Erawan Falls

I'm traveling over the New Year holiday, but before I get ahead of myself, I should talk about last weekend.

I'd originally planned on traveling to see Erawan Falls (a 7-tiered waterfall near Kanchanaburi) during the three-day weekend when I got sick. Obviously, having a sore throat and a temperature tends to change plans. I was determined to see it before December ended, though, because I sometimes hear over Facebook what other people from orientation are doing and I feel like such a boring person.

Well, last weekend I made it. I was even pretty adventurous because I went on my own (after a friend cancelled on me), and figured out the bus system without going through Bangkok. The bus from Doembang to Suphanburi was easy and familiar--I caught the first one I could after school, and it just meant getting off at an unfamiliar stop instead of continuing to Bangkok. However, it did drop me off at the side of the road rather than the Suphanburi bus station, so I had to ask around about getting the bus to Kanchanaburi. I've found, however, that whenever I'm lost or confused Thai people will often go out of their way to help me (unless they're taxi drivers, in which case they just see an opportunity to charge me as much as they want). A woman who had been sitting on the bus behind me and got off at my stop took me under her wing. She found a songtaew (like a pickup truck with two benches in back) going to the bus station for just 7 baht, went there with me, got off and talked to the people at the bus station, and when we were told there weren't any more buses leaving for Kanchanaburi that evening, she took me around the corner to a hotel that was relatively cheap, spoke to the person at the front desk, made sure I was okay and knew when to catch the bus the next morning, then had her picture taken with me (on her camera first--I had to ask her to wait to take one on mine, too) and left. This is my Thai guardian angel from that weekend: 

I woke up obscenely early the next morning to get the bus to Kanchanaburi. From there, it was a matter of getting on the next bus at the bus station to get to Erawan Falls. At the entrance to Erawan National Park, I showed the person selling tickets my work permit, which got the normal 200 baht tourist fee reduced to the 40 baht Thai fee. And then I was off. 

The waterfalls involve quite a hike if you want to get to the top tier. I decided my chances of making it to all 7 would be better if I hiked to the top first and then swam at each level as I came back down. And I did it! I made it all the way to the top. There were tons of butterflies everywhere--it was a bit like being in the butterfly house at the Seattle science center. Here's just one of the many varieties I saw: 

In the Lonely Planet guidebook that everyone received just before coming to Thailand, there's a note about Erawan Falls that says to bring good walking shoes for the higher levels. The trail was difficult, but my "better walking shoes" gave me a blister before the second level, so I did the whole thing in flip-flops. Not ideal, but manageable. The other thing the guidebook said was to look out for monkeys that might steal your belongings if you leave them on the shore while you go swimming. Thankfully, no problems on that score. 

Here's my favorite picture that I got while hiking up the trail: 

Something quirky from the trip: Along the way, there were occasionally trees with cloth or other things tied around them (one even had a couple of shop window dummies). According to what I've heard, it's meant to show respect for the spirit that lives in that tree. 

Here's the top waterfall. A Thai woman was kind enough to take a photo for me. 

What the picture doesn't show is that I was being tickled to death by tiny fish that like to nibble your feet. 

On the way down, I ran into people from orientation. It was fun to catch up and go swimming together. Here are pictures from the fourth level of the falls, where we climbed on the rocks behind the waterfall. 

I lost them on the way back down and ended up swimming in the first and second levels on my own again. When I got down to the first level, I was swarmed by a mass of Thai people who all wanted to take photos with me. Then I caught the last bus back to Kanchanaburi at 4, stayed the night in Kanchanaburi and went back to Doembang at a leisurely pace the next day. All in all, a very satisfying trip. If you'd told me this time last year that I'd be in Thailand, hiking on a jungle trail and swimming in pools under a waterfall, I'd have said you were talking about a crazy wish, not reality. It's funny the places life takes you. 

A Thai Christmas

It doesn't exactly feel like Christmas when it's around 90 degrees outside every day. This is the Christmas tree in my friend Rachael's apartment in Bangkok. She let me help decorate it--which got me in the Christmas spirit more than just about anything else this December.

