Climbed a Gunung and I Turned Around

Climbing Indonesian volcanoes... it's my new thing.

Our 17-day October vacation started, not quite with a bang, but with about 30 hours of budget international travel. This included:

• a second-class bus trip through mainland Thailand (violent, dubbed, straight-to-DVD American action flicks permitted to play at FULL volume 10 of the 12 hours),
• a Bangkok Mega Cineplex mall, where we killed time between transit by watching Contagion - a truly frightening film to watch while living - and eating - in Asia, 
• an Indonesian public ferry boat ride, with the dankest toilets I've come across in Asia (boat motion + squatting in mysterious water puddles + dark confined spaces... this is the stuff of horror movies), and
• one very beat-up shared transport van, featuring removable stools instead of actual seats in some places.

Finally arriving in Lombok, Indonesia, however, was worth the journey.

There we met up with Steph's friend from university, who would make us a traveling fivesome for most of our time in Indonesia. After playing the classic game of "Goldilocks and the Southeast Asian Hostel" to find accommodation - (the first just had TOO many half-nude rastafarians hanging out porchside, the next didn't come with towels for guests (?), but the one with chickens roaming the front garden and shower-squat-toilet combo was juuuuuust right) - we settled in for a day on Sengiggi Beach. Our first full day was spent getting sandy $2 pedicures, snacking on Bintang beer and chicken satay at beachside cafes, and letting Steph - our resident Indonesian resident, and fluent speaker - do all the talking for us.

Tuesday morning, Katie, Liza and I set out for the literal peak of our October break: climbing to the crater rim of Mount Rinjani (Gunung Rinjani), the second highest - and still active - volcano in Indonesia. We awoke to a knock at our homestay door at 5am, and peaked out to find our trekking company driver waiting for us in the crisp early morning darkness. We'd slept through our alarm (typical), and so scrambled to pack and put on our "hiking gear" - the hodgepodge of athletic gear we'd brought from home or were able to buy in Nan's only department store - looking every bit like the ill-equipped, inexperienced 22-year-old trekkers that we were.

The driver piled our belongings into a small Toyota SUV and drove us one and a half hours to Senaru, a small village at the base of Mount Rinjani. The ride was almost entirely winding and uphill, and for the half of us who were NOT experiencing intense carsickness, the views of northern Lombok were stunning: the sun rising over fishing boats and steep cliffsides of northern Lombok; wide swaths of vivid green rice paddies and palm groves; peci-capped men draped in blanket-like cloths on their way home from morning prayer, or herding goats and cattle along the roadside.

Bahay whips up some tea and fried rice for lunch.
Our tour guide extraordinairre!

In Senaru, we were briefly briefed by the alleged "Rinjani Master" himself, Mr. John, at our trekking company's base. He showed us a map of our 2-day trek, fed us coffee, fruit and pancakes for breakfast, and sent us on our way with Bahay, our stocky 4'11'' guide with a big belly, thick mustache, and hearty chuckle - an exact Indonesian doppleganger for Nintendo Mario.

The trek - which lasted about 7 hours in total the first day - was exhausting, exhilarating, hard, beautiful, hot, chilly, and the coolest thing I've done in Asia thus far, all at once. After hiking 30 minutes just to the "Gunung Rinjani" sign (at which point I was already pretty winded and contemplated heading back to Mr. John's), we continued onward through dense rainforest, along vine-covered tree paths, areas where misty fog rolled in and out and the temperature dropped, and up through the dry, rocky, torched landscape around the top. Some parts of the hike felt like doing a tree-root StairMaster for hours on end, while others involved hiking up - and often sliding down - steep paths of loose rock and sand. Bahay patiently tolerated our frequent rest stops, water stops, bathroom stops, and emergency bathroom stops all over that mountainside, even carrying some our things for part of the way.

Superhuman porters. No SHOES?!

Meanwhile, our porters, ranging from age 20s to 60s, booked it up that volcano with astonishing ease and speed. They carried at least five times the weight we did, in two supply-filled baskets tied at either end of a thick bamboo stick and slung over their sinewy bare shoulders. Some didn't even wear shoes (others wore only flip-flops). They stopped only occasionally for small snacks and cigarette breaks. Bahay told us they might do the trek 2 or 3 times in a week.

By early afternoon, we reached the top. We stood at the edge of an enormous crater, a huge sky-blue volcanic lake below us, and a volcano island in the center. There were clouds below us, hugging the mountainside in every direction. The sun set in a vibrant orange-pink sky to one side, and a full moon rose up on the other. I even spied the biggest shooting star I've ever witnessed when the sky turned to night. I mean, C'MON. It. Was. Incredible.

Seriously.

The porters cooked us dinner and hot tea, and afterwards we piled on thick socks, sweaters, jackets, and down sleeping bags - feeling the coldest I've ever felt in Asia. The wind was immense at our camp site, and throughout the night it felt like our tents were going to knock right over. But a few bedtime stories from Katie later, we finally drifted off.  

Trekking back down on Day 2 was immensely easier, but in the end, just as tiring as the hike up. We were so hot and dirty and exhausted by lunchtime, that we were at some points skipping or running down the mountainside just to be done with it and able to rest our legs. By the end of the day, we were back at John's, saying sweet farewells to Bahay & Co., and on our way to our next Indonesian destination..... Gili T! 

