Luang Prabang: Lanterns, Monks and Rockets

Luang Prabang is definitely one of my favorite SE Asian cities, I'm really glad I had a full 5 days there to soak it up. As an official World Heritage city, it is remarkably calm, peaceful, and beautiful. I spent most of the days meandering around the city center and stopping in the various wats to befriend the monks. It seems like a lot happened in my 5 days there, yet it was super relaxing and fun. Here are some of the highlights:

The Rocket Festival: It's one of the biggest holidays in Laos with the central celebration in LP. It was complete luck that we were there and able to see it, but it was a really cool festival of lights, lanterns, boats and fireworks. The monks especially were loving it, going wild all night shooting off rockets, sparklers and fireworks- it was fun to see them let loose and be the teenage boys they are!

 The Hilltribe handicraft night market: Let's just say my bags are definitely going to be overweight now.

The monks: So friendly and all of them were desperate to talk to us and practice their English, so cute!

The locals: I really enjoyed all of my interactions with the locals, be it on a boat across the Mekong to explore a little village or at a restaurant in the downtown area. Laotians are very friendly and always open to chat about their life experiences and culture. It was really interesting to hear some of their stories, and especially cool to hear how dedicated they were to their education and their goals for the future of Laos, one of the world's poorest countries.

 The drive: Once again, crazy windy roads, but a really cool glimpse at how people way up in the mountains live. Beautiful scenery and gorgeous mountain views.  I also got a glimpse at some of the local roadside delicacies, including beaver (I think?).

Chick Mountain Music Festival: มัน ไก่ มาก

I've become more than a bit obsessed with Thai music during the last few months. I admit that it took a while for me to get used to hearing it all the time, everywhere, but I've found some artists that I really enjoy - so when I heard that a lot of them would be performing at an all night music festival at a military training camp, I could hardly say no.

I first heard about the concert, Chick Mountain Music Festival (Man Gai Mak), from a few of my Thai friends. After looking it up and a lot of assistance from Google Translate, I discovered that tickets were not yet sold out so my friends Clare and Nell and I bought the tix. We prepped the weeks before by listening to the tunes of Bodyslam, Da Endorphine, Suckseed, Paradox and Palmy on repeat.  The concert was held in Kanchanaburi, about 30 km from the town center and started at 5pm.  We arrived to the giant field in the middle of nowhere (in military inspired hipster gear, of course) around 3, picked up our wristbands and waited in line, attracting plenty of stares and posing for a few pictures as we were some of the only farang in attendance. Since we were at a military training camp we had the opportunity to shoot guns and jump from a tower in a bungee contraption... but we opted not to!

At about 5pm it started to rain, a heavy/steady rain, thank goodness they gave everyone a free poncho at the entrance, and it did not stop for about 4 hours. The field turned into a muddy mess, but somehow it seemed the perfect setting for a music festival.  Once the show got started we gradually pushed our way to the front end of the crowd and had a great view for the main acts of the night.  The highlight was definitely Bodyslam, Thailand's premiere rock band, lead by a Suphanburi native, P'Toon! With fireworks and lights and confetti - it was an amazing performance, even better when Toon revealed his 8-pack ; )

It was really fun to see some of my favorite Thai bands live and I enjoyed the Thai music festival experience.  The show ended a little after 3am and by the time we made it back to Kanchanaburi we only had to wait around for a bit before we caught the 4:50am bus back to Suphan looking like hot messes. I'm hoping to squeeze in one more music festival this weekend starring my all-time favorite Thai band, 25Hours, here's hoping it all works out!

Sports Day at Sa-nguan Ying

This Thursday and Friday Sa-nguan Ying held its annual Sports Day celebration - a two-day event that took months of planning and many hours of after school time dedicated solely to drumming and screaming practice. It was an epic event that began with a parade through "downtown" Suphanburi featuring some very loud cheers, a marching band and some seriously amazing costumes.  The opening ceremony consisted of a series of explosions, singing and dancing, raining confetti, fireworks and a torch-lighting bit that was reminiscent of an Olympics opening ceremony. It was big, loud and amazing - classic Thailand. The days consisted of sporting events such as basketball, volleyball and soccer (football as it's known here).  It was fun to see my students being athletic, and I especially enjoyed some of the matches that pitted the M.1 (7th graders) students versus the M.6 (12th graders) students, most of the older boys were a good foot taller than the younger gang and the basketball games were hardly a fair contest but everyone was such good sports.  I loved watching the students "wai" (bow) to each other before the contests.  The dancing competitions were easily the highlight of the celebrations for me, I loved the intricate costumes and the mix of cheerleading, traditional Thai dance and gymnastics.  I was also very impressed by the decibel level reached by the girls when they added in a bit of screeching - "I ya!" (Thai for OMG). It was also hilarious to watch the girls that competed in the dance competition earlier in the day take the court later in the day for a basketball game in full makeup with elaborate up-do's in their hair - mai pen rai!  Here's a few pics and a hastily put together video of the events of Sports Day, enjoy!

