hey guys!
I made it out of China!!! (hardly!) Richard lost his passport and wallet first in Thailand, THEN I lost my wallet.. we were penniless for a few days but his credit card came from Canada (thank GOD we ordered it!!!) and we lived off of that. 3 days later our passports (both mine and his TEMPORARY one) were taken! we lost EVERY shred of our identitification. DOH!! it was expensive and difficult and we were forced to spend certain nights in certain places and go to embassies, police stations, consulates and banks day in and day out.
yikes. It was a long stream of bad luck, but amongst that we had a really amazing time in China ANYWAYS!!!! We saw just about everything we wanted to see! But I was so so very ready to leave China when the day came for my flight :)
Now I am safe and sound at home. I love everyone so much, and I'm very cold but relieved to be wearing winter fashion! yay!
Love you all, thanks for following our adventures up until this point! We will probably not be blogging very often from NS now- but once te adventures begin again (and certainly they will) we will resume our blogging!
xoxox until then
chort dee!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Reffaless
I miss Reffa SOOOO much. Man seriously, we went like 14 months of not being apart EVER hahahaha. Loving my holiday with Richard though, it's been a blast so far.
He arrived on November 4th, as expected and X, Ref and I were there to greet him at the airport. It was so exciting and so strange to see a best friend wander out after SO long of not seeing him! :) really great. Together the four of us had a nice time exploring bangkok a bit more, markets, food, cheap hostels, Koh Sanh rd. etc. Lots of great stuff.
Now it's me and Richard. We have spent MOST of our Thailand holiday trying to recover Richard's lost property... HAHAHAHA doohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! on our way to Patong we think his pouch was stolen from his bag. It had inside his: passport, credit cards, 500$ american... basically his identity. woops! So we had to go to all the embassies, get a new passport, order a card from canada to our hotel, get a new chinese visa, all in time for our flight this tuesday. YIKES it's been a bit stressful, but mostly we're trying to laugh it off and get it done so that we can get on with our trip.
We spent the past few days , very eventful days, in Chiang Mai, the north of Thailand. We've done some pretty amazing stuff so far! yesterday we went bareback elephant riding (woo!!), posing in pictures with tigers, a muay Thai boxing match, and a cabaret show. Today we went cable line zipping through the forest......... it was like flying!!! Amazing!! soon I will try to put pictures of these things on facebook. (and videos!)
Tonight we're taking a 10 hr bus back to Bangkok to pick up the Chinese Visa, and Tuesday morning we fly to Hong Kong.
That's where I'll touch base with you next I suspect! :)
xoxoxoxoxox
He arrived on November 4th, as expected and X, Ref and I were there to greet him at the airport. It was so exciting and so strange to see a best friend wander out after SO long of not seeing him! :) really great. Together the four of us had a nice time exploring bangkok a bit more, markets, food, cheap hostels, Koh Sanh rd. etc. Lots of great stuff.
Now it's me and Richard. We have spent MOST of our Thailand holiday trying to recover Richard's lost property... HAHAHAHA doohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! on our way to Patong we think his pouch was stolen from his bag. It had inside his: passport, credit cards, 500$ american... basically his identity. woops! So we had to go to all the embassies, get a new passport, order a card from canada to our hotel, get a new chinese visa, all in time for our flight this tuesday. YIKES it's been a bit stressful, but mostly we're trying to laugh it off and get it done so that we can get on with our trip.
We spent the past few days , very eventful days, in Chiang Mai, the north of Thailand. We've done some pretty amazing stuff so far! yesterday we went bareback elephant riding (woo!!), posing in pictures with tigers, a muay Thai boxing match, and a cabaret show. Today we went cable line zipping through the forest......... it was like flying!!! Amazing!! soon I will try to put pictures of these things on facebook. (and videos!)
Tonight we're taking a 10 hr bus back to Bangkok to pick up the Chinese Visa, and Tuesday morning we fly to Hong Kong.
That's where I'll touch base with you next I suspect! :)
xoxoxoxoxox
Friday, November 13, 2009
Next Chapter
We've had a lot of different experiences over the past 14 months. It's been a really amazing year filled with rich cultural experiences, crazy evenings with random events, beautiful as well as insane scenery, unbelievable traditions, educational lessons, and an extended understanding of internationalism and language. We've met hundreds of people, from our co workers, to our neighbors, to our little students, to our employers, to prestegious leaders, to religious symbols, to fellow backpackers. We've seen lots of south east Asian countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia and of course, Thailand. We grew closer, and we grew up. We got smarter and we got sillier. We managed to find "home" not only in NS with our families, but also within our hearts and each other in any location. We found comfort in strangeness. We smiled until our cheeks hurt. In a simple sentence, we fell in love with the world and the people in it, if we hadn't already been in love.
I will be going to China soon with my BFF Rishard, and Reffa will be making her way home here shortly. I will be there soon too. This chapter is coming to a close, as the two of us make our way home, the real Nova Scotian home, for a rest. To be with our families, to tell as many stories as the ears will listen to. To hug and kiss and give things that we've collected for you all. To meet the newest members of our family. To try on the perfect bridesmaid dress. To see the new homes of my best friends. To regenerate and decide what in the world will come next. To spend Christmas in the only place my heart wants to go for Christmas.
I'll let you know how China goes, and I'll see you soon.
xoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
ps. My prayers are with you Killens and Tuppers, and she will be in our hearts forever. <3
I will be going to China soon with my BFF Rishard, and Reffa will be making her way home here shortly. I will be there soon too. This chapter is coming to a close, as the two of us make our way home, the real Nova Scotian home, for a rest. To be with our families, to tell as many stories as the ears will listen to. To hug and kiss and give things that we've collected for you all. To meet the newest members of our family. To try on the perfect bridesmaid dress. To see the new homes of my best friends. To regenerate and decide what in the world will come next. To spend Christmas in the only place my heart wants to go for Christmas.
I'll let you know how China goes, and I'll see you soon.
xoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
ps. My prayers are with you Killens and Tuppers, and she will be in our hearts forever. <3
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Home again home again jiggity jig!
Me and Reffa just arrived safely (but tiredly) back into Surat thani. We had such a crazy wonderful trip together in Indonesia. I'm going to try to outline some of the things that happened while we were away, and if you would like to see the pictures (and some videos) which go along with the stories then please go check them out on facebook!!! =)
Bali
Kuta
So, as I had already posted, we started our trip off with a 10 hour bus to Bangkok and then a flight to Bali. We were expecting a crazy annoying touristy place jut like Patong, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that Bali is a very relaxed and fairly inexpensive place to stay. We easily found a hostel to stay in (called Rita's place) for only 10$ a night, so 5$ each and it was right on the beach! We just hung out there for a few nights just strolling around, laying on the beach, taking photographs and enjoying the sights (both the landscape as well as all the cute surfers!!!!). We also met a really cool group of friends who were travelling around Bali too and we joined forces and found Dreamland beach and had a photoshoot there as well. =)
Ubud
Only a 1.5 hour drive north of Kuta we came to an enchanting little place called Ubud. We had heard mixed reviews everywhere from it's a shithole, to it's a gorgeous garden, to it's rundown by tourists? As per usual, Reffa and I chose to make our own judgments and fell head over heels in love with the floral little place. It has just been touched by tourism enough to make it comfortable for the western traveler in Indonesia, but has still retained a significant amount of it's culture. We spent a full day walking with a lovely girl named Ruta (who we also shared our 5$ gorgeous cottage bungalo with) and found rice fields, locals, and a monkey forest where we actually got to feed and play with wild monkeys. It was really amazing. The scenery was amongst the best I've ever seen. Also, There was a huge festival going on while we were there so there were enormous celebrations around every corner! Because of this, there was a movie benig filmed - a new movie with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt!! we were in the same town as them for a few days!!! We didn't see them though.
Lovina
It was just as we were leaving Ubud that Reffa realized she left her phone behind DOHHHH but luckily we were able to contact out Bali friends to bring it up north to us!!! Thank goodness for connections! :) Lovina is a great little place with hardly any tourists. It's famous for it's dolphin watching. We got up at 5:30 am one morning and went out on some guys boat for 5 dollars (split between 4 people) and managed to see hundreds and hundreds of jumping dolphins against the sunrise. amazing. The guide told us that it is believed to be a key honeymooning spot for the dolphins! how sweet. They don't do anything to draw them there, they come on their own and seem to be attracted to the sides of the boats where they jump and entertain! :):) so enjoyable.
Java
Probolingo
Probolingo is the place you go after you get off of the ferry from Lovina. It was the ugliest, scariest, sketchiest place I've ever been. Me and Reffa held hands and tightly onto our purses throughout our stay here. If I can avoid it, I will never go there again.
Mt. Bromo
the one good thing that came from Probolingo was Mt. Bromo, a famous Volcano located only 2 hours away. We paid about $30 each for a hotel, 2 day transportation, a jeep up a valcano at 5am and a lift to another volcano afterwards and free breakfast. Not a bad deal! We, yet again, had to get up around 2am to make it to the volcano on time for sunrise, but boy was it worth it. It was one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen! But it was zero degrees... Usually our Canadian bones would be okay with that, but not when we were still working out our sunburns from snorkeling less than 24 hours ago in 40 degree hot weather!!!!!
Jogja
Is the name that they call the smallest province in Indonesia, Yogyakarta. It's a sweet little touristy place renouned for its wax art produced in 6 stages. We took a few pictures of them, and in our curiosity asked "What is your inspiration for such abstract paintings?" to which the men relpied "I eat the magic mushroom" ......... we left the store after that. hahahahaha There happened to be the best celebration of the year going on while we were there also, a muslim celebration. Reffa and I always luck out on stuff like that every time we go away!! :) so we got to see a great parade and lots of traditional costumes and religious influences of Indonesia. A great opportunity for us! :):)
Borobudhur Temple
This temple is easiest to reach from Jogja. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the WORLD!!! Which is pretty awesome. It was gorgeous! This was like, the 5th time this vacation that Reffa and I got up earlier than the sun to catch it in it's glory above the temple. It was a lot of fun and the pictures came out great! I read somewhere that it is one of the seven wonders of the world, but I have a feeling that it's just one of the ones that was tacked on somewhere along the way? I'm a little confused as to what those actually are... if anyone knows let me know??? Anyways the temple was great.
That about sums up our time in Jogja! as long as I include lots of MARKET shopping!! it was cheap cheap cheap!!
Jakarta
is insane. we were too afraid to take pics most of the time because people were eying us and our camera and our wallets... etc.. so it was really dirty and sketchy. we treated ourselves to a nice hotel so that we'd feel safe in the huge city, and didn't do anything other than spending a delightful (but somwhat scary) day in the largest zoo in the world! (or something like that?)
It was cool, but we saw a guy get clawed by a tiger YIKES there's a pic on facebook of his bloody arm. it was really scary.
now we're home safe and sound! miss you!
am now planning a travel trip to Laos and China! :):)
Bali
Kuta
So, as I had already posted, we started our trip off with a 10 hour bus to Bangkok and then a flight to Bali. We were expecting a crazy annoying touristy place jut like Patong, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that Bali is a very relaxed and fairly inexpensive place to stay. We easily found a hostel to stay in (called Rita's place) for only 10$ a night, so 5$ each and it was right on the beach! We just hung out there for a few nights just strolling around, laying on the beach, taking photographs and enjoying the sights (both the landscape as well as all the cute surfers!!!!). We also met a really cool group of friends who were travelling around Bali too and we joined forces and found Dreamland beach and had a photoshoot there as well. =)
Ubud
Only a 1.5 hour drive north of Kuta we came to an enchanting little place called Ubud. We had heard mixed reviews everywhere from it's a shithole, to it's a gorgeous garden, to it's rundown by tourists? As per usual, Reffa and I chose to make our own judgments and fell head over heels in love with the floral little place. It has just been touched by tourism enough to make it comfortable for the western traveler in Indonesia, but has still retained a significant amount of it's culture. We spent a full day walking with a lovely girl named Ruta (who we also shared our 5$ gorgeous cottage bungalo with) and found rice fields, locals, and a monkey forest where we actually got to feed and play with wild monkeys. It was really amazing. The scenery was amongst the best I've ever seen. Also, There was a huge festival going on while we were there so there were enormous celebrations around every corner! Because of this, there was a movie benig filmed - a new movie with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt!! we were in the same town as them for a few days!!! We didn't see them though.
Lovina
It was just as we were leaving Ubud that Reffa realized she left her phone behind DOHHHH but luckily we were able to contact out Bali friends to bring it up north to us!!! Thank goodness for connections! :) Lovina is a great little place with hardly any tourists. It's famous for it's dolphin watching. We got up at 5:30 am one morning and went out on some guys boat for 5 dollars (split between 4 people) and managed to see hundreds and hundreds of jumping dolphins against the sunrise. amazing. The guide told us that it is believed to be a key honeymooning spot for the dolphins! how sweet. They don't do anything to draw them there, they come on their own and seem to be attracted to the sides of the boats where they jump and entertain! :):) so enjoyable.
Java
Probolingo
Probolingo is the place you go after you get off of the ferry from Lovina. It was the ugliest, scariest, sketchiest place I've ever been. Me and Reffa held hands and tightly onto our purses throughout our stay here. If I can avoid it, I will never go there again.
Mt. Bromo
the one good thing that came from Probolingo was Mt. Bromo, a famous Volcano located only 2 hours away. We paid about $30 each for a hotel, 2 day transportation, a jeep up a valcano at 5am and a lift to another volcano afterwards and free breakfast. Not a bad deal! We, yet again, had to get up around 2am to make it to the volcano on time for sunrise, but boy was it worth it. It was one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen! But it was zero degrees... Usually our Canadian bones would be okay with that, but not when we were still working out our sunburns from snorkeling less than 24 hours ago in 40 degree hot weather!!!!!
Jogja
Is the name that they call the smallest province in Indonesia, Yogyakarta. It's a sweet little touristy place renouned for its wax art produced in 6 stages. We took a few pictures of them, and in our curiosity asked "What is your inspiration for such abstract paintings?" to which the men relpied "I eat the magic mushroom" ......... we left the store after that. hahahahaha There happened to be the best celebration of the year going on while we were there also, a muslim celebration. Reffa and I always luck out on stuff like that every time we go away!! :) so we got to see a great parade and lots of traditional costumes and religious influences of Indonesia. A great opportunity for us! :):)
Borobudhur Temple
This temple is easiest to reach from Jogja. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the WORLD!!! Which is pretty awesome. It was gorgeous! This was like, the 5th time this vacation that Reffa and I got up earlier than the sun to catch it in it's glory above the temple. It was a lot of fun and the pictures came out great! I read somewhere that it is one of the seven wonders of the world, but I have a feeling that it's just one of the ones that was tacked on somewhere along the way? I'm a little confused as to what those actually are... if anyone knows let me know??? Anyways the temple was great.
That about sums up our time in Jogja! as long as I include lots of MARKET shopping!! it was cheap cheap cheap!!
Jakarta
is insane. we were too afraid to take pics most of the time because people were eying us and our camera and our wallets... etc.. so it was really dirty and sketchy. we treated ourselves to a nice hotel so that we'd feel safe in the huge city, and didn't do anything other than spending a delightful (but somwhat scary) day in the largest zoo in the world! (or something like that?)
It was cool, but we saw a guy get clawed by a tiger YIKES there's a pic on facebook of his bloody arm. it was really scary.
now we're home safe and sound! miss you!
am now planning a travel trip to Laos and China! :):)
Friday, October 9, 2009
we <3 bali
we are now in Bali, Indonesia having the time of our lives.
We just spent a few days in Kuta, the craziest most touristy place in Bali, and it was wicked. great beaches, wicked shopping, amazing sunny weather every day so far! yay!
today we're moving on to a place called Ubud. I guess there's lots of traditional dancing, cool lakes, and maybe a volcano to climb.
then we're going to the gili islands- they are 3 cute islands with no power, no vehicles. people get around by horse there. they want to reserve it so they make a point of not bringing in any technology. we're going to spend anight there.
after that we'll travel our way over the north of bali to a place aclled lovina. it's known for DOLPHINS!!! yay!! we love dolphins. we might swim with them- depending on how much it costs.
after that we take a ferry across to yogyakarta- the smallest province in indo. I guess one of the seven wonders of the world is there? I still have to solidify my research on that. IT's a big beautiful temple of some sort anyways!
after that we go to jakarta, and then fly back home on the 21st.
contact reffa if you want our phone number for indonesia to call us.
xoxoxox!! all is well in Indonesia!!!!
