Kathmandu!

I have yet to finish blogging about my Laos/Cambodia adventures with Margo and Michelle, but since I left my laptop and diary in Bangkok, I will share some stories from Nepal first.
Upon returning to Thailand after Cambodia, Michelle, who wasn’t feeling well, stayed at Ba Ahe’s house in Bangkok with Margo while I headed up to Lampang to visit P’Ple (Apple) and Maprang. I ended up hanging out all week with Maprang, while P’Ple had school and partying with them at night. I got back to Bangkok on Friday, the day before our flight to Kathmandu, just in time to pack my stuff.
All of our bags were completely stuffed with various things that Ba Oy requested from Bangkok- everything from frozen fish to ziplock baggies to shower curtains to wine. Luckily, we got away with 100 kg between the 3 of us.
We arrived in Kathmandu on June 6th. Ba Oy and Lung Jacques met us at the airport with a UN driver and we set off to their new home in the center of the city. Although their house is in the middle of the city, it is in a quiet neighborhood and the only bothersome noises are the dogs howling at night and the sound of the generator when the power goes out. Their house is large and beautiful. Margo, Michelle, and I each have our own room, and I actually have my own bathroom!
We arrived with volunteering at an NGO in our minds, since we'd be here for a month and should put our time to good use. Lung Jacques had went to the Environmental Day the day before our arrival and picked up a brochure from an NGO called Environmental & Public Health Organization (ENPHO) in Kathmandu. I read through the pamphlet about 3 times I was so excited. All the projects they worked on were related to environmental engineering, and it was exactly what I was looking for! So I called Monday morning and set up an appointment with the executive director for Tuesday and have been volunteering there since. I've been focusing on decentralized wastewater treatment plants in the Kathmandu Valley. Basically, they are trying to identify key demonstration sites for treatment plants near the Bagmati River. The treatment plants generally include a septic tank and then constructed wetlands or other low-maintenance technologies such as ponds.
I had heard that the Bagmati River was polluted, but it wasn't until my first site visit that I realized to what extent. I could smell it before I could see it. The river is absolutely black and dead. It is essentially an open channel of sewage flowing through the city. There's definitley a lot of work to be done.
We all settled into a routine quickly. I wake up around 8:30, get dressed, enjoy coffee, oatmeal, and sometimes a croissant for breakfast, read the Kathmandu Post and Himalayan Times, finish getting ready, and head off to the ENPHO office. The walk takes me about 40 minutes each way. I pass the markets of Dilli Bazaar, through crowded streets and sidewalks (occasionally I even get beeped at while walking on the sidewalk- by a motorbike), around women with umbrellas that almost poke my eyes out, around or through the piles of garbage on the streets, pass the guards at Singha Durbar, and pass the same cow (which is generally in the same area everyday). I come to the office and work on reports for three sites in Kathmandu or head into the field to see the potential sites. I've been to quite a few inside and outside Kathmandu, but two seem to be more promising than others since they already have land available and land is a huge issue.
For lunch at the office, about a dozen or so of us eat together. We each bring a small portion- either a cooked dish, fruit, or cookies- and share. We never have enough plates or utensils, so we share those too. So I've gotten to try lots of interesting and yummy dishes. In the afternoon we are served milk tea while we work (something I look forward to everyday). Lunch time talk is usually in Nepali, so I can only understand the few English words that are thrown in, and when they switch to English to talk to Silli and I.
Besides working at ENPHO, I have done a little traveling and exploring on the weekends. Our first weekend we went to Nagarkot, which is about 2 hours East of Kathmandu. The Fort Resort, where we stayed supposedly has views of the surrounding mountains, including Everest, but it was so cloudy, we couldn't see anything. We took a 12 km hike to a lookout tower, but there too we couldn't see a thing.
That following Monday, my first full week at ENPHO has an interesting story...
I left the house as usual, but it was eerily quiet. There were no cars, no taxis, no trucks on the road- only people walking and a few motorbikes. I was confused my entire walk to the office. I thought "Did I miss a memo? Is it a no-automobile holiday or something?" I saw a road blocked off and then saw people re-spraying the traffic lines on the road, but further down there were still no cars on what is usually a hectic road. In the last stretch of my walk, I saw a familiar face. It was Silli, another volunteer at ENPHO. We walked the rest of the way to the office and found the gate locked. It turns out the "no auto-mobile holiday" was actually a city-wide protest/strike called banda. So I turned around and walked all the way home, where we stayed the rest of the day under Ba Oy's orders. The next day there was news in the paper of protestors attacking cars, even cars with people on the way to the hospital, and protestors deflating tires of bikes. I don't remember the cause of this particular banda. Bandas are fairly frequent, but usually contained to only a part of the city.
On our second weekend- we spent Saturday walking around the city sight seeing and shopping. Sunday we went to Baktapur, a historical city not too far from Kathmandu. As foreigners we had to pay a steep $10 entrance fee to the city. We spent the day walking around taking pictures of temples. We saw various stages of the wood carving industry. All of the windows in BaktapurMichelle and I went in search of the "Peacock Window" which is supposedly the most famous/best carved window in the Kathmandu Valley. Next door was a paper-making factory- so we got a tour of how they make the hand-made paper that Nepal is famous for.