Sports Day in Thailand from Sarah Rall on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday to my Homeland!

This Monday we threw a party for a very special birthday... America! Happy 235th to my homeland! I've celebrated my favorite day, the 4th of July, in many places- the Mall in Washington DC, under the Arch in St. Louis, and with the Boston Pops by the Hatch Shell - but I've never celebrated the 4th out of the country until now.

I was bummed that I had to work - hello? Don't they understand that no one in America works on the 4th!?! I didn't let teaching stop me from celebrating, though, and I rocked my festive attire to school and had my classes sing "Happy Birthday" to America. We also indulged in some fun games and puzzles,  the students were grateful for an easier day and I was happy to share my love for America.  The Thai staff at our school marked the occasion by ordering the Americans some Kentucky Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes and egg tart (this must only be on the Thai menu...) and some Pepsi for lunch, finished off by a Dunkin' Donuts treat brought in by friend Clare from Australia.  It was a wonderful multicultural celebration of America's special day.

Since there are a few American farangs in Suphan, we decided to create our own party that night by taking over my friend's restaurant and filling the grill with American goodies like hot dogs and burgers.  We also whipped up some pasta salad, puppy chow and other peanut butter chocolate goodies, cheese, and a few bags of American style chips - no spicy squid or seaweed flavors at this party! My sister Emily had sent over a box full of decorations including necklaces, a headband, a festive tank top, a lantern, and some garland - so we really set the mood at the restaurant.  Nell mixed up an amazing playlist that featured the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, Proud to be an American and even Country Grammar by Nelly. It was the perfect way to bring a bit of America to Thailand, the only thing missing was fireworks, which is actually surprising since it seems like there's always someone shooting off fireworks in Suphan - just not on this day! I hope everyone in the USA had a grand ole' 4th (and a not so terrible 5th if you had to go back to work!)

Sunday Stroll in Suphan

It's been a lazy weekend in Suphanburi, with most of it spent holed up in my fave coffee spot down the street from school working on final exams.  I actually kind of had fun writing the exams, doing fill in the blank vocabulary in a letter I composed to Justin Bieber (Bieber fever is alive and well in the hearts of these Thai schoolgirls!)  Mixed in was a trip to the Chinese Dragon Descendants Museum to celebrate Chinese New Year - a week-long celebration full of nightly fireworks displays (so loud and aggressive that at first they had me doing a duck and cover move thinking central Thailand was under attack), lanterns lining the streets, and some big-name concerts.  Check out this video on YouTube if you're interested in the type of production they put on - it was very impressive! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTLGaCSPH30 I spent most of this afternoon/evening wondering around my little 'hood snapping pics on my ipod.  Here's a peek into a lazy Sunday in Suphan:

Thai movie stars.

Big fireworks display @ the dragon. Thais love pyrotechnics.

Deej @ and some Lanterns

The town's Chicken Shrine. No one can quite explain it's meaning.

The Suphan tower all lit up. 

Street vendors at the night market. 

Loy, Loy Krathong.

The last week has been super busy but full of fun times. To recap...

On Thursday morning we had an early-morning wake up call along with the 200 or so EP students as we took off for a "camping trip" to Kanchanaburi (camping trip = luxury resort?).  Kanchanaburi is a beautiful province to the west of the Soup with trees, mountains, waterfalls, etc. I have a feeling I will be making many trips there over the next year.  The camp involved a lot of ice-breaker games for the kids and 4 hours of group activities on Friday with teams rotating through stations such as "color with nature," crossing a rope bridge across the river, and my spot: "the human knot."  Initially they asked Nell and I to lead an exercise on global warming. We were told to put the whole group (18-20 kids) into a tent, close it for a minute, take a breather and then put them back in the tent, this time with some burning incense, in order to discuss air quality and why it was hard to breathe.  Our co-teacher told us, "just don't keep them in there for too long or they will pass out," ooookay.  Once we arrived at our station and were greeted with a one-person tent, we decided to ditch that idea so we didn't have to rely on our CPR training and go with the human knot instead which I think the kids enjoyed.

