Koh Somet and Week 3

Hi again,

I know this blog is late, I'm sorry, but this week has been quite a bad week in terms of experiencing Thailand.

I'm also sorry that this blog is going to be short, though it was an amazing experience filled weekend there isn't much to tell about it (not on here at least :p )

First thing to happen was Jaime and I were able to leave school early Friday and head out to the pier waiting to head over to Koh Somet. By the time everyone arrived, we got on a speedboat and arrived at our destination it was nearing 5pm. Our 'taxi' driver (we were on the back of a truck) pointed us in one direction indicating that is where our accommodation for the weekend was to be. Well that wasn't the case at all. After getting lost within 5 minuets of being on the island we somehow managed to find a local to show us where we would be staying. It was amazing where we stayed, great view of the beach and was such a close walk!!!! We all loved it there.

View from my room

A few pre dinner drinks

The first thing we did was into our togs and then into the sea. The water was so suwaee (beautiful) and ped (hot)!!! With swimming done pre dinner drinks started... and continued... and continued... I mean we are young uni students on an island celebrating someones 21st! Bring on the New Zealand drinking culture.

Lights at Koh Somet

Amazing sunset on Saturday night

Saturday morning started bright and early with majority of us up before 8am, walking down the beach finding a nice place for breakfast. After food it was back into togs and in the water again. A day filled with walking from one end of the beach to the other, sunbathing and swimming was just what the doctor ordered. It was so nice and relaxing just sitting there and watching the world go by, I'd do that everyday if I had the opportunity.

Saturday night came, it was Annabel's 21st so celebration was in order. It was a good night.






Sunday arrived and this time people were a little slower to awake in the morning yet some of us who had very little or no alcohol were up again bright and early going about our normal routine (walk down the beach until we find food).

After breakfast parasailing was in order for some of the dare devils. I opted to watch and take photos, it was still so much fun and the few that did parasailing really enjoyed it.

Sadly all good fun does come to an end and we were soon back on main land heading home to Pluak Daeng. This for me is when it started going downhill.

I got sick spent two days in bed and still now feeling ill hence why late blog post sorry all.

This weekend (as in tomorrow) we are heading to Pattaya which will be a fun filled experience. I'll add our itinerary into this for you.

Our weekend itinerary

See  you next time

Anna xx

The Unexpected Surprises in Thailand

Hi again,

I have written a few blogs and each time I write a blog I mean to include some experiences that are really unexpected to me both negatively and positively but when it comes to it I always forget as I believe there are a lot more things to write about, but no mucking around now here I go the absolute truth.

There are some obvious barriers like the language and cultural differences but these were expected to an extent and since being here I've fallen in love with the language, it sounds so amazing and have been hassling my new Thai friends to teach me as much as I can remember, I love it!

The first truth that has to be mentioned and it's something all of us has had an issue with is the toilets. In New Zealand we have public toilets that have seats, toilet paper, a clean place to wash your hands but not here in Thailand. I learnt very quickly that toilet paper is something that needs to be carried on you all the time. I also learnt after my first day of being caught out and needing a public toilet is AVOID PUBLIC TOILETS AT ALL COSTS!!! Go at home before you leave! If you're not far from home organise a trip home at lunch time and then back to your destination. Jaime and I have gotten to the habit of walking home whenever we need the bathroom, purely for the fact that here the toilets you'll find are toilets you have to squat over. Though this is really good for your muscles it is not and I repeat NOT something I enjoy or will miss.

Squatting toilets are not the only problem when it comes to toilets in Thailand, you also have to take your own toilet paper everywhere. Public bathrooms, university hostels, hotels, school... the list goes on. Having a roll of toilet paper in your bag for those incidents where you may be caught out is very handy and you don't want to rely on the use of paper towels.

Note the lack of gap in the clouds

The toilet issue (for me) is a problem as it's so damn hot here at a constant temperature of early - mid 30's during the day, due to this heat water consumption increases and water cannot stay in your body forever so I have found you need to plan your consumption of water very carefully. A bottle of water 20 mins before leaving home in the morning, a bottle at lunch (as restaurants tend to have nicer bathrooms), a bottle in the afternoon when home but before dinner and then a bottle after dinner before bed. This keeps you hydrated and you manage to have your water when you are in close proximity to a nice bathroom where you know has toilet paper.