Thailand celebrates Christmas the way America celebrates Cinco de Mayo--they'll celebrate it (because why not?) but it's not a holiday in the same way. As a Buddhist country, Christmas qualifies as one of those holidays that you don't have a particular reason for celebrating other than wanting to celebrate something.

I had to work on Christmas, although the English department put together a party for the students in English classes, which meant my morning was taken up with games and food. I was asked to give a powerpoint presentation on the history of Christmas and why people celebrate it, and my own family's traditions for the holiday. There was a moment, after they asked, when I thought "Wait--did I just get asked to talk about religion in school?" I kept it pretty simple--a basic explanation about the pre-Christian history of mid-winter festivals and the yule log, explaining where the Christmas tree and the idea of Santa Claus came from, going through basic Christian symbols of the holiday, and then spending the majority of the time on what my family does for Christmas each year. It made me a little homesick, but the Thai students got really excited about the pictures I showed them of my family's Christmases when I was a kid. After the presentation, the co-teach for my afternoon class told me we should just let the students have a break and do homework for the class. So I got to go home early.

I don't have great internet access at my house, but I was ecstatic to find that I could watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on youtube. I skyped with my family on and off through the day, and Christmas dinner meant going to the market--I'm not sure if it was for the holiday, exactly, but the market was bigger for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Doembang had Christmas carols playing on the radio loudspeakers, which was fun to listen to as I wandered through the stalls and bought things like sugared popcorn, fried chicken, fruit, deep-fried dough balls, and a slice of Christmas cake. I passed a lot of the students there, who all wished me a Merry Christmas whenever they saw me. It might not have been the same as being with family, but it was a great Christmas nonetheless.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Hold Out Your Arm So We Can Take Your Temperature

I didn't post at all last week because I was sick. Not the I've-got-a-cold type of sick, and not the Thai-food-isn't-being-kind-to-my-digestive-system type of sick, but actually sick. I didn't think I was at first. At home, I didn't get sick very often--one year in college, all of my five roommates came down with the flu twice each, and all I got was a stuffy nose for a couple of days. Also, last week it was harder to tell I had a fever, because instead of realizing I had chills, I just thought the temperature wasn't quite so stiflingly hot as it had been the week before.

I had grand plans for the three-day weekend of Thailand's Constitution day (Monday, Dec. 10th this year), but they all fell through when I woke up on Saturday and realized that I had a sore throat and didn't feel like going anywhere. I made it to the market to pick up some groceries, but felt totally wiped afterward. I told myself I'd get a good night's sleep and get traveling on Sunday. Sunday morning came, and it was all I could do to muster enough energy to make it to the bathroom, which meant my plans for Kanchanaburi and Erawan Falls were out. So I resigned myself to recuperating over the holiday so that I could feel well enough to go back to school on Tuesday. Tuesday morning came, and I went to the doctor instead.

The school coordinator, Pheung, took me to a clinic at the market, telling me that the doctor there was the best in Doembang and that his clinic was the cleanest, that he worked at the hospital for most of the day, but he had a clinic open for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. The waiting room was open-air, as quite a few things are in Thailand. There was a long wait. I probably wasn't much fun to wait with--I tend to go quiet and almost surly when I'm not feeling well. Also, going to see the doctor in a foreign country is a bit scary. Medical terms are a language all their own, and I was sure something important was going to get lost in translation. There was a funny moment where I had to explain the difference between "temperature" and "blood pressure," but otherwise translations went better than I expected.

It took perhaps a minute's examination before the doctor told me I had a bacterial infection in my throat. I might have been skeptical at such a hasty diagnosis, but I remembered being about thirteen or fourteen years old and listening to my family doctor telling my mom about how Strep has a distinctive smell--and I'd been waking up with an odd taste in my mouth for a few days last week, and taste and smell are closely related, so . . . I came to the conclusion that I must have something akin to strep. Which gave me enough confidence in the doctor's prognosis to take the medications he gave me. And his prognosis was dead on--most of the symptoms disappeared by Thursday, and I was back at my full energy level by Friday. Hurrah for a return to health!

