Term 1 Is Over

I don't think anyone over here can believe that we are officially on vacation for the next 4 weeks... and that we get paid that whole time! For me it's even harder to believe that this means we have not only been living in Thailand for 5 months already, but that we've finished teaching an entire semester too. We survived :) and luckily we have confirmed that we both love teaching, phew!!

Friday morning Nick had his first ever parent teacher interviews where his students came in with their parents, received their report card 1 at a time and discussed it together with Nicks thai teacher, T. Ann. Since he's too lazy to be writing any blog posts I can only explain this from his very short account to me. He loved seeing students again after almost 2 weeks without  classes and for the most part everything went smoothly even with T. Ann having to translate for about half of the parents. I thought it was weird that they waited until after all final grades to even meet the parents in the first place, but now going into term 2 at least that contact has been made. Nick also mentioned that many of the moms could have easily been sisters to his 10 year old students...

While Nick was up early and sitting in meetings all morning I strolled into my last day at 8:30, sat on my computer browsing travel blogs about Vietnam until 11 and then just like that I came home and was on vacation! (The last 2 weeks have essentially been work weeks for teachers and we also have a week without students at the beginning of term 2, so to put it mildly, there was not much do actually do!)

To celebrate our afternoon (and month) off we hit up a coffee shop, this time a new one that we had never been to before. Hands down we have found the best macaroons in NST. (not pictured since we ate them too fast) Since we were caught in the rain I had a hot tea and I was surprised to find they also had a selection of black tea which I haven't seen at other shops either. Tea makes me happy :)

Here is my very artsy picture of the newest shop:

So now we have 4 days until we head to the airport around dinner time on Tuesday. Our big plans involve sleeping in, cleaning the house, packing, planning and maybe squeezing a waterfall trip somewhere into all that. 4 days and counting... Vietnam here we come!

Weekends in NST

I'm sure a lot of people assume that we do little to no real work over here... and that's a fair assumption based on the pictures we post, but who wants to see picture of us working?! I can assure you that they would not be very fun to browse. So yes we work, Monday-Friday, every week! But what about the weekends? Yes, we have been trying to make the most of our time over here by using our weekends as best we can to explore this country so please don't hate me when I say that travelling every weekend can be exhausting! I would say we try to do something exciting 2 weekends out of every month and the other 2 are spent around town, relaxing, catching up on chores and doing errands, exciting I know! We have always posted pictures of our long weekend trips to exotic islands and even our overnight adventures to local beaches, but we haven't really talked about what we do when we stick around town, so that is what this blog post will be about.

Friday nights are usually very laid back since Nick and I both had "gate duty" Friday mornings meaning we are at school before 7am to stand by the gate and Wai all students and staff as they come in, by 4:15 when we get home we are both exhausted. Last Friday we joined Nicks coworkers at a local expat dive bar called Jamaica Bar for some end of term, celebratory drinks. This place is basically a couple of huts, plastic chairs and tables, a pool table and a makeshift bar and kitchen. When we got there, Bam (the owner), was passed out in the shade so we helped ourselves to some beers and ciders. Some people are known to stick around here until the wee hours in the morning but I can't say it's my favourite place to hang out, a big part of that is the relentless mosquitos and no where to escape them. Nick and I usually go out to eat on Fridays (again too tired to be bothered to cook at home) and usually watch a movie or netflix on our projector.

Saturday and Sundays: We try to wake up relatively early at least one day on the weekend so that we can check out one of the markets. Some of our more dedicated friends will be there and home by 8am so avoid the crazy heat, but unfortunately I just can't wrap my head around waking up that early on a weekend so instead we get there by 9ish and suffer the extreme heat as we walk through the narrow maze of alleys. I still don't think we've seen the entire Morning Market. It starts off on the road side with some fresh produce, meat, fish and stuff like that. There are a few carts where you can get cold drinks (in plastic bags with a straw) and fresh snacks, but thats not really what you find at the morning market. The farther you walk into the maze you start to see less food and more clothes. This market is like heaven to thrift store shoppers. You can find entire shops for used jeans, shoes, hats, dresses, blouses... you name it and you can find it here. I'm still trying to figure out what size I wear in thai clothes, much like back home it seems to change based on the type of clothes and the brand, so I do more browsing than buying here since changerooms dont exactly exist in the middle of the market. I am determined to find a pair of overall shorts before coming home and bringing them back into style in Canada... Thai women pull them off but they also mostly all wear size 00, so I'll keep looking!

I'm ashamed to admit that we still buy most of our produce at the grocery store and not the market, but thats due to the convenience of buying all of our groceries together (milk, yogurt, juice, etc. which you can't get at the market). We tend to buy groceries a few times a week in the evenings after work since having a bike instead of a car limits you to one errand at a time. We often forget about this limitation when we try to run more than one errand at once, anytime you are buying something it has to be the last stop or else you are carrying your purchases with you wherever you go.

Another weekly routine that we try and uphold even when we go out of town is to go on a coffee shop date. There are about 4 coffee shops in town that we love and rotate between (there are hundreds more that we keep saying we are going to try but its hard to break away from something you know is so good!) I love the variety of cold drinks you can get here that are not coffee! If you are a coffee and tea drinker you'll have a harder time picking something. Nick usually goes for some type of ice cappuccino (caramel, hazelnut, mocha...) and lately I've been obsessed with iced green tea. I originally replaced my Thai Tea obsession (creamy bright orange tea with sugar and condensed milk) since I assumed green tea was a healthier option... until I recently watched them make my drink the other day saw them pour in a very unhealthy amount of condensed milk, so basically i just changed from orange to green tea, both are delicious. Many of the coffee shops in town sell all kinds of cakes and cupcakes and pastries that look so good and unfortunately that we can't eat. BUT a few of them have macaroons which are naturally gluten free so they have become a guilty pleasure (and splurge) when we go to these shops, the earl grey tea and rose flavour are sooo good.

They turned an old shipping container into a super cool, vintage inspired coffee shop. 

I swear I don't just like them because everything comes in mason jars...

Bank Bakery

Bank Bakery Macaroons :)

Finally we indulge in weekly Sunday afternoon massages at our favourite massage parlour. We rotate between getting foot massages, thai massages and full body oil massages. At first we saved this as monthly occurrences until we finally just gave in knowing that once we move back home this will become a treat we'll get maybe every year if not less often, so why not!

Other things we get up to around town: Sometimes we'll work out on the weekend depending what other plans we have, there are a few classes I like to go to Saturday morning or Saturday night and Nick's Muay Thai gym is open as well. We've hosted a few movie nights at our place too and more recently NFL night when a couple people came over to watch the Cowboys game :) Sometimes we go out to the other end of town for errands at the Tesco Lotus or Makro since we can get things there that we can't get closer to us, last week we got corn soft shell tacos and frozen berries! It's the little things.

