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!

The Urban and Rural Province of Nakhon Si Thammarat in Thailand

Hello! I’m so sorry for the late post. It’s just that I’ve been profoundly lazy this past week and, I can’t lie to you, it’s been fantastic. But, I’m here now!

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 The red area is Nakhon Si Thammarat province in Thailand

As I was saying in my last post, Matt and I decided to leave Koh Samui to go to Nakhon Si Thammarat, which is the closest province to Koh Samui, because everyone else from our agency was going there. The reason for that was because our agency had promised most people jobs within that province, so everyone figured why wait for them to tell us to travel there when we could just show up there and force them to do their jobs now rather than later? Considering this was a decent plan, especially since our bank accounts were draining more and more each day on the expensive island, Matt and I decided to follow suit.

Upon arriving to the hotel in Nakhon after around five hours of ferry and minivan travel, we dropped off our stuff and decided to walk and find some food, since it was now lunch time and we were incredibly hungry. While walking around, we noticed that for the first time, there was nothing in English at all and no one—literally not a single person—knew a word of English. We also noticed that everyone was gawking at us—and I mean, everyone. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re a white person in a province with zero white people.

Oh, and there was virtually nothing in our area of the city. There was a mall and a McDonalds about a half hour walk from our hotel. That was about it.

During our week stay in this boring city where no one spoke our language, we regularly spoke with a woman who was supposedly from our agency (you know, the lovely Island TEFL) and was responsible for our placement. At one point, she had taken everyone to their placements in the province, including where we would live and teach. One day, she took Matt and I to ours.

We hopped in her car and she drove us about 45 minutes from the city to an area where there was virtually no one. There was only a shack about every minute or so. There were no stores, no places to eat, nothing. Eventually, we came upon this relatively large pink house with a smaller brown house attached to it. Our new agent told us that we would live here– not in the pink house sadly, but the brown one– and we would share it with other teachers at our school. She then informed us that the two houses belong to the director of our school.

Pretty sketchy, we thought, but decided to continue on to see the school anyway.

Next, the agent took us to our school, which was about 15 minutes from the director’s house down a small, curvy deserted road. The school was very small and in terrible condition. It had no air conditioning, hardly any grass for the kids to play on, cracks in the walls, and stained black mildew on the two buildings.

Okay, so the school was sketchy, too, basically. We then decided to ask our agent about other possible apartments because sharing a house with the director and other strangers didn’t sound too appealing. She then showed us another living quarter possibility. She took us to some random Thai guy, who rolled up a door much like a door for a storage unit in a small building across from the school. When we walked inside, it was an unfurnished cement room. Beyond that, there was a much smaller room with a squat toilet. Oh, and a 2×4 rotted wooden balcony beyond that.

And no shower. And no furniture. And no running water. And no electricity. Matt and I literally laughed and walked out of the place. Can you blame us?

We didn’t tell our agent that we wanted to work there, nor did we tell her that we wanted to work there. We told he we’d think about it and let her know (even though I was sold on absolutely not going there from the start).

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So, we wasted about a week in the city, dicking around and wasting time with other agency members that were equally pissed about everything.

After a while, it turned out that the scam wasn’t quite over. There was no promised placement for any of us and we would have to wait until December 1^st to start teaching. The school semester had already started for most schools in Thailand (November 3rd) and we wouldn’t be teaching maybe until December 1^st!?

So, naturally, everyone was even more enraged. We all ended up going to a hotel in the middle of nowhere in Nakhon province where the cost was cheap, according to our agent, and there was a beach. She wanted us to go there to “relax” and “not worry about our placements.”  We all figured, hey, there’s a beach. Why not?

We all squeezed into a minivan with our belongings and took a two and a half hour ride to our new hotel in a town called Khanom, which, by the way, was literally in the middle of nowhere. There were even cows grazing outside of our window (which had a beautiful view, though. I couldn’t complain about that).

Matt sitting in front of the window in our hotel in Khanom

Once we dropped off our stuff, we decided to go to the beach, since we had nothing else to do and it was a ten minute walk from our hotel. The beach was completely deserted and beautiful. The beach was filled with coconut and palm trees, and there were mountains around us and crystal blue water in front of us. Oh, and a little hut that served American food. It was a haven for us, really.

The beach; one of the huts on the beach to eat inside; a beach swing

Eventually, we had to leave our paradise and returned to our room and said, “Okay. Let’s find other jobs because fuck Island TEFL.”

