Interesting Finding

A friend of mine brought something to my attention today:

Apparently "I" started another blog to tell more about what happened at my previous job here. Here is a copy of the one and only post on that blog (see for yourself at jonfrahm1.blogspot.com):
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-Tuesday, September 21, 2010

English teacher Uttaradit Explanation 2

Due to recent events, I am complelled to write about actual events relating to my former employer and boss in Uttaradit. But because this issue is so sensative I am using a new blog spot to protect myself against former boss and employer. To carefully detail the events I will research my daily journal and study the details pertaining to the firing of my former boss. After my research (3-4 weeks), I will post a new blog titled "Explanation 3". I have my reasons for why I am doing this, and those reason will be noted in the Explanation 3. Stay tuned.

I will still be using my old blog spot for all my travel adventures.
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I'm intrigued! The problem is, I didn't write that. The picture is of Teay and me, but it is easily and publicly available through my picasa albums. The "full story" so to speak is rather interesting (in a watching a train wreck sort of way), but I have happily moved on to much better things. Teaching at the high school has been great, and having an ever-expanding roster of private class students has been fun and rewarding also!

So, I don't know who was impersonating me or what their motivation was or is, but just for fun I think I'll grade their performance and provide some suggestions:

First, I hope that I would come up with a better title than "English teacher Uttaradit Explanation 2", which sounds like a low-budget Steven Seagal movie ("explain this").

I think that the real me would probably not misspell "complelled" or "sensative".

I tend to refer to "blog spot" as one word -- "blogspot".

Unfortunately, I don't have a "daily journal" to refer to about my time here in Thailand, so that is out also.

This person also suggests that they will have a followup post available after 3-4 weeks of research, yet their original post was dated 21 September 2010, so apparently that never happened. ...Actually, I guess extremely overdue posts are exactly my style, so I can't really fault them for that one.

However, I would remember to correctly pluralize the "reasons" that will apparently be noted in "the Explanation 3".

Finally, in regards to the photo, I'm way better at Photoshop than whoever decided to block out the eyes in solid black rectangles.

So all in all, nice try but no dice. Identity theft for mysterious purposes would be a little more worrying if it wasn't such incompetent identity theft...

Explanation

So, I haven't posted for quite a while. Not anything particularly unusual about that.

However, you may also notice that my blog now has a lot less posts listed than it did, say, yesterday. That is unusual. Here's the explanation:

I lost my job at my former school back in March, and I am now working at a different school in Uttaradit. Teay and I are doing great, things have worked out for the best so don't be worried. There's a whole lot that I could say about what happened, a lot that I want to say about what happened, but I suppose that it is probably best to move on. But to serve as a transition, I'll just touch on a few things:

I had a lot of positive experiences at my former place of employment, worked with a lot of good people, had great students, and I wish there was a better way to acknowledge and remember those positives. However, I think that the disruption of this wipe of old posts was necessary, for reasons I will remark on in a bit.

About my job experience at that location, I think I tried my best and I believe that I did a good job there; I stand by my performance. I am not best impressed with how things panned out there, but I'll leave it at that.

I would like to leave up those old posts out of respect for my former coworkers and students. However, I am also aware that the content and tone of my blog has been a factor that I know encouraged new applicants while I was there, and presumably could serve the same function even now. Putting this as delicately as possible, I now feel that I must withdraw such tacit endorsements.

I could accomplish that by leaving the old posts and adding a new one that sets the record straight more directly. I am strongly tempted to do just that. However, that method is even less kosher here than in Western culture, and there's plenty of pitfalls going that route even in the West. One does not engage in mudslinging without getting ones' hands dirty.


So I feel that this wipe of most of my older posts is probably the best way forward. However, beyond that I'm now rather reluctant to post much of anything specific about my employment here; good or bad. Things are going well at my new school -- don't be concerned about me, I feel that everything has panned out into a much better situation. But in the future I will probably be posting little or nothing about my work experiences and focusing on travel and culture things, similar to those of my older posts that have survived my purge. (a blog title change away from "Teaching in Thailand" may be in order, I'll see what I think)

That also means that it is unlikely that my posts and updates will become much more frequent than they have been recently, although I've let quite a few go since March as a result of indecision about how to proceed, so I may get ambitious and catch up on a few of those missed post opportunities (USA trip comes to mind!).

In the event that anyone reading this has any specific questions about what happened or what I'm doing now, I may have specific answers for you, but contacting me through email would be better.

And I guess that will have to suffice.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore Yet

Been a while since a post, but I've got great news for this one!

Teay has been back in Bangkok, slaving away on her Master's degree (specifically writing her thesis proposal, which has now been approved subject to some tweaking) for over a month. So, we made some special Valentine's Day plans and I came to visit her last Friday (12th Feb) after school on the night train from Uttaradit to Bangkok.

On Saturday, we did some shopping at Siam Paragon, met up with Namwan and friend Matti, and decided to watch a movie. Teay has been interested in Avatar, which I didn't know a lot about but thought sounded OK. However, it was on normal screens long enough that the only showings still going on were in 3D on IMAX screens. Being "kee neyow" (cheap), I was semi reluctant to pay for the more expensive tickets, but I figured a bit of a splurge in the Valentine's Day spirit was in order.