We just spent a few days in Kuta, the craziest most touristy place in Bali, and it was wicked. great beaches, wicked shopping, amazing sunny weather every day so far! yay!
today we're moving on to a place called Ubud. I guess there's lots of traditional dancing, cool lakes, and maybe a volcano to climb.
then we're going to the gili islands- they are 3 cute islands with no power, no vehicles. people get around by horse there. they want to reserve it so they make a point of not bringing in any technology. we're going to spend anight there.
after that we'll travel our way over the north of bali to a place aclled lovina. it's known for DOLPHINS!!! yay!! we love dolphins. we might swim with them- depending on how much it costs.
after that we take a ferry across to yogyakarta- the smallest province in indo. I guess one of the seven wonders of the world is there? I still have to solidify my research on that. IT's a big beautiful temple of some sort anyways!
after that we go to jakarta, and then fly back home on the 21st.
contact reffa if you want our phone number for indonesia to call us.
xoxoxox!! all is well in Indonesia!!!!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Gone goin gone
We're going on yet another spectacular vacation starting TOMORROW!!
Yikes, Ref and I aren't quite ready for it because it feels a bit rushed after just finishing the school semester, but luckily we don't have any serious plans to adhere to so we are free to just float in the waves of Bali and sun bathe on the gorgeous untouched (or tourist trampled) beaches. whichever we find first.
yes, that's right, we are giong to Bali, Indonesia. Tomorrow we go to Bangkok, because unfortunately no matter where in the world you want to go from Thailand you pretty much have to go to either Malaysia or Bangkok. We're taking the 10 hour bus (sounds long, but it's a piece of cake now !) up tomrorow. Then we're sleeping in thea irport a few hours and catching an early flight to Bali. We'll be there mid morning on October 8th. As I mentioned before, we don't have any real solid plans, we'er going to get there and see what presents itself. We know our initial destination and that's mainly what matters. The only other commitment we have over there, is somehow making our way to Jakarta (about 24 hr busride/ferry) because we booked a flight FROM Jakarta back to Bangkok on the 21st. We should be back in Surat arounddddd the 22nd?
thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn RICHARD IS COMING!!!!!! =) =) =)
yay
ps. OH MY GOD Maggie and Thomas had their baby. She's gorgeous. Most of you reading this already know that, but still , YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to meet litle Louise Allison Vaughn. My first Neice-Cousin. You can call me Aunt Jesse. =)
Congrats you two lovebirds. I'm so happy for you.
xoxoxoxoxox
Yikes, Ref and I aren't quite ready for it because it feels a bit rushed after just finishing the school semester, but luckily we don't have any serious plans to adhere to so we are free to just float in the waves of Bali and sun bathe on the gorgeous untouched (or tourist trampled) beaches. whichever we find first.
yes, that's right, we are giong to Bali, Indonesia. Tomorrow we go to Bangkok, because unfortunately no matter where in the world you want to go from Thailand you pretty much have to go to either Malaysia or Bangkok. We're taking the 10 hour bus (sounds long, but it's a piece of cake now !) up tomrorow. Then we're sleeping in thea irport a few hours and catching an early flight to Bali. We'll be there mid morning on October 8th. As I mentioned before, we don't have any real solid plans, we'er going to get there and see what presents itself. We know our initial destination and that's mainly what matters. The only other commitment we have over there, is somehow making our way to Jakarta (about 24 hr busride/ferry) because we booked a flight FROM Jakarta back to Bangkok on the 21st. We should be back in Surat arounddddd the 22nd?
thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn RICHARD IS COMING!!!!!! =) =) =)
yay
ps. OH MY GOD Maggie and Thomas had their baby. She's gorgeous. Most of you reading this already know that, but still , YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to meet litle Louise Allison Vaughn. My first Neice-Cousin. You can call me Aunt Jesse. =)
Congrats you two lovebirds. I'm so happy for you.
xoxoxoxoxox
Friday, October 2, 2009
Butterflies
There are butterflies in my tummy. The awesome tickley ones that are just letting you know that you're getting ready for something really amazing and really exciting. The ones that can predict an adventure. The ones who know you're following your heart. Those butterflies are the most beautiful and colourful, because they bring a hapiness and energy to your day-to-day life that is hard to acquire anywhere else.
When you are bored, they flutter around in sync with the dancing thoughts of possibility- just to remind you that you have something else to look forward to and have no need to feel bored. While your mind day dreams, your butterflies play and they lead you to the most desirable things!!
What do these next few months hold for me? Take me there, butterflies - I trust you!
When you are bored, they flutter around in sync with the dancing thoughts of possibility- just to remind you that you have something else to look forward to and have no need to feel bored. While your mind day dreams, your butterflies play and they lead you to the most desirable things!!
What do these next few months hold for me? Take me there, butterflies - I trust you!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Phuket trip #4
We came back to visit our Phuket friends Lo, Greg and Daryl! It's Daryl's birthday on Monday so we were having a celebration! Last night we went to a really wicked crazy party on Karon beach called Roy Fest. There were thousands of people and a huge stage surrounded by the craziest most delicious street food you'll ever see. Loud DJ R&B English and Thai alike. It was phenomenal! Dancing and drinking cheap beers (draft beer $1). Here is the link for it's description and advertisement. Pictures of the crowd and a few videos (or poor quality) will be posted shortly.
http://www.ubradio.net/events/royfest-karon-beach-phuket-royfest-karon-beach-phuket-946
http://phuketnews.phuketindex.com/art-entertainment/roy-fest-phuket-music-festival-will-gatherartists-from-around-the-world-170221.html
We spent Saturday morning kayaking and snorkeling in terquoise water with coral reefs below us. It was really windy so it was actually kindof difficult to see but it was fun and beautiful nonetheless.
Now it's Sunday, so we're packing up our little matching bookbags to head home again for one last week of teaching for the semester. One week!! yay can't wait for vacation !! (as if every day isn't a bit of a vacation...)
We booked our tickets. October 8th is the day that we leave for Indonesia, and arrive in Bali. Our ticket back to Bangkok is on October 21st, but we're flying from Jakarta. We like to travel the hard cheap way, so we now have the obstacle of trying to get from one place to another. I guess it's a bit of a treacherous bus/ferry/bus trip. We'll see!!! We are getting very very excited for cheap shopping, swimming in the sea every day, and learning a bit about Indonesian culture.
School takes back in on November 2nd (or thereabouts?) so we'll have a bit more time to kill once we return and wind down. We're considering spending a bit of time on Koh Phangan, but that's just a big maybe. I am pretty sure that I won't be returning to teach at Tuongwit when the semester takes back in. I think I am going to go travelling again! But Reffa wishes to continue teaching. Depends on if Rishard gets his buns over here for some country hopping or not I guess !
I'll be home for Christmas.
http://www.ubradio.net/events/royfest-karon-beach-phuket-royfest-karon-beach-phuket-946
http://phuketnews.phuketindex.com/art-entertainment/roy-fest-phuket-music-festival-will-gatherartists-from-around-the-world-170221.html
We spent Saturday morning kayaking and snorkeling in terquoise water with coral reefs below us. It was really windy so it was actually kindof difficult to see but it was fun and beautiful nonetheless.
Now it's Sunday, so we're packing up our little matching bookbags to head home again for one last week of teaching for the semester. One week!! yay can't wait for vacation !! (as if every day isn't a bit of a vacation...)
We booked our tickets. October 8th is the day that we leave for Indonesia, and arrive in Bali. Our ticket back to Bangkok is on October 21st, but we're flying from Jakarta. We like to travel the hard cheap way, so we now have the obstacle of trying to get from one place to another. I guess it's a bit of a treacherous bus/ferry/bus trip. We'll see!!! We are getting very very excited for cheap shopping, swimming in the sea every day, and learning a bit about Indonesian culture.
School takes back in on November 2nd (or thereabouts?) so we'll have a bit more time to kill once we return and wind down. We're considering spending a bit of time on Koh Phangan, but that's just a big maybe. I am pretty sure that I won't be returning to teach at Tuongwit when the semester takes back in. I think I am going to go travelling again! But Reffa wishes to continue teaching. Depends on if Rishard gets his buns over here for some country hopping or not I guess !
I'll be home for Christmas.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Bai Glap
Bai-Glap = went and came back already. Laos was really cool, but we only went to Vientienne, the capital city which is the nearest city to Thailand. It was a 24 hour busride.... basically non-stop-- YIKes we were sooo tired. But we managed to see just about everything interesting in the city that was within walking distance (we walked a LOT). We would reallyl ike to explore more of Laos. Possibly in October at some point? Not sure yet, but it was great fun!
We met two guys as soon as we were in Laos who asked us if we'd join them for dinner and they helped us find the Thai embassy (to do our visa's) and they helped us talk to the driver and lower our price and stuff !! they were really sweet guys and helped us learn a bit about Laos and all they wanted from us was to practice their English a little bit.
We successfully got our woking visas- legal in Thailand as teachers for 3 more months now!!! Only one month left of school though. Wonder what October will hold?
love love love, Laos pictures to follow on facebook this week.
We met two guys as soon as we were in Laos who asked us if we'd join them for dinner and they helped us find the Thai embassy (to do our visa's) and they helped us talk to the driver and lower our price and stuff !! they were really sweet guys and helped us learn a bit about Laos and all they wanted from us was to practice their English a little bit.
We successfully got our woking visas- legal in Thailand as teachers for 3 more months now!!! Only one month left of school though. Wonder what October will hold?
love love love, Laos pictures to follow on facebook this week.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Laos!
September 4th Reffa and I are venturing into yet another South Eastern Country and we are uber excited about it! Laos is our destination for a total of 5 or 6 days. Reason: we have to do our visa again and we've already been to Malaysia 3 times! It's going to be a little more expensive, but with the help of the Thailand-wide free train promotion right now we might be able to get by alright! We hear the tubing's a blast and the beer's delicious.
Another exciting part of this country is that the language is similar to Thai, so we might even be able to communicate a bit! We heard from a few backpacking friends in passing that if you can speak thai they can fully understand you and love conversing. They think it's great when a white person starts sputtering out an Asian language!
We don't even have to miss any school, because the students will be going through a series of tests during those few days. lovely! =) Tuong Whit, our school, has been very busy lately. Lots of testing, lots of paperwork, lots of drama (as per usual!!) but so far so good! I'm very happy to be back teaching and not stuck at home with appendicitis or burns. !!!!!!! Yay for working! Anuban (ages 3-5, preschool basically) was hard for me for a little while because I wasn't sure how to go about teaching them and I had so many students that they were all a bunch of little aliens to me but now me and the students have a real connection- they love me, and I love them. And they love me for lovin them, and I love them for lovin me and we loooovvveeee each other- (anyone catch that?) No really. They are so adorable. One of these coming weeks I'm going to have a photo shoot with all my little Thai babies so you can see them all!!!! =) =) =)
Love life! =)
xoxoxox
Another exciting part of this country is that the language is similar to Thai, so we might even be able to communicate a bit! We heard from a few backpacking friends in passing that if you can speak thai they can fully understand you and love conversing. They think it's great when a white person starts sputtering out an Asian language!
We don't even have to miss any school, because the students will be going through a series of tests during those few days. lovely! =) Tuong Whit, our school, has been very busy lately. Lots of testing, lots of paperwork, lots of drama (as per usual!!) but so far so good! I'm very happy to be back teaching and not stuck at home with appendicitis or burns. !!!!!!! Yay for working! Anuban (ages 3-5, preschool basically) was hard for me for a little while because I wasn't sure how to go about teaching them and I had so many students that they were all a bunch of little aliens to me but now me and the students have a real connection- they love me, and I love them. And they love me for lovin them, and I love them for lovin me and we loooovvveeee each other- (anyone catch that?) No really. They are so adorable. One of these coming weeks I'm going to have a photo shoot with all my little Thai babies so you can see them all!!!! =) =) =)
Love life! =)
xoxoxox
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The last of them
Jessica's phone
" I went to Bangkok. Yesterday evening at EAU. Last night and half day today morning time about 'student exchange program Japan and Thailand second year' with my older boss from Japan and owner EAU Thailand, this meaning i already called my friend to replace me for translate but he just call to cancel yesterday because his mama very sick and die now. I will reach surat today afternoon, pls call Richard to help you in governments office today. I feel very sorry to cancel our appointment, lucky for you today."
- Message Jessica got from our employer one hour before meeting. who Jessica had asked one month ago to come to her meeting with the clinic to help with translations.
"Tuong wit just called me will transfer all salary on next week"
-Received August 2nd, should have already been paid 3 days ago.
" I went to Bangkok. Yesterday evening at EAU. Last night and half day today morning time about 'student exchange program Japan and Thailand second year' with my older boss from Japan and owner EAU Thailand, this meaning i already called my friend to replace me for translate but he just call to cancel yesterday because his mama very sick and die now. I will reach surat today afternoon, pls call Richard to help you in governments office today. I feel very sorry to cancel our appointment, lucky for you today."
- Message Jessica got from our employer one hour before meeting. who Jessica had asked one month ago to come to her meeting with the clinic to help with translations.
"Tuong wit just called me will transfer all salary on next week"
-Received August 2nd, should have already been paid 3 days ago.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Getting to and from school.
Ever since the motorbike got stolen, poor X has been driving us back and fourth everyday. And its really funny because we can't sit side on with 3 people on his bike so X drives and i sit in front of him and Jessica behind, both of us wearing skirts and i'm crouched over in the front with my feet up on the neck of the bike holding my skirt from blowing around and X is trying to steady the bike, while looking past me and my blowing hair trying to avoid people cutting him off, and Jessica's in the back with her legs dangling off the edge holding both of our purses and a pile of books and telling X when theres vehicles coming cause i'm also blocking his mirror.
its really hard to explain but its just a funny scene. Expecially when we are dressed up nice.
its really hard to explain but its just a funny scene. Expecially when we are dressed up nice.
I'd just like to add....
I've met Dtoi's mom, and shes everything like Jessica explained. No exaggerations.....nope.
and Dtoi's stepfather (the police officer) who is really funny too.
and Dtoi's stepfather (the police officer) who is really funny too.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Happy Birthday to me!
Today was my first thai-style birthday. It was a lot of fun!
I had a great sleep in giant silky sheets from Italy... delish. followed by a great (slash so sad) movie at Tesco Lotus with Ex and Ref. Followed by an evening at a cute little riverside restaurant with live music. I wish Dtoy could've been there too- but me and Reffa had a fun night with Dtoy's family. They gave me a very expensive house for me and Dtoy to live in.
I think I have to re-give the whole "foreigners need time to settle in a relationship" speech. LOLOLOLOLOL
Don't panic people at home- this is normal for Thai. Just not normal for us?! hahahahaahahahaha
I had a great sleep in giant silky sheets from Italy... delish. followed by a great (slash so sad) movie at Tesco Lotus with Ex and Ref. Followed by an evening at a cute little riverside restaurant with live music. I wish Dtoy could've been there too- but me and Reffa had a fun night with Dtoy's family. They gave me a very expensive house for me and Dtoy to live in.
I think I have to re-give the whole "foreigners need time to settle in a relationship" speech. LOLOLOLOLOL
Don't panic people at home- this is normal for Thai. Just not normal for us?! hahahahaahahahaha
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
sawatdeewanmere
Happy mother's day in Thailand!!! I'm going to tell you about my hilarious Mother's Day with my boyfriend's mother. (His name is Toy, her name to me is Mother of Toy.) He wasn't there because he's currently fighting in the South with the army.
*The following has been translated from complete Thai to English, because she speaks NO english.
So on Monday we had talked on the phone about meeting up together on Wednesday (today of course) in the morning since school is closed and and I had the day off. So I set my alarm for 7:00am (even though we hadn't discussed a time) because I knew she was an early riser and I had to make sure I got to the flower store first thing in the morning. You have to buy things like that the day OF the holiday, and it's a particular flower called a "dogmalie" that you have to give your mother, or boyfriend's mother as it were.
So I was planning to get up at 7:00 and walk up the road, get a flower, cmoe home, get dressed up niec for my mystery day with the mystery mother. She calls at 6:45.
DOH! I clear my throat and say good morning in Thai and she says " good morning, soon will come pick up you" then I said, "can you wait until I shower? I didn't think we would go this early," and she said "you don't have to shower, we will shower together." so I hang up the phone, very very confused and send Reffa to the store (poor reffa) while I get ready crazy fast. I put make up and stuff on, trying to look as best I cuold without a shower at 6:45am. So she arrives at the house just before 7, and Reffa still isn't back with the flower DOH! So I stall a little bit trying to get ready, sweating, and unprepared for this "sacred" day in Thailand with mother.
Reffa comes walking slowly up the street, and they ask me, isn't that your sister? (*everyone thinks we're sisters becuase we didn't use to know the word for cousin in thai). I say, yes, it is. And I'm forced to admit that I sent Ref to buy my presents to give her DOH! So she smiles and says "Mai pen rai." Then she says "Good morning Jessica you look more fat now then you did last time, maybe you can wear one of my shirts today." and I say "Thank you Mother of Toy, you have a kind heart, Happy Mother's Day" and She says "Thank you daughter" and then my morning alarm goes off to wake me up at 7am. Off to a great start! hahaha!!!
