School competitions/ karaoke/ and Loy Kratong Festival

The school competition last weekend was a lot of fun. I yet again went through a little bit of shock when I saw other white people walking around! The other schools that came to compete brought their own foreign English teachers so we made some new contacts which is nice.

The highlight of my day was no doubt the drama section which Shaleas was judging. Three schools including ours competed. We performed Peter Pan (one of my best students was Wendy, I was so proud!) and the other schools performed Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. It was absolutely rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. The scripts were clearly written by their Thai English teachers, who sometimes get the grammar just a little bit wrong. That along with Thai people's inability to pronounce certain English sounds resulted in the weirdest versions of my favourite childhood stories ever. Including Peter Pan asking Wendy "you come ON me" instead of "come with me (to Neverland)." Oh goodness.

That weekend, Kelly, Shaleas and I also went to one of the two nice restaurants in this village that we have discovered which also happens to be a karaoke place. The great thing about singing karaoke in Thailand is that a) everybody does it, so there's no escaping, b) they are all really bad singers so there's no intimidation, and c) if you're singing English songs, which clearly we were, it doesn't really matter anyway because they have no idea what you're saying. 

So I did what I consider an expert rendition of 'My Heart Will Go On,' Kelly chose 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' and the three of us did a great version of 'Wonderwall' among many other songs. When we got back to the school at about 10pm we discovered a bunch of teachers having their own karaoke party in the gym, so we briefly joined them as well. They really really love karaoke here.

Last night was Loy Kratong festival which was amazing. It's a beautiful festival centred around the river, I recommend you read more about it, but I don't want to bore you all here. There's a short paragraph about it here

During lunch period the students set off huge balloons made out of tissue paper into the air by filling them with hot air. Then we decided to cancel our afternoon classes and our coordinators took us to the salon instead to get our hair and makeup done and get us dressed in traditional Thai costume. They didn't have any makeup pale enough for my British skin, so I looked a little bit like I'd been fake tanning, but other than that it was pretty awesome. 

Then we inadvertently ended up leading the entire parade! Kelly and I were grabbing a quick bite to eat at the market and saw the parade starting, so we went up to take photos. The two women in front were carrying a big photo each, one of the king and one of the queen. They came up to us, took our bags/food and handed us the photos! So I walked the 1.5 - 2 mile stretch from the fresh market to the festival grounds by the river leading a parade holding the queen in my hands! It was great fun, and a huge honour to get to do all of that; I loved it.

At the festival we hung out, watched some ADORABLE Thai children dancing, and watched part of a beauty contest for 'Miss Loy Kratong' before heading home and collapsing into bed.

I sent post cards today! I'm working through my address book alphabetically, so if you're last name starts between A - K and I have your address, you will hopefully get a postcard before I get back to England... I don't have a lot of your addresses yet, so send them along and I'll write to you too!

Finally, the wonderful Nims Laban gets a shout out for being the first person to make use of that mailing address I posted. She sent me THREE wonderful care packages so far including some glossy mags and yummy chocolate! Thanks Nims! You should all follow her example.  

I am TRYING to upload photos but my internet connection can't really handle it, so I'm sorry for the lack of picture evidence, I swear I'm doing my best!

Contact details

Receiving some snail mail would probably make my day. Actually, it definitely would.
Receiving US/UK themed care packages would make my entire week, maybe the month if it's a seriously good care package.
So here's where you should probably start sending stuff. Now.

Marianne McPhee
Thawangphapittayakhom School
Tha Wang Pha District
Nan Province
Thailand 55140

Do it because you know you want to.

I'm working on a Christmas wishlist. For those of you too poor to pay shipping costs - iTunes gift cards always work....sending me an e-mail with a gift card code in it will almost be as good as getting something in the mail. Almost.
Thanksgiving's coming up for the Americans reading this. If you could figure out how to send a turkey and some good stuffing, and maybe a pumpkin pie, I'd really appreciate it.