We had heavily researched before in the city of Nakhon, but didn’t find too much. However, as a last resort, we looked on Craigslist that night (this was November 12^th). Matt found an interesting ad for a teaching job in Chonburi, Thailand (about an hour Southwest of Bangkok along the coast of the gulf) looking for two English teachers. So, Matt and I contacted them and they immediately e-mailed us back with interest. The person, named Omar, was messaging Matt and told us to skype call him that night. So, we did, and we talked to him for almost two hours about Island TEFL’s headache and con job, our interest in the job, etc, etc. Then, after hanging up with him and being offered the jobs, we decided we would go there for a job. Why not? We have nothing to lose at this point and nothing going for us where we were.

The next day, we took bicycles from the hotel and rode into town (it was a gorgeous ride!) to buy bus tickets (which was a hassle, by the way, since still no one spoke English here) to Bangkok at 5:00 pm that day. We rode back to our hotel, showered, packed up our stuff, and hitched a ride with one of the hotel managers back into town to catch our bus. We then got on our double-decker tour bus and rode to Bangkok for twelve hours.

Matt bike riding into the nearby town in Nakhon Si Thammarat province; Matt’s pictures during the ride

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Thanks for reading, folks! I hope you enjoyed! Side note: I am so sorry I have no pictures from our week in Nakhon Si Thammarat city. I guess both Matt and I just hated being there so much, we didn’t want to have any mementos from it!

Next time: arriving in Chon Buri and starting our jobs (finally)!

Don’t forget: you can always leave a comment with questions or anything you would like to say! 🙂

Two Weeks in Beautiful Koh Samui

October 24^th to November 4^thish

After a dreadfully long and sleep-deprived bus ride, about twenty people, including Matt and I, from Island TEFL arrived at a dark and poorly lit ferry station at six a.m. on the 24^th. We groggily stepped off the bus with our belongings, waited fifteen minutes or so for the ferry to arrive at the station, then made our way across the Gulf of Thailand toward Koh Samui. During our hour and a half boat ride, we witnessed a captivating and vibrant sunrise over the water.

When we arrived on the island, we were taken by John (yeah, he was there with us, miraculously) to minivans. We hopped on and took a very bumpy and curvy ride to our hotel, which we later found was named “The Cheeky Monkey.” It was a “hostel,” but it only had very small rooms with one queen-sized bed in each. We ended up staying there, spending tons of money and feeling cramped, for two straight weeks.

Since we were in Koh Samui for such an extended amount of time, I’ll sum up some of my favorite highlights from our stay there.

1. The beach

Surprise: we were at the beach as much as possible when we were on Koh Samui. When we first arrived at the beach in Chaweng, Koh Samui, Matt, our new friends from Island TEFL Nina and Adam, and I were awestruck by its magnificence. We waded in the clear warm water and laid on the smooth golden sand for hours on end. Throughout the two weeks we stayed on the island, we were on the beach a decent amount of the time. We would’ve been there more often, but since it was still the rainy season, it rained a whole lot while we were there, unfortunately.

Beautiful Chaweng beach, where I met the love of my life: a baby gibbon! Sorry, Matt.
And a picture of a washed up giant jellyfish. My hand is there for measure. 

2. The nightlife

We explored the nightlife a couple of times on Koh Samui. We went to a bar on the beach called Ark Bar with Nina and Adam, which was a ton of fun! They had buckets of mixed drinks (mainly liquor, not much mixer, which is the way it should be) for relatively cheap, music, dancing, flamethrowers, and even iguanas and baby gibbon monkeys to hold! And it was all on the beach, which of course made it even better. From where we were, we could see the green lights from the fishing boats scattered across the horizon.

Ark Bar!

We also went to the bars that weren’t on the beach with our friends and a few others from Island TEFL another night. We all went bar hopping along the main road, then went off on a side road, which was just an entire street filled with bars on both sides.

At one point, Matt and I got separated for over an hour, which was slightly terrifying, considering I was surrounded by strangers in a foreign land.

Why didn’t you call him, Marilyn? Well, because we had two Thai cell phones with paid sim cards in them…in the hotel room. Why we didn’t think to bring them with us, I’ll never know.

I drunkenly stepped onto a Song Teow (a cheap pickup truck taxi) after frantically searching for him, which was waiting for more people to get on. While I sat there and waited for more drunken people to jump on the back of the Song Teow with me, I suddenly decided to look just one more time for him. I hopped out of the Song Teow, ignoring the driver yelling at me in Thai behind me, and hastily made my way down the strip of bars. Suddenly, I saw a body sprinting towards me and it was Matt! Of course, we hugged and were happy to have finally found each other.

Moral of the story: when in a foreign land with someone, always bring your phone to contact each other just in case.

