Blogs from Nong Khai, North-East Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 8

"Culture Shock". Before today, I never really understood what the term meant. I've spent my entire life trying to experience and learn about new cultures, and I've tried to go into everything with an open mind. Consequently, I've always had open eyes. At the start of my trip, I was on familiar territory. However--as early San Francisco--I quickly found myself thrust into many strange places and situations. I wouldn't have said that any of these were "shocking". Although they they were often unusual and crazy and confusing and frustrating and--in a few cases--bizzarely beautiful, I was always able to clearly see what was happening and the weirdness never hit me too hard. But I got the shock today. I've been doing a pretty poor job as a reporter, but any regular reader of this blog must ... read more

September 12th, 2006 So three of us head up to the mountains on the Loas border after a fantastic western breakfast. After a treck in the back of a truck through fantastic scenery and sudden sharp swerves past trees growing out of the middle of the road! We arrived at our Luxury, shiny Alpine Lodge and think we are in heaven! With quite an appetite we went out to the local restaurant about 9 pm only to discover everything is closed! We asked the Thai receptionist to open the shop and after he tried to wake some people up to do so we realised this was going to far!! They’re really so hospitibal here. So we spent a rather ravenous evening in, chewing on paper and playing paper, scissors, stone after a Valium to numb the ... read more

Three weeks have amazingly flown by since my last entry. I moved from Nong Khai to Ho Kham village on the first of July and have been here since. Ho Kham village is about 110 kilometers from Nong Khai and is a medium size village. I have been Staying with the Pee family at their home only 5 minutes walk from the school. LIVING in Ho Kham for three weeks I feel like I understand Thai culture and life style more than Korea’s, despite the fact I spent 5 months living there. Village life was simple to me at first. I met the smiling faces of the children at class and joined them in games of volleyball when we finished. I tutored children and toured the countryside with my host family. I met kind hearted families ... read more

I was surprised to find out the first Friday that we had a four day weekend. It was Buddhist lent and the school was in Chaos getting ready for the ceremony that would take place after school. We walked around the entire village with several huge candles in the back of pickup trucks. We then all went to the temple for chanting and prayer. Here the monks splashed water on the kids as they went by after the ceremony. The next day I stayed in Nong Khai. There were a few things I needed, including a break. I came to find that they also had a large candle festival. I went with Nic (Thai) and Juan (Columbian. It is more a festival of Thai women and Lady Boys (men who dress as women is openly accepted ... read more

Driving into Non Khai was an exotic experience. The bus driver sent me on a Tok-tok (The taxi/carriage/go cart) with a man who couldn’t speak a word of English. He had no idea where he was suppose to drop me off. The Thai women who was helping told me he was just going to drop me off in the middle of town where I could find someone who spoke English and could ask them. I was oddly not too uncomfortable knowing the driver would be abandoning me with only an address on a piece of paper written in English. As he drove me down the dusty, worn road, I felt like Anna from the King and I. There I was: the new English teacher in the back of a carriage being toured into the town and ... read more