not fun with zero running water for 4 days (that's 5 without a shower for all keeping track) and then got a bit sick, but nothing that a few rounds of Cirpo couldn't clear up. Last night we went out for what the teachers told me was my going away dinner, but then it was another teacher's birthday...so I didn't figure that out. Regardless it was at an incredible restuarant built out of palm trees and bamboo shoots right on the Nan river. Nan right now is lit up with millions of little white lights and street markets since its Dragon Boat races weekend. We had an incredible dinner of baby corn & prawns in garlic, sweet and sour chicken and cashews, tom kai, flowered hotdogs (really good...trust me) and fried rice. I'm going to miss the Thai buffet style dinners....mmmm. Anyways i've got 2 days to finish watching my VCD's, send home a bunch of Thai junk, and pack up some stuff for India! I'm leaving Thailand in less than 48 hours!!!!

Friday, September 01, 2006

Thank You Party Laura and Mo




















So a couple of pics from my last full week in Wiang Sa. The first is of Pa Pian and one of our other neighbors working on dinner. (Pa Pian is the one with the freshly died hair, she wanted it to look more like my "chocolate hair") A couple of our backyard chickens had to be sacrificed for our Pad Thai Kai...oh well. Its funny though because we just got an email from someone in the GAP offices in Thailand telling us that to be safe in Thailand we should try to stay away from live poultry and poultry products. Well, hmmmmmm. That's ok there's no bird flu in Wiang Sa!

Then there's a glamour shot of Maeve at the Greek Restaurant in Chiang Mai that we went to for her birthday. The anatomically-incorrect mural on the wall really added some ambiance to the whole Greek experience. Not to mention the owner of the place buying her 8 roses, and mixing extra strong Vodka/diet cokes.





Then there are these wonderful shots from "THANK YOU PARTY LAURA AND MO" that the teachers at Sriwiangsawittayakarn gave us last night. Miranda is leaving for Bangkok today, so we had the whole goodbye celebrations already. It was an interesting experiences. First it started with a monk in civillian clothing coming to bless us with good luck for the future. A pretty intricate cerimony that involved us sitting infront of him with the two banana leave statues things that the students made. And a dead chicken or two with some random thai sweets. We held onto the string and Wei'd for about 20 minutes while he chanted and chanted and chanted and chanted (check the webshots album to see who long it went on!) Then he sprinkles us with tap water using a tree sprig and then he took some of the string from the banana leaves and tied them around our writs saying 'BAD OUT BAD OUT BAD OUT GOOD IN GOOD IN GOOD IN' Then each teacher came up and did the same. I've got some hot Avril (pre marriage) cuffs going on here now. Then the teachers made speaches and gave us some little presents. They were actually quite thoughtful since they knew I was heading to India for 3 months, gave me pocket money instead of carpets and cloths and stuff. Then we started the feast of great food. Ate so much that I was sick that night...yuck. But not before the traditional Karaoke stared. Honestly Thai people LIVE by their Karaoke skills, or should I say lack there of. Anyone will sing anything. They tried to get Miranda and I up there, but there was just no way. Some of the teachers went pretty crazy after drinking most of the whiskey and water (100 pipers, it was a special occasion!) Anyways it was a fun night. Off to Nan this weekend to say goodbye to all the farangs I've met there, then ONE MORE WEEK TILL LAOS!!!


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