It’s more fun in the Philippines.

Kinda cheesy, but it’s kinda true too. Spending a week in the Philippines was a perfect vacation. For our one month holiday from school, the F team took a week to go to the Philippines to visit Bryan’s family and do some touring.

When we got off the plane on Luzon Island, Bryan’s mother picked us up and took us to his home town, Cabanatuan City. And what’s the first thing that we do when we get there? Well, after going to the mall, because that’s what people in the Philippines…and all of Asia do, I impulsively decided to dye my hair dark brown. Which sounds fine, and sounded like a great idea to me at the time- I haven’t dyed my hair, gotten any piercings or tattoos in a long time, so I’ve been itching to do something different. So I thought dark brown would be harmless…until Bryan’s friend that was dying my hair decided to go shopping right after she put the dye in, so she left me in her hair studio for over an hour while she went to buy a dress. By the time she got back to wash out the dye, my hair was BLACK. I kind of don’t like it at all, but I’m gonna make it work. So day one in the Philippines, and I have black hair. (by the way, one week later, I found out the woman who was dying my hair is not just a slightly masculine woman, but is actually a transvestite, and I can’t believe it took me a week to realize that) Yup, it’s more fun in the Philippines.

Day 2!! Turns out that Bryan is a baller. When we turned down the street into his neighborhood, we were passing little tin shacks, some with grass roofs, none with electricity. Some with goats! All with chickens and kids. I got worried, hoping they wouldn’t have to accommodate three more guests in those crowded little shacks. Then the driver stopped in front of three big mansions, smack dab in the middle of the shacks. His and his cousins’ houses are huge, comfortable, tasteful and beautiful. And they have a baby pig!!

On Sunday morning, we woke up at 4AM to go for a crazy hike to a waterfall in a mountain a couple hours from Bryan’s home. For two dollars, we hired a tour guide with a machete to clear the path to the waterfall for us. We were struggling to keep up with his slowed pace (though Bryan did surprisingly well, considering last time I went hiking with him I had to carry him half way down the mountain cause his legs were shaking) and had to climb some crazy walls to get to the top of the three-tiered waterfall. It was a short but pleasant and challenging hike. I know I say this a lot, but it was the most real hike I’ve been on, in that there were no man made aids, we had to use tree roots to pull ourselves across the cliff walls, and the man had to hack half of the trail with his machete for us to pass through. I like the Philippines.

This dinosaur definitely needed a hug-- at the resort at the base of the mountain

In the afternoon, we went back to the mall we had been in the day before to watch Bryan’s younger sister in her first modeling gig. It was really cheesy, poorly put together, poorly judged and an overall disappointment. Bryan’s sister is a beautiful girl, but she didn’t have the terrible bounce all the other models have, because she walked like a real model. But they like the stupid fake bounce walk here in the Philippines, so the judges didn’t score her favorably. Apparently this comes from the booming gay population in the Philippines, and they love the bounce walk, so that’s what all the models do now. Anyway, we spent the entire afternoon in the mall and made me sick for the rest of the trip because my fragile little body can’t handle that much air conditioning after an overnight bus followed by a flight.

Day 3!! Monday! To Manila, the capital of the Philippines. I spent the entire morning in the Thai embassy applying for my work visa, then the entire afternoon in ANOTHER mall. P’Tara has a Filipino cousin that works at one of the huge malls in Manila, so we went to meet her (P’Tara’s first time meeting her ever!) and she is adorable. She got us free tickets for the cinema and a ton of free popcorn, so we watched this hilarious film about a transvestite who is trying to steal “her” ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend by going back to being a boy, so that “she” can get “her” ex-boyfriend back. Gay culture is seriously taking over, and it’s hysterical. Then more embassy bullshit, blah blah blah. The embassy there really wanted to keep me in the Philippines. But after hours of phone calls and emails, they permitted me to return to Thailand. Thought I was going to get stuck in the Philippines!

To end our only day in the capital, we met up with Bryan’s friends on the Manila Bay where we went to an all you can eat buffet with WINE. I was so happy to have “unlimited” wine (they call things “unlimited in the Philippines. Maybe that’s not so weird, but I still laugh every time I hear it). Bryan’s friends all know each other from doing theatre together, particularly improv, and are quite possibly the funniest people I’ve ever met. And their names are Divine, Moon and Rein. And this is their real, given-at-birth names, not nicknames or anything. Then there’s Bryan. It was awesome talking to them to realize that Bryan is as clueless and unfocused with his Filipino friends as he is with his American friends. He answers their questions wrong, doesn’t listen, and doesn’t follow simple instructions whether it’s in English, Tagolog, or Taglish. So now I don’t feel bad and think that sometimes Bryan has a hard time understanding us when we speak English. Although his Filipino friends speak English better than he does, and make fun of him for his Filipino accent, and it’s kind of funny that he’s the English teacher. But we all love Bryan anyway.

 We ended the evening with a ride on what Bryan claims is the largest ferris wheel in Asia, which I told him was wrong because I went on the tallest one in Asia when I was in Japan. Turns out it’s just the largest in the Philippines. And it’s actually quite small.