Wow. I thought 3D in movies was likely to be an overused, semi-cheesy gimmick, but not anymore. Avatar in 3D was absolutely amazing. It would have been worth the price of admission just as a tech/visual demonstration, but I thought the story was actually quite good also. I'll give it a hearty recommendation, whether you can see it in 3D or on a standard screen -- and Teay liked it a lot also.

On Sunday, we went with Namwan and Matti on a Chao Praya river tour, and then via ferry to Koh Kret island in the river. Koh Kret is fairly small, and famous for making Thai-style snacks and candy as well as ceramic and clay pots / cups / sculptures etc. We walked through the cramped vendor stall areas, and then got out into a narrow open path that goes around the perimeter of the island -- a total of a bit over 5 kilometers. We decided to walk all the way around. It was pretty warm, but we had good shade most of the time, and pretty good scenery the whole way around. Namwan and Matti gave up and hired a passing motorbike to take them back to the starting area at about 2/3 of the way around, but Teay and I did the whole walk. Tired, but victorious!


On Monday, we mostly relaxed at Teay's house and prepared for the next day which was:

Teay's tourist visa interview. We've been collecting paperwork and reference letters (thanks Mom and Dad, and Ken and Sheila!) for a while. There are all sorts of conflicting reports on how difficult the process is, what information one needs to present, etc., so we tried to do the best we could and collect any and all potentially relevant material together. Teay's interview appointment was at the US Embassy, scheduled for 9AM.

We got a fairly early start, double checked our forms etc., and took a songtao (pickup truck with seats in the bed) to the skytrain station near Teay's house, and from there on to her university. Teay bought a flower garland and took it to the statue of King Rama 5 - "Chulalongkorn", for whom her university is named. Presenting flowers or incense to statues can be done for good luck. After she had completed there, we hopped in a taxi and asked to go to the US Embassy.

Unfortunately, our good luck hadn't kicked in yet. The taxi driver said he knew where the Embassy was, but wasn't really driving the right way according to what Teay thought she knew about the location. I was, as usual, navigationally worthless. So Teay called her friend and verified the location, then asked the driver how he intended to proceed. He waffled a bit and wouldn't give a straight answer, so Teay demanded that he stop and let us out. We did pay the fare up to that point. He had been going vaguely in the correct direction, so we're not sure whether he was intentionally drawing out the time to increase the potential fare or if he was just not sure about the actual location of the embassy.

With time becoming more of an issue (although not critical yet), we zipped over to a tuk-tuk. You may have seen tuk-tuks on movies filmed in Thailand - the 3-wheeled motorbikes with a bench seat for passengers in the back. They can squeeze through gaps in traffic and get you to a destination a bit faster, but they also have a tendency to raise your blood pressure or give you white knuckles more often that a taxi. Anyway, the tuk-tuk driver was confident about the location and quoted us a fair price for the full trip (no meters in tuk-tuks), so we hopped in.

He got us there quite quickly, and was a pretty safe driver also! Teay got in line outside the Embassy at about 8AM. The interview information told us to arrive at least 30 mins ahead of time, so we were in good shape being an hour early. These visa interviews have to be done solo or in a family group of Thais only, so I couldn't go in with her even though it is the American Embassy. So I just wished her luck one more time and watched her disappear through the security gates at about 8:15.

Then I waited. I managed to distract myself with sudoku on my cellphone until about 9. I figured that the interview might last 15-30 minutes, so guessed that she might be out by 9:30. 9:30 passed, then 10. Then 11. At about 11:30 they posted a sign on the door that said they were closed for additional entry until 12:45. I figured that meant that she had missed the morning shift and would have to wait until after lunch to get the interview done. So, I chatted with some folks who had been shut out until after lunch also.

Just a bit after 12:00, Teay popped out of the gate. I was figuring that she would either look elated or pretty grim (and quite possibly fake grim just to tease me -- she likes to mess with me like that!), but she didn't have a strong look either way. She explained that when she had finished the interview, they didn't give her a straight yes or no. They just kept her passport, and said that they would mail it back to her with the answer within a week.

We didn't know quite what to make of that. Everyone we have read about or talked to said that they got an answer, a solid yes or no, at the end of the interview. Not committing to an answer seemed like a somewhat bad sign (possibly attempting to avoid a confrontation with someone who had been rejected). On the other hand, keeping the passport seemed like a good sign -- they have to keep the passport to affix the visa if the answer is yes. So, we resigned to waiting it out.

I hopped back on the train to Uttaradit on Wednesday morning. Before leaving the station, an American guy sat down next to me, on vacation in Thailand for just about a week. I got to chatting with him, and it turned out that he does government contract work for various groups and agencies. One of the things he has done is working with US embassies, and he knew a bit about the visa process. After I described Teay's situation, he said he knew of only one reason that they wouldn't give an answer on the spot. Along with the interview, they take your thumbprint and also a photograph on your application form and run them through a background check. Apparently, the system occasionally hangs up on one and doesn't complete the database check as quickly as usual. If they don't have that result by the end of the interview but are otherwise ready to approve the applicant, they hold onto the passport and will send it back with approval or denial subject to the completed check. So, he said that as long as they didn't find Teay's prints at a crime scene or something, he figured that she would get the visa.

That gave us some additional positive thoughts, but we didn't want to start celebrating just yet.