Unexpected health advice for sore throats: I was told by multiple people to not drink anything colder than room temperature while my throat was sore. Odd advice, but it worked, too.

Ayutthaya

This is one of my English co-teachers, Ed, and her husband, who also teaches at the school. They took me to Ayutthaya for the King's birthday, which is also Thailand's Father's Day, on December 5th. Which is pretty amazingly kind and awesome of them, when you consider they gave up a family holiday to show a farang around Thailand. It was like being taken on a day trip by an indulgent and camera-happy aunt and uncle--they must have had me pose for pictures in about fifty different places.

We went to three different temples, two of them in ruins and all of them beautiful. Here is the first, which was closed for restoration after last year's floods:

The second was a fully-functioning temple, and as we went in there were many people kneeling in prayer/meditation. There was also a curious rattling sound, which turned out to be little cups full of sticks, each with a number on them. You take the cup and shake it back and forth until one stick falls out, and there's a fortune that goes with the number on that stick. The one that fell out for me had a number 9 on it. This is the fortune that went along with that number that day: You will be successful, happy, and wealthy, but your hopes in love will not be met just yet. Also, this temple had a huge seated Buddha image. I cropped all the people out of the photo below, but to give you an idea, you can see picture frames at the bottom on either side of the doorway--those were just above head height.

After seeing the inside of the temple, we lit incense at a little altar outside. They also sold little bits of gold leaf you could rub onto a smaller Buddha statue outside.

Right next door to this temple were the second set of ruins we visited. It cost 50 baht for a foreigner to enter, and 10 baht for Thais--what I found funniest about this was that the sign had the Thai price in Thai numerals, probably in an effort to keep tourists from finding out they were being charged more. It was worth it, however, and I spent a good half hour or so walking all the way around the site and taking loads of pictures. Here's one of my favorites:

I haven't been able to figure out why some of the Buddha statues (like this one) get a wrap of saffron cloth (the color worn by the monks here) and others are left bare. I'm sure it's some sort of mark of respect. Or possibly it's cultural modesty--if so, I'm more in favor of this method than the carved fig leaves used to cover Greek and Renaissance sculptures.

We stopped for lunch and had som tam, sticky rice, fried chicken, and some kind of sweet beef. Our last stop was the floating market, where there's plenty to see and not enough words to describe it. There was an international section, where there was a blue Statue of Liberty (I think it was made from some kind of foam), post boxes from China and Thailand, a British phone box, a mini Eiffel Tower, a mini Tower of Pisa, and other international symbols. I decided against another elephant ride (they get pretty expensive), but I did go for a fifteen-minute boat trip through the market--you can see the boats to the right in the picture below.

It was a beautiful, packed, and memorable day, and I fell asleep during the two-hour car trip home.

Loi Krathong

I think Loi Krathong pretty much replaced my Thanksgiving this year. Okay, that's not exactly true--I did specifically go out on Thanksgiving and had fried chicken, sticky rice, and a Kit-Kat bar (which was as close to turkey, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie as I could get in Doembang). Loi Krathong, however, was just the next week, and felt rather more like a holiday since everyone around me was celebrating it, too.

For those who don't want to go off and do their own research about it: Loi Krathong is a traditional Thai holiday that's celebrated on a full moon and is kind of like a day of thanksgiving and atonement. It involves giving thanks to the rivers (or other bodies of water) for giving life, and apologizing for polluting them. Thais make little decorative rafts out of banana leaves and flowers, with incense and candles on top, and float them down the river--making a wish as they're launched. The rafts are called krathong. This is one that was given to me by one of the other teachers at my school:

This year the holiday fell on a Wednesday and I didn't have the day off work, which was a little surprising to me--Loi Krathong was one of the more major holidays I'd heard about before coming, so I half-way expected I'd have the day off to travel. I'll admit, I was kind of disappointed I didn't have the opportunity to go to Chiang Mai in the north, where, according to all the tourist resources, they have a really beautiful festival called Yi Peng involving floating lanterns. (I'm far enough away from Chiang Mai that I'd need two days just to have time to get there and back, let alone see anything.)