If you want to call me, from the States it's: 011-66-82-441-3720
From the UK it's: 00 - 66 - 82 - 441 - 3720 I think.

Anxiously expecting some mail-shaped love

"Teacher, you are beautiful!"

Last Thursday involved another day of unsuccessfully trying to get a bike for me and Kelly, but it's not interesting enough to talk about here, so let's skip right on to when Kelly and I finally made it to Chang Mai!

Our short little trip included:

20 minutes riding in the back of a stranger's pickup truck

6 hours on a bus

10 minutes on the back of a motorbike

6 hours on the sloooweeessrr traiinnn evvveerrr

= 12 1/2 hours of traveling

Maybe now you understand exactly how remote Tha Wang Pha actually is. 

We arrived in Chang Mai unharmed but tired and ready to party with Lisa, Nate, Juliet and Jen. 

This was the first time I had seen white people except Kelly and Shaleas since we left Bangkok. I kept pointing out all the 'foreigners' as if I'm not one myself, but it's easy to forget around here. 

It was also the first time I ate something that didn't involve rice OR noodles!! The great thing about Chang Mai being a tourist city is all the international food that's around. Like really really good pizza for instance. 

On Saturday we went up to an amazing temple on a mountain called Doy Suthep. You walk up a huge big set of stairs to get to the top, and it is totally worth the work out. I highly recommend it. We got white threads tied around our wrists by a holy man (not actually a monk because monks aren't allowed to touch women; the monk was tying the men's strings). The string symbolizes good health and long life. 

That night we got to see Muay Thai boxing! It was amazing. There was one European (French) fighting among all the Thai boxers, so I met him before his fight, which he then won in an awesome knockout. We ended up celebrating with him and his friends (who all teach English at the university in Chang Mai) for the rest of the night, first at a pretty cool bar/club frequented by both Thais and farangs (Westerners) called Warm Up, and then the Van Bar, which is literally a van, like an old VW bus, that is a bar in the middle of a car park. At Warm Up I also managed to find a guy from Glasgow (my entire family is from Glasgow for those who don't realise). So Glaswegians are literally everywhere, as usual. 

Monday = the real world, and a reminder of why I'm actually here

So for the last four days I've been teaching at Thawangphapittayakhom school (it's a lot easier to say than it looks at first). 

In Thai culture, children are more or less allowed to do what they want with little to no discipline, which apparently also applies to school. So the first day was really overwhelming because the kids just talk and laugh and mess around in class, but after four days I have adjusted. I have first years (12/13 year olds) and fourth years (15/16 year olds). As long as you have fun with them, and get them to learn while they're messing around, it works. As a result we play a whole lot of games, but hey if they're screaming and laughing in English then I've done something right. 

This is also the first time a lot of them have ever seen a white person, and definitely the first white teacher they've ever had, so we get a lot of attention. I am the whitest out of me, Shaleas and Kelly and I also have the lightest colour hair, so a lot of the students seem to talk about me and whistle at me a lot more. When we walk down the halls, a lot of the students yell "teacher, you are beautiful!' at us. I've even been specifically requested to go visit the sixth years next week (who Kelly teaches) because they've asked to see me by name. At lunch my fan club of first years often come and just stands outside the English department door and stare at me. Yesterday they asked for my autograph. 

The levels of English are totally different. I have first years who can speak better than some of my fourth years, and some fourth years who seem to know more vocabulary than me. One of my best students just came to see me in the office to practice his speech for the school competition on Saturday. It's a 10 minutes speech about the environment, which is one of four he has memorized. It makes lesson planning pretty tough, but it's all a process. 

and finally........<>...

WE HAVE MOTORBIKES! We FINALLY managed to get a hold of a couple of bikes, plus another teacher who lives in our apartment block said we can use his old one when we need it.