The September Issue

September has been a hard month to come to terms with. It means finishing (another) semester of molding young Bandon Sriserm minds in the shape of ABCs and present perfect tense. It will be saying goodbye to a few fellow foreign teachers in town, who are off to teach in other exciting places next term. And most regrettably, last week, it was the loss of my grandpa, James C.N. Paul – international humanitarian, storyteller extraordinaire, and avid CP in Thailand reader. He is sorely, sorely missed from this side of the globe. 

But time has a way of charging forward and onward like motorbiking Thais at a loosely-marked intersection; and while I sat in denial of the calendar date, this past month filled up with quite the spread of travel, eating, motorbike adventuring, waterfall swimming, carnival-hopping and karaoking. Here’s a recap.

Another Caitlin-Hannah reunion in Thailand
... A little stranger this time around.

At the end of August, I took an impromptu weekend trip to the city of Phitsanulok to see my college friend Hannah, who has been teaching in Vientiane, Laos the past year (she visited Nan last January). Phitsanulok is nacho-yo-average Thai vacation destination - it's a small industrial city along the southern Nan River, bleak and grey for the most part, with little to attract tourists other than being a major transit hub and playing host to one famous Buddha statue. The general reaction of Thai friends to my trip was, "Why you go to there?" - and the answer was, simply, that ol' P'lok lies equidistant from Nan and Vientiane on the Thai bus route. So, a 6-hour trip each later, Hannah and I found ourselves there sitting in a small bakery aptly named "It Is Cake," waiting out a torrential rainstorm, catching up on our respective Southeast Asian lives over sweet coffee, noodles, and local-brand water bottles labelled Water Surprise (this is a city which could really use a PR office).

Later that evening, after sifting through stalls at the partially-flooded Phitsanulok night market, Hannah and I went to grab a beer at a place called "Thank You Pub" (the sign reading "WELCOME TO THANK YOU"). It featured Cowboys n' Indians decor, a sinewy hippie singing Beatles tunes on stage, and a heavily intoxicated middle-aged Thai woman named Po who joined our table uninvited and repeatedly insisted we were being stood up on a date. Thankfully, an hour later our "date" did show up - an American guy teaching in Phitsanulok whom I'd met in July, when he was traveling through Nan. He rescued us from Po to show us the ins and outs of nightlife in Phitsanulok - not unsimilar to nightlife in Nan (nightclubs: 1, drink menu: cheap whisky and bad beer) - and the three of us spent the rest of the night at an outdoor live music bar, hanging with the house band in between their sets (one guy had an UNCANNY ability to sing exactly like Steven Tyler), and getting signed copies of their recently-released 10 year anniversary album. Facebook friendships naturally ensued.

Keeping the Best Bakery in business

The following week was Steph’s birthday, and to celebrate we went all out with a dinner party at a new restaurant in town. 17 of us – Cho and Arm, their reluctant Cake (who ironically hates cake, including the birthday variety); our Flood Week supply-bringing hero, Dan; our Thai friend Lak and her boyfriend Matt; the other foreign teachers Will, Ali, and Ada; Benz and Bas; Steph’s parents who were visiting; and the four of us - piled in bearing gifts, homemade cards, and a few too many cakes from the "Best Bakery." Afterwards, Steph’s parents treated Benz, Bas, Will, Ali and us to a night of karaoke at the Dheveraj Hotel – the classiest karaoke you can find in Nan. We covered an assortment of Thai screamo, Destiny’s Child, and “Stand By Me,” and to keep things eclectic, Bas closed with a rendition of THIS "Happy Birthday" song.

Chedi Chedi Bang Bang

Steph’s parents stayed in Nan for the week, and that Friday, we joined them in Chiang Mai for continued birthday celebrating. After road tripping there with Lak and Matt (cramming 6 people into their Honda CR-V = still preferable to the frigid bus ride...), we were treated to some seriously luxurious accommodation at The Chedi, one of the nicest hotels in Thailand, and probably the coolest place I'll stay in all my Asia tenure. Forget the fluffy white beds, zen gardens, and infinity pool edging the Ping River, though… This place came with a FREE breakfast buffet complete with an ASSORTED REAL CHEESE PLATTER. Forget you, Lonely Planet backpacker scene.

Nan weekends of late have been spent exploring our fair province beyond its city limits - to the contemporary art gallery that sits along a stunning hillside 30 km outside of town; to a "cave forest park" I never knew existed; and a few weekends ago, to a waterfall in Pua district, about an hour away. A group of us took motorbikes there, and spent the afternoon cooling off in the shallow water pools (well, sitting on rocks and fighting a pretty heavy current, trying not to get sucked down the rapids - it happened twice), napping on sunbathed rocks, and attempting to teach Bas to swim. 

How Sundays should be spent

In town, last week kicked off the annual Nan Boat Racing Festival, and with it, an enormous fair that took over the entire riverside area. Neon-colored merry-go-rounds and muay Thai boxing rings replaced the empty lot where old ladies in matching-colored shirts usually perform nightly aerobics. An enormous strand of vendors occupied the quiet riverside block near our house, and until late at night would blast Thai keyboardist tunes while selling such oddities as men’s underwear, bunnies dressed in ballerina costumes, yo-yos, dried squid on sticks, hedgehogs for pets, DVD footage of the 2005 tsunami wreckage, and on-site tattoos (and one could hear the needle buzzer going at almost all hours of day behind a clumsily-hung tarp. Hep C, anyone?).

Carnie folk are back in town

The festival was loud, smelly, and brought in a host of unsavory “carnie” folk into town – Liza’s bike was stolen at the fair last Friday – in NAN!?!? But, being the event of the season, we made the best of it. I braved the rickety ferris wheel to make faces down at my giggling 6^th grade students watching below.  I sampled my fair share of fair food (the fried pork sticks can sometimes be irresistible). I even paid 10 baht to see an exhibit boasting a two-headed cow, people-shaped fruit, and a bodiless talking head – because who, really, could resist.

