Thursday 25 December 2008

New PM, ABC News, oh and Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone! I had a great day here in Thailand. This morning in front of the whole school, Shaleas, Kelly and I sang 'Silent Night' and 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' while Devon played the violin. It was a beautiful sight. Kelly also told the historical story of the real Santa - St Nick, and a student spoke the words of the song 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' among other activities. 

The kids enjoyed having one more thing to yell at us down the hallways. Now instead of just "Hello teacher! Good morning!" it's "Hello teacher! Good morning! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

My friend Kara had sent me a can of cranberry jelly, powdered mashed potatoes and powdered gravy from the States which the four of us made and ate with some good chicken for Christmas dinner. Then it was followed up by some delicious mince pies and traditional Christmas pudding which I received this morning from London thanks to Naomi!
After stuffing our faces we watched The Christmas Story on Kelly's laptop and I now feel appropriately 'Christmassy.' But now Christmas is about to be over, so what now? By the way, HILARIOUS skit about the time between Christmas and New Years by Michael McIntyre here. Please check it out, he is hilarious. American's may not find him as funny, so Brits, enjoy. :)

I hope you've all had a great holiday, it was definitely strange not being home for the first time, but I got lots of love from a lot of you through cards, e-mails and Facebook messages so thanks so much for that. 

Moving on briefly...

A few blog posts ago I wrote about the political situation here in Thailand.

Since then I've mentioned that Thailand does now have a new Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. One blog reader asked me what I thought about him. Right now I'm not sure what to think. He represents a political party that I'm not particularly supportive of, however if you check out what he has said in that past (read here, thank you Wikipedia...it's on the internet so it must be true right?) he seems to be all about helping out the people. The PAD as a party appear to be more about supporting the rich and ignoring the poor, but Abhisit says he supports creating free health care and lower gas prices among other things, which clearly help out the less fortunate in this country, of which there are many. So in other words, I don't know and I will wait and see just like everyone else! He was educated at Eton and Oxford (more bio information here) so maybe it's just my innate tendencies to love my fellow Brits...

As far as news in other parts of the world - my only connection to the Western World is Aljazeera, the Internet, and my podcasts. I am a podcast junkie, subscribing to over two dozen including ABC Nightly News. I am currently watching the December 22nd episode, and I just want to say how ridiculous it is that the FIRST headline news story; the one Charles Gibson/whoever actually organises the show thought was most important, was the weather. That's right everyone, it's winter. In winter, it snows sometimes. Sometimes a lot. Apparently this year, so much snow that it trumped the economic downturn, the many wars going on in the world,  and all the other fun things Charles Gibson chatted about. The reporter on the scene - standing in front of some ...snow... Linsey Davis (someone should tell her there's a D in Lindsey) described it as 'bone numbing.' That's one level above 'bone chilling' I guess? Fascinating stuff. Also in the podcast - you can now buy an attachment for your iPhone called the iBreath to test your own alcohol blood content. Love technology. 

That's it for now. I miss you all especially during this holiday season, so have a great time and Happy New Year!!

Tuesday 23 December 2008

English camp and English nicknames..

So just over a week ago I went down to Nakhon Sawan with Kelly, Shaleas and Kru Rin to help out at an English camp for the day. 
It was fun, nothing too much to report, but I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss the ridiculous nicknames Thai children have.

When Thai kids are babies, their parents name them, and then also give them a nickname that they go by except in more formal situations. Some of the names are nothing to look twice at, but some are priceless. In their quest to be more American, a lot of Thai kids are given English words as nicknames. I don't mean English nic
knames, like Tom, Nick, Ali, etc. I mean just completely random words, including 'Milk,' 'Beer' and 'Tutor.' Pictured here are 'Bank,' 'Nut' and 'Beer.'

At English camp I think I found my favourite name so far. God. I met a child named God. I'm not sure if he had any divine tendencies, but I started to doubt it after watching the way he fumbled through 'Head, shoulders knees and toes.' 

At camp, the kids were also split into groups, with names from Disney characters and things like that. Except one group. The Playboy group. Referring 
back to the picture of the three boys, you'll see that Bank and Beer were both members of this group.
The teachers insist that it's okay, because they don't know that Playboy is a company that promotes sex and naked women. Maybe that's true, but it is still disturbing to hear a group of eight year olds singing 'I like Playboy, you like Playboy, I like Playboy, let's all be friends!' 