And yes - we have also FINALLY MOVED! So we are in our "apartments" which are just one room each with a bathroom but they're pretty nice, it's all brand new furniture, sheets, microwave, electric kettle, plates/bowls/cutlery and everything. They clearly went to a big effort to get us what they could so it's really nice. I think me and the girls are just happy to finally be able to actually unpack our bags!!! 

That's the news from the last week. I'll be sure to let you know how the school competition goes on Saturday (we are judges by the way).

I miss you all terribly! GO OBAMA!!!!

Thai lesson #4:

Motorbike = motorsi

At least some words are easy....

WWIII in our back garden

So Tuesday morning at 8am, Kelly, Shaleas and I were woken up to the soft gentle sounds of gunshots...Yea.

Turns out our guesthouse is right next door to where the local military branch train, which apparently begins at 8am on Tuesdays. After about 20 minutes of lying in bed listening to what sounded like a town massacre, I stepped outside to see what was happening. After seeing our landlady casually doing laundry I decided it was safe, and ventured out a little further into the porch to see dozens of men in green getting dropped off at the field next to our guesthouse where they were apparently running drills. Thanks for the warning guys. Really appreciate it.

After our less than welcome wake up call, I got to ride on the back of a motorbike (our buddy, Jet, who runs the internet cafe gave me a ride home), and we shared beer and a game of gin rummy with a man who invited himself to our table on the porch that evening. He also insisted that we call him if we ever need a ride to Chang Mai, so we have clearly got the hook up. We can't remember his name, so we have christened him 'Mr. Dude' in our usual highly intellectual fashion.

Meeting the locals is definitely helping us out big time. Orn, our friend who runs one of the shops around here, said she'd help us buy motorbikes so that we can find a good deal. So we have officially been accepted into the Tha Wang Pha commuity.

We ate dinner at the Thai version of a fondue restaurant, which I loved. Maybe mostly because I could control the ingredients and the spice level of my food, which is definitely a blessing after the chaos this stuff is starting to create in my stomache...

Next step - figuring out how the post offices around here work. Then maybe some people reading this blog will receive some fun postcards! Also - Tha Wang Pha doesn't have postcards, because they don't have tourists; we are officially the first white people to ever step foot in this place, so your postcards will come from Nan, the closest place to civilization around here.

Wednesday - the day of NOT going to Nan...

The only problem with everyone being so desperate to help us around here, is that it's actually hard to figure anything out by ourselves, because they won't let us. So instead of figuring out how to take the bus into Nan, walk around, explore, find the post office; we were driven to the Tha Wang Pha post office, where they also do not sell postcards. People reading this might be saying "why didn't you just say, 'no thanks, but could you help me find the bus?'" well trust me, we tried. But they just keep asking us EXACTLY what it is we're doing, until you answer, and they didn't seem to understand that we just wanted to walk around and explore, I'm not sure why, I guess they don't really do that here? So when we mentioned the post office, it was all downhill from there. I shouldn't be so bitter though, because at the end of the day, everyone around here is desperate to help us out which is very nice, and something we certainly don't get on this level in the UK/US. Tonight we ate dinner at Kru Noy's house (kru means teacher, Kru Noy is one of our coordinators/a teacher at our school). It was her and her whole extended family. Her oldest daughter spoke pretty good English luckily, and helped us out with some Thai that we were struggling with. So here are some fun things I have learnt:

Thai lesson #3:

Moo = pig/pork. NOT the sound a cow makes

Cow = rice. NOT the animal that beef comes from

Gai = chicken/far away/near/guide depending on how you say it. Thai is made even more fun by the fact that there are FIVE different tones. Whoever though making 'near' and 'far' the same word was a good idea??

Today Shaleas took off for Chang Mai before Kelly and I even woke up, so hopefully she's having fun! This morning we were supposed to teach a private English lesson to Jet, but he wasn't able to make it. So we'll see what the rest of the day holds for me and Kelly. Possibly the purchase of a motorbike if we can find Jet or Orn or someone to help us out with translation!