Last Sunday I actually got around to watching the boat races (never been a great sports enthusiast, even in Asia). Liza and I went early to find seats, and joined a group of middle-aged ex-Army men, who grinned toothless smiles and gave us dry newspaper sheets to sit on, gladly having us cheer for their team. Even at 8 am, the riverside was loud and lively. Teams practiced on one edge of the river, heaving their dragon-headed longboats forward in a familiar unison: nueng! sawng! saam!, while actual races happened on the other side, two boats slipping quickly through the brown waters to the finish, every 5 minutes or so. The concrete steps where we sat were lined with cheering fans of all ages and sizes; huge banners hung from the bridges; vendors walked about selling sticky rice in hallowed bamboo tubes; and an oppressively loud-voiced announcer shouted on the loudspeaker. 

A half hour later, we were caught in a massive rainstorm – the overhead tent leaking all around us – and with only our newspaper-seats for protection, we had to bike home soaking wet.  It may be nearing the end of September already, but we're still anxiously awaiting the change of seasons.

48 Hours in Singapore

Merlions and Tea Time: Singapore, the Southeast Asian curveball

Just when the cheese cravings subsided again, the sound of farang-farang! being called out from every passing motorbike became a familiar white noise; just when I'd re-resigned myself to the normalcy of finding cockroaches in the dry oatmeal and bicycling to work through ankle-deep flood water every other Monday; just when I thought I'd seen it all in my travels to Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam - I landed in Singapore.

Way to really throw off my Southeast Asian groove, SG.

Am I still in Asia??! Is this still 2011?? Am I going to get arrested for the pack of Trident Splash gum I forgot to take out of my purse? These are the things I had to wonder as Katie and I observed shiny rows of designer shops and restaurants, tourists teetering in 4-inch platform heels with shopping bags slung over their tiny arms, fingerprint scanning machines ping-ing Singaporeans through lines, and Asian people actually forming lines... It wasn't like any version of this continent I'd seen before. And it was just the Customs line at Changi airport.

Marina Bay Sands: doing what's never been done
with a boat before

Katie and my 48-hour vacation in Singapore a few weekends ago was a blissful melody of high-end (window) shopping, eating (heavy emphasis on the eating), and hanging out with a whopping 14-plus English-speaking foreigners our age all at once (What?! More than all of Nan province combined!).  We owe the success of our trip to our amazing host, Andrew, who guided us through the shiny squeaky-clean interiors of modern city buses and the MRT subway, the neon-colored nightclubs of Clarke Quay (you mean that club song isn't Thai??) and stunning silver panoramic views of the marina, lined with collossal and ambitious feats of architecture. (The Marina Bay Sands hotel stands front-and-center: an enormous ship stacked on top of 3 sky-scraping towers - and the Esplanade theaters loom above the waterfront like a giant aluminum durian fruit). Singapore didn't just transport us back into a western way of living - it catapulted us into a futuristic Asia leaps and bounds ahead of neighbors like Laos and Cambodia, and even Thailand. This is, after all, a city-country where efficiency and cleanliness are next to godliness, crime and disease are virtually non-existent, and even a landfill is a tourist attraction.

Soup inside dumplings. Sign me up.

We Nan-ians found that, despite its gleaming shiny new exterior and being famous for national pastimes of "Shopping and Eating" (the Singaporean PiAers couldn't refute it), Singapore boasts its own unique splash of Asian swag - it just might charge extra and make you clean up after it. But let no hater hate on a country with an official national pastime of eating when it offers the kind of feasting we partook in that weekend. Butter chicken masala, garlic and CHEESE naan, chicken rice, popiah spring rolls, fresh red apple carrot juice, soup dumplings, barbecue stingray, "carrot cake" (made with neither carrots nor cake, but a whole lot of other fried deliciousness), mozzarella sticks, Indian chaat with chutney, samosas, ice cream sandwiches on flaky-baked bread rolls... we even threw in a 5 am McGriddle at the 2-story 24-hour McDonald's (which also offers delivery), just because we could. Did I mention I was only visiting for 48 hours?

Giving Singapore a sweet farewell.

In between eating copious amounts of food and attending my first theme party since college (alliterated, as all good theme parties are: "Hipster n' Hood"), we were able to cover a pretty huge chunk of Singapore's "must-sees." Katie, Andrew and I walked Arab Street and the Sultan Mosque, visited the British-instated Raffles Hotel - where the Singapore Sling was invented - and grab an overpriced beer at a modern rooftop sports bar. We passed signs celebrating Singapore's 40-something birthday, stocked up on English-language magazines from the convenience stores, and waited in long organized lines for taxi cabs downtown. The three of us compared notes on teaching and students (Andrew teaches Chemistry to university students... a little different than the nose-picking-hand-holding-ice-cream-licking Bosses and Juniors of my daily routine), as well as impressions of our respective Asian hometowns. Andrew told us that Singapore is such a safe place, people will often leave their wallet or car keys to save a table at a hawker food court - everyone is so well off, and the punishment for theft so severe, that no one would bother stealing it.

