Once Upon a Thai...: ThaBo Teacher-tastic Trip

We were invited on a 3-day escapade to Nakhon Nayok, Ayuttaya and Khao Yai with the Thai English teachers in our department – a wonderful gesture by the lot of them to show us more of the country and to spend more time together outside of a work environment. Bob and I had just arrived back to Tha Bo the previous evening – did some quick and much needed laundry, packed up, and woke up at 5:00am the next morning to catch our 12-passenger van.

The funniest thing about these kinds of trips has to be the extent to which literally nobody ever has any idea exactly what we’re doing or where we’re going. As we sat down in the van, people began tossing out estimations as to how long it would probably take us to get there; the average guess-timation was 4 hours. The destination we were heading to was in fact 8 hours away. This added up to a whole lot of sitting in contorted positions over the course of 48 hours of traveling (including our bus-break-down incident on our return from Chiang Mai referenced in our last post). But we were happy to do so, because as we’ve learned, the temporary discomfort is always worth it. Eight hours in a van with enough crazy people leads to some pretty good laughs, after all. I do wish I had recorded each time we crowded back into the van and somebody asked for an update on where we were going or what we were doing. The answer changes drastically on a moment-to-moment basis. The best thing you can do is just go with the flow, and be ready for anything.

Here he comes, to save the day! It's TOILET MAN (man, man, man, man)!

Upon arrival in the beautifully scenic Nakhon Nayok in Central Thailand, we dumped our bags off and switched into adventure gear to go rafting down the river. We jumped into the bed of a pickup truck, which had gated bars around the perimeter in order to contain the 16 of us like a big mass of cattle-sardines. We darted down to the river, hopped into a couple of boats, and started our hilarious and exciting navigation down the rapids. The majority of the trip was an entertaining blend of paddling, shouting, splashing, and swimming. The rapids weren’t too extreme, but they weren’t wussy rapids either – we’ll call them Goldilocks Rapids: just right for our eclectic blend of nearly retired teachers and youthful rafting enthusiasts alike.

See? Cattle Sardines.

Some people care far less about the rowing and the rapids than the opportunity to splash strangers.

EXTREME

A funny thing about living in Thailand has been the slight change in my perception of the weather. We have spent our fare share of dangerously hot, sticky, grouch-inducingly sweaty days here, especially in our first couple months, which were during Thai summer. Now that we are in the rainy season, on the days when we step outside in the morning to cloudy, overcast skies, the first thing out of my mouth is usually something like, “Wow! What a beautiful day!” Now, to some people, this weather might be considered “dreary” or “somber” – but I love it. It’s cool and comfortable, and to not begin dripping sweat until about 10 minutes into your first class is truly a miracle. We had Emily’s-version-of-beautiful-weather for our rafting adventure: a light, on-and-off drizzle accompanied us throughout our rowing, and the clouds kept us nice and safe and cool on the river. It was perfect.

Tree-Alphalpha hair!

This is funny because of two things: I look like a Martian, and Steve is falling in the mud behind me.

I can't believe it's already jump-off-a-muddy-cliff-o'clock!

After we got back from our river trip we freshened up and met the whole teacher gang for dinner at a restaurant just a short walk from our room. As I strolled up to the restaurant feeling happy-go-lucky, hungry, and excited, my worst fears were confirmed…

I hesitated on the stairs, debating whether I could just turn around, feign illness, and retreat back into the introvert safe-haven of my room. Had anybody seen me yet? Surely I could sneak out later and grab snacks at 7/11 for dinner – that would be safer. But Bob said “Nay!” and urged me forward towards the dreaded sight.

