Mae Sot and Hanging around Tak

12/23/15 3:00 PM

As I begin to write this I think about how half of my time teaching is already up. It is a good time to reflect on the past few months and to look ahead. Since arriving in Thailand I have travelled all over, met great people, began to learn to live in a new culture and learned what it takes to teach students here. Thailand is like no other place in the world. The people here are unbelievably friendly, understanding and happy. What this country can sometimes lack in terms of being productive it more than makes up for in happiness. Students here can’t fail a grade. While there are some obvious flaws to this system it does make for much more carefree children than at home. Kids do not live with nearly the same stress level that they do at home. It is very different than the schooling I was brought up in. It asks the question is it more important for children to be happy and stress free or for them to be learning as much as they can. Like most things in life it is about balancing those two sides, but it has been interesting to see a culture so far on one end of the spectrum.

Tomorrow Molly and I will leave for the Christmas trip that we have been planning. We will head south to Bangkok for a few days before heading further south to the beaches of Koh Samet and Rayong. I am so excited to finally make it to the beach, and to spend my first Christmas with Molly. While we will miss our families at home, we have big plans for our first Christmas together. Getting a western meal in Bangkok, seeing the Grand Palace, and watching the new Star Wars movie are all on the Christmas day itinerary. We will be attending a small church service here in Tak tonight with some other teachers from our school. 

The last few weekends I have spent in Tak and the neighboring city Mae Sot. Three weekends ago I headed to Mae Sot to visit with my friend Sean and meet up with two other teachers, Luke and Kristin, and to see some of the sights around the City. Mae Sot is directly on the border of Myanmar, and is a much more culturally diverse place than Tak. Many NGO workers live there to work with Burmese refugees; I was able to meet some awesome people from Germany, South Africa, and the U.K. The proximity to Myanmar leads to a large Burmese influence over the city. I was able to walk near the border, visit a Burmese market, and eat Burmese food while I was there. I even learned to cook some Burmese food as the four of us took a cooking class and learned to make a few dishes including an amazing tomato salad and pumpkin curry. The class even came with a cook book so I’ll be able to make Burmese food for some of you once I make it back home. Mae Sot is close enough to visit any weekend and I look forward to heading back there sometime soon. 

The delicious meal we made!

The last two weekends I have spent relaxing in Tak. It has been great to explore my local surroundings a bit more. A few weeks ago the teachers at the other school, Meghan, Sarah, and Paige found a nearby coffee shop called the Coffee Farm. It has awesome grilled cheese sandwiches, breakfast food, and an awesome atmosphere. Molly and I got brunch there last weekend; the food was amazing and they even had some Christmas decorations set up. Two weekends ago we took the motorbike to the neighboring province to see Bhumibol Dam. It is the largest dam in all of Asia and the scenery on the ride there was beautiful. We found a small temple near the entrance to the park that the dam is in. We made the treacherous climb up and enjoyed the view. Getting down the hill was harder for some of us than others… Other than that the last two weekends have been spent enjoying great company, eating delicious food, and relaxing at home.

Bhumibol Dam trip:

Life Around Tak:

Hanging with "our" dogs

Finally found a good beer in Tak!

Dim Sum for 6 people

Coffee Farm Christmas

There is a lot I am really looking forward to on this trip. My family will be coming in mid-January to visit and see where I have been living. It will be tons of fun to show them around. We have also began to plan our travels after we are done teaching. We will be heading south in Thailand, exploring other southeastern Asian countries, visiting family in India, seeing friends in Europe and more. The farther I get into my trip the more thankful I am that I took a year off from school to do this. As cliché as it sounds living in a new culture really does make you look at your life at home through a new perspective. You appreciate aspects of life at home that you didn’t even notice before; you come to see drawbacks that you would have never thought about. I also know that I will come home much more grown up than when I left. I have never spent so much time far away from home. Being away and in such a new setting is helping me to learn more about myself and to teach me about life in a much different way than the academic setting that I am accustomed to would. It has been so great to share this experience with Molly. Having someone who understands me so well to do this with has been a blessing. I have really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with her. I can’t wait to experience all of our upcoming adventures together.