Little India

On Sunday, mild HnH hangovers in tow, we walked through Little India under a sweltering Singaporean sun, past trinket shops and restaurant hawkers calling out their specialties - "Hello miss! Tikka masala! Paneer!"; we ducked under the umbrellas of food stall alleys, where Tamil men watched cricket games on a television set while sipping tall cans of Kingfisher beer; we passed the colorful Veeramakaliamman Temple, closed momentarily to visitors but crowded along the sidewalk with photo-snapping tourists. As Andrew pointed out, Little India isn't so much a mini India in Singapore - it's more Singapore's idea of what India should look like, in Singapore. I guess that idea pretty much sums up this place: a designed city, a city of what cities "should" look like. 

Farang-exclusive!

The next day, Katie and I made the 3-hour flight and 6-hour bus trek back to the N-a-n. I found out that a year-old paparazzi photo of me and Aj. Emily Hebner had emerged in a center-spread Thai magazine article about Nan city; my favorite waitress at Phufa Coffee dropped it on my table with my order and then ran away giggling (typical reaction to me). 


So, even though I left behind the bumping nightclubs, international cuisine at my fingertips, and Orchard Road boutiques as our AirAsia flight took off from the gleaming city nightlights of Singapore - at least I know I can still live the life of a celebrity, right here in my own Asian backyard.

Lights, Camera, Bieber!

If there's one thing that Thailand truly excels at, it is performance art. Stage theater, skits, karaoke, choreographed dance numbers... You name it, Thais bring it - often with a feather boa and some sequins. This past week was no exception at Bandon Sriserm, with the first biannual "6/1 Idol" competition of the year in my advanced sixth grade class, and a Mother's Day assembly today, in honor of the Queen of Thailand's birthday. 

 

The Theat-or: Some can't handle it.

Now, when I took my first stab at coordinating "6/1 Idol" way back last July, I timidly brought in a number of English song selections and lyrics for the kids to listen and practice to... The Beatles, N'Sync, Miley - how the heck should I know what kids are listening to these days? 90 percent of my selections were quickly shot down, in favor of Jason Mraz, Australian pop, and soundtracks to the Disney movie Anastasia and a 2007 Drew Barrymore-Hugh Grant flick I vaguely remember seeing at the Princeton Garden Theater. So this year, I knew: never try to reign in the creativity or randomness that is Thai pre-teen taste in English music

Groups this year had to come up with a band name, design their own album (complete with a photo from a Teacher Caitlin-coordinated photo shoot), and dance to go along with their singing performances. Band names ranged from "Popular Girl" to "Last Vegas," and costumes ranged from cowboy hats to clip-on ties. Needless to say, the judges and I were thoroughly impressed. Here's a video of my personal fave, "The Arena." 12-year-old boys who can memorize AND choreograph to The Biebz??? A+.

This morning, the student shows continued with an all-school Mother's Day assembly. After rising to sing the Queen's song and honoring a lifesize photo of her with a bouquet of jasmine (the national flower of Mother's Day),  every grade from Kindergarten 1 (4-5 year olds) to Grade 6 put on a song, dance, or skit for the hoards of parents and ice-cream licking siblings present. Some mothers were specially honored on stage, and came to school dressed in beautiful traditional Thai skirts and full hair and makeup. Other mothers showed up in a more everyday outfit of flip-flops and board shorts, and crowded at the bottom of the stage to photograph when their child came out to perform.

Because nothing says, "I love you Mom!" like sequined chickens.

Again, there was no real rhyme or reason to each performance. Some featured traditional Thai dancing, while another appeared to be a skit about how bad boys who get in trouble with the law will dishonor and disappoint their mothers. The Chinese language class sang "Que Sera, Sera," and the 3rd grade girls came out and danced in sequined body suits and chicken headpieces. The 4th graders dressed in Hmong village tribe outfits and danced with moroccos, drums, and fake crossbows, while the Kindergartners mostly just swayed from side to side and tried to comfort the occasional crying classmate on stage (the pressure to be a star at such a young age can be too great sometimes).

After the assembly, I gave the 6th graders an easy class period of finishing Mother's Day cards. While they didn't feature quite the same charms as last year's cards, they were equally loving and creative.

MOM does.

So, Happy Thai Mother's Day, America. I'm off to Singapore for the holiday weekend... tales of the Lion City when I return!

Ancient Ruins, Medical Emergencies, and Harry Potter: A Standard Thai Vacay

The rainy season persists here in Nan - our mornings spent bicycling to school in soaked-through plastic ponchos, our nights filled with thunder that cracks and trembles over our tin roof, and afternoons at school with downpour outside the classroom windows so loud that I can't hear my own voice giving lessons. The sun does come out now and then and beats down heavily for a few hours - only to be followed moments later by a waterfall of clattering rain. It's the unpredictable, and yet very predictable, ebb and flow of summer here.

For the Khao Phansa - start of Buddhist Lent - holiday weekend last month, my roommates and I were able to briefly escape the rain, for our first official vacation of the year. After just one quick visit to the Emergency Room (for a mysterious allergic reaction that left almost as quickly as it came), and minor sunburns for all (sorry, Mom), we survived an incredible trip to the ancient city of Ayutthaya and Ko Si Chang, a quiet fishing island along the gulf coast of Thailand.

Ransacked City, Swollen Stephanie

Long before the city o' squala took rein as the bustling capital city of Thailand, the kingdom's center was Ayutthaya - just a hop, skip and today, a 20 baht (60 cent) train ride from Bangkok. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for its series of sprawling ancient monuments and temple grounds - most of them crumbling and in ruin, a result of the Burmese invasion in the 1700s. (The Burmese decapitated Buddhas for sale to art dealers; burned libraries and art wares; and destroyed much of Ayutthaya's great monuments... Then peaced out, abandoning the ransacked Siamese capital a mere few months later).

