Friendship Camp

Every July Santisuk English School holds an "English Friendship Camp". Students, volunteers, and staff board busses and travel south to the beach for three days of games, songs, worship and more. It just so happened, that my stay in Thailand overlapped Friendship Camp. So, two days into my stay in Latkrabang I got whisked away to Rayong where I would be participating in Friendship Camp until my return to Indonesia.

On the bus to Rayong. From right to left is Dou, myself, and my two new roommates for the weekend.

The beach from our hotel.

Charissa and I enjoying the beach.

I expected to spend most of my time with Latkrabang people, but true to the name of the camp, it's hard not to make new friends during the event. We were seperated into different groups for different activities and I ended up making a whole new group of friends who are students from the Lad Prao school. 

Adding to my Santisuk family.

At lunch enjoying the delicious seafood that was served to us beachside all three days.

It was an awesome weekend and a great way to spend my short time in Thailand. I can't believe I'm leaving this family, but it's nice knowing I'll get to see my own immediate family in just a few days. Until then, a brief stay in Jakarta...

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” - James Baldwin

"Where are you from?" is quite possibly the hardest question I have to face. Even complex math problems have a solution, but the question of my origin is much too broad for me to ever feel I've given a satisfactory answer.

I was born in Ohio. I live in Pennsylvania. These are black and white. But the oddly shaped rectangle on a map is hardly what I'd call home. Additionally, I borrow a sense of home from other locations. In Pennsylvania alone I feel at home in a multitude of streets, dorms, and houses.

But never in my life did I expect to land on the tarmac in Bangkok and feel so overwhelmed with a feeling of homecoming. I deplaned with the largest grin on my face, feeling practically giddy with appreciation for the opportunity to return to this country.

My taxi driver from the airport commented in broken English as I grew visibly excited as we drove down Ladkrabang Road. "You've been here before?", he asked me, "You know where we're going?". Oh did I. On my right the night market I used to shop at flew by, and my friend Kate's old apartment passed on my left. The bridge I used to use to cross the street; my favorite stalls still selling food in their same locations; they were all there.

I entered Santisuk English Center with the same grin I deplaned with, and it's hardly left my face since that moment. I left coworkers, students, and friends when I went back to the United States last year. However, I was returning to family.

It's been amazing since I arrived. Carol and Don Don are so incredibly welcoming. CJ, after some prompting, remembers me and still runs around Santisuk with just as much spunk but with a year added to his age. After Carol made us breakfast I left to take in the morning in Ladkrabang, just as I used to.

Ladkrabang Road, right where it connects with the road Santisuk's on.

I've sipped coffee around the world and by far my favorite way to take my coffee is blended with ice and made by the Ladkrabang coffee lady.

One of the water monitors (or as the locals call them, "komodo dragons") who hang out in the park with me.

It's good I'm only here a few days, or else I might need to buy a second adjoining plane seat to fit on the plane home. All I've done is eat the amazing food that Thailand offers. I seriously missed authentic Thai food. And after Carol treated me to lunch, my (well technically Kate's) old students treated me to dinner. And dessert.

Adam and New treated me to dinner... sticky rice and fried papaya were some of the long awaited items on the menu, although the seafood, duck, chicken, and papaya salad were delicious as well.

Ice cream before English class.

Good food and great company, there's nothing quite like coming home... other than finding another piece of it tucked on the opposite side of the world. Home sweet Thai home, for the next 4 days at least.

Just Another Day in Chiang Mai

Kate and I are spoiled.

After living in Thailand for a month we’ve seen a good variety of temples. Gold roofs and Buddha statues are awesome, they really are. But we can see those back “home” in Bangkok. We wanted to take full advantage of Chiang Mai.

We decided to forgo any of the tours. They cost a lot of money and took us to see temples and different hill tribes. The native hill tribes are really cool, but Kate and I didn’t have it in our hearts to be able to go and participate in giving money toward what Thailand has essentially made into a human zoo. So instead we decided to use the help of some locals, the Internet, and a very kind hotel employee to organize the rental of a private taxi to take us out into the rural areas of the mountains. We wanted to go outside of the well-traveled circuit.

We walked into the lobby of the hotel at 8:30AM to meet our driver. He was extremely nice and led us out to his vehicle. We paid for a taxi. We got a private 10+ person van with comfortable leather seats, a large television (which we didn’t use, the view through the windows was way more exciting), foot rests, cup holders, and it was entirely to ourselves. Kate and I. We had a private chauffeur and amazing transportation for an entire day, flat rate.

First we visited Bua Thong Waterfall. It’s really hard to put what we experienced into words. First off, we were the only ones there. Kate and I had a three level waterfall to ourselves. Even cooler though, is that Bua Thong is a limestone waterfall. So because of the grip from the limestone, you can walk and climb all over it, even when it’s particularly steep. So Kate and I climbed around our own private multi-story waterfall for an hour and a half.

Besides the waterfall itself, we were just experiencing the tropical Thai forest out in the middle of the mountains. Everything’s different from the States: trees, plants, bugs, fish, and animals. We saw frogs and crabs, as well as a large variety of insects. It was so much to take in. It was so overwhelming and absolutely, amazingly gorgeous.