Sometimes, of course, little disappointments like that become fabulous opportunities. Two of the other English teachers from my school, Payow and Ed, took me to the festival held at one of the temples in Doembang. So instead of dealing with crowds of tourists, I got the authentic, small-town festival experience. I was the only farang there, and felt like I was stared at the entire time, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the evening to the fullest. There was food, Thai music and traditional Thai dance performances (some of the students from the school were among the performers), kids performing on unicycles, a grandmother/granddaughter contest, and firecrackers. There was also open dancing later, which, after being asked three times if I wanted to join in, I felt I couldn't really refuse--and it turned out to be quite fun. Below are the performers from my school, looking gorgeous and graceful:

I of course got the opportunity to make a wish and float my krathong down the river from the dock, and although I lit the incense, there was unfortunately too much wind to bother with the candle. According to Thai superstition, if your krathong stays close to the shore after you launch it, it means your beloved is nearby. Ed says mine must be in Doembang, because it took some splashing to get my krathong out into the river. Also, to my surprise and delight, the Yi Peng festival seems to have penetrated Doembang, because I did get to float a lantern off into the sky. Mine wasn't even one of the ones that got caught in a tree and brought the smallest fire engine I've ever seen to join the festivities. So, happy thoughts for the coming year, sent by sky and by river. I'm sure it will at least be an eventful year!

The War on Bugs

Let me start off by pointing out that I'm not the totally squeamish type. I mean, I'm not about to go out and buy a tarantula for a pet, but I'm not the type to shriek helplessly at every creepy-crawly and jump up on a chair to wait for someone else to kill or relocate it. During my 18 months in Ireland, I was the spider-killer for my arachnophobic companions. During a year in college when I lived in a basement, my sister and I had a catch-and-release program for spiders (I'd been reading a book called Phantom by Susan Kay in which there are a few bits that inspire some sympathy for all spiders).

The creepy-crawlies that have found their way into my Thailand house, however, have successfully earned two shrieks. The first was for a cockroach. This wasn't an ordinary cockroach--if you place two quarters next to each other and draw an oval around them, you'll approach the size of this particular cockroach. And it wasn't some cockroach I just found on the floor, either. I'd just gathered a load of dirty laundry in my arms, and this beastie crawled out from between the clothes and jumped to the ground--from my arms. (Insert shudder here.)

The second shriek was, in fact, for a spider. More particularly, this spider:

To give you some perspective: those cables in the corner? Yeah, they're a shade over an inch across. Which means that if you include all the legs, this guy was about the size of my hand. I found him a few nights ago up near the ceiling in my kitchen, in the corner nearest my bedroom. I'm all for spiders that eat mosquitoes and cockroaches and other bugs, but spiders that big do not belong inside. Plus, in a tropical and unfamiliar country, I have no idea of when I'm dealing with something poisonous (I've heard since that most of the larger species are not--yay?), so this specimen had to go. So I got my mop (the only way I could conceivably reach it), and tried to kill it. And failed. The shriek happened when it moved--it ran towards my bedroom. Very fast. And dropped out of sight. And I couldn't find it. But I knew it didn't go into my bedroom, so I managed to sleep that night, although it took some time for my heart rate to go down.

I also have to be careful of ants. If I'm not careful about what I eat where, I'll find a trail of the dutiful things on any conceivable surface. I did wake up one morning to two little ants crawling down my arm . . . it was the last time I ate anywhere near my bed. To give them credit, though, they don't stay where there isn't any food. Which means they've encouraged me to a greater level of cleanliness. And while they might be irritating, they at least don't bite like the fire ants of Atlanta.

