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!

---

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!

---

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.

---

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 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! 🙂

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!

---

 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).

---

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

---

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! 🙂

Thailand: Everything from the Decision to the Landing

Hello and welcome to my second post ever, which shall be dedicated to informing you about everything between our research and our landing in Thailand!

---

Where I left off last time was researching for foreign teaching jobs. During our research, Matt and I mulled over the idea of teaching English in a few countries, but Thailand seemed to stick out among the others. We put some serious thought into the idea of going to Thailand because it was a breathtakingly gorgeous country with towering majestic palm trees, shimmering golden sand, warm, clear blue water with a plethora of colorful fish kissing your submerged legs, etc.,etc. You get the picture. It was also super cheap to live in and the people were supposedly superbly nice. Almost instantly, we settled on Thailand.

We researched what we needed to do for finding jobs teaching English in Thailand using Dave’s ESL Cafe. (That site is awesome, by the way. It gives you lots of job postings for teaching in foreign countries and other helpful teaching shenanigans.) We then found this agency called Island TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and since it was on Dave’s ESL Cafe, we were immediately interested in the agency, since Dave’s is so legitimate and well-known.

We found their website and were scrolling through it and thought it sounded almost magical! The site said they’d help us obtain our visas, give us our internationally accredited TEFL teaching certificate, provide a week-long orientation course upon arrival in Thailand, 24-hour support for anything we need, before and after we arrive in Thailand, and promised us teaching jobs in Thailand which would pay us at least 30,000 baht (about $915) per month (although that is nothing in America, that is a generous salary in Thailand, since most Thai teachers make half that amount).

The deal sounded amazing! However, it was really expensive, it turned out. The online course we would have to take to obtain that TEFL certificate was going to be a little over $600, and then we would have to make two payments of $600 for the agency itself.

So, regardless of the wallet-draining expense, we decided to sign up with Island TEFL. Throughout the remainder of the summer until October 12^th when we left for Thailand, we finished our course and obtained all of our important documentation and immunizations, which of course cost us plenty more money. Even though our money was funneling into our traveling expenses, we couldn’t have been more excited to get to Thailand!

---

Fast forward to October 12^th.

6:00 a.m. While in a state of simultaneous exhaustion, nervousness, and excitement, I hulled a giant rolling red suitcase, a green duffel bag, a black Jansport backpack, and a small purse stuffed with all of my necessary belongings into my mom’s SUV. I ran back into the house and gave my sad-hearted orange feline friend of sixteen years a snuggle and a sickening amount of kisses good-bye.

I hopped in the car with my Mom and we made the two hour trek to Staten Island. Once at Matt’s house, we loaded my numerous travel bags into his parents’ car and my mom and I went into their house and made small talk. After about ten minutes, Matt’s father reminded us that we needed to go soon in order to have a decent amount of time to get on our flight. I walked my mom out to her car and, naturally, we hugged each other for minutes on end with plenty of wet sobbing. Then, she got back in her car, reversed out of the driveway, waved good-bye, and made her way back home.

After that, Matt, Matt’s parents, and I jumped into their car and made the hour long trip to JFK Airport in Queens. Surprisingly and luckily, there was no traffic at all on the way there. When we arrived at the airport, we all had a good, hearty laugh at Matt, who was dragging behind him two enormous black matching suitcases, which kept bumping into every object and person in their path.

When we arrived inside the airport, we followed some signs and headed up to the third floor by escalators (of course it had to be on the third floor when we have a ton of bulky and hefty baggage to carry). When we finally arrived to the third floor, we waited on line for at least forty-five minutes and checked our bags (what a relief that was!). Before going into security, we hugged Matt’s parents good-bye.

And then, we were finally on our own.

Security, just like baggage checking, was a forever wait as well, but after we went finally got through, we slapped our sneakers on, grabbed all of our things, and headed downstairs to the waiting area for our flight.

Since we were early, we had some McDonald’s, since that was the only food they had in the terminal and we were famished! After stuffing our faces with greasy, ketchup-drenched burgers and fries, we made our way to our gate.

This was the first time we ever experienced the “no line” system. In America, lines are so important for everything, regardless of where you are, so Matt and I are used to the whole “wait in line after all of the people who were here before you.” However, in most places of the world, lines do not exist and people simply push their way to the front. It’s just a mess, really. And, since we were going to an area of the world that doesn’t follow the “line” system, we weren’t entirely surprised what happened next.

There was a long line of people by our gate when we first arrived, but after numerous garbled and confusing announcements from the flight crew, the one line had grown branches of numerous lines out of it. Eventually, all the lines just turned into a giant amoeba of people, trying to push their way to the front and into the plane first.

Considering we didn’t want to be the last people on our flight, we followed suit. We wedged our way into one of the branches, showed our tickets to the obviously angered flight attendants, and made our way onto our plane faster than we probably should have, had we followed the American “line” system. We found our seats, which were the window seat and middle seat. Matt was a gentleman and gave me the window seat and he took the middle seat.

