KO KRET

A little ways outside of Bangkok there is an island on the Chao Phraya River called Ko Kret. There's no question that it's an island, but the river isn't that big, so it's more like the river splits into two for a while and then rejoins, leaving a big chunk of land in the middle... if that makes any sense. But considering the island is only a three minute boat ride away, it is noticeably isolated from it's metropolitan surroundings.

Ko Kret holds one of Thailand's oldest communities of Mon people. One of the things Mon people are historically known for is their pottery, a tradition that is still upheld on the island. They use local clay to make their hand-thrown ceramics, and a number of old and dilapidated brick kilns can still be found. There are no cars on Ko Kret, only bicycles and motorbikes, and all of the little paths and walkways branch off of one main road that circles the island.

Mac and I rented bicycles for a little more then a buck and took a spin around the island. At a leisurely pace the ride took a little more then an hour. There are a couple of small towns on the island at which the road narrows and becomes lined with little shops and restaurants, many of which sell the local pottery. Even though there are no cars on the island, Mac and I still encountered a traffic jam when school let out and the narrow path became full of kids in uniforms all doubled up on their bicycles. After a nice lunch on the river, Mac and I took off to meet our friends to go fishing. It was a good day trip.

TINY DANCERS

It's almost like the Thai version of the child beauty pageants in America, but not really... I mean, it's just like a lot of makeup for such little people. I think it's pretty cute though...

THAI DANCE

I have all of these little ones in class. I got a kick out of this performance, it was real cute. I didn't even recognize any of them at first with all of that makeup! This was on Thursday at school, they were even more done up for the big celebration on Saturday! I always think it's funny to see little people dressed up like big people.

FESTIVITIES AT SCHOOL

The 3,000 students at my school are split up between four buildings. The building where I teach all of my classes is brand new and was completed just before I started my job. It's six stories tall and holds all of the kindergarten through fourth grade classrooms, along with a bunch of other stuff, like a computer lab, a library, and an awesome indoor playground that puts any McDonald's PlayPlace to shame. Last week we had a couple of events to celebrate the official opening of the new building.

On Thursday we had a festival for all of the students, there were a bunch of fun activities for the kids, tasty snack foods, and a number of entertaining student performances. School was cancelled on Friday in order to prepare for the real celebration which was held on Saturday. Thousands of people attended the event which started at 8AM and ended around 3 o'clock. There were things going on all over the place, student performances, live music, and a traditional Thai opera... all at once! There was a lot to see. However, Mac and I spent most of the day at the front gate, sort of just standing around greeting kids and parents as they arrived. I think they kind of just wanted us to be visible, having foreign English teachers at our school is kind of big deal I guess. So I missed a lot of the action on Saturday, but luckily I was able to see some cool things on Thursday.

One of my favorite performances was put on by the Taekwondo Club, they ran around performing martial arts to cheesy techno music and broke boards and bricks and stuff. This one kid even busted out some nunchucks, it was pretty sweet. The picture on the top right is of this kid running up the backs of a few kids on his way to karate kick a board in half that is being held by a kid sitting on top of another kids shoulders, quite impressive. But what really got me was the traditional Thai dancing that some of my little second and first grade girls performed...

LIVERPOOL VS THAILAND

Last week I went to see Liverpool FC play the Thai National Team, it was awesome. My friend Colin, who lives in San Francisco and has been biking around Thailand for the last month or so, scored some tickets for 300 baht a piece, that's like less then ten bucks. So last Wednesday after work, I met up with Colin and his friend Gwen, and after dinner the three of us took off for Rajamangala Stadium, Thailand's largest sports arena. Our tickets were in the open seating section, but we managed to score a spot with a pretty good view. We sat next to a friendly Thai man and his son, he passed us a few beers and urged his son to practice his English with us, but he was too shy.