Lastly I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads these posts back home. It is nice to feel connected to you all even in a small way. It’s funny how small things will remind me of someone or a fun time back home. I seldom feel homesick, but I do think of you all often, and will have lots of fun stories to share when I get back home! Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Loy Krathong and Thanksgiving

Tuesday, December 1st 5:30 PM

Three weekends ago I went on a hike with the other foreign teachers in Tak and a few visitors through Lang San, a nearby national park, to a small waterfall in the deepest part of the park. As I hiked I was struck by how a year before I would never have imagined that I would be spending Saturday afternoons journeying through Thai jungles in search of the perfect waterfall to swim under. I would never have guessed that I would be in charge of a thousand students in a foreign country who do not speak the same language as me. Even just a few months ago I had only a faint idea of what to expect out of this program and this experience. I am so glad I made the decision to put everything at home on hold for a time and go on this adventure. Already I have seen so much and met so many amazing people. We had a blast at Pa Tay waterfall that day. The long, hot hike ended with a dip in the water below the waterfall. It was refreshing and a perfect way to get in touch with nature after being in Tak for the past couple weekends.

Molly, Sarah and Meghan enjoying the waterfall

Cooling off

Two weekends ago we headed to Chiang Mai to meet up with some friends from orientation and see some of the Loy Krathong festivities. Unfortunately, the lantern festival we planned on attending was cancelled due to concerns from the airport about lanterns impeding air traffic. We decided to do some exploring around the city instead, and because of the planned festival we had a ton of friends in town to hang out with! When we first arrived the teachers from Tak met up with a few others at the Beer Terminal, a bar with an impressive beer selection, especially for Thailand which features only a few standard domestics in most places. I was able to enjoy a Rogue Mocha Porter and a Trappist beer that everyone raved about.

 Really tasty beer!

Molly, Melanie and I met up with Carolyn, a friend from orientation who is teaching just outside of the city, the following day. We wanted to see some of the fun places in Chiang Mai that we didn’t have time to visit during orientation. The first place we visited was the 3D art museum. The museum features many paintings/scenes that when viewed from the correct place appear 3 dimensional. 

Later that day we headed to the Chiang Mai Zoo. It was sprawling and featured a lot of opportunities to feed different animals. The regulations in America would never allow people to get so close. I was about six inches away from a gaping hippo’s mouth and got to feed a jaguar some raw meat. If you know me well you know that I was inordinately excited about this.

All week we had planned on getting Mexican food for a meal at some point as cheese is not featured in Thai cooking (and we miss it...a lot). We decided on Salsa Kitchen earlier in the day and planned on meeting a few friends there. I had no idea how many people would eventually end up getting Mexican food with us. It started out with the four of us meeting up with the other Tak teachers and a few friends from outside of Lampang and Mae Sot. We thought we would have no more than ten people. Fast forward an hour and almost 60 Americans, mostly from our orientation, ended up at the restaurant. It was a complete takeover and so fun to see so many familiar faces. I find it so interesting that just by word of mouth we all ended up there.

The next day we ventured outside of the city to go zip lining in the jungle. We spent around three hours whizzing from treetop to treetop, traversing treacherous bridges and even jumping through a few free falls. It was a beautiful and exciting way to enjoy the Thai landscape and a perfect end to the weekend. 

We had an amazing time in Chiang Mai but we were a little bummed about missing out on Loy Krathong activities. Luckily for us Loy Krathong in Tak is a huge event, and we got an opportunity to set lanterns off by the river that is just down the street. Tak is a small place in Thailand that usually does not get many visitors. Loy Krathong is the city’s biggest draw and it was so fun seeing it lit up and busy. The festival is traditionally meant to pay your respects to the river and all that it allows you to do by floating a lantern down it or releasing one into the air. When you release the lantern you are supposed to make a wish for the following year. We all got to release lanterns by air and by river.

Nadia, Clay (two other teachers at our school) and I
having fun with our Krathongs

Molly and I also got to spend our first Thanksgiving together this year. We purchased a small motorbike the day of and then had a traditional western Thanksgiving dinner with the current foreign teachers and teachers at Takpitt from years past. It was complete with Turkey, stuffing, rolls (bread isn’t that common here), gravy, cranberry sauce, and last but not least, mashed potatoes. 

Yum!