So we go driving to a place called nam rohn, which translates to "Hot Water"- basicaly hot springs. Naturally steaming hot water in big nice pools. it's kinda awesome actually! So there were lots of people there and we went over and then I realized, shit, they want me to showr in that water, in my clothes (there's no such thing as wearing a bathing suit for thai people, they wear their clothes in the water, jeans, long sleeves, anything.) So I was like "Mother of Toy, I don't have a change of clothes what should I do?" and she was like "dont' worry daughter, I have many clothes with me, you can wear one of those" so I change in the parking lot and we go have an "ab nam" (shower) in the hot springs with a lot of other people fully clothed. It was actually really nice with the cool morning air and hot hot water. It was interesting. Here's how our conversation went while we were in the hot springs ... (J for me, M for her)
M- daughter, do you like the hot water?
J- yes it's nice
M- come before or not?
J- Yes come before
M- ow. do you like it?
J- Yes I like it again.
M- Do you miss my son?
J- Yes I miss Dtoy.
M- Did you gain weight?
J- No I didn't.
M- I think you'll be more beautiful if you lose 5 kilograms.
J- I will ty to lose 5 kilgrams.
M- Good idea. I will love you either way, but I will think you are more beautiful if you are thinner. I wish I was thinner. Am I beautiful daughter?
J- Yes Mother of Toy, you are beautiful.
M- Do you like my hair?
J- Yes I like your hair.
M- Are you hungry for rice or not yet?
J- Not yet, Thank you. Are you hungry for rice or not yet?
M- Not yet.
J- Your bracelettes are nice, who give you?
M- I bought them myself. Here I give one to daughter, because I love daughter.
J- Thank you very much.
M- Do you like it?
J-Yes I do.
M- Your wrists are fatter than mine.
J- Yes I know, but that's okay I am taller than you too.
M- Yes that's true. You are a nice height.
J- Thank you Mother of Toy.
M- Your welcome daughter. have you had enough hot water yet?
J- Yes I have, or I can stay. I am okay either way.
M- I have had enough already, let's go eat rice together.
J- Okay let's go.
M- Buty ou need to change, let's go home and I will give you another shirt.
J- You already gave me a shirt which is wet, so now I can put my own clothes back on.
M- I think you would look better in one of my shirts. I want to give you many things to take care of you.
J- Okay, thank you. (cannot refuse a gift from someone higher than you, cannot argue with someone higher than you)
M- Go?
J- Go.
So we get in the car and she calls Toy.
M- Hello Son!
T- Hello mother. happy day of mothers.
M- Thank you son. how are you?
T- good yes. how are you and jessica doing?
M-we are havnig a lot of fun. She is lovely so so lovely. I love her.
T- Good I love her too. But she is a foreigner so she's not allowed to love me yet.
M- Yes she told me already, you can wait for her to love you son.
T- Yes I can wait forever. (DOH.... TOO SERIOUS...!! but that's how all thai relationships go, as I'm finding out. they decide at first sighti f they love you or not.)
so then they chit chat a bit more about me, and how lovely I am and about our relationship together and what we've done already (before 9am...) and then we go to their house and I get peer pressured into having another shower for teh day. 2, before 10 am. So after I shower she gives me some of her tacki tacki clothes. She givesm e a brigth multi pink shaded long frilly skirt, with a silk giant baggy tshirt covered in shells, clicky things and beads. I tell her I think maybe this shirt will be too hot and maybe I could wear my own shirt and she says you can ify ou want but I think if you wear mine it will be nicer. daughter, if you don'tl iek that one, try this one! so I try another shirt on and it's a white plain tshirt, baggy, with a big HOT PINK bow accross the chest. I decide that it probably won't getm uch better than that and I smile and get in the car to go visit Grandmother of Toy. She says I look very very beautiful and she's proud that I'm her daughter (lol?)
So we drive mostly in silence for an hour and a half (her boyrfiend is there too- step father of Toy, I don't have to call him dad, I can call him "older person than me" = Pee) Occasionally she asks me how much something costs in Canada, or if I like smoething, or if I'm hungry for rice or not yet and says I'm a very lovely girl does my mother miss me, and why don't I want to go back to Canada yet. I tell her that actually I do want to go, but I love Thailand also. She asks me when I go if I will stay there or return, because my "darling" (one fo the only words she knows in Engilsh) is in Thailand. I tell her I'm not sure. (because I'm not. )
We arrive in her hometown and go to visit everyone, cousins, children, grandmothers, aunts, sisters etc etc friends. They basically just wanted to show off that their family has a foreigner who likes them. They spend all day talking about me, asking all the common questions ;
common questions include: what is she doing in Thailand? Why does she like Toy, he has dark skin? (they are sooo racist against dark skin) - how old is she? Where are her parents? What school does she teach at? When will they get married? Why is she fat and tall? Why does she have blonde hair? Why does she have blue eyes? Where did she buy her purse? What does she like to eat? Is she hungry for rice or not yet? Does she have any olders or youngers (*equivilent to our " brothers and sisters" but gender doesn't matter here, only age) ? Can she speak/understand Thai? Where does shel ive? Can she drive? ETC ETC ETC ETC they never stop. Very very curious.
Mother of Toy took a break from the stress of being with a foreigner who draws all people's attention, and her sister took me out for a while to meet her boyfriend at the police station. When we got there the policeman stared at me weird for 10 minutes and then talked to me and gave me delicious exotic fruit which I only know the Thai name for. We talked abouta ll of the common questions that I've mentioned, and after 10 more minutes I told him he had a nice face and he said I must have very good eyes. After that he stopped looking at me weird and started looking at me even weirder and when Mother of Toy's sister turned around he invited me to come back later. I declined politely and left with my exotic fruits and returned to Mother of Toy.
So after they show me off to everyone we went home to eat rice and fruit because it is rice eating time. after we eat rice, it's too hot to be awake so we take a nap on the floor together. When we wake up we take turns taking a shower and then go do more visits to everyone and get asked all the same questions again. Everyone gives me sniff kisses (a really gentle kiss that the Thai's do, but instead of using theirl ips to kiss they sniff you jut a little bit to make sure you are clean tidy and respectful. if you stink it shows you don't care about their presence or you are very comfortable in their presence so stinking could be a good or a bad thing) and they try to speak English to me, gives me bags of fruit and clothes to show that they want to take care of me, give me their phone numbers and then we leave. Then it is time to come home and I fall asleep in the car and get dropped off outside my home. Mother of Toy comments again that my house is nice but it's not as comfortable as hers because I don't have air conditioning and if I want I acn live with her anytime. I tell her my contracti s not up and that I must keep my own house. She says okay but when the contract is up please live with her. I smile and say happy mother's day, thank you for the lovely day.
And go meet Reffa, who may or may not also ahve appendicitis?!
What a day.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Jone
Jone is the Thai word for "theif."
Yesterday when I left the restaurant to go home, I walked out and looked around and said "guyyysss, where's the bike!?" because it is common practice for us to hide it on each other to freak one another out. Everyone came running out of the restaurant, and that's the moment I realized that there actually was no motorbike in sight. Sometime within the hour that we were at the restaurant someone left with our motorbike, and no one saw. They didn't have the key (unneccessary- they use one bike to push the other..) . Everyone was already in bed. The bike was only about 30 feet from where we were but it was in a shadow. Our Black and blue Honda Click 2007 has been stolen, at 10:30pm last night.
For the first time ever we parked it across the road.. why? because we had a stalker today and didn't want them knowing we were at the restaurant. We are fairly sure that the stalker is unrelated to the theivery. having stalkers is normal now. We called the police, who came but said there was pretty much nothing we could do. They took our liscence plate (pretty much irrelevant because it takes 5 seconds to remove it) but when they asked for our green ownership book we had to say that we didn't have it, because we bought it from Scott who hadn't yet sorted it out.
He said 0% chance that we will find it so keep our hopes down but that they would keep an eye out for the bike regardless. the stickers are removable. every Road in Thailand has like 4 motorbike repair shops, where you can paint/change colours- you can alter a bike so much within 3 hours that it'll look like a different brand. Pretty much everyone has a key making machine. There goes our vehicle! Aparently it's common.
We were really upset and spent a little while grieving last night... and being just devastated in general, but then it occurred to both of us that everyone we love is okay right now in the whole world, Thailand and Canada alike. The missing bike is only an inconvenience financially and transportation wise, but otherwise we are actually really thankful that whoever this person was didn't ncome into the restaurant and threaten us, or anything like that. It could have been a lot worse I guess is the point, so today we are smiling, a sad sort of disappointed slash thankful smile. It's only $650.
Dad said I should add it on to my Rashedevee Clinic armpit bill. Maybe I can think of a creative way to blame it on them? hahaha
okay. Thailand's still on my good side, but I'm growing tired of being beat up by it. armpits.. appendix.. motorbike.. no salary... UGH!
Yesterday when I left the restaurant to go home, I walked out and looked around and said "guyyysss, where's the bike!?" because it is common practice for us to hide it on each other to freak one another out. Everyone came running out of the restaurant, and that's the moment I realized that there actually was no motorbike in sight. Sometime within the hour that we were at the restaurant someone left with our motorbike, and no one saw. They didn't have the key (unneccessary- they use one bike to push the other..) . Everyone was already in bed. The bike was only about 30 feet from where we were but it was in a shadow. Our Black and blue Honda Click 2007 has been stolen, at 10:30pm last night.
For the first time ever we parked it across the road.. why? because we had a stalker today and didn't want them knowing we were at the restaurant. We are fairly sure that the stalker is unrelated to the theivery. having stalkers is normal now. We called the police, who came but said there was pretty much nothing we could do. They took our liscence plate (pretty much irrelevant because it takes 5 seconds to remove it) but when they asked for our green ownership book we had to say that we didn't have it, because we bought it from Scott who hadn't yet sorted it out.
He said 0% chance that we will find it so keep our hopes down but that they would keep an eye out for the bike regardless. the stickers are removable. every Road in Thailand has like 4 motorbike repair shops, where you can paint/change colours- you can alter a bike so much within 3 hours that it'll look like a different brand. Pretty much everyone has a key making machine. There goes our vehicle! Aparently it's common.
We were really upset and spent a little while grieving last night... and being just devastated in general, but then it occurred to both of us that everyone we love is okay right now in the whole world, Thailand and Canada alike. The missing bike is only an inconvenience financially and transportation wise, but otherwise we are actually really thankful that whoever this person was didn't ncome into the restaurant and threaten us, or anything like that. It could have been a lot worse I guess is the point, so today we are smiling, a sad sort of disappointed slash thankful smile. It's only $650.
Dad said I should add it on to my Rashedevee Clinic armpit bill. Maybe I can think of a creative way to blame it on them? hahaha
okay. Thailand's still on my good side, but I'm growing tired of being beat up by it. armpits.. appendix.. motorbike.. no salary... UGH!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
52/53
52. Random high school girls being driven by their parents to your house looking to speak with you and having to spend the next hour offering water/fresh fruits to strangers who are asking if they can interview you because you are a foreigner. ahem. What is your name? where you come from? what school you go to? (meaning in the past...)
53. Going out to dinner with your boyfriend's mother and her telling the entire restaurant that you are her new daughter (even though it's the second time you met her, and you've only been dating her son for 2 weeks). Later on in the night she talks about how you and her son will manage the family business, and how beautiful our children's eyes will be.
Talk about moving too fast..
53. Going out to dinner with your boyfriend's mother and her telling the entire restaurant that you are her new daughter (even though it's the second time you met her, and you've only been dating her son for 2 weeks). Later on in the night she talks about how you and her son will manage the family business, and how beautiful our children's eyes will be.
Talk about moving too fast..
Friday, July 24, 2009
Funny Moments
These are some funny things that we've seen/experience that we've written down so we didn't forget: [Believe them or not]
1) It all started with the Bangkok airport, we weren't sure where customs was and when we found it we weren't sure which doorway to go through. We asked a man where we are supposed to go and he asked "do you have anything to declare?" and we were like "umm i don't think so?" and he waved us through the "nothing to declare" door with a big smile on his face.
2)Paying 20 Baht for a tuktuk to drive us all over Bangkok for an entire day, and all we had to do was walk into jewlery and tailor shops and act interested in their products every once in a while so he would get a gas voucher from the shops.
3) Going to see the food market, and seeing all different displays of meats covered in flies with a woman sitting behind it with a stick and a plastic bag tied to the end- shooing them away but actually only shooing away 1/20 of them.
4)Walking into a tailor shop, and having people running up to you with measuring tape, measuring you and holding up fabric colors against your skin, cutting the fabric already, and telling you what you want to buy.
5) Random guys in the street saying "I love you, do you love me?"
6) Walking on the beach and a woman coming up to you, brushing the sand off your feet and poking at your toenails trying to give you a pedicure.
7) Tuktuk from Patong to Puket Town (20 min drive).............400฿
Private Mini-Bus from Suratthani to Phuket Town (4.5 hr drive)...........150฿
Private Mini-Bus from Malaysia to SuratThani (over a day)..............400฿
8) Jessica crashing a motorbike within 5 minutes of having it in her posession [but she TRIED to ask for lessons and he told her its easy and she doesn't need to learn]
9)"Special Finish" Ladyboy Massages. [leave that one to the imagination]
10)Walking down the road and having monkeys, iguanas and hawks put on your shoulder/arm while youa re not paying attention and then trying to charge you money.
11) Buying amoxicillin over the counter, no prescription needed - 2$
12) Someone trying to sell their husband to you for 20,000฿ (about 800$ CAD)
13) Meeting a drunk Australian guy who got a tattoo that took up his entire chest, completely shaded and completed in one night (including the breaks he took to walk back and fourth to the bar to have drinks with the tattoo artist) [i thought you weren't allowed to have ANY alcohol in your system?]
14) A whole family on a motorbike (3 kids)
....new record....2 kids, 2 infants, mother and father.
15) Man with no shoes, shirt or helmet on a motorbike with 3 live chickens.
16) Man with basket of laundry and 2 bird cages (with birds inside) on a motorbike.
17) Coming home to our neighbour weeding our garden and a man cutting down our tree [because it's a bad luck tree?] Then being slapped by our neighbour and told to thank him.
18) Meeting random Thai people and them knowing your name, the street you live on, and the fact that you are a vegetarian.
19) Funny night noises: Geckos, Dogs, Cows, Autistic Boy howling, carpenter singing and working.
20) 9 Year old boy driving his motorbike to go get a slushie and driving back one handed with the slushie in hand, when the shop is houses away from where he is.
21) Random people 9that you've never given your phone number to) calling you to practise speaking English.
22) Offering your phone number to co-workers or new friends and them pointing to their phone and saying "Oh.... have already"
23) Getting a text at 12:30a.m. [see SMS blog] for instructions on your new job that you start at 9:00am the next morning and then showing up to the job and being stood up.
24) Tuktuk with 14 people in the back and 4 sharing the front seat.
25) walking in the park and having teenagers come up to you askin o have their picture taken with you.
26) A sweater that has Bob Marley/Rasta colors, a weed leaf, and the playboy bunny on it and kids wearing it overtop of their school uniform on rainy days to private school. [And every student has the sweater which lead Jessica to believe for the longest time that it was a school uniform sweater]
27) Being tricked into going or interviews.
28) Mail showing up on a motorbike and having him stick it in your fence (even if its raining)
29) A Thai guy saying "Take your hat off, because you will lose your hair and a ghost will stay with you"
30) Airplane stopping on runway because they forgot someone and 2 men wheeled a ladder up to the airplane and they climbed in and the plane kept going.
31) Being told the day before (and sometimes if you're unlucky...the day of) that you have the day off because its a national holiday.
32) Getting an SMS saying that you have people expecting you to be somewhere in 30 minutes.[see SMS blog]
33)Sun bathing in the corner of the driveway because its the only place you can find any sun out of view of staring neighbours.
34) Needing our official documents to go to Malaysia and spending 2 full days searching for the lady with them only to find out at 9:30p.m. the night before we leave that in fact "the paperwork is in the tree"
( she left them in the tree outside of her language school on a busy road for us just to miracuously KNOW they were there? )
35) Having to leave the house early because there is chinese swirling dragons blocking the roads downtown.
36) Having 18L bottles of water delivered to your house because your neighbour ordered it for you.
37) Not even needing to go to the store because if you wait long enough a dickie-dee like bike will drive by selling : ladders, brooms, ice cream, various salads, soft drinks, coffee/tea, blankets, mats, hats, vegetables, fried noodle dishes, a built on barbecue with variious assorments of BBQ'd meats and shishcabobs, clothes, lawn ornaments, fruit.....etc
38) Monks at a temple asking for your phone number while smoking cigarettes and joking around/horsing around and hitting each other with a broom stick.
[they are supposed to be sacred people that you show respect to and cannoct make eye contact wit, cannot smile at, cannot touch....etc...]