There's an ant-sized species yet to be identified that occasionally appears on the floor by my front door and doesn't seem to do anything more than spread out to sit there and exist. I spray the area once a week and sweep them up at least as often as that. It's not a food area, so I have no idea what's attracting them. I'm hopeful that if I keep spraying and killing them off, they'll soon take the hint.

The other notable battle in the war on bugs is against mosquitoes. I'm a bit notorious in my extended family for my hatred of mosquitoes. This is really just because of a single camping trip in the Uinta Mountains over ten years ago. In my defense, the air was unusually thick with mosquitoes. And I'm the type of person people bring on campouts because all the mosquitoes are bound to find me and leave everyone else alone. Even that wouldn't be so bad here if every single bite didn't swell to the size of a nickel. I knew I'd have quite the time of it in Thailand, but figured I could just use a lot of repellant and grin and bear the results. This plan has mostly worked. And I've discovered that tiger balm works wonders on the itchy bites. For most of my first month here, I've only averaged a couple of bites a week. Then last week, the farmers started draining the fields for planting all up and down the canal road where I live. Which meant the mosquitoes were looking for new living quarters. Several decided my bathroom looked ideal. I've found some spray that keeps them at bay, but I did have a moment when I realized I had enough bites on my legs that they could be mistaken for chicken pox--if they were smaller, of course.

Teaching Oddities

I love teaching. This isn't a new discovery, but it's been interesting to rediscover. Of course, there are things about it that are hard. There are bad days--and even, occasionally, very bad days . . . I've also discovered that teaching is the most fun when you're teaching something you're passionate about. Sometimes, it's hard to be passionate about the difference between "niece" and "granddaughter."

Every now and then, I think about how teaching in America would be a totally different experience to this, and I just have to laugh. Here are some of the oddities about teaching in Thailand:

- Huge classes. I don't have any classes that hit the cap of 50 that government schools in Thailand can reach, but I come pretty close. My smallest class has about 35 students. Not ideal for teaching a foreign language. No matter how I structure the class, it's difficult to have everyone practice speaking. There are always a couple of students that just aren't interested.

- Open-air classrooms. There's one classroom I teach in that has air conditioning. I'm lucky in that I teach more than one class in this room, but I've been told that the air conditioning goes on only in the afternoon, otherwise it'll get too expensive for the school. How do I cope with the other 17-odd classes in rooms with no air conditioning? Well, I sweat a lot more than I'd like to. There are fans, and the windows are always open, but sometimes you just have to remind yourself that class won't last forever.

- Morning assemblies. Ok, so some American schools probably do something similar. But I doubt it's outside every single morning. I also doubt that the students sing the Thai national anthem as the Thai flag is raised over the assembly. Or that talent shows take place every Tuesday.

- School lunches done right. Thai food that's fast-served, stays hot, is healthy, and tasty. There's probably not as much variety as in some American schools, but there's enough to keep me happy.

- School dogs. When I was told about them on the drive up from Bangkok, I was picturing Doberman guard dogs, or something similar. The somewhat mangy-looking dogs that roam the school campus are smaller and far less fierce. For the most part, they have sweet temperaments and/or ignore all humans. Possibly my favorite teaching moment was during my first week, when I was having students talk about the pets they have at home. One of the school dogs sauntered through the open door, yawned, and lay down in one of the aisles between the desks. I pointed at the complacent canine and asked the students to raise their hands if they had a dog at home. It stayed there for the rest of the hour.

- Polite students. Everywhere I go, the students wai, which is the Thai bow of greeting and/or thanks. I get calls of "good morning, teacher!" and "hello!" to go along with this, and giggles whenever I answer. Whenever I pass out worksheets or hand back homework, I get another little wai and sometimes a "thank you" before the student takes the paper.

So, yeah. All in all, quite the unique teaching experience.

P.S. About the picture: this is one of the fields I sometimes ride my bike past when going to the market. I was going to post a picture of the school, but I haven't actually taken my camera to school yet . . .