Today, Teay called me to say that the packet had arrived from the embassy at her Aunt's house (she has the most secure mailbox, so Teay had them send it there). Teay's Mom had picked up the envelope and had it at her shop. Teay's Aunt and Mom can't really read English, so no peeking had occurred. I went to pick it up, opened the envelope, and quickly read the first page:

ATTENTION!
Please check your visa!
...

So, I knew she had been approved! I celebrated with Teay's Mom a bit and then drove back home. Once back, I checked the visa a little more thoroughly, as suggested by the cover page. I didn't see any mistakes on the information the notice said to check -- passport number, date of birth, name, gender, etc. all OK. Then, I scanned down to:

Issue date: 17FEB2010
Expiration date: 15FEB2020
Entries: M

It took me several long seconds to process all that. I thought that in general, first-time applicants were given a 3-month, single entry visa, so I was expecting to see that. A 10 year, multiple-entry visa will be great, and will give us no excuse to hold off on coming back for more visits!

So, the plan now is to get tickets to come for a trip in mid to late March, and stay for about 1 month. We're looking forward to introducing Teay to everyone for the first time in person! I'll try to update as I know more about specific dates, etc.

So, to US family and friends: see you in March!

ALSO: For photos from my Valentine's Day trip to Bangkok, check Teay's Picasa gallery, specifically her Valentine's Day sets ONE and TWO.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday was Dad's birthday, so Teay had the idea of making a Photoshopped birthday card with our heads replacing characters. I did some searching for good source material before I stumbled on a Young Frankenstein movie poster - one of Dad's favorites.

So, Teay and I created YOUNG FRAHMENSTEIN:

Starring Dad (Bruce Frahm as Dr. Frankenstein), my brother (Karlyn Frahm as Igor), Mom (Janice Frahm as Inga), Teay (as Elizabeth), and me (as the monster).

(base source HERE, with family photos)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Big News?

The big news is:

I am no longer single!

Teay and I officially got married on November 24th 2009, at the Amphur Muang Uttaradit district office next to Teay's Mom's food shop. So Teay (her nickname, which translates to 'short') is now officially Miss (you're allowed to retain the Miss title in Thailand even if married) Kalaya Jindarat Frahm. Jindarat is her family name, but since people generally only have two names here, given name and family name (excluding nickname), I encouraged her to keep that that name as an American-style middle name.

Don't feel out of the loop if this comes as a surprise. Teay and I had been planning to get married for a while, but didn't really publicize it. In Thailand, it is fairly common to have the official marriage at the government office as a separate event from the wedding ceremony, which could be held possibly months later. So, we are planning to have a wedding sometime fairly soon, hopefully at some point when my folks can visit Thailand (come on Mom and Dad!). We're also working on getting Teay a visa to visit the US with me, so hopefully we can do an informal reception type event to get family and friends involved.


This was Father's Day weekend in Thailand, so with a vacation day on Monday Teay and I decided to take a mini-honeymoon / vacation to Doi Inthanon mountain along with my new Mother-in-law "Loly", or J-Lo as the customers at her shop call her! Doi Inthanon is near Chiang Mai, so we left on Friday in time to get to the passport office there to get a new passport for Miss Frahm, showing her new name. From there, we went West to about 40km from the base of the mountain and had 2 nights at Chang Rung Ranch, a horse ranch with guest houses.

The ranch is out in the country, so it was nice and quiet with good scenery, lots of animals, and horseback riding. The owners also raise Brahman cattle near the ranch. We arrived there about supper time on Friday, then on Saturday we spent most of the day traveling up to the summit of Doi Inthanon and checking out the other attractions in the area. There was lots of good mountain-summit-in-clouds scenery, and I saw my first "lake" of clouds surrounding a mountaintop, but just in one small area from a distance. Also many good vegetables and other produce for sale, and a very nice "Royal Project" garden to visit on the mountain, plus several waterfalls.

The top of Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand at 2565 meters or 8415 feet. We've heard that in the past month or so this year there have been several mornings with frost on surfaces, but no hard freezes. Near the top, the thermometer we found said it was 10 degrees C, or about 50 F -- downright frigid for Thailand!

On Saturday night back at the ranch we had another good supper, and then launched some Kom Loy hot air balloon bags for the King's birthday. Today, Teay rode a horse in the morning and then we set back off for Uttaradit, with stops at a very nice set of shops for hand-carved wood furniture and art, and San Kamphaeng geysers and hot spring.

I've uploaded pictures from the trip HERE!

Term Break Trip to Pai

October is midterm break time here so Teay and I just got back from taking a vacation in Pai, a small town in Mae Hong Son province in the far Northwest Corner of Thailand. Teay had been one time before, but I had only heard about it. It is known for being sort of a hippie retreat with hiking, reggae bars, and cold (by Thailand standards) temperatures. For our vacation last year we went to Koh Samui island, so we decided that taking a mountain trip would be fun this time around!

We left on Monday morning for Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a very popular destination itself, and the second largest city in Thailand (although it is still dwarfed by Bangkok). Mark from the school (teaches P4-5-6 non-bilingual classes) wanted to go to Chiang Mai also to visit the American Consulate about a passport issue, so I offered to take him and his friend along with us.

