Recently in Thailand

Some of my first graders

2016 (or 2559 in Thai time) is flying by much quicker than anticipated. Thailand being the vague, easygoing country that they are, has been unable to give us an end date to teaching, so we've just been showing up each day with no idea what's going on. Some days we're told we're teaching until the end of March, other days they say we will only teach through the first week of March. Overall it doesn't matter a ton, but it's been making it a little complicated to plan lessons and make sure we have all the proper grades in by the end of the semester. This week I showed up to my kindergarten class only to be told that I'm done teaching kindergarten; what!? I didn't even get to enjoy my last week with them. Fortunately I still get to see the little ones running around in the mornings and after class. School officially closes March 30, but it seems that the students might be leaving earlier than that. As always, it's still a mystery!

I mainly stuck with Teacher Tip and her class throughout the day  

Last week I got to go on a fun and exhausting field trip with grades 1-3. We started off the morning at a NASA space center in Pattaya where the kids had a tour guide who took them through the space museum. We got to watch a 3D movie which the kids absolutely loved and even though the whole day was in Thai I still think I learned a little :) After the space museum we drove another 20 minutes north to an aquarium. This was far less exciting than the space museum, but the last room was awesome, presenting us with a giant glass window looking into a huge pool of fish. I swear, at least half of the kids ran up to me yelling "Teacher! F, fish, ba! F, fish, ba!" (ba is the Thai name for fish). It was awesome seeing them apply their English during a fun day out. Personally I think a seven hour field trip is a little long for kids under the age of 9, and most of the students fell asleep on the way home. But overall I'm so glad I got the opportunity to go with them. It let me bond with the kids in a stress free atmosphere and we had a ton of fun running around learning words in Thai and English.

View from the hotel room at Sheraton Resort

The weekends have been busy as always. A few weeks ago a fellow English teacher, Yavette, had friends visiting from the States. Her one friend had a lot of credit card points to cash in, so she splurged at Sheraton Pattaya Resort, so obviously we mooched off of that for a day, enjoying their numerous pools and private beach. The entire resort was a dream with amazing rooms and stunning views of the ocean. Before coming to Thailand I was strictly a pool girl, much preferring a comfy beach chair over laying in the sand. However, endless weekends at the beach in Thailand quickly changed me, and as nice as the pool was I was almost bummed that we didn't make it to the beach that weekend.

Summer will be in full swing starting in April and I'm planning some backpacking adventures throughout Asia which will include Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. In preparation for these adventures I've needed to take two recent trips to Bangkok. The first was to get a Vietnam visa and the second was a quick trip to the US Embassy to get a new passport, because mine is almost full! In order to get a new passport I had to unwillingly turn over my old one, leaving me feeling extremely vulnerable for this past week. My new one is hopefully in the mail as I type, filled with 52 empty pages for me to fill up. When I got my Vietnam visa Emiliya came with me to Bangkok, as we're going to Vietnam together. We enjoyed a low key trip to Bangkok, simply seeking out good coffee and cheap food.

Sunset from Sky Bar 

When I went back up a few days later it happened to coordinate perfectly with Sam's trip to Bangkok. She is also a fellow English teacher who I met through our company, and we hadn't seen each other since New Year's Eve on Koh Samet, so it was great to catch up. We splurged on our evening there and lived a brief life of luxury while having drinks at Sky Bar. This location is known for it's appearance in Hangover 2 and it offers unrivaled views of the Chao Phraya River from 64 stories up. We each bought a drink for the high cost of $15 and drank as slowly as possible in order to catch the sunset. There are many places in Bangkok that offer similar views, but a lot of them have cover fees usually starting around $14, so we were happy to find a place that wouldn't completely ruin our budget. I personally think on a crowded evening it would be easy to sneak up to the roof for a quick view without buying a drink. We definitely lingered after finishing our drinks and no one
was pressuring us to buy another or leave, which was greatly appreciated.

Evening from the Sky Bar

I've now been to Bangkok six times (and returning this weekend!) and I'm still continuously baffled by this huge city. Bangkok is more than double the size of New York City and offers endless amounts of restaurants, temples and shops to visit. Each time I've come to Bangkok I've stayed in a different location in the hopes of one day fully comprehending the entire city, but I'm still a long way from that. Either way, my opinion on Bangkok has drastically changed since my first visit here. I've now learned how to take the public transportation (BTS) and I embrace the challenge of haggling with taxi drivers and I'm always looking forward to my next adventure to Thailand's capital.

My favorite view on the island, the boardwalk to Tien Beach

This past weekend I took another trip to Koh Larn, the beloved island of Pattaya. In November and December I spent most weekends relaxing on the beaches of this island, but haven't had any time to go back since 2016 started. Unfortunately it was a rather breezy day, which brought all sorts of stinging critters close to the beach, so I didn't spend too much in the water. Nonetheless, it's always nice to relax on the sand while drinking a smoothie with some friends. The island is a great weekend getaway for us when we're not trying to spend a lot of money. If we don't go crazy on food or alcohol the whole day could cost as little as $3-4. But of course I can't help myself from splurging on some ice cream or a fresh smoothie.