This past weekend we went to Patan, where Margo, Michelle, and I went to the Rato Machhendranath Festival. Machhendranath supposedly has power over the rain, so the festival is a plea for good rain. A tall wood-carved tree-looking temple is paraded around by a chariot for a month. We caught the last day in which the Prime Minster and President and other government officials participate in the "showing of the sacred vest." It was all very confusing because we couldn't see very well, but we could see a guy holding up a black vest and the crowd clapping and cheering.
On our way back from the festival we ate a type of street food called poni puri. They start as little hollow balls. The vendor uses his thumb to poke a hole and then pours in an unknown liquidy mixture and hands it to the customer on a plate, and keeps handing you them until you've had your portion. They were ok, but the next day they didn't feel so ok anymore. I ended up sick for 2 days and cautious with what I ate for the next 2, so today is my first day of 3 meals all week. I'm glad to say I feel much better after stomach issues, caused by (I'm assuming) the poni puri.
This week I've finished up the reports I was working on for the wastewater treatment plants at work. Yesterday was my last day. I didn't have anything to work on but I went in for lunch and to say goodbye. Lunch was a feast. On top of the usual dishes, there was just as many desserts and snacks. After lunch, lots of pictures, and gifts, most everyone hung around and talked. It was sad to leave when I feel like I was making friends. If timing had been different, I could have seen myself staying here and volunteering for longer. I really enjoy what I do at ENPHO, and I've learned a lot...who knows, maybe I'll be back!


We leave in about 2 minutes...a month in Nepal sure went by fast!

Motorbike Diaries

Southern Laos...
We left Vientiane on an overnight bus called the “King of Bus.” It was by far the best bus I’ve been on. It was not only an overnight bus, but a sleeper bus- meaning it had beds! The beds are supposed to fit 2 people, but luckily I didn’t have to share mine because it would have been a tight squeeze, not to mention awkward. The attendant made rounds through the bus, first giving us a meal (pork fried rice that I couldn’t eat anyway), water, garbage bags, and then a handful of candy- it felt like Halloween. We arrived in Pakse in the morning and made our way to a guesthouse a bit nicer than usual. Margo had been sick and up all night, so the splurge ($5 each) for the hotel was worth it. Even though I had slept through the night, I was still exhausted and we spent most of the day watching TV, napping, and planning our next few days.
The next morning, leaving most of our stuff at the guesthouse and only taking enough for a few days, we rented motorbikes and set off on what Lonely Planet calls “The Southern Swing”- a motorbike loop around part of southern Laos. Our plan was to drive for 3 or 4 days, stopping in the afternoon at our destination, exploring, spend the night, and then continue the next day.


A few kilometers outside of Pakse, we stopped at a Resort that is known for its tree house bungalows, waterfall, and inside few on Laos village life. The waterfall was nothing compared to Luang Prabang, but the tree houses were cool- just too expensive for our budgets. We followed signs to the “village cultural center, “ where they had sample houses from the different villages.


The rest of the was easy until the sky opened and poured buckets of rain on us, soaking us the bone in mere seconds. We stopped at a noodle stand, and the soup warmed us up while we waited for the rain to subside. It finally cleared up and we continued on our way, arriving in Tad Lo in the early afternoon. After driving around for a bit, we finally found where the guesthouses are clustered together and secured ourselves a room in a rickety building on the river with a view of one of the waterfalls. We spent the day exploring the area, which boasted 3 waterfalls. We came to a dead end when searching for the third and largest as the bridge was under construction. Tad Lo was a slow-paced place, so it was nice to relax. Once again, 3 of us shared 1 bed, although it wasn’t quite as comfortable as the first.
The next day we headed out for what was described as the roughest ride of the trip- 30 kilometers of unpaved mountain road. It was a bumpy, and sometimes terrifying ride. We carefully picked our way around potholes and rocks, mainly sticking to the outside of the road. The worst part was an uphill stretch, which we had to crawl up. At one point, Michelle had to get off Margo’s motorbike and walk for bit while Margo maneuvered around the ditches.
Finally we reached the town the marked the end of the dirt road and the beginning of the paved portion to Sekong. Sekong was a little town with a market and not much else. We stayed at a place called “Women Fever,” the only place we could find that could accommodate 3 of us in one room only about $1 each. The room had a bare concrete floor, dirty white walls, 3 single beds lined up and a table. It felt like a prison cell. The lights and fan had to be turned on and off from the room next door because at one point or other the rooms were joined and when they split them, they never split the electricity. By the time we ate dinner, enjoyed a Lao Beer, and showered, it was dark but still really early. There was not much else to do- so we walked around and stared at the stars. Before heading out in the morning, we gave Michelle her first motorbike lesson. We had her drive down the road and turn around a few times. We watched as she puttered away and then made wide turns on the way back. Riding a motorbike isn’t hard, but it does take some getting used to.
Our next stop was Paksong, the coffee capital of Laos. Situated on the fertile Bolaven Plateau, its soil is perfect for growing an assortment of crops, but since coffee brings in the dough, coffee is the most popular.
No one warned us about the 70-kilometer stretch of unpaved road leading to Paksong. Parts of the road were in decent shape and parts you could tell became part of a river when it rained. On the unpaved road in the middle of the jungle- all we could do is pray that our bikes held out and it didn’t rain. We kept our eyes out for a path the led off to the left to a waterfall. We finally found it. The path led to a spectacular view of a tall waterfall on the other side of a valley.


