Greater Northeastern and Northern Tour [PART 1]

I guess I should start from the beginning, but it has been a long trip - full of excitement, craziness and 50 teenage falangs. It was amazing, I wish I could do it over and over again. So, those who are reading are in for a bumpy, long and exhausting ride.

Day 1 - Suzanne and I left Nakhon Phanom at 7:30 am for Korat. Khun Pornchai [he will be referred to as "Papa Pornchai" or "Papa P" for the rest of my trip] picked us up at the Korat bus station after our 8 hour drive and I knew he liked us immediately. We had a nice talk with him about what we wanted to do in the future etc. etc. as we drove towards the Sripattana Hotel. When we arrived I saw some familiar faces - Clayton, Micheal, Tati. But there were also a bunch of unfamiliar faces that I could only recognize from Facebook pictures. I felt really awkward at first, as the “new girl”, but everyone was super welcoming and I made friends right away. After everyone had arrived, after I had introduced myself to everyone and we had moved our things into a hotel room with Emily [a girl from Michigan USA] we went on a 7 Eleven run. The first night set the ball rolling for the rest of the trip – everyone hung out together, I made a bunch of new friends and we went to 7 Eleven at least 4 times.

Phanom Rung Historical Park
Day 2 – We were up bright and early for breakfast, onto the buses [the boys were split up from the girls and had a completely different bus – the tour guides said it was because of “Thai culture” however I didn’t think that sitting next to a boy on the bus was such a big deal; oh well] and headed towards Ubon Ratchathani. On the way we visited Phanom Rung Historical Park which had the most beautiful architecture I’ve seen. It is an old Hindu religious site turned Buddhist site built over an extinct volcano. Apparently it’s over a thousand years old. We spent quite a while wandering the historical park, had lunch and shopped at some vendors and then continued to the resort. It was gorgeous! Every room had comfortable beds with canopies, a nice shower [I’ve missed one of those] and the rooms were set in a jungle of trees, tiki huts and flowers with a view of Laos and the Mekong River. The pool was massive, the dining patio sat looking over the river and everything was decorated with lights, gongs and tradition Thai fabric. A bunch of girls and I got all dressed up in our fanciest outfits to go and have Banana Flambé and Deep Fried Ice cream on the patio. It was heaven. That night I got stung by a hornet the size of my fist and my arm swelled up for the first week. It was very painful, very itchy and very annoying. I hate bugs in Thailand. Then, that night I hopped over Kalie’s balcony into her bedroom and sprained my toe – it was a good start to the trip I think.

Sao Chaliang

Day 3 – We woke up early, had a buffet breakfast of the most delicious food and left for Pha Taem National Park. First we visited Sao Chaliang, stone towers and a hilltop with a giant crack down the center. We all ran around taking pictures, resting on the rocks looking over the cliff and climbing down the crack. When it came to the group picture with THE BANNER [oh the horror] we were not interested in taking pictures. There were probably 25 cameras, and no one understood why one person couldn’t just take the picture, put it on the internet and send it to everyone – instead we had to endure the mass photo taking experience [it reminded me of dancing at Phra That Phanom] and about halfway through most of us just gave up and walked away from the scene. Then we went to the giant cliff where there were signs telling you to “Be careful of bees,” “Danger, No poke,” [??] and the tour guides ran around telling you to be careful. I think we realized we needed to be careful – we’re not THAT dense. I injured myself even more by walking full on into a hanging tree branch when I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking. I joked that by the end of the trip I would be in the hospital at the rate this was going. Before returning to the resort we visited two waterfalls. The first one had zero water and the pool at the bottom was just a bunch of rocks we jumped around on. However, the second one had a nice little pond that we went swimming in and a waterfall that we could stand under. We got back to the hotel early so a bunch of us decided to get a spa package for only $30 after we ate grilled cheese sandwiches. They were probably the most expensive sandwiches we have ever paid for, but they were delicious. The spa treatment was great. We had “time for tea” and then we had a nice bubble bath [I shared a bath with Kalie – funniest experience of my life], a body scrub, shower and then aromatherapy with coconut butter. That night everyone brought their instruments out and we played. My friend Friederike taught me to play “Twinkly Twinkle Little Stars” on the violin.