Since Nell and I were already in Kanchanaburi, we decided to stick around for part of the weekend rather than go back with the bus full of kids, so we had an extra day and a half to check out some sites.  Friday we took a long walk through town back to the River Kwai, caught a beautiful sunset from our hostel right on the water, and treated ourselves to a pricey but deliciously worth it pizza dinner to satisfy our cheese-deprived taste buds.  We went out on the town that night and made friends with some British boys and a few Thai bartenders who were actually impressed by our Thai skills - we're working on it!  We ended up closing down the place at 5am - yikes! But Nell and I were true champs and still managed to make our self-imposed 7:45am wake up call to hit up the Erawan Waterfalls where we met up with some fellow teachers and hiked up all 7 tiers where we were able to swim under the falls and see some breathtaking, picture-perfect scenes.  Along the way we had to fight off some "fierce monkeys" that like to steal tourists' bags, fish that like to eat the dead skin off of feet (free pedicure!), and an hour and a half bus ride seated next to a crowing rooster on his way to a cock fight. We barely made the last bus back to the Soup on Saturday night, the bus was literally overflowing and Nell rode the first half of the journey halfway out the open door at the back of the bus.  We made it home and promptly crashed for the evening after a long but amazing day.

Sunday was a big day in Thailand, Loy Krathong, or the festival that celebrates the spirits of the water.  Thais celebrate by making small floats or Krathongs out of banana leafs or bread and candles which they then place in the river.  It's all very visually captivating, and it seemed like most of the Soup was out to celebrate with traditional Thai dance, coconut ice cream, fireworks, and large paper lanterns launched into the sky.  All in all another amazing/ridiculous weekend in Thailand: meeting cool people from around the world, trying new things, and hiking up mountains for some gorgeous views.

Suphan Living

Last night I had the privilege of attending what I can only describe as a mix of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, a Justin Bieber concert, and a 4th of July fireworks display that literally set me on fire.  Where to begin?

We were told last week that the English Program (EP) teachers and the exchange students would be attending the Opening Ceremony for the Suphanburi Games - and that was the only information we were given.   (Side note: for the next few weeks there are about 15 American teenagers from Lodi High School in Wisconsin and about 6 Tasmanian teenagers visiting as part of an exchange program at the school).  Yesterday after school, an easy day for me considering all of my classes had been cancelled so the students could practice for their evening performance, we were shuttled into the school bus with the school driver, Mr. Legend, and off to the Suphanburi Games.

Once we arrived we were ushered to our seats right in the center and right next to the spot of honor reserved for the Ex-Prime Minister of Thailand, who hails from Suphanburi, and handed a yellow flag to wave around to show our pride.   We had no idea of the spectacle that awaited us.

What followed was 3 different concerts, which I'm told--and I believe based on the reaction of the crowd and the decibel level of the teenage girls screaming--featured the biggest pop stars in Thailand, a few speeches by important people, a parade of provinces and their representatives to the Games, and a fireworks and torch lighting display that can only be described as above and beyond anything I've ever seen for a high school sports competition in the States.  The torch was lit by two Thai teenagers, suspended above the crowd by wires, who took the smaller torch from the Prime Minister and lit something that then set off a series of explosions that zip-lined across and around the main stadium before setting fire to the big torch.  It also set off a fireworks display that quickly ended in most people suffering from smoke inhalation and left me with a hole in my skirt after an ash briefly set it on fire.  It was definitely an experience!

New favorite Pop Star! 

All in all, it was a really great night, the traditional Thai music and dance are so beautiful and captivating, it was a great welcome not only for the exchange students in their first few hours in this country, but also for me as I'm still getting acclimated to my new surroundings.  Nell and I both admitted we got a little bit emotional watching the events unfold, we feel so lucky to be able to take part in these festivities in our adopted hometown!

Reminds me of a certain celebration in the North End...

I think this crowd features the entire population of the Soup

The fireworks that set me on fire; thanks to the lady behind me for defusing the situation.