Part of the falls. 

A view from near the very top of the falls. 

 Part of the stream above the falls.

This is what every path in the forest looks like.

Hazardous. 

When we finally felt like we could part with the falls (which still was not easy) we hiked back to where our driver had dropped us off. Before we knew it we were on our way to yet another stunning waterfall. Or, I should say falls. The next one was in the middle of a national park and had 10 levels. It was a long hike to the top, and sadly the top level was not very rewarding, but it was another awesome experience.

One of the levels of the falls.

The best part of the Mae Sa falls was the fact that you could swim under parts of it. That’s right, Kate and I got to swim in the waterfall.

The waterfall that we swam at. 

Underneath a waterfall.

Oh, and it started pouring when we were hiking up at the top of the falls. Slightly inconvenient maybe, but it got people to start leaving the park. So when we hiked back to where we decided to swim it was empty. So we got yet another waterfall to ourselves. I repeat, we’re spoiled.

When we finally decided it was time to head back we dried off and hiked the rest of the way to the van. We made it to the hotel around 5:00PM, just in time for a swim before dinner.

One of the two pools at our hotel. Again, we had it to ourself. 

The view of our hotel from the pool.

Oh, and dinner was awesome. We ate riverside in downtown Chiang Mai. Kate and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lanterns, candles, river. It was rather swanky.

And clearly, all that is not enough to do in one day, so we hit up the famous walking night market in Chiang Mai.

Except it was way over-hyped. It was super crowed, the vendors weren’t particularly kind, and it was just overwhelmingly large with little variety. So we decided to ditch and head back to a slightly more local night market we knew of near our hotel.

It was very pretty and a much better market. Kate and I enjoyed shopping a little too much and we managed to head back to our hotel only when the market started to close (roughly between 10 and 11 PM).

We slept really really well that night.

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight." - C. JoyBell C.

After an hour or so on the van (and some very narrow and precarious roads) we arrived at the Flight of the Gibbon. According to their website they are “the leaders in zipline eco-adventure canopy tours in southeast Asia”. And I would justify this. It was absolutely incredible. Over 5 kilometers of ziplines as well as suspended bridges and abseil descents which totaled more than three hours of soaring and suspension many stories above the forest ground. And we saw gibbons!

A pre-flight photo of Kate and I in our souvineer bandanas they provide.

Gibbon baby! 

It's a bird, it's a plane, oh wait it's Winona on a zipline! 

Just climbing a net in a tropical forest. No big deal. 

One of the abseil descents. I think these were the scariest part. 

Kate and I on a tree top hangout area. 

Kate and I soaring on a tandem zipline. 

A really pretty tree. And if you look closely you can see one of the zipline platforms. 

After our adventure of soaring through the forest Fight of the Gibbon provided a delicious Thai lunch before taking us to a waterfall near their site. They told us we had 20 minutes, but our tour group decided to hike up to the top of the falls, so we made it back in just under an hour.

Oh, and a quick anecdote about our tour group. There were six of us total: two couples and then Kate and I. Ironically, we were all midwestern Americans. Kate is from Wisconson, one of the couples was from Chicago, and another came from the Twin Cities (Minnesota, where I myself dwelled for a while). It was kind of fun that we could bond over similar roots while all traveling around Thailand.

Walking around the waterfall. 

The bottom part of the falls.

Kate and I at the top of the falls. 

The falls were gorgeous and the entire trip was easily one of the best highlights of my time here in Thailand. On the trip back into Chiang Mai Kate and I mused over how lucky we were that it was each other here at Santisuk right now. Had another missionary been here instead of Kate and I, we might not have gotten the oppertunity to do such adventurous things. Such as spontanously trecking out to Chiang Mai by ourselves. Or hiking around tropical mountains near the border of Myanmar. We were just so grateful for everything to work out and end up as such an exciting trip.

Domestic Travel

So Kate and I woke up at 3:00 in the morning to catch a taxi and meander our way to the local airport. We actually live 5 minutes from the international one, but this time we were traveling like locals. A little airport, we were through to the gate in no time. But (besides the fact the airport had Starbucks and Krispy Kreme) the absolute best part was security.

We walked right through. No taking our shoes off, no removing electronics. No standing for three seconds with your arms out while someone stares at a screen of you. We just walked right through a metal detector and sent our bags through. I packed a variety of liquids including large bottles of hair products and sunscreen as well as a razor. No problem; carried them all on board in my little backpack. It was awesome.

A sleep deprived selfie at the airport.

Our airplane.

We proceeded to sip our coffee and enjoy our semi-American donuts. (They do have places like KFC, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonalds, but they’re much more expensive than eating Thai food and have odd menus. Green tea and bean paste donuts anyone?) Before we knew it we were landing in Chiang Mai and picked up by van to be whisked away into the mountains.

Our adventure was just beginning.

Computer Access Has Returned!

