Crossing the Border

Asia » Thailand » North-East Thailand
July 14th 2006

Published: July 14th 2006

Wow, it has been an exhausting week! I'm not actually quite sure why, because it was a short week; Monday and Tuesday were both holidays for the Wax Festival. Maybe I'm just making excuses for not having written in over a week, but I really was tired! I'm also getting addicted to iced green tea... it is sooooo good and there are so many different flavours and if you drink it right after lunch, it has the power to keep you awake all afternoon through the hot hot sun.

So I'll start back at this weekend... the Wax festival is a big event centred in Ubon Ratchathani where people make huge semi-truck sized carvings out of different coloured wax and then display them in the street for people to look at. Normally it would have been something that bored me to tears, actually, but it just happened to be raining buckets on Monday night when we went to Ubon (3 hours away) to see the sculptures. I LOVE the rain and the air stays so hot here even when it rains that I, wearing my skirt and short sleeved tee-shirt when it was dark outside and soaking wet, was happy as a duck. We splashed through ankle-deep puddles laughing and getting absolutely soaked, and ate banana and egg roti from a street vendor (surprisingly good).

It was also really cool to see the effect of the rain on the wax sculptures! It just slid down so that they kept changing color under the street lights and candles and made the whole event really quite spectacular.

That morning (Monday) we woke up quite early and drove to the border of Laos which was, everyone told me, the best place to buy souvenirs because it was very cheap. So first we had to cross the border, which was a strange and interesting thing. I'm still not sure exactly what went on because everyone was speaking in Thai, but when we first got there they apparently told us that "farang" were not allowed into Laos. It was true that the only others there to cross the border were Thais, so I was a little worried. We had planned to spend the entire day there and had driven several hours to get there! Now what would we do?

They led us into a little office where a very angry looking man yelled at me in Thai (the others didn't translate). I tried to smile and look hopeful the whole time, even as he was banging the desk with his hand and saying "NO! NO!" I think that was the only word he knew in English. They eventually explained to me that he was saying that I could only cross the border if I got a Lao Visa... for 2000 baht. I really wanted to go, but not enough to pay that much, so I said sorry to the other girls and prepared to wait on the Thai side of the border while they shopped.

I sighed a lot and pouted a little and looked extremely sad, and as we were leaving the yelling man said something a little gruffly to the other girls which made them very happy...
They told me that he had changed his mind, and that I could cross, but that I couldn't tell anyone that he had let me through without paying. Yay! There were about 4 other little booths that the border crossing people had to check into, one of which included getting a photocopy of everyone's passport and giving it to a different border control person. Through this whole procedure, they just led me along and didn't photocopy my passport, or give my name to anyone, and at the place where we had to hand in the papers, they just pushed me along ahead and smiled. I was hoping that the officers wouldn't look up and see me and ask where my documentation was, but they either didn't see me or pretended not to.

It was a relief to finally get inside Laos! Pee Ong refused to take me to the food stands, where she said they sold roasted snake and insects and all the parts of frogs. But we did see all the lovely Lao and Thai art, including some beautiful fabrics and especially silks. I bought one of every type of musical instrument there was to add to my collection... after all, they cost less than a dollar Canadian!

I also stocked up on chocolate... it is almost impossible to find chocolate in Thailand. I realized one day that it costs the same amount to get a halfhour herbal steam room and sauna plus a one hour massage as it does to get three chocolate bars. That speaks not only for how cheap the Thai massage is, but also to how expensive the chocolate is! Some might think that I am crazy then for having bought six chocolate bars when I could have had a total of three hours of pampering for that... but sometimes a girl just needs her chocolate!

Speaking of food, I have two new favorite foods. The first is bamboo root with peas and hot sauce. The most amazing thing in the world. And then lotus flower seeds. Such a good time-killer to pick out the seeds and then peel them, and they are absolutely worth all the work it takes to get them out.

Mangoes are not in season now (very very sad) but there are occasionally vendors at the market selling them for exorbitant prices (about 25 cents Canadian). Mangoes with coconut sticky rice is also an amazing thing. Strangely, it makes me feel clean to eat it because I have used the "Back to Basics" brand Mango Coconut shampoo for so long!

In other news, I have a new role at the school! I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner, and it is really a shame that I wasted so much time sitting in the English office studying Thai and planning my lessons. As of this week, when I'm not teaching classes I set myself up at one of the tables where the students like to relax, out beside the marching field with lots of trees around for shade. The first time I did this, it was just to get some fresh air and have some daydreaming time. Then I noticed some girls at a different table daring each other to go over and talk to me.

When one of them eventually did, the rest followed, a giggling, squealing group that crowded around me and asked me questions about everything! Ever since then, I go out and feel as if when I set down my waterbottle and notebook on the table, I am open for business. It is amusing to watch as the students work up their courage to come over and practice their English on me, and it is such a great way to teach the talented students more than I could ever teach them in class! Some of them are just dying to speak English and one girl told me that she has always wanted to read an English novel but her mother doesn't have enough money to buy her a novel. I had just finished The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and Vinegar Hill by I-forget-whom. Both I thought would probably be very difficult for her but when I brought them to her the next day as gifts, she looked like she was going to cry with happiness.

So as a result of this new occupation, I feel like I am being ever so much more effective as an English teacher. Not only do I not have to tire out my voice like I do teaching large classes, I also don't have to deal with the problem kids in this environment. (One of them today, when I asked him to please open his notebook and join the others in designing his family tree, told me to fuck off. I was shocked and didn't know what to do until I remembered the lightness with which people handle swearing in languages other than their own... in French class in junior high all the boys would gleefully be yelling all the swear words that they knew without reprimand. So I decided to brush it off and be glad that he was at least using English. Sigh.)

The girls are great, though! I showed them the pictures I brought of my family and they all fawn over the pictures of Dale. Being 14-17 mostly, they all have their minds on marriage and to marry a "farang" is seen as a wonderful way to a happy life. The pictures also make a great class -- I teach them about family trees and all the different relationship names like aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, sister, etc. and then hand out the family pictures and get them to guess who each person is before I tell them. It's great fun but also has the capacity to make me slightly homesick...

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved