On Railay Beach, I saw these guys:
These little fellas were begging for food and water from the tourists, whereas the wild ones I saw on Tonsai were hanging out in tall trees and being a lot more cool and interesting. But still, monkeys!! I know this sounds incredibly silly, but I knew I was really pretty far away from everything I was used to when I realized I was in a place with wild monkeys.
I'm still uploading pictures from Thailand. Here are a handful from the Chiang Mai Flower Festival.
The floats were like the Rose Parade - everything was made and/or covered with some vegetable material, from flowers to banana leaves to grain. There were also tons of food, flower, and plant vendors, and displays from local groups like the Bonsai club. It was really amazing, but hard to get a picture without someone posing in front of what you wanted to take a picture of or sticking their hands in the way...
Banana leaf dragons.
I like how this kind of mimics the elephants on some of the larger temples. Which I'm 99% sure was the point...
I am standing on the city's moat. The floats are still pretty far up the street from where I'm standing.
I just thought this was pretty.
More (and other random pictures from Chiang Mai) here
The past few days haven't been particularly interesting, but one little tidbit: I have been watching the second season of lost and just watched the flashback where Jin says he is from Namhae, which is really, really close to where I live.
Also, I'm starting to upload pictures from Thailand into my flickr album - here.
In Chiang Mai, there are tons of temples (called wats in Thailand). This wat is HUGE and in the process of being renovated, with several temples on the grounds (if you go to flickr, other pictures of this wat follow). We talked with one of the young monks for a little while (he made sure to stay pretty far away, since they cannot touch or take anything from the hands of a woman without some major purification ritual) and at sunset when the bell was rung, there were TONS of stray (but tame) dogs who started howling. The monks from this wat take up collections to buy food and provide a home for these strays. There were even dogs that would go up and try to snuggle with some of the younger monks while they were in the temple for prayer. Seeing these young boys trying to focus while puppies nipped at the hems of their robes or try to shove their heads into their hands was really kind of cute. I think maybe i'm wrong for thinking that, but whatever.
I also think I still have that "post-vacation blah" feeling. Just kind of let down and not that interested/interesting. Nothing major, just not that excited about much. It is really impressive - I get so much less done when I have all the time in the world. If I have time limitations, I'm far more efficient.
+ two days in a row of being sent home early!
+ not having to go to work* at all tomorrow!
+ the person who (I think) will be my new co-teacher is awesome, an amazing teacher, and the principal likes her! Heck, the principal likes all three of the people it might be, and they are all good teachers.
+ in a stunning turn-about, my current co-teacher decided it would be easier if the whole of the next two weeks was listed as "workshop" so if I re-sign, I'll have a month of vacation time this summer!
- there was an issue with the co-teacher not processing paperwork I thought was already taken care of, which caused a near freak-out for everyone. And a near heart attack for me.
+ I think I may have ordered water to be delivered. We'll see it if arrives.
(* by "work" I mean sit at my desk and screw around on the computer because there is no point at all to me being there. At all. Now I can do the same, but at home in my pajamas. Oh, and I can watch the Gilmore Girls.)
Also, I want to know where restaurants here get their broccoli, because it looks and tastes a million times better than anything I've seen in the store.
In the middle of this hugely long break from school there is one week of classes, mostly for kids to graduate to the next grade and/or next school, and for incoming students to take placement tests which will put them in rank from 1 to whatever and which will follow them for the course of next year. Not to put pressure on them or anything. But anyway, that means that today I was back at school for the one day of actual "teaching" (if by playing games and buying compliance with candy can count as teaching) and several days of sitting at the computer I have this week. (which is good, because it seems that my classroom is again unheated. Which isn't nice when one is just returning from a sun-filled vacation.)
After weeks of bitching about school lunch it finally dawned on me - I don't have to eat it. I mean, I was only taking the things I liked and was drawing even more attention to my picky eater-ness (which made people think I didn't like Korean food - not true), so it is probably just as well that I not even hit the cafeteria. I went to one of the nice teachers and played the fat/diet card (while now I would be normal-sized in the US, here I'm considered gigantic - though from what I see in the sauna, I'm not all that disproportionate) and so just like that, I'm out and will no longer have to pay for food that is often down right BAD. And the nice teacher said it was fine, and that no one would think badly about me for not going to the cafeteria or bringing my lunch, so that was nice.
