Chiang Mai

To ultimately describe my entire weekend, I have found a beautiful black woman to help me:

Literally. This weekend was just chalk full of peace and blessins! Here's a comparison of what was supposed to happen with what ACTUALLY ended up happening.

Ok wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a little background before I start. After 4 weeks of teaching and biking around the same small town, our first vacation had come!! It was only a small weekend trip to Chiang Mai, a northern city about 7 hours from Pichit by bus. But we were SO psyched to finally do the "Thailand Tourism" attractions. Mainly - elephants, tigers, temples, and shopping!

   EXPECTATION                                                              REALITY

Stay in a mixed bedroom hostel with 3 other strangers. Hey, it's cheap! Me and McKenna bought PBJ supplies to share over the weekend so we wouldn't have to spend money on every meal. Due to time crunches and lack of information, we would only have time to do one of the three attractions in Chiang Mai: elephants, tigers, or temples. Once it got dark, the night market got set up and we were going shopping!

My head teacher's boss, Dr. Rachot was in town just for the week and decided he wanted to show us around his hometown and let us stay in his brother's high-class hotel. Dr. Rachot paid for every meal and drinks and snacks AND transportation. We only covered the tip at the restaurant. Dr. Rachot drove us to an Elephant Show and PAID for us (700+ baht) to watch and feed the elephants. He also took us to see the tigers and had his driver take us to the biggest temple in Chiang Mai. Oh, and did I mention we had free access to lounge at the pool? My face was slobbered with elephant kisses by the time I left! I cuddled a giant tiger....oh yes After the fun-packed day, Dr. Rachot took us to not only the big night market, but also a second night market until midnight.  "100 baht, but I give you discount my friend. *forces bracelet onto wrist* looks so beautiful on you yes?"

.
This weekend has been seriously a dream! Around every corner was my new favorite part of Thailand. On Sunday, we went to a Buddhist temple and the Jade factory. Amazing to learn about all the different cultures and religions of Thailand! Although I wasn't able to attend my LDS church, it was still a peaceful Sunday being a part of the Buddhist practices. I had the opportunity to practice some of the offerings to the Buddhist gods, and also be blessed by a monk!

They're giving me a bracelet of protection and the white also symbolizes good luck, the monk wasn't able to put this on me because it's forbidden to touch women in any way; So another holy man tied the bracelet.

And in case you were wondering if an elephant can paint, they can. And better than me I might add.

Phichit Boat Festival

When someone says Thailand, the Phichit Boat Festival will now be what comes to my mind. This weekend has been the absolute highlight of my entire 4 weeks living in Thailand thus far. The festival apparently has lasted a couple weeks, but the biggest festivities were this weekend.

 We started on Friday after school with the night market. Everything was glowing and neon, even the drinks we got! Up and down the streets were crowded with vendors. And I don't just mean some food and clothes, although that was there too. I'm talking anything you could possibly want to buy was somehow packed into tight intersections; International soccer jerseys, gold jewelry with personal engravings, dufflebags/backpacking gear, clothes, puppies, mattresses, chairs, scooters, helmets, sponges, fruit/bugs/food, and toys ranging from kiddy rubix cubes to full-scale Zelda instruments.

Grasshoppers, Cockroaches, Maggots OH MY!

Barbie Army

After a night of gawking and figuring out prices (as well as holding the cutest fluffball at the puppy vendor for a while)..............

Literally the size of my hands and so fluffy I was gonna die

...............we came back on Saturday and I got down to some serious bartering. I came away with 3 shirts, 1 skirt, 1 p. shorts, 4 drinks, 1 tentacles on a stick, 1 sponge (long story) for about 15 USD. And let's not forget all the complimentary bites, 2 free jerseys, and the "backstage" chatting with the Semi-finalists at the Takraw Lot Huang competition and pictures with the Longboat Competition teams!!

Longboat Team

Longboat Team (still not sure why the "white" one is doing that face.)