The dirt road finally ended and gave way into a terribly pot-holed paved road. I felt like I was playing a video game as I weaved through the potholes strategically planning my path. After 2 kilometers of this, we were finally on a real road!
In Paksong, we stopped at a café with a huge COFFEE sign outside. The owner was a Farang that directed us to a decent restaurant and guesthouse. The guesthouse was nice; it had a decent bed and bathroom and a view of their pet monkeys out back. We went back to the COFFEE place and arranged a coffee tour for the next morning. We then drove to a resort about 8 kilometers away that had a nice view of yet another waterfall from its restaurant.
The next morning Michelle and Margo made an early trip to the market to get Michelle a new pair of flip-flops after discovering one of the owners dog had chewed hers apart. We then met for our coffee tour. The owner of the café is a guy named Cornelius, but goes by the name Coffee, which he got at a young age for his love of coffee. After a breakfast of pastries, bananas, and coffee, he took us around to see arabica and robusta coffee plants in different stages of growth, explaining how the process worked. We saw everything from the seed to the roasting. We even bought some beans that we watched his wife roast. The tour was only an hour long, but it came packed with so much information that it was worth the few dollars we spent.
We drove to Champasak, home of Wat Phou, one of the pre-Angkor temples outside of Cambodia. To get there, we had to take a ferry with our motorbikes. The ferry was just two small wooden boats held together with a few planks of wood. I thought I was going to drive right off the ferry trying to get onto it using the skinny ramp. It was at Wat Phou that we discovered the ancient obsession with “lingas” which literally means “phallic symbol.” The mountain is home to the huge temples because from a distance it resembles a linga and its name translated means “Mount Penis.” There was a path of lingas leading (which we called the “penis path”) to ancient (and very steep) stone steps to the top. At the top there was a small temple, stone carvings, and a great view of the ruins below and surrounding countryside.


Finally, we headed back to Pakse and checked back into the same guesthouse after-dark where we could prepare ourselves for the last leg of our Laos journey- Four Thousand Islands.


Four Thousand Islands is a group of islands in the Mekong, a few of which are big enough to be inhabited. Our first stop was Don Kong- the biggest island. We took a “bus,” which was really just an overstuffed songtheaw to where we could take an overpriced ferry to the island. We found a guesthouse where we could get two rooms for pretty cheap, so I ended up with the room to myself. The first afternoon we walked around, ate on the river, and relaxed.
The next morning we got up super early to go to the morning market, which turned out to be tiny. After walking down two small isles I was through the market- I like to avoid the areas with dead or still flapping fish, dead pigs, half-dead chickens tied up, and slabs of raw meat, but that’s not always possible.
After the market we rented bicycles and set out on a loop of the southern tip of the island that was described in my travel book. At the start we were on a wide bike path right along the water, but it eventually got narrower and narrower until we were on an overgrown footpath and had to walk our bikes. When we finally emerged from the woods, Michelle had a stick lodged in her front tire and her back tire was completely flat. We were directed to a little bike shop where an 8-year-old boy popped out of nowhere and set to work on patching the tire. Back on our way, we finally reached the other side of the island and stopped to eat som-tam (papaya salad) for lunch. Another 4 km, and we were back at our guesthouse…and I was sick.
That afternoon we took a boat to Don Det, where we (or at least I did since I was sick) spent the next few days swinging on hammocks and drinking fresh fruit shakes at the guesthouse we stayed. The restaurant there was called ‘Rasta Café’ and virtually anything could be made ‘Happy’ by sprinkling some magic green herb in it. Throughout the restaurants on Don Det we saw, Happy Shakes, Happy Pizza, Happy Curry, and Happy Pancakes, to name a few.
The island only has electricity from 6-10 each night, but since it’s from generators, its very noisy. The three of us were in one small room in which the bed took up 80% of the space. The power (and thus the fan) would go off around 10, and by 10:30 each night I was sweating. So I took my iPod, flashlight, and bug repellent to one of the hammocks and slept out there each night. I could give my self a little breeze by swinging back and forth, but the bugs would come swarming anytime I changed songs on my iPod.
One of the days on Don Det, we actually left the hammocks and took a walk over a bridge to one of the other islands, Don Khon, where we saw, yet another, waterfall.
We booked our next stop: Michelle and I to Cambodia and Margo back to Thailand. We parted ways and set out on the next part of our backpacking adventure…

Bilbo Baggins would be jealous of our adventures

A lot has happened since my last post. Margo & I left Lampang last month to come down to Bangkok to pick up Michelle, one of Margo's buddies from UCLA, and start our backbacking around Laos and Cambodia. After getting our Laos visas squared away, we set out for Vientienne, the capital of Laos, arriving on April 27th. Laos, in general, reminded me a lot of Thailand. The food and language are similar to Thai, so the little Thai I learned came in handy when negotiating prices and such (the numbers are exactly the same so I can understand prices). Margo's Thai was of coure very useful. Everyone can understand her because Laos gets its music and tv programs from Thailand. Margo just has a little trouble understanding them when they respond in Laos. Michelle's Chinese came in handy too since there is a large Chinese influence.
We walked around the city to see some of the temples. There's also a big French influence here, since it was once a colony of France (so that means lots of bakeries, yum!) In terms of the food, it seems to be heavily influenced by Thailand, China, Vietnam, and of course French pastries.
Our first full day, we rode bikes around the city. Margo & I have to get re-used to driving on the right side of the road...we had to let Michelle lead the way after I lead us down the wrong way. Our second-day bike adventure took us to "Buddha Park," a park 27 km outside the city with large concrete statues of Hindu gods and Buddha. One looked like a bizzare giant pumpkin, which had a dark staircase leading to the top from which you could get a good view of the whole park. You can see the "pumpkin" in the background.

The ride back was deathly hot. We returned drenched with sweat, and at least for me, a farmers' tan.
Our next stop was Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng was a soul-less tourist town. The town was full of guest houses, restaurants, internet cafes, tour companies and little else. The best part was our 6 hour tubing adventure down the river...stopping at a bar with an awesome zip line into the river. The first time I tried the zip line, my hands slipped and I plunged into the water from quite a height. The second time I made it to the end and dropped the few feet that we're meant too. Besides that, the town had little to offer on our limited budgets. We had to splurge on a meal or two since there were no cheap options (when I say splurge I mean a bit more than $2 for a meal.) The odd thing about Vang Vieng- it seemed as if every restaurant played FRIENDS on the tvs there. It was scary, that no matter what restaurant we passed, I knew exactly what episode it was, and possibly what season it was from.