Side note: I am horrified of heights and don’t enjoy the whole “taking off” part of flying. Or, really any part of flying. I mean, I’m not terrified of flying, but the fact that our overall flying time would be about 22 hours and that I’d never been on a plane for more than two hours straight before made me nervous. In order to counteract this fear, Matt and I brought along some Xanax because I had a feeling we would be needing it, especially me.

---

First flight: 12:30 p.m. to Abu Dhabi

We took off a little later than expected, but only by about fifteen or so minutes. The flight was about twelve hours and during it, we watched movies and TV shows on our personal TVs, read, slept, and conversed with each other and the lady next to us. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone you sit next to on a long flight is unbearable and rude. This lady was incredibly nice and told us that she was also going to Thailand, but she was going to go for only a week to volunteer at an orphanage.

After a few hours on the flight, it was suddenly night time… but it was just 12:30 pm when we left. It totally messed with our heads. Since we would apparently be arriving in Abu Dhabi at 7:30 a.m. (this whole time changing while flying confuses me throughout the whole day, so I’m sorry if my “grasp,” or lack thereof, on this whole time thing confuses you) and it’s now night time, we figured this would be an ideal time to sleep. Since I wasn’t incredibly tired and neither was Matt, we took the Xanax.

Keep in mind, I’ve never taken Xanax before, so I was slightly nervous as to what would happen next.

I knocked out. I mean, I was pretty dead to the world, but only for a few hours. But, after a few hours, I woke up a few times, ate my meals, and continued to try to kill some time.

After about twelve hours of trying my best to sleep and make time go faster, Matt and I noticed the sun rising and starting to brighten the sky. The captain announced that we would be landing shortly and that our plane was descending. Upon our descent, we noticed miles and miles of golden brown mountains of sand with deep crevices next to smooth valleys covered by the mountains’ shadows.

Mouths agape, we stared out the window of our plane and couldn’t look away. The beauty of these untouched, unscathed desert mountains and valleys were astounding and mesmerizing. We had never seen a desert before and were completely taken aback by its beauty. It was nature at its finest and purest, and the way the morning sunlight hit against the infinite amount of grains of sand and made them glow made us stare at its beauty and take in as much of it as we possibly could.

After snapping a few photos of the desert, our plane continued to drop in altitude. We saw in the distance multiple skyscrapers smack dab in the middle of the desert. They looked almost out of place. But, considering our quickening descent, we figured it must have been Abu Dhabi.

At this moment in time, out of fear of having Xanax on us, we decided now would be the best time to take them before we head into their security, which we assumed would be intense. As Abu Dhabi grew nearer and nearer, we quickly swallowed our pills with a splash of water and got ready to get off the plane.

Matt, the lady next to us, and I all realized that we were late landing, which would mean our second flight to Thailand was now less than an hour from leaving. Once the plane landed, we did our best to get off as fast as possible, which took about fifteen minutes. After finally managing to get off our plane, we sprinted through the airport to our gate.

---

Around 8:00 a.m.

After quickly weaving through the airport, we made it to security. There was only one guy who had us put our carry-ons through the machine again. Then, smiled, and had us go on our way.We weren’t even scanned or anything. So much for tough security.

Now, at this point, I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I am. The Xanax. I took that way too early. So, while we continued to sprint through the airport, my feet were dragging behind me and my vision was getting a bit blurry while my eyelids were fluttering more than usual.

We finally reached our gate and it was a relief when we finally got there and we were early too! Only then did we take a look around. Every single person in the airport other than the three of us had on traditional Muslim clothing, including niqabs and burkas. Hello, culture shock number one. For the first time in our lives, Matt and I were gawked at by everyone around us and we were clearly seen as outsiders.

While sitting and waiting for our next flight, I felt eyes on me, but also my eyes slowly closing. I was absolutely exhausted and wanted to sleep right away. After waiting about twenty minutes, we were allowed to board our flight.

Once we sat in our seats, I immediately fully relaxed and closed my eyes… and knocked out. I remember waking up at some point and turning to Matt, who now had the window seat, and said, “Did we take off yet?” to which he replied, “Marilyn, we took off an hour and a half ago.”

Xanax made me miss take off. Well, thank you ever so kindly!

I giggled, and fell back asleep. I remember waking up again at some point because an airline stewardess was badgering me and asking if I wanted anything to eat. I was so angry because I had been woken up, I just told her “no” rather angrily and shooed her away. And knocked back out.

I woke up with only an hour left in our six hour flight. I was ecstatic and actually felt well rested!

I looked out the window and noticed it was night time again. I then decided to do some cryptograms to kill the rest of the time. Eventually, the captain announced that we would be descending to Bangkok soon (I think, anyway. He did not say that in English).

Our plane touched ground at about 8:00 p.m. (again, the time really messed with my head, but this is the truth!) on October, 13th. Finally, we had made it to Bangkok, Thailand.