Chiang Mai

A few weeks ago, Brad and I had the opportunity to explore parts of northern Thailand. Thanks to some Buddhist holidays, we had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off from school. These extra days gave us the ability to experience another side of Thailand, and you can bet that we used our time to the fullest. Typically it is hard to travel on just a two day weekend, since Sisaket is not very close to anything. But with the additional time we were able to take the 15 hour overnight bus up to Chiang Mai.

After sitting on the bus for what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived in Chiang Mai. We gathered our things and walked from the bus station to our hotel, and by hotel I mean the grossest room you might ever see. We are trying to travel on a budget, but I did not simply pick the cheapest room. The price was somewhere in the middle, and it had good reviews and excellent pictures. That just goes to show that you can't believe everything you find on the internet. Thankfully we did not come up to Chiang Mai to be in a hotel room, and did not have to spend any more time than sleeping in that room. 

After dropping our stuff off, we headed out for a day of exploring the city, the food, and the people. We did not plan anything for this day, and we enjoyed just walking through the city and stumbling upon some of the most beautiful temples. Chiang Mai is the second biggest city in Thailand, and it was so interesting to see that among the bustling city, there were so many temples. It was a nice mix of modern and traditional Thailand. 

Here are a few pictures of some of the different temples we found while walking around the city.

Each temple has it's own beauty. Some temples were very busy with tourists taking pictures of everything (sorry I'm guilty of that). Other temples were very quiet. At these temples, you could find many monks of all ages walking around. The young monks, even had to do the chores, as you can see in the picture below.

After a full day of walking around and exploring the temples of Chiang Mai, we were starving. We decided to go to a Khantoke dinner, which is basically dinner and a show. Here we enjoyed a whole platter of traditional northern Thai food, while watching the performers dance, as you can see below. 

I'm not one to take pictures of food, but when it looks this good I do.

After the show, we went home and tried to get as much sleep as we could in that hot, gross room. We had plans to go to the Ran-Tong Save and Rescue Elephant Center the next day, and we knew we didn't want to be tired for that. Make sure to read the next post to find out all about our experience with the elephants, aka one of the best days of my life.

Helping the High Schoolers

This past Saturday, Brad and I had the pleasure of helping out a few of the high school students with a project they were working on. For their project, the students had to make a video of themselves showing us the traditional Thai culture while practicing speaking English.

We started off our adventure with the locals, by hopping in the back of a pickup truck. This is how large groups get around, and between myself, Brad, the five students completing the project, and the mom and dad of one of the students, who offered to drive us around, there was not enough room for us all inside the truck.

Our first stop was at the Wat Sra Kham Pang Yai. This temple does not look like a traditional Thai temple, but rather it is designed to look like a cave, as you can see in the picture below.

The students showed us around both here and at our next stop, the Wat Pa Sri Mongkol Rattanaram. It was so nice to have our own personal tour guides, so we didn't have to struggle to read information like our time at Wat Phra That Reuang Rong.

Th Wat Pa Sri Mongkol Rattanaram is another temple, but here there are also ruins from an old temple that used to be in the area that is now Cambodia. The temple got moved to its current location when Cambodia broke away from Thailand, and now the ruins of this temple lie in the middle of new temple buildings.

Here's a picture of all of us climbing around on the ruins.

After we finished looking around, the students interviewed us for their project. They spoke with confidence while asking us questions; and during the entirety of the trip, I was surprised at how well we were able to communicate. It makes me almost wish I taught older kids, but my kindergarteners are too sweet to trade for anything.

Then after we were done exploring, we enjoyed some lunch together at a Thai restaurant. The students ordered an array of Thai dishes that we passed around and all shared. Some were a little too spicy for me, but the majority of them were delicious.

As I've said in a previous post, it's cheaper to eat out than to buy groceries and cook for yourself. But even though going out is cheaper, it is more of a hassle. When you do go out, you usually can't read the menu so you either are brave and simply point to something and are surprised when it comes, or you order the same things over and over again because those dishes are the only food words you know. Now I'm not one for surprises, so the second option is what we typically do. We usually eat Suki (a kind of noodle soup), pork and basil, fried rice, curry, or rice soup because those are the only food words in our limited Thai vocabulary. But thanks to our lunch with the students, we now know the names of some new dishes.