The day after camp, Kru Rin's friend showed us around the city, which was nice. I bought a kick-ass jacket at the night market. It's amazing. It's made of plastic, but that's a 
small detail and if you could see it you would all be jealous. Or you should be at least. I'm sure it will feature in a photo some time in the future. For now you'll just have to imagine it.
The Friday after we 
came back from camp, our school had their Exhibition day which was a day of good food cooked by the students, singing, dancing, a
nd all around good times. I even got some students to make a custom cloth bag for me with my name in Thai letters painted on it which I love. 


















Since then, it's just been school as usual, although I have to admit that the pangs of homesickness are starting to kick in a bit. It's definitely going to be hard to be away from home over Christmas, but thanks to all of you that have sent Christmas cards and/or care packages so far, including the lovely e-card I received from Blair, and the card from Liz! :) Thanks as well to Johanna, Kara, Jackie and Naomi who between them are supporting the Thai postal system's finances. :) I know some more of you have sent packages and I can't wait to receive them. 

This Thursday we'll be singing some carols and playing lots of Christmas games with the kids, so I'll let you know how it goes! Miss you tons, have a great Christmas/Hanukkah and Happy New Year!

Monday 22 December 2008

My encounters with Thai wildlife...

Apparently December is spider season here in Tha Wang Pha.

If you know me at all, and especially if you've ever lived with me, you will know that I suffer from pretty major arachnophobia. I'd like to take this time to thank my previous roommates for their wonderful tolerance of my problem. Especially when residing on Buswell Street, Boston. Any BU alum/students reading this who have ever lived in an old South Campus brownstone know how fun the bug problems can become...

Anyway, last week I was pleasantly surprised by a rather large (but thankfully already dead) spider that had managed to jam itself in between the open slits in my bathroom wall and the screen that I am SO happy we had installed. When we first moved in, these open slits which presumably serve the purpose of ventilating the bathroom (and making sure it is always cold in there at night) were exposed, and Kelly, Shaleas and I found ourselves with a whole host of guests including beetles, geckos (which are actually very welcome since they take care of my mosquito problem), and at one point a frog. Nothing too scarring, but a slight nuisance nonetheless, so we all had a wire screen installed to cover up these slits.
Fast forward again to last week and I had to spot this spider (about the size of my palm with nice hairy legs) jammed in this screen. Kelly, my official spider assassin, somehow managed to use the combination of a wire hanger and some water from my shower to push the spider back out into the back area where I hope he made a nice dinner for the chickens. 

So I thought that was bad. Come to yesterday morning when Devon and Shaleas discovered a live spider, reportedly even larger than my deceased friend, running around the bedroom. Needless to say that resulted in some blood curdling screams from Shaleas, although they did take their time trying to capture it, deciding instead to video tape the experience. I did not partake in this event except to yell at Shaleas for waking me up with a noise that sent chills down my spine, so I cannot comment first hand on the spider, but those involved were clearly pretty shaken by it all. 

So just to confirm that we clearly have an infestation of enormous spiders, Kelly was visited by one this morning, also stuck between her bathroom slits and the screen, alive. Being far more rational about these things, she went about her business and left it alone. Needless to say this recent sequence of events has not helped to settle my nerves.

At least I don't live near here. Cyanide millipede?! Come on now. 

Thursday 18 December 2008

Me: "Hey internet, want to upload some photos today?" Internet: "Hmmm...well it's been awhile, so sure why not!"

Apparently my internet connection got up on the right side of bed this morning and has briefly allowed me the ability to upload photos, so here are a few!

Juliette's visit to Tha Wang Pha:


Out on the rice fields before sunset


Hanging out at the apartment (that's my room behind us)


Shaleas and Devon outside the apartment


Sports Day:



One of the medal ceremonies I was able to preside over.




My adopted colour for the day - blue, or sii fah if you speak Thai



The seniors on the purple stage dancing and trying to keep the first years motivated


During the parade, each colour was led by a student dressed in traditional Thai costume. I chose this student to post on my blog but as beautiful as she is, she is actually a he. Love those ladyboys. 

The purple dancers in the parade


Tuesday 16 December 2008

Pai, Thailand. Where life is good, all the time.

Thailand loves their king a whole lot. So every year on December 5th the entire country celebrates his birthday.

(For more about just how protective they are about the royal family check this out. You can go here to see the article that caused the problem; a very good read)

I took the three day weekend as an opportunity to check out some more of this country. So on Thursday I hopped a bus to Chang Mai where I met up with Jen, who teaches in Chang Rai, and James who I was meeting for the first time after some e-mail correspondence thanks to our good mutual friend Rachel Mennies. 

