During our orientation in May our HR director humored us with stories about all the random situations he has found himself in since being in Thailand. He had the whole room rolling when he told us that once he was taken to a funeral of a person he had never met. Apparently one of the teachers at his school had him come to their family members funeral service. All within the first week he was teaching. . .as for us, it took a couple months before we were invited.
On Monday we heard that our director's father passed away over the weekend. There was talk about a few Thai teachers going to pay their respects the next day. As I was making my way out of a class Tuesday morning one of the teachers came up to me and said "You know about director's father?"
"Oh. Yes. I heard he passed away," I nod.
"Ok. I see you wear black and white for cremation service," the teacher comments.
Um. What. . . I nod again, but am a little confused considering I wear black and white pretty much everyday (nun outfits).
Then the teacher states "Ok we will come to get you from office this afternoon when we go to the temple to pay respect."
Oh my.
A few hours later, I am riding in a 15-person van, chugging down the highway towards a Wat out in the middle of nowwhere. Still a little confused as to what is going on, I get out of the van with the other teachers and decided to just observe and do what everyone else does.
Each person takes off their shoes before walking up some steps into part of the building where there is a picture of the director's father and about 30 of the most elaborate flower arrangements. Everyone forms a line and is handed a stick that they light and hold up near their face while keeping their hands folded in prayer. One at a time everyone walks up to the picture, pauses for a moment while closing their eyes, then places the burning stick into a big golden bowl filled with sand. We follow suit while one of the Thai teachers takes about a million pictures of us. Little strange. A little later we saw the director. Our department head begins nudging J telling her to say she's sorry about his father. So we all "wai" to him and tell him we are sorry. Still a little awkward about the situation, we stand around for a minute waiting to see what would happen next. At that point they sit us down at a table and serve us a scoop of green tea ice cream. About five minutes later everyone just stands up, heads back to the van and we leave. Never thought I would have that added to my list of things that I've done in Thailand. But it was a good little cultural experience.
It's been a common occurance for J and I to look at eachother, just smile and shake our heads thinking, "What is going on?" Thailand has proven to be a strange strange place. . .our list of random experiences just continues to grow. . .
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Cruisin down the street in my six-fo'. . .
. . . Or just my new red bike.
As I mentioned before, I purchased myself a brand spankin’ new bicycle. We’ve wanted to explore Lampang a little more and the walking is getting a little old so J, Georgie and I each got ourselves a bike well equipped with a bell and a basket. Mine’s red, Georgie’s is pink and Jbo’s is blue. We are quite the site cruising along the streets of Lampang.
With our new wheels, we made the decision to stay back this weekend and explore our “home” town a little bit. Friday night consisted of some “happy hour” wine at the apartment, dinner and drinks at our favorite restaurant Riverside, then movies at our friends Lauren and Emily’s new house.
Saturday morning we guzzled down iced coffee at our favorite little shop then cruised out for an adventure. We read about an Herbal Conservatory a couple miles outside of the center of Lamang and wanted to check it out. Wanting a little more adventure, we took a back route and ended up finding a gorgeous Wat hidden away on top of this hill. It was amazingly peaceful as we strolled around inside the gates, watching a few monks pop in and out of the buildings.
After leaving the Wat we continued down the quiet road with jungle trees along each side of us. Assuming we were lost, a man poked out of his house to ask us where we were going and tried telling us how to get back to the main road. At this point we were a little doubtful as to where we were so we took his advice. Once we finally found the road and the signs pointing us in the right direction for the conservatory, we rang our bells and cheered all the way up to the main entrance of the place.
Tucked away among some trees, a river, cows and sheep, the conservatory proved to be just as appealing as our book described. We wandered around a bit then accepted the English version of their guide book along with some hot tea. The place offers an enormous range of herbal, holistic remedies for anything from high blood pressure to headaches along with skin and hair treatments. They also offer on-site treatments like mud baths and oil massages. We made a few purchases. . various teas and some shiny shampoo then made the trek back home.
