Family Visit!

Friday 1/29/16 11:00 am

Two weekends ago my parents and sister travelled all the way to Thailand to visit Molly and I. We were so happy to see them and show them around. We met in Chiang Mai on Wednesday night. We spent the next day visiting Doi Suthep, the temple that Molly and I saw during orientation, and lounging at our hotel. We introduced them to some traditional Thai dishes for lunch, and got Thai massages. It truly was a crash course in Thai culture. We went to Chiang Mai’s favorite night market and got lots of fun souvenirs.

On Friday we spent the day at the Chiang Mai Elephant Sanctuary. We got to feed the elephants, make medicine for them, take a mud bath with them and wash off in a waterfall at the end of the day. They are such majestic, massive creatures; it was an awesome experience to interact so closely with them.

The next day we took it easy in the morning and then went on a small river cruise/ruin tour. We ended up getting the entire boat to ourselves, and enjoyed the scenery around the Ping River. That night we all took a Thai cooking class. I learned to make some of my favorite dishes: Tom Yum, Khao Soi, and Pad Thai. 

On Sunday we headed from Chiang Mai to our little town of Tak. We spent the next two days showing my family our school and all the places we frequent here. It was so great to be able to share what life is like here with my family. They enjoyed learning a little about Thai culture and getting a better idea of what exactly we do here. We had a lot of fun grabbing dinners with the rest of the American teachers here in Tak, and even got to go out to lunch with some of the teachers in the math department. My family departed on a van headed to a nearby airport on Tuesday morning and spent one day in Bangkok before taking the journey home. I was happy to bring two separate parts of my life together, even if it was only for a short time. It was so nice to see my family again after being away for so long. It was so fun to share stories of my trip and spend time with them.

The next weekend we visited a nearby school in a more isolated, rural area than where we teach. Students here have very limited contact with native English speakers and we helped with some activities during their weekend English camp. The students were not as proficient as our students typically are, but they were extremely appreciative of us being there to work with them. I had a lot of fun working on pronunciation with them and playing games like Simon Says.

Me with one of the students from the other school

This weekend we are headed back to Chiang Mai to see cherry blossoms, a sunrise atop a mountain, and to meet up with good friends. It has been frigid by Thai standards this week, dropping to near 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but the weather should be much warmer while we are in Chiang Mai. It was the coldest Thailand has been in our students lives. It was also 90 degrees in the days before the cold hit. The crazy weather reminded me of northeast Ohio, and it was funny to see how all the students reacted to the cold. This weekend is also mine and Molly’s three year anniversary of when we started dating. It is hard to believe it has already been that long. We have both grown so much as people since we first met. I am very lucky to have her in my life, and I am so glad we took the leap to come to Thailand together.

Molly and I have been progressively learning more and more Thai massage. We have learned the steps for the body and foot massages. Next week we will learn head massage and take a test by massaging our instructor. It has been fun to learn something new, and Pi Jan has been a great teacher.

I want to close this post with a funny story about communicating in a foreign country. The ease with which we communicate with one another at home is often taken for granted. You can easily figure out how things work, where to go, what to do, what someone is asking etc. In Thailand that is often not the case. It has gotten better as time has gone on. We have learned a small amount of basic Thai and have a better idea of how things usually go here. However, this basic Thai caused some problems at lunch last week. I wanted to order one of my favorite dishes, crispy pork with basil. This dish is called kop pow mu kap (the spelling is probably wrong). I asked for it and was excited to chow down, when the waiter brought out basil with squid instead. He thought I had said kop pla muk kap. I had no way of really communicating that I wanted the crispy pork and not the squid, so I just ate the squid. It was really funny when he brought the squid out, I was so surprised and disappointed at the same time. The squid was a lot less fishy than I thought it would be and I got to cross eating a squid dish off my list of things to do in Thailand. So it wasn’t all bad. As always thanks so much for reading!