39) Coming hoem to a man fixing the ceiling light in our bedroom, standing on two of our chairs...STACKED....because we dont have a ladder. And then him charging 200฿
40) Being fed "vegetarian food" by the director of the school, served with cows milk. Take a bite of the "tofu" only to bite into tofu stuffed with pork, cooked in fish suace with pieces of shrimp throughout it.
41) Being asked to come to a parent teacher meeting but ONLY to show you face so the parents can see the foreigners. Then during the assembly where the director is giving a speech representin the school and its goals and morals....he calls us up to give a speech with NO warning or time for preparation.
42) Bus driver falling asleep at the wheel.
43) getting a 10% pay reduction with no warning, explination or reason and then being told that if we do a realy good job this semester, that we will get a 10% pay increase at the end of the semester.
44)NO CONFIDENTIALITY
a) sitting waiting in the waiting room to discuss getting cosmetic surgery with a doctor and a nurse comes out and puts a gel on my nose in front of everyone in the waiting room to freeze my nose so he can go ahead with the surgery a.s.a.p.
b) receptionists asking you whats the matter when they have their friends sitting with them, or when there are other people at the counter they ask over their shoulder so you have to say it through a crowd of people/
c) having a doctor tell us to sit down in the chair which was at his computer which had an x-ray of a mans chest and all his personal information beside it. Then he looks at it and hovers his pen over the affected area and diagnoses it in front of us to himself.
d)Pharmacy havign people walking around looking at things and the pharmacist askign you whats wrong and speaking loudly explaining what you have to do and saying it extra loud and slow because we don't speak Thai well so they say it over and over and EVERYONE hears.
45) Driving the motorbike home from a friends house witha flower pot full of soil, a fish tank, a dust pan and a garbage can.
46)Doctor not showing up for a hospital appointment with you.
47) Dentist overhearing through friends about Jessica's lawsuit with laser clinic and giving her the money back for ehr retainers that he made inocrrectly.
48) Employer telling our friend at 11 p.m. the night before that he has to do a 30 minute speech in Thai in front of an entire school of students and parents.
49) Given a french cirriculum to teach to high school students that says "des animaux et des hommes" (the animals and the men?) because it was written by a Thai person.
50) Your employer calling your friends telling them to drive you to work tomorrow an hour away and to wait for 2 hours while you teach and bring you back so she doesn't have to worry about arranging a drive for you.
51) Fake braces being in trend because it makes you look rich if you have money to buy braces. [Fake braces $30]
1) It all started with the Bangkok airport, we weren't sure where customs was and when we found it we weren't sure which doorway to go through. We asked a man where we are supposed to go and he asked "do you have anything to declare?" and we were like "umm i don't think so?" and he waved us through the "nothing to declare" door with a big smile on his face.
2)Paying 20 Baht for a tuktuk to drive us all over Bangkok for an entire day, and all we had to do was walk into jewlery and tailor shops and act interested in their products every once in a while so he would get a gas voucher from the shops.
3) Going to see the food market, and seeing all different displays of meats covered in flies with a woman sitting behind it with a stick and a plastic bag tied to the end- shooing them away but actually only shooing away 1/20 of them.
4)Walking into a tailor shop, and having people running up to you with measuring tape, measuring you and holding up fabric colors against your skin, cutting the fabric already, and telling you what you want to buy.
5) Random guys in the street saying "I love you, do you love me?"
6) Walking on the beach and a woman coming up to you, brushing the sand off your feet and poking at your toenails trying to give you a pedicure.
7) Tuktuk from Patong to Puket Town (20 min drive).............400฿
Private Mini-Bus from Suratthani to Phuket Town (4.5 hr drive)...........150฿
Private Mini-Bus from Malaysia to SuratThani (over a day)..............400฿
8) Jessica crashing a motorbike within 5 minutes of having it in her posession [but she TRIED to ask for lessons and he told her its easy and she doesn't need to learn]
9)"Special Finish" Ladyboy Massages. [leave that one to the imagination]
10)Walking down the road and having monkeys, iguanas and hawks put on your shoulder/arm while youa re not paying attention and then trying to charge you money.
11) Buying amoxicillin over the counter, no prescription needed - 2$
12) Someone trying to sell their husband to you for 20,000฿ (about 800$ CAD)
13) Meeting a drunk Australian guy who got a tattoo that took up his entire chest, completely shaded and completed in one night (including the breaks he took to walk back and fourth to the bar to have drinks with the tattoo artist) [i thought you weren't allowed to have ANY alcohol in your system?]
14) A whole family on a motorbike (3 kids)
....new record....2 kids, 2 infants, mother and father.
15) Man with no shoes, shirt or helmet on a motorbike with 3 live chickens.
16) Man with basket of laundry and 2 bird cages (with birds inside) on a motorbike.
17) Coming home to our neighbour weeding our garden and a man cutting down our tree [because it's a bad luck tree?] Then being slapped by our neighbour and told to thank him.
18) Meeting random Thai people and them knowing your name, the street you live on, and the fact that you are a vegetarian.
19) Funny night noises: Geckos, Dogs, Cows, Autistic Boy howling, carpenter singing and working.
20) 9 Year old boy driving his motorbike to go get a slushie and driving back one handed with the slushie in hand, when the shop is houses away from where he is.
21) Random people 9that you've never given your phone number to) calling you to practise speaking English.
22) Offering your phone number to co-workers or new friends and them pointing to their phone and saying "Oh.... have already"
23) Getting a text at 12:30a.m. [see SMS blog] for instructions on your new job that you start at 9:00am the next morning and then showing up to the job and being stood up.
24) Tuktuk with 14 people in the back and 4 sharing the front seat.
25) walking in the park and having teenagers come up to you askin o have their picture taken with you.
26) A sweater that has Bob Marley/Rasta colors, a weed leaf, and the playboy bunny on it and kids wearing it overtop of their school uniform on rainy days to private school. [And every student has the sweater which lead Jessica to believe for the longest time that it was a school uniform sweater]
27) Being tricked into going or interviews.
28) Mail showing up on a motorbike and having him stick it in your fence (even if its raining)
29) A Thai guy saying "Take your hat off, because you will lose your hair and a ghost will stay with you"
30) Airplane stopping on runway because they forgot someone and 2 men wheeled a ladder up to the airplane and they climbed in and the plane kept going.
31) Being told the day before (and sometimes if you're unlucky...the day of) that you have the day off because its a national holiday.
32) Getting an SMS saying that you have people expecting you to be somewhere in 30 minutes.[see SMS blog]
33)Sun bathing in the corner of the driveway because its the only place you can find any sun out of view of staring neighbours.
34) Needing our official documents to go to Malaysia and spending 2 full days searching for the lady with them only to find out at 9:30p.m. the night before we leave that in fact "the paperwork is in the tree"
( she left them in the tree outside of her language school on a busy road for us just to miracuously KNOW they were there? )
35) Having to leave the house early because there is chinese swirling dragons blocking the roads downtown.
36) Having 18L bottles of water delivered to your house because your neighbour ordered it for you.
37) Not even needing to go to the store because if you wait long enough a dickie-dee like bike will drive by selling : ladders, brooms, ice cream, various salads, soft drinks, coffee/tea, blankets, mats, hats, vegetables, fried noodle dishes, a built on barbecue with variious assorments of BBQ'd meats and shishcabobs, clothes, lawn ornaments, fruit.....etc
38) Monks at a temple asking for your phone number while smoking cigarettes and joking around/horsing around and hitting each other with a broom stick.
[they are supposed to be sacred people that you show respect to and cannoct make eye contact wit, cannot smile at, cannot touch....etc...]
39) Coming hoem to a man fixing the ceiling light in our bedroom, standing on two of our chairs...STACKED....because we dont have a ladder. And then him charging 200฿
40) Being fed "vegetarian food" by the director of the school, served with cows milk. Take a bite of the "tofu" only to bite into tofu stuffed with pork, cooked in fish suace with pieces of shrimp throughout it.
41) Being asked to come to a parent teacher meeting but ONLY to show you face so the parents can see the foreigners. Then during the assembly where the director is giving a speech representin the school and its goals and morals....he calls us up to give a speech with NO warning or time for preparation.
42) Bus driver falling asleep at the wheel.
43) getting a 10% pay reduction with no warning, explination or reason and then being told that if we do a realy good job this semester, that we will get a 10% pay increase at the end of the semester.
44)NO CONFIDENTIALITY
a) sitting waiting in the waiting room to discuss getting cosmetic surgery with a doctor and a nurse comes out and puts a gel on my nose in front of everyone in the waiting room to freeze my nose so he can go ahead with the surgery a.s.a.p.
b) receptionists asking you whats the matter when they have their friends sitting with them, or when there are other people at the counter they ask over their shoulder so you have to say it through a crowd of people/
c) having a doctor tell us to sit down in the chair which was at his computer which had an x-ray of a mans chest and all his personal information beside it. Then he looks at it and hovers his pen over the affected area and diagnoses it in front of us to himself.
d)Pharmacy havign people walking around looking at things and the pharmacist askign you whats wrong and speaking loudly explaining what you have to do and saying it extra loud and slow because we don't speak Thai well so they say it over and over and EVERYONE hears.
45) Driving the motorbike home from a friends house witha flower pot full of soil, a fish tank, a dust pan and a garbage can.
46)Doctor not showing up for a hospital appointment with you.
47) Dentist overhearing through friends about Jessica's lawsuit with laser clinic and giving her the money back for ehr retainers that he made inocrrectly.
48) Employer telling our friend at 11 p.m. the night before that he has to do a 30 minute speech in Thai in front of an entire school of students and parents.
49) Given a french cirriculum to teach to high school students that says "des animaux et des hommes" (the animals and the men?) because it was written by a Thai person.
50) Your employer calling your friends telling them to drive you to work tomorrow an hour away and to wait for 2 hours while you teach and bring you back so she doesn't have to worry about arranging a drive for you.
51) Fake braces being in trend because it makes you look rich if you have money to buy braces. [Fake braces $30]
TGIF?
It's Friday? God. What my Friday nights have become?
Anyways,
my appendix (or lack there of) is doing good! I can walk around a bit now! =)
Happy Bridal shower to Donica and Kev!!! LOVE YOU GUYS
I think I am going to quit from the school, because our employer never pays us. (did we mention she's a disorganized freaka zoid? see below text messages......)
My armpits are also coming along nicely. they don't hurt anymore, but still have scars-- had my second meeting already and nothing came of it yet. the next meeting is August 27th, and I am asking for 550,000 baht (about 15,000$) -- I doubt they will give it, but UGH i just want it to be over already.
okay gotta run- reffa will be posting a series of hilariuos stories that we've been keeping track of for your entertainment shortly.
xoxoxoxox!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyways,
my appendix (or lack there of) is doing good! I can walk around a bit now! =)
Happy Bridal shower to Donica and Kev!!! LOVE YOU GUYS
I think I am going to quit from the school, because our employer never pays us. (did we mention she's a disorganized freaka zoid? see below text messages......)
My armpits are also coming along nicely. they don't hurt anymore, but still have scars-- had my second meeting already and nothing came of it yet. the next meeting is August 27th, and I am asking for 550,000 baht (about 15,000$) -- I doubt they will give it, but UGH i just want it to be over already.
okay gotta run- reffa will be posting a series of hilariuos stories that we've been keeping track of for your entertainment shortly.
xoxoxoxox!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
appendix A
had a SUUUPER bad belly ache all night Last Thursday night, and on Friday morning when I tried to eat I was unsucessfull... I just kept throwing up! I went to the hospital and got my blood taken, passed out a few times, got wheeled around on a bed and threw up some more and then a doctor said I had acute apendicitis! Mom called me back (like every 5 minutes) because everytime I talked to her I said I had to go or else I was gonig to get sick, and I asked her to look up all the symptoms (afterall I am still in thailand..... I wanted to make sure they didn't just want to steal my organ or something) and sure enough!
2 hours later I'm in the OR! My appendix was 10 cm, and it should've only been about 2-3 cm. YIKESM I spent Friday and Saturday very high in the clouds on morphine and am now on bedrest at home for the week recovering.
feeling much better now than friday!!!!!!!!!!!
2 hours later I'm in the OR! My appendix was 10 cm, and it should've only been about 2-3 cm. YIKESM I spent Friday and Saturday very high in the clouds on morphine and am now on bedrest at home for the week recovering.
feeling much better now than friday!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Fumes
Today around 5pm they were fuming out the school, to kill bacteria because of the H1N1 2009 virus that has now reached our town.
I had to go and get Jessica's camera [for evidence]because she left it in her desk and we have a meeting at the court tomorrow regarding her lawsuit. We show up at the school and there are 3 kids waiting for their parents still. They are complaining about someting stinking and I said "yeah smells bad" and kept going. then I come across three teachers and tell them i forgot something and need to go get it. They ramble off in Thai to go quick..... And I go upstairs and it was like walking into a burning building. I actually thought there was a man putting out a fire, but he was just spraying this smoke stuff out of a machine that came out in a dark greyish blue cloud. The man with a gas mask turns and looks at me then looks back at the hall hes spraying. I hold my breath and run through it and grab the camera and run back out.
Nobody warned me, I just thought i had to go quick because they wanted to lock up and go home.
haha
I had to go and get Jessica's camera [for evidence]because she left it in her desk and we have a meeting at the court tomorrow regarding her lawsuit. We show up at the school and there are 3 kids waiting for their parents still. They are complaining about someting stinking and I said "yeah smells bad" and kept going. then I come across three teachers and tell them i forgot something and need to go get it. They ramble off in Thai to go quick..... And I go upstairs and it was like walking into a burning building. I actually thought there was a man putting out a fire, but he was just spraying this smoke stuff out of a machine that came out in a dark greyish blue cloud. The man with a gas mask turns and looks at me then looks back at the hall hes spraying. I hold my breath and run through it and grab the camera and run back out.
Nobody warned me, I just thought i had to go quick because they wanted to lock up and go home.
haha
lol
Funny SMS messages from our employer over the last few weeks:
"Please provide resume and certificate for me tonight. The school prefers all documents to government tomorrow. But I should be approve first"
[Meaning the government wants all my documents tomorrow morning and my employer needs to "approve"....meaning edit]
Our employer opened a massage parlour and I get a text message...
"Today you can come to use Thai massage service at soi 16/1. Only 10 percent will complete"
[so they will only do 10% of a massage? The places is 10 percent completely being renovated? like what does that mean??]
My employer asked me to teach french at a school, in between classes at my school i teach at now. she was saying that its beginner and that they don't know any french and that it will be easy and even she could do it.
I prepare all kinds of things that i considered beginner french...fun things, games, made flashcards etc... I get a text message at 8:21 the morning of the day I start....
"The cloth is the lesson that you teach in high school France subject today. It is meaning the students already finish lesson and you will be review lesson. If you have class in that time you should be inform Richard or Scott to replace your class"
"TuongWit (name of my school) will start at 10:00am today."
Class normall starts at 8:20 and i get the text at 8:43.....meaning I was already at school for 25 mins when i get the text.
"You will teach today from 1-3p.m. today at Mompasa School. Pratom Class" [How old? how many students?What do their parents want them to study?Do i need to prepare something or do you have someting prepared for me?etc...]
"I informed Director of school about your education. Now you are learning at open university and will graduate soon"
[which isn't true????]
wish I had more.
"Please provide resume and certificate for me tonight. The school prefers all documents to government tomorrow. But I should be approve first"
[Meaning the government wants all my documents tomorrow morning and my employer needs to "approve"....meaning edit]
Our employer opened a massage parlour and I get a text message...
"Today you can come to use Thai massage service at soi 16/1. Only 10 percent will complete"
[so they will only do 10% of a massage? The places is 10 percent completely being renovated? like what does that mean??]
My employer asked me to teach french at a school, in between classes at my school i teach at now. she was saying that its beginner and that they don't know any french and that it will be easy and even she could do it.
I prepare all kinds of things that i considered beginner french...fun things, games, made flashcards etc... I get a text message at 8:21 the morning of the day I start....
"The cloth is the lesson that you teach in high school France subject today. It is meaning the students already finish lesson and you will be review lesson. If you have class in that time you should be inform Richard or Scott to replace your class"
"TuongWit (name of my school) will start at 10:00am today."
Class normall starts at 8:20 and i get the text at 8:43.....meaning I was already at school for 25 mins when i get the text.
"You will teach today from 1-3p.m. today at Mompasa School. Pratom Class" [How old? how many students?What do their parents want them to study?Do i need to prepare something or do you have someting prepared for me?etc...]