The four of us arrived in Ayutthaya in the morning, after a 10-hour overnight bus ride - filled with the usual offerings of complementary prawn-flavored chips, and a bizarre Asian martial arts-horror-comedy-in-one flick played at an excessive volume. We settled into our guesthouse, grabbed a bite to eat, and in true Nan-ite fashion, rented bicycles to begin touring the city - a small, flat commercial town, surrounded on all sides by river, that just happens to have stunning historic ruins (and the occasional trained elephant giving rides to tourists) traipsing along its streets.

We spent the afternoon picking our way through the major temple grounds, taking our time in the sweltering heat and enjoying the shortage of tourists in most parts of the sites. At sunset, we hired a woman to take us out in her longtail boat for a river tour, then shopped and snacked on chicken satay and coconut slushies at the riverside night market.

On our way into our guesthouse room that night, Steph - who had been feeling a little unwell since we left Nan, and had sat out most of the temple viewing - felt something graze her head. She looked down to see that a tiny gecko had fallen on her from above - a very ominous sign in Thailand. We chalked it up to a belated forewarning of her feeling crummy on our only day in Ayutthaya... But of course, the gecko bad luck was still yet to come. The next morning, Steph woke up with her entire face swollen, forehead to neck, ears to lips. We panicked only slightly, packed up our backpacks, and had a tuk-tuk drop us at the Emergency Room of the Ayutthaya Hospital.

The "doctor" (or the semi-English-speaking guy wearing flip flops and oversized slacks who was woken from his nap to attend to the hospital's only morning patient) said Stephanie either had an allergy to all the Advil she'd taken for her headache the day before, a bacterial infection, or, possibly, dengue-fever... so prescribed medication for any and all of the above. When we got a hold of some Benedryl at the Bangkok bus station pharmacy later that day, Steph finally started to unswell and feel a little better.

Cozy Chang

Our next stop was Koh Si Chang - a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, south of Bangkok. It took us another crowded (and unexpectedly long) bus ride and a ferry to get there, but we were greeted by clear turquoise waters, quiet streets, green hills dotted with golden temples, and a town of friendly locals. We were some of very few western tourists visible, the island mostly filled with vacationing Bangkokians and full-time fishermen.

We ended our day on a beach along the western shore of the island, watching the sun set over a beach scene filled with banana-boating, fully-clothed and swimming, and beached-whale Vacation Thais - a breed all of their own. Katie and I attempted swimming, but quickly found that the mysterious clear-and-purple floating objects grazing us in the water were not in fact 7-Eleven bags, but hundreds of small jellyfish. We opted for cold Leos on the sand instead, and spent the evening chatting away with a group of middle-aged Thais from Bangkok, one of whom was a teacher. He learned that I could read a little Thai, and proceeded to have me read information from every ID card he could find in his wallet. "What is my name? ...WOW! Can you read this? WOW!" (This is the primary reason I study Thai).


The next day we took a day trip to an even smaller and more remote island to the south. Getting there required "bargaining" with the only boat owner hanging out by the pier that morning, who preferred to finish his nap and not go anywhere that day than to lower his price a little. Eventually, with the help of passing motorbike taxi driver who looked straight out of Starsky & Hutch, we found another fisherman with a slow boat who was willing to take us for a reasonable price... although he couldn't get us all the way to shore, and we had to be shuttled in the last 20 meters by a fortuitous Thai kayaker passing by. (And, despite being dropped off a mere foot away from sand by the kayak, I managed to trip over a wave while getting out and fall completely into the water anyway).  Travel in Thailand is never quite a "Point A to Point B" kind of situation.

On the way back to Bangkok, we couldn't resist that giant billboards advertising Harry Potter 7 scattered all over the big city - and so hopped off our bus at the first mega-cineplex we passed by. Backpacks in tow, we indulged in a rare afternoon of big city life - as experienced within a giant Asian super mall.

All in all, our trip was a success - and just as we get settled back in Nan, we're making plans for the Queen's Birthday (and national Mother's Day) holiday coming soon... details TBA!

In With The In Crowd: Guay Tiao Sportsmen & Lanna Noblemen

This past week, in between leading young minds through the intricacies of irregular past tense verbage and the correct pronunciation of "I feel furious!" (fwoo - lee - us! ...mostly for my own amusement), my hours were spent hiking trails in the mountains of Nan, eating at the abode of ancient Nan nobility, and playing late night riverside soccer.

Pretty typical as of late: If there's one thing distinguishing this year in Nan from last, it's a jam-packed social schedule. Nan somehow went from being a sleepy river town that lent an abundance of peaceful idle hours, to a sleepy river town in which we seem to constantly have people to see and places to be. My roommates asked if last year's fellows and I were lying in reporting to PiA that Nan is all about lazy afternoons spent scribing letters and catching up on light reading - or in Emily's case, Moby Dick. In just over a month of being back, I've landed in places as far between as a Chiang Mai nightclub called "Spicy" (not proud of it), and a national park on the outskirts of Nan city. In forty days, I don't think we've eaten at the same noodle stand twice (with the exception of Soup Lady and Ricky's, of course), and yet there are still more places popping up that I want to try. And while I still spend plenty of time with old familiar friends, I've added a wealth of new Thai buddies to hang out with on the reg. 

THESE guys. 