It was our friend Alistair’s birthday and luckily he knows a couple locals so they took us to this restaurant that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We had to take a 15 minute songtaew ride out to this lake where each table of the restaurant has its own private bungalow. You can untie a few of the bungalows and actually float out onto the lake so after eating a fabulous meal, a few of us took over one of the moving bungalows and floated for awhile. We came back in to find that our Thai friends had ordered up some "dancing prawns" which basically meant our food was alive and kicking. . .and trying to hop out of the bowl. Our friend Nom was in charge of lifting the lid and adding hot sauce as quickly as possible, then shaking up the pan in her hands to kill them before eating them. A few people tried them and Lauren was convinced she got bit in the mouth. I decided to pass:) But all in all it was a gorgeous night full of delicious food, gorgeous views, tasty drinks (some Thai whisky!) and great friends. Happy Bday Alistair!!!
As I mentioned before, I purchased myself a brand spankin’ new bicycle. We’ve wanted to explore Lampang a little more and the walking is getting a little old so J, Georgie and I each got ourselves a bike well equipped with a bell and a basket. Mine’s red, Georgie’s is pink and Jbo’s is blue. We are quite the site cruising along the streets of Lampang.
With our new wheels, we made the decision to stay back this weekend and explore our “home” town a little bit. Friday night consisted of some “happy hour” wine at the apartment, dinner and drinks at our favorite restaurant Riverside, then movies at our friends Lauren and Emily’s new house.
Saturday morning we guzzled down iced coffee at our favorite little shop then cruised out for an adventure. We read about an Herbal Conservatory a couple miles outside of the center of Lamang and wanted to check it out. Wanting a little more adventure, we took a back route and ended up finding a gorgeous Wat hidden away on top of this hill. It was amazingly peaceful as we strolled around inside the gates, watching a few monks pop in and out of the buildings.
After leaving the Wat we continued down the quiet road with jungle trees along each side of us. Assuming we were lost, a man poked out of his house to ask us where we were going and tried telling us how to get back to the main road. At this point we were a little doubtful as to where we were so we took his advice. Once we finally found the road and the signs pointing us in the right direction for the conservatory, we rang our bells and cheered all the way up to the main entrance of the place.
Tucked away among some trees, a river, cows and sheep, the conservatory proved to be just as appealing as our book described. We wandered around a bit then accepted the English version of their guide book along with some hot tea. The place offers an enormous range of herbal, holistic remedies for anything from high blood pressure to headaches along with skin and hair treatments. They also offer on-site treatments like mud baths and oil massages. We made a few purchases. . various teas and some shiny shampoo then made the trek back home.
It was our friend Alistair’s birthday and luckily he knows a couple locals so they took us to this restaurant that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We had to take a 15 minute songtaew ride out to this lake where each table of the restaurant has its own private bungalow. You can untie a few of the bungalows and actually float out onto the lake so after eating a fabulous meal, a few of us took over one of the moving bungalows and floated for awhile. We came back in to find that our Thai friends had ordered up some "dancing prawns" which basically meant our food was alive and kicking. . .and trying to hop out of the bowl. Our friend Nom was in charge of lifting the lid and adding hot sauce as quickly as possible, then shaking up the pan in her hands to kill them before eating them. A few people tried them and Lauren was convinced she got bit in the mouth. I decided to pass:) But all in all it was a gorgeous night full of delicious food, gorgeous views, tasty drinks (some Thai whisky!) and great friends. Happy Bday Alistair!!!
We slept in Sunday, went back to our iced coffee and then biked around, exploring more of the big citaaay. At the end of the day we went to check out Alistair and Georgeanna's new house, which is right by Lauren and Emily's and it just so happens that the house right beside is vacant. Hmmmm never thought that once I moved to Thailand that I'd be moving within Thailand but the idea of having more than a dorm room for space is just too tempting. . .so we'll see if there will be a "moving day" sometime this week.
It was a great weekend and it was nice to wander and experience our own stomping grounds for a weekend rather than rushing off and traveling. And we are loving our new bikes!! Here are some pics for the viewing!!!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!
