Updates.

So I've been a bit behind on catching this blog up. Since I am home from school, sick with strep throat, I figured this would be the best time for me to get all up-to-date. When I last left you, I was trekking through the jungles of Laos and spending time in Chiang Mai before semester II started at school. Well school has obviously started since it is almost Christmas time. So here are some updates:

1. New Teachers - They always seem to be coming and going! We have many new teachers in our school. Some new teachers from CIEE (the same program I came through) are Nicki, Maddy, Tessa, Ally, and Tash. We also just got another one from Tasmania for three months, Alex.

2. Weekend Travels:

Nov 1 - Nov 3 : I went to Laos again, to get a new Visa. Pain in the butt, although I got to miss some days of school since the embassy is only open on the weekdays.

Nov 13 - Nov 15 : School Exhibition, I learned some paper folding origami stuff and a group of us went to the tower we have in town that has a water park with 3 slides.

Nov 18 - nov 22 : Had a long weekend so sam, matt, tessa, susan and i went to Koh Chang for some fun in the sun. Awesome sunset photos here.

Nov 28 - Nov 29 : School's 80th Birthday, had a big to do at school in the evening. Free dinner and whiskey. On Sunday went to the Lopburi Monkey Festival, which I had already been to = already blogged about = read about in my archives.

Matt and I at the School's 80th Birthday

Dec 5 - Dec 6 : King's Birthday Weekend. Went into Bangkok to see my Thai friend Gift.

The crowd in Bangkok for the King

Dec 12 - Dec 13 : Bangkok Christmas shopping!

Vacation In-between Semesters

I know, I know, it's been a while and there is much to catch up on, so I'll get right to it. Matt and I had a two-week break at the beginning of October between semesters. We planned our trip to Chiang Mai and Laos for this break. Our tentative plan was Chiang Mai for one night, head to our 3-day Laos trip for the Gibbon Experience, and spend the rest of our vacay in Chiang Mai with a few days in Pai. Friday night we took an 10pm overnight sleeper train from Bangkok up north to Chiang Mai. Sleeper trains are the way to travel long distances, most definitely. Although it takes a bit more time than a bus, it was worth it. We arrived in Chiang Mai around 2pm, found a guesthouse, ate some dinner and booked a van for our all day drive to the Laos border. Sunday we got picked up in the morning and made it an hour before the border closed at 6pm. Once we got our paper worked checked and visa finished we headed to the Gibbon Experience headquarters to check-in.

Some background info: I heard about the Gibbon Experience through the program I came to teach through. They mentioned it during orientation and I had it set in my mind that I was going to do it before I left Southeast Asia. A few friends had done it as well during our summer vacation in March and April. They all raved about it. The Gibbon Experience is located in the north of Laos in a village called Ban The. The gist of it is that you spend 3 days and 2 nights living in treehouses and zip lining from tree to tree. You are on the lookout for Gibbons although it is very rare to actually see one. You can choose the Classic Experience, which is more zipping than hiking or the Waterfall Experience, which is more hiking, less zipping, but you get to swim in a waterfall and do more of the different zip courses. Matt and I both decided on the Waterfall Experience. This would come back to haunt us.

The Start of our Gibbon Experience:

Monday - Oct 12

We woke up, ate some breakfast and waited for our video introduction at the Gibbon office at 8am. We met the other 4 people in our group. We left for the jungle in a pick up truck and headed off. It was about an hour and a half ride to the village where we started our hike. The last half hour of the drive was across a river and through muddy, uneven roads to this village. When we arrived we met our two guides: Tcha-ya and Lu. They were both young guys who did this whole trek in flipflops! Before we started heading into the jungle, the other group from 3days before us were coming out of the jungle. Only to warn us about the many leeches we were about to encounter. Awesome.

It was about an hour hike to our first treehouse. The hike was brutal uphill climbs and by the end it was raining on us cause the ground to be muddy and slippery. And of course the leeches.. all over our shoes, inside our socks, making us bleed. Apparently these tricky little leeches give you anesthesia when they bite you so you don't know when you are being bitten. So we arrived at treehouse #6 wet and tired. We did some ziplining and once in the house Matt and I were dead tired. We showered and relaxed in the treehouse for the rest of the night. The guides brought us some delicious Loas food for dinner and then bed time.