One of the bars we went to; Matt and I; Matt posing for a picture with some Thai fellows

3. Exploration of Angthong

During our stay, Matt and I decided to take a day trip with a tour to go snorkeling and kayaking at Angthong. We hopped on a dingy, three-floor boat and made our way across the gulf. As we approached Angthong, we immediately noticed the numerous towering islands slowly surround us. When our boat stopped, everyone popped on a damp and grungy orange life vest and stepped down into a smaller boat. We then made a short journey to a sandy bank on one of the islands. Then, we were quickly given kayaks and paddles and sent on our way. Matt and I immediately leapt into our kayak and paddled out onto the shimmering emerald water. While paddling around one of the islands, we floated under the rock overhangings and admired shallow caves.

  

Kayaking at Angthong

After kayaking for about a half hour or so, we all landed on a different beach. Here, we dropped off our kayaks and climbed tons of stairs to admire the green lagoon on the inside of an island, which was an even more astounding emerald green than the sea water.

The Green Lagoon

We then returned to the beach and waded in the warm, clear, green water.

Our tour guides then riled us up and put us back on our small boat, then our big, rusty boat. Then, we made our way to another island, where we went snorkeling. The snorkeling was, however, slightly disappointing because the water was only slightly clear with a few fish, but not “crystal clear” and filled with numerous fish like we had imagined. So, we snorkeled a bit, but mainly just floated and relaxed in the mesmerizing water, soaking in the scenery around us.

Matt on the boat; where we went snorkeling 

Finally, we all got on the boat after about an hour or so and made our way back to Koh Samui.

4. Traveler’s Sickness

I’ll spare you the details, but during the second week of our time on Koh Samui, we were horribly sick. Out of the two of us, I had it the worst, since I couldn’t leave the room for more than a half hour without needing to sprint back to use the bathroom. Matt was sick, too, but not as sick as I was, since I had stomach cramps that felt like my innards were constantly in a vice.

This is a highlight because it took up half of our time on Koh Samui and was the worst sickness I’ve ever experienced. So, if you’re traveling or intend on traveling for an extended amount of time in a foreign country, I sincerely hope you do not get this sickness. If you do, have medicine already with you to combat it early. I had a prescription for medicine before going to Thailand, but was too lazy to fill it when I was home. Needless to say, I regretted that decision in Koh Samui.

So, don’t be stupid like me. Bring meds!

 

After two days in Koh Samui, John left to go back to Bangkok. Yes, he ultimately left us stranded, but I don’t think any of us were really surprised at this point. John and Phil also failed to contact us about our job placements (again). We badgered them via the internet (we being not just Matt and I, but everyone from the agency), but they hardly ever answered us, and when they did, they told us to just wait. Eventually, other people from the agency decided to go to Nakhon Si Thammarat, a province in the South of Thailand near Koh Samui, to figure out the job situation, since that was the province we had be told during orientation in which we would be teaching. Matt and I decided it was a good idea to join them so that we wouldn’t be out of the loop and draining our wallets in Koh Samui.

Next post: culture shock in Nakhon Si Thammarat!

Thank you so much for reading my post!

If you have any questions or comments of any kind, leave one in the comment box below! 🙂

Eating and Exploring: the First Three Days in Bangkok

When you think of Bangkok, what do you picture in your mind? Ladyboys? The Hangover 2?
I did, too, to be honest, but that was before I actually came to Bangkok and saw it for myself.

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When we landed in Bangkok, Matt and I navigated ourselves out of the airport, with some struggle of course, and found our driver (getting a free ride from our hotel was probably the most convenient thing ever). We followed him out of the airport and to his pickup truck in the airport garage. After loading our bags in the bed of the truck, we hopped in the backseat and took off.

The ride to our hotel was rather bland. We looked around us during our drive and didn’t seem to notice anything too earth-shattering, unfortunately. We only noticed that the billboards were significantly larger than those in America, everything was in Thai, and that everyone was driving on the left side of the road.

When we arrived to our hotel, we were ecstatic to finally be able to relax. Our driver helped us bring our luggage up to our room on the third floor using the tiny elevator that could only fit one person and two bags at a time.

After we dropped our bags off, we suddenly realized we were starving. Since the hotel didn’t have any food, we realized we had to go out and find somewhere to eat. So much for relaxation. We headed back downstairs and asked the front desk where we could get some food. Our driver walked us a block down the road and pointed us to a hole-in-the-wall with only a few shaky plastic chairs and tables and a small cart with a man cooking in it. Our driver spoke to him in Thai, then turned to us and said, “Spicy?”

Matt immediately nodded quickly since he loves spicy food, and I did the opposite. I hate spicy food. I think it’s awful. It just ruins all the flavor of the food and puts you in pain! It just ruins the entire eating experience.

