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!
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.
Yesterday (September 20th) was Teay's birthday! She was able to come back to Uttaradit although she has been busy with end-term projects and tests at Chulalongkorn University. That gave us an additional reason to have a party at Scott and Pim's house, with their new barbeque grill fired up. This week also has the Longsat Festival -- longsat is a kind of fruit that Uttaradit is famous for producing, and the festival is quite a bit like a county fair with parades, game/shopping booths, rides, etc.
Teay and I went to the parade yesterday afternoon and watched it go past her Mom's shop downtown. One of the customers at the shop spoke good English, so we were talking quite a bit. Her name was Pookie, and she had lived in Switzerland for a while so she also speaks German. After we had talked for an hour or so, she mentioned that she had a niece who had been an exchange student in America. I asked which program, and she said AFS. I asked which state, and she said Kansas. Then she said that her niece lived in Uttaradit, in the Nam Rit area. I put two and two together and said that her niece must be named Namwan, which gave her a good surprise -- it turns out she is a cousin of Nitaya Fangsawat.
After the parade, Teay and I got some supplies and went to Scott and Pim's for the party. Teay helped watch Jeffery and Danny (Scott and Pim's son and Spencer and Nuchy's son) and we chatted and chowed down on BBQ with everybody. The BBQ was a very good -- hamburgers, kabobs, and chicken legs were great and we all ate a pretty ridiculous amount of them as well. After we were pretty well stuffed, it started raining and rained us out of playing beer frisbee, but we were all full enough that it was probably just as well.
After some digestion time, we brought out Teay's cake. We hadn't bought candles, but Scott's last birthday cake had had number candles for "42", so we could swap the order and use them for Teay's 24!
I think that is all for now. I've got the full gallery of photos from this weekend HERE.
In addition, I took photos of all of the foreign teachers recently for a brochure for the school, and I've uploaded those in another gallery, which you can find HERE.
I've been pretty busy with school, so haven't updated for a while. Last weekend was busy also, but worth blogging about!
Last week was a short week at school due to 2 (related?) Buddhist holidays, Asarna Bucha day and Khaopansa. Khaopansa is the start of "Buddhist lent", where the monks are supposed to stay in their temples and avoid going out for alms rounds etc. The history of the holiday is that this is the rice growing season, so the monks would stay in their temples and in order to avoid traveling around by foot and damaging new rice plants. So, since the monks are supposed to stay at their temples, the people bring them supplies to last them through the lent period; food, general goods, and historically candles for light to read by. The candles became a symbol of the holiday, so now there are parades where huge candles are carted in the back of pickup trucks to temples, and some places even have giant wax sculpture candle festivals.
In any case, school was off for Thursday and Friday, so we had a 4 day weekend.
On Wednesday evening after school, I caught the train to Bangkok. It left at 8PM and was going to arrive at 5AM, so it was optional to get a ticket in the sleeper car, which I did. First time I have been on the sleeper here. It was pretty nice; the car has a central aisle with a double-level row of bunks partitioned on each side and curtains you can close to block out your partition. The bed space was pretty good, not long enough for me to stretch out but not so short as to really cramp me in either. So, I got some pretty good sleep on the way there.
On Thursday morning, I meet Teay at the main train station in Bangkok. We had plans to meet up with Namwan and Uncle Neung, but it turned out that Uncle Neung had to go to a funeral. I had a new laptop to deliver to Namwan, so we met her at Siam Paragon, a large mall. We had some lunch at a Japanese restaurant, and Namwan got to test out her computer on the wireless in the mall.Then we went up to the top floor of the mall, which has a bunch of theaters. We decided to watch the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Namwan was interested in watching it on the IMAX screen, and Teay had never been in an IMAX, so we did that. A ticket to a normal screen movie is 100 baht, or about $3, and the IMAX was 200 baht -- so I figured it was a good deal compared to $7 for a movie or maybe $15-20 for an IMAX in the states. I thought the movie was excellent, and I think Teay and Namwan enjoyed it also.