Then we were on the road, ready for our big road trip around Luzon Island! We picked up a friend of Bryan’s on the way. But of course Bryan doesn’t tell us this. We stop on the side of the road in ghetto Manila, some guy hops into our van, and we continue driving. After a few minutes, I ask Bryan, is he coming with us? Bryan just says “yup”, casually as ever. Another long awkward pause. “So, nice to meet you, I’m Korin. What’s your name?” And so Martin, Bryan’s friend from University was coming on our trip as we were heading for rice terraces, island hopping, volcano hiking and a day on the beach over the course of four days before retrieving my passport from Manila on Friday. Gora! (that means “let’s go” in gay Tagalog)

But before we go, I want to lay out some interesting differences between Thailand and the Philippines. I know you shouldn’t compare places but I’m going to do it anyway. (Of course these are complete generalizations that were gathered over the course of a one week visit). You can skip this part if you don’t care =P

-FILIPINO PEOPLE.

Everyone in the Philippines smiles. I know people call Thailand the “Land of Smiles”, but that’s not true. People smile more and are much more polite in the Philippines. Every gas station, restaurant, even pulis (police) officer brightly smiled at me and said good-morninnng maam! And yes, I was maam for a full week. And this wasn’t even because I was a tourist- because with black hair I actually got mistaken for Filipino a couple times!

-The THAI TUK-TUK vs. The FILIPINO TRICYCLE.

Tricycle totally wins. Sorry Thailand.

There is also this thing called the “Jeepney” all over the Philippines. They’re old U.S. military jeeps from WWII that have been converted into a flashy, brightly colored mode of transportation used mostly in the form of a taxi service. They’re outrageously awesome.

-DRIVING.

Filipinos are crazier drivers. Being in a car downtown for the first time, I felt like I was in a movie in a large Indian city- it felt that hectic, crowded and chaotic. But it seems like there’s more accidents in Thailand. I think Thai's just don't pay attention when they drive. But then later in the trip I found out that the driver we hired used to be a racecar driver, which definitely explains the videogame feel every time we were on the road, and the multiple times we almost died or killed innocent pedestrians. But I did feel totally safe with him- he was in complete control weaving in and out of traffic at insane speeds and overtaking a car while it was overtaking a motorcycle.

-COLONIZED COUNTRY!

Holy crap what a difference it makes. So quick history lesson of things I hope you know already (but I didn’t before I met Bryan) is that the Philippines was colonized by Spain, then America, then we gave it to Japan, then took it back from Japan. And I, being anti-colonization, am quick to point out that Filipinos have been robbed of their heritage and are stuck in an awkward balance of colony vs. tradition, but they have to deal with it three fold from Spain, America and Japan. It makes for a very interesting country full of Spanish, American and Japanese products, and also a lot of Korean things for a reason I haven’t figured out yet. Their blends of Spanish and American art-deco architecture is awesome, but has NOT EVER been maintained and all their buildings look vacant and sad. Then you walk into this rusted, unlit building and you’re in the middle of a mall. Again, a poorly maintained, dimly lit, smelly mall, but the building is in fact not vacant! I think they were doing well economically in the 60’s and 70’s when these styles of buildings were cool and they must have developed massively back then, and then stopped doing anything when their economy went downhill.

- LANGUAGE.

This is the most fascinating thing about their whole colonization deal. Tagalog is hilarious. Though it’s the national language, it’s really only spoken on a small part of Luzon island. Tagalog is a mix of Spanish, English and native words. Sometimes they count in Spanish, usually it’s done in English, and Bryan doesn’t even know how to count in Tagalog. It’s so funny to listen to them speak, especially if you know Spanish. I can tell what their talking about most of the time because there is so much Spanish and English. Or the driver will be on the phone with Bryan and I will hear him say “you talk to the Americans” in the middle of his Tagalog sentence. So funny. Then when Bryan doesn’t want us to know what he’s talking about, he switches to gay Tagalog. It’s the new language of the Philippines that they gays are making up, but a lot of gays aren’t fluent in. Though “real men” can sometimes speak gay Tagalog too. Pure Tagalog is seriously dying out. Even the ATMs offer only “English” or “Taglish” as their language choices. And in the provinces, kids learn their dialect first, English second and Tagalog last.

-TOILETS.

The squatter toilets don’t happen in the Philippines. Instead, all of their toilet bowls don’t have the cover seat thing that you sit on, so it’s just like having a squatter toilet cause I don’t want to sit right on the bowl, but its more awkward because of the height and it’s just weird plus they all have the tanks so they can flush, but then they’re almost universally all broken so you have to bucket water in anyway. They should just stick with the squatter toilet and skip all the potential upkeep since they don’t do it anyway.

-FOOD.

 It’s really hard to go from Thai food to Filipino food. I don’t recommend doing that. That’s really all I have to say about Filipino food. And it’s really meat heavy. I do like their rice though. Especially in places where the rice is “unlimited” because I still think that’s a really funny word to use with food. They do eat a ridiculous amount of rice, which is weird to say because I eat rice three times a day, but for some reason it’s even more in the Philippines. Because it’s more fun?

One day old chickens is a popular dish here,
as well as boiled chicken fetus

-ECONOMICS.