Liverpool scored less than six minutes into the game on a beautiful goal by Ryan Babel. After that I thought for sure that it was giong to be long game for Thailand, but they held on for the rest of the first half, and actually played Liverpool very evenly. I was impressed by Thailand's level of play. And in the second half, in the 72nd minute, Thailand's number 17, Sutee, scored the equalizer on an amazing give-and-go that sliced the Liverpool defence. The stadium erupted! The crowd's excitement was met soon after by a sudden downpour and some hefty winds, umbrella's started to pop open and spectators began to leave by the handful. Thai people really don't like rain. But those that stuck it out were treated by the much anticipated substitution of the Spaniard Fernando Torres in the 80th minute. Not only is my sister in love with Fernando Torres, but he's also one of the best strikers in the world. The game ended in a draw, and even though Torres didn't score, he had a bunch of chances, and it was amazing to see how the game changed with him playing up front. That's him in the picture on the right, hurdling the goalkeeper. Good times.

SOCCER

I brought three pairs of shoes with me when I moved to Thailand. Well, actually two pairs of shoes and a pair of flip flops. I knew that I wanted to play soccer when I got here so one of the pairs I brought was my turf shoes, which are ideal for playing on hard, dry surfaces. For some reason I pictured myself playing on dirt soccer fields, with clumps of grass here and there and gravel and rocks scattered about. Little did I know I would be playing on concrete. So instead I wear the only other pair of shoes that I brought, a pair of Vans, which are now practically destroyed. My turf shoes sit in my apartment collecting dust.

During our first week of school Mac and I were invited to play soccer by a couple of teachers we work with, Oh and Lec. Oh is a computer teacher and Lec teaches math. Everyday a bunch of guys gather at the schools courtyard around 5:30 or 6:00 to play ball. We use small goals and play with a futsal ball, which is smaller and heavier than a regular soccer ball, and has a lower bounce so it's ideal for playing on hard surfaces. Sometimes it gets pretty crowded out there with eleven or more on a side. The game is very fast-paced and competitive, but always a lot of fun, people joke and laugh and smile a lot, just what I like. We don't call it quits until it's too dark to see, and by that time I'm drenched in sweat and ready for dinner. The only time we don't play is when it rains, which it's been doing a lot of lately. The picture is actually of a little 5 on 5 tournament that was organized for a few days last week, usually it's shirts versus skins and there's like twice as many guys. We quit for the evening soon after I snapped these photos, the dark clouds on the horizon brought on a downpour. I'm really glad I found some soccer out here.

NEW FRIENDS

Oot, Eat, and Tui are some of my new friends, they live on my block. Oot runs a little laundry shop a few doors down from me, I met him when I first moved into the neighborhood. He lives in the shop with his little three year old daughter. I'm not sure where her mother is, and I don't know the whole story, but Oot said once that she was sick, so I guess he's kind of a single parent. A couple doors down from Oot is a little TV repair shop, this is where Eat lives and works. And Tui lives in an apartment upstairs from Oot and Eat. I think Tui works in insurance or something. These three guys hang out together all the time, almost every night you can find them sitting out in front of Oot's shop, eating dinner and sharing drinks. And every time I walk by they wave me over to join in, I've spent a lot of evenings with them. Tui speaks English pretty well, and Oot really wants to learn. Eat is rather quiet and just sits there and smiles a lot. Tui usually acts as the translator, and Oot's eagerness to speak English increases with the number of drinks he's had. Sometimes Oot and Eat will get out guitars and they will sing together. Oot's daughter stays inside and watches cartoons. Sometimes she'll come to the door and share a drawing with us or something. She's really shy, but is starting to warm up to me, she waves at me now when I walk by. Dana took these pictures when she was here the other weekend, Oot is the one in the yellow shirt and that's Tui in the middle. In the top picture I think I was complimenting Oot on the mustache that it appeared he was attempting to grow. Oot is all smiles.