The temporarily noiseless speakers stood tall, stiff, and looming at the front of the room; the ominous glare of the lone computer screen glared deviously at me from around the corner; the thin, gangly, long, and loosely wound microphone cords drooped lethargically from the table. As at each, every, and all Thai gatherings, Karaoke was promptly on display at the end of the two large wooden dining tables. I do not like Karaoke. I have never performed Karaoke before; the closest I’ve come to Karaoke was being peer-pressured into taking a turn singing to the Lion King soundtrack in front of a terrifying audience of five of my 12-year-old girl friends at group sleepovers (this is scarier than it sounds - they would judge, critique, and grade us and whisper-exchange their scores to each other as you stood sweating and anxiously waiting upon the make-shift basement stage for your acquired score).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do think Karaoke can be entertaining and enjoyable…to watch, safely and quietly from the back of the room where nobody can see or hear me. I’m entirely tone-deaf and just a dash shy about it. I can’t sing. I just can’t. Even if I could though, having all of that attention on me at once would probably cause a short-circuited brain malfunction explosion attack somewhere inside me.

Act after act, people fearlessly strutted up in front of the (quite small) crowd and belted out their age-old favorite ballads: ranging from Shaggy’s Angel, to incoherent cutesy Thai Pop songs, to a very bold and somewhat risqué rendition of Rihanna’s Rude Boy, even a heart-felt duet version of BSB’s unforgettable Quit Playing Games with my Heart (Thank you, Bob and Steve, for that). Fun, right?! After being a grade-A-party-pooper for about an hour and a half, repeatedly being asked and prodded to join in the “fun,” and watching from the sidelines as every single other dinner attendee took their turns, flaunting their bravery and shamelessness, and making me feel like a dud - my Farang friends settled on a compromise. We would perform one song, the six of us, together. This seemed fair. I could stop feeling guilty and dud-like, and my embarrassment quota would be divided into roughly 1/6^th of what it would otherwise be. The song? Bohemian Rhapsody. The verdict? I survived: Just another instance of living abroad pushing you to address and confront your fears, ladies and gentlemen; I guess in most cases, those are fears more significant and meaningful than this feat of mine, but nonetheless.

**I should also mention that it is not safe to perform Karaoke barefoot in Thailand. During Bob’s duet he was repeatedly shocked by the microphone. Since he was not wearing any rubber soles to protect him, it made for quite an interesting show. I think we can all learn a little something from Bob’s true dedication to performance here.

Bob got zapped toward the end of the song...

Ajarn Kasem - The Guru of Yokie....Karaoke that is.

Quit Playing Games...

I tried to distract myself by taking pictures of large bugs...

and geckos.

The next day we were up early again to head off to Ayutthaya. Some of you may remember our last trip to Ayutthaya at the beginning of our travels here in Thailand. We stopped here for a day on our way from Bangkok to Chiang Mai back in early March. It was the old capital of the country when Thailand was Siam. We visited some beautiful ruins and temples, followed by a super amazing lunch on a canal boat, which toured us around the city as we ate. I highly recommend doing the same thing if you happen to find yourself in Ayutthaya with a large group of wonderful people. You will have fun.

Ancient Ayuttayan Ruins and the coveted "Nose Caves."

We also bypassed an uncomfortable and depressing zoo/tourist/shopping/boring extravaganza which I do NOT recommend visiting because the animals are in tiny concrete cages or small pens in direct sunlight, and it’s appalling. I couldn’t tell you the name of it, but it included a “floating market” that was really just a regular tourist market on stilts around a small canal.

As travelers or tourists, and just as people in general, we should use our discretion about which attractions we choose to support, morally and financially. Similar to just about everywhere in the world, in Thailand you will find people who are just trying to make a dollar (or baht). Sometimes they take advantage of things, like people and animals, in order to do so. Don’t visit those places. Use your judgment and take a look around first. Sometimes we can be caught off-guard by how novel and different something in a foreign country is, and allow ourselves to get swept up in our curiosity without thinking clearly.

For example, the initial thought, “Oh my gosh! A baby elephant is walking down the street and I can FEED it?! Cool!” given some extra thought may transform into some deeper questions, like “How did these men get a baby elephant? Where is its mother? Why is a pre-teen boy the one selling me the elephant food? The man he’s with actually looks very drunk…” If we take a second to analyze all of these factors before we shell over the cash, we can hopefully deter these kinds of industries from flourishing. Okay enough! Here's some more pictures of ruins and stuff.