It’s hard to say who is more developed, who is developing faster. It’s hard to evaluate and not really fair to anyway. Just some interesting things: the Philippines still harvest their rice by hand and water buffalo, whereas it’s almost all mechanized in Thailand. Costs of food, clothing and accommodation are relatively the same.

-RELIGION.

It was really strange to be in a Christian country. They’re SUPER Christian. Majority Roman Catholic I think. And there are churches splattered EVERYWHERE! On the first day, Bryan showed us the Ingelsia ng Christ, and confidently stated, “but they aren’t Christian”, to which everyone in the car, including his mother, replied, “actually Bryan, they are Christian. It’s the Church of Christ”.

-BEER.

Is cheaper and better in the Philippines. As much as I love and will always love Chang, Red Horse beer is rich and tasty, and is for “real men”…which is why Bryan doesn’t drink it, hahah.

Okay, enough comparisons. So Monday night at midnight, we headed on our journey. Our first stop was 10 hours north of the capital to Banaue. This town is super duper famous for its historic rice terraces, once the eighth wonder of the world, that was constructed over 2,000 years ago. Its indescribably breathtaking and humbling, to see something created by hands in almost prehistoric times, and is still functional and perfectly maintained today…unlike art deco. This was probably the hardest part of the trip, definitely for me because I had a fever and disgusting cough from all the darn air conditioning, which was only exacerbated with the two hours of traffic we encountered on side of a mountain at 3 in the morning. Where else does that happen but in Asia? But those windy, one-lane because of slow moving road construction, and unlit roads keep hordes of tourists from visiting this world wonder, and really should have deterred us too. But we sat through that traffic on the way up and way down, leaving only a couple hours to breathe in the beauty before it got too dark to head back down the mountain. Rumor has it, the Banaue villagers believe you’ll bring bad luck to the whole village if your run over a chicken, plus those roads are beyond scary even in the daytime, so it was necessary to leave…only after taking pictures with an 80 year old woman dressed in the traditional costume of the village who just happened to be walking up the mountain by herself.

Our amazing driver drove through the second night in a row to get us to Alaminos City, the port of the 100 Islands (a misnomer- it’s 122 islands during high tide, and 123 during low tide). In the morning, we rented a long-tailed boat for the day and went island hopping. You can only really access 9 or 10 of the islands, since most of them are small or too cliffy to get onto. This whole trip is remarkably close to the Ang Thong National Park in the south of Thailand, but I think it’s actually better because there’s no tourists! Ang Thong is crawling with tourists, but we only saw a couple white people, some Filipino teenagers, and I swear the singer from the Black Eyed Peas was there, but was too distracted by doing cartwheels on the beach to take a picture with him.

Also, our boatmen were very sweet, quiet and let us do whatever we want, charging about a quarter of the price I had to pay in Thailand to go island hopping. Our first two islands also had caves! which I don’t think Ang Thong had. From one island, you enter a cave that you can jump down into and land in a pool of water. I was ecstatic when the tour guide told us about it, then I got there and said no freakin way, too scary. Then 15 seconds later I convinced P’Be we should do it, and we did and it was awesome! The jump isn’t that far down, and you can just swim out of the cave and the beach was right there. I probably would have down it five times over if there wasn’t snorkeling to be done.

So that was our next stop. A lot of the many islands of the Philippines have great diving and snorkeling. Unfortunately its super evident how damaged the coral reef is here (I’ll blame global warming- the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects the oceans the most, because oceans like to absorb CO2, which changes the pH of the water and makes coral die) and it seemed like 80% of the coral reef was dead. There were also lots of dead giant clams! Which was kind of cool, and also sad. I also found Nemo and his family, which is also kind of funny because they are incredibly territorial nasty little fishes but I still find them so cute because of that movie. And there were plenty of Dad’s favorite- angel fishes, which are now my favorite because they’re my Dad’s favorite.
 

Enough about fish and dying habitats! The whole day was a dream. It was relaxing, interesting, not too hot, full of natural beauty and spent with wonderful people.We spent a few hours on the biggest island, Quezon Island, and slowly ate lunch, played on the beach, and I climbed a mountain (without my camera, darn it!) to get a sweeping view of the entire archipelago. I also got to know Martin a lot better, and he is such a wonderful person (don’t worry Mom, I’m not falling in love. He’s also gay.) He is quiet most of the time, but always has positive energy and LOVES to take pictures of everyone, especially himself. And for some reason it’s adorable. When Bryan takes a million pictures of himself, we call him vain. When Martin does it, we all go aww, Martin you’re so cute! He was a wonderful addition to our trip, and I’m really glad he was there! It’s hard to tell, but I think that was the day I fell in love with the Philippines. The Filipinos’ bubbly attitude, the natural beauty, and the lack of tourists make it an incredible hidden haven. I’m almost hesitant to share my experiences, because I don’t want people to go there and ruin it! I hope that it stays under the radar so it can hold on to its natural landscapes and not get overtaken by greedy tourism.

hehehe Bryan was hung over =)

But then all of those sentiments were lost the next day when we visited our next tourist destination. After island hopping, we stopped over in Manila to rest at Martin’s house for the night before heading to Tagaytay, home of Taal volcano, the Philippine’s most treasured tourist attraction. Taal volcano is fondly referred to as “a lake with a volcano with a lake within and an island in the middle of that small lake”. Upon learning about this unique geological phenomenon, this became a must-see on the itinerary. Taal volcano erupted in 1911 in the middle of Taal Lake, which itself is surrounded by dead volcanoes. After the eruption, Taal volcano collapsed, leaving room for a small lake at the top of the volcano to form. It’s been a feisty volcano, particularly in recent geological history, it’s last eruption happening in 1965. Of course I heard about this and think these people are crazy- obviously this volcano is still active, why are there hundreds of tourists here. But we totally went anyway. The problem is, it’s a total rip off. The resort that rents boats to the base of the volcano wanted to charge us 5 times what we paid for an entire day of island hopping, for a 15 minute boat ride. We managed to get them to lower their price, and got to the base of the volcano for the SAME PRICE we paid for island hopping.
Then the next obstacle arose. At the base of the volcano, some genius thought it would be a great idea to have horses and ploy tourists into paying to ride horses to the top of the volcano. Except they’re not horses. They’re ponies and should not be carrying grown people on their backs. I told the manager we would rather just walk to the top, to which he smirked and said “too far”. So after much debate and halving the price he was asking for, we agreed to take the ponies up, and were forced to pay for a tour guide per person to manage the pony for us. Ridiculous. And at this point for the boat and horses, we were paying twice what we had paid the day before for a full day of heaven, for a measly two hour activity just to see a natural phenomenon. So we headed to the ponies, where one tour guide had kept his eye on me and told all his friends to take the other tourists so he could be my tour guide. Though a total creep, he was really funny. He immediately jumped on the back of my pony with me, and left my friends in the dust.


He had his repertoire of English answers quickly at the ready, whether or not he understood what I was actually asking.

Me: What’s the horses name?

Tour guide: Jericho.

Me: What’s your name?

Tour guide: Jomas.

Me: How old is our horse?

Jomas: 4 years old maam.

Me: Hm. How long do horses usually live?

Jomas: Two years maam.

Me: So what do you feed the horses?

Jomas: Feed

Me: Oh, where does it come from?

Jomas: ….what, maam?

Me: So do you have many tourists from America?

Jomas: No maam.

Me: Where do most tourists come from?

Jomas: Korea. And many from Australia and USA.

I stopped there with my questions. Then he made my poor struggling horse canter up the side of the mountain on uneven ground, and I kept saying slow down, Jericho doesn’t like this, Jericho is tired. And Jomas insisted that Jericho is a good horse, but my friends’ horses are hungry. But Jericho is not hungry. So we unfortunately won the race to the top of the volcano, where I was continuosly harassed by Jomas’ colleagues to leave a tip and buy beverages for my tour guide. I just ignored them and pet poor Jericho. Martin was the next to get to the top, tour-guide-less. He said his tour guide left him at the beginning to go clean his house, so Martin, having never ridden a horse before, had to go solo up the mountain. So much for paying for a tour guide.
 

Despite the disappointment in how this beautiful natural attraction has been ruined by money hungry tourist authorities, the volcano itself is gorgeous. And really hot!

 

 There were geysers galore spewing out hot gases, furthering my theory that this volcano is about going to blow again. I warned Jomas of this on the way down, to which he replied “yes maam” or just stayed silent. Then I lectured him on how to treat tourists, assuring him, “if you want a tip, you must have a happy tourist. To have a happy tourist, you have to go slow up the mountain. Fast is scary. See those tourists, they’re not happy. And neither is their horse”. I think he got bored of my lecture, then he told me that in the mountains, there are many snakes. Many snakes, many birds. But no monkeys, maam. Tigers, or lions? I asked. No, maam. And no zebras, maam.

So Jomas redeemed himself a little bit, for being funny and pretending to listen to me about how to make tourists happy. But I still only left him a measly tip, then got his friend in trouble by telling the manager what happened, and then continued to lecture the manager about how he is ruining the image of the Philippines by running this terrible industry. He got defensive and told me he pays his workers 400 pesos per trip up and down the mountain, which I wouldn’t have believed whether or not Jomas had told me he makes 50 pesos per trip, the equivalent of $1.20. So we got back in the boat and headed back to the resort where I went on to lecture the resort manager about this tourist package ruining tourism for the whole country. Wow, get me off my soapbox, I don’t know when I turned into such an assertive tourist. Apparently it’s something I feel very strongly about, mostly because our entire trip had been such an incredibly positive experience, and I was mad at these people for making the worst of a tourist attraction. Clearly it doesn’t have to be that way because it’s not in the rest of the country. Reminded me of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

So we left that joint to have lunch on a cliff,

then headed to our next destination- the beach in BATANGAS! We drove for a very long time to Batangas, which made me super suspicious because it was only supposed to take a couple hours. And I saw many signs that posted distances that we had far surpassed as the sun began to sink behind the mountains, and if Bryan was awake in the front seat I would have asked us where the heck he is taking us. I’m still hesitant to trust anything Bryan is doing (wonder why?), but I probably should have more faith in him at this point, because he (kind of, in an indirect Bryan way) knows exactly what he’s doing. He got us to the perfect beach spot in Batangas, a quiet beach front bungalow with video-oke (the Filipino form of karaoke), crystal blue water and stretches of beach with only a scattering of Filipino tourists. Development is sparse in Batangas, and this fisherman’s beach will hopefully stay as undisturbed and beautiful as it is now, but I am confident that this perfect beach will soon be discovered.

