Blogs from North-East Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 35

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

From Bon Pan, I travelled to Khon Kaen, about 150 km west. Khon Kaen is a city of about 150,000 and I was hoping to be able to arrange a flight to Chiang Mai from here. My intention was not to stay very long. However, I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and the travel agency was not open until Monday, so I booked into a hotel for the Sunday night and the Monday night. I went to the travel agency MOnday morning to find that there are no flights directly to Chiang Mai. I would have to fly back to Bangkok and then up to CHiang Mai from there. It would cost 5,000 B and take 5 hours. THis seemed like a bit of a waste to me, so I went to check out the bus ... 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

Here are some other extremely random things that just don't seem to fit into other blogs and emails! Every day at 8am and 6pm the national anthem of Thailand plays. Every radio station, store, mall, school, building anywhere... the national anthem. And when this plays, all activity stops. If you are walking up the stairs, you stop mid-step until the anthem is over. Conversations pause in mid-sentence. It is amazing. I have finally figured out how not to pee on my shoes when I am using the squat toilets. A very valuable skill to have for the rest of my time in Thailand. I think the reason Isaan food doesn't accomodate vegetarians very well is that it is not very creative. To say this seems completely contrary to the way we see Thai food... so many ... read more