Day 4 – We left the resort and headed to Nakhon Phanom – my host city. This day was mostly driving but we did stop at a tower in Mukdahan to overlook the city and the river. We stopped again at Phra That Phanom, but since I’ve been there about 6 times before it wasn’t anything exciting for me. At dinner Khun Prapart [referred to as “Peter” or “P Dog” (except not to his face) for the rest of the trip] pulled me out of our hacky sack circle and made me read the Thai names for all the buffet food to show his Rotarian friends. He was really proud that I could read them, but it was really embarrassing and frusterating since my friends were standing right there. Dinner was good; Papa P serenaded us with his karaoke talents and a bunch of people got up and sang Abba and CCR. After dinner Suzanne and I took everyone to Meurang, our favourite coffee place for dessert. We fit 16 of us into a sam law normally suitable for 8 and the rest followed in the trunk of a pick up truck. I feel horrible for the people at Meurang – we took up almost all their tables and moved them around – I don’t think they’ve ever had that many people in there at one time. But they probably made a bunch of money from us that night so I don’t feel too bad. We walked back to the hotel and then a bunch of the Korat girls and I enjoyed a nice adventure on the elevator and touring the hotel. We found a deserted floor where there were no lights on and so everyone piled up there to hang out. It was pretty creepy – there was only one blue light on and there was a big set of double doors at the end of the long corridor that were locked. We told ghost stories and jokes before running back to our rooms for curfew.

Day 5 – After checking out we visited Ban Chiang National Museum where they had lots of artifacts dug out from archeological sites. Most of them were pots, but they also had skeletons and tools. After looking around we shopped at some vendors on the side of the road and then went for lunch in Udon Thani. We had Vietnamese food – I was in heaven. On our way to Loei we stopped at an Orchid Farm which wasn’t good at all – there weren’t any flowers. I bought some Orchid tea thoughJ. I really lucked out at the Resort in Loei - 6 of us girls got an entire house to ourselves. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a porch. It was awesome. Before dinner we went on a walk to this convenient store where we sat and hung out with some of the Rotarians and the convenient store owners. They were really cool. At dinner a bunch of people came around handing out pins and business cards from their home countries – I’m excited to see what my jacket turns out like at the end of the year when I have it covered in pins and trinkets. Kat gave me a free foot massage while we watched a Thai TV show and drank tea. She has been taking a massage class and after getting 150 hours of massage work on other people she gets certified – I was her guinea pig for the week. That evening we sat around the resort talking, contacting spirits using a Ouiji board, playing soccer, laying on the hammock and watching TV.

Suan Hin Pha Ngam Park
Day 6 – We left the hotel and drove to Suan Hin Pha Ngam Park where we went up the mountain in groups of 10 and walked through the rocks and tunnels to reach the summit. It was lots of fun – I was with Clayton, Kat, Colin, Chris, Adrian, JP, Lena and Veronica as well as Papa P. It was one of the most enjoyable things we did the whole trip. When we reached the bottom we got in a song taew attached to a tractor and tried to race the other group to the bottom. Even though we were eating lunch soon we all went out and got sticky rice, grilled chicken and som tam for a snack. For some reason Exchange Students really love sticky rice. We were supposed to visit a temple on the way to our hotel in Phrae but we were running behind so we skipped over it. That night we took a song taew to the night market and wandered around. Kalie and I bought pomegranates for a snack and had a real mission opening them without a knife. When we returned to the hotel we went out to a Gay Disco Tech. The singers let us jump up on the stage and dance and they played a bunch of songs that I recognized! We danced all night, screamed and sang along to the parts of the songs that we knew and all piled into a song taew when we returned to the hotel. It was the best night of the trip.