I'd never driven to Chiang Mai myself before, but it was quite easy to get there and just a 2.5-3 hour drive from Uttaradit. The city itself was somewhat harder to get around in, but not too bad. Chiang Mai is laid out around an old city square, with the original wall still standing in some parts and a moat all the way around it. The road outside the moat is one-way clockwise around the square, and inside the moat goes counter-clockwise. I was slightly less utterly hopeless with directions than usual, but Teay and Mark provided a lot of good help getting around and figuring out a hotel with parking for my car!

After getting checked in and dropping off Mark and his friend, we got back in the car and drove out to Chiang Mai Zoo. We had a good time checking out the animals from the monorail that circles around above the grounds and on foot. Teay had two specific items on the agenda: first to see the new baby panda (named Linping) at the zoo, and second to visit the snow dome indoor area with snow generators. Unfortunately, we were too late in the day to get to see a panda showing, but we did get to check out the snow dome. It had better quality snow than the similar place in Dream World at Bangkok, and it was colder also, but had good coats and boots that let us stay in longer. The down side was that they didn't let us take photos - apparently the "air temperature is too cold and might damage them" (but the camera of the official photographer works just fine, and he'll sell you prints for low-low prices! --no thanks).

After the zoo, we went out to eat at Miguel's Mexican Restaurant, which was excellent even though I'm not quite as desperate for Mexican food after finding the place for it in Bangkok and making tacos at home with Teay! After supper, we walked back to our hotel (not very far) to get some sleep before driving to Pai the next day.

We left for Pai on Tuesday, and managed to get on the correct highway out of Chiang Mai fairly easily. It was going to be about a 180 kilometer trip that we were told would take about 3 hours. The first 100 km passed in about an hour, and then we started to get into the hillclimb stretch of road leading up to Pai. I hadn't done any mountain driving for quite a while, so I had a great time weaving up switchbacks and enjoying the scenery for the roughly 2 hours to go the remaining 80 km. And Teay didn't barf in the passenger seat, so I must have been doing OK! :)

When we got close to Pai, we decided to stop at a resort with cottage houses for rent called Paina Paita that Teay had visited (but not stayed at) the last time she was in the area. It is right on the side of Pai Canyon / Valley, and the cottage rooms looked great, so we went ahead and checked in there. We got a small cottage all to ourselves with a bedroom with mosquito nets, nice fairly open / natural style bathroom, and attached porch with fantastic view of the valley.

We did some relaxing there and then took our first trip in to Pai town to check out the evening walking street with vendors, live music, bars, etc. The town does have a very hippie feel, similar to some of the mountain towns in Colorado. We enjoyed walking around and checking things out.

I was a bit concerned about mosquitoes getting in through the open-air spaces in our cottage at night, but with the mosquito net around the bed, it was very comfortable sleeping and a very nice cool temperature. I'd guess that it was in the low 60's Fahrenheit for overnight lows, which isn't all that cool by Kansas standards, but positively frigid in Thailand. I think that in the coldest parts of the year (maybe December in Pai compared to roughly early November in Uttaradit) it can get down to the low 40's F at the elevation in Pai.

Wednesday morning was enjoyable to wake up and check out the clouds and fog that settled into the valley from our cottage porch. We enjoyed a good breakfast prepared by the resort owner, and then set off on some road trips to area attractions.

First was a small local market outside of the town. Lots of local-grown fruits and vegetables, and some handcrafts etc. We bought some fruit including pomegranates. I ate pomegranate in the USA maybe once a year around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but they are cheap and plentiful here so we get them quite frequently.

Next we went to an overlook / hiking area to see Pai Canyon. Great view and nice rock outcrops, with nice easy hiking and footpaths. Teay was a bit chicken about walking across one semi-narrow ridge out to get a different vantage point, so she crawled / crab walked it, and I followed with the camera.

From there we stopped at a bridge constructed during World War 2 over the Pai river. Teay bought some Thai-style sausage, which made the local dogs follow her everywhere.

Our next stop was some natural hot springs with mineral bath pools. Signs in the park said that the water at the outlet of the spring is about 80 degrees Celsius, and there were several tiers of pools of varying temperatures with stone dividers set up. We lazed in the water for about an hour or so. I would guess that the water in our pool was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, quite comfortable with an ambient air temperature of roughly 65. It also had very nice scenery and nature to look at while lounging in the pools!

After drying off and cooling down a bit, we got back in the car and drove on a circle road that went around most of the valley to come into Pai town from the other side. We had lunch at a Big Bowl Noodle shop, where you get a large serving of noodle soup in an extremely large bowl.

For the afternoon, Teay wanted to drive to check out Pang Oung, a mountain lake advertised as being like a "mini Switzerland". We asked for directions and distance, and were told it was about 100km away, and a 3 hour drive. The drive was fun with good scenery, and we only got slightly lost once or twice -- the 3 hour estimate held to be nearly spot on. The lake was nice, and completely surrounded by evergreen trees (pretty rare in Thailand). We couldn't spend much time there since we wanted to get back to our resort near Pai before it got too dark. I think it would have been a good place to camp for a day or two, but it was a little "meh" as the object of a 6 hour trip of mountain driving.

On Thursday morning, the cloud coverage view from our cottage was even better than the day before, and we had a repeat excellent breakfast made by the owner. We did some packing and lazing around and enjoying the view before checkout time and then hit the road back towards Chiang Mai, but stopped at Coffee in Love shop for some hot drinks (coffee for Teay and tea for me) and photos on the way out of town.