Louang Prabong, our next destination, was my favorite city in Laos. We spent the first afternoon wandering around the city visiting temples and shops and absorbing the culture. Luang Prabang has a good mix of cultural sites and cafes, so it was nice and relaxing to spend a few days there. Our second full day there, we rented 2 motorbikes to drive to the Kouang Si waterfall outside the city. This was my first time driving a semi-automatic motorbike since the first time Margo taught me how to ride, more than 7 months earlier, but I got the hang of it quickly. Our only problem was just a flat tire on Margo & Michelle's bike a few kilometers into the ride. Luckily we were near a village and had it patched up in no time. The waterfall was gorgeous- pool after pool of crystal-blue pools which were perfect for swimming.

Michelle went on a 2-day trek, so Margo and I had extra time hanging around the city. We spent the days at cafes, visiting wats, and researching English camps in Korea. We spent the nights at a cafe drinking sangria and watching movies (including "Smart People," which I highly recommend) with other tourists and spending too much money on local crafts at the night market.
We left Luang Prabang for Phonsavan, the site of the Plain of Jars. On the bus, the guy behind me proceeded to get sick on my leg, yuck! Luckily it was only a splash and I soon as I felt it I jumped out of my seat to join Michelle a few rows up. The buses in Laos don't have toilets and there are no public toilets, so on long bus rides, they stop every few hours the let their passengers empty their bladders on the side of the road. Its hard to find privacy when 40 people are using the "bathroom" at the same time.

We arrived in Phonsavan and found a guesthouse that would fit 3 of us in one room, which has proved to be difficult in most places. We found a place that had a mat that the third person could sleep on, but after seeing a cockroach or two, we opted to squeeze all three of us on the bed, which we did with relative comfort.
The Plain of Jars is exactly as it sounds- a plain full of jars. The large jars are made of sandstone, are 2000 to 3000 years old, and a mystery. No one knows what they were actually used for. Most scholars believe they were giant urns, while a local legend says they were containers of alcohol. My personal theory is that the king at the time had many children who liked to play hide-and-seek. The lack of hiding spaces on the wide-open plains made it difficult, so he had the jars created to keep them out of his hair.

Our tour guide would gather us all together to tell us about the sites or a specific jar. Unfortunately I couldn't understand about 60% of the words that came out of his mouth, so I can't share those stories with you. Our tour around the 3 sites, also included a stop at a lao-lao (local Lao whiskey) village, where we see how its made. The only way to describe it is throat-burning. After seeing the conditions in which its made and trying a shot, I don't feel the need to ever drink it again.

The site also had many craters created by the dropping of bombs by the US during "The Secret War" from 1965-1973. The US dropped two million tons of bombs in Laos in order to cut off ties to Vietnam. A good portion of the bombs were filled with 600 or so cluster bombs, or "bombies," many of which never detonated. Even today, UXOs (unexploded ordanances) are scatterend in the region, which deter the farmers from expanding their farms. We were told not to stray from the paths when walking around the Plain of Jar sites, since not all areas had been cleared of UXOs. Locals use the bomb shell casing as fence posts and plant pots. Scrap metal hunting is a lucrative, but very dangerous business in the area and leads to several deaths and amputations a year. We visited the MAG (Mines Advisory Group) office in town and learned a lot about what they are doing to deal with the situation. They have trained locals, mostly women, to safely check and clear areas by safely exploding the UXOs. Margo & I were interviewed by an expat who works there. He asked us questions about the display in the office and what we learned about UXOs. I must have sounded like a bumbling idiot because I tend to use the word "like" every third word. Apparently it will be played on BBC radio at some point in the next month or so, so keep an ear out.
Our next destination was Pakse, in the south. We stopped for a few hours in Vientienne before getting on a 10 hour overnight bus. This marks the end of the northern portion of our trip.
The map of Northern Laos below shows our route (in dark green) and stops (in lime green)