"I informed Director of school about your education. Now you are learning at open university and will graduate soon"
[which isn't true????]
wish I had more.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
just a few pics =)
I have a few random pictures to post if you'd like to see! :)
one is a random beautiful rainbow that was in the sky clear as day, but it hardly showed on the camera! gorgeous.
another is our kitties, snuggling up for a nap.
one is me in krabi !
one is the huge scorpian in our garden YIKES! neige (the white kitten) was playing with it.... so we killed it ... poison!!!!
and the final one is our crazy neighbor, par. I came out of our house and looked around the corner and there she was, sitting on our wall (god knows how she got up there?) and her autistic son leaning over her side of the wall. sooo strange.
haha
love yas
Monday, July 6, 2009
Buhddist holiday!
We have three days off- effectively a 5 day holiday including the weekend!! I WAS going to go to Koh Pangan but then our employer PL decided to ONE pay me for a fourth of the correct amount of hours, TWO only pay us for one of our two positions with her and THREE give us a pay reduction of 25% on the small bit of money that she actualyl did give us. UGHHHH THAILAND IS SO FRUSTRATING! she didn't even TELL us about the pay reduction she jut left our money with a letter saying we are paying you this much now instead of this much, and then she spent the past week avoiding calls, texts and confrontations. UGHHHHGGHHH in conclusion, i got paid ONE HUNDRED dollars (approx) for an ENTIRE month !!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lol kinda funny i guess, I was supposed to get about 500 (low this month because i had a lot of time off work for daily hospital visits) ahahaha oh it's so frustrating. I think I'm done with this school soon--- reffa is putting up with it, she has more patience for things like this- I would rather make changes. I might move to an island to take up exercise on the beach and volunteer work with animals full time... crazy?
No what's crazy would be if I stayed in Surat Thani. I don't like it here, I want a BEACH.
I'll keep you posted.
My second law meeting is next friday (the 16th), I think I will accept the offer just to get it overwith. Life is cheap in Thailand (no really.. it's only 60,000 to have someone killed.) I'd rather have a small bit of money than a bullet in my head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lol kinda funny i guess, I was supposed to get about 500 (low this month because i had a lot of time off work for daily hospital visits) ahahaha oh it's so frustrating. I think I'm done with this school soon--- reffa is putting up with it, she has more patience for things like this- I would rather make changes. I might move to an island to take up exercise on the beach and volunteer work with animals full time... crazy?
No what's crazy would be if I stayed in Surat Thani. I don't like it here, I want a BEACH.
I'll keep you posted.
My second law meeting is next friday (the 16th), I think I will accept the offer just to get it overwith. Life is cheap in Thailand (no really.. it's only 60,000 to have someone killed.) I'd rather have a small bit of money than a bullet in my head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
get low
might be a low on one of the many highs and lows of being away from home, but i'm so homesick!!!! i want canadaaaaaa
happy canada day. =(
happy canada day. =(
Sunday, June 28, 2009
RIP Ya
Our friend Ya from Patong just got in a motorbike accident last night and didn't make it through the night. He was recently married and his wife is expecting a baby in 4 months. =( RIP Ya.
Friday, June 26, 2009
armpit friday
my first meeting at the court offices today.
It went okay, nothing conclusive as of yet. gonna go get a thai massage tonight.
it's really hot today.
I miss erin like, a lot.
It went okay, nothing conclusive as of yet. gonna go get a thai massage tonight.
it's really hot today.
I miss erin like, a lot.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
TITY
This is Thailand Yeah? (TITY)
This is what we say whenever we encounter something crazy, unbelievable, unfair, rediculous, unconceivable, or just plain silly. TITY.
As you know, Today is Friday, the day where Reffa is to give a half hour presentation in French to a class. She prepared it. I went on a two hour search of Surat Thani yesterday , asking in poor Thai if they had any books in French. I found one!!! It was expensive, but I think it's worth it. (expensive being 500 baht... about 15$). It actually turns out that she's teaching a high school class, rather than giving an introductory presentation (there goes the hard worked speech..) and therefore has to prepare a LESSON without knowing what their levels are (or knowing very much french... lol). Guess when she recieved this TEXT MESSAGE? at 9am this morning. She's being picked up from one school (where she teaches 9-2) and being transported to the other school to teach this lesson at 2:30. No warning. the test message said "oh is-a-meaning- you will be teach cloth" which is Orapin's way of saying "you have to teach the students how to describe clothing" .
hahahahahaha Thailand never fails to amuse.
Yesterday we went on a family adventure to Tesco Lotus with x, his brother, his mom, and his brothers girlfriend. 6 of us on three motorbikes on the highway on the way to the big store to purchase a sink. We came home with a reciept and delivery date for a fridge. go figure?!
anyways, i'm off. There's no washroom in the computer lab. ughhh gotta walk home.
xoxoxx
This is what we say whenever we encounter something crazy, unbelievable, unfair, rediculous, unconceivable, or just plain silly. TITY.
As you know, Today is Friday, the day where Reffa is to give a half hour presentation in French to a class. She prepared it. I went on a two hour search of Surat Thani yesterday , asking in poor Thai if they had any books in French. I found one!!! It was expensive, but I think it's worth it. (expensive being 500 baht... about 15$). It actually turns out that she's teaching a high school class, rather than giving an introductory presentation (there goes the hard worked speech..) and therefore has to prepare a LESSON without knowing what their levels are (or knowing very much french... lol). Guess when she recieved this TEXT MESSAGE? at 9am this morning. She's being picked up from one school (where she teaches 9-2) and being transported to the other school to teach this lesson at 2:30. No warning. the test message said "oh is-a-meaning- you will be teach cloth" which is Orapin's way of saying "you have to teach the students how to describe clothing" .
hahahahahaha Thailand never fails to amuse.
Yesterday we went on a family adventure to Tesco Lotus with x, his brother, his mom, and his brothers girlfriend. 6 of us on three motorbikes on the highway on the way to the big store to purchase a sink. We came home with a reciept and delivery date for a fridge. go figure?!
anyways, i'm off. There's no washroom in the computer lab. ughhh gotta walk home.
xoxoxx
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
oy
Reffa is giving a half hour speech in French this Friday. She was told today about it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA we are looking french words/sentences up frantically on the internet and going to bookstores to find french books (but they don't even have English ones- their second language so it's not looking good for a french english dictionary.... lol)
I can't believe we are french teachers now?! We have a bit of a laughing fit about this idea every day. We'll let you know how the classes go!!!
So , I think I am going to quit next week from the school we are working at. Reffa is happy there, but I am not. She's a lot more tolerant of the confusion/annoyances/politics that go on around there- I am not very tolerant of it. I think it's confusing and unfair and I would rather play with my new kittens. HAHA plus Orapin has been begging me to work at her other school which I will have a 25% raise and work more hours- BUT it's EASY english with high school kids and not seriuos and none of this awful conflict stuff. might do that.
okay yes you heard that right, we have two new kittens! They are sisters, one month old and they are really cute. One looks just like Crookshanks (Char's cat for those of you who don't know- brown, orange, white but mostly dark blackish brown.) the other is pure white. They are both short haired and have bits of siamese cat in them (naturally, since we are in Siam...) . They are still really shy of us, but starting to warm up. it's been about 2 days now and they like to hide but last night they both slept on the bed with me! :) yay they will be snuggly and lovey in no time. Where they were living before didn't feed them or play with them or anything so that's why they are so shy right now.
We love the new motorbike.
Scott just moved into a new house, one street over. Loves it very much.
My armpits are better. I was visitng the hospital twice a day for cleanings but now it's every 3 days and the infection has completely gone already.
June 26th I meet with the clinic that I'm trying to sue. They will make me an offer to make the whole thing go away and I can accept and get it out of my life or i can fight for more money. dunno yet.
ps. Aunt Tine- this one's for you- Herbalife is actually being PERSCRIBED as a health treatment by doctors here regularly. My employer just got put on it and she takes it very seriuosly. Our neighbor also sells it, and has an Herbalife car!!!!
PPS. CONGRATULATIONS MAT AND CHAR. WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I READ ALL ABOUT YOU MAT IN THE NEWSPAPER FROM BACK HOME ONLINE!!!! =0 =)=) AMAZING!!
xoxox
I can't believe we are french teachers now?! We have a bit of a laughing fit about this idea every day. We'll let you know how the classes go!!!
So , I think I am going to quit next week from the school we are working at. Reffa is happy there, but I am not. She's a lot more tolerant of the confusion/annoyances/politics that go on around there- I am not very tolerant of it. I think it's confusing and unfair and I would rather play with my new kittens. HAHA plus Orapin has been begging me to work at her other school which I will have a 25% raise and work more hours- BUT it's EASY english with high school kids and not seriuos and none of this awful conflict stuff. might do that.
okay yes you heard that right, we have two new kittens! They are sisters, one month old and they are really cute. One looks just like Crookshanks (Char's cat for those of you who don't know- brown, orange, white but mostly dark blackish brown.) the other is pure white. They are both short haired and have bits of siamese cat in them (naturally, since we are in Siam...) . They are still really shy of us, but starting to warm up. it's been about 2 days now and they like to hide but last night they both slept on the bed with me! :) yay they will be snuggly and lovey in no time. Where they were living before didn't feed them or play with them or anything so that's why they are so shy right now.
We love the new motorbike.
Scott just moved into a new house, one street over. Loves it very much.
My armpits are better. I was visitng the hospital twice a day for cleanings but now it's every 3 days and the infection has completely gone already.
June 26th I meet with the clinic that I'm trying to sue. They will make me an offer to make the whole thing go away and I can accept and get it out of my life or i can fight for more money. dunno yet.
ps. Aunt Tine- this one's for you- Herbalife is actually being PERSCRIBED as a health treatment by doctors here regularly. My employer just got put on it and she takes it very seriuosly. Our neighbor also sells it, and has an Herbalife car!!!!
PPS. CONGRATULATIONS MAT AND CHAR. WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I READ ALL ABOUT YOU MAT IN THE NEWSPAPER FROM BACK HOME ONLINE!!!! =0 =)=) AMAZING!!
xoxox
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
En Francais
Picking up lots of extra hours after school private toutoring.
Jessica is teaching a 21 year old girl, who she is still getting to know and I am teaching an 11 year old boy named Fin. His parents own the Diamond Plaza Hotel. Which is the big hotel in Surat where we sometimes go swimming cause the pool is on the roof and ususally empty.
Also, funny as it may seem, we will be teaching french starting next month too. Private classes with a lady-boy 1 hour a day, and 6 hours a week in a class of about 30 students at a government school. Still trying to wrap my head around that one. I'm trying to rememeber my french songs from junior high and hoping that they are young kids....or if not young kids, at a beginner level. I hope they don't try to have conversations with me.
We're thinking about teaching German too, if anyone wants lessons! (HA HA)
Jessica is teaching a 21 year old girl, who she is still getting to know and I am teaching an 11 year old boy named Fin. His parents own the Diamond Plaza Hotel. Which is the big hotel in Surat where we sometimes go swimming cause the pool is on the roof and ususally empty.
Also, funny as it may seem, we will be teaching french starting next month too. Private classes with a lady-boy 1 hour a day, and 6 hours a week in a class of about 30 students at a government school. Still trying to wrap my head around that one. I'm trying to rememeber my french songs from junior high and hoping that they are young kids....or if not young kids, at a beginner level. I hope they don't try to have conversations with me.
We're thinking about teaching German too, if anyone wants lessons! (HA HA)
Monday, June 8, 2009
Kuala Lumpur
June 8th
Way better than Penang. People are nicer(though still kinda mean??) and its cleaner and theres vegetarian food, and useable public transit. The public transit is exactly like the LRT's in Calgary.
Way better than Penang. People are nicer(though still kinda mean??) and its cleaner and theres vegetarian food, and useable public transit. The public transit is exactly like the LRT's in Calgary.
We went to go do our visa's today at the Thai Embassy....closed. (DOH!)
So we walked around and went to parks, a lake, a Muslim museum and went to the market.
The bus ride here was terrible. We actually took an extra 8 hour bus out of Penang into this city, JUST to avoid Penang. We could've done all our paperwork there, but we just don't like it at all. Daryl can back us up on how much it sucks there.
We went looking for a vegetarian restaurant and ran into a lady that was also vegetarian, we told her we were looking for Chinese vegetarian food and she took us to a place and showed us (about a 20 minute walk, she walked us there!) and then we invited her to eat with us because she just got off work. She was really shy to talk with us but she showed us her favourite dish and we all shared our foods so we all got the best of everything. Then her brother showed up to pick her up and she paid for our supper! She was really nice. The nicest person we've ever met in Malaysia. (We are also with a friend we met from England. She teaches Yoga in Koh Phagnan and her name is Sam)
Hopefully we can get our Visa's done tomorrow because we need to go back to work.
Scott sold us his motorbike. We're getting rid of the old Yamaha for his Honda Click. Its a lot smoother of a ride, it has a carborateur, the lights work (so you can drive it at night), it doesn't backfire when you drive, its a cooler color and its quieter. We gave him 10,000 baht and just have to give him another 10,000 sometime in the next few months.
The other bike was no good. we've gotten it fixed too many times and we were paying 2,000baht a month (which is what you pay to lease a brand new bike from a dealership) so we decided to trade 'er in.
The other bike was no good. we've gotten it fixed too many times and we were paying 2,000baht a month (which is what you pay to lease a brand new bike from a dealership) so we decided to trade 'er in.
The kids are all writing tests next week so we are worried about how they will do. Because they have only been learning for 2 weeks and their test results will decide how good of teachers we are or not....but we started doing "extra classes" in the last period of school, where we basically give extra help to our students who are struggling to improve their marks.
The school is now doing Tae Kwon Do lessons which we do NOT appreciate. (mainly because the little boys are born ninjas anyways, so its gonna make classes harder)
We are going home in 2 hrs from Kuala Lumpur to HatJai, then HatJai to SuratThani. Should get there in about 12 hours hopefully! The border always takes a while, plus we have to wait until 6am for it to open (taking overnight bus)
June 9th
We both got 3 more months added on to our Visa's today. We checked out a very big 5-story mall, twin towers, art gallery and went back to the market to find a sweater for Jessica (rainy seasons on its way!)
We told the girl at the Embassy that we were in a hurry to get back and she bumped our paperwork to the front and now we get to leave tonight instead of tomorrow night!
We're kinda glad about this because we didn't like the place we were staying in. We weren't treated very nice and we found a mouse in our room.
:D
We are going home in 2 hrs from Kuala Lumpur to HatJai, then HatJai to SuratThani. Should get there in about 12 hours hopefully! The border always takes a while, plus we have to wait until 6am for it to open (taking overnight bus)
June 9th
We both got 3 more months added on to our Visa's today. We checked out a very big 5-story mall, twin towers, art gallery and went back to the market to find a sweater for Jessica (rainy seasons on its way!)
We told the girl at the Embassy that we were in a hurry to get back and she bumped our paperwork to the front and now we get to leave tonight instead of tomorrow night!
We're kinda glad about this because we didn't like the place we were staying in. We weren't treated very nice and we found a mouse in our room.
:D
Monday, June 1, 2009
my new lawyer
haha
okay here's a juicy blog for you- though I am between teaching periods at school so I may have to cut it shorter than I'd like.
So you know how I was saying that the LHR hurt really bad and the joules were really high? WELL. I now have 2nd degree burns on one arm, and 3rd degree on the other. They hurt like, a lot. I showed my employer (they are so nosy she begged and bothered until I would show even though I was way too embarassed to do so..) and when she saw it she jumped on the phone to her lawyer and said we're sueing. Yep you read that right, I'm sueing the beauty clinic that did this treatment on me for it's poor results.
remember how I said the dentist messed up the other day? I still had to pay for it (obviuosly) because they had to take impressions, spend an hour on this and that and make a mouthpiece for me ordered on high-speed from the lab. So yesterday I went back to the language school and Orapin (employer) said "Jessica, you go to morre faugn this week"? (morre faugn is dentis) and I said "... yes. how do you know?" and she said "I got a phone cal from the clinic you went to saying they'd like to give you your money back is-a-meaning maybe they found out about your law case and are worried you will go after them. LOLOLLLLLLLLLLLLL
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
the dentist got scared that I might sue them for making the wrong thing and they gave me all my money back LOLOOLLLL isn't that hilariuos? The dentist also must have spent ages trying to track me down because he didn't know anything about me- name address place of work NOTHING so he obviuosly just "described me" to people until they led him to Orapin to give the money to, to give to me LOL hahahahahaahahahahahahahaha. this place is so so so funny.
gotta get back to class now- i'll keep you posted on the law stuff.
xo
okay here's a juicy blog for you- though I am between teaching periods at school so I may have to cut it shorter than I'd like.