Sticking around town may sound boring when there are so many amazing places we could be near by, but it feels really nice to sleep in, relax and explore more of this town without worrying about packing, the cat or the expense of going away. Other than doing laundry, dishes, sweeping, mopping, etc. which we have to keep on top of every week in our house (sometimes it feels more like a barn than a house) we still manage to enjoy staying around NST :)

Surprise! We still have a blog!

I could start off this post by dwelling on the fact that it has been almost 3 months to the day that we last posted anything on our blog... but I won't.

Time goes by when you're having fun I guess.

As we are reaching the end of the school term, getting nearer to our first big vacation, and finally feeling like we are actually settled in our town, what better time to get back on the bandwagon.

Let's recap the last few months in some super quick highlights (I'll admit I had to use my own facebook albums to remember what we've done... it still feels like a whirlwind!)

June: After our long weekend in Krabi and Railay we had to wait almost 2 months before our next long weekend. I know, it's a hard life. In anticipation for the end of July we kept ourselves busy with over night and single day trips. Mid June we went to a waterfall overnight with 2 other couples, Scott and Stephen work with Nick in Pratom, and Sarah, Sara, Ciara and Rob all work in Kinderland with me. (There are 5 sarahs on staff) It was about an hour trip on our bikes and we stayed in cute little cabins that were equipped with AC, tvs, fridges, hot water, all very unexpected! This was a nice little getaway where we just ate and played cards by a waterfall :)

July: July was an interesting month. I had a parade, my birthday, a trip to Bangkok, and long weekend in Koh Samui to look forward to. The highlight ended up being something I never in a million years expected: my mom and dana just showing up at dinner one night to our favourite restaurant. Although I had zero time to plan, it ended up being a great 2 weeks of showing them our town, exploring bangkok and hanging out on some great beaches. Nick and I definitely want to go back to Bangkok. The Chatachuk market alone was an awesome time and eating mexican food for the first time in a few months was delicious.

At the end of July we had to say goodbye to two of our new friends as they were heading back to Ireland. Our long weekend in Samui was spent mostly with a big group of friends celebrating Rob and Ciaras last trip. We did an awesome boat tour of some islands that ended with a climb even more brutal than the Tiger Temple in Krabi and then explored the island on our own (stopping at a few of the international schools just to check them out...) We were also introduced to a super cool little beach bar that is owned by a former teacher at our school who, with her Thai husband, built the bar from clay and sand with their own hands. It was an awesome place to chill out and watch the sunset on our last night. It was super sad to say goodbye to Rob and Ciara and made us realize how hard the end of this year will be! Whether we resign at our school or not there will be so many of our friends moving on to new things, it's going to be rough!

August: For Nicks birthday we went back to Railay just the two of us so that he could do some rock climbing. We splurged on our hotel for one night by staying right on Railay and Nick got to do a full day of climbing in some pretty amazing places. It was nice to travel back to somewhere we've already been since we knew how to get around, where to eat and what to do. The rest of this month is a bit of a blur. August at school was a bit of a grind to get through since september is only review and exams! Students and teachers could both definitely feel the term coming to an end.

Oh and did I mention the frogs? In Kindergarten each grade has to pick a topic and then talk about nothing else but that topic for 2 straight weeks. In K2 we decided on frogs. For 2 straight weeks we read about frogs, sung about frogs, coloured frogs, built frogs, talked about frogs, visited a frog farm, raised frogs and finally, yep, we ate frogs.

So now what?

September is already flying by. I can't even believe it's September already! On facebook I've been seeing all of my teacher's college friends posting about getting on supply lists, the lucky few starting LTO's and lots of awesome stories of settling into the UK. And here I am administering midterm exams on Monday morning after teaching half the year already! (Don't even get me started on the fact that I am orally examining 4 year olds, individually, in 3 different subject areas, and then giving them grades and report cards!) Nick has already written his midterm exam and has one more week of review before his students write their exams. After all of this we have a teacher work week with no students to get all reports sorted out, prep for term 2 and clean our classrooms.

Then it's travel time!!!

A brief itinerary of where we will be:

We fly out of Bangkok on September 30th to Hanoi, Vietnam where we will stay until Oct. 4th.

Oct. 4-6: Halong Bay, Vietnam

Oct. 6-10: Hoi An, Vietnam

Oct. 10-14: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Oct. 14-18: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Oct. 18-21: Singapore

Then we fly Singapore, Bangkok, NST and have a few days to get ready for term 2 to start.

We head back to work on Oct. 26.

We will post again with more info of day to day life, what we get up to on weekends when we stay in town, and most importantly a little update on the incredible food that is making my clothes start to fit just a little bit tighter... (that might have a little something to do with the fact that I learned how to bake cookies in my frying pan as well...)

And we'll definitely be updating as we travel around SEA in October!

We promise, please believe us.

Railay Beach

I'm a week late on this sorry...

So after our pretty low key night in Krabi, Kay and I got up at 6:30 a.m. to be ready for the van that was going to pick us up for our rock climbing adventure.  The truck as a little bit late, but I'm going to blame it on the 2 divas and their dad who were on the truck when it pulled up.  Just going out on a limb and saying that they were late.  The truck was really just a song tao that belonged to the King Climbers company for Railay.  The drive was probably 20 minutes long and it dropped us off at a random pier.  We walked all the way out to the end and waited for about 10 minutes while our boat was being prepared.  The long tail boats are something else, they are really cool looking.  Their gargantuan engines are up at the back of the boat and the propeller is way down at the end of a long pole (long tail, get it?).  The engines reminded me of the pod racers in Star Wars.  They were as loud as well.  Finally, we were told to jump on.  The ride on the long tail was probably only 10 minutes and we were treated to an amazing view the entire way.  The picture we have up on Facebook of the big rock on Railay beach is pretty much the normal view you get if you look anywhere.  Big inspiring rock walls towering over you everywhere you turn.

The beach has two sides; an east side and a west side.  The east side has a proper dock and the west side is the one in all of the pictures which does not have a dock.  There are actually quite a few resorts on the east side and they are much less expensive than the west side ones simply because they aren't on the nice world renowned beach.  Kay and I found this kind of funny considering it's a 5 minute walk from one side to the other in the shade and on a nice path.  We docked on the east side (a lot of the tourists will come on the west side with no dock, but I'll get to that later).  When we landed, we all jumped off and followed our guide to the King Climbers HQ on the west side (a 5 min walk).  Once we arrived, we were given the proper gear and water bottles which we put our names on.  Then, it was off to the wall.  We only did a half day so we only saw one wall but the full day climbing groups get to go to a couple different walls.  I was given a big coil of rope to carry up for our guides.

When we arrived at the wall, we all sat down and hung around while our guides flew up the walls placing our ropes in various points on the wall.  Guy and Ian were our guides and Ian was the one up on the wall.  We would later learn that he has climbed the routes on this wall over 500 times and after seeing him glide over every inch of it in under 5 minutes with 5 ropes on his back, I believe him. Because our top ropes were set up so high, they had to clip our rope up at the anchor on the top as usual, but then twice more, our rope was fed through a quickdraw.  This made our rope go up the wall in a zig-zag fashion.  They did this to prevent us from swinging too far to the left or right if we fell. As we passed by the quickdraws, we would "simply" unclip our rope from them to continue on up.  "Okay Nick now unclip your rope from that carabiner...Nick you have to unclip that carabiner", ya Ian I got it man, I'm just taking a break.  Having one hand on the blistering rock, holding you up, and the other fumbling with the stupid carabiner was quite difficult.  Fun though!