Songkran

Let me start by saying Songkran is the best festival ever celebrated by man. It's the celebration of the Thai New Year and lasts for days. Officially it was from April 13-15, but celebration starts 2 days early in some places.
What makes it so amazing...
The tradition is to splash water on each other, which is said to wash away sins to start the New Year fresh. Well, 'splash' is really an understatement. A more accurate word would be 'spray,' 'throw,' 'pour,' or even 'dump' buckets of water on each other. Since its the height of the hot season, water is the best way to stay cool and is usually welcomed.
On Saturday the 11th, we went to Maprang's house in Ngao. Margo had left the night before, but Apple & I joined her on Saturday. Sunday we got up early to "len Songkran" (play Songkran) in town. We spent some time stationed on a not-so-busy road with a garbage pail filled with water and a hose...pouring buckets on whoever drove by on a bicycle or motorbike. We would flag them down and make them slow down and then take buckets. For trucks full of people, we used the hose. The rest of the time Margo & I rode around on a motorbike looking for kids to pour water on us. That afternoon we went back to Lampang. Even at night, the streets of a few parts of the city were packed...people throwing water, drinking, and dancing.
Monday the 13th was the main day of the celebration. Margo & I spent the early part of the day on the back of a truck with 2 of Apple's friends and a bunch of other Thais. Traffic was crazy! Trucks filled the street of Lampang, each with a garbage pail full of water (and sometimes ice!) and packed with passengers each with water-guns or buckets, and beers in hand. The traffic got so bad, even motorbikes were at a stand-still. Besides throwing water, people mixed powder and water to make a paste that they smeared on each others faces. People passed us on the street putting powder on our face saying "Welcome to Lampang," "Welcome to Songkran," "Happy New Year," or sometimes the occasional jokester would say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Birthday." Since people are drinking all day and on trucks all day, their tradition is to just pee on the end of the truck and just wash it away with buckets of water, or wherever you are standing, and just wash it away. I couldn't bring myself to take part in this, so Margo & I left the truck in search of a bathroom. Afterwards, we couldn't find the truck, so we walked around for the next few hours hoping we'd find them. We never did, but we came across plenty of students.
The best part, for me, was seeing my students and either pouring water on them or putting powder on their faces, or both. I got a huge bucket-full to the face on my way into the school (where I lived after I got kicked out of my apartment). One of my students yelled "Becca!" and bam! soaked from head to toe, in jeans.
The 14th and 15th isn't celebrated in Lampang, so Margo & I went to Chiang Mai to celebrate even more on the 15th. Chiang Mai was a completely different Songkran experience. The streets around the moat were packed and there was traffic like in Lampang, but there was no (or very little) face powder. They all got their water from the moat, so by the end of the day we smelled of gross moat water. We were with Margo's friend Ay, who is gorgeous. She got buckets and buckets dumped on her from every guy we passed.
One section of Chiang Mai, where all the clubs are, was closed off and resembled a version of the typical "spring break" for American college students: a bunch of drunk people dancing and watching a band, girls on stage dancing, and barely enough room to breathe. The only things missing were the beach and the bikinis.
We got to experience Songkran in 3 completely different places- a small town, a small city, and a big city. Maybe it was because it was on the biggest day of the festival, or maybe because we have friends there, or maybe because I have students there, but I thought Lampang was the most fun. I wish I can come back every year for Songkran.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. I didn't want to take the risk of breaking my camera with all the water splashing and all.
I left Lampang only a few days ago, but I miss it already.
Next stop, Laos :)

As Walls go, I hear its pretty Great

Margo, Apple, and I took a short trip to China (March 27-April 8) to site-see and visit Yin, (Apple's girlfriend) who is studying in Tianjin. Our adventures started off with a bang. We got to the airport, checked in, and with what felt like all the time in the world, went to S&P for coffee and snacks. We moseyed on over to the passport check, which was way more crowded than we expected. By the time we got through, we were cutting it close and Apple & I had to run to the gate and onto the plane. We were the last ones on board.

The change in climate from the hot season in Thailand to winter in Beijing was the first, and biggest, shock to us; we left Bangkok sweating (even at 5am its hot) and arrived to nearly freezing conditions in Beijing (it snowed while we were at the Summer Palace). Luckily, we had borrowed coats from Margo’s aunt and cousin and I had brought some zyrtec with me to battle the hives. Our first few days in China were spent exploring Beijing. We saw the Qianmen District, the Great Wall, the Olympic sites, the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Lama Temple, and the Temple of Heaven in 4 days.



At the Forbidden City...



Our next stop, on a bullet train, was Tianjin, where Yin in studying to become a Chinese teacher in Thailand. We were there for two and half days, which was longer than needed. We probably wouldn’t have stopped there at all, but Yin had class. We just hung around and slept or explored while she was in school. The most Tianjin had to offer was a walking-street filled with little souvenir shops.

Xi’an was the third city we visited, and our favorite. We took an overnight train from Beijing on the top bunk (of three). There were six beds to a “cabin” and not even enough room to sit up. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic. The first day in Xi’an Margz & I spent our day walking around. From the map we got at our hostel, it looked like the free history museum we wanted to make it to, was about a 20 minute walked. Well, it turned out to be more like an hour and 20 minutes. China, from what I’ve seen, does a better job translating into English than Thailand, but there was still a general lack of information for us at the museum without a tour guide. All the relics had the name/date/dynasty, but most did not explain the purpose or importance, so we feasted on any English writing we could find.

That night we all went to see a famous fountain/music show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It reminded me of the Olympic fountain in Atlanta that my volleyball team and I spent so much time playing in last year at Nationals and had a small water show every hour.

The second day in Xi’an was the second (only to the Great Wall) most looked forward to part of the trip…the Terra Cotta Warriors. We booked a tour the day before. We waited and waited in the morning, where we thought we were supposed to wait, only to find out that the tour left without us. They had to come back to get us. The first stop on the tour was called a “museum,” but was more like a gift-shop attached to a factory that made Terra Cotta replicas. The second stop was Emperor Qin’s tomb and underground palace/mausoleum. He started building it when he first became Emperor at age 15, and it took 37 years to complete. The real tomb has never been opened, but apparently they found the original plans and were able to recreate it. The finale, the Terra Cotta Warriors, was what we were waiting all day to see. There are 3 pits that have been excavated. Pit 1, the biggest and best, has the infantrymen and charioteers.



After going through all 3 pits, Margo & I went back to Pit 1 for some more time. Pit 2 was mostly unexcavated or re-buried to help preserved the soldiers. Pit 3 was the smallest, and is thought to be the command-center of the terra-cotta army. The soldiers were first discovered by locals in 1974 whom were drilling a well, found pieces of pottery, and decided to investigate. About 7,000 soldiers have been uncovered so far, and there is thought to be over 10,000. Emperor Qin was one hell of a dude. Not only did he build a secret underground palace and an entire life-size terra cotta army, but he was also the first to unite 7 kingdoms that had been warring for over 500 years and create a national currency.