Once back in Chiang Mai, we went to the Central Airport Plaza for some shopping (I got the new Dan Brown book) and ate at Shabushi, a fun Japanese buffet restaurant where you sit at a counter and a little conveyor belt carries sushi, meats, veggies, etc. in front of you for you to grab and eat or cook in a hot-pot at your seat. After supper we did some more walking around in Chiang Mai, and visited the Night Bazaar. Lots of neat stuff there, including some fantastic 3D scenes hand carved into teak wood (way outside my price range). I looked for a wood carved Guan Yu figure to add to my collection (mine are all resin figures), but didn't have any luck. Finally, we stayed in the same hotel that we started out the trip in on Monday night.

Friday was our return to Uttaradit day, but we also stopped in Lampang to watch an elephant show. I'd seen a similar show North of Chiang Mai before. This show also had paintings done by the elephants, which is very cool to watch. They come up with pretty well done pictures, and as far as I can tell they have absolutely no physical direction from their trainers when they do the painting with a brush held in their trunks.

My picture gallery of the trip can be found HERE. I've also edited together a few video clips from my camera that you can watch below. Sections are: driving to Pai, looking around Pai Canyon, and watching the Elephant show in Lampang. Guess that is all for now!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy birthday Mom! We decided to celebrate by getting some cake for you -- it was tasty!

Also, check out Teay's photo gallery from the Langsat Festival this year. Full gallery HERE.

Teay's Birthday!

Today is Teay's birthday (the big 25!), but we celebrated with a party last night. We made Yam Tuna (twist on a Thai-style dish) and tacos, and other visitors brought a grill for grilled fish and a kind of cockel-like clams for Hoy Krang. We moved stuff around to have the party in front of the house, Teay's mom brought a big cooler of ice, and Teay's friend Tien brought some party lights and decorations.

A full gallery of photos can be found HERE, with more description in the captions. Tonight I bought a bottle of champagne to test out with some friends (Teay hasn't tried champagne before), so we're going to do that pretty soon and I'll cut this post short.

Bangkok Visit to Dr. Fish

I took a trip to Bangkok this weekend to get my health insurance sorted out. The plan I had with the school expired, and I had options to change providers, so I decided to get one with better coverage.

Teay helped me find the offices of the new company, and we did some good shopping and eating as usual for a Bangkok trip, including my first bagel with cream cheese since coming to Thailand. Also saw the new Harry Potter movie, which I enjoyed -- I thought it captured the characters personalities from the books as I see them better than in most of the previous movies.

We also had a fun experience walking through Siam Square, a shop area close to the Siam Paragon and MBK. As we were walking by shops, we got to a glass shopfront and saw a foreign guy sitting with his feet dangling into a big aquarium-type thing with lots of fish in it. All fairly small, sucker-mouth type fish, swarming his feet and cleaning/nibbling away. He gave us the thumbs up and seemed to be enjoying it. The following day, we were walking through the same area again, so I decided that we should go and check it out.

Fifteen minutes of fish treatment cost 200 baht, or 30 minutes for 300 baht. I wondered if Teay and I could split time and do 7.5 minutes each for 200, but she was a bit chicken to test it out and just wanted to watch me. So, I requested the 15 minutes and they gave my feet a quick wash before taking me over to the tank. Teay gave the receptionist some extra longan fruit that we had with us, also.

I didn't quite know what to expect the fish would feel like. It felt pretty weird, but not at all painful. The massive numbers of fish all swarming around at once sort of overloaded the limited number of foot nerves, I guess. Quite comfortable once I got used to it -- I guess I would compare the sensation to scrubbing feet with a loofa sponge.

And, just as Teay and I had done the day before, lots of people stopped to look in and gauge my reaction or give me "you're crazy!" looks. I gave lots of people the thumbs up, so maybe I encouraged some future customers also. I wasn't keeping track of the time, and when they said I was done Teay mentioned that it had been about 34 minutes for the 15 minute price -- not sure if Teay's fruit bribe or my interaction with foot traffic outside through the window got me the extra time free!

After it was done my feet felt quite good, and relaxed like after a Thai foot massage. Definitely worth the 200 baht to test it out! :)

Photos HERE.

End of Summer

I'd say that I'm behind, but by recent standards a break between posts of only a month and a half is pretty quick!

The final bit of summer break was pretty good. Teay and I took a bus trip to the beach near Bangkok with her Mom and workers from the Public Health Office, adjacent to Teay's Mom's restaurant. There were several different stops along the way, including a wax museum, shopping markets, and a nice park area. I've posted a gallery of photos from the trip HERE. In addition, we stopped at a place with a cable car ride that went up to a scenic overlook, and I got to see my first monkeys in Thailand. Teay liked them, and explains why in this video:



Rain... there has been plenty of it! Last week there was a lot of talk about a possible flood. Several school in Muang Uttaradit closed early to let kids go home and prepare houses and supplies, etc. I helped Scott and Pim move some furniture upstairs in their house (which is in a fairly low area and got swamped in the flood 3 years ago), and then helped Howard move a refrigerator upstairs in his restaurant (new project this year for his girlfriend Pui, who is a great chef with particularly good Som Tam!), so we all got pretty tired!

After the school closings and our furniture moving flood preparations, the water didn't end up making it into the town, but Lap Lae nearby had about a foot and a half of water at sidewalk level in some areas, so I think it was a narrow miss. Things have dried out since then, but we're only a couple weeks into rainy season so I shouldn't jinx things by assuming we're out of the woods yet.