The best of these buddies are Benz and Bas - two skinny-jean wearing, emo-screamo-music-loving local Thai guys our age. Along with Will, another American teacher who lives near our soi, and the occasional add-on emo Thai, they are the first people we call on to eat late night noodles or attempt a karaoke night. Bas is a student at the university, and Benz has a day job at the Provincial Office - but skateboarding is both of their true passion. They practice for hours every evening by the riverside, where we'll often go hang out and play pick-up soccer afterwards. (You know I really enjoy someone's company if I'm willing to play organized sports in front of them). 

Benz and Bas both speak passable English, but are always wanting to learn how to be more American. We farang teach them some important phrases - "Last night, I had beer goggles" - and traditional card games like Bullshit. We give pointers for some sayings (every English learner should know that people don't look "orderly" and it's weird to ask someone regularly if they've showered), and in return, Benz and Bas teach Will how to pick-up girls in Thai and translate phrases like "Easy, tiger" for us (Jai yen yen, na!). Some Benz and Bas-isms, however, we let be; Will once pointed out to Benz that he was sweating profusely while eating his guay tiao (noodle soup)... Benz replied, matter of factly, "Yeah - it's because I'm a sportsman." 

Really hideous.

Last Friday, the seven of us took motorbikes out for an impromptu camping trip to Mae Charim National Park - about an hour outside of the city district. We borrowed tents and sleeping bags from a friend, packed our backpacks, and set off just as the sun was preparing to set - and as rain clouds gathered ominously overhead. 

The drive, like all drives out of Nan, was as stunning as it was winding. We passed lolling stretches of rice paddies, vibrant green hillside, and dawdling cattle walking the roadside along the way. About 40 minutes into the drive, when we reached the town of Mae Charim, we had to succumb to the rainy season; as the pitter-patter turned into an all-out downpour, and the sunset turned to black night, we chowed down on pad krapow at a roadside stand. We contemplated turning back, but since we were only 20 minutes outside of the park entrance, we pressed on as soon as the rain died down. At the park, the staff recommended we not pitch tents along the riverside campgrounds - something about possible flash flooding overnight, psssshh - so we were forced to forego our romantic ideas of campfire stories and sleeping under the stars and to squeeze into an 80-square-foot cabin for seven people. I tried to Mai bpen rai (no problem!) the situation, but Bas just looked at me and said, "You sure? Sure mai bpen rai?"

Group shot mandatory!

The sleeping arrangement (four in the bed, one on a ledge, one on the floor, and one sitting up) was less than comfortable, but we did wake up to stunning views of the park. After showering in shifts, we set out for a two kilometer hike up into the mountains and back down to the river bridge. The scenery, gorgeous in every direction, swept right away the soreness in my back and my aching Chang-over.

* * * 

Another new friend we've made in town is Jimmy, a 22-year-old Thai who works managing an up and coming resort in Nan. He studied in America for a while (he has an aunt who lives in New York), and speaks great English. Yesterday, Jimmy picked us up at the apartment in his truck, shoving our bicycles into the bed so we could take a ride later. He took us to see the resort - still under construction, but small and set to open in a few months for the high tourist season. It's not far out of the city center, and set in a gorgeous landscape of orchards and lush green fields. When finished, it will have a couple of bungalow-style rooms, a restaurant, and a swimming pool.

We spent a few hours walking around the orchard, eating lum yai fruit right off the trees, and helping Jimmy plant bushes along the front walkway. We met Jimmy's father, who told us in a strange British-Thai accent that he studied many years in England (at London University) and then at various places in California (including UC San Diego), then worked as a computer programmer and "played the stock market." He is older - perhaps in his late sixties - and obviously very well-educated. Jimmy said he retired when he returned to Nan, and bought the resort land for Jimmy to develop into his own business venture. 

House of Nobles. Nbd.

We rode our bikes from the resort to Jimmy's family home - which also happens to be a house of Lanna (northern Thai) nobles, and a famous museum in Nan. The house is over 200 years old, and features almost entirely the original teak wood structure - each plank cut out by axe, instead of a saw. It's kept in pristine condition, with photographs and old antiques featured in most rooms; it's free for tourists to visit, and Jimmy says that even now in the low season, people stop by at least 3 times a day. (I went once last year with Aj. Prakop, and remember Jimmy giving us our tour).

After visiting a temple nearby, where high school students were rehearsing dances and building floats for the upcoming Buddhist Lent holiday, we went to the market to buy fish, eggs, and curry for dinner. We brought it back to the house, where Jimmy set up wicker-basket tables on the floor, and brought over steaming mounds of khao nio (sticky rice). I don't know Jimmy so well yet, but as I sopped up the last drop of delicious curry with a fistful of sticky rice and looked around at his insanely cool house, I got the feeling we're going to keep him around. 

Tomorrow, Katie, Liza, Steph and I will head to Ayuthayya and the island of Ko Si Chang for the long holiday weekend. It promises to be exhausting - but I won't ever complain. The year is just getting started.

 

Water, Water, Everywhere And Not a Drop to Bathe In

I can't say we farang were all that prepared for the massive flooding that hit Nan this past week. While most Thais spent last Sunday morning clearing their houses and moving out to higher ground, my roommates and some of the other foreign teachers and I went out for a casual brunch followed by a lazy afternoon at the coffee shop, drawing and reading, fruitlessly trying to wait out the third straight day of hard rain to hit the province. A few Thai friends may have mentioned that they were preparing for a flood, and we noticed how high the river had suddenly become, but we only cheered when one of us got a call that school would be cancelled on Monday. Around 2 p.m., I got a call from Cho and Arm, who said we should stock up on food because there would be "a lot of water" coming. But even that dire-sounding warning didn't have much of an effect; I imagined last year's flooding in August, when a couple streets got a foot of water and school closed on a Friday, and so at the store we ended up buying things like mustard and almonds. After all, this was only the first week of the rainy season.