So once everything was set up, Guy asked the crowd who had climbed before, I put my hand up but said that it was only indoors "Doesn't matter!!!" Okay Guy. Before I knew it, belay was on and I was on my way up the rock.  The rock was easy enough to get up, your shoes stick way more to real rock than they do with holds in a gym which was very nice.  I found myself more comfortable in my footwork.  I got up to the quickdraw pretty easily and looked back down, holy shit I'm like 35 feet up and I'm only halfway.  I called down to Guy and said I was done.  "Hahahahaha, Nick, you are doing great, but you are not done, you haven't fallen and you are only halfway!" Alright fine.  Every time I feel like I'm fine and comfortable, Thailand comes along and says to hell with your comfort zone (see: rope swing, waterfalls, motorbike in streets, etc). By this point, I'm well above the trees and it's getting extremely hot.  I'm having a ton of fun and the whole way, Guy is giving me awesome tips and pointers from below, "Nick, easier on the left! Nick, left foot up by left knee! Nick, don't forget to move your feet!" As I got closer to the top which was probably close to 75 feet, the wall started to angle outwards slightly.  Which meant that every time I reached up, my hand was going up and slightly behind my head as my back came closer and closer to being parallel with the deck below. This just made it a little tougher mentally.  But I made it! Rappelled down, and had a nice little break.

Kay went up a different route and killed it.  She managed to get herself very high up as well before a certain tricky move got the better of her.  Ian again would not let her come down until she had tried to get up at least 3 times.  Ian was literally telling her he wouldn't let her down until she fell a whole bunch of times, which she did.  It might seem like Guy and Ian were dicks but it was all very lighthearted, they just wanted us to do our best and leave it all out on the rock.  The 2 divas that I had mentioned earlier were busy taking selfies and checking their nails so Ian asked if I wanted to try a different route.  That route was a lot more difficult and it took me close to 20 minutes on the wall to make it to the top.  I took a Gopro video of it, but it's mostly just rock and me cursing to myself as I ran out of energy.  The divas did finally go up on the wall and it was so bad I actually had to turn around and not watch.  One of them had 1 inch nails which she obviously thought would help, right?  Well it was awful, the guides saw her nails and laughed in her face, and then laughed behind her back to me.  You can't blame them, really.  Well Wolverine tried her best but the sound of her nails on the rock and the thought of them ripping off was too much for me so I don't really know what came of her. Maybe she's still up there.  After my third route up, I was pretty tired so Kay and I walked back down to the shop where we gave our harnesses back and took a look around Railay.  We had the option to go back with the boat at 1:30 or stay until 5:30 and go then.  We wanted to see Railay and hang out at the beach so we chose the 5:30 option.

After our climbing adventure, Kay and I walked around to find a decent looking restaurant.  Every time we mentioned going to Krabi and Railay, all of our friends and co-workers kept saying "dont eat in Railay, you will get sick.  Everyone who eats there gets sick." We ate in Railay.  No splishy splashy.  No fuss.  After lunch, we met up with Stephen and Sara and hung out at the beach.  The water was once again as warm as a hot tub with it's jets turned off.  The sand was super fine which was nice for ten seconds until you realized that it was going to get everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.

After the beach, we just did a lot of relaxing and exploring.  We walked all along the east coast, around all the shops and looked at all of the different resorts that you could get to.  We bought a dry-bag for future travels and back home since the rain is so sudden and torrential.

After a quick iced tea and iced coffee break, we decided to take a walk down the west beach to find the hidden path to Tonsai.  Tonsai is a small village/ beach in the same bay as Railay.  It is completely off the grid and only has power from 6 pm to 6 am which they get from generators. Tonsai is where all of the dirty backpacker/climbers stay because it is much cheaper.  It took us a very long time to find the path because it was hidden behind a bunch of giant boulders on the beach. The walk to Tonsai was what many would call treacherous.  Small dirt path pinned up against one of the big walls on Railay and the water.  Tonsai has some world class climbing as well, and we actually saw bolts, anchors, and climbers all over the walls as we walked up the beach.  One of the other local guides that was at the same wall as us was there climbing with one of his friends (this is the guy who I called the Thai version of Eric Verdon.  Seriously, exact look alike except...Thai).  The beach of Tonsai is nothing special at all.  Small, kind of dirty, and the when the tide is out, you simply cannot swim in it.  Most of the resorts in Tonsai are way up away from the beach so we had to do some more walking to see any.  Nothing really worth mentioning was up there, resorts, a few climbing schools, and a restaurant or two.  One thing we did find out was that one of the bigger negatives of Tonsai is that if the tide is in, you can't use the hidden trail so you are stuck on the beach unless you can find a boat willing to take you to Railay.

Once we were finished with Tonsai, we walked back over to Railay and hung out until it was time to go back.  There were only two other climbers who joined us for the trip back to Krabi and they didn't even go all the way to Krabi, so it was just Kay and I in the Song Tao for a little while.  The song tao dropped us right outside our hostel.

That night, we met up with Stephen and Sara again and had dinner at a place called Mr. Krabi.  The food was delicious and I had the best Massaman curry I've had since getting here.  And that's saying a lot.  The Thais know massaman.  We spent a little while at the night market and then went back to our hostel for a much needed rest.

Sorry this post took so long, but here it is, I hope you enjoy.  We keep saying we will try to stay on top of this blog but it really is a difficult thing to do! Despite what many of you guys think, we actually do have a ton of work to do during the week.  Teaching children a second language while their parents expect results like it's their first language isn't a walk in the park.

Krabi Town

Saturday May 30th 5:30AM

Our alarm clock goes off waaay too early for a saturday but we were told that an early bus leaves NST at 6:20 so we get up and manage to make our way to the bus station. We used nicks big green knapsack to pack for the both of us (climbing shoes, running shoes, beach towels, clothes and toiletries) so I got to/had to drive the bike with Nick and the giant knapsack on the back. I'll just say it was a rocky, unbalanced start but we were both pretty impressed with how I managed to figure it out by the time we got there. Luckily traffic is non-existant that early on saturday mornings!

When we got to the station there was another teacher already there and we bought our tickets for 200 baht each. That was when they managed to tell us that the bus won't leave until 8:00AM. Great. The other teachers pulled up right at 6:20 and we got to give them the bad news. So now we have an hour and a half to kill in an area of town we don't know at all and chances are if the bus isn't full at 8, we still won't be leaving. Welcome to Thailand!