Although my house is next to the Nan river, the riverbank on my side is very high and the opposite bank is probably 6 feet plus lower, so I think that historically this area has been above the reach of flooding. There has also historically been plenty of warning time with the waters rising slowly, so I think that in the highly unlikely event that water did make it up to my house, I'd be able to pack my belongings (computer first! -- priorities) into my car and drive up North to the mountains and take a few vacation days in Chiang Mai or something! :)

I guess that is all for now.

Summer Vacation to Amphawa

Yep. Last post in January. Now late April. I didn't die or anything -- just got way behind!

After Teay's school term ended, she returned to Uttaradit and has been staying with me here. We have enjoyed the vacation time, staying in Uttaradit a fair bit and traveling around a bit. I have been slightly less lazy in updating my Picasa photo galleries than this blog, so you may have seen some newer photo sets. Here are links to galleries from a trip to Nan province, Dream World theme park in Bangkok, and Songkran in Uttaradit.

I recently got a new desktop PC, which I have been enjoying setting up. My Alienware laptop that I got just before coming here developed some vertical bars in the built-in LCD display that spread to being over an inch and a half thick. I limped along for a while by literally suspending it from the wall with a rope, connecting a keyboard, mouse, and new flatscreen monitor, and using it as a non-mobile "desktop". But having a proper new machine has been good.

I couldn't decide which OS to run on it -- Windows XP for best game compatability, Windows Vista to see if the new flavor is as much of a train wreck as I've heard, or trying a new Linux variant even though I've been out of that scene for quite a while. So, I decided to go with all 3 at once, and can choose to jump into XP, Vista, or Ubuntu Linux at boot. I am extremely impressed with Ubuntu -- no need to boot into XP or Vista other than to play games or run Photoshop (if any *nix'ers feel feel the urge to inform me about WINE, I'm already aware of it. GIMP also. I learned Photoshop first and I'm too lazy to reform).

And that brings me basically up to now. Teay and I just got back from a trip to Amphawa, which is sort of the Thai version of Venice, with most of the houses and storefronts facing canals and the river. We actually stayed a bit away from Amphawa, but still on the river, at a resort called Baan Tai Had. Our room was next to the pool, and had a balcony looking out at a canal with carp and lotus plants etc.

The first day, we mainly stayed around the resort and swam in the pool. We borrowed a bicycle from a lady with a shop there (bike free after Teay bought us matching pink t-shirts from her shop) and rode it about 5 km to a ferry that took us to a market area across the river for supper. Five baht for the ferry -- 2 baht per person plus 1 for the bike. Two baht would let you ride your motorcycle onto the ferry and drive off once at the opposite pier.

The second day, we went swimming in the morning, borrowed the bike again to get lunch, and got a private long-tailed boat tour that took us down the proper Amphawa canal and floating market area. We did some shopping there and ate supper, and then the same boat took us to see the fireflies in the surrounding area on the river banks. The fireflies are quite interesting -- they are attracted to a particular kind of tree, so they swarm on those. They don't fly around as much as the fireflies I am familiar with in the states, and they flash their light on and off much more quickly than those also. So, the effect is that these particular trees get dozens or hundreds of fireflies crawling on them blinking rapidly all over the place -- they look like Christmas trees.

Here is a link to the full gallery from that trip.

OK, I guess that is all for now. I'll try to be a bit more regular with updates in the future... But no promises!

Loy Krathong

OK, second post for today (check below for post about my new house). Wednesday this week was Loy Krathong, the Thai holiday where people float small boats made out of a section of a banana tree and decorated with various plants, flowers, and a candle. Loy means "to float" and Krathong is the Thai word for the little boats. Part of the symbolism of the holiday is letting go of your troubles and problems and "floating" them away, as the Krathongs are floated away.

Teay came back to Uttaradit on Tuesday night, so we were able to do Loy Krathong activities together. We went to three different locations: first was at a lake/pond near Wat Prathaen Sila At (one of the most famous temples in Uttaradit), the second was a small location near another temple and at a faster/narrow portion of the Nan river, and the final was at a large public plaza area near my school called Rim Nam Nan.

We bought and floated a Krathong made out of corn husks (figured it was Kansas style!) at the first location. At the third, we released a paper hot-air balloon, called a Kom Loy. These originated in Chiang Mai and are now very popular with Loy Krathong -- you can see many of them floating up in the sky at any given time on Loy Krathong night.

Here is a video of launching the Kom Loy:


And you can view the full gallery of photos HERE.

November Update, New House

I'm behind on my updates as usual, but a lot of things have been happening that have kept me busy!

The biggest change has been my moving into a new house. Ivan was renting a home from Pi Yai, but he decided to move to Bangkok to do some post-grad studies and do some teaching there after the first semester break. So, his place was opening up and I came over to check it out a couple of times and decided it would work well for me also.


Ivan's house is in town in Uttaradit, fairly close to the school, so it is an easy drive to work. The location is extra nice because it is adjacent to the Nan river -- visible through trees from my living room and bedroom, and easily visible from the back garden. It is also right next door to Spencer and Nuchy's house (also a rental from Pi Yai). The house is pretty big -- 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, good sized living / dining room, and a kitchen. It was pretty well furnished beforehand, but I've done some shopping for additional things with Teay. And Teay's Mom gave me some spare sets of dishes, silverware, etc. from her shop, as well as a propane tank and stovetop for the kitchen, so I can do cooking at home also.