But then Monday rolled around. I woke up at 7 am to a call from my Thai friend Benz: "Nan have flood! I ride my bicycle in the water... Where are you? Yeah, I think you have ploblem if you leave your house today."

Ploblem, indeed: overnight, four feet of water in as many hours had spilled into our apartment compound, half-filling the first floor of our building and those around us. I went outside to see our next door neighbor shouting at her sister in the upstairs window while standing in a row boat below it... She threaded bags of food and supplies onto a handmade hook of twisted clothing hangers, while her sister scooped them up to the second floor. The rooms below us were half-filled to the ceiling with Thai-tea colored water (incidentally also filled with floating cockroaches and mounds of debris, making that comparison much less appetizing). Where drains below couldn't gulp up the water fast enough, patches of loud vicious bubbling appeared, making the water look like lava or stew. Our apartment had become an island, Soi 3 became a canal, and the main streets rivers. 

It was at least that flooded in the rest of the riverside areas, and in much of Nan city. From our second story porch we could watch the whole neighborhood out and about, sitting on rooftops or the top of stairwells, watching the water rush past, unable to go anywhere or do anything about it. Men in life vests rowed past our house in various forms of boatcraft - dinghies, longboats, motor boats - and later policemen patrolled around, bringing people water and picking up those who couldn't stay in their homes. Will and Ali, the young American teachers who live down the street from us, had been evacuated by boat from their lodge earlier that morning. 

Over the next few hours, the flood continued to rise. With my eye I marked it rising inch-by-inch on the wall of our neighbor's house, the water closing in on his bottom window sill, and over the handle bars of our bicycles nearby. By 11 am, it had risen about another half foot. Our power went out in the middle of the night Sunday, and it stayed that way for the next four days. We tried to conserve our cell phone batteries, in case we needed to call out for help, or get calls from friends. With no refrigeration or hot water, half of the food we had in our house was unusable. We munched on bread and peanut butter, and then the dry MaMa (ramen) noodles and shrimp-flavored chips that were delivered to us by a chubby tattooed Thai, volunteering with the police, who had to wade chest-deep in the flood from our driveway to our stairwell. 

Four straight days cooped up in a powerless apartment had its drawbacks. We spent most of the day neighbor-watching, reading, or snoozing in our hot stale rooms. When the sun set and we couldn't see the pages of our books any longer, we passed the time playing cards over candlelight, or doing battle in the dark with the seemingly hundreds of giant cockroach refugees who invaded our bathrooms (there is nothing more terrifying). When the water completely stopped running, we took bird baths out of tupperware containers and strategized the best ways to flush a non-flushing toilet (there is nothing more disgusting). Although we kept in relatively good spirits throughout the week, most of the time we were feeling hungry, antsy, and extremely unclean. 

Cho and our friend Dan came to visit us daily during the flood, in a newly-purchased river rafting boat, bearing gifts of tuna cans, steamed rice and leftover chocolate cake from the Best Bakery (the owner's refrigeration was down so was handing them out for free to passing boats). They described the scene outside to us. Bandon Sriserm had flooded several feet, as well as the market, most local shops and restaurants, and the city center. Patches of oil swirled along in the flood stream, leaking from the underground of motorbike dealerships. Across the river, the flooding was twice as bad; some houses had lost a wall or two as they sunk well below the water line. 

But even in the midst of relative chaos and natural disaster, the Thai smile persisted. People played in makeshift inner-tube-and-wooden-plank rafts, fishing or sending down nets to see if they might catch anything. Teenagers raced longboats down street alleys. Old ladies washed clothes on their rooftops, where kids dance around, excited to be out of school for the rest of the week. Even Cho, who had had both his house and his shop flood, just smiled and made jokes about his grumpy aunt-in-law (displaced by the flood and moved in with him) getting on his nerves. He said the flooding is okay, because "it happened before, and it will happen again." 

It wasn't until Wednesday that the flood finally started to sink away. But where water disappeared, a thick, slick, smelly layer of brown sludge was left behind - on the streets, the walls, fences; on Buddha shrines and bed frames left behind; on essentially anything touched by the flood water. On Thursday, after 96+ hours of being stranded, we were finally able to leave our apartment. We dug out and scraped clean our bikes, then wobbled over muddy filthy streets to the outside world. Some businesses in town, less hit by the flood, were up and running - but everything in our immediate neighborhood was at a standstill. 

A week later, there is still a lot of cleaning to be done. School is back in session, but an army of Army volunteers continues to come each day, washing and rebuilding parts of the first floor. Our apartment's power and running water have returned, and life is just about back to normal... But we're in the market for a raft and some rainboots, just in case. 

Clip of the Week

The school hired a 3-person Thai cover band to play at school last week. Check out the footage from the mosh pit ...Not even the 90 degree humidity can temper these kids' love of T-Pop!

Nan At First Sight, Take Two

This week I finally got back to high-fiving, waiing, sweating, hugging, and stickering as a full-time gig... And once again, my life feels complete. It was a fairly laid-back week, filled with familiar faces, lots of gifts, and ecstatic "WOW!"s when students and Thai teachers alike noticed that they already know one of the farang. 