The meal was delicious, I thought I would miss out on a Thanksgiving meal here and I didn’t. I got to enjoy one with lots of new friends who are all wonderful people. The one drawback was that I burned my hand that night. My hand feels a lot better now but the first night was pretty excruciating. A more pleasant surprise for the holiday was that I found a cheap motorbike to purchase through another teacher at school. It is so fun getting around town on it and it gives us a lot leeway to explore the surrounding areas. All in all, it was a great Thanksgiving. I missed my family but I am happy that I got to spend the day with Molly and our new friends. Hopefully it is the first of many happy Thanksgivings together for us.

Our new bike!

This weekend we wanted to go somewhere where we could easily meet up with a lot of friends so we settled on Lampang. We spent the first night there eating pizza and talking together. Later we found a bar that was willing to stay open a bit later for us. Sean, Willie, Joel and I befriended one of the Thai men who helped run the bar. His name was Wassan and he shared some of his whisky with us while we all tried to communicate with his broken English and our far more broken Thai. The friendliness of Thai people never ceases to amaze me. The two guys running the bar were about to close up when a group of foreigners walked by, and they kept the whole place open for just us. The next day we visited a cave outside of the city and travelled to a dam where we all enjoyed a pontoon style boat ride around the reservoir. That night we went out to a burger place and hung out at a nearby bar before I went back to the hotel to try and watch the OSU Michigan game before going to sleep. Unfortunately, the wifi was not working so I did not get a chance to watch. No surprise that the Buckeyes once again trounced that inferior team from up north. I’m hoping for some chaos to help us climb back into the top four, crazier things have happened.

The light shining down on Melanie
in the cave

Everyone relaxing on our boat ride

Being that this was Thanksgiving week/weekend I have been thinking a lot about just how much I have to be thankful for. I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to go on this adventure, and that Molly could join me for it. It has been such a pleasure travelling around the country, living and working with her. I’m thankful for my friends and family at home who I do miss dearly out here. It will be so fun catching up when I get back to the states. I’m thankful for all of the incredible people I have met through this program; it has been so fun getting to know so many new friends.

Here are some blogs and videos made by some of my new friends that you should check out:

Video from Willie

Hannah Charney - hannahcharney.com

Sean Peters - Teachings from Thailand

Hilary Powers - Adventures of Hilary Jane 

Paige Roberts - Turningthepaigesite

Life in Tak

Friday 11/12/15 3:00 PM

The view from our porch

The last week or so in Tak has been great, and I am really starting to feel settled in. Last weekend we stayed at home and had some friends come visit on Saturday night. We all went out for dinner and drinks Saturday night and it was a blast. This weekend we are going to a small waterfall near Tak, but will mostly be hanging out around here. Next weekend we are heading back to Chiang Mai for a Loi Kratang festival. Loi Kratang is one of the major Buddhist holidays here. Each city has its own way of celebrating, but they all center around the release of lanterns. In Chiang Mai they will release hundreds of floating lanterns into the sky. Here in Tak many lantern floats will be released into the river later that week. Since we have been taking it easy lately I have decided to dedicate this post to information about what the daily life is like here in Tak.

A typical day here starts with me waking up just before 7:00 am, getting ready, and making the 5 minute bike ride to the school. In the morning Molly and I typically have breakfast at the school “canteen” where meals can be purchased for 20 baht (roughly 60 cents). The food there is delicious; there are 14 stalls that all sell different Thai dishes. You can get chicken with chilies, rice with a huge variety of stir-fries and curries, fried eggs, noodle soups…I could go on forever. And it’s all made fresh everyday by people in the community.

The stands on the left all serve cheap food!

Teachers sit on the stage with the fans

After breakfast I usually have about a half hour of downtime before first period. The students all have a morning assembly during this time, complete with a marching band performance (yes, every day) and speeches from teachers and staff. I use this time to finish checking worksheets from the day before or to check in on my fantasy football teams, which might I add are in first and second place. I teach 18 classes a week: four on every day except on Friday when I only have two. I teach the equivalent of 7^th 9^th and 10^th graders with most of my classes coming from 7^th and 9^th grade. Right now I am working on decimals, inequalities, and functions with my classes. Molly teaches 16 classes a week. She teaches two gifted classes in grades 7 and 11 called MEPs (Mini English Program) and are kids who have really high levels of English proficiency. These are fun to teach because she can do more advanced projects and activities with them. She also has two other 7^th grade classes, and 12^th graders at various levels.