We had such a wonderful day with the students, and it was so nice to get to see more of the area around Sisaket. We enjoyed it so much, that we told them that if they ever need help again we would love to volunteer! 

My Kindergarteners

It is crazy how in 6 weeks, I went from thinking that all of my kindergarteners looked the same (sorry I know that's a stereotype) to loving them for their own quirks and personalities.

On my first day at school, they had each of the students introduce themselves to me. It was so overwhelming and I thought I would never learn their names. Especially because their names are not like any names I have ever heard before. For example, some of my girl's names are Pun-Pun,  Yada, Yimwan, Cosmo, and Boobee. Some of the boys are named: Porpeang, Poopup, Mungkorn, Jaonai, and Kechi. And yes, those are all pronounced exactly how you would sound them out.

All of the girls are required to have the same hair cut, and the boys have two different styles of hair. Basically all of the kindergarteners have the same color hair and the same color eyes, too. So trying to recognize them by their similar physical characteristics, made identifying them tough at the beginning.

But as I slowly got to know them, I learned their names and so much more. I learned that I have some shy students and that I have a lot of loud ones. I have students that cry when their parents drop them off in the morning and students who don't want to go home at the end of the day. I have learned to treasure the moments after nap time when they're still sleepy and quiet because this might be the only time during the day that they're not full of energy and running around everywhere.

I have learned that these 36 kindergarteners cannot control their bladders. Seriously I think everyday we have multiple kids just pee on the floor of our classroom. Today one girl just went while sitting in her chair in music class, and yesterday one of the boys wet himself while singing songs in the classroom. Thankfully though we have Uwee, our nanny. She changes the kids (who bring an extra pair of clothes in their backpack because things like this happen so often) and then Uwee also cleans up the mess.

I have learned that they always have boogers running out of their nose and sometimes they throw up all over themselves. Basically, kids are disgusting. (This whole experience has been very eye opening for parenting in the future.) But aside from being gross, my kindergarteners are also so sweet. I receive an endless amount of hugs and high fives from them all day. They fight to stand next to me, and I know that they love me. We play around and the kids tell me every English word they can think of in that moment, no matter how random it may be.

I was nervous at first about the fact that I only knew one Thai word when I arrived here, but I don't need to speak Thai to get through to these kids. We have a great time and they really are learning. They amaze me each week, when they learn their new vocabulary. Seriously, for only being in school for 6 weeks, it's remarkable that they can count to ten, sing the alphabet, and identify different categories such as: fruit, animals, and classroom objects.

I could go on and on about my kindergarteners, but I'll wrap it up for now, and end with a picture showing you how cute all of my kindergarteners are.

Brad's Birthday

Brad waited 29 years for his golden birthday, and it was everything he could have dreamed of. (not) Instead his birthday was filled with first graders with runny noses, a bad school lunch, and a rainy afternoon. But that's what you get when your birthday is in the middle of the week and you're a first grade teacher in Thailand.

But after school we did manage to have a little fun. Two of our friends here, Jaco and Lenae, helped us celebrate. Jaco and Lenae are also engaged and living in Thailand teaching English at our school. We immediately clicked with them, so I'm sure you'll hear more about them in future blog posts. They are from South Africa, and we're hoping to go visit them and go to their wedding next March. Then they will come to ours next September. So if there's a random couple from South Africa at our wedding, that's who they are!

Anyways, back to Brad's birthday. After school, the four of us had a few drinks in our apartment before we went out for dinner. We then went to a Thai style barbecue restaurant. Here there is an endless buffet of every type of meat and seafood you could imagine. The only catch is that you have to cook it yourself. On each table there is a charcoal grill and a flat top to cook on. You pick out the food you want and then come back and prepare it yourself. The food was all delicious and we especially liked that you could cook everything to the temperature that you want. Needless to say, we'll be back to eat there soon.