So you know how I was saying that the LHR hurt really bad and the joules were really high? WELL. I now have 2nd degree burns on one arm, and 3rd degree on the other. They hurt like, a lot. I showed my employer (they are so nosy she begged and bothered until I would show even though I was way too embarassed to do so..) and when she saw it she jumped on the phone to her lawyer and said we're sueing. Yep you read that right, I'm sueing the beauty clinic that did this treatment on me for it's poor results.
remember how I said the dentist messed up the other day? I still had to pay for it (obviuosly) because they had to take impressions, spend an hour on this and that and make a mouthpiece for me ordered on high-speed from the lab. So yesterday I went back to the language school and Orapin (employer) said "Jessica, you go to morre faugn this week"? (morre faugn is dentis) and I said "... yes. how do you know?" and she said "I got a phone cal from the clinic you went to saying they'd like to give you your money back is-a-meaning maybe they found out about your law case and are worried you will go after them. LOLOLLLLLLLLLLLLL
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
the dentist got scared that I might sue them for making the wrong thing and they gave me all my money back LOLOOLLLL isn't that hilariuos? The dentist also must have spent ages trying to track me down because he didn't know anything about me- name address place of work NOTHING so he obviuosly just "described me" to people until they led him to Orapin to give the money to, to give to me LOL hahahahahaahahahahahahahaha. this place is so so so funny.
gotta get back to class now- i'll keep you posted on the law stuff.
xo
Friday, May 29, 2009
quiz night two
Quiz night number two was a lot of fun. We didn't come in last place this time (which we did last time... ugh.. so embarassing). We made a few more friends and basiaclly booked up our social calander for the next week! yeeehawww
things are looking up.
minus my dentist incident OMG. so annoying. I lost my retainer. (I didn't want to admit this, but in type it isn't quite as embarassing...) basically I flushed it down the toilet DOH. so anyways, Iwent to get one remade before my teeth shift YIKES last friday and they took impressions, and then they said it would be ready in one week. I went to get them today and they made me a MOUTH GAURD and it was only for the top (which, I stil have the top, I only lost the bottom to the toilet..) UGH problem NOT SOLVED but further complicated. so annoying. I threw a hissy fit and went home. Not sure what I'mg onna do next. I'll keep you posted.
teaching is fun,
but generally being employed by this school is SO FRUSTRATING and confusing as hell. ugh.
Might get a new kitten tomorrow.
xoxox
things are looking up.
minus my dentist incident OMG. so annoying. I lost my retainer. (I didn't want to admit this, but in type it isn't quite as embarassing...) basically I flushed it down the toilet DOH. so anyways, Iwent to get one remade before my teeth shift YIKES last friday and they took impressions, and then they said it would be ready in one week. I went to get them today and they made me a MOUTH GAURD and it was only for the top (which, I stil have the top, I only lost the bottom to the toilet..) UGH problem NOT SOLVED but further complicated. so annoying. I threw a hissy fit and went home. Not sure what I'mg onna do next. I'll keep you posted.
teaching is fun,
but generally being employed by this school is SO FRUSTRATING and confusing as hell. ugh.
Might get a new kitten tomorrow.
xoxox
Sunday, May 24, 2009
back to school!
Back to school is what all the posters read at every shop in town. School took back in on May14th and, this my friends, is why Reffa and I have been extremely bad posters lately.
It was pretty hectic ! We had a meeting before school even started to solidify everything (which, if you've been paying attention really means -in thailand- that it's about to be further complicated...) . At this meeting there were 5 teachers, when we were distictly told that there were only 4 positions to be held by us four (scott, reffa, myself and an australian named Adam). So the spare man there, who was Gary was confused and embarassed when they FIRED reffa ON THE SPOT in front of everyone in a really awkward way- the assistant directer said "so there are 5 teachers and only 4 positions.. maybe one will have to go (giggle giggle) i think maybe reffa (bent over double laughing)"
we thought this was a joke. but it wasn't. Gary, an Englishman stood up and said if you'll excuse me, I'm embarassed that you've put me in this scenario. I Was under the impression that there was an opening, not a firing. and he left. Right after he left the assistant directer looked sheepishly at Reffa and said "... welcome back " with a big smile. This was the first 5 minutes of the meeting at 8:30am. OMG Thailand is hilarious.
The most ironic thing about it, is that they hired this Gary guy as a science teacher, when they had already told both Reffa and Adam (experienced teacher with a BSc) that they would be the science teacher?!!!!! ahhahahahahaaha. Now Reffa (the least experienced teacher with the least amount of education- ie. no degree....) is the official English Science Program Teacher for all of the school. HAHAHA I love it. (She really is the best of us 4 for the job though).
okay so , now it is back to the four of us teaching at Tuongwit patana private language school. it's a school only for pratom (meaning elementary school) . Boy oh boy is there drama. It's insane what we go through every day.
We were under strict orders not to speak even a word of Thai in our English classes (makes sense, right?) but this new guy, Adam can speak beautiful and fluent Thai (which I am so jealous about by the way... he's lived here 15 years mind you..) . He managed to take all of Scott's classes (which were the EP classes.. meaning English Program.) basically EP is the richer kids whose parents pay extra for them to have twice as much English training, Air conditioned classrooms (blissful), and proper testing. Scott now works on the third floor with younger kids who are non-EP with no Air conditioning... ugh. Adam is a cool guy, but Scott really wanted his same classes from last year. Adam is the only one of the 4 of us who does not get checked up upon and critisized . We suspect this is becuase he does not have the same language barrier as us.
Also,
Starting this week we will be working with our friend Kingsley, who quit the school where we're working, fucked over Orapin (The disorganized lady who left our important papers in the tree.... and other similar rediculous stories....... which we haven't yet told you half of. ). .. anyways .. he fucked her over by opening a brand new language school behind her back!!!!!!! He's employing us!!!!!! So now we're awkwardly working for both, whom are fighting with one another. (the three of us are helplessly stuck in the middle of our business-agressive high tempered english friend and our disorganized, confusing, broken english thai employer.... figure that one out..) .
Right now we are making 375 baht an hour. The school pays 500 baht. Orapin gets the extra 125 baht per hour for being our employer and she's supposed to take care of us, help us with paperwork etc etc. but she really does nothing of the sort. the only thing she does is cause a greater headache for any issues we already have on our plate by making it more erroneous, more ambiguous, and more confusing with extra elements. Starting next semester (if we make it that long ..) we will be working direct for the school and upping our wage by about 25% YAY. much better. AND we won't have to deal with Orapin.
We are also about to purchase a new motorbike. We are currently renting (from orapin of all people...) but have no idea about insurence or anything. we want to buy our own so that any problems are our own. We don't neccessarily trust her to take care of us in case of an accident or something. YIKES. We just drive extra super duper safe.
Our crazy neighbor is at it again.
I was laying in my underwear watching a movie (common for Saturday mornings) when a strange smoking man showed up at my door. he spoke thai asking if he could "do fai nai hong nohn" which means, can i look at your lighting in the second bedroom. I said.... umm... no.! who are you? (in thai) and then my crazy neighbor said (in half enlgish half thai) "Jesse! he come to look at light, broken light in house!" and so I let him in (cigarette and all..) to look at the light (after putting clothes on, of course). I'm hopelessly wanrdering around trying to figure out what's going on while he "fixes" our lightbulb. All in all, his strange and unexpected visit costed me 400 baht (about 12 dollars) just because our neighbor somehow knew that our lightbulb was going to burn out soon. !?!!!!!!!! (and it was, but I don't care- we don't even use that room!!!) she will NOT leave us alone. AND for the past week, we daily have strangers coming to our garden and planting weird plants. I don't know why, or how it's being paid for, but I think Par (neighbor's name) has something to do with it........ crazy crazy lady. I hear her beating her autistic child everyday. what a sin. we can't report her, because you're allowed to do whatever you want with your children.
what else is new....
congratulations to all my friends who graduated this year from university!! I'm super super proud of you. :):) HUGS.
OH my school from February FINALLY paid me the last of what they owed me so that problem has been solved!!
OH YEAH!! and, something very very exciting happened last week. We met a WHITE PERSON!!!!!!! this white person invited us to "quiz night" last thursday. We went and it was a lot of fun and it turns out there are a lot of people our age, who SPEAK english in Surat Thani. We have friends now!! (and one of the boys is really cute.. from California!). We are going again this week and they have like parties on the weekends and stuff and there are apparently certain bars you can go to where the Thai's are used to white faces and so you aren't stared at (I'm not sure if we've mentioned this lately... but they stare at us and gossip about us as if we're celebrities... everyone knws where we went and for how long on our vacation.. everyone knows where we work and what we wore yesterday... etc etc.. ) .
Anyways.. we can feel normal with friends that we can actually communicate with. this is a big deal. HURRAAAHHHH!!!!!
things are going well here,
although it's almost unbearably hot. we drip in sweat and shower 3 times , every day. it must be over 40 degrees? dunno. sometimes we're immobile for the afternoons we can't do anything but sweat and try to sleep away the heat. same as the Thais. it's defiantely hot season. hot/rainy season actually. *panting* it's 9:30pm and I'm still sweating today.
oh one more thing,
we went for our second round of laser hair removal in the arm pits. FUCKKKKKKING hell it hurts so bad. (excuse my french.) but honest... it hurts wayyy more than my tattoo did!!! I have red blisters and marks and swelling on my armpits (reffa fared better than I did- less sensitive skin) but you should see us getting lasered on the table... we like writhe in pain... cry etc. the works. yikes!!! It's ALMOST not worth it, but it is... to never have to shave again. Amazing though, hahaha it's only about 90$ per treatment and you only need 3, so just under 300$ to be hairless in one area. much more expensive back west. and the joules they use in Canada and America are between 13-18 (according to a website that I read up on). I want you to guess.. just GUESS before reading how many she used on me...
...
...
...
SIXTY EIGHT JOULES. wowza. no wonder it hurts.
okay, that's all the news I have for today! So sorry that it took a while to get another post up.
Rishard: safe travels my friend.
Charlotte: send me some wedding info
Maggie: OH BABY
Ally: xoxoxoxox miss you!
Mama: you're my favourite
Dad : congratulations
Erin : call me tomorrow
Grammie: If I could take all your pain away I would- and thank you so much for taking care of Lilly and replacing me!!! I can never thank you enough. :)
Grampie: Thanks for reading! I miss your hugs
Everyone: I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
It was pretty hectic ! We had a meeting before school even started to solidify everything (which, if you've been paying attention really means -in thailand- that it's about to be further complicated...) . At this meeting there were 5 teachers, when we were distictly told that there were only 4 positions to be held by us four (scott, reffa, myself and an australian named Adam). So the spare man there, who was Gary was confused and embarassed when they FIRED reffa ON THE SPOT in front of everyone in a really awkward way- the assistant directer said "so there are 5 teachers and only 4 positions.. maybe one will have to go (giggle giggle) i think maybe reffa (bent over double laughing)"
we thought this was a joke. but it wasn't. Gary, an Englishman stood up and said if you'll excuse me, I'm embarassed that you've put me in this scenario. I Was under the impression that there was an opening, not a firing. and he left. Right after he left the assistant directer looked sheepishly at Reffa and said "... welcome back " with a big smile. This was the first 5 minutes of the meeting at 8:30am. OMG Thailand is hilarious.
The most ironic thing about it, is that they hired this Gary guy as a science teacher, when they had already told both Reffa and Adam (experienced teacher with a BSc) that they would be the science teacher?!!!!! ahhahahahahaaha. Now Reffa (the least experienced teacher with the least amount of education- ie. no degree....) is the official English Science Program Teacher for all of the school. HAHAHA I love it. (She really is the best of us 4 for the job though).
okay so , now it is back to the four of us teaching at Tuongwit patana private language school. it's a school only for pratom (meaning elementary school) . Boy oh boy is there drama. It's insane what we go through every day.
We were under strict orders not to speak even a word of Thai in our English classes (makes sense, right?) but this new guy, Adam can speak beautiful and fluent Thai (which I am so jealous about by the way... he's lived here 15 years mind you..) . He managed to take all of Scott's classes (which were the EP classes.. meaning English Program.) basically EP is the richer kids whose parents pay extra for them to have twice as much English training, Air conditioned classrooms (blissful), and proper testing. Scott now works on the third floor with younger kids who are non-EP with no Air conditioning... ugh. Adam is a cool guy, but Scott really wanted his same classes from last year. Adam is the only one of the 4 of us who does not get checked up upon and critisized . We suspect this is becuase he does not have the same language barrier as us.
Also,
Starting this week we will be working with our friend Kingsley, who quit the school where we're working, fucked over Orapin (The disorganized lady who left our important papers in the tree.... and other similar rediculous stories....... which we haven't yet told you half of. ). .. anyways .. he fucked her over by opening a brand new language school behind her back!!!!!!! He's employing us!!!!!! So now we're awkwardly working for both, whom are fighting with one another. (the three of us are helplessly stuck in the middle of our business-agressive high tempered english friend and our disorganized, confusing, broken english thai employer.... figure that one out..) .
Right now we are making 375 baht an hour. The school pays 500 baht. Orapin gets the extra 125 baht per hour for being our employer and she's supposed to take care of us, help us with paperwork etc etc. but she really does nothing of the sort. the only thing she does is cause a greater headache for any issues we already have on our plate by making it more erroneous, more ambiguous, and more confusing with extra elements. Starting next semester (if we make it that long ..) we will be working direct for the school and upping our wage by about 25% YAY. much better. AND we won't have to deal with Orapin.
We are also about to purchase a new motorbike. We are currently renting (from orapin of all people...) but have no idea about insurence or anything. we want to buy our own so that any problems are our own. We don't neccessarily trust her to take care of us in case of an accident or something. YIKES. We just drive extra super duper safe.
Our crazy neighbor is at it again.
I was laying in my underwear watching a movie (common for Saturday mornings) when a strange smoking man showed up at my door. he spoke thai asking if he could "do fai nai hong nohn" which means, can i look at your lighting in the second bedroom. I said.... umm... no.! who are you? (in thai) and then my crazy neighbor said (in half enlgish half thai) "Jesse! he come to look at light, broken light in house!" and so I let him in (cigarette and all..) to look at the light (after putting clothes on, of course). I'm hopelessly wanrdering around trying to figure out what's going on while he "fixes" our lightbulb. All in all, his strange and unexpected visit costed me 400 baht (about 12 dollars) just because our neighbor somehow knew that our lightbulb was going to burn out soon. !?!!!!!!!! (and it was, but I don't care- we don't even use that room!!!) she will NOT leave us alone. AND for the past week, we daily have strangers coming to our garden and planting weird plants. I don't know why, or how it's being paid for, but I think Par (neighbor's name) has something to do with it........ crazy crazy lady. I hear her beating her autistic child everyday. what a sin. we can't report her, because you're allowed to do whatever you want with your children.
what else is new....
congratulations to all my friends who graduated this year from university!! I'm super super proud of you. :):) HUGS.
OH my school from February FINALLY paid me the last of what they owed me so that problem has been solved!!
OH YEAH!! and, something very very exciting happened last week. We met a WHITE PERSON!!!!!!! this white person invited us to "quiz night" last thursday. We went and it was a lot of fun and it turns out there are a lot of people our age, who SPEAK english in Surat Thani. We have friends now!! (and one of the boys is really cute.. from California!). We are going again this week and they have like parties on the weekends and stuff and there are apparently certain bars you can go to where the Thai's are used to white faces and so you aren't stared at (I'm not sure if we've mentioned this lately... but they stare at us and gossip about us as if we're celebrities... everyone knws where we went and for how long on our vacation.. everyone knows where we work and what we wore yesterday... etc etc.. ) .
Anyways.. we can feel normal with friends that we can actually communicate with. this is a big deal. HURRAAAHHHH!!!!!
things are going well here,
although it's almost unbearably hot. we drip in sweat and shower 3 times , every day. it must be over 40 degrees? dunno. sometimes we're immobile for the afternoons we can't do anything but sweat and try to sleep away the heat. same as the Thais. it's defiantely hot season. hot/rainy season actually. *panting* it's 9:30pm and I'm still sweating today.
oh one more thing,
we went for our second round of laser hair removal in the arm pits. FUCKKKKKKING hell it hurts so bad. (excuse my french.) but honest... it hurts wayyy more than my tattoo did!!! I have red blisters and marks and swelling on my armpits (reffa fared better than I did- less sensitive skin) but you should see us getting lasered on the table... we like writhe in pain... cry etc. the works. yikes!!! It's ALMOST not worth it, but it is... to never have to shave again. Amazing though, hahaha it's only about 90$ per treatment and you only need 3, so just under 300$ to be hairless in one area. much more expensive back west. and the joules they use in Canada and America are between 13-18 (according to a website that I read up on). I want you to guess.. just GUESS before reading how many she used on me...
...
...
...
SIXTY EIGHT JOULES. wowza. no wonder it hurts.
okay, that's all the news I have for today! So sorry that it took a while to get another post up.
Rishard: safe travels my friend.
Charlotte: send me some wedding info
Maggie: OH BABY
Ally: xoxoxoxox miss you!
Mama: you're my favourite
Dad : congratulations
Erin : call me tomorrow
Grammie: If I could take all your pain away I would- and thank you so much for taking care of Lilly and replacing me!!! I can never thank you enough. :)
Grampie: Thanks for reading! I miss your hugs
Everyone: I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
cambodia
great post reffa!!