This is where the picture of fried eggs in a plastic bag came from. We were starving and ended up wandering around the area looking for something that was A) gluten free and B) recognizable. This is probably the most adventurous we have been in terms of food since we've been here due to how hungry we were. We got our usual Thai Tea (an amazing iced tea with lots of milk and it's bright orange) and then I found some green jelly coconut covered balls with crunchy centers that were actually really yummy! Finally we settled for crispy rice cakes and fried eggs in a bag. Yum.

At 7:45 we all climbed in the van, hoping that this would be a hint to the driver that we are still expecting to leave at 8! Luckily a few thais showed up (they probably knew the van leaves at 8...) and us 8 teachers and 6 thais were stuffed into this van. Thank goodness it has air conditioning! The drive takes about 3 hours since we stop to pick up/drop off people along the way and we did get a bathroom break.

Krabi Town is a small town on a river about 45 min long boat ride away from the famous Railay beach. It's definitely more touristy than NST which was apparent by the amount of white people we saw and the level of english the shop and restaurant owners have. That and the fact that every second shop/restaurant had rooms for rent above it. It sits on a little river and is surrounded by beautiful cliffs that Krabi is known for.

Upon arriving in Krabi Town (the bus dropped us off just around the corner from our hotel!) we split up with the rest of the teachers who were going to Ao Nang (a small beach town closer to railay). We checked into the hostel which was alright. We probably won't be staying there again because it was a little run down and had what looked like mold on the ceiling... but it has A/C, private room and hot water so not terrible. The owner was also a super nice american guy who gave us advice on what to do and booked us our rock climbing trip on Sunday. We went out to get lunch and had our first bad meal in all of Thailand... we made the mistake of ordering Pad Thai on a southern coastal town and it was so fishy neither of us could eat much of it. We awkwardly payed and tried to leave before they noticed and we went accross the street and got delicious smoothies/bubble tea to tied us over. We did a little bit of touristy shopping (I got two pairs of cute little earrings for 40 baht! >50 cents) and waited for time to pass so that we could go climb the temple when it wasn't in the blistering heat of noon. We got a song tao to bring us up to the temple which was about 3 KM north of town and it felt pretty great to be able to not only negotiate a fair price, but be able to counter his offer in thai!! Living in the country you are touring really is the way to go. You should all try it.

The base of the temple was interesting. There were monks walking around but also tourists in very inappropriate clothing choices. There were people worshiping and praying and there were people selling lottery tickets. Nick said Buddha would be rolling in his grave.

Tiger temple got it's name with two different legends: 1) a giant tiger took up the base of the temple as it's home 2) some guy discovered the temple which had been taken up as home by a family of tigers who left some footprints inside one of the buildings. Either way there were huge tiger statues all over the place. The staircase leading up to the top of the mountain seemed rather unintimidating just nestled into the forest until you saw the sign "1237 steps to the top". You can see the pretty cool pictures on facebook along with the picture that very accurately summarizes how I felt about half way up the mountain. It was hot and sweaty. Everything we were both wearing was sweat completely through but Nick (my boy scout) wisely packed gatorade along with our water and we both survived. The view from the top was incredible and well worth the hike. The way down felt super easy until your legs started convulsing, like trembling to the point where we had both hands on the rails and were taking it one step at a time. Felt pretty great to be back on solid ground and even better to take a cold shower back at our room. Never would have though I would turn off a hot water heater if I had the option!!

Thankfully our dinner on Saturday was delicious and our experience of bad meals is still left at 1. Nick continued the trend of ordering something spicy every where we go and then 50% enjoyed and 50% suffered through his curry chicken while I had sweet and sour chicken which is quickly becoming my favourite, how can you not love fresh juicy pineapple in everything! After dinner we explored the night market for dessert. What is a parking lot during the day becomes a crazy mix of locals eating dinner, tourists pushing their way around and stalls and carts set up with everything from cheap clothes, shoes, pad thai, popsicles, frogs and ice cream. We have been slowly perfecting our thai phrase for "I'm allergic to wheat. Without soy sauce. Wheat flour. Rice flour." So with this in our repetoir we safely had coconut ice cream with caramel sauce and rice cakes with caramel sauce. Both so yummy! Then we sat down at a small bar and had mojitos. The owner of the place was an american and he brought us jenga and connect four to play. I'm sure it was just to get us to stick around and spend more money (which kinda worked because we did have a second drink) but it was also pretty cool to be sitting in a bar in the middle of a market playing wooden jenga. It is also worth mentioning that I kicked Nicks butt at both.

So this was what we managed to cram into one day here on our long weekend. Needless to say we crashed pretty early since we were getting picked up at 7:30 the next morning for rock climbing. That story is to come... send Nick angry messages if it's not posted soon.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

This post is 3 weeks late. That's what it's like in Kindergarten.

I have been in a few different Kindergarten classes throughout my life which I thought was good enough to give me small sense of what to expect. I was expecting some chaos, some singing, some crying, some cute kids and a lot of fun. I was mostly right.

What I forgot about what the fact that my students are still being taught basic Thai, let alone be able to communicate freely in English. The language barrier turns some chaos and some singing into constant chaos and more singing that I ever thought I would be comfortable with! The level of ability in terms of English is pretty crazy in my class of 23 students. I have some who can communicate is full sentences and comprehend all of my instructions...then there are many students who grunt and manage a "toilet" when they have to use the bathroom and raise their hands whenever I speak (regardless of what I am saying) followed by a confused walk towards me when I call on them (when I was just looking for a simple answer like "2"). It's a challenge! There is only a little bit of crying like I expected (monday mornings are the worst!) and the kids are incredibly cuter than I ever thought possible! (see classroom blog... point proven).

My day starts at 7:00am when I leave the house on my "bike", we call her baby blue and even though she's about 20 years old she's been super reliable! Me as a driver on the other hand is a work in progress. Luckily it only takes about 3 minutes to drive to school! I have to scan my thumb to sign in (before 7:30) and then I have until 7:50 in my room to get things ready. Most of my lessons are in the morning so this time is pretty much always used up quickly to date stamp the days worksheets, set up the songs were going to do on youtube and clear off our daily board. At 7:50 I head down to the courtyard area of the school and greet my students while they line up for assembly. When I say good morning they are required to robotically reply: "Good morning Teacher Kay!". It's funny for the students who are still too shy or sleepy to get the whole thing out, I settle for a whispered "morning". Our assembly lasts about 25-30 minutes most days. I wish I could tell you more about what goes on but the entire thing is in Thai and I spend most of it dragging kids around who are getting out of line and greeting those that trickle in. We begin with the anthem, prayer, school motto and announcements. There's always a sing along portion or small lesson: Monday we do Chinese, on Tuesdays we meditate, on Wednesday and Thursdays the English teachers get to make fun of each other as we lead a singalong (my turn is coming up in a few weeks... not looking forward to that...) and on Friday we do aerobics led by our terrifying mascot who wears a rubber mask and santa hat. Again, look on facebook for a clip of that happening to a Miley Cyrus song.