My life saver

Beach with the most rubbish I've seen since being here

Ok enough about toilets... Onto the rubbish in Thaialnd. One thing that did surprise me a lot is the LACK of rubbish. I swear some streets in Hastings, Hawkes Bay have more rubbish on the streets than Thailand. It surprised me how 'tidy' the streets are since finding a rubbish bin in the streets is like winning the lottery. Before purchasing anything contemplate the size of the object, how long you have left at your location and if you're happy to carry the object all the way home as it's very unlikely to find a rubbish bin to put the remains in. The most rubbish I've seen in one place is probably at the beach where it seemed to have been left by the water when it was heading out for low tide but the beach was really long and it was only one little section that had rubbish so I'm really impressed by the tidiness of Thailand.

Note the brown water

Note the brown water

I say tidiness here with hesitation as it leads me onto a new unexpected thing. I have noticed that Thai people are always tidying but never cleaning. They sweep their floors a lot but I haven't seen them mop or vacuum, there is very little rubbish around yet no bins. It doesn't make too much sense to me but I've figured it's the reason why out here in Pluak Daeng I always feel dirty. Not having things 'cleaned' combined with the dirt that is here out in the middle of nowhere makes my feet black from dirt just by the end of a day walking to and from school yet spending most of my day inside a classroom. This 'dirty' feeling leaves me having on average 2 showers (sometimes 3) a day just to be clean. This amount of showering I have found is normal in Thailand. In Bangkok due to the heat being added into the feeling of being dirty (due to sweating) it was hard to come across a day where 3 showers weren't necessary, one in the morning, one before dinner, one before bed.






A big shock I had when arriving in Thailand was how cheap everything is. For example at Jatujak we were encouraged to bargain. I struggled with this context as the stuff we were buying was already so cheap like a 100% Thai Silk scarf was 100Baht which is equivalent to $4 NZD. I found stuff so cheap and couldn't imagine living off just $4 NZD a day I didn't take the price down. Well since then i have learnt that the minimum wage for Thai people (as an estimation) get about 300 Baht per day which is 37.5 Baht an hour. This is equivalent to $1.50 NZD an hour or $12 NZD per day. It dawned on me the cost of living here is so cheap because their income is cheap and their income can be cheap because food doesn't cost $15 for a meal as Thailand produces a lot of food consumed here.

There are other things that are just simply different from NZ like there sometimes is a smell, not sure what it is but it's not even that bad after a few days as it's not constantly there. Lets just say it's nothing compared to Rotorua!!! The beds here are also extremely stiff. I can sit down on my bed cross my legs, put a cup filled with hot coffee on my bed beside me and the coffee cup is still absolutely flat! It's crazy.

Don't get me wrong about this blog I love Thailand and I do definitely want to come back here one day. The students and staff are so accommodating, eager to learn and happy I love it. An overseas trip teaching English as an ESOL teacher here would be amazing but Thailand is not like beautiful New Zealand which I'm used to. My friend from Bangkok said to me "Thai always eat not too clean nor too dirty, so every food in the world will be alright in our stomach" I believe it's the same with the living standard and it's just something to get used to. 

Until next time

Anna xx

First Weekend in Pluak Daeng

So my first weekend in Pluak Daeng wasn't actually in Pluak Daeng.

On Friday Jaime and I (with the other teachers) went to a teacher only day at a school in Rayong centre. Here we experienced half a day of pure Thai not understanding a thing. It felt like an end of year award ceremony at high school where all the teachers get an award. Well remember how hard it is to stay awake during those award ceremonies... change it into a language you don't understand mixed in with heat and boom instant sleep!!

Teachers at teachers only day

Well that's what I found anyway so when we got a chance to sneak away for lunch we jumped at it. I can now say that I've been to one teacher only day ever, it just happened to be in Thai, though their performance they did at the start of the day was really good it's just a pity I didn't understand a word.