NATIONAL SCOUT DAY

July 1st is National Scout Day in Thailand. Scouting in Thailand is strongly supported by the government and is a big part of school curriculum. Every Thursday students and teachers wear their scout uniforms to school and greet you with a salute. The older boys wear funny little ranger hats and brown uniforms, the older girls wear green uniforms and green hats. The little kids wear blue uniforms and these cute little short-billed baseball caps. And they all tie little bandanas around their necks. The teachers also wear scout uniforms, the men sport brown knee-high socks and cool belts. I don't have a cool uniform, I just wear my regular dress pants and a dress shirt on Thursdays.

Every morning the students kick off their day with the flag ceremony, it's held in the courtyard and lasts for about a half hour. On July 1st the morning flag ceremony was extended to celebrate National Scout Day. They honored a handful of teachers and marched around the courtyard for a while, it was quite an event! The picture in the upper left corner is of the courtyard full of students, and that's not even all of them! None of the kindergarten kids were there, and all of the first and second graders were hanging out in the cafeteria just off the courtyard. Scout Day was funny.

UDOMVITTAYA SCHOOL

Gosh, does this blog make it seem like all I ever do here is travel around and have fun? Well, that's only partly true, I also work full-time as an English teacher.

The place of my employment is Udomvittaya School, it's a private school for kids ages three to fifteen. There are about 3,000 students in the school, it's massive. I teach the little ones, K.1 through P.4, or kindergarten through fourth grade. I have each class only once a week, and I'm not sure how many students I see, but it must be in the hundreds. And learning names? I've barely even started! They study English with their Thai teachers as well, but I'm their weekly dose of real American English. I'm a mobile teacher, so I move around to a different classroom for every class, and when I walk through the door the kids cheer and shout with joy! I think they like me.

My kindergarten classes are fun, but very challenging, the kids are sooo little. I mean shucks, they're still working on mastering their own language, let alone trying to learn English! But I guess it's the best time to start. When I was in kindergarten I only went to school for half the day - these kids go to school all day long, but spend the entire afternoon napping, for like three hours. After eating lunch at 11:00, they lay little mats down on the floor, pull out pillows and blankets, and curl up and nap until the end of the school day. My youngest class is really funny, they've combined three K.1 classes into one big class, so I have about 45 three year olds all at once! Most of them are a little clueless about what's going on, but I think some of the stuff I'm teaching them might be sticking.

I really like my first and second grade classes, I feel like I spend as much time laughing at them as they do at me. The pictures above are from a few of my first grade classes, aren't the uniforms funny? Everyone dresses like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts on Thursdays, even the teachers, but I'll get to that later. Being a teacher is fun, but man am I tired at the end of the day. I've only been at it for a little over a month now and I really like it, I've learned a lot so far, I just hope the kids are learning from me, too...!

RICKSHAW

Dana and I came across this amazing prop and had no choice but to wrap up our weekend in Bangkok with one last photo shoot. This Rickshaw was on a rooftop garden. I kind of want to buy one, but I'll need more friends to come visit so we can ride around in it together...

THE FLOATING MARKET

On Sunday Dana and I went out to explore a floating market. Floating markets were once commonplace in Thailand before canals were replaced by roads. Even though the traditional floating markets have diminished, a lot of the old lifestyle surrounding the canals still remains. After eating some delicious pork buns, we hired a long tail boat and took off down an offshoot of the Chao Phraya River, spending an hour exploring a maze of old canals. Life on these quiet waterways is quite charming, stilted houses line the canals and people paddle about from place to place in little boats. The market itself was actually kind of small, little boats with people selling food and vegetables were docked along the edge of the canal, some were like little floating kitchens with people preparing plates of food for the shoppers up on shore. The market itself was a little anticlimactic, but getting a glimpse of life on the canals was wonderful.

WAT ARUN

My friend Dana's month long trip to Thailand has come to an end, she spent the last few days in Bangkok, and after work last Friday I took the bus into the city to join her. It was a little overcast on Saturday, but very hot. After breakfast we took a ferry up the Chao Phraya River to Wat Arun. Wat Arun is really neat, the entire exterior of the temple is covered in broken Chinese porcelain. Every sculpture and pattern is made of these intricate three-dimensional mosaics, the detail is amazing! There are a few different levels that you can climb to by scaling up some really steep stairs, and from the top you get a nice view of Bangkok across the river. After Wat Arun we grabbed lunch and then spent the rest of the day exploring street markets.