Before blinking an eye, we changed into our swimsuits and jumped into the moonlit water. Well, I guess P’Be had time to blink an eye, because he also had time to buy a two liter bottle of Red Horse for 70 pesos- less than 2 dollars. Even though the nighttime air wasn’t quite cool yet, it was cooler than the warm ocean water, and we kept only our heads and the bottle of beer above the water until we were too hungry to wait any longer to have dinner. Instant noodles, video-oke and some shooting stars later, it was time to call it a long day.

We attempted sunrise in the morning, but the clouds ruined the moment, so Martin and I took a long walk on the beach to soak in the cool breeze and subtle lighting. I heard the fisherman heading out at around 2 or 3 AM, and we watched their return with the sunrise. We spent the rest of the morning lying on the beach, playing on an unattended fishing boat, going to the market to get some of the fresh caught fish, and more or less living the dream. Bryan spent the morning cooking, and omelet and corned beef with rice for breakfast, and sour fish soup (like a clear Gaeng Som) and grilled squid for lunch. Awesome! I always like Bryan’s versions of Filipino food cause he adds tons of veggies.

Then we were on the road again….to Manila to pick up my visa (woo hoo!) and dinner with P’Tara’s cousin. Pizza Hut in a mall…anti-climactic, but she also had free tickets to a comedy club! So after dinner we headed to the most popular comedy club in Manila, Zirkoh. Apparently like everything else in the Philippines, the comedy industry is spearheaded by the gay community. The first act we saw were five transvestites that were not at all convincing but put on a wonderful show, followed by a trio of very flamboyant men. These guys were hilarious and somehow could improv dance moves in unison. Bryan and I do that sometimes, but it’s a lot harder with three people. Oh, in addition to being gay, to do stand up comedy, you must be able to sing and dance, and basically put on a concert in between your jokes. Though every sentence had some English, and the jokes were easy to get, the performing was definitely the best part of the show.

We left the comedy club at 3 A.M., to drive back to Bryan’s home, arriving around sunrise. The whole house was awake already and blasting music, preparing Bryan’s sister for the next round of her modeling gig. But that didn’t stop us from sleeping until noon, with just enough time to shower and make it to her show. That day’s theme was performing a talent, which was really sad. They may be beautiful, but NONE of them can dance, though many of them tried. This isn’t funny, but one of the girls accidentally knocked out her partner during a lift, and he broke his leg. While the medics were taking care of him on stage, they had a guest performer sing to distract the audience, which totally worked because she is Filipino and all Filipinos are built with an extra singing gene that makes them all sing beautifully. Martin confirmed this theory for me. I asked him. Then the second part of the show was COSPLAY!!! What a fantastic idea. Though this has nothing to do with beauty and is solely about crazy costumes, that was a genius theme and kept me content and entertained for an additional two hours.

For our last night in the Philippines, we partied like true Filipinos. It was Bryan’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s birthday, who was also a model, and we were invited to the party. Bryan’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother, who I guess I could just call Sam for short, has a huge family and a gorgeous home. There is a complex of gazebos, strung with Christmas lights, and a huge patio set up with tables and chairs and a video-oke machine. After a fabulous dinner (I guess Filipino food isn’t ALWAYS bad) of adobo and kare kare, we were not really asked but kind of forced into a game of beer pong. It didn’t take much force anyway- I was so excited to play beer pong. Which is funny really, I never really liked to play beer pong in America, but being an American playing beer pong in the Philippines seemed so exciting. But then Team Thailand lost, even with the help of an adorable little girl wearing a party hat that would stick out her tongue at the other team every time it was their turn.

Team Philippines

 
I spent the rest of the night bonding with Bryan’s teenage cousins and sister. They made me promise to come back in March when I’m done teaching. Sam’s girlfriend exclaimed that we can celebrate our birthdays together, because she’ll be turning 18 in March. Then I realized I’ll be turning 25 and that made me really sad and feel old. But I guess I’m not too old to pretend like I’m a teenager and drink with these high school girls until 3 in the morning. (which is also funny, because when I WAS a teenager, I never drank like that) 

But holy crap, after two nights of drinking until 3 AM after that four day sprint through the Philippines, I was exhausted and ready to go home, despite Bryan’s family’s pleas for me to stay a few more days. It was tempting to hang out with them for longer, but I need to get home to my Sawankhalok! I have grad schools to apply to! =) I am almost 25 years old, after all.

saying goodbye to Bryan's mom at the airport, with our cool new F-team shirts!