After tons of traffic on the way home, we got back to the hostel, grabbed our stuff, and something to eat for me (I was on the verge of tears I was so hungry), we tried to hail a taxi, but no cabs would take us due to the traffic. With no other options and a train to catch, we each took a motorbike taxi. Our drivers zipped through traffic, ignored traffic rules, cut through parking lots, and all was fun and games until Apple was no longer in site. We got to the train station and tried circling around to find her. As it got closer and closer to our train, we were starting to panic when she finally showed up. Since Apple looks Chinese, people constantly speak to her in Chinese and think she’s rude when she doesn’t respond. Her English isn’t that strong so she had no real way of communicating with anyone without Yin, Margo, or I…so she must have been completely frustrated and flustered during the 20 minutes she was lost.

Back in Beijing we made our way out of the city to a Buddhist retreat in the mountains. Luang P, our monk guide, took us to a temple in the mountain where we experienced a short meditation lesson. That night we drank tea with some of the employees at the retreat and the 5-year-old monk-in-training. Later on, we went back to the temple at the top of the mountain to meet with Luang P’s mentor, a famous monk in China. They invited me to become a nun there for a month. I think it would have been an awesome experience to stay, but unfortunately, I had a plane leaving China 2 days later, so I responded with “next time.” We learned some of the differences between Thai and Chinese Buddhism.
Thai Buddhists:
-cannot touch females
-must always sit above commoners
-eat only 2 meals a day before noon
-can’t touch money
-nuns are inferior to nuns
Chinese Buddhists:
-are vegetarians
-can’t eat onions and 4 other foods we didn’t learn
-nuns and monks are equals
-interact with commoners more freely

The next day we climbed to the highest pagoda on the mountain behind the retreat. The flowers on the trees were in perfect bloom, but unfortunately the only thing in bloom at the time.



We headed back to Beijing for another night in the Qianmen District. On our last (half) day, Margo & I went to the Art Museum after discovering that the National History Museum is closed for renovation until 2010.

Arriving on time for the plane was even more stressful than running to the gate on the way to China. We were supposed to meet Yin and Apple at the hotel at 3:30. They didn’t show up until 4:20…so we ran to the subway (at rush hour) to get to the airport shuttle and got to the check-in counter an hour and a half before take-off. Thankfully, we made it and got back to Thailand safely.

Here are a few general observations we made about Chinese culture:
-Chinese people spit anywhere and everywhere; they have to have “no spitting” signs in places like the airport and museums
-Chinese food (at least northern Chinese food) is one of 2 flavors: salty or sweet
-Chinese people have an interesting way of reducing the cost of diapers…little kids have slits in their pants so they can pee (and apparently poop, although I didn’t witness this one) anywhere…on the street or sidewalk, in the park, etc.
-China is so crowded that you can’t get anywhere without pushing and shoving
-The concept of lines is not well known in China
-When people speak in Chinese, it always seems like they are yelling
-Motorbikes and buses are electric/hybrid
-Recycling and garbage cans are everywhere (recycling doesn’t really exist in Thailand)

Do you want to be hungry?

So the semester ended and we started traveling again. It was definitely a bittersweet ending. I miss my students already. By the end of the semester, I was a little tired of teaching, but not tired of my students. My favorite class, on the last day of school, gave me over 2 dozen roses and a cd mix with a song "I don't want to say goodbye." There are a handful of classes that I really will miss teaching...if I could teach only them, I would never leave. This are some students from my 5/5 students...

And a video of the last day (for those of you that don't have facebook)

Since school is over and Margo's friend Ariella is visiting, we have done a bit of traveling. We took a trip to the Elephant Training Center about a 45 minute motorbike ride outside of Lampang. In the middle of the ride I thought to myself, "Man, it would really suck if I got a flat tire right now." Not even 2 seconds later...putt putt putt...my motorbike stopped and black smoke puffed out and refused to start. Margo & Ariella were already out of sight and a few kilometers ahead of me. One guy stopped and called the police for me while another guy with a truck stopped as he saw me walking my bike. He offered to help me find a shop to fix it, so we loaded it in the back and went in search of a bike shop. At the first place we tried, the technician was out to lunch. The place next door claimed that my bike was "too hi tech" for them to fix it, but really they were too busy enjoying their lunch to even give my bike a glance. They gave us directions to a place about 9 km away. The third place took a look at it and immediately realized the problem was a missing cap that let out all the oil. It only cost 200 baht to fix and I gave an extra 100 to the guy that was kind enough to stop and help me out. I was able to catch up to Margo & Ariella at the Elephant Camp in time to see elephants paint and play.

We took another trip to Apple's house in Thoene to visit the waterfall and cave once again. The cave was a bit scarier this time. Although we had made it through once before through the cave-maze, this time there were bats flying all over the place...and really low.

We also took Ariella to Chiang Mai, where we also applied for our Chinese Visas! We'll be in China in less than 3 weeks! Last week, Ariella, Margo & I took a mini trip to Pai, a little hippie town in the mountains. The drive there was 3 hours of crazy curves (762 to be exact.) For those of you from Westchester or have ever driven to my house- picture Bear Mountain on crack....for 3 hours. We made it there without spewing our lunches, but I can't say the same for everyone in our van. The town of Pai itself is really cute. Its full of little hippie shops and cute cafes...but all overpriced. I think I saw more people with dreadlocks in 2 days than I've ever seen before, and more white people in general than in a long time. It was a relaxing 2 nights in our little guesthouse. Most of our time was spent looking for the next cafe we would try or restaurant we will eat at since there wasn't much else to do without motorbikes...and we were too cheap to rent them. We headed back to Lampang and went to Jae Sorn National Park on Saturday with Apple & Maprang. Although Margo & I are done with school, Apple and Maprang are not, so we waited until Saturday to go camping with them. The cabins were booked, so we stayed in tents. One was already set up, so we had to set up a second one before it got dark...and by we I mean me. Not that it was really hard to set up, but all the camping and sleepovers on our front lawn came in handy. The National Park has hot springs, so we spent the evening down by the hot springs boiling eggs and letting the stones warms our butts since at night in the mountains its a bit chilly. In the morning we headed down to the hot springs again, this time to a private room that filters in the spring water at a reasonable temperature into a hot tub. Nice and relaxing.