I believe it's "disorganized" though, rather than0 "un-organized-ly" LOL .
We head back home (home being Thailand) tomorrow, on a 10 hour bus. We were going to fly, but we're so used to buses now and it's much cheaper!!! 10 hours will bring us to Bangkok where we'll stop on Koh Sanh road and do some last minute shopping (I desperately need black tights lol) and then catch yet another 10 hour bus down south to Surat Thani.
School starts in a short 2 weeks and we are completely unprepared!! YIKES! wish us luck!
xoxox missing you all.
I believe it's "disorganized" though, rather than0 "un-organized-ly" LOL .
We head back home (home being Thailand) tomorrow, on a 10 hour bus. We were going to fly, but we're so used to buses now and it's much cheaper!!! 10 hours will bring us to Bangkok where we'll stop on Koh Sanh road and do some last minute shopping (I desperately need black tights lol) and then catch yet another 10 hour bus down south to Surat Thani.
School starts in a short 2 weeks and we are completely unprepared!! YIKES! wish us luck!
xoxox missing you all.
clothesline
HAHA i just noticed that Jessica put up a picture of our "clothesline" a few posts down.
Camb
Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful place!! We just love it here. it feels just like Thailand.
This is gonna be a big one!
Entering Cambodia: We get to the border, the guy on the bus goes around and collects everyones passport and $20 american dollars to pay for your Tourist Visa (one thing i didnt like about Vietnam, was everyone took your passport like Hotels and Guesthouses, and you got it back when you check out ...i guess to guarantee payment)
He tells us to get off the bus and put our bags through customs and wait for our names to be called.
2 more busses show up at the border doing the same thing.
So theres men running around with handfuls of passports walking around and then they go up to the front and then the customs officers just start putting Visa stamps in everyones passport and calling out their names un-organized-ly. ??
People are smoking inside the area, and its just total chaos. People from the back of the crowd are pushing their way through when they hear their name and people's bags are getting bumped over and everyone that doesn't speak Khmer is wondering where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do.... but it worked. everyone made it through in less then half an hour. hehe
We continue on and then 3 mins later the bus pulls over near a river and drives onto a flat boat with a dump truck full of sandbags or saltbags and theres a little boy following the bus looking up at us begging for money. He just keeps putting his hands out and putting his hands in the praying position and then putting his hands out for money and follows the bus ONTO the boat. Theres about 4 feet in between the bus and the boat's wall and I look down to see how close we are and the little boy is in between the bus and the boat's wall still looking up into the windows. I I go get jess to come look but by the time she gets there he's already gone.
The boat drives across the river (total time: approx 30 seconds) ...so they could've just built a small bridge but thats ok, and then we drive off onto the road. We drive for about 5 mins and then the bus pulls off on the side of the road for us to eat. Jess and I run over to the bank because both of us have about the eqivalent to $1 in Vietnamese money and no American or Cambodian money. We come back and are starving so grab a baguette and then the bus guy comes running into the place where we are buying our bread and urges us to follow him, because the bus is backing out of the parking lot slowly. he opens the door, we get in and then he starts to drive off.
We arrive in Phnom Penh (The Capitol City) which is really nice. They have neat feilds that look as though they are flooded. We still aren't sure if they are flooded fields or if the farmers harvest some sort of plant in the water, because the greenery was evenly rowed and a woman on a small boat was rowing in between the rows of greens.
As we drive through the city we see many parks, where women are doing aerobics in groups and guys are sitting on their motorbikes, checking their hair in the mirror and cellphone in hand (very Thai-like) and every child under the age of 6 is running around naked. Running by the busy roads, chasing chickens, playing in the dirt, riding bikes, playing in water together...etc.
Same as Thailand. Nobody wears helmets....5 people to a motorbike, etc...etc.. and the intersections are just people swirving around each other and coming to complete stops in the middle of the intersection to wait to go around bigger vehicles.
Along the sides of the city streets there are fenced in housing or hotels. On the fence every so often you can find a small square mirror nailed to the fence with a chair sitting in front of it and a man sitting in the chair getting a shave or his hair cut. They are the local barbershops, we are to assume, and unfortunartely neither of us got a picture. [which i'm very dissapointed about! ;( ]
We arrive at a place called "Okay Guesthouse".....it was alright I guess :P
We paid $4 a night and had 2 beds and a private bathroom and a fan. No airconditioning for us!! Gives us stuffy noses and sore throats which ALWAYS end up in colds!!
We drop off our stuff (but take our important stuff with us, not to worry!) and grab a tuktuk to take us to the Killing fields. We asked him how much to get there and he said $15 american each.
PFTTT no way were we paying that. Thats how much it's going to cost us to get back to Thailand! So we talked him down to $2 each, there and back, and he also stopped at the Khmer Rouge Genocide Prison (which is now a museum with all the original beds and cells still inside) and he waited for us while we explored both attractions. Not Bad eh?
The killing fields was very sad. It's all outdoors and we walked through a gate and apprached what looked like a tall narrow temple. Inside the temple were thousands and thousands of human skulls that were remains of the Khmer Rouge and they were piled on shelves that went so high that we could'nt see after about 5 or 6 rows. They had signs beside some of them saying the age of the skull and wether it was a male or a female. Surprised to see how many 10-16 year old female skulls there were compared to the rest. We were told that the higher up the tower you go, you can see skulls of babies. There was no way to go up and look, not that we would have wanted to see that, but it was something that I guess neither of us had ever thought we would even come close to seeing in our lives. It made us realize how lucky we are to grow up in a country like Canada. Also in the Killing fields it showed us where the bodies were piled and sprayed with DDT (the pesticide) We learned that the bodies were sprayed with DDT to 1. Remove the smell of decaying bodies so that locals wouldn't become suspicious and 2. to kill any of the bodies that happened to still be alive. [i feel really weird typing this by the way...it so sickening to me]
Near the back of the killing fields there was a small river, that was atleast something plesent to look at. We walked back towards it and there were 5 small children on the other side of the fence. They call us over saying "this way lady, this way!" in English. We walk over thinking that theres a whole new piece of the fields that we haven't seen. The kids reach through the fence to shake our hands. talking in (very good) English saying things like "where do you come from? what is your name? etc..." We answer their questions and they see the camera in my hand and ask if I can take a picture of them. The huddle up and smile for a picture and then immediately press themselves to the fence to see how the picture turned out. Something about 5 kids with no shoes standing in the killing fields behind a fence made both of us think that maybe i should strap my camera to my wrist (i know that sounds really bad....but we have to always be careful in foreign countries) and the oldest kid grabs the camera to get a closer look. When i try to take it away he holds onto it really tight and then looks up and me and lets go of the camera and says "can you please give me one dollar?" Then the other kids pitch in saying "not just for one person, we will share" and then go on to tell us that they need to to buy pencils and books for school. They are all saying it in unicen, which lead us to believe that they were all taught this. Because we know how the Thai kids are with learning English and if theres any english that they know its getting to know you conversation and "am/is/are grammer". They knew too much English for their age. So we concluded that it was their job.
We started to walk away and they followed us around the fence saying the chant over and over "Please give me money, i go to school, i need to buy books, buy pencil, buy uniform, i don't have money"
we started to feel bad for them, but knew that this was going to happen a lot, seeing as Cambodia is a poor country and that we can't give our money away to everyone who asks. We walked for a while and two bare-footed children followed us along the fence for a good 15 mins saying the same things over and over again. Then the little girl started asking for my bottle of water because she was thirsty.... it got to be too much so we ended up not seeing that side of the fields because we didn't want to see the children begging anymore.
**this doesn't sound like positive feedback about Cambodia, but it happened, so I will write them in here**
We went to the Genocide Prison after that where it showed what life was like for the Khmer people who were put through interrogation. Yet again, not the greatest thing, but its something that both of us needed to see. I had a headache so i skipped the last building and went outside for some fresh air. I was talking with some tuktuk drivers and they were practicing their English and Thai with me. Jess came out and we went back to the "okay guesthouse" we wanted to watch the sunset at the river but then we decided we were too hungry so we went and found a little local restaurant where they had home-made ice cream for really cheap. They didn't have anything vegetarian but we had already sat down and poured a glass of water so we settled for an icecream. Jess got chocolate (which tasted like coffee) and I got coconut (which tasted like coconut milk) they were awesome!!!
Then we made our way back to Okay and found a Korean restuarant. Neither of us had eaten Korean food and wanted to try it so we ordered fried mixed vegetables. The waiter brings over complimenty Kimchi spicy vegetables compliments of the chef. We (naturally) thought DOH cause that ususally means expensive.... but the bill only came to $2 and I got a pot of tea instead of a cup of tea!
We booked our bus ticket for Sihanouk ville (beachy area of Cambodia) which left at 6am. Both overslept but somehow (Jess always manages to do this....but...) woke up at 5:50. We rushed to get ready and rushed out, grabbed a baguette at the front desk to scarf down as we were loading our bags onto the bus. We arrived in Sihanouk ville about 5 hours later and it was really pretty. Small town....not a lot going on....just a lot of beaches. We find a place on the beach for $5 a night. Same kinda place like the one we stayed in in Phnom Penh. We go to check out the beaches... we're walking along the big one [starts with an "o", can't rememeber the name] and we are walking down the beach and a little boy , about 7 years old, walks over to us asking if he can make us a friendship bracelet. Jess says no and I say nothing. He follows us down the beach. Asks where we are from. We say Canada. He starts saying the Capitol City, Prime Minister, Population, etc... Very impressive I must say. He didn't learn it in school because it was 1pm on a Wednesday afternoon....meaning he doesn't go to school.
He follows us for a while and all the while is making a red and white friendship bracelet (Canadian colors...this kids GOOD!)
We keep telling him we don't want one , because we know we will have to buy it, and he doesn't give up. We find a place to park and sit on the beach and he sits down and opens up his fanny pack and pulls out some plain thread. Then he wraps it around his fingers, asking us if we want a pedicure because our nail polish is not beautiful anymore. Watching his fingers twirl the thread we realize what hes doing. he's preparing to do "threading" on us....which is (i believe) an Indian tradition for hair removal. He rests the thread on Jessica's shin and starts ripping hairs out with the thread thats woven between his fingers. Jessica reacts in pain by pulling her leg away and he moves closer and starts taking more and more hairs out. Jessica tells him she doesn't want it but he persists, saying that she will have no hair on her legs for 3 months and it's better than shaving.
All the while he keeps telling me to be careful of my bag because there are many thieves on the beach.
We decide we might as well be nice to the kid, and tell him we don't want to buy anything but we will play in the water with him. And he doesn't have to make us a friendship bracelet if he wants to be our friend. He packs up his stuff , i think because he realized we werent going to budge anymore, and then he walks away saying goodbye. He was nice about everything and then he runs over to me and grabs my bug repellent from the side watter bottle section of my bag and runs off with it. I tell him to come back and he runs back laughing saying "i told you, watch your bag" and hands me my bug repellent. grrrrr hehehe
It started to rain so we went back to the guesthouse and watched a movie about a book club. It was really good.
The next day we go to another beach, we tell the tuktuk driver we want to go to a beach that doesn't have a lot of people. We wanted to just enjoy the day and not have to deal with people selling things. After agreeing on a price he drops us off on a very quiet beach. As we are getting out he tells us that its very dangerous on this beach and that we should go to "Victory Beach" which is 10km away. Not so cool. But we stayed because we could see that there were many people if we walked along the beach for a bit.
A few kids found us, threw mud at us, we played with them in the water for a bit.We found a good place to relax and we stayed there for a few hours then walked back to the guesthouse.
Last stop: Siem Reap
We paid for a direct bus to Siem Reap, but apparantly direct means that you have to drive all the way back to Phnom Penh (first place we were) and then drive to the other side of the country to Siem Reap. Oh well, we both had a book and it wasn't an expensive bus.
We stopped along the way and I took a picture of the sunset, and this family asked me to take a picture of their little boy...who was REALLY cute. He'll be in my pictures on facebook when we put them up. And then we arrived late last night. I think it was about 9 or 10 or so....which we were a little uncomfortable about because we don't like to arrive places at night because we don't know what to expect. But it was ok, a tuktuk driver named "Rak" was waiting outside the bus. He drove us to a guesthouse called "Number10 Guesthouse" (love that they try to make their places sound good eh??? Okay, Number 10....hehehe) and thats where we are now. We asked Rak how we can go about seeing the Angkor Wat temples at sunrise and he said that we can hire him to take us. So we arranged for him to come to the gueshouse at 5:15am and take us there for the day, drive us around and bring us back. Unfortunately we could only get him to settle for 10$. But it was worth it. We made it just in time for sunrise and got to see one of the most beautiful sights so far!! Angkor Wat is a series of many many ancient temples and it is one of the 7 man-made wonders of the world. I think we took over 200 pictures today! They will be up within the next week or so.
We were going to go to the floating village but decided we will save it for next time. Didn't quite get to do all the things on the itinerary, but we are so happy with all that we saw and had so much fun that it doesn't matter!
Tonight we went to the night market and we bought our friend Scott a bottle of some sort of liquor with a snake inside, which he obviously wont drink, it will be for decoration, and jessica bought some cool sweatpant shorts. We also got our feet "massaged" by tiny fish that looked like minnows. Basically they eat the dead skin off your feet but it tickles so much it feels like they are massaging you. They are called "Dr. Fish" and it was a lot of fun!We walked back but then got lost, but then found our way. I think we will stay in cambodia a few more days before heading back to Thailand. maybe just walk around and see the way of life, more so than the tourist attractions. Thats what always amazes us the most. I would like to get some more pictures and the people are so friendly and welcoming that we will have fun just doing that.
Ok mosquitoes are getting me.
I hope I didn't make Cambodia seem like a dreadful place, its actually so amazing to see how the people can live off so little and how they make the most of everything and day-to-day are constantly smiling and waving and having fun. Making the most of life. and helping each other and helping visitors as well.
cambodia is awesome. we would come back for sure.
This is gonna be a big one!
Entering Cambodia: We get to the border, the guy on the bus goes around and collects everyones passport and $20 american dollars to pay for your Tourist Visa (one thing i didnt like about Vietnam, was everyone took your passport like Hotels and Guesthouses, and you got it back when you check out ...i guess to guarantee payment)
He tells us to get off the bus and put our bags through customs and wait for our names to be called.
2 more busses show up at the border doing the same thing.
So theres men running around with handfuls of passports walking around and then they go up to the front and then the customs officers just start putting Visa stamps in everyones passport and calling out their names un-organized-ly. ??
People are smoking inside the area, and its just total chaos. People from the back of the crowd are pushing their way through when they hear their name and people's bags are getting bumped over and everyone that doesn't speak Khmer is wondering where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do.... but it worked. everyone made it through in less then half an hour. hehe
We continue on and then 3 mins later the bus pulls over near a river and drives onto a flat boat with a dump truck full of sandbags or saltbags and theres a little boy following the bus looking up at us begging for money. He just keeps putting his hands out and putting his hands in the praying position and then putting his hands out for money and follows the bus ONTO the boat. Theres about 4 feet in between the bus and the boat's wall and I look down to see how close we are and the little boy is in between the bus and the boat's wall still looking up into the windows. I I go get jess to come look but by the time she gets there he's already gone.
The boat drives across the river (total time: approx 30 seconds) ...so they could've just built a small bridge but thats ok, and then we drive off onto the road. We drive for about 5 mins and then the bus pulls off on the side of the road for us to eat. Jess and I run over to the bank because both of us have about the eqivalent to $1 in Vietnamese money and no American or Cambodian money. We come back and are starving so grab a baguette and then the bus guy comes running into the place where we are buying our bread and urges us to follow him, because the bus is backing out of the parking lot slowly. he opens the door, we get in and then he starts to drive off.
We arrive in Phnom Penh (The Capitol City) which is really nice. They have neat feilds that look as though they are flooded. We still aren't sure if they are flooded fields or if the farmers harvest some sort of plant in the water, because the greenery was evenly rowed and a woman on a small boat was rowing in between the rows of greens.
As we drive through the city we see many parks, where women are doing aerobics in groups and guys are sitting on their motorbikes, checking their hair in the mirror and cellphone in hand (very Thai-like) and every child under the age of 6 is running around naked. Running by the busy roads, chasing chickens, playing in the dirt, riding bikes, playing in water together...etc.
Same as Thailand. Nobody wears helmets....5 people to a motorbike, etc...etc.. and the intersections are just people swirving around each other and coming to complete stops in the middle of the intersection to wait to go around bigger vehicles.