A farewell

After a year and a half of being in Thailand, my darling Hawaiin/Thai sister, P'Tara is going back to America, as well as my Thai brother, P'Be. They've been wonderful friends for me this past year, and it's definitely going to be strange not having them here. Our school had a retirement party last week, during which P'Be and I were supposed to say our goodbyes to the school, even though I'm not leaving yet...Like any good Thai party it ended in dancing and karaoke, where I learned how to waltz and cha-cha-cha with the physics teachers that FAILED all my M4 students and whom I will never forgive for making all my students cry. He was a good lead dancer though, and learning cha-cha-cha while P'Gai was singing karaoke was indeed entertaining. Anyway, that sub-par dinner party does not do my departing friends justice. It took me a few weeks, but I finally managed to complete this video for P'Tara recapping our year together to give to her as a going away present. It's the first video I've ever made and posted on youtube, and it was really fun! Notice the significant improvement in my ability to take pictures, as well as make a movie as the video progresses =)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIstUrA9gA&feature=plcp)

Winding down: A year in Review

Entering October, it’s now been over a year since I've been home, and exactly a year since I've started my Fulbright grant.  Though the grant is only a year long and it’s expected that the ETAs head home after a year, I’m following in my predecessor’s footsteps and ignoring that expectation. I’m staying an extra term at my school, employed as just another foreign teacher, and I’m so stoked about it. I think I've been working my students hard this past term, and while I’m still learning how to be a teacher, they’re learning how to be my students, and they've gotten pretty freaking good at it. I feel like I have a lot of momentum with them, and I’m so excited to have them another term to experiment with what their capable of. 

farang friends!

The weekends leading up to the end of the semester were just as exciting as ever. In mid September, there was a little reunion with some Fulbrighters in Phitsanulok. I’ve actually been a pretty lousy Fulbright when it comes to hanging out with other ETAs, which I really haven’t done all year. To be honest, I kind of loathe hanging out with other ETAs because there tends to be lots of complaining, comparing, hating Thailand, and other feelings I never experience in my little Sawankhalok bubble. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the only happy ETA, but getting any of us together is bound to end in complaining about all the little Thailand things that are frustrating to Americans, and I’d rather just never face these things. And yes this still happened during the only meet up I went to in Phitsanulok, but it was an enjoyable weekend anyway. The Phitsanulok, Sukhothai, Uttaradit and Lampang folks all met up, which are coincidentally all my favorite Fulbrighters. We all got in on Friday night, and spent hours in my hotel room exchanging insect stories. Rachel from Uttaradit won the contest; she lives in the middle of the jungle, spends half an hour a day killing ants, and sprays so many pesticides in her house that she is noticeably going a little crazy. We talked until 1 A.M. when we realized we should have left an hour ago if we wanted to go dancing. But that didn’t stop us from going to a semi-fun club down the street from where we were staying, where we didn’t have to pay the 200 bhat cover because we’re white, and there was not a straight person in sight. That was quite a let down- it’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen any boys my age, but it was inevitable they would all be gay. It’s interesting because I doubt these places are even labeled as gay clubs, but the gay male and “tom” female (and of course ladyboy) population is so high, that it just kind of dominates. And straight Thai boys are too cool for dance clubs so they go to “pubs” with live music. Or more likely stay at home and play video games. Anyway, the 7 of us squeezed into a tiny open space between two tables of ladyboys, and didn’t have enough room to dance, nor a table to order any drinks. So we waited it out until 2 A.M. when people started to leave and invaded all the open spaces with silly-looking farang dancing until they kicked us out at 3.

On Saturday, we headed into the jungles to go on a crazy awesome rafting trip. Usually these kinds of tourist packages are cheesy, expensive and make me feel like a stupid tourist, but this was an absolute gem. It was only 700 bhat, just over 20 dollars for over two hours of rafting on the Nan River. The resort that puts together this package is hidden on the side of a highway in the middle of Phitlok jungle. Besides being adorable, serene and the epitome of zen, there was also a Thai talking parrot! He was kind of annoying, but he said “sawasdi kap” and “khop kun kap” like a pro while “hello” was not in his vocabulary.

The rafting trip itself was spectacular. I had gone on a rafting trip in New Zealand, which was about an hour of training and maybe 30 minutes in the water. But in total Thai style, there was no training, and over two hours of good quality rafting. Well, there was no waterfall like there was in New Zealand, which made the training there kind of necessary, but there were a lot of rapids. Our boat was 4 Thais and 4 of us, and an adorable guide who didn’t know any English. We were kind of the lazy boat, and we kind of didn’t paddle at all. He kept politely reminding us, “paai, kap”, but his commands to paddle resulted in all of us dipping our oars in the water once, maybe making a paddle motion, then putting it back in the boat and relaxing some more. Tough work! But the current was strong enough that we really didn’t need to paddle. And any time it was too calm that we probably should paddle, we jumped out and went swimming instead, and waited for the boat to float to us. Sound perfect? Then as we were passing through some rapids, we passed a monk who was meditating on a rock in the river under the cover of a large tree, not flinching or hinting to have heard the rowdy tourists barreling down the rapids. I think only in Thailand can these worlds coexist like that.

