Thailand: It's Easy!

Time for some deets on exactly what I've been up to while I've been wondering around SE Asia for the past few weeks. The adventure began with a trip to the BKK airport to pick up Megh to bring her back to show off our little hometown among the rice paddies.  Suphanburi is small so we were able to show her the whole town in a day - the school, the market, the dragon, the tower, and then on to our favorite Som Tom restaurant.  If you've never had Som Tom - spicy papaya salad - I highly recommend you test it out, I'm not sure if it's as good in the States as it is here with all the fresh fruits and veggies, but add some sticky rice to the meal and you are golden.

That night we headed into Bangkok to hit up the bumping backpacking hot spot that is Khao San Road, home to countless street vendors, beer tanks, and blasting techno music.  It's definitely the place to be for backpackers.  The next day we tried to cram in as much of Bangkok as possible - The Grand Palace, Siam, and Chatuchak Market before hopping an overnight bus to the island of Koh Chang.

 Unfortunately, the overnight bus ended up only taking 4 hours, so we left Bangkok at 11:30 pm and were dropped off literally on the side of the road at 3:45 am.  Luckily, we were dropped off at a tourist office where we hopped in a songtow for a ride to the island ferry and we finally made it to the island and to our hostel (exhausted!) around 7 am.

Koh Chang is a gorgeous place and one of my favorite island stops in Thailand so far.  We stayed in a great little hostel called Rock Sand Resort with a balcony that was directly over the clear blue ocean. Our first major character of the trip was the hotel owner who we lovingly nicknamed Mr. Whiskers due to the very long hairs growing out of his chin - a trend we spotted all over Asia.  We could not understand anything he said to us, in Thai or English, during our stay there, but he would finish almost every answer to our questions with "It's easssssy." One of our first stops was a trip into the main area for one of the more interesting massage experiences I've had so far in Thailand.  As soon as we got there they had us strip down and covered us with little hand towels... interesting.  Due to some lucky timing on our part, there just so happened to be a parade going through town at that very moment, and the ladies doing the massage couldn't bear to miss it so they opened the curtains wide, and as we lay there covered in hand towels a line of children dressed like dragons and beating drums strolled past the windows while we put on a show of our own for the crowds outside.

Our last day in Koh Chang we had to give Megh the typical Thailand experience of riding an elephant.  We had a friendly elephant named Hong Thong (after a brand of Thai whiskey) who took us on a journey through a bit of jungle, over some rocks and through the trees.  Megh got her turn to sit on the elephant and play mahout and was quite the driver, if not a slightly nervous one.  We finished up our time in Thailand with another sampling of Pad Thai for dinner and toasted with some Singha beer.  Next stop: Cambodia!

Field Trip!

Life in the Soup has settled into a fairly regular routine these days, teach M-F 8-4, tutor or teach a prep course until 6:15 or 7, hope there's a good movie on the lone English TV channel, and then hit the hay.  I've entered serious money saving mode recently since I've started planning my "summer break" (March-May) trips.  So far I've booked flights to Bali (Indonesia), Langkawi (Malaysia) and a school trip to Vietnam.  Hoping to hit up Cambodia, Laos and possibly Hong Kong as well - I need to have pages added to my passport for all of these stamps/visas!  With all these big trips on the horizon, I'll likely be sticking close to home for the next few weeks.  Although, keeping myself entertained in Suphanburi for a whole weekend has proved to be very tough - there's just not that much going on in what we farang lovingly call the "Detroit of Thailand".  

This week I was able to enjoy a midweek reprieve when we took a field trip to Ayutthaya with the M.2 class (8th graders).  They have been studying the city and its history/ruins in their social studies class so they were split into groups and assigned a teacher to show around.  I was so impressed that they memorized everything and their English was so good. It was really nice to have someone explain what I was seeing since last time I was there I relied on the Lonely Planet guidebook for the low down. I also had my third opportunity to ride an elephant (not your average field trip!), although I felt bad for these elephants because Ayutthaya is a flat/hot/dusty city and I think the elephants probably enjoy themselves a little more when they are in their natural element in the forest or by the water.   

It's hard to believe but the first semester is already coming to a close, I'll spend the next few weeks writing exams, filling out behavior reports, and finalizing student grades - which should be an interesting process because although some students have many missing grades, I'm not allowed to fail anyone. I'll have to come up with some sort of crazy way to scale the grades.  It doesn't seem like a very effective practice to let everyone pass, but I guess it's just one of those things I'll never understand about the Thai education system.