The White Temple
Day 7 – The 4 am bedtime the night before really bit me in the ass the next day. We had to be up at 6 am and we left for Chiang Rai where we saw the “White Temple” [Wat Rong Khun]. This temple was the most amazing I had ever seen. It was all white, covered in mirrors and silver. Around the base were ponds full of pure white fish and the bridges and architecture were all white as well. Even the trees planted in the lot were white. Some of the statues were very odd – they had two red statues right at the gate, both made of skulls and demons; one was holding cigarettes and the other was holding a bottle of whisky. The temple was covered in the most grotesque and fantastical creatures I’ve ever seen. There were sea demons coming out of the ponds and spraying water from their mouths, little gremlins at the base of the stairway and underneath one of the bridges were hundreds of stone hands reaching up, some of them holding skulls and others holding coins people had thrown in. The inside of the temple itself was the most amazing. Along one wall was a mural combining all of the most popular fictional characters with demons, smoke, and death. On the mural were characters from Superman, The Matrix, Star Wars and War of the Worlds. There were images of cell phones, sumo wrestlers, the Twin Towers, planes, taxis and alcohol. All of these were intertwined with long fingers, the faces of demons, teeth, blood and fire. It was intriguing, yet unsettling. After lunch we went to the Golden Triangle – the place where the Mekong River splits between Laos, Myanmar and Thailand forming a triangle. It was cool to see, but shopping there was more fun. Everyone ran around looking for presents for their Secret Santas while I sat down and had a long conversation with a street vendor selling tea. She gave me and Audrey some free tea for sitting and talking to her and her husband, but the coolest part was the way she made the tea and then made us roll this ceramic tube along our necks, our hands and our fingers. It was very queer, I didn’t quite understand it, but it was really interesting all the same. After we checked into our hotel at Mae Sai I went shopping with Kat and Kaitlin as well as some others. We got separated and so we decided to walk up a giant staircase [probably 200 of the largest stairs ever] to the top of a hill overlooking the city. Before the climb I saw some Thai girls playing badminton and asked to play with them. I wasn’t very good, but it was still fun. When we reached the top of the staircase we made our merit at the temple and then wandered. I found a tree around the perimeter of the temple with a pile of Buddha and monk images that must have been discarded. It was the weirdest mixture of images at one time – a beautiful blooming tree, under which there laid colourless and broken images. We went to the Disco Tech that night too, but it wasn’t very good so when we returned we pulled our mattresses into another room and had a sleepover on the floor.

I will write another blog entry tomorrow about PART 2 because there is just SO much to write, and this blog entry is already much longer than it should be.

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" - Bob Marley

Deang Dua

Wednesday was the day of Nakhon Phanom's parade. Both my school "Piyamaharachalai" and Suzanne's school "Nakhonphanomwittayakhom" have been working for weeks at all hours of the day preparing for this parade. After the parade there was to be a soccer match, so all the classes were cancelled so that the soccer team could play, the students could practice their cheers and everyone else could help prepare the floats and signs. My job was to help paint things, pour sparkles on them and cover letters in tinfoil.

On Wednesday morning I was up and at the school for 6 am to get dressed in a Traditional Thai costume called "Daeng Dua". My hair was teased up into a beehive [this is normal for every fancy occasion in Thailand] and then my makeup was done - dark eyebrows and pink lipstick included. I don't mind getting all dressed up and painted like a doll, but the eyebrows that are a completely different colour from my hair and the bright pink lipstick is pushing it a little. I look like a transvestite, though all the Thai people say I look like a doll. They must have some scary looking dolls.

After we sat around for a long time eating, playing with Rubix cubes [the new fad in Thailand] and talking we got changed. Every single person had to get personally dressed by this one man. First you had to wear a corset [which by the way was the most uncomfortable thing ever taking into account that it was made to fit a THAI person's chest, not a foreigner's] and then over top of that they had a sash that wrapped around and went over your shoulder. Then you had a traditional Thai long skirt, a crown, and lots of gold jewellery including an armband and a belt. They decided since I have blue eyes they should cover me completely in blue. I even had blue flowers in my hair which made my eyes stick out like a sore thumb - they looked very creepy.

At 11 o'clock we piled into a van and set off for the parade marshalling area, and then at noon we were off. I was sitting on the back of a float with two other girls at the front and two boys sitting in the middle. Sitting politely in a skirt is uncomfortable and you start to lost feeling in your legs - it only took me a few minutes. The parade was great despite the fact that I had to smile the whole time and my face started to hurt. It was great to see how excited all the townspeople were about a falang wearing Traditional Thai Dress. One woman picked up her daughter, set her on the edge of my float and ran behind us taking pictures. Whenever the float stopped for the slightest second swarms of people ran up yelling "Look at this camera! Over here!" The whole time, everyone was yelling "Oh, FALANG!" Two boys even sat on a bike and rode beside the float the whole parade route yelling "FALANG! FALANG! FALANG!" It was great. Some boys from my school were handing out water at one point and they yelled into the microphone "ARE YOU THIRSTY?" I nodded. They proceeded to yell into the microphone "She's thirsty, get her some water, beautiful, very beautiful, she's thirsty." They brought me some water as I was in tears of laughter - Thai people are crazy.

