An Exhilarating Thai Soccer Game and Late Night Celebration with Locals

F.Y.I.: Thailand loves soccer. Or “football,” as they (and the rest of the world) refer to it. And in Chonburi, they loved their city’s football club. A lot. I mean, it was almost like the whole city (180,000 population, so obviously not everyone) would show up for their home games and would be rockin’ the team’s jersey, the colors on their faces, and other paraphernalia.

I’m not joking. Look at this guy with whom I obviously needed to pose:

Matt and I decided to go to one of their home games with other fellow foreign teachers. First thing was first: tickets. The cheapest they had, of course. I’m not a big soccer/football fan myself, so it wasn’t a huge deal to me where we sat.

Then, we watched some Chonburi Football dancers dance, cheer, and sing outside of the stadium. All in Thai, so naturally, we were clueless as to what was going on, but nonetheless bobbed our heads to the music.

After we noticed people finally flocking to the entrance of the arena, we followed suit. And purchased some large Chang beers to drink on the way to our seats, since alcohol is not allowed within the stands. Definitely a good idea. On our way, the national anthem was blasting through some unseen speakers, so, as everyone is forced to do whenever the anthem is played anywhere, we all stood still with our arms at our sides and made sure not to speak. Afterwards, we poured our beers down our gullets and headed up the stairs to our seats.

Well, we couldn’t see much, unfortunately. But that was okay. We weren’t paying much attention anyway because Matt and I were chatting with a couple who were foreign teachers from another school in Chonburi. They were super nice and, incidentally, not very interested in soccer either!

When Chonburi scored a goal, the crowd went wild. I mean, seriously, wild. They would scream, bang on drums, throw confetti, wave alarmingly large Chonburi FC flags, and as a group, shout cheers. It was fantastic! I’ve never been so excited watching a sporting event before!

The crowd going wild after a Chonburi goal (notice in panorama: in the front, two new foreign teacher friends [the girl’s hand is missing because of panoramic failure], Matt, then Paul, and a couple of other people who tagged along. And Cholla is taking a panorama to my right!)

Chonburi ended up tying the game at 2!

So, after the game, there were parties in the street next to the stadium. While almost all of the foreign teachers from our school went home since it was a Sunday and we had school the following morning, we stayed. We ended up drinking beer with one of our foreign teachers, those foreign teachers we had just met, and a large number of strange Thai men!

We were talking with everyone, drinking, and most of all, taking pictures because we were all white and Thai people love taking pictures with white people.

We stayed out and celebrated the Chonburi tie for several hours. It was a wonderful display of Thai relaxation and fun. The Thai people we were drinking with were so kind to us and included us in their wonderful celebrations.

Did I mention that they have a minivan/bus dedicated to the Chonburi Football Club?

Me, one of our new foreign teacher friends, and the Chonburi FC bus

It was an exciting, relaxing, and fun-filled evening… until the Thai men grew more and more intoxicated and wanted more and more pictures with me and the other female foreign teacher. Then, we decided to walk back to our apartment, which was an hour walk from the stadium.

So, Matt, Paul (the other foreign teacher from our school), and I stumbled back home, waltzing through the darkened streets of Chonburi.

Locals know how to have a good time and are extremely welcoming and friendly. Looking back, I would have to say that it was one of our favorite evenings in Thailand.

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Have you ever celebrated anything with locals from a foreign country? Or even spent any amount of time with locals that made a hefty impact on you?

Monkey Mountain: An Eerie Hike with Ravenous Wild Monkeys

During one of our weekends off from school in January, Matt and I decided to go to Monkey Mountain, which was luckily only a couple of Song Tao rides away from our apartment. We heard about it from a couple of foreign teachers from our school and figured, hey– we don’t have anything to do today. Let’s go hang out with some wild monkeys on a mountain.

And so, we did. We hopped on one Song Tao in the stifling heat and humidity, sticking to the plastic seats and not receiving much recourse from the wind as we drove. Eventually, we got off by Bang Saen beach and walked a bit to find the blue Song Tao, which would take us in the direction of the mountain. When we told the driver that we wanted to go to Monkey Mountain, he understood (surprise!) and took us there. But, he didn’t stop to let us off, which we assumed he would do, considering we didn’t know where the mountain was or when or where to get off. He drove past macaque monkeys, other cars stopped with monkeys on their roofs, and scattered older Thai women with straw hats selling bushels of miniature bananas. But he didn’t stop. After turning right and making it back to the main road, Matt and I realized the driver wasn’t going back, so we pushed the buzzer above us to signal him to stop and we stepped off.