Bangkok, Koh Samet, and Rayong

Friday, January 8, 12:00pm

In Thailand I have learned to broaden my expectations. Most people wake up in the morning with an idea of how their day will go. There is a list in their minds of many possibilities that may or may not happen depending on how the universe reacts to what they decide to do that day. In Thailand that list is much longer than at home. Spontaneity must be embraced here. Classes that you thought you had will be cancelled because there is a Muay Thai demonstration, or you will be asked at 4 pm to put together a dance performance with your fellow teachers for the following day. So here that list in my head has grown as I have adapted to the Thai culture. On the beginning of mine and Molly’s holiday trip something happened that was not even remotely close to being on my mental list of possibilities for the day. It struck me just how seldom this happens for me, I am someone who likes to have things planned out after all. We arrived at the Sukhothai bus terminal and got a cab to the airport there (it is the closest to our town, Tak). When we got off the taxi the airport was stunning: it had beautiful scenery, an outdoor waiting area with a pond to sit and snack by, and ancient ruins along the runway. Given Sukhothai’s reputation as an ancient capital, the airport being beautiful, outdoors, and among ruins was unexpected but not outside the realm of my list of possibilities for the day. What really floored me was that there was a full scale zoo just outside the gate to enjoy while waiting for your flight. Never in a million years would I think, “there might be a zoo at the airport today”. It had animals ranging from zebras to monkeys to porcupines to beautifully colored pheasants. We had a blast as we passed the time before our flight to Bangkok.

The beginning of the runway 

Molly and I spent Christmas Eve and Day in Bangkok. We had a semi traditional Christmas morning as we got to skype our families and open up the gifts we got for each other. After that we went to visit the Grand Palace, which it the Thai equivalent of the White House. It was a beautiful place to spend a couple hours marveling at the temples there.

Later we had Mexican food for dinner which was absolutely delicious. The Thai diet is severely lacking in cheese. After that we went up to one of the city’s sky bars, Cloud 47. There we enjoyed a few drinks and spectacular views of the city below. The night was capped off with seeing the new Star Wars movie. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it even for people who were not the biggest fans of the other movies. I loved our Christmas in Bangkok, but Bangkok can be an intimidating place. It is not the easiest city to get around and cabs often see foreigners as people they can get much more money from than locals. Many cabs will refuse to turn their meters on and will try to charge 3 or 4 times what it should actually cost to get somewhere. If you visit Bangkok only take cabs that will turn the meter on. Bangkok is a crazy, sprawling concrete jungle definitely worth visiting, but I much prefer the more laid back Northern Thai cities that I have been to. 

Molly and I enjoying Cloud 47

Next we travelled down to Koh Samet, which is about a 4 hour bus ride and 45 minute ferry ride from Bangkok. The island was absolutely stunning and our hotel was literally one step away from the ocean at high tide. We spent our days there lounging by the pool or beach and our nights eating delicious dinners while enjoying small “fire shows” on the beach. One day we went on a snorkeling excursion and got to see many smaller islands with beautiful beaches and coral reefs to explore. We loved spending our afternoon exploring, but at the end of it one of the boat drivers tried to get 900 baht for a “lost snorkel”. It seemed fishy as no careful track had been kept of the snorkels throughout the day, and there is no way that the snorkels were worth that much. In the end no one paid for the snorkel. Later we learned that this is a common scam in the islands if you go snorkeling in Thailand make sure to watch out for this. It was disappointing to feel that people were trying to take advantage of us. I have never really felt that way up north, but it seems that in more touristy areas it is something that you need to be much more aware of.

The inlet where we stayed

Molly on the hotel steps

One of the small islands we toured

a swing on that same little island

The last few days of our trip we spent in Rayong, the region across from Koh Samet on the mainland of Thailand. While it was not quite as nice as the island it was still a great place to relax by the beach and pool. We found an awesome Indian restaurant called Purple Haze near our hotel and ate there for almost every other meal. The food was delicious! Molly’s second cousin, Geneva is working in Chiang Mai and came down to Rayong to visit us while we were there. It was really great to meet her. Molly and I spent New Year’s Eve on a beach staring up at stars, fireworks, and lanterns. It was a great way to ring in the new year.

At the Rayong Aquarium

While it was hard to be away during the holidays, we had an awesome trip that helped take my mind off of the friends and family I was missing back home. It was mine and Molly’s first Christmas together and I was so happy to spend it with her. Now we are back in Tak and life is great as always here. Molly and I started learning Thai massage this week and have learned the steps for the arms and legs. Next week we will move on to the back and shoulders. It is so fun to learn from a true expert, our teacher Pi Jan. It is so nice of her to teach us as her English is great and she has been doing massage for over 20 years. Next week my parents and sister are coming to visit us in Thailand. I am so excited to see them and show them around our home here. I hope everyone else had a great holiday season!

Lastly I want to open things up to questions from you guys. If you have anything you are wondering about what my experience here has been like, please ask in the comments and I will answer in my next post. 

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