When we finally finished the parade the floats turned into the soccer stadium to one side of the stands full of students from both schools, and the other side full of spectators. It seemed like everyone from the whole town was there! The students were performing perfectly insync and choreographed cheers - they had signs with different colours that would spell out sentences when they all held them up at the same time. The other school had colour coded their shirts to spell out their school initials. It was great, so much school spirit! I wish schools in Canada had this much spirit, it makes going to school events much more fun. After many speeches we left the stadium while I heard them making a speech about me over the microphone. My host mother waved to me from the crowd and I made funny faces for her which made all the teachers laugh at me.

Tomorrow I am off on my first Rotary trip of the year. I won't be updating this blog until after I get back on the 26th, with lots to talk about. So, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, a great new year and safe and happy holidays. I'll be thinking of everyone from the Land of Smiles.

"The greatest gift of all is to love, and be loved in return"

Falang

Sometimes on the very rare occasion, Thailand frustrates me. It isn't even that Thailand frustrates me, but being a falang in Thailand does. No matter how well you speak Thai, how good your accent is or how similar to Thai people you are, you will always be a falang; you will always be treated differently.

For the most part, Thai people are delighted to hear that you can speak Thai. As soon as you say "Hello" in Thai they start giggling and get excited that your accent is no longer Canadian, but verging on Thai. In Bangkok, all of this is different. Bangkok is where all the flights come in, where the streets are infested with falangs who cannot speak a word of Thai, whose accents are still Canadian and who verge away from certain food so they don't get traveller's diarrhea. I don't mind, they are tourists, they are travelling - they don't have to know the language, they don't have to have a Thai accent and they don't have to eat everything. But for me, I have to learn Thai, I have to lose my Canadian accent and I am subject to try EVERYTHING on a menu [and trust me, I have tried some things anyone sensible would steer clear of]. But because of the falangs who are tourists, the Thai people in Bangkok do not expect you to speak Thai. No matter how many times you tell them "I can speak Thai, I understand" IN Thai, they will always reply to you in English. This frustrates me more than anything. In Nakhon Phanom I am the falang who speaks great Thai, who has lost her Canadian accent and can have conversations with the shopkeepers. In Bangkok I am just another falang who needs the shopkeeper to say the price in English.

On top of the language frustrations there are the eating habits. I was never one to eat breakfast and though I have broken that habit now that I am in Thailand, I still am not one to be craving a big meal in the morning. I will have toast, or some fruit, or leftover vegetables from dinner the night before. This weekend I have been in Bangkok and the relatives of my host family pester me constantly to eat more food. I tell them I am not hungry, that I am full and they still bother me to try something, to eat more. On Friday they took me to the mall for KFC - I am never one to turn down deepfried chicken so I ordered something small. They didn't eat with me. Right after I finished eating they took me to a fancy hotel for Dim Sum. I didn't understand why they had taken me for take out when 15 minutes later they would be taking me to a big fancy lunch at a hotel restaurant. They thought I wanted falang food. At lunch we ate with chopsticks and I have always been confident with my chopstick skills - they improved immensely since I arrived in Thailand. These chopsticks were weighted down with lead on the end, not the throw away wooden type you use at food stalls in Nakhon Phanom. It wasn't a problem until I tried to dip my roll into soya sauce, then I couldn't pick it up again because it was so covered in sauce! I used my spoon to put it on my plate and then I continued eating. However, because of this small clumsy moment one of the women at the table asked the waiter to bring me a fork and spoon. AS IF I NEEDED A FORK AND SPOON. I am a clumsy person - I walk into things, I drop things, I stub my toe - I can't even eat with a fork and spoon without dropping rice on the tablecloth. I told them "I don't want a fork and spoon". They didn't bring me one, and the rest of the lunch I ate perfectly with my heavier-than-normal chopsticks.
For the rest of the lunch the women at the table kept pushing food at me, telling me to eat more. I was full, I had just eaten KFC and then they took me out to lunch which I had eaten my share of. I could not eat anymore, and yet they kept telling me "Just try this one, you'll like it." When I didn't eat it, they made comments that I didn't like it, that I wanted to eat falang food.