Already soaked with sweat, we walked at an incline back to where we drove past the monkeys. And we sweated even more. Finally, we reached the starting point of monkey mountain and yes, just as you may have imagined, there were monkeys everywhere. 

We approached one of the Thai women in the straw hats and bought a bushel of bananas to feed the monkeys. While purchasing the bananas, we noticed two things: 1. the lady was nice and spoke a bit of English, since she said “Oh my god!” when I dropped money on the ground and it was hysterical; and 2. her teeth were as black as night. I mean, they really were! I have never seen teeth that rotted before.

Anywho, we decided to climb the mountain via the sidewalk rather than the road, since there were cars coming and going there. While walking along the sidewalk, we noticed it was scattered with monkeys. As we walked along, we would hand a monkey a banana and watch as they took it from our hands and quickly ate it right in front of us.

A couple of monkeys; me handing a banana to a monkey; monkeys along the sidewalk

After a few minutes, we couldn’t shake this eerie feeling that all of the monkeys were watching us from all angles. From the sidewalk, from inside the bushes, and from the branches on the trees above us. And they really were.

It grew more terrifying as we realized that we were the only ones walking on the sidewalk. Everyone else was below us on the street, but in their cars. No one stepped out of their car. Not one person.

We continued to walk on, handing out bananas as we went. Eventually, the sidewalk ended with a staircase winding down to the road. We walked down it and had to walk the rest of the way up via the road.

A monkey sitting on the road

We also had given all of our bananas away, so we had to buy some more. However, the next Thai lady that was selling food to give to the monkeys only sold small straw-woven bowls of peanuts. So, Matt purchased one.

Monkeys, cars, and the Thai lady we bought the peanuts from (in the pink)

He walked not even ten feet and three monkeys were surrounding him and staring at the basket of peanuts with hungry eyes. He tried handing them out to the monkeys, but he wasn’t giving away enough for them. More monkeys appeared as if from nowhere, badgering Matt for the peanuts. The woman who sold us the peanuts came over and tried to stop the monkeys from overwhelming Matt, which worked for a few seconds, but once the lady walked away, they came back for more. Matt said, “Fuck this!” and placed the bowl on the ground and speed-walked away, leaving a mob of monkeys gorging themselves behind him.

We continued up the mountain, still frightful of the conniving primates, but desperate to finish the climb that we started. Dripping with perspiration, we eventually made it to a false peak, which was surprisingly beautiful. It had some steps, leading to an aged platform that looked out onto the shimmering Gulf of Thailand. It was a wonderful place of refuge!

After that, we made our way to the actual top of the mountain, which actually wasn’t as magical as we had hoped. Just more monkeys, which were crazier than the others in that they were all aggressive towards each other, tackling and biting each other, and a collection of Thai people and their cars.

We glanced at the view and continued on the road back down the mountain. After waiting several minutes, a blue Song Tao picked us up.

And what do you know? It took us past Monkey Mountain! This time, we didn’t even look at them. We just kept our wet heads inside the pickup truck and anxiously waited to leave the mountain behind.

What is your experience with wild monkeys? Where were you when you experienced them?

An Ode to Our Not-So-Wild Wild Thai Dogs

In case you weren’t already aware, there are wild dogs everywhere in Thailand. They are on every street and they’re usually in packs, rummaging around through piles of garbage. That may sound relatively terrifying, but they all tend to keep to themselves for the most part. Most of them are even nice to people! And even adorable!

As for the wild dogs by our apartment building, we were fortunate enough to be surrounded by the kind and cute ones.

I’ll give you an idea of our apartment building area just to help clarify where the wild dogs were located. We had a four floor apartment building called the Ing Swiss (who knows what they were going for with that name) and underneath it was a small, open parking lot/garage where the owners/workers lived and worked and tenants parked their cars and motorbikes. To the right of our apartment building was a very loud and bumpin’ brothel. Yes, we lived next to a brothel. Very enthralling! The owners of our apartment building also owned the brothel, so there was a pathway between the two buildings.

Most of the adult dogs lived under our apartment building in the parking lot and the one puppy who was born in early January lived in the pathway, but hung out with the other dogs in the parking lot/garage.

Okay, so basically, we had four dogs of our own! And they were all very loving and sweet and always close by.

And now, without further ado: pictures of our fur babies!

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Tao

Tao was maybe three or four years old. He was a bit mangy and when you scratched his head for even a moment, your fingertips would come up black with dirt. However, he was one of the most protective and sweetest dogs I’ve ever met. When we walked down the road to have dinner or even walk to school, he would trot in front of us and continually look back at us to make sure we were alright. He would actually walk us all the way from our apartment building to the restaurant or school. It was amazing to us!

Occasionally, we would sit outside of the Italian restaurant, Granchio’s, across the street with a couple of other foreign teachers for drinks and food. And Tao, being the big sweetheart he was, would always join us. He would sit by us and try to play bite us (he did that all the time, but never hurt anyone) to get us to pet him. He was such a sweetie.

Tao hanging out with us and a couple of friends at Granchio’s, begging for attention

Happy

Happy and her baby, Lulu

Yes, there was a dog named Happy! She was named “Happy” because she had a mean underbite and our apartment building’s owners were clever enough to come up with the ironic name. Plus, she was a very tranquil and loving dog.

She lived under our apartment building. She literally never left, so every time we came home from eating or school or traveling, she would waltz up to us, wanting food and affection. She was incredibly skinny and mangy, but loved a good headscratch.

Happy was Tao’s baby mama, by the way. Numerous times! She had a litter of puppies before we arrived and, apparently, all of her puppies died for various reasons. How sad! Then, she had another litter while we were there, but only one puppy survived: Lulu.

Lulu

Lulu was the baby of the dog club at the Ing Swiss. She was white, just like her mom, but was just as sweet as both of her parents. She was always playful (I mean, come on, she was a puppy) and loved to be held and petted. Lulu was also the cleanest of all the dogs, so obviously we all had no problem holding and petting her constantly!

I would elaborate on how adorable she is, but I think the pictures will speak better than I can!

Our foreign teacher friend, Cholla, with Lulu when she was a couple of weeks old; Matt and Lulu

Lulu; Matt with Lulu and Tao 

Lulu = Simba (sorry it’s such a short video)

Lucky

Lucky (top) and Lulu (bottom)

Last, but certainly not least, Lucky! Lucky was adopted by the two workers at the apartment building in the first couple of weeks of our living there. He was just a little puppy then and so sweet! And he was generally clean!

The workers who owned him kept him chained under the apartment building. But, maybe that was to keep him safe because Tao was a rather territorial dog and probably wouldn’t be a fan of another male dog around.

But, at any rate, Lucky was so precious and sweet! He, just like the other dogs, desired attention and to be petted. So, he would get a little jealous when we were petting Lulu, Tao, or Happy, and would bark at us until we went over to him and played with him.

Lucky as a puppy when he first arrived

All of our dogs were incredibly loving and changed the stigma I had about wild dogs. They also helped in showing me that, although Thailand holds some of the kindest people, Thailand holds some of the kindest dogs, too!

A video of Lulu, Happy, Tao, and Lucky, who is barking in the background for attention!

What is your experience with wild dogs abroad?

Pork Larb with White Rice

This is one of those dishes that I’m profoundly disappointed in myself for not discovering earlier.

During our visa run to Laos in January, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the lobby of our hotel for dinner. While flipping through the menu, we found that there was an extensive amount of Thai food options, but considering we were in Laos, we wanted to try a Laotian dish. After flipping through some more, we found “larb,” which, according to the menu, was a popular Laotian dish. Exactly what we were looking for!

We ordered it and weren’t quite sure of what to expect when they brought it out to us. But, when they finally did and we took a bite out of it, we were astonished at the amazing flavor! It was spicy (I’m not a huge spicy fan, but it was somehow perfect here) with chilies, ground pork, fried basil, garlic, and white rice. Sounds simple, but it was packed with flavor.

The only downfall of this flavorful meal was that it was a small portion. However, that’s how Thailand’s portions are as well, so we were used to it by then…kindof. We still wanted more!

Fortunately, after returning to Thailand, Matt and I found larb on the menus of a few other places in which we ate! It was a wonderful discovery and was just as delicious as this larb! I hope I am able to try this again some day soon. But, I hope that you are able to try it for yourself some day sooner!

Thin Noodle Stir-Fry

Stir-fry is always a delightfully delicious meal, but it is particularly mind-blowing when it’s made in Thailand. And Thai stir-fry is even better– even when you thought that it was impossible– when it’s made by street vendors.

After going to the Chonburi mall one weekend, Matt and I decided to grab dinner from a street vendor before going back to our apartment for the night. While perusing the various carts, we weren’t quite interested in anything because a lot of carts were selling more snack-like foods. Eventually, we stumbled upon a cart with three workers, presumably mother, father, and daughter, working two large woks. We came to a sudden halt to admire the concoctions being made within the woks. The daughter was stirring some thin noodles with soy sauce, fish sauce, oil, egg, chicken, and a mystery vegetable (maybe bok choy?). We were drooling. I quickly ordered “song,” which is “two” in Thai, and we sat down, salivating at the thought of some stir-fry.

After a couple of minutes of sitting on backless plastic chairs, the daughter brought over two bowls of stir-fry. And we enjoyed every bite of it. Every ingredient in the meal was so fresh, flavorful, and juicy, it was magical. It was perfect and melt-in-your-mouth worthy. I still look at the picture of it now and drool a bit.

Oh so delicious street stir-fry

A Couple of “Fun” Days for Teachers and a Visa Run to Laos

January 7th, 2015

Ah, yes. Teachers Sports Day. On the same day that we had to leave for our Visa Run to Laos, we had a lovely day off from school dedicated to teachers participating in a sports day. Four schools, one of them being ours, competed against each other in a number of predetermined sports.

The sports (at least, the ones I could recall) were volleyball, basketball, chairball, and some sport where it’s basically volleyball and soccer combined. Oh, and if you don’t know what chairball and the second sport are, that’s totally normal because these sports are pretty much played in only Thailand (as far as I know, anyway).

During the indoor volleyball match, all of the Thai and foreign teachers who weren’t participating in any sports had to sit in the bleachers, holding spray painted cardboard, which when placed together, made the Thai flag. And we had to dance with our white glove covered hands and pom-poms. And cheer…sort of. We just sang and moved our pom-poms around. Our school was honestly more obsessed with our cheering than the actual game. Odd, coming from America where winning in sports and cheering people on in them is so common.

Oh, and a few of the Thai teachers, both men and women, wore some interesting outfits to get us to cheer louder.

Eventually, us foreign teachers got bored and decided to walk around the premises, which was actually a lovely park that contained the Chonburi Football Club stadium and various other buildings and courts where the Teachers Sports Day was held. We watched some chairball, which is kindof like basketball, except there’s no dribbling, only passing, and instead of baskets, they have people standing on chairs, holding actual baskets above their heads. That got boring eventually, so we watched the volleyball-soccer games, which were surprisingly very entertaining! The Thai men who were playing were extremely skilled at the sport! It was my favorite sport to watch there.

Then, we moved on and watched basketball because they had one of the foreign teachers playing for our school! He was the only foreign teacher to be able to play (of the games I watched, anyway), so we obviously all had to watch. And guess what? We won!

The Director of our school (in dress pants) posing with our winning basketball team

After that, Matt and I grabbed our heaping backpacks and headed out to Laos!

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Visa Run to Laos: January 7th-January 9th

Alright, I have to be entirely honest with you: our excursion to Laos wasn’t exactly as exciting as you may think or hope it would’ve been. So, in order to keep you interested, I have decided to just make a short list of things we witnessed and did both in and on the way to Laos.

1. We took a 12-hour bus ride there. Yes, yet another forever-long bus ride.
2. We hardly slept at all on that bus because of the screaming Russian women at the front of the bus.
3. We arrived at the border before dawn and waited a half hour for the gates to allow us (and about fifty other people that were there!) to cross over.
4. Passport control will always have a long line, apparently even at the Laos border at six in the morning.

After passport control on a bus into Laos (notice the impending sunrise)

5. Laos looks a lot like Thailand, from the vegetation to the buildings.
6. I passed right out in the passenger’s seat in a minivan full of strangers (and Matt).
7. The Thai Embassy looked real fancy!

The Thai Embassy; Elephants on the wall of the embassy

8. Laos has SANDWICHES. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but since Matt and I are such huge sandwich lovers and Thailand doesn’t have any anywhere, it was pretty exciting.
9. The agency that we went with to take care of our Non-Immigrant B visas was fantastic. They did literally everything for us while we basically tagged along. I gotta give them big kudos for that.
10. We were finished with our visas for the day and, when we arrived to our hotel, we immediately took a five-hour nap. It was magical.
11. We attempted to walk around our block after we woke up, but there was honestly nothing where we were. There were buildings and cars all around, but nowhere to eat or even just go except in our hotel.

Tables outside of our hotel; the hotel itself from the outside

12. We had some amazing food for dinner from there, though. It was called larb. It was spicy with ground pork, rice, basil, chilies, and deliciousness. Would definitely recommend to a friend.