After a stroll and some shopping around Chang Mai's wonderful night market, eating one and a half enormous yet delicious Mexican style burritos made by a guy from New Orleans, and a few bars, we hit the hay at our favourite Chang Mai guesthouse - Top North and prepared for the long day we had ahead of us. 

Friday morning we woke up, and after a few failed attempts, found a motorbike rental shop that had three Honda 125 Dream's that could be ours for the weekend. As the only member of our threesome to have ever driven a motorbike, myself and the bike rental employees began a little lesson for biker newbies Jen and James. Three minutes later we were off (after all you learn faster from experience right?). After navigating some serious Chang Mai city traffic, filling up on petrol and finding the right road, I led the way into the mountains on our way to Pai.

About 40 kilometres into the ride we hit Route 1095 which would lead us all the way to Pai on one 136 km long trip. To get from Chang Mai to Pai you have to get over the top of Thailand's northern mountain ranges. If you've ever driven up or down a mountain, you know the only way to do it is to weave back and forth, while the road turns back on itself and you make 180 degree turns while fighting up or down a 40 degree hill. This is not a road you want to take on a rickety old bus. Trust me, I saw those buses trying to climb at a 5km/hour pace and it's a wonder that the fronts didn't slowly lift up and let gravity finish the job down into the valley. 

But on my trusty Honda Dream, it was the greatest drive I've done. We stopped on the way to check out Mork-Fa Waterfall in Doi Suthep National Park. If you're there, it is well worth the 200 Baht entrance fee. After that, and another stop at a roadside vendor for some Pad See-You we found ourselves in the happiest place I've found in Thailand. 

It was probably the combination of a long exhausting ride, the beautiful clear night, the lantern lights lining the river and the bustling walking street/night market but I haven't felt that at peace in awhile. Jen and James very quickly got tired of my repeated declaration that I was going to find a way to live here somehow. 
After struggling through the mobbed walking streets and discovering that no one in Pai actually knows the names of the roads they live on, we finally found our guesthouse and our little cabin room. It's a decent guesthouse called Golden Hut run by a hippie with huge dreadlocks, with hammocks, table tennis tables, and beds with mosquito nets hanging over them which always seem to add a touch of romanticism to a place, even if their real job is to keep the malaria-infected mosquitoes away. It was pretty rustic, don't stay here if you're high maintenance, but I enjoyed it. 

After showering and changing we ventured back out on to the walking street for some good food and good music. We ended up spending most of the night sitting/standing on the street by a band who had set up their gear in between two banks to play and promote their show the following night. They were a great bunch of guys, one of whom had an English wife from St Albans (where I went to school for almost four years) who we chatted with for awhile. We had nowhere to stay the following night and we asked her about this, and she insisted that we were definitely not going to find a place. The problem was that this was a national three-day weekend and Pai has become a very popular tourist destination for Thais, so the place really was packed to capacity. 

We called it an early night, I woke up at dawn the next morning and starting the process of calling up all the guesthouses I had a number for to find another room. That failed, so I showered and went to Golden Hut's reception to ask for help. They called up a lady who gave us 'rooms' for the night. We moved our stuff to our new residence to find that we were actually sleeping on the floor of this woman's living room on mattresses, but it was probably cleaner than the Golden Hut, and at that point we were taking what we could get. We thanked her for the room, hopped on our bikes and went to see what Pai was all about. We checked out their waterfall (pretty, but not as impressive as Mork Fa), the beautiful canyons and the natural hot springs (which have a 200 Baht entrance fee too...still not sure if that one was worth it). The natural hot springs were pretty cool. The highest little pools of water were so hot that people were literally boiling eggs in them. The lower ones were still pretty hot, but some thick skinned Thais, and James, still got right in. 

After that we headed back into town, showered off the spring water which left a strange film on our skin (minerals?) and headed back out. Stop one was the best dinner I have had in Thailand. Ever. Here's where you'll all be disappointed and rolling your eyes at me - it was a burger. The best burger ever. I've already mentioned this, but Tha Wang Pha is devoid of any Western food, which sounds great, and don't get me wrong I love the food here, but rice and noodles. Everyday. It wears on you. And I'm serious when I say this was a good burger. 

Burger House is run by Ed, an old ex-pat American Vietnam vet who moved to Thailand and opened up the Burger House "because I was starving." Amazing. He offers 100% beef burger, with toasted buns, real lettuce, tomato, onion, CHEESE, real good bacon, and BBQ sauce. He even has real thick-cut chips. Not McDonalds fries, real chips. 