I recently realized that I'm not taking advantage of all of the amazing things Thailand has to offer, specifically cheap massages and fresh fruit. I've vowed to change that and have started branching out with my fruit options each evening. I usually stick to watermelon because it's the cheapest (and still delicious!) costing me about 40 cents for one serving, but I started mixing it up these past few weeks. I've learned that Thailand has at least four different types of mangoes, possibly more, and they all taste very different. There's the sweet yellow mango which is served as dessert with sticky rice, and then there are three others that are much more bitter. Recently a smaller mango appeared at the market so I gave it a shot with very disappointing results. It was like eating a lemon coated in sour flavor; it was just way too bitter! Our fruit lady didn't seem too surprised when we didn't want to order it again the next day. I've also been eating a lot of jackfruit and dragonfruit, neither of which I had previously tasted before Thailand. I'm quickly expanding my list of fruits tasted, next up is more massages!

Bananas, jackfruit and dragonfrui

An extremely bitter mango

Em's hospital bed in the overflowing waiting room

This past week Emiliya and I had to accomplish something we were definitely hoping to avoid while living in Thailand: a trip to the hospital. Emiliya had been sick all weekend with sharp pains in her side which we were hoping would heal itself on it's own, but eventually it became too serious to ignore. On Monday Em had plans to go to the clinic while I went to school, I showed up in the morning and informed some of the teachers that Em wasn't coming that day because she was sick, and they immediately sent me home to take care of her. I was really grateful that they did that because I was definitely worried about her getting around town by herself while she wasn't feeling well. The teachers were all really great about it, telling me to take the whole day off and make sure she gets better. We headed to a nearby clinic, not really sure what we were getting ourselves into. We had previously been told that the clinics are a great resource whenever we're sick or need some general first aid, but we weren't sure if they could handle something as obscure as Em's problems. We showed up to a clinic full of sniffling but generally healthy people and we realized that we were probably out of luck. The doctor spoke with Em for a few minutes and concluded that she was suffering from some sort of small intestine problem, and he urged us to head to the nearest ER. Fortunately he wrote us a note in Thai to give to the hospital, because we struggled at first with finding someone who spoke English. We've concluded that most nurses and general staff only speak Thai, but it appears that all doctors speak English. It turned into a long and confusing day which included nurses taking pictures with us (everyone is always so excited to see white people), waiting five hours before speaking to a doctor, and even then we really didn't get much more information. He told her she would be getting an IV of antibiotics and would also receive a prescription to take home. Grateful that we were actually getting some medical attention we just rolled with the punches and followed the staff around as they found Em a bed. It appears that we were in some sort of area for outpatient and simple procedures, because there were only a few exam rooms but no patient rooms. While Em was hooked up to the IV she was simply up against the wall in the waiting room.

I was pretty annoyed with waiting five hours, but I later told some of the teachers about it and they said that sounded normal, so apparently that's just how they do things in Thailand. Besides that the medical attention was decent and I think everyone did the best they could despite the language barrier. One really bizarre thing was when it came to actually getting the IV, apparently in Thailand you pay for your medical expenses beforehand. Once they told us she would be getting an IV they sent us to a cashier window where we had to pay for the meds and supplies, which they then physically handed to us and we had to transport back to the nurses. I'm curious what would happen if someone didn't have enough money, would they still be helped, or just sent back to the streets? Thailand's reputation of being cheap spreads to the hospitals, Em paid about $22 for antibiotics, saline, a needle, alcohol wipes and all other materials needed for the day. She can then submit her receipt to our insurance company and will probably get reimbursed for all of it. Once she handed over the cash they presented her with a bag full of all the necessary medicine and supplies. It was a strange procedure but also interesting to observe. 

Minus that one little hiccup, life has been going on as normal. The students start testing this week, but if I've understood correctly they still have to come to school for another week after testing has finished. It sounds like Em and I might be going on a field trip with the older kids next week to an area near Bangkok, and then at some point there will be a small graduation ceremony for the oldest kids who will be leaving school this month. It's crazy how quickly this term flew by, it feels like just yesterday was Christmas. I think I previously mentioned how my sense of time is off because of the weather, and I really do consider that a huge factor in why it feels this semester passed so quickly. Because there are no seasons I've found it really hard to process the concept of passing time, it just always feels like August. When I try to think back about something that happened all I can think is "well it was warm then, and it's warm now, so it hasn't been too long since New Years". To me that's a valid reason, who knows if there's actually any validity towards that. Either way, I have four months of teaching under my belt and I've learned so much since I began teaching in November.
Although it definitely got easier and more enjoyable as the term went on I've decided that I will not be staying for another term. As long as I'm abroad and working in a public school there isn't much potential for me to become more adapted. Unless I start studying intensive Thai, I will always be the quiet girl in the corner and I hate being that person. I constantly depend on Thai people for everything, both inside and outside of school. Papue is always talking to our landlady for us and the teachers at school are my translator whenever I need to tell the director something. I can't help kids when they're crying or trying to explain something to me. I can't even properly explain stuff myself, instead I live a life of miming and drawing out what I want. There are countless activities, lessons and games that I've tried with my students that have ended in failure because they simply couldn't understand what the heck I was attempting to do. I've helped them with their vocabulary and their pronunciation and I'm so grateful that I've had the opportunity to influence these kids, but I feel that there has to be something bigger for me in the world. I feel like no one at school truly knows me, I'm constantly slowing my speech and picking shorter words which will make me more understandable. I'm ready to go back to a job and life where I'm not constantly editing my speech. I think for now I've ruled out teaching English in public schools, but I am still very open to the idea of teaching in an international school where English is a primary language. I would love the opportunity to work around kids from all over the world and be joined by staff who are fluent in English. The future is a mystery! For now I will be teaching through March, followed by a month or two of traveling Asia, after that I will be returning to Ohio until the next opportunity arises.