Larb (so good)

13. Fun fact: Laos accepts Thai baht (ya know, their currency)! Super convenient. And we got Laotian currency in change!

Laotian currency

14. After hanging out in the lobby of the hotel and speaking occasionally with some kind and outgoing Korean twenty-somethings who were there for school, Matt and I went to sleep for an absurd amount of hours until the morning, when we needed to leave with our agency to collect our passports with our new visas from the Thai embassy (hello, run-on sentence).
15. We got our new visas with no problems!
16. We immediately headed back to the border for another forever long ride back to Bangkok.
17. There was traffic at 2 a.m. in Bangkok after another exhausting trip. We took a cab from there and ended up walking into our apartment in Chonburi at 3:30 a.m.

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Teacher “Appreciation” Day!
January 16th

Apparently in Thailand, there are two holidays dedicated to teachers during the school year: one where the students “appreciate” their teachers with gifts and other fun things and another where the teachers and students have the day off, but the teachers congregate in a specific school, listen to Buddhist monks pray and sing, sing karaoke, and eat mountains of food.

We celebrated the latter.

Here is the layout for the day’s very interesting events:

• Arrive at our school with other Thai and foreign teachers
• Hop into a line of minivans and travel an hour away to some school in the middle of nowhere
• Take swigs of other foreign teachers’ incognito alcoholic beverages
• Arrive at middle-of-nowhere school
• Eat some rice soup for breakfast (just like our school had for almost every morning. We weren’t enthralled).
• Sit and wait for some instructions
• Walked around out of boredom

The school grounds

• Took more swigs of alcohol from fellow kind and generous foreign teachers all while admiring caged roosters, which were used primarily for cockfighting

• Sat in a large auditorium, listening to monks sing and pray for a couple of hours in pure confusion, and watched Thai teachers accept awards

   

The auditorium with monks at the front; Matt and I; our foreign teacher friends; more monks

• Got soaked in holy water from a monk

• Got yelled at by the head director of our school for talking too loudly
• Congregated under a large tent with numerous tables and chairs
• Sat with some foreign teachers (we had to split into two tables, unfortunately) and ate a plethora of flavorful Thai dishes, including grilled whole fish with chilies, soup, fried rice, and so many more that I can’t remember or explain. However, it was hands down one of me and Matt’s favorite meals in Thailand. We honestly couldn’t get enough!
• Listened to random Thai people dance and sing karaoke while we shoveled spicy and delicious food into our faces. And one of those people singing was the director of our school! It was hilarious, to say the least.

Thai dancers (I’m so sad I didn’t get documentation of our director singing)

• Eventually, we headed back to our school with full bellies and fuzzy heads (from alcohol and confusion from the day). Then, headed back home.

All in all, the three adventures were awesome, hilarious, confusing, and amazing experiences.

Thanks for reading, guys! 🙂
Next post: Our Wild Dogs!

Best New Year’s Celebration of My Life in Koh Chang, Thailand

Alright. I know. I haven’t posted in quite awhile and I apologize. I do. I’ve been slightly busy traveling around and, when I wasn’t traveling around, being a bit lazy.

Again, a thousand apologies, my friends! I hope you can somehow find it in your kind and loving hearts to forgive me.

Now, let’s get back in to it!

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December 31st, 2014- January, 2nd 2015

Along with a few other foreign teachers from our school, Matt and I traveled to Koh Chang, a somewhat nearby island, to celebrate New Year’s.

The journey was about eight hours in length and we trekked from Chonburi to the island via a tour bus, three song taos, and a ferry. It was quite the exhausting adventure, but fortunately, we drank beer throughout the entirety of it, which made it significantly easier and more fun!

 

Koh Chang in the distance from the ferry dock; Koh Chang up close from the ferry

The view of Koh Chang on the back of a Song Tao

When we arrived, we dropped off our things and decided to satisfy our hunger by grabbing some burgers. Since it was a tourist spot, there was plenty of Western grub to feast on. Considering that this was a rarity in Chonburi, we decided to dive in– and it was certainly gratifying.

After our meal, we returned to our room that we were splitting with a fellow teacher and got ready for the evening’s festivities, which included showering, dressing, and taking shots of cheap and not exactly taste bud stimulating liquor.

We met the other teachers we came to the island with afterwards at a tiki bar on the beach. It had plenty of tables, a tiki bar (obviously), a Christmas tree, and a surprisingly awesome DJ. We drank cheap buckets (literal sandcastle-sized buckets filled with a lot of liquor and a dash of chaser), then headed over to another, more “hippie” area of the island that was only a fifteen minute walk from where we were.

The Tiki Bar we went to for New Year’s

We danced, listened to amazing techno music, and drank some more buckets and beers. It was fantastic!

Matt and our friend Paul dancing at the other bar

Dancing with our friends at the same bar as above

Dancing with our friends and also with a few randoms

Even more dancing!

As the clock neared 12, we headed back over to the Tiki bar. When the clock did strike twelve, there were deafening cheers from the large crowd of people, fireworks blasting above, and shots of tequila being distributed amongst us. The entire bar was exuberant. Friends and even strangers were hugging in the excitement of the new year.

As you could probably guess, I don’t really recall the rest of the evening. It’s just a blur of drinks, dancing, techno music, and laughter. It was a spectacular evening spent with new and good friends in a foreign place filled with happy, easy-going people. It was the perfect way to ring in the new year.

Matt (left) and our friends in front of Song Taos

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The next day, horrendous hangovers were experienced by all, as was expected. Matt and I were struggling most of the day but, we were leaving the next day, unfortunately. So, Matt came up with the plan to ride elephants, since we had seen signs near our hotel for it. At first, I was reluctant due to my queasy stomach, but decided to do it anyway, since I love elephants and, well, Koh Chang means “Elephant Island” in English, so it seemed like no place would be better than there to do it.

We signed up for it, but had to wait an hour until the next tour began. So, we walked along the beach, which was, just like most beaches in Thailand, not a disappointment.

After our walk, we returned to the tour guide building and went to ride elephants via pickup truck with a tourist agency employee an hour later. When we got there, we didn’t see any elephants, but after waiting for about twenty minutes, the elephants gradually marched their way over to us. Finally, one of the tour guides called us up. We climbed some stairs, stepped onto a female adult elephant’s back, and sat onto a rather shaky and small bench. With a tour guide sitting on the elephant’s neck and us on our bench behind him, we were on our way.

Elephants!

We trekked through the jungle in a line of about five elephants, all holding tourists and tour guides on their backs. The ride was a bit bumpier than you might imagine. The way the enormous creature walks is quite slow and causes the bench seat to sway left to right with each step.

Atop our elephant friend; another elephant holding people behind us

We eventually made our way to a pool of water, where another elephant with other tourists was swimming and playing. We watched in excitement until it was our turn. When our elephant entered the water, Matt went in first and was on our elephant’s bareback as she dipped and waved her body from side to side, causing him to plunge into the water with her while holding onto her neck. After Matt’s turn was over, it was mine. Our elephant did the same with me. I felt her skin and noticed it was rough, thick and speckled with two-inch-long black hairs.

Matt and I bathing with our elephant!

Unfortunately, my turn was a bit shorter than anyone else’s, which honestly wasn’t all that unfortunate because the water was freezing (I wasn’t used to cold water in Thailand!) and filthy! So, I dismounted (with a struggle) our elephant before she was drawn out of the water. Then, after managing to get back onto her reattached bench seat, we made our way back to the main area where we first met the elephants (not without stopping for pictures, though!).

Matt, our elephant, and I; me wearing a leaf crown our tour guide made for me

In complete exhaustion, we finally hopped back into the pickup truck we came in on and drove back to our hotel.

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That night, we didn’t do much except rest and eventually fall asleep (quite the exhausting vacation!). The next day, we woke up rather early and Matt, the other teacher we were sharing the room with, and I sadly made our journey back to Chonburi. It was overall a wonderful few days filled with excitement, fun, happiness, and relaxation. It was the perfect vacation and, if I could go back, I would without hesitation.

Thanks for reading, guys! I swear, I’ll (try to) be more punctual with my next posting!

Next up: Teacher’s Sports Day, Visa Run to Laos, and Teacher “Appreciation Day”

Christmas Fun in Thailand!

When being thousands of miles away from home, it’s only natural to feel a little homesick. During Christmas time in Thailand, I did feel a bit homesick and was saddened that I wasn’t surrounded by my family. However, I was also glad to be in Thailand during this holiday to witness firsthand what it was like to celebrate this holiday in a completely different country and culture.

And big surprise: it was nothing like I had expected.

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Being that Thailand is primarily Buddhist, the country doesn’t particularly celebrate the holiday, but it does recognize it. Throughout our city, there were Christmas decorations hung up.

Snoopy and a large, beautifully decorated Christmas tree outside our mall

Even at our school on Christmas Day, there were decorations aplenty!
Oh, and every single person was slathered in cherry red and every child had a Santa hat on.

During the school day, there wasn’t much teaching. For most of the morning, everyone in the school convened in an auditorium-like room and watched numerous children on stage sing and dance (mostly to “Jingle Bell Rock,” which seems to be the Christmas song of choice in Thailand).