I have found that in teaching here, each class is really different. Since the students are organized into classes by grade, skill level and even further by special programs their parents can’t opt to pay for, they really vary in their abilities. Some of the groups of students are quiet and eager to learn while some are loud in class and more difficult to get through to. Some can read articles in English and discuss them with you, others you have to teach basic vocabulary. Most days I will have two classes in the morning before meeting Molly at her office to grab lunch during 4^th or 5^th period. Her office is across campus from mine as she is in the English building. After lunch I will teach the remainder of my classes. Math classes start with me reviewing the past week’s material and presenting the day’s lesson. Then I have a worksheet I help my students complete; if they complete the worksheets quickly we play a math game at the end of class. It is really fun to play games with kids; they tend to relish the competition! During my free periods I am either lesson planning, or checking worksheets. The days tend to be pretty busy.

Molly on the way home from school

Molly and I usually get home around 4:30 or a little earlier on some days. There is about an hour of downtime before we head across town to a local sports complex. The complex has a small weight room, a basketball court, a mile-long loop to run around, and various other amenities. I try to make it over there 5 times a week if possible. If we are travelling on the weekend that number drops to 3-4. After the gym we grab dinner at a local spot. We have been trying many different places but our favorite thus far is a small stand that serves amazing pad Thai for only 20 baht. It is right next to the local river, and about a 5 minute bike ride from our place. When we get back we usually read, make travel plans, or watch Netflix until it is time to go to sleep. Molly is also working on submitting her law school applications right now so she can be busy with that. The weekdays can be tiring but we do usually find time for activities like a Thai massage, exploring town on our bikes or hanging out with the other foreigners sometime during the week.  And that is a typical day of life in Tak.

The "Welcom To Tak" sign on the way to the gym

Two of the strays that live by our apartment (front: Swaggy P. back: Tom Haverford)

Tak can be somewhat simple but it’s a really nice, peaceful place. I am really enjoying it and am grateful for our placement. Being away from any tourism has allowed us to really immerse ourselves in Thai culture. I feel like I am really learning what life here is all about: the go with the flow attitude, a focus on people and relationships, kindness and friendliness…it’s a really great place to live. I have had a lot of fun playing basketball with the locals and getting to know the town. I feel like I am starting to figure out good ways to teach here too. I have lots of help from my Thai co-teachers, they are all such great resources for school and life in Thailand in general. Living with Molly and getting to spend so much time together is incredible. All in all life in Thailand has been everything I wanted so far!

Phu Chi Fah and Chiang Rai

Tuesday 11/3/15 3:00 PM

We have only been in Thailand for three weeks but it feels like it has been much longer because of everything that we’ve done. So far we have been to five major cities and a remote mountain on the northwestern border. Last week the work week was cut short because of a college entrance exam that was taking place at our school. On Tuesday we learned that class would be cancelled on Thursday and Friday, and that we would need to come into work on Sunday for an “English camp” for one group of students. Molly and I decided that the three days off were a perfect opportunity to visit a spot that we had heard was one of the more beautiful sights in Thailand: Phu Chi Fa.

The sunrise view at Phu Chi Fa

Phu Chi Fa is a mountain on the border on Laos. We were told that it was amazing to view a sunrise from the summit, as the neighboring peaks would form islands in a sea of fog below. The closest major city to Phu Chi Fa is Chiang Rai. Another major pro to making the journey out there was that many of our friends from orientation were stationed near Chiang Rai and others had planned to visit the city over the weekend. Melanie, another American teaching at our school, arrived in Tak last week and decided to come with us on our trip across the country. This was my first experience travelling in a truly Thai style: we booked nothing before arriving at the bus station to depart. We arrived at the bus station Wednesday afternoon after school and asked when the next bus leaving for Chiang Rai would depart. After being told that the bus would arrive at 7:30 we grabbed a bite and waited for it to arrive. We then spent around 5 hours travelling to Chiang Rai. We arrived in the middle of the night, unsure of how to get to the hostel we intended on staying at or where exactly it was. Luckily we found a tuk-tuk driver who took us to a street with many options for places to stay. Our first choice had no vacancies, but we quickly found another hostel and slept soundly.