The beach with Koh Somed on horizon

After the teacher only day concluded for us Jaime and I were taken to drop Rudi and Lorraine off at the pier to head to Koh Somed, this gave us a chance to see what to expect next weekend. After that we got picked up by our director and taken to a local beach. The beach was absolutely stunning and we were able to take so many lovely photos. I was surprised with how hot the water was though. I cannot wait for next weekend when we all go to Koh Somed and swim in the warm white sand beaches.

Seats and umbrellas ready for people at the beach

Once the sun started setting on the beach our director took us out for steak which was so good to have as it was my first time since leaving NZ to have red meat, the comfort of seeing food you know and recognize is needed sometimes.

Lanterns where we met our friends

It was really good being in Rayong as we were able to meet up with our friends that came over from NZ with us, sadly two people are in Chonburi and couldn't be there but having 10 of us back together was a lot of fun. We went to another beach, sat down on the sand, had a few drinks, some guys went swimming, took lots of photos (others did as my phone had died by this time), talked and laughed all night. It was such a good way to end an interesting weekend and showed Jaime and I just how much we had actually missed everyone.

Saturday came around and Jaime and I got to have such a nice sleep in and then was let loose on a shopping mall. Honestly first thing in the morning I was dreading shopping as I know from experience how much Jaime loves to shop but it seemed like the roles were reversed as I did more shopping than Jaime and she seemed not too interested in shopping that day. 

P'Ice and P'Chan praying to the Buddha

We were picked up from Rayong by two really nice teachers from our school who had driven out just to pick us up. They are so accommodating here it's amazing, I just don't want them to feel like I'm taking advantage of it. On the way home P'Ice and P'Chan took us to a local temple which is apparently famous, the reason for it's fame is still unknown to Jaime and I one of the many 'lost in translation' situations.  The temple was so pretty and there was this absolutely massive Buddha statue.

The massive Buddha statue

Waiting for the wedding to start

Sunday morning was a 5am wake up, getting ready for what we thought would be a long day at a Traditional Thai Wedding. We got there (there being the middle of nowhere amongst so many trees) and stood around waiting for a while with a whole lot of food just on the ground, I started to think that this wedding was going to be a picnic when people started picking up the food and lining up. Jaime and I were given a plate of Thai Deserts to hold and line up with. It turned out that we were in the grooms party. I figured out that instead of the woman walking down the aisle in Thailand the male does (well did in this situation), and

The band playing at the wedding

instead of just groomsmen with him he has a band in front of him playing as we walk down, him and his groomsmen and then a whole lot of friends and family walking down carrying food. We weren't allowed to enter the gates to the actual wedding venue until 8.30 as that is a sacred/good luck time. Once in the gates the groom comes across the bridesmaids who stand opposite each other with flowers tied to each other, blocking his path. I think it symbolises if the groom wants his bride he needs to get through the bridesmaids, so one by one he unties the flowers so he can walk through.

He then, with his bride, walk into a little room and sit down. Here is where Jaime and I come into the picture as the line following the groom walk into the room, kneel down in front of bride and groom and give them their plate as an offering and then walk out with some Thai candy.

P'Chan and P'Ice with their candy

Bride and Groom with their string on wrists

That is pretty much all that is involved in a Thai wedding. We then went and had a buffet breakfast/lunch and then came another time to line up and wait. In this line though all the guests one by one take 2 pieces of string and tie it on the bride and grooms wrists while saying something that will benefit their marriage in one way or another, me not knowing what to say just said how beautiful the bride is and thank you for having me. After tying the string I was then given what looked like a sea shell filled with holly water to pour a little bit over each the bride and grooms hands (all I was thinking during this step was how wet their hands would be by the end of the day) and then walk back to my seat. What surprised me was that after I'd done this process I was given a gift. That's the biggest difference between Thai and NZ weddings, the guests get more gifts than they give the bride and groom.

Jaime, P'Chan, P'Ice, myself and others at the wedding

What I thought was going to be a long day turned out to be rather short. Though we got to the venue at 8am we were up at 5am, leaving Pluak Daeng at 6.30am and then home by 12pm. The early morning affected Jaime and I so a couple hours nap was then a necessity followed by an afternoon walk to the market, where Jaime dropped her phone but it survived luckily (I believe the market is the reason for us dropping our phones as each time we go to it one of us drops our phones.)