Only slightly related, it is probably a good thing that my school only has crappy instant coffee available, as I would probably move from "slightly excessive" to "disturbing" in my coffee consumption.
Home safe and sound. Tired, but good.
I go back to school for a week starting Monday, then have another few weeks off, so tomorrow will be sleeping and planning something to do in case they actually want me to hold a class.
I'll try to upload pictures within the next few days.
For the 4th and last time this trip, I am at the Bangkok airport.
One of the useful things of adopting what seems to be a uniform for traveling foreigners here (thai fisherman pants, tee-shirt, a bit of a tan, and a layer of dirt) is that the touts (people trying to get you to go where they want you to go/take their transportation/stay at their hotel) tend to leave you alone.
This morning, I waded out to get a boat to the mainland, took one of the "local buses"(and by local bus, they mean pick-up truck with slat benches along the sides and a fairly high cab as a roof) to the Krabi airport and flew to Bangkok. All in all, although it was nice to get a Thai massage at Wat Pho (a center for traditional thai healing and the home of the reclining Buddha) I would have rather spent the afternoon on the beach.
Anyway, I've learned a lot on this trip, not the least of which is that you really don't want to have your eyes open while riding in a taxi in rush hour traffic in Bangkok. It is just easier that way. I've also climbed, learned Thai massage, pet an elephant, ridden in/on more vehicles then I could imagine (some very nice, some incredibly sketchy), swam with a backdrop that is so beautiful it is unreal, and came up with some pretty good questions to think about.
In a few minutes, I will go and get my bags out of the place that will store your luggage at the airport and put on shoes that require socks, and dig out a jacket. Ugh. Cold. Boo.
After a train, a plane, a minivan, a boat, and a hike up a dirt road, I am at Tonsai Beach. This morning I swam in blue/green water while watching climbers scale some dramatic cliffs, and I think I may be out tomorrow myself.
It is so beautiful it is almost like looking at a movie set - you can hardly believe it is real. It is hot and the generators at the resort I'm staying at only run at night, but in the shade with a breeze, it isn't too bad.
One more day of beach, then an afternoon in Bangkok and I'm back to Seoul. One of the folks from Korea is on my same flight back, so that is good - someone to wait with at the airport, if nothing else.
An excellent way to end the journey.
* The fear of heights was seriously addressed today with a 30 meter rappel into a cave. At one point I was hanging in mid air just looking around the chamber in the cavern. It was amazing.
* Also was climbing hard and got out of town for the day and it was lovely, in addition to what was essentially a private lesson from one of the members of the Thai National Climbing Team.
* I will be in great pain tomorrow, I think. But it was awesome.
* Tomorrow I will take the train to Bangkok overnight, then Tuesday will fly to Krabi and work out transportation to Tonsai Beach. I'll be there until Friday morning, at which point I fly back to Bangkok, spend a few hours going to a couple of choice locations there, then catching an overnight flight back to Seoul, the train to Suncheon, and the bus to Gwangyeong.
* no idea what internet connectivity will be like for the next few days.
After a rather harrowing ride on the back of a scooter driven by a guy from California at my guest house, I have signed up for a day of rock climbing/rappelling here. (I WAS wearing a helmet) and I'll leave it up for you all to decide which is the crazier of the two activities. I think they might be neck and neck. This Sunday I'll be picked up at my guest house and taken out to Crazy Horse Buttress, where they will teach me how to belay and give me a rock climbing lesson and then take me to a cave where I'll learn to rapel and rappel into a cave. While scarier, down is a lot easier than up.
Also, I am officially Level 1 Thai Massage certified by the Thai government.
There are times when you are walking around town and see such dirt and poverty and ugly, then all of a sudden walk past a garden or a temple or a riot of flowers that are so incredibly beautiful it just takes your breath away.
Anyway, thinking about ways to take what i'm learning here and find out something to do with it. It seems I have a bit of ability in this area. While I'm not super excited about only doing Thai massage, it makes me want to learn more about how to incorporate other alternative therapies. We'll see.
I'm fighting falling into the traveling hippy/massage student wardrobe - as in, asking myself "will I really wear this in real life?" And how many pairs of thai pants does a girl need? Or bags with sparkles (living in Korea has done nothing to curb my magpie tendencies - "Look! Shiny!!" -but at least I've been able to focus most of that. I bought the most incredibly embroidered patchwork tapestry. Okay, just reading that sounds like it is hideous, but really, it was so beautiful I almost hyperventilated when I saw it.