Our driver spoke again to our cook and gestured for us to sit down at one of the tables inside. Looking around, we noticed this “restaurant” was actually partly a person’s home, probably the cook’s. There were only three more tables around us, but farther back in the small area was a young Thai boy, eating soup and watching some show on a small television with bunny ears. Beyond him were boxes of personal belongings (I saw some shirts and books poking out of one, but that was all I could really see), and a back room. The entire place was decorated with posters of the Thai King and Queen– and a few small geckos stuck to the walls. It turns out that there are a ton of places like this in Thailand, by the way. This isn’t rare.

When our food finally arrived, we noticed it was Thai soup, which looked a lot like the awesome Vietnamese “pho” soup. It’s a soup with a broth base, noodles, vegetables, and meat, usually either pork or chicken. I’m sure there’s some other random things in there too, but I’m no chef, so I’m not sure what they are. However, all I knew was that that soup was bangin’. I’ve tried pho before, but never Thai soup, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Matt, however, my spicy food lover, was struggling with his. Although he also thoroughly enjoyed his soup, he was dripping sweat and panting the entire meal. All he kept muttering between strenuous bites was, “I’ve had hot food before, but this is by far the spiciest food I’ve ever had.”

Good first impression of Thai food, I would say.

After we were finished eating and Matt’s head and shirt were drenched in sweat, we paid 70 baht (about $2.30) and went back to our hotel.

Of course, because of the lovely time change and jet lag, we slept a bit and woke up around 4 a.m.

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A few hours later, we decided to explore Bangkok. After eating breakfast at the hotel (we only had eggs, toast, ham, which is just small hot dogs here, and fruit, which were all yummy), we asked the front desk attendant for help going about exploring the city. She handed us a map and told us where to go public transportation-wise.

First, we took the sky train that was less than a block away from us, which was awesome. The sky train in Bangkok is significantly more modern than you think it would be. Have you ever seen the subways in New York City? If you have, you know that they’re dirty, bumpy, loud, smelly, expensive, and difficult to navigate.

But the sky train in Bangkok? It’s the complete opposite. It’s above the streets, which automatically makes it cleaner and far less smelly because it’s not in the sewers like the subways in NYC. It’s really cheap (less than a dollar) to ride. The map is easy to follow and tells you the names of the stops, both in Thai and English. Inside the train is incredible, too. It’s air conditioned, it never smells and it’s always a smooth ride.  They even have TVs!

Yes, so the sky train’s awesome. Anyway, we then got off and walked a block to the Chao Phraya River. We paid about 100 baht (about 3 dollars) each to take a small boat to the Grand Palace, or near it, at least. So, we sat on a small boat and waited about twenty minutes for other people to get on. That boat, by the way, was the shakiest boat I’d ever been on. I felt real nauseous until we finally made our way (slowly) across the river.

On the Chao Phraya River

When we made it to the dock nearest the Palace, we got off and walked in the direction of the Palace. Not being able to locate it’s entrance, a tuk tuk (a small taxi with three wheels) driver said that he’d take us around the city for only 100 baht altogether (3 dollars)! Done and done. We hopped in and he took us to a few places around the city, including the Reclining Buddha, the Temple of the Bells (I think that’s what it’s called), and a regular Buddhist temple. He also pointed out other buildings, but we didn’t really understand what he was saying. Ah, well. He also took us to a tour place and Matt and I decided to go on an adventure two days later to pet baby tigers and see the floating market (don’t worry: I’ll post about that next time).

              

Temple of Bells (?) and view of Bangkok

Wat Pho (Reclining Buddha) lookin’ fine and some temples near it; Matt and I in a Buddhist Temple

He drove us around all day and we were so exhausted and did not want to take the same transportation back, so our tuk tuk driver agreed to take us back.

Did I mention that drivers in Thailand are absolutely terrifying? Yeah, they’re awful. They weave, cut each other off, inch in, and just overall suck. I’ve seen plenty of people driving on the wrong side of the road and on sidewalks just to beat traffic. And stop lights are oddities here, so that doesn’t help anything.

So, eventually we get back (at what time? No clue) and nap for a while. Then, we ended up waking up around eleven and staying awake until about 4 a.m. Thank you again, jet lag.

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The following evening, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner cruise. However, it didn’t turn out to be that nice. Although there was a buffet, it didn’t have any delicious food that we were hoping for (we were struggling to adjust to the Thailand menu). It all smelled awful, which we didn’t realize until a few weeks later was their chili sauce and that smell is literally everywhere, and made us lose our appetite. The ship also wasn’t as smooth of a ride as we had hoped and made us a bit sea sick. Plus, the singer for the evening continually sang “Happy Birthday” at least a hundred times. Overall, it sucked. Except for some of the views. Those were nice.

 

Our crummy cruise ship; some buildings on the river; Wat Arun temple; Rama VIII Bridge

The first three days were interesting, to say the least. Next post, however, will cover the very appalling and strange adventure to the Tiger Temple and the Floating Market. See you later, guys! Thanks for reading!