A Leech on my shoe

Tuesday - Oct 13

The day I thought I was going to die. We woke up at 6:30am to our guides zipping into our treehouse with fruit and coffee. The guides told us we had an optional morning hike to look for animals. Knowing that we had a long hike ahead of us that day, Matt and I decided to stay behind and do some zip lining around the treehouse instead. When the other came back from their hike we packed our stuff and headed off for the next treehouse we were going to stay in. Part I of the hike was easy.. 30 mins to a waterfall. Not bad, I thought, easier than yesterday. The waterfall was amazing and felt so good. We ate some food after swimming and then headed off again. This hike, not so easy. This 2 hour brutal uphill hike was not for me. I was tired, I thought my legs were going to fall off and those damn leeches were making me feet uncontrollably bleed. Matt thankfully offered to trade backpacks with me to lighten my load. When we finally arrived at treehouse #5 all I wanted was my leechy sneakers off and to sit down. The rain for the second day in a row wasn't helping either. It got to the point where it was raining so hard we had to stay in the treehouse for the rest of the night. This treehouse was my favorite. It was 3 floors and had amazing views. Our amazing group stayed up all night playing cards, eating delicious food and talking.

Wednesday - Oct 14

The last day. Everyone woke up early to get some extra zipping in. After an hour zipping we packed our stuff and said goodbye to the treehouse. On the way back to the village where we started we made some pitstops at other treehouses to do some zipping which was awesome. When we reached the village we were muddy, bloody, and a bittersweet end to our journey. At least I thought it was the end of our journey. We all hoped into the pick up and headed off on the hour and a half ride back to the town when clouds started to move in. And then came the downpour. On muddy, uneven roads with holes all over our awesome pick up truck got stuck 3 times in the mud. All of us would have to get out of the truck, stand in the mud, and try and help. The Loas way of fixing truck that are stuck in the mud: go into the woods with a machete, chop down a part of a tree and lodge it under the truck to lift it out of the hole while someone else shoves a giant rock under the tire. Eventually, we made it to the paved roads and stopped for lunch. By the time we got back to the town, Matt and I just wanted to get clean and get a place to sleep.

The muddy, uneven road we drove on

Overall, an unforgettable experience. We met some amazing people who have traveled to some amazing places and hopefully we will get to see them again. Although the hiking was rigorous, we had a good time and enjoyed being able to sleep in treehouses and zip line through jungles. And spent the rest of our vacation in beautiful Chiang Mai. There are more pictures/videos of our trip on my photo website. Check them out!

Smells like teen spirit.

Well talk about hard work paying off. This thursday and friday we have no classes for the Sport Carnival. The students in the whole school use the last period before the end of the day and after school to practice for this event. The students are divided into 6 house colors: red, yellow, blue, pink, green and purple. The M6 students organize pretty much everything. Each color has a dance, music, theme which are all created by the students. The whole sports carnival was a 2-day event. The beginning of the day started with a dance by each color then sports competitions. They had volleyball, basketball, soccer, bocce ball, badminton and many more.

Matt and I were on the yellow team. And luckily the yellow team won for best dance! It was a lot of fun and even better because we had two days off from sschool! Pictures are on my website and they are pretty exciting to see!

swine flu mask proliferation!

Swine flu. Beware! It's quite a feat to try to enunciate english words through a bright green cloth over your mouth strapped to your face. Each classroom in the EP program has been given boxes of masks with the regulation that EVERY student MUST wear their mask in the classroom otherwise the air conditioner will be turned off. Not only do the students have to wear these masks, that are now colorfully decorated and drawn on, but the teachers also must wear these masks. I never did think that one day I would have my own personal surgical mask without an MD degree. Interesting.

But it is quite a culture shock to walk into a classroom where you can only see the eyes of each students peering out at you behind a green or white mask. Apparently the flu has become increasingly prevalent in the central Thailand area. But lucky for me I'm healthy as a horse and plan to keep it that way! I'll try and get some pictures of my classes soon to post!

July 4th Weekend

It is nice to have a long weekend for July 4th. Even though it was for Buddhist Lent and not US Independence Day, but all the same I suppose because we got a 5 day weekend. Also, Matt got here on Thursday! So we got to relax on Ko Samet for our long weekend! We took a 3 hours bus to Ban Phe which then we took a ferry about an hour to the island. The part of the island we were staying didn't have a dock so a tinier boat had to come pick us up from the ferry and drive us to the shore. Surprisingly, the area of the island there are lots of Thai's and barely any foreigners.

It did rain all day on Monday but Tuesday's weather was amazing. We made friends with one of the only foreign bartender's from Holland who ran The Baywatch Bar. He made a killer Long Island Iced Tea. We sadly came back on Wednesday afternoon, spent a little time in Bangkok and headed back to Suphanburi. All in all not a bad way to spend the holiday!