After the assembly we do our best to walk the students in a single file line to the classroom where they wash their hands, take off their shoes and put their bags away. They bring their homework to the submit basket and then my thai teacher teaches them until 8:50 when it's snack time. This usually involves some kind of milk drink and a pastry type thing. Sometimes I'm really upset that I can't give them a try and other days I am glad. After snack it's my turn to teach. I teach 30 minutes of "experience" which is basically science/life skills. Right now we are learning basic body parts, days of the week, weather vocab and how to ask to go the bathroom. (I can't wait for the choruses of "teacher toilet!" "teacher toilet!" to end). Then I have 40 minutes of English where I use a program called Jolly Phonics to teach them the sounds of the alphabet. So far we have done A, C, N & P. Each of these comes with a song and action. Usually my thai teacher then does a 30 minute lesson, most of the time covering the same subject matter; days of the week, numbers, body parts, and the students do a thai worksheet. Then I have another 30 minutes for math. So far we have counted to 5 and learned our shapes. Again; songs, songs and more songs. Then we lay out all of the mats for nap, get our toothrbrushes and water bottles ready, and head down to the lunch hall. If the students have been good and we have time, this is when we go to the playground. We wash our hands before we eat, I lead the students in a cute little prayer and it's lunch!

"We close our eyes and quietly say, Thank you god for everyday! Amen. Thank you Teacher Kay and Khup Kun Ka Khun Khru Phu!"

At lunch students normally have a sad little serving of rice, broth and a cucumber slice. They can get extra by asking "Teacher Kay, more rice please", "Teacher Kay, more soup please". But this most of the time ends up as "More rice soup!". I understand what they mean. By now it's around 11:45 and I get my lunch break. Lunch is free at school but not on the Kinder campus, on the EP campus where Nick works, so I ride my bike over there. It's usually some kind of plain rice, a curry chicken dish, a broth with cabbage and carrots and lots of sauces. If I'm not feeling adventurous I stick to white rice and hot sauce. It's not much but it's free and gets me through the day! By 12:15 I usually head back to Kindergarten. While I'm gone the students go down for nap time and are still asleep when I get back. Since my lunch break isn't actually over until 1pm I usually walk across the street and get a thai tea. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I am a little bit obsessed, even more than I was with chai tea. It's bright orange, super sweet and only 15 baht. The lady at the stand is ready for me by now and practically has it made when I'm crossing the street :)

Afternoons for me are still busy but with less teaching. Monday, Thursday and Friday, I teach a 30 min block of Art, Story time and play centers. Students wake up at 1:15, we put their mats away, they wash their face and have another snack. (Again this is usually something weird and sugary, the one time we had fruit I was so excited!) There are 3 periods in the afternoon since the school day is over at 3. Most of their "extracurriculars" are during this time:

Monday: Thai art and playground
Tuesday: Swimming and vocal (they just strip down in the classroom and it's chaos while they all change!)
Wednesday: Gym and Library
Thursday: Computer
Friday: Chinese

They are busy little kids!! I spend most of this time helping them line up and giving out snacks. After 3 pm their parents slowly trickle in and pick them up. Until then they usually play or if my thai teacher and I are exhausted we put on youtube videos and enjoy the silence.

I can't scan out until after 4:10. On Monday and Tuesday I have meetings at 3:10 and Wednesday and Thursday I have lesson plans and worksheets due then Friday I make sure everything is set up for the next week in case I'm sick or running late. Overall, that hour after school goes by super quickly!

I wish I could say I then go home and relax or even take a nap, but for some reason Nick and I have decided to fill our schedules like little middle school kids who have activities everyday:

Monday: Thai Lessons
Tuesday: Frisbee
Wednesday: Soccer/Yoga
Thursday: Golf/Yoga
Friday: ...relax!

Anyway, I'm sure that's more information than anyone needed to know about my day and Kindergarten, but there you have it. This weekend is a long weekend for us so we are headed off to Krabi! Final plans have yet to be made but we have Monday off and no Thai lesson either so hopefully we will be on a beach, visiting temples and/or climbing rocks... we will definitely blog while we are there.

Also, look for a blog post about out cat coming soon. Snickers is not helping me become a cat person.

Srithammarat Suksa English Programme Rundown

The first day of school was a little bit stressful more so because some of the other teachers in my office had already started planning ahead and creating lesson plans.  For most of the day, we sat in our office, planned, chatted and relaxed.  I only had to spend a few minutes in my grade 6 English classes to introduce myself and go over a few rules that I wanted to have established.

The second day was a bit more stressful only because I was actually teaching a full class all by myself.  The stress quickly faded away when I was up in front of my students because I realized pretty early on that all of the stress I usually experienced in front of my kids was because I had an associate teacher in the room with me back at practicum in Canada.  Here, I had no other teacher sitting in watching, hearing, and jumping in on my lesson.  It put me at ease and made it a lot easier to do my thing.  The first couple of days were basically me setting the rules, explaining my reward system, and desperately trying to decorate my classroom.  It just now had its boards replaced, it leaks 24/7 into a couple of buckets, and my door doesn’t have a doorknob.  It has air con and an amazing group of students in it so I really can’t complain.  

A basic rundown of my schedule: I have English classes with the two grade 6 classes (6A and 6B).  I also have classes called Conversation and Reading.  Both of which I have separately for each grade 6 class.  These supplementary classes are always taught with two teachers.  My grade 6 reading classes are co-taught with Teacher Steve (He’s been here for a long time and is super helpful).  I also co-teach with his grade 5 reading classes.  My conversation classes are with Teacher Jeremy (Also been here a while and also very helpful).  The schedule has 8 periods with a short homeroom period at the end of the day.  They are 50 minutes long and the students have a 15 minute break after 2 classes.  Second break is a 50 minute lunch. 

My schedule usually consists of two classes in the morning, three prep periods and then two classes at the end of the day.  I have gate duty on Fridays which means I have to be at the gate by 6:45 to greet students, parents and teachers as they enter.  We greet them using the traditional Wai gesture.  If the students are walking in, they will put all of their belongings down, stop, and Wai back.  As parents drive in with their kids, they slow down to wind their windows down to make sure that I see them and their kids wai'ing me back.

I’m also paired up with Teacher Lee (from England) for club days on Wednesday.  Every Wednesday 8th period the kids get to do a club activity.  They decide which club they would like to be in.  This year I think there is a sports club, a movie club, fitness and food, juggling, and swimming club which is what Lee and I will be doing.  Our campus has a beautiful pool and I can't wait to get to use it, I mean, supervise the kids.

So far my kids have been reasonably well behaved.  The school has a system in place where the students are fined 20 Baht every time they speak Thai in an English class.  I’ve collected about 160 Baht so far.  The money I collect will go towards prizes or end of unit parties for the kids, so it does go back to them in some way in the end.  

On Fridays, first period is reserved for worship where all of Prathom (Primary) goes to a special room for a service.  The teachers get to just hang out while this goes on.  