The Wat we ran into. One of the smaller ones we've seen but you can tell it's size by how small J looks off to the right.
Which special tea shall we get??
Some of the herbs that they grow.
Birthday Boy!!
Arriving at the restaurant.
Down the path to our bungalow table.
Everyone enjoying dinner!
Floating out on the lake.
Just flooooooating
Back in for the dancing prawns (they're aliiiiiiiive!)
Nom shaking them up with the hot sauce.
Mmmmmmm. . .that makes me want to try some.
View from our table! Amaaaazing!
The new wheels resting comfortably after a long weekend.
Which special tea shall we get??
Some of the herbs that they grow.
Birthday Boy!!
Arriving at the restaurant.
Down the path to our bungalow table.
Everyone enjoying dinner!
Floating out on the lake.
Just flooooooating
Back in for the dancing prawns (they're aliiiiiiiive!)
Nom shaking them up with the hot sauce.
Mmmmmmm. . .that makes me want to try some.
View from our table! Amaaaazing!
The new wheels resting comfortably after a long weekend.Wednesday, June 24, 2009
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. . .
. . .but if it is broke, get it fixed immediately.
I discovered the other morning that the lock on my apartment door wasn't functioning quite right. It's just a push-lock and even when I twisted the handle from the inside to unlock it, the outside was staying locked. "eh whatever" I thought to myself and wasn't in any rush to get it fixed since I could still get in with my key. Anytime I'm leaving my room I have my keys with me anyway so there wasn't any harm in my door locking automatically. That was until I left the room without my keys.
A couple nights ago a few people from our crew and I were talking about heading out for the evening. Being the cool person that I am, I was already showered and in my pjs at 7:30, ready to call it a night. But I hung around to see if anything sounded exciting enough for me to change back into my clothes and leave. I stood in my doorway weighing the pros and cons and without even realizing it, I had made my way out into the middle of the hall. And that's when a blast of wind shot through my room and slammed my door shut. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I immediately got that frustrated feeling, knowing my keys were just sitting on the bed, just the slim wooden door between us, and the only thing preventing me from getting in there was some stupid push-lock. (same feeling I've gotten about 800 times when I've locked my keys in the car).
Alright. No problem. I'll just head down and get our doorman to unlock it for me, seeing as there is a spare set of keys in the office. But no. The doorman, Robert (pronounced Lobert since the Thai's have trouble saying their R's) doesn't have the keys to the office. Lobert doesn't speak much English but by pointing to his watch and making a couple other hand gestures, he made it clear that at 11pm someone would be back and could let me in then. Great.
I hang out in J's room for awhile and at about 10:30 Lobert calls her room, says "door open" and hangs up. Yahoo! I peak out in the hall, see that my door is still closed and locked, so I head back down to the lobby to see what is going on. More hand gestures and maybe a word or two of English and Lobert informs me that someone is driving here now. He points to his watch and signifies 15 minutes. An hour and a half later I'm still sitting outside the building door, in my nightgown, with Lobert telling me "maybe 5 minutes" about every 20 minutes or so. He is a very hopeful man. But once midnight hits, he looks at me and says "no". Lobert has given up on the idea that this mystery person is coming. And when Lobert gives up you know it's over. He points at the 7 at his watch, meaning at 7 in the morning someone else will be here. This is around the time we usually leave for work. Great again.
J had said that if something doesn't work out to just come back up to her room and sleep there. But that was an hour and a half earlier. So when I come pounding on her door to wake her up, she assumes that it's some scary man outside her door and stays huddled in her bed texting "Can you see if there is someone outside my door" to my phone, which is stuck in my room. Luckily our friends Aoife and Gavin have the room right next door and knew the whole situation so Aoife pokes her head out and says to come crash in their room. Being the hospitable Irish lad and lass that they are, Aoife grabs an extra blanket for me while Gavin "insists!" that I sleep on the bed and he sleeps on their mats on the floor. I'm lucky they were up because otherwise I would have been sleeping in the hall.