The next day we awoke and headed to the local bus terminal where we took a bus to the small town of Thoeng. This is the closest bus stop to Phu Chi Fa. From there we took a Songtow, which is basically a pick-up truck that uses the bed as a miniature bus, up into the mountains. We met a group of Thai students from Chiang Rai University who split the ride up with us. They were very helpful in organizing the trips up and down the mountain, and having a larger group made the ride much cheaper. It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but I enjoyed the stunning views as we meandered our way up the mountain. We arrived at a plateau where there were several small guest houses where we could stay. We spent the afternoon and evening wandering the mountainside. The little village had stunning views of the surrounding countryside. There was a quick storm in the middle of the afternoon so I got the chance to stand out in the cool rain and enjoy the scenery. 

 Left: Me enjoying the rainstorm     Right: The view from the village near Phu Chi Fa

My view with a brew at dinner near Phu Chi Fa

The next morning, we got up at 5:00 am to see the sunrise atop the mountain. It was as beautiful a sight as I have seen in my life, and was definitely worth all the buses and travel time it took to get there. The view really does speak for itself.

 The Sunrise View

 Molly, Melanie, and I after the clouds rolled in

Molly and I with the Phu Chi Fa sign

Later Friday morning we travelled back to Chiang Rai where we checked into a hostel and then got Thai style foot massages. They were amazing and left us feeling refreshed even after the extensive travel we had gone through. That night we met up with many friends from orientation and had a blast going out to local bars near the city center. We even found a place that served American style beef burgers. They were delicious and worth every bit of the 120 (four dollars) baht they cost. Because the average meal in Tak costs us 20-30 baht and is some of the most delicious stuff I’ve ever eaten, this now seems like an extravagant amount of money to spend.

 Left: The clock tower in Chiang Rai             Right: The burger stand we all enjoyed 

Saturday morning, we met up with another Molly and Hilary who are stationed in a rural town outside Lampang. We all went to a modern Buddhist temple called the White Temple that was about 20 minutes away from downtown Chiang Rai. Its construction began in 1997 and the entire compound won’t be finished until about 2070. It was an unbelievably ornate structure. The message of the temple was that one must experience suffering before achieving nirvana and that hedonistic lifestyles are what lead to evils in this world. In the mural inside the main structure the artist uses images of the world trade center attacks as well as popular figures from western pop culture (Darth Vader, minions, the hulk, Neo, Michael Jackson etc.) to drive this point home. Seeing such a tragedy for our nation displayed in a religious temple was more than unsettling, and I don’t really know how to feel about it. I do know that it is not meant to be offensive although it has offended some western visitors. With that being said, I am so glad I visited the temple as it is a building straight out of a Halloween movie, and it was October 31^st after all.

 Molly, Melanie and I at the White Temple

After visiting the temple, the three of us headed back to Tak since we had work on Sunday. The bus ride took much longer on the way back, but we made it home with plenty of time to rest up for the coming work week. Despite travelling across the country to a remote mountain, staying three nights in hostels, spending money to go out and paying for small trips around the city, the entire weekend still came in at under 3,000 baht or under $100. It is truly amazing how far money can go here. Everything seemed to work out last weekend: we found a good place to stay every night, we didn’t know how to get up the mountain but we found a Thai person who majored in English who was going to the same place as us, the view in Phu Chi Fa was even more stunning than I expected, and the list goes on and on. It was an incredible weekend in a beautiful place with awesome people!

On Sunday, we helped run an all day English camp that featured fun English games to help the students develop more confidence in their English skills and to teach them a bit about western Halloween. It was fun to be with kids and watch them bob for apples and play “pin the hat on the witch”, but it was a tiring day. Today I finally am feeling like I am finding a bit of a routine and a rhythm here in Tak. We have travelled so much that it has been hard to really settle in, not that I am complaining; I have greatly enjoyed all the trips thus far. Teaching here is disorganized but it is a great feeling when you feel like you have helped a group of students improve, even if it is just a little bit. I am looking forward to becoming a better teacher and truly developing a routine here. Next weekend we are staying in Tak and may even have a few visitors. There is a waterfall about 30 minutes away we are planning on visiting. Life is good and me and Molly are feeling really happy!