I think this weekend was amazing, though it was busy we still had enough free time to reflect on how we are nearly half way through this trip and have been here for 2 weeks now. It's a scary thought but these last few weeks have been amazing and so full on I think the catch up on sleep was defiantly needed.

See you next time

Anna.

Pluak Daeng Market/Town

Hi again,

So I have decided that now I'm in a little district in Rayong where there isn't much to do I'll blog whenever something interesting happens, so that means every Monday night there should be a blog up as Jaime and my weekends are jam packed full with excitement.

I have to start this blog of with something horrible that has happened to me while being here in Thailand. I dropped my iPhone last night :(

It landed face down on the concrete and is badly smashed, I can use it still luckily but every time I do a bit of glass comes off the screen which I do not think it's a good thing, lets hope that it'll last until I get home and fix it.

I actually dropped it while waiting for Nikki (our American teacher friend) to come and get us to walk down to the night market that happens here every Wednesday and Sunday night. It was really cool there though it smelt horrible, it just smelt of fish. While walking past some stalls we'd get splashed from the fish trying to escape their little bin. Apart from that it was really fun, having everyone stare at us as we are different and having the students who recognise us say "teacher, teacher... hello" and then walk off giggling.

The market wasn't what I thought it would be at all. It had fresh fruit and veggies (that's what I expected) but it also had fish, pig heads, frogs, whole range of food cooking, clothing stalls, shoes and then random miscellaneous items too. Jaime managed to get a really cute dress for school and Nikki some really nice looking sushi.

Tonight (15th January 2015) Jaime and I decided to venture into the wide world... more like random streets until we found the township we are in. It turns out it's one road and takes 30mins to walk there. Jaime who is a professional shopper (in my mind as I'm no shopper at all) managed to get some good gifts for her family and in this amazing little shop we both purchased some items, I got shoes and her a lovely dress. Everyone here is so friendly and kind and instead of knowing our names we have become known as 'teacher' even in the little shop where we had never seen the people in there asked if we are here to teach. Must be rather obvious.

Goodnight for now, I'll blog again Monday after our weekend in Rayong Centre.

Anna xx

My New School Pluakdaengpittayakom School

Hi Again,

Monday 12^th morning we loaded up onto the bus for a long 3-hour bus ride to Rayong. Here we were welcomed very nicely to Rayong and met all our Directors (principles). After some words, introducing us and gifts there were photos. The idea of Thais loving photos was not properly shown until now. I felt like a fish in a fish bowl of people staring and taking photos. It’s a bit unnerving sometimes but I have learnt that if I just keep a smile on my face then they will be happy, as everyone here is so nice and willing to help. I think that they stare to see if our expression changes and if it does then they will try help. For example right now as I write this blog one teacher from the school came to me and said “Anna are you OK, you aren’t smiling, do you need a banana or water to make you happy” shows that even when concentrating we need to smile.

Monday night was probably the most challenging for Jaime and I as we were taken by school van to our apartment. It took about 1 hour at driving on average 120kmh to get us to our destination and by the time we arrived it was pitch black so we couldn’t see a thing and had no idea where we were. We got into our apartment and the lady who picked us up only know hello in English so sign language came in handy as she pointed to light switches and the air con remote and then left. Jaime and I were initially really taken aback as we had no food, nowhere to cook food, a fridge but nothing in it, no water and no toilet paper.

On a side note that is one thing I’ve found out about Thailand. They never and I mean NEVER have toilet paper. If you plan on coming here make sure you always have a roll of toilet paper in your handbag, you don’t want to be caught out.

After unzipping our bags haven decided to unpack, sleep and see what happens tomorrow this older man came knocking on our door. His name is Rudi and is here with his wife Lorraine from Christchurch. They both teach at our school and are semi retired. They helped us out so much and we are so grateful to them, hearing the English language when we are so overwhelmed is such a great relief. Rudi has been teaching 35 years back in Christchurch and is here at Pluak Daeng to teach as a Chemistry teacher, they gave us some water and toilet paper and invited us to breakfast the next day.

Having relaxed a little thanks to the comfort of Rudi and Lorraine, Jaime and I were able to finish unpacking and have a long awaited sleep.