                  Here's a funny note while I'm thinking about it. If you notice the Longboat team member with the white on his face. This is actually a very popular 'do' for the Thai people. Everyone wants to look white and "beautiful" so they rub this cream on their faces and their anti-sweat powder also gives a white appearance on their body. It's funny in America people get skin cancer trying to be more tan but here, they rub thick cream all over their faces (in the hot humidity) to be more white. Boys and girls alike.

 It might have been in China, but the Mulan story wasn't far off when they decked out her face completely white.














Overall, such a fun fun experience. I probably won't reach for many more squid tentacles on a stick, but the Mew ice-drink and fresh hazelnut bread was to die for.

Here's the Thailand I'm Loving

[Me and Zoe holding Rambutan]

We stopped by our favorite fruit vendor at the market and got hooked up with some free fruit. Apparently there's a different species of orange here that I'm excited to try tomorrow morning. She also taught me some more Thai which is one of my favorite parts; "Mango-stee" and "Long-kong" are some of the sweetest fruits we got to try today!

We also went to Phichit's infamous ice-cream shop, Swenson's. Apparently it's a wanna be 'American ice cream shoppe', because they include all the English names and play American music. The ice cream was a little sweeter than home, but that made it all the more delicious. It was nice to have a little piece of home nearby. 

[Zoe and Abbey]

We all tried each others since there were about 7 pages of different ice creams and sundaes. So good!

[Me going for the kill]

They have these beautiful lei's in the market everywhere, hand-made right in front of us! They also made arrangements out of leaves and pins, such a unique design and neat creation!

One of the many mystery market buckets that contain unknown Thai goodies. These badboys were still alive and squggling out my hands, weirdest feeling ever. Luckily, most of the vendors here are excited for us to learn about the foods here so they encouraged us to touch and grab them and we pretended to slurp them up like noodles.

[Me freaking out over the eels.....snakes....? at the market today]

Ok this isn't the best picture of my co-teachers, but it was next to our FAVORITE VENDOR OF ALL TIME!!!.....the fruit shake stand! They juice the whole fruit right in front of us and then add ice for a smoothie-consistency if you want it. I've gotten both the juice (which is in a bag with a straw by the way, so funny) and the fruit shake and it's so amazingly delicious. "No suga!" as they would say, because all the other fruit shake vendors add syrups for the fruit taste while they use REAL fruit.

Culture Shock?

Ok I'll get pictures later from my roommates of all the good parts of today, but I just wanted to get some thoughts down.

Our treatment of animals in America is probably the best it could ever get. The way the Thai people view them is heartbreaking. We actually got shooed out by a vendor today for gasping at their 'meat selections'. They had skinned the frogs so that it was pulled up over their face then, still alive laid them out for people to choose. When the frogs would try to squirm away, they beat them down, twitching and kicking, with a stick. The catfish weren't in water but just wriggling about, still alive, probably dying slowly. The turtles were all in a bucket trying to get out and falling down on their backs; we flipped one over because it couldn't on it's own.

On top of that, we came home today to these two quite pathetic existences of dogs. They're starved to the bone, and when they're caught inside they're beaten by the people. Today was especially sad listening to an extremely flea-ridden and horribly underfed dog run past me whimpering/howling, head almost to the ground while his eye bled after being beaten. This one has cuts all over his body, and is constantly attacked by another dog who asserts his dominance.

It makes me realize how spoiled we have it in America, where we can afford to view animals as forms of life and even part of the family. Here in Phichit, the majority see them as meat or a nuisance. The only people who watch after the malnourished animals everywhere are the monks down the road from us.

A pretty heart wrenching day, I have to admit. The kids may be cute, the food may be delicious, but my stomach just feels so unsettled.

The Nitty Gritty Details

Pichit Imperial School

I feel like I need to include logistics of my regular day and duties for everything to make sense later on. I work Monday through Friday typically 3-4 hours a day. The kids here have different classes from roughly 8:00- 5:00, depending on their ages. My American Co-Teachers are Kait, Zoe, Mckenna, Emi, Abbey, and Jess.