While sitting with Matt and a few other foreign teachers, however, we were appalled at the nature of the dancing. The dancing, which was done mostly by ten-year-olds, was incredibly provocative.

At one point, a group of young girls were dancing in their red Christmas attire, which was quickly ripped off to reveal tight-fitting clothes underneath. The girls then proceeded to “twerk” on their hands and knees on the floor.

The best part of this was not even the performers, but the audience of about three thousand children and about a hundred teachers. They were going nuts. They were standing up, cheering, taking videos and pictures, and dancing along with them!

It was actually hilarious. I sincerely wish I had gotten that on video. I’m incredibly sorry that I didn’t!

Most of the assembly was like that for the rest of the morning, which was just a fantastic comedic routine for us. Then, the rest of the school day mainly consisted of students watching cartoons and just relaxing.

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Another intriguing celebration for Christmas was on the 26^th, where there was a teachers’ party hours after school ended.

It wasn’t exactly a “Christmas” celebration. It was just a celebration that happened to be near Christmas. However, there were some Christmas decorations… But, there was a sign above the stage that said “Happy New Year…” Alright, I guess I’ll just say it was a Christmas/New Year’s party for the teachers.

At the party, everyone was expected to wear traditional Thai clothes, which we all did. (Naturally, we didn’t have traditional Thai clothes in our wardrobes, so the school allowed us to borrow clothes from them).

Matt and I in traditional Thai clothes

There was a large buffet of Thai food that including items like papaya salad, pork noodle soup, fried chicken and pork, fried morning glory, fried noodles, and an assortment of other food items that I don’t know the names of or how to explain! And it was all delicious! And not to mention super spicy!

A snapchat I saved of the party

Unfortunately, there was no liquor supplied at the party. However, later in the evening we discovered that a couple of the Thai teachers had bottles of whiskey hidden behind one of the buffet tables. Naturally, we asked if we could have some and they were more than willing to share it with us!

As for entertainment at the party, on stage there was karaoke at the beginning, where Thai teachers aplenty jumped on stage and sang Thai songs. There were also numerous performances by Thai teachers, which can only be explained by videos:

After everyone was just about finished eating, there were also gift giveaways!

Our school was super rich, by the way, so they were giving away expensive items to randomly selected teachers for free, such as TVs, refrigerators, rice cookers, money, and so much more. All of the English teachers who went, including Matt and I, waited and waited for our names to be called, but they never seemed to get called. Eventually, while Matt and I were just about to leave the party, I heard my name called! I hopped up and practically ran (but didn’t because I would’ve tripped over my skirt) to the stage and guess what I won!?

Two hand towels. Big winner!

After that, we decided to walk back home. We were rather tipsy and tired and wanted to go to sleep (it was past 11:00! Thai people like to party).

It was a wonderful two day “celebration” of Christmas and, as much as I had missed being home, I was very thankful to be where I was with the people I got to share it with.

Thanks for reading, guys! 🙂
Next post: New Year’s in Koh Chang!

Merry very belated Christmas from Matt and I!

The Hell Garden– Yes, it’s just about as horrifying as it sounds

After our first week of school, we figured we could explore the area we would be living in for the next four months. We had heard from one of our friends during our tour in Kanchanaburi (remember that?) about them going to this Hell Garden, where there were statues of people in the afterlife being brutally tortured because they didn’t follow Buddhist scripture during their lives. While our friends were there, they were completely uncomfortable.

After hearing that, we naturally decided, “hey, we should totally go there!” So, we were able to because there was fortunately one close to where we lived!

On Saturday November 22nd, we asked our landlords how to get to the hell garden. After going back and forth with them for a while in two different languages, our landlord asked a fellow Thai tenant if he would drive us to the hell garden, which he instantly said “yes” to and invited us in his van (no, not like a white rape van or anything. People in Thailand are super nice and offer you rides places all the time. It’s real kind!).

Then, the four of us (our landlord tagged along) were on our way to the hell garden! Then, about twenty minutes later, Matt and I were being dropped off right outside the gate of the hell garden.
We waltzed inside the garden and were bombarded with just what we were told: large statues being brutally tortured.
Here are tons of pictures of the statues. Brace yourselves!

   

So, there you have it: the Hell Garden. I hope you won’t have too many nightmares tonight.

I hope you enjoyed! Let me know any comments or questions you have. Thank you so much for reading! 🙂

Week One at Anubanmuangmai Chonburi School

Finally– the part where I start teaching!