Namwan headed back home after the movie, so Teay and I went to a night market and looked around for a while before eating supper at a steak restaurant. I had a beef steak for what I think is just the second time in the year plus that I have been in Thailand. Pork is quite a bit more common, although it isn't impossible to get beef by any means, I just tend to enjoy pork more with Thai food. But at this place I had a sirloin steak medium rare, and it was quite nice.
For Friday, Teay had some plans to meet up with some friends and take a road trip to Pattaya. Pi At is a friend of one Teay's friends, and was providing the car and the driving for the trip. Once we got to Pattaya, we picked up Teay's friends Som and Bo. Then they decided it would be a good idea to extend it even further and drive to Rayong, pick up another friend named Wa, and catch a boat to Koh Samet island. I had been to the beach at Pattaya once before, but never to any of the islands in Thailand, so it sounded like a great idea to me!
So we parked the car at Rayong and got on a medium sized converted fishing boat to shuttle us to the island. Our boat was slow, so it took about 45 minutes to get there; groups can charter a speed boat and get there quite a bit more quickly for a bigger fare. We arrived in the afternoon, about 3PM or so. We asked about housing, but due to the holiday extended weekend we heard that it was pretty likely that everything would be full. So, we got a pickup to shuttle us down the beach until the road stopped, and then walked a bit further, asking about rooms at all of the hotels. We eventually found one that would put up tents, and we figured that would work fine.
So we had 3 tents put up, walked the beach, and ate good seafood before packing in to the tents for the night.
Teay and I woke up pretty early on Saturday to walk the beach and look around. I had a good breakfast of fried rice with bacon, and Teay had seafood spaghetti that was quite nice also. We ended up taking a pickup back to the docks and riding back to Rayong a bit before lunch, and everybody ate Phad Thai (Thai-style fried noodles) at a shop there.
From Rayong we went back to Pattaya, and did some shopping before heading back to Bangkok and saying good-bye to Teay's friends. Then we went back to Siam Paragon to eat supper -- I chose a shop similar to a Panera that makes sandwiches in bagels, and soup in bread bowls etc. It was great, particularly because fancy bread is pretty uncommon in Thailand. Rice is a large part of essentially every meal, but wheat and breads from wheat flour are rare.
Sunday was a pretty early morning, so I could be dropped off at the train station at catch the 8AM train back to Uttaradit. Pretty nice train ride back, but shame the weekend wasn't a bit longer!
I think that is all for now.
Here is a link to the gallery of photos from Koh Samet:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JonFrahm/KohSametTrip2008
I've been pretty sparse on updates recently. Part of that is just me having less new stuff to talk about on here, but also recently I've had my attention diverted elsewhere...
This is Teay (pronounced quite like the name Tia in the US). Teay is a friend of Scott's wife Pim, and I first met her at a party at their house. She is also a teacher, and has been teaching pre-school at Nampung's school Sartit, as well as private lessons. Towards the end of the summer school break, we started seeing quite a lot of each other.
This weekend was Teay's last in Uttaradit before going to Bangkok to study for her Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education. So, we spent most of the weekend together traveling around. Saturday we went to Phitsanulok by bus so we could watch the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie. Movies there are dubbed in Thai, with no English subtitles. My Thai is slowly getting better, but I still follow the movies mostly from context with the words that I do recognize mixed in. Teay's English is quite good -- way better than my Thai -- but we're both getting good practice talking to each other.
On Sunday, we went to Si Satchanalai with a Thai friend of mine named Ben. Ben is going to move to Singapore and work for a British company, so this summer I've helped him practice up on English and build some conversational confidence before he goes to work. He lives near Si Sat (place names are commonly abbreviated in conversation like that, Phitsanulok becomes P-lok, Uttaradit to U-Dit, etc.) and offered to take us on a tour of the old city.
Sunday evening, Teay's cousin was having a wedding reception in Uttaradit, so we also went to that before she had to catch the train to Bangkok.
So now it's been 2 days without my girlfriend and I'm missing her already! Fortunately we can keep in touch with phones and online chat, and we already have some ideas for times when we can visit each other. She is very smart and great with her students, so I know she'll do well at University.
HERE is a photo gallery from this weekend.
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.
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.