When Tuesday 13^th arrived Jaime and I walked to school with Rudi which is literally a 3 minute walk and we were introduced to the whole 1700 students at morning assembly.  Tuesday was a little uneventful as we talked with the director, met so many people that I struggle to remember names we have a P’Nut, P’Nuk and a P’Nong just to name a few and observed some classes. This observing wasn’t really observing though as my teacher P’Chan was getting me to dictate to the students and they repeat after me, which ended in me taking the lesson. Another friendly face we were happy to see was an American named Nikki who has a business major and decided to come here for 6months to teach. Nikki was able to tell us great news about how there is actually a bus that heads to Rayong so we aren’t as deserted as we thought. Just as I thought I’d be able to sit and soak in everything I had done P’Chan saw me took me by the hand and took me into her class again and asked me to do the same thing which was a lot of fun though very unexpected.

All the teachers here are so friendly and were very willing to take Jaime and I to the supermarket after school where we could get cups, plates, cutlery, toilet paper and food. Our closest supermarket is 30 min walk, one way, so we are trying to buy in bulk when possible.

 This leads me to today. Wednesday 14^th.  Up bright and early ready for class though my first class didn’t start until 9.20am. The biggest struggle I’ve found since being here is the communication. Even in an English class the teachers struggle to communicate with us and so we were both expecting different things throughout the lesson but somehow made it work.  I had to explain words to the teacher in ‘simple’ English for her to them translate to the students. Words like qualification, responsibility, frightened, journalist and creativity. It’s not easy to explain responsibility without using the word responsible but simple enough for the teacher to understand herself. The biggest challenge for me was the word frightened, in Thai the word meaning frightened and excited is the same word just different feelings. I spent 10 minutes explaining to my teacher that excited means happy e.g. schools out yay I’m happy/excited while frightened means afraid or scared e.g. there is a bug I’m scared/frightened. I hope she understood it, that’s one thing I’ll never know.

There are still so many questions Jaime and I are trying to sort out but our Director is very protective of us, explaining to us how to cross a road that had 3 cars a minute driving on it. We know he’s being nice and it’s the Thai culture to protect students and guests but he didn’t want us having a pushbike in case we biked into a pot whole (he must think we are clumsy).

Just before I end this essay (haha sorry) Jaime and I are heading with Nikki and her flat mate Fawn (or maybe it’s Phone), who is a Chinese teacher at this school, to the local markets tonight so that will be interesting.

One more note is that I’m surprised by the words I understand like suwaee = beautiful, aroy = delicious, di = good,  lhor = handsome, tingtong = crazy… all these words I’m picking up when people are saying them, makes me smile because I know the words.

See you later

Anna xx

Amphawa Resort

 14/1/2015

I know, I know, I know. I’ve been very slack at this and I’m sorry.

These last few days have been so busy.

On Friday the 9^th I woke up not feeling well at all, which was a disappointment as we were going to the Royal Grand Palace that day. I still went though the heat with an upset tummy was not a good combination at all so I wasn’t able to enjoy the two temples and Royal Grand Palace. It didn’t help that Friday was the hottest day we had had with a temperature of 25 degrees at 10am.

Not much occurred Friday apart from walking around all day and looking at beautiful buildings.

Saturday 10th came around quickly after an early night and lots of water where I felt quite a bit better so was actually able to enjoy as much as possible the bus ride to Amphawa. Amphawa was really nice and I saw the most gorgeous seal coloured Burmese kitten, I just wanted to take it home it was too cute to be a stray cat.

At Amphawa we got on a boat and we to the middle of the sea where there were random houses dotted around popping out of the sea. These were houses for people to stay in overnight when they were working at the shellfish farm around. We stopping off at this large building sticking out of the middle of the see where we had a really nice seafood lunch, my only problem is I only like prawns though I have been trying more types of seafood while being here. The spice and unusual food may be what was upsetting my tummy though.