After that little piece of heaven, it was back to the night market for a bit then we wandered into a bar mostly because an English guy was heckling us from the balcony and telling us to come in. He was basically running a pub/bar crawl for the westerners that were in town that night. He was from Yarmouth of all places. So we hung out and played a few card games with him (I've forgotten his name and I feel bad about that...), Darren from Putney, Mack from Balham, Yelena from Germany, Dan from France, Anthony from New Zealand and a few other internationals that I didn't get the chance to chat with. From there we moved briefly to a dance club called BeBop before reaching Bamboo which encompasses a lot of how I think of Pai. Bamboo is a large hut made of...well guess, with no chairs or seating of any kind except some cushions on the floor and perhaps a few stools. For the most part you just hang out barefoot on the bamboo floor huddling around the bonfires burning in the centre. It was like a little hippie haven. 

After an unknown amount of time, Jen noticed that James had wandered off... I won't go into the details to save him the embarrassment but Jen and I ended up walking home in the hopes of bumping into him and falling asleep. Luckily James showed up a few hours later. 

Our final morning in Pai we grabbed some fried rice for breakfast and hit the road back to Chang Mai. It was a lot busier since everyone was headed back home before work on Monday, so on the route back we navigated our way past cars, large passengers vans, buses that looked like they could topple at any minute, herds of BUFFALO, baby cows that chose the middle of the road for their afternoon nap and the usual extreme turns and hills. Luckily Jen and James were veterans on the bikes by then, and Jen only fell over once, but to be fair we were going up a massive dirt hill after an unsuccessful trip to check out a geyser (another 200 Baht entrance fee which we decided was one too many fees to see nature) and the ground was like swiss cheese with holes to trip over everywhere. She was unharmed and we continued on. 

Our farewells were brief, Jen and I got a tuk tuk to the bus station and I had to immediately get on my bus without saying goodbye. I was headed for Lampang where I was meeting Kru Noy who was there for a large school competition that our students were competing in. In a few hours, after a dinner of broth and a very large pork ball (this will be relevant later) I found myself standing on the grounds of my good friends Lisa and Nate's school in Hang Chat. Unfortunately they had both taken off for the long weekend since their school was closed due to the competition, so there was no teary eyed reunion. 
I was exhausted but obligated to stay and watch some rehearsals before heading back to Kru Noy's friends house to pack it in for the night.

A few hours later I find myself in the bathroom and the large pork ball I had eaten later floating in pieces in the bowl....
Food poisoning. 
The next day isn't worth writing about, but I spent it wrestling nausea, a huge fever and the distinct wish to crawl up and pass away to another world. I will never look at pork balls the same way. I don't even like typing those words.

Luckily Wednesday was also a national holiday so when I got back to Tha Wang Pha I had another day to recover. 

So there were some highs, like discovering a place in Thailand where sadness does not exist, and some definite lows. But all in all another successful trip into this beautiful country.

Monday 15 December 2008

New PM in Thailand. Opposition wins.

Quick update on the fun going on down in Bangkok. A couple of hours ago Thailand elected a new Prime Minister. For the Americans reading this, the process did not involve the whole population voting, the system worked closer to the British way of organising things. I guess they do hold popular elections here, but because this was a special circumstance, that didn't happen.

So since the old political party got kicked out and disbanded last week, members of parliament voted for who they wanted their leader to be - and the opposition party won. That would be the party who made themselves comfortable hanging out in the airports recently. So we'll see what happens now. 

Will the rural population finally get mad enough to have an effect? We'll see..... but this is Thailand's third Prime Minister in a four month period, so they don't have a great track record so far for accepting things the way they are....

This new guy, Abhisit Vejjajiva, is young and attractive and promises change. We'll see.

Thursday 11 December 2008

PAD...PPP...too many acronyms, not enough information

I have to admit that before coming to Thailand, I knew very little about the country except that I have a lot of friends who have spent many a drunken week here diving, sunbathing, and all in all 'chilling out.' 

I also don't remember the last time I ever saw Thailand in the international news headlines. 

My how things have changed.

I've learned that Thailand isn't just a drunken beach party, and I've managed to arrive in this country just in time for it to splash its name all over the English papers paired with words like 'crisis' and 'attack.' Words I don't like to hear any more than the next guy. 

So for my readers who are just as naive to the situation here as I was just a short time ago, here's the deal:

For a few months there was a large group of anti-government protesters (the PAD, or People's Alliance for Democracy...the most ironic title they could find; will explain later, or read here for more details) on the streets, surrounding government buildings, and for a few days sitting in Bangkok's two major airports, suspending all air traffic in and out of the country's capital. Basically they wanted the Prime Minister to resign because they believe him to be corrupt (which it appears is probably true). 