The outside is nice also; there is a covered parking spot for my car and a nice big garden area with trees, shrubs, and a fish pond / fountain thing. Actually, that was my project for yesterday -- the pond was more of a mosquito pit; lots of sludge and grime and no fish, so I bucketed the water and sludge out, washed everything off and then bucketed that out, and then filled it up with fresh water. Spencer told me I could swipe a few guppies from his pond, so I've got a few starter fish in as well -- hopefully they will eat off the mosquito larva.

So this is my 2nd full week in the new house and I'm getting pretty well settled in and comfortable. I've robbed the dining table for use as a computer desk (priorities!) so a replacement for that is pretty much the only major thing left on my list. The internet has been working well (Spencer and Ivan have had some trouble with it in the past, but a recent fix seems to have it in order). I had the choice to keep paying for UBC satellite TV or get it shut off and have the dish taken down, and I opted for the latter -- I basically haven't watched any TV since I got here, and most of what I watched in the states before coming was Colorado Avalanche hockey and NFL football, both of which are somewhat tough to get here (hockey particularly) and made more difficult by the 12-hour timezone difference!

I guess that is all I've got for this post. I've got a full gallery of photos of the new house HERE. Next on my agenda is writing another entry about Loy Krathong this week, so I'll try to get that up soon (should be today!).

Koh Samui Trip

Koh Samui was great! We're back in Bangkok now, staying at Teay's place for a day before heading back to Uttaradit. Our resort didn't have internet access, so I never got around to doing updates while we were there, but I'll catch up now.

Wednesday the 1st was the last day to compile grades and wrap everything up. Then on Thursday in the morning I caught the train to Bangkok, and got situated that night and Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, I went to a Thai culture course, which will be one of the new requirements going in for a teaching license here (assuming things don't change).

The material on the first day was mainly stuff that I've picked up from living here for a year and a half anyway -- how to wai (bow) correctly, cultural taboos (for example, pointing with feet), etc. The second day was very good, though. I've had people show me the Thai alphabet before (44 consonants, 21 vowels, and 5 tones), but I've always thought that it was pretty much beyond me. But the Thai teacher at the culture course organized the letters into similar sounding groups, and linked them to English letters (when possible). Howard and I decided that since we had some foundation of Thai vocabulary to link the sounds to (Howard moreso than me), plus the teacher's good presentation method, that it all sort of clicked together much better than it ever has before. It was probably more difficult to link it all together for John and Jennifer having only been here about half a year, but I bet we all got some good out of it.

After the course finished on Sunday, Teay and I caught a night train to Surat Thani which got there at about 8AM on Monday. We had been looking at some resorts on the web for Koh Samui, but we hadn't managed to book anything yet. At the train station in Surat Thani, there were some bus packages that could shuttle you to the ferry, cross to Samui, and then get you to your resort. We booked with one of those and checked out several resort pamphlets they had available, plus cross-checking prices with Teay's Samui connections and got booked at Amity Resort on Lamai beach for 3 nights in an air conditioned bungalow for 700 baht a night (about $21).

The ferry was nice -- slow but sure as Teay says -- and gave us a good chance to check out the views. Surat Thani and Koh Samui and the other islands are all pretty stunning; mountains with tropical forests dropping down to rocky or sandy beaches all over the place. The ferry took a bit under 2 hours to get to the island, and then we got a van to take us to our resort on Lamai beach.

The Amity Resort grounds were quite nice -- right next to/on the beach and well organized, with an excellent view from the beach. Our bungalow was nice also. Pretty simple (fairly small, and no TV or refrigerator), but clean and comfortable, and about 30 seconds walk time from the beach -- quite a steal for $21! By dumb luck we ended up having pretty much perfect timing -- got to the resort just at check-in time, got settled in, and walked the beach and checked out the area to figure out where to eat supper etc.

For day 2, we rented a motorbike from the resort and Teay zipped us around the island. There is a 60km ring road that hits most of the beaches, or an 80km on that follows the shore the whole way. We took the 60km one and figured out where things were (about a 3 hour drive) and then walked around Lamai beach again.

On day 3, we took the motorbike back to some of the sightseeing spots on the island. First was Nam Muang waterfall, with 2 locations. The lower falls were easy to get to -- the top falls involved a pretty major hike. There are elephant riding treks that go up to that one, but we opted to go for cheap and walk it ourselves. Ended up being about a 2 hour hike, but the falls and the view up there were worth the effort!

Next on the day's agenda was a butterfly garden. We came at low tourism season, which made everything cheaper, but it was also low season for the butterflies. Still had some flitting around, but not thick with them like I've seen at some other places. The grounds were quite nice and had good views also.

Third was stopping at Hin Ta and Hin Yai, the Grandfather and Grandmother stones. These rocks are a popular stop for photos, because they are said to resemble certain parts of the male and female anatomy.

Last stop for day 3 was a Swiss restaurant I had seen while we were driving around, specializing in fondue. It was a bit different from fondue that I've had elsewhere, but quite good. It was meat fondue, but instead of oil it was cooked in an electric water sukiyaki pot with veggies. After cooking the meat, there were about 10 different dips/sauces to put on the meat, including some Thai-style spicy ones. Teay and I shared a course of fondue (which probably would have filled us by itself) plus a pizza.