NAI YANG BEACH

If you're ever at the Phuket Airport and have some time to kill, Nai Yang Beach is just around the corner. After Dana and I figured out our flights and realized that we had a few hours on our hands, we took off for the closest beach. It's pretty nice, and mostly full of locals. There's a nice grove of trees between the beach and the road, perfect for a picnic, and a number of little food stands where you can order tasty things to eat. I wandered down the beach a ways and came across some guys building a new boat. It was a nice way to spend my last few hours on the islands before heading back to the city...

KAMALA BEACH

On Saturday, after a few hours on the beach, Dana and I left Railay and took the ferry back to Phuket. We stayed on Kamala Beach, which is on the west side of the island just north of Patong. It was pretty cool I guess, except that our hotel smelled funky. It was called Benjamin Hotel... more like Benjamin Ho-smell. I don't recommend staying there if you're ever on Kamala Beach. We did take some cool pictures that night though, I mean, I think they're cool. The next day we would head to the airport and part ways, Dana off to Ko Samui and me back to Bangkok...

NOT SURE WHAT TO CALL THIS ONE

Dana and I had our second impromptu, self timered photo shoot on Phra Nang Beach. I hope we inspired some people. I bought some new swim trunks on Ko Phi Phi because I accidentally left mine at home, I picked the most obnoxious ones I could find. If you think these photos of us are dumb then maybe you can enjoy the turquoise blue water, the white sand, and the beautiful limestone rock formation in background? Life is good in Thailand...

PHRA NANG BEACH VIEWPOINT

Last time I was in Railay I hiked up to a viewpoint overlooking the beach that faces east. I had noticed on some maps that there was another viewpoint in Railay, but I didn't know where it was. Well, I found it last week, but it was kind of off the beaten path. At the end of Phra Nang Beach there's a hidden trail that goes up under some low hanging trees, up towards the bottom of some cliffs. I wandered up the path and followed some voices that I heard through the brush, they were rock climbers, there were tons of spots to climb and a handful of people scaling the walls. I walked along the base of the cliff in my bare feet and made my way up and over to a cave in the side of the rock face. In the picture in the upper left you can see the cave towards the bottom right of the big limestone rock formation. I climbed up and into the cave and looked around, it was pretty big. I wandered in pretty far, and on my way back I noticed a beam of light shining down a tunnel in the rock. I shuffled through the tunnel and came out onto a little ledge, the viewpoint! The sight was quite nice...

PHRA NANG CAVE

Phra Nang cave is on Phra Nang Beach, the most beautiful beach in Railay, it's the kind of beach you see on the cover of travel books. I'd been to Phra Nang Cave before, when you first walk up it's off to your left at the base of a huge cliff that lines the end of the beach, you can't miss it. Inside the cave is a shrine. The first time I walked into into the cave it didn't take me long to notice that there were a few wooden penises propped up on a table in the sand. "That's interesting...", I thought to myself, "I wonder what that's supposed to mean?". Then I looked around and realized that the little wooden wieners on the table weren't alone, and that I was standing in a cave full of wooden cocks. Everywhere. Some even as tall as my shoulders, big wooden cocks in the sand, of all shapes and sizes. There's a little plaque next to the shrine that explains the relevance. Apparently, once upon a time an Indian princess was killed in a ship wreck just off shore, and her ghost ended up occupying the cave. Local fisherman believe that by offering these wooden phallusess it will bring them good luck and keep them safe on their journeys. Am I missing something here? How are these things related? The ghost of an Indian princess, wooden phalluses, and fisherman wishing for good luck? Oh well, it's definitely interesting, and I guess the fact that the shrine is located in a deep cave kind of balances out all the phallic symbolism...