We then got back on the boat and stopped off at another boat where we could go water skiing if we wished. The first few people to get out of the boat into the dirtiest water I’d ever seen was brave but that was followed by a chorus of complaints as the floor of the sea isn’t sand as we are used to it’s mud that goes up to their knees. There is more mud under water than there is water in that particular section. The thought of mud oozing between my toes up to my knees in water that I couldn’t see a thing in didn’t interest me so I didn’t get in (neither did a few others) so instead we just watched the Thai style water skiing. Water skiing for Thais reminded me a mix of knee boarding (though standing) and being dragged behind a boat standing on a boogie board.

Planting Mangroves was next on the agenda. Where the mangroves are were beautiful wild monkeys who came right up to the boat when we started feeding them and grabbed food out of our hands if we held the food over the edge in sight but wouldn’t throw it. The monkeys swimming was gorgeous and reminded me of dogs swimming just a head and tail popping out of the water.

After this long day on a boat we went to our resort where we settled in for a little bit before getting on another boat and heading to the floating market. It’s a good thing nobody in our trip gets seasick.  The floating market was beautiful and full of people.

Sunday 11^th came around all too quickly when we were back on the boat and up the river stopping off at little random stops to enjoy the sights. By this stage a few of us were tired, and had been sightseeing all week that some of the buildings were starting to look the same. For me the architecture is still beautiful and their use of colours and detail is stunning.

Sunday night we travelled back to Mahidol University for our last night in Bangkok, which was sad as we were leaving each other and our new friends we had made.

This photo is the amazing place where we have breakfast, going to miss the beauty of it.

See you later Anna xx

Kings Royal Projects

8/1/2015

Today not much occurred sadly.  Though we left the apartment at 7.30 am and again didn’t have food until lunch time (though this time I was prepared) and have only just arrived back to the apartment at 6pm I can honestly say not much happened. We spent about 2 hours getting to our destination today due to traffic and then nearly 2 hours getting home, again due to traffic :( 

Today we went to see the Kings Royal Project. I found it really interesting to see how much the king has done for Thailand and how much he produces on his own land. They have candle making from beeswax, honey making, spirilina making, paper making, they make so many different things with milk from chocolate to milk purchased at a discounted price (due to the king wanting Thai people to drink more milk) to milk produced only for the purchase of the government to then distribute between school students. They are also making chocolate chips for children who don’t drink milk as the king thinks intake of milk is very important. The king has also got rice fields on his land which he helped to plow using Thailand first ever tractor.

All these ‘projects’ that occur on the kings land was started by him and tended to be around the 1960’s. I really like how the king funded the research with his own money and has done it for the goodness of his country. Take the rice fields for example, he got one grain of rice, tried multiple ways of planting it, planted them himself, plowed them himself and now the Kings Royal Project has over 40 different kinds of rice. Another thing I learnt that was really interesting was how conservative the king is. He doesn’t like to waste things so with rice he then researched ways to optimise every part of it and the husk/stalks of rice is ground up and used as fuel instead of coal and wood. He also researched how to make his own fuel using sugar canes (that may be why fuel is ridiculously cheap over here it’s just over $1 NZD per litre).

It was really disappointing though when the girls weren’t allowed to see the kings royal elephants as we weren’t wearing collars. All the guys saw it and said there was nothing to see but I think it would have been really good to see because the other day at Samphran Elephant Ground and Zoo we learnt that all white elephants found in Thailand are deemed to be property of the King, I have never seen a white elephant, I wonder how rare they are?!?!

They even grow their own mushrooms!

After the morning at the Kings Royal Project we went shopping at downtown Bangkok. There are some HUGE malls right beside each other but my favourite places is where Frances (our group leader) takes me as she’s been to that area of Bangkok quite a few times and shows me all the good places. Today I wasn’t in the mood for shopping at all, I mean after all we have shops in New Zealand plus I’ve never liked shopping I leave that up to my mum and my brother. Instead of shopping I went for a two and a half hour pamper session. I had a full body Thai massage and a manicure. It was so relaxing and amazing, I can never get enough.

Oh well  we are heading out to dinner shortly and then to this AMAZING gelato shop. They sell beer ice cream and vodka and redbull ice cream. These ice creams are really good and taste just like really chilled alcohol, the ice cream also comes with dry ice, which is always fun to play around with while pretty much having a beer. It’ll be a good way to end the day.

Tomorrow believe it or not we are going to ANOTHER palace, that’s three days in a row.

Anna xx