Another really interesting part of our day is the beginning announcements.  Every day, the entire school lines up with their homerooms in the back courtyard.  They do some simple exercises from attention to at-ease and so on.  Then the school sings the national anthem (on fridays they also sing the King's song).  Afterwards, a group of Prathom students lead the school in song.  They then join their homerooms and another student comes out to lead the school in reciting the school motto, the school philosophy in both Thai and English.  At the end, a Farang teacher comes out for the morning announcements and then sends the kids off to class.  This is where I come in! I walk my homeroom to their class.  That's it.  It's a really important job though.  

So far, everything has been spectacular.  I can't wait to really get into the thick of my unit plans and long term goals for my students. 

Week 2 Down!

Wow, I can't believe it's already been a week since our last post! I thought the first week here would be the most stressful with having to find a house, get a bike, learn our way around, sit through a bunch of meetings etc. but this second week was even more of a whirlwind. I'm going to do my best to give a spark notes account of what we've been up to the last 7 days!

Monday was the first official day of school and thank goodness the students were only around until 10 am or so. In Kindergarten the parents stuck around as long as the kids were here and myself and my partner Thai teacher both talked to the parents about what to expect this year. I'm pretty sure about 4/25 were able to understand what I was saying so that made the nerves subside big time! Nick had just enough time with his homeroom class to introduce himself, meet the kids and then they were gone too, no parents involved in grade 6! I would have thought that the rest of the day would be relaxing but I forgot about how much work is involved with getting the classroom ready for the students in Kindergarten. If the room and hallways don't look fun then the students and parents won't be happy. So I spent my afternoon decorating bulletin boards, labelling drawers and notebooks, organizing my desk and buying school supplies. My Thai teacher (Khru Bhu) is amazing and already had the inside of the classroom pretty much ready to go :)

My Classroom!

Circle time!

Monday night we did our usual quick stop at Big C to get a bubble tea and some fruit then we stopped for dinner after buying our bike!! It felt so great to be able to get around on our own terms and Nick has been doing an awesome job learning how to not only drive the semi-automatic bike but also navigating the weird traffic rules and drive on the other side of the road! I'm getting my first lesson tomorrow...

Our new transportation

Now Tuesday was a real school day. We thought we were nervous for Monday but that was nothing compared to preparing ourselves to teach our own classes for the first time ever! We will both post a separate blog post explaining what our typical day at school looks like, in grade 6 and Kindergarten we have ridiculously different experiences down to our offices, lunch hour and teaching time. Regardless, we both survived and felt way more at ease :) Tuesday night was pickup frisbee at the school's main campus and the turn out was way better than expected, 16 people! There were only 2 girls, so myself and Mary were split up and the rest of the guys were divvied into two teams and we played two games to 7 points. The level of skills was awesome and way better than expected, Nick and I fit it great and I can't wait to play again next week! Not only did we meet some teachers from other schools but our boss JJ plays too. The only less positive note was how stinking hot it was so that will take a while to get used to...

Wednesday was a National holiday: Royal Ploughing Day, well deserved after our first two days of work. Contrary to what some people believe this is our only holiday for a while over here! Next semester we'll be bragging a bit more about our time off ;) A few of my friends in Kindergarten (teachers not students) invited Nick and I to join them at the waterfalls for the afternoon and how can you pass that up? We all met at Burger Bar (a restaurant owned by one of the farang teachers and her Thai husband) and we had gluten free pancakes!! We thought we had absolutely given those up while we were here but the teacher, Brooke, eats gluten free and orders some stuff in for the restaurant. Our only complaint was the lack of "quality" maple syrup which the other teachers found hilarious even though we were not joking around.

Speaking of which, if anyone would like to ship anything over here, we have been told to send it to the school's campus for which the address is:

Srithammarat Suksa School English Programme
c/o Nicholas Stewart/Kay Jonsson
110/14 Om Khai
Pakpoon Muang
Nakhon Si Thammarat
80000
Thailand

After breakfast a group of 10 teachers on 6 motor bikes headed off to the waterfalls. We looked like a biker gang. I kinda felt like I was in a gang. The drive was about 40 minutes long which was surprisingly comfortable on the back of the bike and the view once we got out of town was amazing! You could follow the mountains the entire way there. At the falls, the teachers who had been there for a while and knew their way around, brought us up a steep trail, away from the other tourists and locals, to a pool of water that was swimmable between two falls. The water was freezing and it felt amazing! There was a spot where you could climb up and sit at the top of a mini waterfall (7-8 feet) and then let it take you and slide into the water. We hung out up here for a least 2 hours (we brought a few drinks and snacks) and then climbed down and drove back home. On the way home we experienced our first ever Thai downpour while riding the bike, it was not fun. We are getting a drybag before the rainy season starts for sure! Again our coworkers directed us and brought us to a restaurant/bar called Full Moon and we had lunch (and escaped the rain!). This place was awesome. Bob Marley posters everywhere, big open huts to sit in with hammocks, mats on the floor and tables. There is also a little "stage" set up where there is often live music. We all had the massaman chicken curry which was delicious (who would have guessed there are some curries I like!).

The pool was under that waterfall

So hard to capture the size but there were at least 8 like this flowing down the mountain!

Thursday and Friday were more of the same. Full days of teaching, finally getting into the routine of waking up at 6am and putting on way to hot, formal clothing and being at school shortly after 7 (earlier for both of us on Fridays which we'll explain in another post).

Thursday night another new teacher (sarah) and I went to a yoga class in town! On the second floor of what I'm assuming is her house, a woman named Ling has her own yoga studio and it's really nice! She made us feel really welcome and we are both buying a ten class pass and going to try to go at least once a week. Although Ling's English is great, she teaches the classes in Thai so it definitely interesting to try and follow along while in weird posses and trying to look at what the other woman around you are doing. Other teachers have also been telling us about another yoga studio where they do "fly yoga" which to me looks like cirque du soleil. There's a silk "rope" hanging above each mat which gets used to help with the posses and stretches so I can't wait to try that out next week!

Friday night we had dinner with two other couples who are all new teachers this year and all 4 of them happen to be from Austin, Texas. (I have found myself saying "ya'll" way to much lately thanks to all the texans around here!). We went to a restaurant called Morgans which is apparently the closest you'll get to fine dinning in NST. It's all open concept and really neat, with huge menus and very obscure items. Snake head soup anyone? We found some pretty delicious food: white snapper curry and chicken, chive and coriander salad, and mojitos! It was definitely the most expensive meal we've had in NST but we felt okay treating ourselves after getting through this week! There was even a live band that came on when we were finishing up who were very island sounding and they even covered the Beatles, pretty cool :) Then home to bed since we were heading off to the beach in the morning!

Phew, that wasn't exactly a spark notes version, but that was our week!

Khanom

This weekend, Kay and I were lucky enough to be part of a wicked beach party in Khanom. Khanom is a hidden treasure about an hour and a half away from Nakhon.  Many locals and farang say that Khanom has one of the best beaches in Thailand.

Kay and I took a van out to Khanom with our new friends, Scott and Sara (from Austin).  They were the ones that actually booked our room for us.  The ride itself was pretty uneventful, the van was air conditioned so we couldn't complain. It also cost 80 baht each (~$2).