Despite my busy week and weekend traveling and camping, the highlight of my week was buying new jeans. Sad, I know, but new jeans after 5 months in Thailand with only one pair that didn't even fit that well before losing weight can only be described as amazing. I made a half-hearted attempt to try to find a pair at one point a month or two ago while Maprang was looking for a pair, but girls jeans didn't run in my size. I was astonished how fast I found a pair that fit me, since I never find clothes that fast even in the US, so I didn't mind shelling out 1000 baht for them.

Almost all the other Farangs that were teaching in Lampang have left already, but we got to hang out a bit towards the end of their stay and had a blast. Going out to clubs with a bunch of Farangs is a completely different experience than going with mostly Thai people. We met way more people and had several amusing conversations with Thai guys...the best 3 questions:

"Where are you?" as I'm standing there talking to him

"Do you want to be hungry?"

"At how many o'clock?"

They all got their points across, but its so funny to hear.

The next few days is a bit more traveling and then back to Chiang Mai for my birthday. My birthday is just an excuse for us to party for 4 nights. Between Lampang & Chiang Mai, we have some fun nights of dancing ahead of us.

As for what I'll be doing next/when I'll be coming home (since I've gotten several questions about that):

I have yet to decide exactly what I'm doing after China, but I know I won't be leaving Asia for a bit. Margo & I might try to get tutoring jobs in Bangkok to make some money before traveling more (hopefully Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Nepal). An English Camp in Korea in July or August might be in store to make some fast cash to fund where ever else we might want to go.

At this point I am free as a bird. All I know is that I'll be studying for the GREs and taking them in Bangkok sometime after April. I found a neat Masters/Peace Corps program at the University of South Florida in Tampa that I'm gonna apply for.

Before I go...one more story. My student Phin called me the other day and asked me if I wanted to go jogging in the park. Although I was busy packing up all my stuff and moving out of my former apartment and scheduled for dinner for my friends birthday in an hour and half, I decided I could use a jog, and why not go with my student? So we went the park and walked 2 and jogged 2 laps. She said that she wanted to lose weight and come to the park, she just couldn't go by herself. She then told me I could be a model if I lost weight. I took that more as a compliment since in Thailand, calling someone fat is not considered offensive.

Teaching Frustrations

Teaching in Thailand, as Margo likes to put it is “like an extended vacation.” We have lots of free time, but don’t get me wrong; teaching in Thailand can be frustrating at times. Here is a list of frustrations (the other Farangs seem to agree on these):
-I only see students once a week, so they tend to forget whatever they learned the week before and also tend to forget their homework
-I have over 870 students, so there isn’t much of a personal connection with the majority of the students and not to mention a lot of grading.
-Students come late to class all of the time (sometimes as late as 20 minutes) and there is not much I can do about it
-I sometimes get the feeling I’m talking (or shouting) to myself in class because students either don’t listen (I’m sure that happens everywhere) and/or can’t understand a word I’m saying. They nod along but when I talk to them individually I realize they have no idea what I’m saying.
-Unless students actually drop out, students can’t fail. They are passed onto the next grade no matter what, which is hard when students don’t come to class and therefore have no grades.
-In some classes hardly any of the students can understand what I’m saying (and I have upper-classmen!) so I sometimes have to have one student translate for me when something is important, but since I can’t speak Thai I have no way of knowing if he or she is translating correctly
-The most frustrating thing is that the concept of cheating does not exist in Thailand. We are told to ignore cheating because, unfortunately, it’s an integrated part of the Thai education system. So I’ve found that if a class (or at least a group of students in a class) does well, the whole class does well. If a class does bad, the whole class does bad (with some exceptions of course.) Out of 21 classes and 2 listening tests each, I had only one class that actually stayed quiet for the entire test. It happened to be one of my top classes, so they didn’t really need to cheat anyway.
Aside from these frustrations…I have some great students who I really enjoy teaching. Even in the tougher classes to teach (the ones that can never stay in their seats and never pay attention), there is a sprinkling of students that I can see are actually paying attention, so I just focus my lesson on them. They are the ones that actually come to class to learn (obviously every teacher dreams all of their students were like this.) Out of 870-something students, I do recognize most of them and know at least a few names from each class. I always like seeing them outside of class and off-campus. I have become closer with the girls on the volleyball team, a few are my students.
Last Thursday a group of my students asked me if I was busy Sunday night. They said they wanted to tell me about Thai culture, so I thought we were just meeting at the school, but when Phin (one of my students) got there, she had me follow her on motorbike where we met the rest of the group. They took me around the night market, buying me drinks and snacks I’ve never tried before. We (5 of my students and I) painted pottery while talking about Lampang, Thai culture, and American culture. I can definitely say that it was my favorite Sunday evening in Lampang. We walked around while Beauty (another student) took pictures (they took me around as a project for their other English teacher). Klaw (yet another student) said “people must think we are super-stars because she is taking so many pictures of us.” I met Phin’s parents and little sister. They gave me a Chinese cake and “pocket money” since it was Chinese New Year’s Eve, they are Chinese, and they own a Chinese bakery. The majority of the better English speakers among my students take a “special class” after school and/or on the weekends. Talking to some of my students, I realized that a few of them take an extra class (in various subjects) everyday of the week for about 2 hours everyday!
The big assignment I gave to my students is to write and perform a movie of a genre they had to pick out of a hat. They’ll be performing it next week, so I’m really excited to see the results. Judging from the scripts, some of them will be pretty funny. Cinderella “with a twist” seems to be a common theme. By a twist I mean, instead of losing her shoe, she loses her wig (and gives the whole town lice when all the girls in the town tried it on) and in another version, she loses her underwear haha.
School ends in 1 month. After that I have about a month before I head to China with Margo and Apple for 12 days from the end of March to the beginning of April. After that I’m not sure what I’m doing…I guess it all depends on money at that point, since China will be draining a lot of my funds since the visa alone cost 150 USD. It will be Apple’s first time out of the country, and its bound to be an awesome trip. We still got some planning to do. The month of March is also still a mystery. At this point everything is up in the air for me since I don’t want to make any major commitments until I hear back from the Peace Corps (I recently sent in my full medical package and said June 2009 was the earliest I could leave.) Otherwise, I may stay for another semester. My friends seem to think I may never come home, but don’t worry I’ll be back soon enough.
Just a short story I’d like to share:
I was out with Margo and Maprang (one of the young Thai English teachers at our school) at a club on Saturday night. It’s a friendly gesture for someone to come up and cheers glasses. A guy came up to me and “clinked” glasses and said something in Thai a couple times. All I could make out was “len footbon! Len footbon!,” as he pointed towards himself and then me. He continued talking and said “Len footbon at lampangkanalaynee” and pointed to Maprang and I and said “teachers.” I finally understood what he was trying to say- that I had played football (soccer) with him at our school…and that he’s a student! I was a bit surprised, not exactly that a student was out at a club (he claimed to be 20), but that he actually came up to me at the club and announced he was a student. Now I wonder how many students saw Margo and I when we danced on stage at another club a few months ago!