I had a pretty restless sleep but at 7am I made my way downstairs and in perfect "Thai Time" the office assistant was there at 7:30. I sped upstairs, showered and changed, and made it to school on time (thanks to our new bicycles that we bought! Mine's red. With a basket. I'll add pics of it later.) The day was definitely a long one.
But lesson learned. . . even if you don't need something to be fixed right away, there's a good chance you'll find yourself in a bind eventually so get it fixed immediately. . .then again, my lock is currently still broken. But whatever, I bring my keys with me whenever I leave the room anyway:)
I discovered the other morning that the lock on my apartment door wasn't functioning quite right. It's just a push-lock and even when I twisted the handle from the inside to unlock it, the outside was staying locked. "eh whatever" I thought to myself and wasn't in any rush to get it fixed since I could still get in with my key. Anytime I'm leaving my room I have my keys with me anyway so there wasn't any harm in my door locking automatically. That was until I left the room without my keys.
A couple nights ago a few people from our crew and I were talking about heading out for the evening. Being the cool person that I am, I was already showered and in my pjs at 7:30, ready to call it a night. But I hung around to see if anything sounded exciting enough for me to change back into my clothes and leave. I stood in my doorway weighing the pros and cons and without even realizing it, I had made my way out into the middle of the hall. And that's when a blast of wind shot through my room and slammed my door shut. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I immediately got that frustrated feeling, knowing my keys were just sitting on the bed, just the slim wooden door between us, and the only thing preventing me from getting in there was some stupid push-lock. (same feeling I've gotten about 800 times when I've locked my keys in the car).
Alright. No problem. I'll just head down and get our doorman to unlock it for me, seeing as there is a spare set of keys in the office. But no. The doorman, Robert (pronounced Lobert since the Thai's have trouble saying their R's) doesn't have the keys to the office. Lobert doesn't speak much English but by pointing to his watch and making a couple other hand gestures, he made it clear that at 11pm someone would be back and could let me in then. Great.
I hang out in J's room for awhile and at about 10:30 Lobert calls her room, says "door open" and hangs up. Yahoo! I peak out in the hall, see that my door is still closed and locked, so I head back down to the lobby to see what is going on. More hand gestures and maybe a word or two of English and Lobert informs me that someone is driving here now. He points to his watch and signifies 15 minutes. An hour and a half later I'm still sitting outside the building door, in my nightgown, with Lobert telling me "maybe 5 minutes" about every 20 minutes or so. He is a very hopeful man. But once midnight hits, he looks at me and says "no". Lobert has given up on the idea that this mystery person is coming. And when Lobert gives up you know it's over. He points at the 7 at his watch, meaning at 7 in the morning someone else will be here. This is around the time we usually leave for work. Great again.
J had said that if something doesn't work out to just come back up to her room and sleep there. But that was an hour and a half earlier. So when I come pounding on her door to wake her up, she assumes that it's some scary man outside her door and stays huddled in her bed texting "Can you see if there is someone outside my door" to my phone, which is stuck in my room. Luckily our friends Aoife and Gavin have the room right next door and knew the whole situation so Aoife pokes her head out and says to come crash in their room. Being the hospitable Irish lad and lass that they are, Aoife grabs an extra blanket for me while Gavin "insists!" that I sleep on the bed and he sleeps on their mats on the floor. I'm lucky they were up because otherwise I would have been sleeping in the hall.
I had a pretty restless sleep but at 7am I made my way downstairs and in perfect "Thai Time" the office assistant was there at 7:30. I sped upstairs, showered and changed, and made it to school on time (thanks to our new bicycles that we bought! Mine's red. With a basket. I'll add pics of it later.) The day was definitely a long one.
But lesson learned. . . even if you don't need something to be fixed right away, there's a good chance you'll find yourself in a bind eventually so get it fixed immediately. . .then again, my lock is currently still broken. But whatever, I bring my keys with me whenever I leave the room anyway:)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Doi Khuntan
After helping at an English Camp over the weekend and working 12 DAYS IN A ROW (uuugh!!) we decided to head north a bit to Doi Khuntan. We left Saturday morning. . .which turned into late Saturday afternoon due to the 4 hour train delay. Luckily we were able to entertain ourselves with a few beers and card games at the station.