Oh those Thai crazies, they are out there.

I was all set for a relaxing weekend, with Friday off from school, to lay on an island 3 hrs South of Bangkok with my friend Glyn. I head out Friday morning get into Bangkok on time.. things are running smoothly enough for me to stop and eat some delicious American food before I head to the bus station. As I cross the street to the bus Station an attendant from one of the buses pulling out runs off the bus and asks where I'm heading. I say "wangchan, Rayong provience". He agrees shaking his head "yes, yes, here, here" I repeat.. "rayong? going to rayong?" he assures me that this is the bus to Wangchan, Rayong. Hesitantly, I get on the bus.. it can't be that easy.

Glyn tells me that it is a 3 hours ride to Wangchan and a 2.5 hour ride to Rayong city. I sit in the front row so the attendant can remember to tell me where to get off since I have never been there before. As 3 hours pass, no signs of wangchan or bus stops approaching. We also seem to be stopping every 5 minutes to pick up and drop off new people. I ask the man again.. "wangchan?" he says he will let me know when we get there. So I tell Glyn that we are definitely going to wangchan but I seem to not be describing what Glyn wants to hear. Finally, at the 5 hour mark, the attendant, who's smiling face I was about to drop kick, lets me off in Rayong city. Not only was I not in Wangchan but I had another 40 minute Songtaew ride into Glyn's town. After which Glyn had told me that we missed the last ferry to ko samet so we couldn't get there this weekend.

When I finally arrived in Wangchan we decided that drinks would be first priority and that the weekend we'll think about later. We hung out with Glyn's Thai friends and decided we would head into Bangkok the next day for the rest of the weekend. Later in the night Big Ass' (Glyn's Thai friend) mother comes back a bit after midnight with her catchings of grosshoppers. She goes into the fields at night and catches them by hand to sell at the market. Apparently they are quite the money maker. She fried some up for us.. and yes.. I ate some. They pretty much taste like whatever you fry them in, so it wasn't too bad. Quite an experience.

The next morning we get to the bus station and I'm actually quite excited that this bus ride will only be 3 hours. We get on the bus and an hour into our ride we hear a loud banging noise. We glance back and two rows back a Thai man is banging his head, hard, against the bus window. He had a charlie mansion look on his face and the attendant came running and wrestled him down. We had to pull the bus over at the local police station. The window was pretty well cracked and we were surprised the man's head wasn't swollen. They got him off the bus and since the window was broken we couldn't use that bus. We had to sit on the side of the road at high noon in the dead heat and wait for another bus to pass us by. We sat for about 2 hours. Which made this bus ride, another 5 hour ride. Of course.

Glyn and I found out later from a Thai woman who spoke some english that this man apparently wanted to break through the window and jump out of the bus?! So at least I didn't get to see that happen. Only in Thailand.

... and we had a good rest of the weekend once we got to Bangkok.

Back in action..

Well it has been a while readers. When I last left, it was Song Kran in April and I was preparing to be homeward bound. Well I've been home and back and then some. Home was great, and even better to see some familiar faces. But as it is never a dull moment in Thailand lots have been going on since I've been back. School started middle of May and brought with it new teachers, new students and new schedule. We are expecting more teachers middle of May which is exciting and we have a new teachers aid Sam from Tazmania and also a new Chinese teacher, SiSi.

June 4th was the first school-related "no classes" day so far this year. It was "teacher day" (wai kru). The gist of this day is that there are no classes and most of the teachers sit on a stage and all the student present their flower/fruit/vegetable arrangements to the teachers on stage. Now let me remind you the school is M1-M6 each class having many classes within the grade. For example: M1/1, M1/2, M1/3, M1/4.. and so on until about M1/10 or so. For each grade. So two people from each class come to present. This is a whoole day event. Morning: M1, M2, M3. Afternoon: M4, M5, M6. After the presentation of flowers, then awards are given. Luckily Brett and I were placed in the back row on stage so it was easy to "disappear" from time to time stage left. We stayed for most of the morning and not much of the afternoon. I did manage to take pictures though so check those out of the website.

Classes this year so far are good. I'm teaching M1/1 & M1/2 in Reading and Writing; M4 in fundamental and traveling around suphanburi (which as far as knowing the town I don't), M5 and M6. I actually enjoy teaching the older students as I thought I might not. But we are reading Matilda in my M5 and M6 classes, which is always interesting. That's all for now, more later.