I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore...

Here's some photos relevent to my previous posts.

Lisa and I eating street food and beer at about 4 in the morning in Bangkok

My favourite part of the Grand Palace - the demons and the monkeys. (The monkeys are barefoot). Everything you see that looks like it might be made of gold or gold leaf - it is.

A group of us out at the Happy Beer Garden in Bangkok before experiencing ping pong...

It’s been a crazy few days since I last wrote.
As expected, elephant trekking and bamboo rafting was a fantastic experience. I highly recommend Kanchanaburi if you are ever in Thailand, it’s beautiful, and there’s a lot that I didn’t see, so I’m hoping to find time to return.

On our way to the hotel (which was a paradise in itself) we stopped by the Bridge over the River

Kwai, which apparently is really famous thanks to a movie that was made with the same title.
If you’ve heard of it, sorry to let you down in the movie culture side of things. I guess I haven’t seen as many films as I thought!
But the bridge has some interesting history that you should look up, to do with how it was built during WWII by POWs for Japan, thousands of which died during the construction/reconstruction (after the Allies bombed it). We almost got run over by a train, because we were not warned that the train tracks running along the bridge are still active! Luckily there’s little platforms along the bridge for pedestrians to cram onto to prevent death. How thoughtful.

Our hotel, as I said was a paradise running along the river Kwai, where I enjoyed a fantastic Thai massage. It’s hard to describe the hotel without this getting too long and boring, but just think peaceful jungle paradise. The picture is of the river by our hotel. The lamps are where we ate dinner.

Lisa and I shared an elephant ride, which was great. I got to ride on the elephant’s neck! And they went walking into the river and through the jungle. Then during our bamboo raft ride down the river, I actually spent most of the time swimming; so I get to say I’ve gone swimming in the River Kwai which at least my parents are exceptionally jealous of. The bonus is that I haven’t been sick since this experience either, which is probably against all odds. 

That afternoon we went to visit an orphanage and teach a short English lesson. I left wanting to take every orphan home with me. Thai children are irresistibly cute and they loved us. I spent about 45 minutes straight in the hot sun doing nothing but bumping kids up and down on my lap, which they never got sick of, even if I couldn’t feel my thighs afterwards.

Finally, after a crazy Thai bus station experience, an 11-hour ride on a pretty amazing bus that had reclining seats, a stewardess, a hot meal at a random restaurant at 1:30am, and Thai karaoke music videos, Kelly, Shaleas and I have arrived in Tha Wang Pha. Our coordinators (Patarin and Amporn) met us and broke the news that we cannot move into our apartment yet and are stuck in a guesthouse for about two weeks (but who knows, on Thai time that could mean anything).
Kelly and I are sharing a room that we have already had to rid of enormous spiders, a massive cockroach, and an ant infestation. But other than that….it’s still pretty annoying. The room is actually ok, it’s just frustrating since we have to continue living out of a suitcase, and school starts next week. Also, the shower is the bathroom. So each time we shower, the toilet, sink, and anything else in the bathroom gets soaked. But we have a Western toilet, which trust me is a blessing.

We saw the long boat racing in Nan on Sunday, which was fun. It’s one of the things this area is most known for, and we managed to catch the last day, which was lucky.

We are clearly the only white people for miles because we get treated like celebrities everywhere we go. At the boat event several people took pictures of us, and one guy even videotaped us. Everyone who can speak a little bit of English makes an effort to talk to us though, and last night we went out to dinner with Patarin, her husband and bunch of his friends who all had at least eight whiskeys each, and they spent the evening teaching us a lot of new Thai words, although I can’t remember most of them. I'm not sure if that's because of the whiskey or the completely foreign language. We rode home sitting in the bed of Patarin’s pick-up which was amazing because the weather in the evenings up here is perfect, and the sky is full of stars, more than I've ever seen thanks to my city-dwelling life. There's not much to see in the skies of London, New York, Baltimore or Boston I'm afraid.