BACK TO RAILAY

I can't get enough of Railay, that place is awesome, this was my third time going there. Dana and I thought we would stay for a night and then check out some other islands, but we ended up staying for the most part of three days. It was already early evening when we got there so after checking into a place to stay we went to the west beach to watch the sun go down. It was alright, I mean don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but I've seen better... So, Dana and I decided to light up the beach with an impromptu, self-timered photo shoot. It was fun, and we ended up adding it to our daily list of things to do. It's pretty ridiculous, but I thought it might be interesting to mix it up and put a picture up of something else besides beautiful islands and breathtaking views...

KO PHI PHI LEH

As I mentioned back in April, Ko Phi Phi is made up of two islands, Ko Phi Phi Don and Ko Phi Phi Leh. Ko Phi Phi Leh is the smaller of the two, and is where the Danny Boyle movie The Beach was filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio. The island has no residents and is only open for day trips, and because of the film it has become hugely popular. Dana and I decided to check it out, so we hired a long tail boat and took off for the island. Once we left the bay at Ton Sai Village the swells got pretty big, the water is rough during the monsoon season. Our first stop was this beautiful, emerald green bay (the picture in the top right). And although most boats just come in, cirlce around, and leave, we asked if we could get out and hang out on the one little beach there for a while. It was real nice. After that we took off for Maya Bay, the place were they filmed The Beach. Since we were in a small long tail boat, and the sea was rough and dangerous, we were forced to access the beach from the back side of the island. We anchored the boat in a little harbor and jumped into the water to swim ashore. The picture on the bottom right is of the ladder we had to climb to get onto land. The waves were rather big at times and we had to pull ourselves to shore using a series of ropes, it was exciting. Once we were on land we hiked through the jungle on a little path to the beach. The Beach beach was beautiful, I guess, but it actually wasn't that great. It was jam-packed, I can't even imagine what it's like during the busy season, and there was quite a bit of trash on the ground. There were a number of obnoxious speed boats in the bay that were revving thier engines real loud, and some doofus had beached his sailboat like thirty feet off shore. We stayed there for like five minutes. The best part about it was getting there. After that we headed back to Ko Phi Phi Don to catch a 3 o'clock ferry to Railay...

KO PHI PHI DON

I stayed in Phuket Town Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning I caught the first ferry to Ko Phi Phi to meet up with Dana. Dana and I have been friends going on ten years now. We met in college in Ohio and then ended up living a few blocks away from each other in San Francisco, she's a great friend (and an excellent travel buddy!). It was really nice to see a familiar face and we ended up spending an awesome five days together.

This was my second time going Ko Phi Phi, my first time being back in April when I first arrived. Although Ko Phi Phi is one of Thailands most popular islands, it was a little quieter this time around being that it's the middle of the off season. Dana and I stayed in Ton Sai Village and hung out at the beach all day. It was nice to get back in the water again. That evening we hiked up to the viewpoint to watch the sun go down. The sunset wasn't that great, but the view was amazing, and the monsoon season had brought some nice flowers into bloom. That night we had pizza and beer for dinner, and then finished things off at a karoake bar full of locals.

THE GRAND PALACE

Last week was great, I had an unexpected six day weekend! On Tuesday morning Mac and I took off for downtown Bangkok to meet up with our friend Nina. Nina's a teacher as well, and her school was also closed down for the week because of the swine flu. Mac and Nina were planning a trip up north to Chiang Mai, and after hearing that morning that my friend Dana was on Ko Phi Phi, I decided I would head back down to the islands. We booked our tickets, none of which had us leaving until later in the day, and then decided to check out the Grand Palace while we had some time on our hands. The Grand Palace was built in the late 1700s, and although the present King Rama IX doesn't currently live there, it has been the home to most of Thailand's royal families. The entire complex is made up of a bunch of different buildings - temples, galleries, goverment offices, libraries, a monestary, and tons of statues and murals. It's quite big, and it's immaculate, so clean and well kept. The architecture and the attention to detail is amazing, buildings and statues covered in mosaics, and entire walls painted with intricate murals. After seeing as much as we could in a few hours, I parted ways with Mac and Nina and took off for the airport to catch my flight to Phuket...