Frodo Baggins is the Capital of New Zealand

The past three weeks, we've done a lot of traveling. I would say we've had about 7 days of actual teaching in the past 3 weeks. Our first little trip was for New Years to Chiang Mai. Margo's sister Mariana and her two friends Bri and Andrew arrived on the 29th. They came to our classes to observe us teaching. After school we left for Chiang Mai, where we met up with Margo's friend Mike who teaches in the south. New Year's Eve day those of us who had never done any of the sight-seeing in Chiang Mai (basically everyone except Margo & Apple) went to a mountain village, Doi Su Thep Wat, and a palace just outside Chiang Mai. For our New Years celebration, Margo, Apple, and some of her friends reserved us a table at a club called "The Monkey Club." To get a table, they had to get there at 5ish. We arrived at around 8 after polishing off a bottle of Sang Som (Thai rum) on the songthoew ride over. Not a very tasty choice. The rest of the night was spent dancing (even though Thai people don't normally dance) and drinking.
The 2nd, Ba Oy (Margo's aunt) who was visiting from Copenhagen came to pick us all up in a giant van. All of us except for Apple headed to Chiang Rai to stay with one of Ba Oy's friends. Their house was situated on a golf course outside of the city. Their house is beautiful. I didn't even feel like I was in Thailand. We arrived to have BBQ prepared for all of us and every meal we stuffed our faces because it was so delicious and there was more than we could possibly polish off. After being pampered until Sunday morning, we headed back to Lampang so Margo & I could get back in time for teaching on Monday. On the ride back, Atlas at hand Margo tried quizzing on the capitals of the world. None of us were very good at it expect Ba Oy who works for UNICEF so knew almost all (if not all) of the ones we asked her. When Margo asked "What is the capital of New Zealand?" Andrew answered "Frodo Baggins" (Thus the name of this post.)
4 days of teaching followed before more traveling begain. Friday, I had to head to Chiang Mai to extend my visa and catch my flights to Phuket. I spent 3 hours at immigration to find out that I had to make it to the Labor Office in Lampang by Monday morning. After freaking out for a few minutes thinking I wouldn't be able to make the trip down south, but I called my consultant who called the Labor Office to let them know I would be there Thursday. Margo, who left after her classes, and I barely made it to the airport in time to check-in, but fortunately we made it! After a short flight to Bangkok and then another to Phuket, Ba Oy picked us up and drove us to Krabi where we were staying at a hotel that Ba Ahe (Margo's other aunt), the architect, designed. Saturday was full of island hopping, swimming, snorkeling, monkey watching, eating, boating, and tanning (or burning if you are Bri.) The water is amazing and the white sand so soft I just wanted to roll in it. This is a picture of Maya Beach on Phi Phi Island...This is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed.


After a long day on the motor boat island hopping, we were all so sore from the waves that continually compressed our spines (or as Margo described "Made our stomachs reach our throats"). Sunday we did a little more island visiting. We stopped at two small islands, which during low tide are connected by a sand bar. That afternoon, we headed to a famous wat where we climbed 1,237 steps to reach. Parts of the climb were almost completely vertical and a bit unnerving on the way down (especially for those with a fear of falling, like myself). I am still a tiny bit sore from the climb and its been quite a few days!

Monday we headed to Phuket, where we stayed at a resort for free (thanks to Ba Oy who knows the owner), and spent more time on the beach. Tuesday was about the same, until our delightful vacation came to an end when Margo & I had to fly back. We actually missed Monday and Tuesday of school, but had to be back Wednesday for a festival at our school. In order to save money, we decided to take a bus back from Bangkok. Little did we know it would take 3 hours to get from the airport to the bus station (due mostly to traffic), and the only bus left stopped outside Lampang, so we had to hope there would be a songtheow to take us back to school at 6am. Luckily there was. We had enough time for a short nap before waking up for school.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip, I just wish I could have stayed in paradise a bit longer.


The green marks are where we were during the past 3 weeks...a lot of traveling