There’s a good market five minutes from our guesthouse, which we will be buying everything from toiletries, clothes, school supplies, and food from since we have no kitchen. It’s going to take a few days to adjust to this place, but all in all Tha Wang Pha is a really nice area, as is Nan (the main city, about half an hour drive from here). In order to get around, it’s becoming more and more clear that our only option is going to be renting or possibly buying motorbikes. Absolutely everyone here has a motorbike of some sort, and the public transportation seems to be very sparse, if it exists at all, so we’ll be looking into that pretty soon.

That’s it for now. I’m here for a week, possibly going to Chang Mai for a couple of days if we can make it, and then school starts on November 3rd! I’ve already met one boy who goes to the school and also works in the market; he’s in the highest grade and spoke relatively fluent English so that’s a good sign!

I’ve tried to post a few photos (hopefully it has worked!). There are a lot more, but I’m borrowing Kelly’s thumb drive to upload these at an internet café so the rest will have to wait I’m afraid.

My future mode of transporation: literally everyone has one.

Thai lesson #2:

One = Neung
Two = Song
Three = Saam
Four = Sii
Five = Haa
Six = Hok
Seven = Jet
Eight = Baad
Nine = Gow
Ten = Siib

Sawatdee ka!

Whiter skin in just 14 days!

Just a quick post since I'm actually not sure when I'll next be on this thing. Tomorrow I'm off on a my two day trip to ride elephants/go bamboo rafting/visit an orphanage, then on Saturday we leave for our sites where my internet may be slightly limited, I don't know yet. 

Tonight I meet my school coordinator and hopefully get all my questions answered about what I'm doing and what to expect, including what to wear. All the days of the week have a colour here which I love, so that's going to take some of the guesswork out of what to put on each morning! 

Monday - Yellow

Tuesday - Pink

Wednesday - Green

Thursday - Orange

Friday - Blue

Saturday - Purple

Sunday - Red

There is a specific yellow polo shirt that a lot of Thai people wear on Mondays with a royal emblem on it, because the king's birthday is on a Monday, so every Monday they all wear this shirt to show their love for the king. There's an equivalent shirt in pink for Tuesdays because the most popular princess was born on a Tuesday, but it's not as common as the yellow ones.

Other things I've learned: 

Everyone assumes you're rich if you're white, but any price can be bartered and brought down, including camera chargers in a camera store inside the BIGGEST mall ever (called MBK....massive). My brand new camera charger chose to break immediately after entering this country, but as I said, the woman selling me my new one and I had a little discussion and we completed a nice little transaction.

Just as Americans/Brits try to be more tan by buying sunless tanning lotions, the Thais buy skin whitening lotions. Vaseline have large billboard advertisements all over the place promising whiter skin in 14 days. 

Porn means beauty in Thai, so a lot of beauty parlours have the word 'porn' in them, and a lot of women have it added to the end of their name as well. This fact causes many smile and giggles from naive foreigners.

Some Thai phrases that don't work when translated directly into English:

"I speak English snake snake fish fish." (means I speak very little English)

"You are sweet mouth" (smooth talker)

"Banana story" (very easy)

"You old man snake head" (dirty old man!)

You have heart water (you're very kind)

That's it for now! I'll post again whenever I can to tell you about the elephants!!! I'm so excited!!!! Can you tell?

Sawatdee ka!

Ping pong like you've never seen before.....

Sawatdee ka! (that means 'hello' or 'goodbye'  )

So I've been in Bangkok for a couple of days now and it is completely insane. Sunday was my first day of orientation. We had a 'welcome to Thailand' talk by our coordinator Phil, who is really nice although he seems reluctant to give us any information about having too much fun. I think he's scared that we'll hold him liable if we get into trouble. For a guy in charge of 60ish 20-somethings for a week he seems pretty tightly wound.