Another teacher from my office, Frankie, was able to tell our driver to drop us off at Jam Bay (the beach bar where the party would be) instead of the bus station since it would be easier for us instead of trying to find a cab from "downtown" Khanom.

When we arrived at Jam Bay, all four of us were completely blown away.  The bar was situated right up on the beach, and the main bar/restaurant was an old boat.  The property had many raised gazebos, hammocks and logs cut into benches and tables.  There were already a bunch of farang at the beach drinking and dancing (it was only noon).  We walked up with all of our gear and met some friends from Nakhon and were then introduced to Joe, the owner of Jam Bay.  Joe is a local who can speak English very well.  He was so friendly and was able to remember our names immediately.  All night and the following day, he would see me and go "hey Nick! How are you? How is Kay? Anything I can do for you?".  Joe was amazing.

The Beach!

Scott, Sarah, Kay and I hung out at the beach for an hour and a bit, swam and had an amazing lunch at the bar.  The water was honestly like a hot tub.  Not refreshing at all but really interesting nonetheless. We then decided that we would find our way to our resort which was about 10 minutes away.  We asked Joe if he could call us a cab to bring us downtown to rent a motorbike and he let us know that he actually rents bikes as well.  So we were able to rent a bike straight from Joe and then we drove to our resort.

Reception

Entrance

Hallo Resort was something I don't think any of us expected.  I hadn't even seen pictures of what it was going to be like so I was going in blind.  As we drove up on it all I could think of was how similar the main gates were to Jurassic Park.  The resort had about ten seperate "rooms" that were actually medium to large size single floor houses.  It had an awesome salt water pool and a pretty nice little cafe/restaurant.  Our room was called the Superior Room and it was awesome.  I think there are pictures on Facebook.  Once we settled in, Scott, Sarah, Kay and I hung out at the pool and drank a couple of iced coffees.

Our own bungalow!

Iced coffee in the pool :)

Once we arrived back at Jam Bay, the party had really started.  I would guess that there were probably 200 farang mixed with a couple locals who were friends with Joe.  Joe was out making sure everyone was having a great time.  A bunch of our friends wanted to go into town to an Italian restaurant for dinner but we decided on a place called CC's Bar which was a 20 minute walk down the beach.  The food at CC's was alright.  The coolest part was eating on the beach and our first rum bucket.  By the time we got back it was quite dark but Jam Bay had some torches (and people throwing torches) so we could see alright.  We played some pool, had a few drinks, and had an awesome time.  It rained on us but there was enough cover under all of the gazebos.  Plus when it's that hot you don't really care about the rain.  Joe had told us that on some nights when the plankton is in close to the beach, they go swimming with them.  The plankton glows in the water and apparently if you swim with them, you glow for a couple of seconds when you pop out of the water.  We will definitely be going back to try that (plus the caves that are around Khanom as well).

Kay and I drove back to our room around midnight and skyped with our parents.  In the morning, we had a really nice breakfast at the resort, checked out, and went and got some massages.  The massage was really interesting.  At first, I didn't think I would make it the full hour because my lady beat the shit out of me.  She twisted my arms in funny directions and got under bones and muscles I never knew could be moved.  Once I relaxed a bit, it became a lot nicer (Kay claims her lady was tougher on her).  It ended up being a full body massage. They bend you in all sorts of ways and I swear my ankle was by my head at one point.  They also hit you a lot.  I was laying on my back and I opened my eyes to see her standing over me with her hands above her head to swing down and double karate chop my thighs.  All in all, the massage was pretty awesome.

After the massages we just hung out at Jam Bay until our van arrived to bring us back to Nakhon. We had lunch, talked with Joe, and spent some time in the water until around 2:30 when the van finally showed up.

Now back to work on Monday.  This is quite the life we are living.

Whitewater Kayak Trip

Yesterday, Kay and I took part in a really fun "team building" adventure put on by the school.  We went whitewater kayaking! Now for those of you from Ottawa/the Valley expecting to see some bitchin' sets of rapids, you're out of luck.  I'm sure Thailand has some intense rapids but these were little babies compared to the whitewater you can get on the Ottawa River.

We started the day by arriving at the English Programme campus a little earlier than everybody else since we got a ride with JJ (We owe that man a dinner).  There, we had some coffee and hung out with some of the Thai teachers who didn't want to go on the trip (none of the Thais wanted to).  Once everyone was on campus, we all loaded into a bunch of vans that had really comfortable seats.  The only issue was that my legs were quite cramped up with very little room.  The ride took about an hour and a half and we were able to see some beautiful mountains along the way.  JJ pleaded with the group a couple of days ago to only start drinking until at least after the team building games.  Our Irish friend ignored that and cracked a beer open about 30 minutes into the trip.

Once we arrived, all of the returning teachers ran to the hut and bought a ton of beer, snacks and water.  Kay and I brought some snacks, so we only needed some water.  The company that organizes the trips does not seem too worried about drunk people going down rapids in kayaks because they even gave us bags to hold our beers in our laps when we were in the kayaks.  Ahh Thailand.

After some fun (awkward) team building exercises, we were put in a line that was ordered by our birthdays; January to December.  The person next to you was to be your partner for the whole 3 hour kayak ride (The kayaks were two person kayaks).  It just so happened that nobody's birthday fell between July 10th and August 7th so Kay and I we partnered together haha.

Once everyone had been paired up, we grabbed our lifejackets and helmets, or didn't, it really didn't matter. We were then herded, quite literally, onto truckbeds with gages around them.  We all squeezed onto a couple of those and grabbed on for dear life as the trucks flew down the road only slowing down when we hit the access roads.

When we arrived, we loaded up our kayaks with beer and water and set out.  A few guides followed us but as we soon found out, there were Thai workers set up all along the river at various check points making sure everything was running somewhat smoothly.  Most of the trip was just a lazy ride down a very pretty river.  Staying out of the sun as much as we could, Kay and I opted to ride along the shore every once and a while.

The rapids themselves were never anything serious.  They showed up quite frequently but as long as you steered properly, you could really only tip if you wanted to or you were drunk (which a lot of people were).  People fell out a lot.

There really isn't a whole lot to say about the actual river part.  We kayaked, hung out with a lot of cool people, and took a break about halfway.

Old Thai women fishing

The Thais met us at the halfway point with buckets of beer (surprise surprise) and a bunch of chips (yes!).  They had a notepad and people could start a tab if they didn't have their money with them.  Kay and I got a big thing of water and chips.  This is where we saw the locals playing on the massive rope swing.  You can see my video on Facebook of me using the rope swing.  I know everyone always says "Ah man! It was so much higher in person! I went so much farther than it looks!" when looking at videos or photos of any kind.  Well I'm going to do that now.  I can assure you that I went higher than it looked.  I honestly thought I was going to have to edit the video down because of how long I thought I froze up there on the tree.  You had to use the vines and small branches to climb up and once you thought you couldn't go any higher, the locals had tied twine very tightly between two trees to act as a bridge you could stand on while waiting for the rope swing.  Anyways, I was high up okay?