On day 4, we went North from Lamai beach, and saw the beaches and areas that are skipped by the smaller ring road on the island. I got thoroughly lost (not difficult to accomplish for me) and Teay got turned around also, but we managed to find our way to Big Buddha beach and visit the temple and namesake Big Buddha statue. Also did some shopping at Big C (a combination grocery store / general store / mall) in Chawaeng beach (the busiest tourist beach) to fill our refrigerator -- we decided to switch up to a 1000 baht ($30) bungalow with fridge and TV for the last couple days so we could laze around the resort.

We checked in the motorcycle for day 5 and lazed around the resort and Lamai beach area, including "inspecting" the swimming pools at some of the ritzier resorts (3000+ baht a night plus). I'd say there are 4 varieties of resorts on Samui; on the beach or off, and with or without a pool. Off beach with no pool places might be as low as 300-400 baht a night. On the beach with no pool (like our place at Amity) runs about 700-1500 baht, and off beach with pool is similar. Beach plus pool means expensive (relatively) -- 3000+ baht. I figure we did quite well with our no-pool beach resort combined with a few walks over to the adjacent resorts with pools! :)

For day 6, we booked a snorkeling/sightseeing boat trip to several different islands. A van picked us up in the morning and shuttled us to the pier to get aboard a big high-speed catamaran. The catamaran could hold a bunch of people -- I'll guess 300. There were 4 different destinations. First stop was Koh Pangyan, about 1/3 the size of Samui. Some of the riders got off there -- there are resorts and places to stay there also. Next was Koh Tao, smaller yet, but still with resorts.

From there, we disembarked and got onto a smaller snorkeling boat. It took us to a snorkeling spot off of Koh Tao. The water wasn't quite as clear as in Grand Cayman, but pretty close. Good fish viewing, mostly small stuff like Sargeant Majors (which were actually tame enough that they would come and bite you if you sat still in the water), and some nice brilliant blue schools of small fish. Most exceptional were the "Christmas Tree" tubeworms -- lots of colors and sizes, and huge quantities of them, more than I've ever seen in one place before.

After snorkeling, the boat took us to Koh Nangyuan, a very small island. It is basically a pier and a large sandbar between 2 mountain/hills popping out of the ocean. We had lunch there and a few hours to look around, climb up to the top of the larger mountain, and swim in the ocean next to the sandbar. Pretty nice spot! From there the catamaran shuttled us back to Samui.

Day 7 was our final day, we checked out at about 7:30 and got a van back to the pier and took the slow ferry back to Surat Thani. The train was all booked up, so we got a bus back to Bangkok, which got us here this morning at about 4AM. Teay has a few things to do tomorrow and then we'll head back to Uttaradit on Wednesday.

I guess that is all I know for now. We took a lot of photos on the trip, you can see the full gallery HERE!

New Car

I've been looking around for a car to buy here for a while, and I found a good one last week, so I bit. Toyota makes a car for the SE Asian market called a Vios. They are pretty small -- a bit smaller than the 1981 Toyota Camry I drove in high school (and new Camrys are full-size cars). Anyway, I looked at several different models, and the Vios seemed like a good pick to me; small enough that it is easy to get around and park, but it doesn't feel too small for me inside, even with farang long legs. I also looked at an older model Honda Civic, and it actually felt more cramped inside even though it was a larger car.

I wanted to get an automatic transmission car; I figured that remembering to drive on the wrong (left) side of the road would tax my brain enough that I wouldn't want to think about left-handed shifting also. Other than that I didn't have too many specific requirements.

Nitaya has several contacts with different dealerships, and one called her up about having a 2003 Vios that was in good shape. Some used cars in Uttaradit have been through the flood that occurred 1 year before I came here, and end up having some problems. This car was from Phitsanulok though, and we gave it a good check-up.

Anyway, I got the car last week (400,000 baht or about $12,000) and drove it to school on Thursday and Friday. Also got insurance. With my own car, I can get up a bit later, and come back home quite a bit earlier; most days my last class finishes at 3PM. Teay finished her last final test for this term and was able to come back for the weekend, so I got to drive her around also. Having a navigator is nice -- my sense of direction is rather lacking (read: nonexistent).

For Saturday night supper, we picked up Teay's Mom and drove about 15 minutes to Mon Lap Lae, a nice restaurant in Lap Lae with great food, location, and ambiance. I've been there before for lunch, but I think this was my first supper there. They have nice Thai-style houses and decks, gardens, fountains, etc. and it all looked great in the twilight. I took some photos with my cellphone, but without a flash they were pretty marginal. We had 3 dishes for supper -- Tom Yum Kung, another shrimp dish with tamarind sauce and pepper slices, and water vegetables with a garlic sauce. Excellent supper and company, and a good first road trip out of the main Uttaradit town area!

Driving on the left hasn't been too tough to get used to -- I haven't tried to turn into the wrong lane or anything yet. And I've only turned on the windsheild wipers instead of the turn signal 2-3 times so far! The real noticable difference is the prevalence of motorcycles and scooters everywhere. It seems a bit nuts with so many of those buzzing around in traffic with you, but I'm already kind of getting used to it.

Guess that is all for now. HERE is the photo gallery of the car and supper at Mon Lap Lae.