We also had our first teacher training lesson which was interesting; I'm hoping to pick up some ideas as to how on earth I'm supposed to teach these children. Then we had out first Thai lesson. Our Thai teacher is really hilarious, which helps, and she's been teaching us pretty useful Thai phrases that we need to know in everyday life, although they are all pretty hard to pronounce. The sawatdee ka is basically all I have mastered so far!

I've become friends with four other girls here, so Sunday night, the 5 of us plus my roommate at the hotel, Masha, and another girl, Emily, went out to dinner, and then the fun began.

We had some yummy curries for dinner, so far no complaints about the food at all, although I think by the time I get back I won't ever want to look at rice again. 

Our hotel happens to be quite near the red light district (Phil at least did that right), so we walked through and got bombarded by street promoters holding out what are essentially menus showing you all the things you can see inside their clubs. The club doors were all open, so we could see dozens of women standing up on these platforms just waiting to be hired I suppose. They really were jut waiting. I can't say I've ever visited a strip club in the west, but I imagine that if you peeked in the door you'd see women with beautiful bodies doing seemingly impossible things with their bodies and a pole. In Bangkok all you see are some rather unremarkable looking girls just standing. Almost, or completely naked. Doing nothing. They clearly missed the marketing course.

Anyway, the menu is perhaps too graphic to directly quote here, but it essentially described all the different things the women were able to do with their womanly region. I think I should censor this blog a little, so for more details you'll have to e-mail/facebook message me. Just think ping pong balls, cigarettes, bananas and so much more.

At the end of the street, we found a place called the Happy Beer Garden where we sat and were served by our bartender/new friend Joy who preceded to get even drunker than us. We were also joined by a small Thai boy, I'm guessing about age 7, who was originally trying to sell us stuff, but ended up just hanging out and being really adorable and hilarious. Very wholesome environment for a child.

By the end of a couple of beers at the Happy Beer Garden, five of us decided to see what these red light girls had to offer. It was just something that had to be done while in Thailand. You may have heard all the stories about 'ping pong' or maybe you've seen it if you've been here, but we had to see for ourselves. 

So that's what we did. It was certainly ping pong like you've never seen before....to say the least. We're still trying to figure out how it's physically possible. Before leaving we got hassled by these two very intimidating Thai women who worked there and tried to completely rip us off with the bill. What I've learned is that everything here is negotiable and that every Thai person sees a foreigner and seems to automatically multiple their prices by about 20, so you have to be pretty aggressive if you want to get a good deal anywhere.  

And that was my first night in Thailand!! I know I've left a lot for the imagination there, but I know people like my parents are reading this (hi mum and dad!), but do use your imagination!

Tuesday we went on a group field trip to see the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. The palace was really amazing. Incredibly ornate and really beautiful. Almost everything is covered in gold leaf, so in the 31 degree humid heat and sun, the place was really fantastic to see, if not a bit hot! The emerald buddha is in fact made of one solid piece of jade and was set in a temple inside the palace. My friend Lisa and I got front row seats to kneel down in front of it. You had to make sure that your bare soles of your feet (you had to take your shoes off) never faced the buddha, or the guards told you off.

Tonight, we just ended up having a few drinks on the roof of the hotel with a bunch of other people from the programme; the other participants are all really great, we're all getting along very well, and there's even one other English girl here from Kent! After last night, we were up for something a bit more low key, so hanging out by the pool was nice! Although after the stories we told, a few people went off to see for themselves what this ping pong was all about. We were pretty proud of being the first group to brave the dark side of this city. 

That's it for now. Tomorrow's another long day of teacher training and Thai lessons, then possibly a Thai boxing match in the evening. On Thursday and Friday I'll be going on my two day trek and riding elephants!!!

I miss you all terribly, please don't forget about me - I desperately want e-mail updates on your lives, even if it's super boring, I need  contact with the Western world!! Send me your mailing addresses, and as soon as I know mine, which I still don't, I promise to pass it along!

Sawatdee ka!