BACK TO THE ISLANDS

Gosh, I guess I haven't really posted too much yet in the month of June, and we're already half way through! I have some stories to tell, about my neighborhood and my job as a school teacher, but for some reason I just haven't gotten around to telling them yet. Well, on Monday, after my last class of the day, I was informed that I our school would be shut down for the rest of the week because of the swine flu. Scary... slash awesome! But mostly scary. Anyways, I got the hell outta dodge and caught a cheap flight back down to the islands. My friend Dana is traveling around Thailand right now, and instead of waiting until the end of the month to meet up in Bangkok, I thought I would take the opportunity to hang out with her while I have the week off. So here I am, back on the island of Phuket. Tomorrow I will catch a ferry to Ko Phi Phi where I will meet Dana. More island hopping I guess...

THANYABURI

I live in the province of Pathum Thani, just north of Bangkok, in a district called Thanyaburi. Type it in on Google image search... actually don't, nothing interesting comes up. But I like it. I like my new neighborhood, and I'm definitely warming up to it. I'm not really sure if there's a central part of Thanyaburi, but from what I've observed it's just kind of this busy stretch of road. There doesn't seem to be much else, the streets that branch off the main road seem to just trickle out into quiet residential areas.

My building is a couple hundred yards off the main road. I live in a very simple and basic, third floor apartment. It's one room, a bed, a desk, and a dresser. I also have a little fridge and a fan. There are some windows that face north, directly into the building next to me, and a sliding glass door that faces west, opens up to my balcony, and lets in wonderful evening sunlight. I access my bathroom from my balcony, it's kind of weird, I have to be careful not to flash anyone when I get out of the shower. I don't have any hot water, but so far I have had no desire to use any. It wasn't the cleanest place when I first moved in, but I spent a good day or two scrubbing it down, now it feels like my own.

On the corner there is a 7 Eleven and TESCO Lotus Express, very convenient. There are also dozens of little food carts and an amazing night market just across the street, but I'll talk more about that later. A lazy, slow moving river parallels the busy main road, and on the far side of the river are a bunch of little shacks. It's an interesting juxtaposition, a bustling road lined on one side by big businesses and loud billboards, and a stones throw away are a bunch of rickety, primative shacks along the river. The top half of the picture is one side of the road and the bottom half is the other. You can literally turn your head from side to side and see these two different worlds. The top right picture is what I see when I look from my balcony down towards the main road, you can kind of see the little river shacks past the traffic.

The best part about my living situation is my commute. I can see my school from my balcony and I can walk there in about five minutes. How convenient.

BACK IN BANGKOK

Well, I'm back in Bangkok now, or about 25 km northeast of Bangkok I guess. I'm here to teach English and I start on Monday. I am not on the islands anymore, that's for damn sure. It's been almost two months since I left San Francisco and I guess it's about time I got a start on this next chapter of my life.

I will have more to share soon...

BUCKETS

There is a section of Sunrise Beach that is lined with all of these little stands that sell buckets. That is a plastic bucket, a little bottle of liquor, some sort of soda, and a little bottle of Red Bull (Thai Red Bull is equal to like ten Red Bulls in the US). You buy a bucket, throw in some ice, mix the ingredients, and go nuts. All of the stands sell the exact same thing, and probably for the same price. So what is it going to take for one stand to stick out above the rest? At one point someone must have wrote the word "fuck" on the front of their stand and consequently noticed an increase in bucket sales. Well, the trend caught on, and the names of the stands are pretty funny. A lot of them say things like "Jen's Cheap Fucking Bucket" or "Cheap Fuck Bucket Love You Long Time"... you get the idea. But my favorite was "Brad Pitt! Fuck My Bucket". I don't know, I thought that was funny...