Sometimes, being a foreigner drives me insane - you are never accepted as a Thai person, your natural habits are always judged as a "falang thing".

At other times, however, the shopkeepers at the floating market give you discounts on merchandise because you sound just like a Thai. (:

"It is not how we are the same, but how we are different"

My Eye is Twitching

And it's driving me crazy. Today is day 2 of the twitching. It stopped for a while, but now it's back - I'm pretty sure it's mostly from my lack of sleep.
Yesterday I woke up and was so exhausted that I told my little sister I had a headache and wasn't going to school. I went back to bed and when I FINALLY got myself out of bed and started sweeping the house I really DID have a headache, for the rest of the day. Oh Karma.

I have now officially moved houses - the change happened on Sunday after a wonderful "Farewell Emma" party thrown by my first host parents at my favourite restaurant "Meurang". In my first house my host parents didn't make dinner often, I usually bought myself something to eat when I was out with friends and would snack the rest of the night while I was at home, I had forgotten just how much Thai people eat. Two huge plates of Nam Nueng, two plates of Popia Tot, Beef Salad, Icecream and Lattes later my parents helped me pack all my bags into the car with the help of a Sam Law carrying two of my suitcases. I have WAY too much crap. I realised that I came to Thailand with two suitcases and two carry on bags. I now have two suitcases, two carry on bags, a backpack, a book bag and a big laundry basket full of clothes that wouldn't fit in my suitcase. This would be the proof of two things.
1. I have bought way too many things
2. Things in Thailand are too cheap.
Suzanne and I have switched wallets for the time being so that neither of us spend any more money before the trip.

We arrived at my new house with a car packed full of my stuff and my host father coming behind us in the Sam Law with my two suitcases. My Rotary jacket even takes up quite a bit of space - I have attached a Vietnamese rice hat to the back.

My new house is beautiful. Everyone knows it as "The big house by the hospital". I can tell my friends I live in the house by the hospital and they know exactly which one I am talking about. I now have four dogs - Loo Loo and La La the chihuahuas [La La is slightly overweight], Khao Pun [a small dog that looks like a poodle cross] and Sai Yo [a golden retriever]. I love having dogs again, they greet me when I come home from school and chase me around the front yard. Mae Suk is a nurse at the hospital just down the street. I am now in perfect hands - a nurse as a mother and I live a 3 minute walk from the hospital [my house is even directly across from the morgue]. Paw Doh is a bank manager. They are both fairly young [they were both students of my first host mother's] and they have two daughters - Nong Mean and Nong Nurse. Nong Nurse is 15 and is currently studying in Bangkok so she doesn't live at the house, but we are going to visit her this weekend and she's coming home for a month in a few weeks. Nong Mean is 14 and she's really cute. On my first night at my new house she asked me to watch a ghost movie with her. We watched Ghost Ship; both of us cuddled under blankets on the couch and shrieked together when scary things popped out.

The past few days have followed a nice routine. I wake up [much earlier than before] and I am ready to leave the house at 7:30 am with Mean sitting on the back of the bike. We bike to school together, I put my bike in the garage so I am not tempted to leave school early [I'm such a good kid (:] and then I go to class. After school I bike home alone, pick up some chinese doughnuts on the way and then watch TV for a bit before dinner.

Monday night after school I helped Kate and Klao translate a presentation their older sister was making into English, then they took me out for Suki with their family. I was actually COLD for the first time since I've been here. I wore a sweater, my leather jacket and a scarf. We sat in the tail of the truck on the way to the restaurant and with the wind and river so close I was desperately wishing for a hat.
Tuesday night Suzanne changed host families. I was planning on going to bed and watching movies as soon as I got home but she showed up and her family invited me to a "Farewell Suzanne" party. So many Farewell parties in the last 5 days. Suzanne has much less crap than I do, and after packing two suitcases and two small bags into the truck we went out with her family and her new family to Korean Barbecue. It was a nice dinner, her host brothers were very shy and when I asked them if they wanted to get bubble tea with us the next day they started talking to each other in mumbles; discussing it I presume.

I love my new host family, though there are giant black ants that live in my room. It feels great to have a sister again, I was getting lonely being an only child.

On my second day in my new house, Jupiter, Venus and the Crescent Moon smiled.