Chapter 4 Part 3

In addition to visiting the island, we would often team up with our friends, jump on the motorbikes and tour for hours on end.  This allowed us to see much of the country side and more of the “true” Thailand we were used to.  

With temples everywhere you looked, we stopped at several of them due to the coaching of one of our friends along with us being Thai.  Not being Asian, the temples didn’t have the meaning to us that it did for her and once you see a few, you’ve pretty much seen them all, but we respected her and stopped anyway.  I do admit there are a couple that are quite beautiful but I don’t agree with people pouring money into them when they need to better themselves instead of living in ruins, but that’s another story.  

The temple

One we went to was neat.  It was part of a mountain—which means—a CAVE (not a big one but a cave indeed)!!  It was my first time in a cave and I must say it was quite awesome!  The temperature was cool inside and was a nice break from the warm weather outside.  It was dark (as of course you already figured it would be) but there were a few dim lights in addition to a couple holes that allowed sunshine to show through. 

Bats!!

“I wonder if there are bats in here.”  And sure enough, there were!  We looked up to find the ceiling of the cave line with them.  As we were looking around, the bats would swoop by our heads.  We’d catch subtle glimpses of them as they flew by but being dimly lit, they would fly at you and disappear in the blink of an eye.  And…being the odd person I am…I couldn’t resist making the fitting statement of, “I want to suck your blood” in the ‘vampire’ voice and then pretended that my fingers were fangs and hit my neck.  (Yes, I know I weird but at least I always have myself to laugh at).

Chapter 4 Part 2

Thailand wasn’t a complete downer.  It gave us the start to exploring and we did see some cool stuff as well as meet people.  One thing we did was visit one of the islands near Rayong called Ko Samet.  It was about a 45 minute ferry ride from the mainland and a beautiful sight.  Since the ferry was taking us to the area where our hotel was, we got to ride a good ways around the island.  The wind was blowing, the water was clear, and vacation was beginning!  Upon arriving at the beach, we hoped onto a smaller boat that took us closer to shore at which we then had to wade in the shallow water to finally make it to land.  There was a small fee collected when arriving because it’s a national park…luckily we were able to show proof that we lived there so paid the Thai price, not the foreigner price. 

 

Off we went to the hotel to drop off our stuff and head to the beach.  Three days of relaxing at the beach…I think so!  It was amazing (and much needed).  We just sat in the water most of the time and enjoyed each others company.  The only downfall of the island was that they overcharged for everything…no more $1.00 meals.   

Some things just shouldn't be translated into English...

Dinner on the beach

Chapter 4 Part 1

Now, onto explaining everything else.  As I mentioned, pretty much everything was cheap.  Most meals were $1 and were actually quite filling…unlike the $1 menu in America we were accustomed to. Even though it was cheap, the problem was finding something we liked.  And if we happened to stumble across it, you didn’t like it for very long because you eat it all the time. 

One Thai place we frequented was a Thai bbq…let me assure you that this ISN’T like what you are thinking.  It’s not barbeque that’s dripping in marinade and sauce.  Nope, it’s not anything like that.  Instead, it’s several choices of raw meat, lettuce, cabbage, and some cooked foods on the side.  You have a “bbq” in the center of the table that is filled with coals and a pot thing of some sort.  It’s domed at the top for cooking the meat and has a trench at the bottom to boil the vegetables.  Not the fairytale I’m fond of but it was a buffet and they did have chicken wings as part of the cooked food…I made sure to fill up on the normalcy.  

The traditional Thai bbq

Instead of having actual restaurants, Thailand is filled with food booths.  People set out their carts, set up table and chairs and are open for business. Foods we ate most days included kao pad (fried rice with fresh chunks of vegetables and whatever meat you wanted in it), ba me (a soup consisting of egg noodles,bean sprouts, etc), san yi hang (hang meaning without juice--so a dry soup with wide noodles, bean sprouts, etc), and moo pat kao tiem prit thai (seasoned pork over rice).  There were a few other things we ate but it doesn't really matter here.

Kao pad ghoon (shrimp fried rice) & sweet and sour pork

Thailand specializes in sticky rice---quite delicious!  It's a certain type of rice put in a weaved basket then set on top a pot of boiling water.  The steam then cooks the rice and makes it stick together.  They also have kanums.  These can be made different ways but all are wrapped in banana leaves.  The ones I loved were sticky rice and bananas wrapped in the leaf and then steamed...it was soooo good!  I loved to get a bunch of these and eat them for breakfast the next day (along with my usual sticky rice and fried pork.)

Chapter 3 Part 3

Teaching continued…the first 9 weeks anyway.  The second part of semester was mostly spent sitting at my desk doing nothing but playing on the computer.  There was always something taking place that would cancel classes.  None of us foreigners minded not doing anything and still getting paid.  But I have to admit, it got old.  I’d rather be doing something than just sitting there.   Bad part was that 99% percent of the time, the Thai teachers wouldn’t tell us we didn’t or did have to do something.  Like when class would be canceled.  I’d go sit in the classroom waiting for our students who never came.  So after a while, I go into the office to ask what was going on.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.  I forgot to tell you class was canceled.” 

“Oh ok.  Thanks.”

Or another situation was one of the other teachers heard over the weekend we wouldn’t be teaching all week but we weren’t sure because nobody in our department had mentioned this to us previously.  Then Monday came.  We sat there waiting for anyone to tell us if we had class or not.  Time for class came so I decided to ask. 

“Are we teaching this week?”

“No, you are not teaching this week.”

“Oh, ok.  Thanks” 

Why is it they knew a couple weeks in advance of this and failed to inform us?  Why is it that I had to ask in order to know?”  Just give me the key information.  That’s all I ask.

But anyway, that’s behind us. 

Chapter 3 Part 2

Next, we couldn’t move into the apartment they had given us because we couldn’t keep Honey there.  Our first day and continued couple months was finding another place…bigger and better each time.  We had one apartment, then another, and then a house we stayed in for the remaining time.  Unfortunately, nothing was furnished so we had to spend time and money getting things just to survive.  For the 4 ½ months we lived in Thailand, we didn’t have a bed…just a bunch of thin layers of mats that you could still feel the floor through.  For the last 2 months of being there, we were able to get a motorbike, gas burner to cook our own food, a tv and satellite.  Thank goodness…it helped us survive the dragged out time left. 

Our spiffy motorbike we had

The good thing about Thailand is that most things are incredibly cheap.  For the house we rented, we only paid 3000 baht a month, which is roughly $100 dollars.    We even had a big yard for Honey to run around in.  She definitely missed that.  

I think the best part of living in that house was that we were a hop, skip and jump away from the Nestle ice cream shop.  They even had my favorite ice cream…cookies n’ cream.  I have been so thankful Shane found that place. It was that one reminder we had of home.  Especially when I was having a rough day, I’d walk down to the shop, get my ice cream cone, close my eyes and just revel in that moment.   

Another perk was that I was also really close to the school.  I walked home whenever I felt like it…during my breaks of course.