Chilling at the halfway point

Just after the rest stop was the biggest set of rapids we saw, and once again, they look a lot smaller in the video.  Either way, they really weren't that bad, more uncomfortable since we basically bounced off rocks the entire way down.

Near the end, you can hear the locals cheering because I gave a boy a high five for turning us around.

The rest of the way was pretty easy, it rained on us, the clouds were threatening and we heard a bit of thunder but nobody seemed that nervous.  Our paddles were only metal after all.

I'm having a hard time not just going "And then we were done and went home" because the rest of it was a bit of a blur because of how tired we were.  We got out of our kayaks, got driven back up to where we started, had an amazing lunch/dinner and hung out for a while before heading home in our vans.

One of the more adventurous forms of Thai transportation

All in all, it was an amazing trip and Kay and I both had a fantastic time.  We both can't wait to get started at our schools with our incredible colleagues!

Kay and I at the bottom

Getting around NST

We have yet to purchase a motorbike and to be honest I’m not looking forward to having to drive myself around this town; not only do they drive on the other side of the road but there are u-turns everywhere and hardly any traffic lights. Despite this fact, we are actively looking at getting a bike for convenience sake, hopefully we’ll have one by the end of the week! Until then there are actually a bunch of different ways to get around the town for dinner, groceries and work. 

The first mode of transportation we attempted are what they call Song Taos and are basically pick up trucks with a roof over the bed and two benches running down either side. These drive up and down the main street in town from the farthest point north to the lowest point south, about a 30 minute ride. Anytime we are walking along the road and one approaches us they will honk, if we want to get on we just wave it down, hop in the back and can press a button on the roof of the truck to ask it to stop. There are no set stops anywhere, you can get on or off wherever you want! Song Taos cost 10 baht a person so getting to and from groceries/dinner is 40 baht (~$1.45). The only problem with using these is that we have to walk about 5 minutes from our house out to the main street to jump on one and they don’t seem to run on the “new main road” which is where Nick's campus is.

Not our picture... But this is the idea of a Song Tao

Thursday night we decided to try our luck at finding a mall we went to on our first day called "Robinson Ocean." I assumed it was on the old main road and for some reason Nick just trusted me and off we went to get a Song Tao. The driver asked us where we were going and Nick tried his best to explain the mall, eventually the driver nodded his head and motioned at us to get in. We also learned that you’re supposed to pay him when you get off, not when you get on since we got laughed at by him and the other passengers. We quickly realized that he must have just said “yes” since he didn’t want to admit he either didn’t know or didn’t understand because at least 10 min later here we were still in the truck and no mall in sight. We at least knew that it wasn’t this far! So I decided we should just stay on until the very end of the route and then pay again to come all the way back. JJ had suggested this on the first day we were there as a pretty good way of not only seeing a lot of the city, but understand just how big NST is. Again, we were laughed at when we reached the end of the route and the driver looked at us with his arms going like “what the heck are you guys doing?” but we just payed him and motioned back into town. This time on the way back we had our phones out trying to navigate google maps and this is when Nick realized that he shouldn’t have blindly trusted me since Robinson Ocean is on the other main street. We got off at an intersection that was parallel to the mall on the other main road and walked across to eventually find the mall. Which for future reference is about 5 blocks away from where google said it was...

The Song Tao can also be used like a taxi on occasion. Here’s an example from today: Nick and I were out getting some groceries (pretty much just fruit) and then had lunch at a really nice new place called A&A Cafe which had English menus! We actually ran into a few other teachers there and one of them showed us her bike which she is selling since she just finished 3 years teaching here and is heading home. Anyway, after lunch we grabbed all of our bags and jugs of water and walked back to the main road (one block) and jumped on a Song Tao. The driver asked us where we were going (sometimes if you are the only one in the truck they either don’t want to make the trip or will offer a direct drive) and since he couldn’t understand what we were trying to say he motioned for Nick to sit in the front seat. I guess this way he could motion to the driver when to stop. About 3/4 of the way home it starts raining. In Thailand when it rains, it pours. It never lasts for long but man does it come down hard. So we pull up to the municipal park (landmark right across from our neighbourhood) and at least there is canopy set up for a food stall so I hop out and run underneath with all our bags, already soaked meanwhile Nick is still sitting in the truck. Finally he rolls down the window a crack and said that the driver offered to drive us right to our door for another 20 baht. Thank goodness! So I jumped back on the truck and with Nicks direction he brought us right to our street. 

Like most things in Thailand, there isn’t much consistency, if the driver feels like picking you he will, if he doesn’t want to, he’ll drive by and wave his hand at you. If he wants to make some extra cash, he’ll offer to drive you directly to your house/grocery store for a little bit more. 

Next there are bike taxis. These are exactly how they sound. A guy who owns his own motorbike can drive you anywhere you want, door to door, like a taxi. With these you have to negotiate a price ahead of time. We are still getting used to negotiating so we have probably been overpaying but at least we’re getting around on our own! At big stores or attractions there will be stands outside where they all wait and try to wave you down. If you are ever just walking along the road they can be spotted by their bright vests, usually orange or red, to flag down. We’ve only used these twice so far since most of the time we have 5-6 bags of stuff and would rather be in a car or a truck but the second time we took one with a whole lot of stuff. I already told that story about the cat food and case of water plus 3 people on a bike! 

Finally there is a taxi system in NST which is only about a year old. The good thing about this is that the cars are very new and they still mostly use the meter. Every once and a while I’ve heard of them adding random prices once you get arrive for a “calling in fee” or something else silly. We’ve only used it once to get home from Big C on our first full day here and had no issues talking on the phone (in slow broken English) and getting to our house. Yesterday, when we got home from our kayaking trip we tried to call a taxi again and got hung up on, multiple times, before we could even say where we wanted to go. Again, here is the inconsistency you have to get used to in Thailand, I guess the operator didn’t want to speak English or deal with farang. Our neighbour has had the same issue so hopefully something can be done about that! We ended up walking towards home and luckily another teacher pulled over and offered us a ride. Again, we were at the English program campus where Nick works and has more limited transportation options.

When all else fails we can walk. In the last 4 days I think we’ve walked more than our whole 8 months in North Bay. Like we’ve said before, our house is in a great location and there are a ton of ways to get around in this city. Unfortunately the hours that these methods of transport are available are, unsurprisingly, inconsistent. For example, Friday night Nick and I went to buy a blender and some fruit (we eat a lot of fruit) and felt so great since we finally figured out how to get to Big C using the Song Tao. We get there no problem, find everything we need no problem and walk back to the main street no problem. The problem arose when we realized that it was too late at night (8ish) and the Song Taos had stopped running. So we start walking back towards home just hoping to see a bike taxi, regular taxi or Song Tao and no luck. So, we walked. We walked about 15 blocks carrying all of our stuff and finally got to the mats where we had dinner and a break from walking before we finally went home. 

Long story short: we really need to just get a bike.

Our new favourite thing!

My favourite snack: lychee jelly with a straw!