Duties at Pichit Imperial School:

Babysitting: Every American teacher has to babysit for one hour, one night a week 6:30-7:30. This lets the Thai teachers take a break from their long work days. Some of the Thai teachers even have to stay 24/7 for the students who sleep at the school.

Pre-K: These are the 2-3 year olds, who don't know any English except for a few sentences or nursery songs. They have English class from 8:00-9:00am, which every teacher must teach twice a week. This is almost babysitting since most of the kids don't speak much English.

Kindergarten: These are my regular classes that I have 5 days a week from 9:30-12:00. Most of them can get out enough English to have a small conversation I teach the K1 classes with Kait and Zoe. Mckenna and Emi hold Basic Reading classes upstairs with K2.

Elementary School: These are the 12 year olds, who are practically fluent in English. They have more traditional school from 12:00-2:30 with Abbey.

Catch-Up: This is called 'catch-up' for the students who are around or if they missed class earlier that day. There's usually a mixed group of about 3-8 students. We do the same lesson we did that day for regular classes. 

My Jaw Drags on the Floor When I Walk

Ok so I've officially had yesterday and today to settle into Thailand and I. Love. It. The plane rides were very long, but the Japanese airport was so neat it made it worthwhile. I picked up one of my favorite Hawaii treats while I was there too - yummy Mochi.

After 24 hours of flying, we finally made it to the Bangkok Airport. There was a lot more English at the airport than I expected, but I think that's only in tourist areas because there's nothing English in Phichit.

I got some money transferred over to the Thai currency, baht.The difference is roughly ฿30 to $1, I can't wait to go shopping! I don't even need a thrift shop to get cheap clothes, take that hipsters!

 The school had a van pick us up from the airport to embark on the 4 hour drive out to our hotel in Phichit (we couldn't move in until the old teachers left). It looked like a white pedophile van from the outside, but the inside was like stepping into the Cash Cab van. There were pads on every surface, with sealed water cups and footrests inside, all of us teachers fell asleep almost as soon as we sat down; but we got distracted by the neon lights on almost every truck and car, and the fact that everyone drives on the left side of the road.

We stopped along the way for a bathroom break and I'm bummed I don't have a picture to show it, but the bathrooms were so gnarly, that is coming from my ethnocentric American mind of course. The toilet paper is outside of the stalls, since you throw it away rather than flushing here, so I had no idea to grab some before I went in. It was also a squatter toilet, which, if any of you are not familiar, here is a very nice squatter toilet in Japan:

The one I used had no flushing system, so next to it was a small built-up pool of water and a pot. After doing my business, I used the bidet instead of toilet paper and then scooped up some water from the pool with the pot to manually flush.
We also ran into a couple animals outside the bathroom. I say animals because I thought they were stray dogs, but after getting home and doing some googling my co-teachers have decided they were more probably dingos. So creepy! There are wild dogs everywhere in Thailand, I could probably count at least 15 on my 10 minute walk to the school. Very friendly during the day, but wild at night.


In the morning we shadowed the old teachers that had already been teaching at the school for a semester. The kids that I will be teaching are so stinking cute. Not only do they all have the Gangam Style dance memorized, but they love singing Justin Bieber and saying the rules. I'm teaching the older of the kindergarten group which is ages 4-5. Did I mention they're SO cute?? Even though I wasn't technically teaching today, they'd run up and hug me and say "Teacher Paige look what I found!!" with the biggest toothy smiles.

At night, the old Head Teacher took us biking around town and we got drenched in the warmest tropical rainstorm. We got to see crocodiles and eat delicious roti and check out some shops. 

Koi Pond next to the school

Koi

Crocodile Park

This place is absolute paradise!! I get noodles for $1 and everything here is ridiculously gorgeous here!

The Prime Minister. Pictures of her and also the King/Queen especially are everywhere.

We have legit security at the school

Small Temple outside the school

Thai food is amazing

Breakfast

Dinner

I absolutely love Thailand! Everyone here is welcoming and friendly, the school is great, the kids are great, and the whole atmosphere of Thailand is incredible. From the monk neighbors to the temples everywhere, it's so beautiful. I can't wait for the next 4 months.