Along the sides of the city streets there are fenced in housing or hotels. On the fence every so often you can find a small square mirror nailed to the fence with a chair sitting in front of it and a man sitting in the chair getting a shave or his hair cut. They are the local barbershops, we are to assume, and unfortunartely neither of us got a picture. [which i'm very dissapointed about! ;( ]
We arrive at a place called "Okay Guesthouse".....it was alright I guess :P
We paid $4 a night and had 2 beds and a private bathroom and a fan. No airconditioning for us!! Gives us stuffy noses and sore throats which ALWAYS end up in colds!!
We drop off our stuff (but take our important stuff with us, not to worry!) and grab a tuktuk to take us to the Killing fields. We asked him how much to get there and he said $15 american each.
PFTTT no way were we paying that. Thats how much it's going to cost us to get back to Thailand! So we talked him down to $2 each, there and back, and he also stopped at the Khmer Rouge Genocide Prison (which is now a museum with all the original beds and cells still inside) and he waited for us while we explored both attractions. Not Bad eh?
The killing fields was very sad. It's all outdoors and we walked through a gate and apprached what looked like a tall narrow temple. Inside the temple were thousands and thousands of human skulls that were remains of the Khmer Rouge and they were piled on shelves that went so high that we could'nt see after about 5 or 6 rows. They had signs beside some of them saying the age of the skull and wether it was a male or a female. Surprised to see how many 10-16 year old female skulls there were compared to the rest. We were told that the higher up the tower you go, you can see skulls of babies. There was no way to go up and look, not that we would have wanted to see that, but it was something that I guess neither of us had ever thought we would even come close to seeing in our lives. It made us realize how lucky we are to grow up in a country like Canada. Also in the Killing fields it showed us where the bodies were piled and sprayed with DDT (the pesticide) We learned that the bodies were sprayed with DDT to 1. Remove the smell of decaying bodies so that locals wouldn't become suspicious and 2. to kill any of the bodies that happened to still be alive. [i feel really weird typing this by the way...it so sickening to me]
Near the back of the killing fields there was a small river, that was atleast something plesent to look at. We walked back towards it and there were 5 small children on the other side of the fence. They call us over saying "this way lady, this way!" in English. We walk over thinking that theres a whole new piece of the fields that we haven't seen. The kids reach through the fence to shake our hands. talking in (very good) English saying things like "where do you come from? what is your name? etc..." We answer their questions and they see the camera in my hand and ask if I can take a picture of them. The huddle up and smile for a picture and then immediately press themselves to the fence to see how the picture turned out. Something about 5 kids with no shoes standing in the killing fields behind a fence made both of us think that maybe i should strap my camera to my wrist (i know that sounds really bad....but we have to always be careful in foreign countries) and the oldest kid grabs the camera to get a closer look. When i try to take it away he holds onto it really tight and then looks up and me and lets go of the camera and says "can you please give me one dollar?" Then the other kids pitch in saying "not just for one person, we will share" and then go on to tell us that they need to to buy pencils and books for school. They are all saying it in unicen, which lead us to believe that they were all taught this. Because we know how the Thai kids are with learning English and if theres any english that they know its getting to know you conversation and "am/is/are grammer". They knew too much English for their age. So we concluded that it was their job.
We started to walk away and they followed us around the fence saying the chant over and over "Please give me money, i go to school, i need to buy books, buy pencil, buy uniform, i don't have money"
we started to feel bad for them, but knew that this was going to happen a lot, seeing as Cambodia is a poor country and that we can't give our money away to everyone who asks. We walked for a while and two bare-footed children followed us along the fence for a good 15 mins saying the same things over and over again. Then the little girl started asking for my bottle of water because she was thirsty.... it got to be too much so we ended up not seeing that side of the fields because we didn't want to see the children begging anymore.
**this doesn't sound like positive feedback about Cambodia, but it happened, so I will write them in here**
We went to the Genocide Prison after that where it showed what life was like for the Khmer people who were put through interrogation. Yet again, not the greatest thing, but its something that both of us needed to see. I had a headache so i skipped the last building and went outside for some fresh air. I was talking with some tuktuk drivers and they were practicing their English and Thai with me. Jess came out and we went back to the "okay guesthouse" we wanted to watch the sunset at the river but then we decided we were too hungry so we went and found a little local restaurant where they had home-made ice cream for really cheap. They didn't have anything vegetarian but we had already sat down and poured a glass of water so we settled for an icecream. Jess got chocolate (which tasted like coffee) and I got coconut (which tasted like coconut milk) they were awesome!!!
Then we made our way back to Okay and found a Korean restuarant. Neither of us had eaten Korean food and wanted to try it so we ordered fried mixed vegetables. The waiter brings over complimenty Kimchi spicy vegetables compliments of the chef. We (naturally) thought DOH cause that ususally means expensive.... but the bill only came to $2 and I got a pot of tea instead of a cup of tea!
We booked our bus ticket for Sihanouk ville (beachy area of Cambodia) which left at 6am. Both overslept but somehow (Jess always manages to do this....but...) woke up at 5:50. We rushed to get ready and rushed out, grabbed a baguette at the front desk to scarf down as we were loading our bags onto the bus. We arrived in Sihanouk ville about 5 hours later and it was really pretty. Small town....not a lot going on....just a lot of beaches. We find a place on the beach for $5 a night. Same kinda place like the one we stayed in in Phnom Penh. We go to check out the beaches... we're walking along the big one [starts with an "o", can't rememeber the name] and we are walking down the beach and a little boy , about 7 years old, walks over to us asking if he can make us a friendship bracelet. Jess says no and I say nothing. He follows us down the beach. Asks where we are from. We say Canada. He starts saying the Capitol City, Prime Minister, Population, etc... Very impressive I must say. He didn't learn it in school because it was 1pm on a Wednesday afternoon....meaning he doesn't go to school.
He follows us for a while and all the while is making a red and white friendship bracelet (Canadian colors...this kids GOOD!)
We keep telling him we don't want one , because we know we will have to buy it, and he doesn't give up. We find a place to park and sit on the beach and he sits down and opens up his fanny pack and pulls out some plain thread. Then he wraps it around his fingers, asking us if we want a pedicure because our nail polish is not beautiful anymore. Watching his fingers twirl the thread we realize what hes doing. he's preparing to do "threading" on us....which is (i believe) an Indian tradition for hair removal. He rests the thread on Jessica's shin and starts ripping hairs out with the thread thats woven between his fingers. Jessica reacts in pain by pulling her leg away and he moves closer and starts taking more and more hairs out. Jessica tells him she doesn't want it but he persists, saying that she will have no hair on her legs for 3 months and it's better than shaving.
All the while he keeps telling me to be careful of my bag because there are many thieves on the beach.
We decide we might as well be nice to the kid, and tell him we don't want to buy anything but we will play in the water with him. And he doesn't have to make us a friendship bracelet if he wants to be our friend. He packs up his stuff , i think because he realized we werent going to budge anymore, and then he walks away saying goodbye. He was nice about everything and then he runs over to me and grabs my bug repellent from the side watter bottle section of my bag and runs off with it. I tell him to come back and he runs back laughing saying "i told you, watch your bag" and hands me my bug repellent. grrrrr hehehe
It started to rain so we went back to the guesthouse and watched a movie about a book club. It was really good.
The next day we go to another beach, we tell the tuktuk driver we want to go to a beach that doesn't have a lot of people. We wanted to just enjoy the day and not have to deal with people selling things. After agreeing on a price he drops us off on a very quiet beach. As we are getting out he tells us that its very dangerous on this beach and that we should go to "Victory Beach" which is 10km away. Not so cool. But we stayed because we could see that there were many people if we walked along the beach for a bit.
A few kids found us, threw mud at us, we played with them in the water for a bit.We found a good place to relax and we stayed there for a few hours then walked back to the guesthouse.
Last stop: Siem Reap
We paid for a direct bus to Siem Reap, but apparantly direct means that you have to drive all the way back to Phnom Penh (first place we were) and then drive to the other side of the country to Siem Reap. Oh well, we both had a book and it wasn't an expensive bus.
We stopped along the way and I took a picture of the sunset, and this family asked me to take a picture of their little boy...who was REALLY cute. He'll be in my pictures on facebook when we put them up. And then we arrived late last night. I think it was about 9 or 10 or so....which we were a little uncomfortable about because we don't like to arrive places at night because we don't know what to expect. But it was ok, a tuktuk driver named "Rak" was waiting outside the bus. He drove us to a guesthouse called "Number10 Guesthouse" (love that they try to make their places sound good eh??? Okay, Number 10....hehehe) and thats where we are now. We asked Rak how we can go about seeing the Angkor Wat temples at sunrise and he said that we can hire him to take us. So we arranged for him to come to the gueshouse at 5:15am and take us there for the day, drive us around and bring us back. Unfortunately we could only get him to settle for 10$. But it was worth it. We made it just in time for sunrise and got to see one of the most beautiful sights so far!! Angkor Wat is a series of many many ancient temples and it is one of the 7 man-made wonders of the world. I think we took over 200 pictures today! They will be up within the next week or so.
We were going to go to the floating village but decided we will save it for next time. Didn't quite get to do all the things on the itinerary, but we are so happy with all that we saw and had so much fun that it doesn't matter!
Tonight we went to the night market and we bought our friend Scott a bottle of some sort of liquor with a snake inside, which he obviously wont drink, it will be for decoration, and jessica bought some cool sweatpant shorts. We also got our feet "massaged" by tiny fish that looked like minnows. Basically they eat the dead skin off your feet but it tickles so much it feels like they are massaging you. They are called "Dr. Fish" and it was a lot of fun!We walked back but then got lost, but then found our way. I think we will stay in cambodia a few more days before heading back to Thailand. maybe just walk around and see the way of life, more so than the tourist attractions. Thats what always amazes us the most. I would like to get some more pictures and the people are so friendly and welcoming that we will have fun just doing that.
Ok mosquitoes are getting me.
I hope I didn't make Cambodia seem like a dreadful place, its actually so amazing to see how the people can live off so little and how they make the most of everything and day-to-day are constantly smiling and waving and having fun. Making the most of life. and helping each other and helping visitors as well.
cambodia is awesome. we would come back for sure.
Friday, April 24, 2009
DaLat
We are in DaLat right now, on our way to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow morning. Jessica has me really excited to see the war museum and it seems like theres going to be a lot to see there! We are going to stick with walking like we have been because its just TOO dangerous to rent a motorbike. Our friend Greg read in his travellers book that 30 people a day die from motorbike accidents in Ho Chi Minh City......scary!
Last night we went to meet our friends at a Cafe and when we came back at 10:30pm and the doors were all locked and the lights were turned off for the place we are staying!!! At first we didn't know what to do but then i knocked a few times and a woman let us in. Dalat is weird, everything is shut down and quiet by 10:00 or earlier!!
We found a really nice vegetarian restuarant we are going to go down to for the second night in a row. They have so many options and they also have VEGAN food!! The staff is really friendly and welcoming and the dishes are affordable.
Our hotels have been fairly decent prices, but they keep getting higher and higher the further south we go down, but we were expecting the opposite!
Hope we can make it back to Thailand!! (just kidding :P )
Last night we went to meet our friends at a Cafe and when we came back at 10:30pm and the doors were all locked and the lights were turned off for the place we are staying!!! At first we didn't know what to do but then i knocked a few times and a woman let us in. Dalat is weird, everything is shut down and quiet by 10:00 or earlier!!
We found a really nice vegetarian restuarant we are going to go down to for the second night in a row. They have so many options and they also have VEGAN food!! The staff is really friendly and welcoming and the dishes are affordable.
Our hotels have been fairly decent prices, but they keep getting higher and higher the further south we go down, but we were expecting the opposite!
Hope we can make it back to Thailand!! (just kidding :P )
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Hoi An
Okay, sorry sorry sorry, the last post was really vague and lame.. hahaha
So we arrived in Hoi An today and reunited with our friends from Phuket (all except for our crazy Irish friend who is always drunk and in a different province now? oh how we love him). we went to the beach today- lovely!
we also rented out old fashioned bicycles and went all the way around the city- what a blast! the lights were gorgeous and there are 324092-4589304583 taylor shops- i think I'm goign to get a dress and a few shirts tomrorow!!! yay!!!
We love Hoi An, but we're running out of travel money YIKES .. it's cheap living for the most part though. we are staying in the fanciest hotel EVER for 10$ a night.... big pool, cherry wood everything, air con, tv etc etc... we tried to find an old guesthouse for cheaper but they're the same price??? anyways. we're having fun!!!!!!!!!
So we arrived in Hoi An today and reunited with our friends from Phuket (all except for our crazy Irish friend who is always drunk and in a different province now? oh how we love him). we went to the beach today- lovely!
we also rented out old fashioned bicycles and went all the way around the city- what a blast! the lights were gorgeous and there are 324092-4589304583 taylor shops- i think I'm goign to get a dress and a few shirts tomrorow!!! yay!!!
We love Hoi An, but we're running out of travel money YIKES .. it's cheap living for the most part though. we are staying in the fanciest hotel EVER for 10$ a night.... big pool, cherry wood everything, air con, tv etc etc... we tried to find an old guesthouse for cheaper but they're the same price??? anyways. we're having fun!!!!!!!!!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Hue
Hanoi- hilarious, busy, crazy, interesting!
Hue- relaxing, beautiful, cheaper, happier! =)
Tomorrow, we go to Hoi An.
Hue- relaxing, beautiful, cheaper, happier! =)
Tomorrow, we go to Hoi An.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Nam, day 1
Well... we had quite the adventure at the Bangkok airport! As many of you know, the red shirts and yellow shirts have been acting up again and Thailand has been declared as in a state of emergency.. UGH there were soldiers all through the airport etc etc. but it didn't affect us at all. in fact, you people from Canada were the ones who told us that there were issues hahahaa.
Anyways, we are safe and sound in Viet Nam today. we got here at 8:30am (it is now 8:30pm) and we are paying 4$ a night for our hostel- and it's actually kinda nice ! big bed, fan, tv, private bathroom , and no bugs! not bad! the lady gives us free meals too YUMMMM. Vietnamese food is gooood. although we didn't find many restaurants today!
We wandered all around Hanoi city for about 5 hours and had a great time .. the traffic is madness. the people are no where near as kind and funny as in Thailand, but it's so interesting to see the culture nonetheless. We are having such an amazing trip! Tomorrow we will leave for a gorgeous sightseeing trip, called the Halong Bay trip. we've already been told that we paid too much for our ticket- but what else is new? everyones' got a different price. it's frustrating but you really just have to let it go and decide what each thing is worth to you because if you compare it constantly to what others paid, you'll go crazy.
we also purchased an "open ended bus ticket" which gives us unlimited bus access (sleeping bus access- meaning we get full out beds and pillows for the 12 hour trips overnight- AWESOME) all the way across Vietnam. it costed 55$ (although my friend paid 70, and my other friend paid 37, and an old couple we met paid 300$ US YIKES) . It's worth every penny- we won't have any more travel expenses and it's valid for 3 months. excellent.
I've finished uploading the water festival pictures, and added a couple more videos. we will do our best to keep the Nam pictures alive and fresh too!! They are all on Facebook.
We do have a Vietnamese sim card now on which you can reach us. We will post the number in 3 days (after the Halong Bay trip) becuase right now I don't know it, and we won't be able to talk while we're away anyways. for now, you can send us emails! =)
Miss you all, but wow, what an amazing time we're having.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Anyways, we are safe and sound in Viet Nam today. we got here at 8:30am (it is now 8:30pm) and we are paying 4$ a night for our hostel- and it's actually kinda nice ! big bed, fan, tv, private bathroom , and no bugs! not bad! the lady gives us free meals too YUMMMM. Vietnamese food is gooood. although we didn't find many restaurants today!
We wandered all around Hanoi city for about 5 hours and had a great time .. the traffic is madness. the people are no where near as kind and funny as in Thailand, but it's so interesting to see the culture nonetheless. We are having such an amazing trip! Tomorrow we will leave for a gorgeous sightseeing trip, called the Halong Bay trip. we've already been told that we paid too much for our ticket- but what else is new? everyones' got a different price. it's frustrating but you really just have to let it go and decide what each thing is worth to you because if you compare it constantly to what others paid, you'll go crazy.
we also purchased an "open ended bus ticket" which gives us unlimited bus access (sleeping bus access- meaning we get full out beds and pillows for the 12 hour trips overnight- AWESOME) all the way across Vietnam. it costed 55$ (although my friend paid 70, and my other friend paid 37, and an old couple we met paid 300$ US YIKES) . It's worth every penny- we won't have any more travel expenses and it's valid for 3 months. excellent.
I've finished uploading the water festival pictures, and added a couple more videos. we will do our best to keep the Nam pictures alive and fresh too!! They are all on Facebook.
We do have a Vietnamese sim card now on which you can reach us. We will post the number in 3 days (after the Halong Bay trip) becuase right now I don't know it, and we won't be able to talk while we're away anyways. for now, you can send us emails! =)
Miss you all, but wow, what an amazing time we're having.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
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