After the rafting trip, I did what I typically do and left the farang party early to head back to Sawankhalok. The end of the rainy season has resulted in some problems with flooding which has particularly affected Sukhothai province after a levee broke and the new and old city were under three meters of water, but that’s not why I was heading home early. I had been invited to go on an 80 km bikeride with P’Bew, the owner of my favorite coffee shop in ‘wanlok. He had put a together this trip with all the bicycle clubs in Sukhothai province to bike to an orphanage in the hills of Thung Salium, and there were over 100 people planning on going. On Sunday morning, we were supposed to meet at P’Bew’s coffee shop and get an early start. Unfortunately, the Sukhothai gang never made it because their homes were still flooded, and the Sri Samrong group had shown up, but as soon as they got to P’Bew’s, they turned around and went back to Sri Samrong to patch up their homes to prepare for the flood. But the rest of us went for it anyway, and started the journey. It was a cute crowd of mostly older men in their professional bike suits, helmets, and fancy bikes. Then there were the teenage boys, in their blue jeans, black tee-shirts and baseball caps, riding their super trendy fix-gear bikes. Then there was the farang, not really fitting in with anyone as usual. But P’Bew lent me his bicycle suit, and P’Buddy lent me his helmet and fancy bike, so I blended in with the professional riders a little bit minus my silly sunglasses. The first 30 km weren’t very interesting because they were just on the main road to Thung Salium which looks like any other main road in Thailand- rice paddies, rice paddies and more rice paddies reaching all the way to the mountains in the background. Then all of a sudden, we reached the mountain in the background, and spent the last 10 km up in the hills. That was the best part. The air was slightly cooler, the scenery changed to forests, and the cars on the road disappeared. The whole trip went surprisingly quickly, and we made it to the orphanage before 10AM. P’Bew and some other had driven their trucks filled with donations while we were biking, and we unloaded pounds of rice, preserved foods, clothing and teddy bears to give to Bahn Nok orphanage. It was an incredibly gratifying feeling, to be part of this trip.

 

Though I’m always the last to know what’s going on, yet am the center of attention for picture taking, it was still a very real experience, seeing how much P’Bew and his crew of cyclists can do for this orphanage in just one day. Though it’s a small orphanage, they get kids from as far away as Chaing Mai and Bangkok. We didn’t spend much time there, because our whole province was flooding, and as people were starting to get packed up, I was about to hop back on my bike. I guess what I hadn’t noticed is that everyone had loaded their bikes up onto the trucks. I asked P’Bew if I could bike back to Sawankhalok, and he said no, Sawankhalok is flooding, so we’re all driving back. I was a bit bummed, not that Sawankhalok was flooding, but because I really liked the ride up, and the ride down would have been so much fun. I reluctantly got in a truck with a guy I recognized and couldn’t remember why, and some other unfamiliar faces. I sat in the front with the driver, who if you could imagine a cross between a stoic Native American and a wise old Thai man, that was him. He wasn’t really old though. The familiar face that sat in the back, I realized, was the tech helper at a school where I taught a teachers’ seminar earlier in the year. He remembered not only my first and last name, but also every detail about me I never knew that I had shared- that I played rugby in America, that I’m half Thai and from Philadelphia. I thought this was so adorable- he was just the guy that helped us with computer things, but he spoke English more clearly than all of the Thai teachers at the seminar and is probably the only person that remembered what I said in my introduction. After telling the driver all these details about me, he introduced the driver to me: Kun Sanyaa, to which the up until now silent driver quietly stated in English: “you call me Mr. Promise. Sanyaa means promise”. The things that Thai people are capable of saying in English really astound me sometimes. He told me about his home in Issan, the Northeast and slightly looked down upon region of Thailand, and gave me some sticky rice from his home. He assured me sticky rice from Issan is more delicious than in Sawankhalok, which I took as a silly, proud statement. Sticky rice is always delicious. My friend in the backseat handed me a chunk of sticky rice for me to be proven wrong, and indeed I was wrong. It was definitely more delicious than Sawankhalok sticky rice, and was mixed with grains of wild rice that are crunchier and I don’t know how to explain this, but taste more like rice than your average rice. One day I’ll learn the proper words to describe grades of rice, but take my word- it tastes more like rice.

So I was dropped off in Sawankhalok before noon. Still having adrenaline from the bike ride up, I got back on my bike and explored the flooded parts of Sawankhalok. I guess the flooding had started in the morning, and was overflowing from the river onto the riverside streets. It was only back roads affected at this point, and just a few inches of water in the worst parts, with a party of Thai men that were probably supposed to be workin on those sandbag walls but were sitting in lawn chairs drinking whisky in the flooded road instead. But with no rain insight for the first day in a while, Sawankhalok's flooding didn't get much worse. The river had peaked that morning, and Sukhothai’s broken levy downriver of us soaked in more of flood water. I watched the river level slowly back down from the sandbag walls, and Sawankhalok was safe. I was kind of looking forward to the flood, secretly crossing my fingers for a day off a school as if it were a snow day, but it never came and Sawankhalok is safe for this year.

School finished as scheduled with only one more camp for the foreigners to tackle before the end of the term. Another school in Sukhothai had lost a Fulbright ETA early in the year that had to go back to America,  so I’ve had to do some of her Fulbright responsibilities this term, including exhausting English camps. The first one was a typical M4 English camp at her school with lots of lady boys, but this last request to help with an English camp was very different. The school asked me and my troop of foreigners to run a prathom camp, which is elementary school students. They didn’t really tell me anything other than that. So a teacher picked up Bryan and I (the rest of the F-team kind of bailed) at 7 on a Saturday morning, and took us 45 minutes into the middle of no man’s land, Sri Satchanalai. Dirt road after dirt road, we ended up at this tiny little building labeled a school, with an army of little kids dressed in blue track suits. I jumped out of the car and right onto their awesome playground with them. They had built their own jungle gym out of wood, and attached a plastic slide- way better than the plastic jungle gym sets except that I was way too tall to play. But I did anyway. And they weren’t scared of me! I am potentially the only white person they’ve had to interact with in their entire lives, and they were not shy or scared at all. What little angels.