Once we arrived in Doi Khuntan we had lunch and barreled ourselves up the mountain to the national park. Lauren and Tim used their broken Thai in combination with the staff's broken English to reserve a cabin for the night. Next thing we know we're cruising even further up the mountain in the back of a pickup truck only to arrive at a gorgeous cabin with an insane view. We hung out there for the rest of the day, enjoyed a campfire that night and got up the next morning to hike to a waterfall. We hiked uphill for about an hour and a half. . .and we never actually found the waterfall (all the signs were in Thai and no one could really agree on which way to go). . .but it was still really pretty.
The train was delayed on the way back also so we waited about 6 hours (literally) at the train station in Khuntan. The town has two little shack restaurants along the train tracks so the owners were thrilled that we ended up having lunch AND dinner there. Other than that, there's about 10 or 15 houses perched on the hillsides so we watched a "neighborhood" soccer game for awhile and saw some sort of celebration with tons of food and music (not sure if it was a normal Sunday night occurance or some sort of special occasion). Even though the wait was loooong, we kept ourselves entertained and managed to finally make it back by about 10 that night.
We decided next time we'll find different transportation but we definitely want to head back to the park for more hiking and cabining. I'd go again for the view alone. It made for a great weekend after such a long work week. And to top it off we had our friend Molly from home with us!!!
Waiting at the train station in Lampang
What better way to pass the time. . .
The train riiiiiiiide!
Chillin out on our deck
Our cabin and campfire ($6 a night!)
View from the top
The morning fog
Having a break before trying to find the waterfall
The hike back down
This dog followed us the whole way down. We named him Benny!
Back together again!!!
This dog followed us the whole way down. We named him Benny!
Back together again!!!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Chiang Mai!
We took our first trip away from our "home" in Lamapng a couple weekends ago and traveled a couple hours by bus to Chiang Mai. It's a gorgeous city! Our friends Jordie and Jamie from Seattle met us there so it was nice to see some familiar faces. Most of the teaching crew that we live with headed up as well. It gave us a good chance to get out of our town and let loose a little bit. We shopped at the night market, ate great food, and went to a fun raggae bar. The whole city just has a good feel to it. We figure we'll make it up there every few weekends to hang out! Here are some pics!
***A pooch goin for a cruise. . .****
***Off the balcony of our guesthouse.***
***A guy named John Gallery owns this art shop that's built into a tree.***
***John Gallery in the back of his shop with a painting that he just finished. Coolest guy ever.***
***John Gallery, Georgie, Lauren, Jbo and me in front of the painting that Georgie bought.***
***Georgie bargaining at the market.***
***Jbo checking out the fish. Mmmmmm.***
***A wat near the place we stayed. The sky looked amazing all day.***
***Out to dinner with our friends from Seattle!***
***Jordie and Jamie with their Night Market purchases***
***Our friend Allistair from the UK. So happy to find a rugby match on TV.***
***Heading out in a song taew. . .a taxi truck***
***Great live band playing a little "La Bamba!"***
***Jbo dancin it up!***
***Lauren and Allistair playing "rock, paper, scissors" with one of the little boys in the bar.***
***A guy named John Gallery owns this art shop that's built into a tree.******John Gallery in the back of his shop with a painting that he just finished. Coolest guy ever.******John Gallery, Georgie, Lauren, Jbo and me in front of the painting that Georgie bought.******Georgie bargaining at the market.******Jbo checking out the fish. Mmmmmm.******A wat near the place we stayed. The sky looked amazing all day.******Out to dinner with our friends from Seattle!******Jordie and Jamie with their Night Market purchases******Our friend Allistair from the UK. So happy to find a rugby match on TV.******Heading out in a song taew. . .a taxi truck******Great live band playing a little "La Bamba!"******Jbo dancin it up!******Lauren and Allistair playing "rock, paper, scissors" with one of the little boys in the bar.***
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