Okay! So I made it back from Chiang Mai! It was absolutely incredible. I am going to work on putting up some more posts in the next hour or so. Unfortunately I have to catch my plane back to Tokyo tonight as I am heading back to the US today/tomorrow. I am definitely not ready to be coming back. I mean, I'm packed, but Lat Krabang feels like my home right now. I'm a little worried about going back to my actual home town only to experience culture shock again. We'll see how it goes.

Anyways, I'll put up some more posts soon! Despite my heading back to America I still have a few updates for you guys, so don't just assume my blog is over and done with! I'll still be updating for a little while with some more posts I never got the time to share while I was teaching and traveling.

In the meantime, here's a teaser for what's coming up in the next few posts...

Yup. Lots of adventure and a few dorky helmets. Get excited.

Goodbyes and Good Eats

Today was kind of surreal. It was my last full day in Bangkok, as well as the day Carol and CJ left for the Philippines. So my day consisted of packing, saying goodbye, and a last dinner with Kate's students.

Kate, CJ, and I hanging out before he headed to the airport.

Today he informed Kate that he's leaving for the Philippines where he's going to preceeded to break her heart. This comment slightly made up for the fact that the vendors down the street from where I live think that he is my son. When I found that out today it seriously made me sad. But kin or not, I am going to miss the four year old whippersnapper.

The send off party for Carol at the airport.

Oh, and we had to rush back to Lat Krabang from the airport to meet Kate's students for dinner. They took us to a "buffet", which actually just means that they keep bringing food to your table until you explode. It was a Japanese restaurant. So, I experienced sushi for the first time. As well as shrimp eggs and liver. Good thing I can actually use chopsticks now! (Thai's only use chopsticks for noodle dishes, so I didn't get used to using them until the last week or so, but Japan uses them all the time so we would've been in trouble if our skill sets hadn't expanded.) But just to recap: sushi, shrimp eggs, and liver. That was on top of all of our slightly more normal foods. And Thai spice levels to everything. Kate learned very quickly not to ask what was being put on the table. Even when she spoiled the surprise I decided to dig in anyways... after all, when in Rome Thailand. 

The orange on top of my piece of sushi is actually just a pile of shrimp eggs.

I'm off to bed though. I have to get up in a matter of three hours or so to catch our early morning flight to Chiang Mai. I'm not bringing my laptop, so expect posts to lull for the next few days. But I'll make up for it in mass posts before I leave on Monday, so no worries! See you on the flip side!

I'm Nearing the End....

I've finally reached that point where I had to start saying goodbye. And let me tell you, it's breaking my heart. I know I've only been here a month, but the love and support everyone's shown me has been incredible. Today was my last class with my Level 1 students. I might've taught them the English language, but they taught me a whole new culture and way of living. They taught me everything from how to get around Bangkok by myself to where I can eat near where I live. So without them I'd be both lost and hungry.

Truely though, they are some of the nicest people I've met. It's so hard to leave them. Mamay is going to come see me off at the airport when I leave, and all the others are already asking when I will be returning. Oh, and they also asked if I had Skype, because they want to see live snow. I told them I'd do one better, that I'll Skype them from my iPhone and hold it when I go sledding so they can vicariously see what all the fuss is about. I honestly can't wait to show them snow.

Class photo!

Oh, and they even got me thank you gifts for teaching them! (As my Pre-1 students phrased it, "for sharing your knowledge".) The four girls who are friends together at KMIT got me a handmade bag. They want me to wear it around in the US and show them pictures. I can't wait! And one of the boys gave me a little handmade doll keychain. Oh, and funny story, Thai's don't hug. They have a very specific cultural stigma of personal space. They just don't do it. But all of the girls hugged me before they left today! I felt very honored. The guys just shuffled out after asking if I would tell them when I was coming back so they can take another class with me. I'd call that a success.

The keychain Kim gave me. 

I adore this purse. It's even cuter on the inside!

(A gift from May, Mint, Nes, and Chompu.)

A Lesson in Thai Cooking

One of the things I wanted to do while I was in Thailand was learn how to cook Thai food. Well Thai cooking classes are crazy expensive due to the whole take-advantage-of-the-foreigner philosophy. I mentioned this plight to my students and they enthusiastically responded with the desire to teach me themselves. So today, five hours before their English class, they showed up psyched and hungry. We attacked the kitchen with fervor as they demonstrated how to make tom yum kung and kowpat (fried rice), while other students prepared kaijiao (Thai omlette) and some noodle dish. Then, we feasted.

From the left: my student's Por, Chompu, and Mamay in the kitchen. 

May and Chompu

An interesting fact I learned was that citrus cuts the spiciness from food. I, against my students' suggestions, decided to try and eat one of the Thai peppers on its own. I regretted it rather quickly. However, one of the student's came to the rescue as she told me to take one of the slices of the lime we had been cutting. It really did cut the burn almost immediately. So now you know.

All of us in the kitchen. 

Chompu applauding me as I do the very hard job of transfering rice into the pan. 

Making fried rice. The tom yum kung is on the left. 

Chompu making the servings look all professional. 

Fried rice and the noodles. 

All of us right before enjoying our meal.

One of my best meals in Thailand. And the fact that we made it ourselves was all the better. Aroy!