This middle-of-nowhere school is for grades 1-6, and between the six grades there are 200 students- in the whole school! So at our camp, we had almost all of the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders. Their English skills were almost non-existent, so games were the extent of our language teaching. Duck duck goose, which became duck duck mouse because I forgot the word for goose in Thai, was our main source of entertainment…and I played that for HOURS. During our lunch break, one of the girls asked me to go out to grab snacks. So we hopped on two broken bicycles with flat tires and biked to the end of the of the school's dirt path and stopped in a little wooden shop on stilts. Inside were shelves of dusty snacks, an open bottle of whiskey, an old woman fanning herself, and a monkey! (not sure who opened the whisky..) The little monkey on a chain was awesome! He didn’t hesitate to start climbing all over me, and hold onto my hands to do somersaults up my leg. As the little guy was using my body as a gymnastics bar, a guy came up on his motorcycle and laughed at me and my new friend. He kept saying to the monkey “go to mother, go to mother”, which I didn’t even take offense to him calling me a monkey’s mother because I would adopt my monkey son any day.

One last thing that has started with the end of the semester is my new found interest in Muay Thai boxing. For something I never really appreciated, man is it fun to train! P’Be found a Muay Thai training center in Sawankhalok with the most awesome trainers ever. I went one day after school, after  hearing about these great trainers from P’Be. We showed up and started warming up in the ring, as the trainer comes out, wearing nothing but a purple towel wrapped around his waist, yelling hold on! I just showered, I’ll be out in a minute. Great first impression. This guy’s two sons, whose nicknames are “Sua”=tiger, and “Singh”=lion (for reals, their nicknames are Tiger and Lion), and are around our age, are actually the trainers. So once a week, I meet with P’Sua or Singh to train, and it’s actually really fun! We went to watch Singh fight in Uttaradit at their longan festival. We piled into the back of P’Sua’s pick-up truck (thankfully a clear night, and a blue moon! I miserably failed when I tried to explain what a blue moon was in Thai to Singh’s dad) and headed through corn and sugar cane fields to the next province over. The festival was waaayyyyy cooler than the festivals that Sawankhalok has, mostly because they had bumper cars. We didn’t have time to play the bumper cars unfortunately, which ended up turning into a dance club by the end of the night. We watched about 8 fights, mostly kids still in middle school or early high school, before Singh got to fight. Those kids were feisty! Singh’s fight was much more controlled, and very structured. We made our way to the front, just inches away from the ring, where we got a lot of attention from the announcer for being accompanied by a white girl. I think he was talking about us throughout the duration of Singh’s fight. They loved Singh’s entourage. The guy that Singh fought was really calm and slow, and looked like he was high, whereas Singh was full of energy, always with a little grin on his face. I guess the high guy knew what he was doing though; they went through four really good rounds, and on the fifth round he got Singh cornered and repeatedly kneed him in the stomach, and won on a technical knockout because Singh couldn’t continue. And after that, I decided I will never enter a Muay Thai fight even though P’Sua keeps saying I could do it. But what I have kind of signed myself up for is to be a Muay Thai demo, so I don’t have to actually fight, just demonstrate how to fight. We’ll see if that happens!

Just to wrap up the end of the semester, I had my M4 students write an autobiography. I did this mostly because we did a unit on names, and they have all had to write about where their name comes from, all because I wanted to know how the heck Thai kids got their nicknames. I got the funniest results. Kids are named “Nook” because their parents like to play snooker (Thai billiards), or “Nahm” as is water, because she was born during a flood, or even better: “looknahm”, which means mosquito larvae, because it was a year of a flood and mosquitoes breed in still flood water. One of my best student's name is Dunkin, which Steven always said made him think of donuts. I told him that was mean and I'm sure he doesn't want to be associated with Dunkin Donuts. Then I read his essay, and he wrote that his mother had wanted to nickname him Donut, but their neighbor just had a baby and were naming him Donut, so she picked Dunkin instead! There are also a lot of matching names, like all kids in a family will be named Kan, Kay and Kai because they all start with the first letter of the Thai alphabet. Anyway, it was all really interesting, and Thai people have the most interesting ways of getting names. Here are some of my best and most favorite finals from some of my favorite (though I say I never pick favorite) students:

By Hanks, in M5/5. We were focusing on new ways to express likes and dislikes.
Hanks really enjoyed this lesson.

This is one of the first assignments Pel has handed in,
 and they're always so funny when he finally does them.

Kao from 4/2, always a crazy imagination

A good demonstration of the difference in science and English education.
My students still can't write in the past tense, but they will tell you all about Albert Einstein

Gam, from 4/1 apparently has strong feelings about cucumbers and caves