November 14th-17th

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Our way to Chon Buri: basically just a big, blinding headache. We jumped from our tour bus from Khanom, to a crammed minibus (after stuffing our tons of luggage in the back of it), to a tuk-tuk with a driver who got lost and asked for help from a passing by Thai woman (who spoke English!) on a motorbike.

Then, finally, we arrived at our apartment building. It was called the “Ing Swiss” and had very pleasant and welcoming workers, who were notified by our agency prior to our arrival that we would be showing up in need of an apartment, took us to our room. After climbing four flights of stairs (yeah, no elevator. Super unfortunate, I know), we arrived at our room. It was basically nothing more than a hotel room, really. There was no kitchen, which I noticed first, since I thoroughly enjoy cooking. But, that’s apparently the way it is here. You’d have to pay significantly more if you wanted an apartment with a kitchen. However, it had a queen-sized bed, a small resin wicker table with two matching chairs, a closet, and hey– a bathroom with a Western toilet. That was a huge plus!

This is our apartment at the Ing Swiss

We decided to take the apartment, especially because it was only a five minute walk from the school. …That, and we were exhausted from our travels and were not about to go apartment hunting.

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Monday, November 17th
Our first day at our school! And our first day ever as teachers!

When we arrived to our school a little before 7:30, we didn’t know where to go or who to talk to. Fortunately, we ran into another foreign English teacher, who knew where to go (it was also her first day). We were to report to our boss’s office, which was the MEP Office.

Just some info on our jobs: we were hired as MEP teachers. MEP stands for Mini English Program, where the teachers, who are native English speakers, teach English once a day every day, then Science, Math, Health, and P.E. once a week.

The three of us went to the MEP office and spoke with our new boss, who we were supposed to only call Khun Kung (pronounced “koon koong,” which basically is the polite name for a teacher, who told us to just go to our classes and teach. This was a bit disconcerting because none of us had a clue as to where our kids were in their classes, considering it was the beginning of the third week of school for them. But, we went on ahead to our classes anyway!

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My first class was English in second period. When I nervously stood in front of the class, I introduced myself as Teacher Marilyn. While introducing myself, I wrote three things about myself on the board: I am 22 years old, I am from America, and I have an orange cat.

After that, I had them all write three things about themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of them started copying what I wrote, but after I better explained what I wanted, they got the gist of it and wrote about themselves.

After they finished that, I decided to continue on to my next plan of action: People BINGO!

Classic ESL game. I handed out BINGO boards that I made before going into school. In each box on these boards, I had phrases such as “tallest student in class,” “has a dog,” “has a cat,” etc. In each box, my students had to find someone in the class that fit the criteria of one box and have them sign their name.

Too bad a majority my students didn’t quite understand the phrases I had written on the sheet, so they just scribbled random names all over the paper and handed them back to me. Then, time was up and their next teacher came in!

The view from my desk in my classroom

I sat down at my desk, waited until third period was over, and got up to teach them science during fourth period. Science, by the way, has always been my worst subject, so I didn’t know where to start or what to do. I asked one of my students where they were in their textbooks and he told me “Photosynthesis.”

So, I turned to the Photosynthesis chapter in the textbook, ready to just improv my way through the lesson, but all of my kids were running around with plant seeds and water bottles, saying they were going to grow plants.

I was entirely confused and overwhelmed, fearing I had to teach kids about growing plants in plastic bottles. Fortunately, the Thai science teacher showed up and did everything with the kids, since I shrugged at her in a plea for help. I just kind of waltzed around for the rest of the lesson and said, “Cool!” to all of the seeds they were planting in their water bottles.

After fourth period, I had lunch with Matt and sat at my desk for the rest of the day, which was fine because I figured out what I was going to do the following day.

When school ended, I was exhausted, although I’m not entirely sure why, since I only taught a total of two hours. Throughout the rest of the week, it was pretty much the same thing, only a bit easier because I knew what to expect: 30 confused ten-year-old Thai children who were adorable and excited to get to know me better.

At the end of the week, Matt and I were completely drained, but we were ecstatic about our new jobs and, of course, our students. All of our students were kind to us and approached us and attempted to communicate with us as much as possible. We had an outstanding first week and, despite our exhaustion, couldn’t wait for the weekend to be over so our second week could begin!

Thanks so much for reading, guys! I hope you enjoyed! Remember: you can leave any questions/comments you may have below. 🙂

Next post: Hell Garden in Bang Saen

The view of early morning Chonburi from our balcony (please excuse my fingertip in the second photo)