The airport sit-in caused enormous disruptions to Thailand's economy as you can imagine, so the protesters definitely made their point. Check out the link for more on that, but the short version is that during Thailand's busiest tourist season (now) hotels are at a fraction of their usual capacity. Not to mention all the exports Thailand produces that couldn't fly out last week. One foreigner managed to get inside the airport and camp out with the PAD. He video taped a bunch of what he saw which you can see here.

So last week when the PAD made it clear that they in fact were quite comfortable in the airport, but thanks for asking, the leaders of the ruling party were found guilty of electoral fraud and the Prime Minister plus his executives were banned from government for five years. Ouch. Party in the airport!! 

So now everyone is sitting around and playing the waiting game. They will probably hold elections in the next couple of weeks which could be pretty interesting and could very probably make things worse regardless of the turn out. Here's why. 

The PAD is not a party for the people, nor are they democratic. So great title right? PAD members are royalists, consisting of middle/upper class citizens who believe in an appointment based government led by the royal family. So no popular elections, no democracy, the term fascist-like has been thrown around...

The PAD managed to lead a government coup a couple of years ago throwing out the previous Prime Minister, Thaksin. Only problem is, when a popular election was held after that coup, Thaksin's ally was appointed Prime Minister, because despite their ability to make a whole lot of noise, the PAD do not make up the majority of the population here. 
Do you see the problem yet?

So now here we are again, probably about to have another election. And guess what? The PAD still don't make up most of the population. The PPP (pro-government) members consist mostly of rural farmers which is a huge majority of Thailand's population. So post-election, either the PAD wins (not likely) and the majority finally get pissed off enough to do something about it, or the PPP supporters win and we've all seen what kind of mess the PAD can drum up. 

So there's the deal on Thailand. Don't you feel smarter? Now go impress someone with your knowledge and feel free to correct the mistakes I probably made. 

Play in Vienna gets a messy ending..

This has nothing to do with Thailand or me, but I just wanted to share it with a wider audience.

Moral: Don't mess with a jealous actor...

Kind of reminds me of this musical murder-mystery/comedy I saw in NYC last year called 'Curtains.' So now I only have images of David Hyde Pierce dancing around trying to solve this case sporting a trench and a Boston accent. 

Check out the article here




I just called to say...

It is so nice to be reminded that some people are in fact reading this blog and that they even get worried when I don't post. Last night I received a phone call from my lovely friend Naomi in London, calling to say hi and to make sure everything was okay due to the lack of blog updates. Now that is friendship. To my other readers...I love you all, and I'm sure you love me too...but maybe I would feel more secure about that love if I saw some more comments on my blog posts. That's all it takes people. Oh yea, and a care package. Am I being too needy here?

So to calm Naomi's and any other concerned friend/relative out there's nerves, here is my new blog post to show that I haven't in fact been taken into the jungle to be used in a non-existent cannibalistic ritual. 

There is a lot to catch up on, which means I will probably skip over some of the more insignificant events of the past couple of weeks. Like Sports Day. Was made out to be a huge deal - is more like moderately organised chaos. The students were split into colours and in each colour about 50 students competed in sports like running, high jump and javelin toss. The rest of the student body either skipped school, hung out doing nothing, or were one of the lucky (unlucky?) few to be sat on the bleachers all day waving pom-poms and cheering. The excitement for me was contained to dancing around on the stages in front of the bleachers, and getting to run in the teacher's relay. Remember on sports day at school (if you had a sports day...this may be lost on a lot of my American readers) the teachers had a race, the sole purpose of which was to give the students something to laugh at? Well welcome to the other side of the coin. But since teachers apparently cannot run even half a lap around a track, I barely had time to speed up in my leg before I had to hand my baton over. My team came in second but I still maintain that Kelly's team had an unfair victory because they had one less person. Cheaters. But I'm not bitter. 

The rest of the weekend was relatively calm in Tha Wang Pha. Juliette came to visit from Chang Rai to escape the city and come hang out in the countryside for a day. The two of us ventured out on my bike for an unintentionally romantic sunset before going out to dinner with the group followed by the usual evening ritual of entertaining ourselves outside our apartment building. 

This past weekend was significantly more eventful, but probably deserves it's own post, so sit back, maybe go get some food, or go to work depending on what time you are reading this. Maybe by the time you come back I will have some new posts about my adventures.