We eased into the first day of real teaching slowly: Monday and Tuesday, Prakop let the four of us settle into the routine of school days, leaving us to lesson plan in the A/Ced office and stop in to say hello to our classrooms throughout the afternoon. The Director and two Assistant Directors held their annual "Welcome the Foreigners" meeting in the school office, using the exact same introductory speech, creepy visual once-over of each of us to approve at our clothing, and Tourists Attractions of Nan worksheet ("Nan is a lovely city. Nan is an attractive city. Nan is a beautiful city.") as last year. Director Sukda nodded at me and told me that I am "more beautiful than last year" (translation: "less fat"), which I will go ahead and take as a compliment.

Back in the Bandon Sriserm swing of things

On Wednesday, it was back to the ol' grindstone, as we each were officially responsible for teaching - and controlling - classes. I recognize most of the 6th graders from 5th grade last year, but it's still a big adjustment each period as I get to know the classes and their personalities. Who will be the new Khim 1 and Cake? Who will avoid eye-contact with me so as not to respond to anything in English? Who will mistakenly write "I not have a chubby" on the first homework assignment? Only time will tell.

Although it's only been a week, I am already extremely partial to Junior, Na and Lilly from the 6/3 class. Every day (actually, every hour) they come into the English office and stand by my desk, mostly just to smile at me, rifle through my sticker collection, and point to things on my desk and name them in Thai. Junior - a sixth grader no bigger than the second graders and a surefire ladyboy - presents us all with a collection of handmade paper stars (dtao), Pokemon stickers, and handpicked flowers from the outside bushes. The school gardener will probably soon enforce a "Stop Feeding Flowers to the Farang" campaign.

New in Town

Since my kindergarten classes haven't started yet, I only have 9 hours of 6th grade teaching per week. To fill all those free hours, Prakop is having me re-write each grade's yearly English curriculum packets - a task that will take at least a month in itself to complete, but one that badly needs to be done. It's been nice to be able to help Prakop with various things around school and with helping orient the new PiA team... Even though I miss having more dinners with Prakop and Mr. Prakop (now retired!), I actually really enjoy playing Tour Guide around town. Maybe the Nan Tourism Office will hire me so I can stay in Asia a third year??? (I joke, Mom and Dad).

The week flew by and before we knew it, it was the weekend and high-time for a bia. Now, I'll admit that during the past few months, I was anxious about returning to Asia without my old friends in Nan. I knew teaching adorable Big Bosses and Mini Nuts at school would be just as great the second time around... but who would befriend Thai nightclub singers, choke gaao 100 Piper-soda waters, and eat 4am stuffed omelettes from Poom Saam with me?? After one week spent together with the new Nan-ies, however, my worries have been washed away like mosquito repellant in the rainy season. This group of girls is hilarious, outgoing, and already appreciative the finer things in Nan: "banana milk toast" at the Milk Club,  Ricky the waiter (in general), the "Monks & Dogs" Thai soap opera, and the surprising ease of biking while tipsy (although, Steph did invest in a helmet). While the original Nan Bicycle Club will always be near and dear to my heart, I have no doubt that this year will bring with it a new whole new set of farang-themed adventures.

Nan is a lovely town.

Friday night the four of us met up with Will, a young American teacher who has been here a month and lives on our street, and my Thai friend Lak, for dinner on the riverside. Ricky squealed when he saw us, then tried to act natural as he seated us at a table and took down my usual order of cashew chicken and fried rice. He brought over the rest of the wait staff to say hello, and for a couple of minutes tried to argue with me in Thai that Stephanie and Liza, with their dark hair and ethnic features, were not really farang. Finally, he accepted that Steph is Asian but NOT Thai, and Liza technically comes from Mexico.

After dinner, Lak took us to the Soda Club for drinks and to watch their live band play. The musicians smiled at us and switched over to English songs once we arrived, apologizing after each set for botching some of the lyrics. Although we started the night with the intention of "just playing it by ear" and maybe taking it easy, Lak sooned turned to Katie and declared that she was ready to dance and we should go to the Fifth.

 

Ska band at the Fifth

The Fifth Club was it's usual energetic and slightly-seedy-but-enjoyable self, complete with a ska band jamming on trumpets and guitar-keyboards and bouncing on stage all night long. After the club closed, my friends Golf and Puu casually asked if we'd like to join them to "eat food," and as is always my answer to that question, we said yes. Of course "eat food" really meant roll up on bicycles with 20 Thais to a late night karaoke bar, order a room complete with couches and a wide-screen TV, scream the lyrics to an eclectic playlist of Thai emo/American Top 40 circa 2001/My Chemical Romance, and down endless plates of kao tohm (rice soup), stir-fry and noodles until 5am. So we sort of just "jumped right in" to Nan nightlife the first weekend back.

Glass workers at Lak's factory

Saturday, the four of us went to visit Lak and Matt's under-construction house, and their jewelry factory across the river. We got to see the workers-at-work in the factory: glass blowers shaping small and colorful jewelry pieces, and women twisting brass and silver wire into intricate earring sets. We bought Lak out of nearly all her sample earrings, and placed an order for even more. In the evening, we met Lak and Matt for a feast of Isaan food (a special kind of Northern Thai cuisine), and warm coconut milk desserts from a favorite local shop.

We spent the rest of the weekend lazily, exploring more, and sampling the many new boutiques and cafes that have popped up around town... It's kind of incredible how many were built in the past three months. Most of these new places sell typically-Asian odd concoctions of sweet jelly drinks and odd food items involving meat. And since I've already mastered weird-but-good in Asia, I'll savor these treats with a new motto: "new-but-good."