This is a GIANT Buddha Statue. If you were to lay down in his palm, I think it would be equivalent to laying on a king-size mattress. Sadly, they did not allow us to test this hypothesis.

Hand-rolled cigarettes and fishing.

The next thing I’m about to say may sound hypocritical, since the next attraction we were toted around to was in fact a zoo – The Korat Zoo in Nakhon Ratchasima. However, as I have mentioned previously, it is quite difficult to know exactly where you are going at any point in time in these scenarios, and oftentimes, we are just along for the ride. Although I was a little uneasy pulling up to the entrance after the previous day’s sights, it did turn out to be quite a nicer version of an open zoo, where many of the animals (all sorts of deer and different kinds of flightless birds) roam around freely over a vast lot of nice land. It was a huge zoo. We rented bikes, and we only had a short time to explore because the place was closing at 5:30 pm and we had to begin our journey back to Tha Bo. Naturally, Bob and I got lost… in the zoo… for an hour. Bob and I have been guilty of wandering once or twice in the past. Sometimes it becomes difficult to stay with a group; we were distracted by the urgent need to play competitive species-finding games on our bicycles. After mindlessly looping around the dizzying zoo routes on our bikes, we started getting phone calls about every 5 minutes, notifying us that, yes, everybody else in the group was back at the van, and the zoo was closing, and we should probably return the bikes so that our teacher-friend could get her teacher I.D. back from the rental desk.

Giraffe double-take

Luckily, we had our trusty, handy-dandy Samsung Hero at hand (no high-tech, bells and whistles, insta-text-ography, angry birds playing on this son-of-a-gun, no sir - This is our emergency phone). This way we could field the first few calls calmly, gently and apologetically, and then gradually become slightly more frazzled, until finally admitting undeniable lost-ness and dejectedly asking if maybe somebody could come find (save) us.

After lots of confusion, numerous phone calls, wrong turns, and X-Treme Zoo Bicycling, some employees on a motorbike found us and had us follow them back to the rest of the group. Oops. The employees were not upset by this unexpected overtime, but they were admittedly scared, as many of the animal enclosures are not-so-fully enclosed, and quite accessible by foot. They were relieved to see us alive and well and not in a bear sanctuary.

I nearly forgot to mention our cultural-fusion experience in Khao Yai. We went to a Little Italy... in THAILAND. Whaaaaa? It was quite an experience. We spent some time strolling around the pseudo-Italian streets, eating Gelato and... well that's kind of it. But it was funny and pretty cool and also kind of weird.

We didn't get the chance to try the Banana Cheese Gelato

Let's play a guessing game: Little Italy? or Ayutthaya?

Our mega trip included a visit to a very impressive dam, as well. I didn’t think much of the mention of visiting a dam. It just kind of sounded like a thing to do. But the landscape made the short time we spent there unforgettable. It was a cool, misty, overcast day (yay!) and the river running between the mountains as the fog rolled through was unreal. Particularly because I didn’t know what to expect, I was really taken aback by the beauty of this place. There’s a tour of this dam – The Khlong Tha Dan Dam – as well. We traveled along the top, looking down at sheer cool-ness on either side. I kept getting flustered trying to figure out which side of the open vehicle to look out of; I had to keep reminding myself that in a short time, we would turn around and I could simply look at the other side then…but that can be a difficult lesson in self-restraint. The tour-guide was a riot! I say that because all of the Thai people on the bus laughed a lot, not because I quite caught any of his witty jokes.

Dam Tour Ride

We really had a lot of wonderful experiences jam-packed into our 10-day vacation from school. It’s very touching that the Thai teachers reached out to all of us in order to show us more of their exciting and incredible country. It also serves as an interesting opportunity for us to see the differences between the traditional Farang Travel Circuits, and those the Thai people choose to frequent themselves. How lucky we are to see a bit of both in the time that we spend here in Thailand.