Every year, the foreign language department hosts an expensive trip and calls it the “English Study Tour” (by expensive, I mean 60$ per student- and incredibly pricey three day excursion by Sawankhalok standards). Though it sounds like the trip is about English, don’t be deceived. The only English thing about it is that all the farang teachers are on the trip. It’s a genius idea.
They picked the four day “candle festival” weekend to hold the trip. We spent over a month putting together this trip, and the office was a hectic mess the few weeks leading up to it. On Wednesday evening, we met at the poorly lit, heavily trafficked four way intersection by the night market, where we had to run back and forth across the street to transport the loads of snacks. I asked if it would make more sense to have the bus come to this side of the street to pick up all the snacks, but the response was no, we’ll just have the students do it. So our troop of students had to sprint across the intersection with the traffic light that stops working as soon as it gets dark out to stock our buses with more than enough snacks. But no one died, so we were off to a good start. We also didn’t leave anyone behind, except Tara and Be when we stopped 50 meters later for water, but we didn’t get too far when we noticed they hadn't gotten back on the bus.
There were three tour buses with 50 kids each. The F Team was in charge of one bus (those poor students), the young Thai teachers on another, and the old Thai teachers on their own bus. Let me tell you a little about tour buses in Thailand. First of all, no tour bus is complete without a colorful painting covering the outside of the bus. It often looks like the painter was on acid, with neon paintings of fantasy images like fairies or super heros. Or Finding Nemo. That was on our bus. The double decker bus features seats upstairs with a TV, karaoke machine, and disco lights, and anything else you might need for an all night party, and the downstairs is equipped with a lounge and a toilet. By the way, music on tour buses is louder than at a concert.
We had an incredibly humble group of students on our bus (all the studious 8th graders wound up on our bus together), so thankfully our overnight ride to the beach had only some karaoke, then fun Thai movies for the rest of the night. We arrived at Cha-Am around 7 in the morning, got our rooms sorted and started the day. We had our few hours of English activities (mostly dancing and singing Thai songs, and the only English activity we had was like pulling teeth, so we quickly forfeit the battle) before letting them go to the beach. Unfortunately there were a bunch of jellyfish (which is apparently really hard to explain if you don’t know the word for jellyfish in Thai), so I went for a second serving of coconut ice cream instead of continuing to swim.
And that was the only down time we had for the next three days. From then on, we were on the road, stopping at every market between Cha-Am and Sawankhalok. We went to an antique market that night in Hua Hin, the neighboring beach town, after having dinner at the night market down the road. Between each stop, we had to load the kids back onto the bus, and drive what would have been a 20 minute walk, but take an hour to get to because it took so long to get on the bus, then sit in the beach side traffic. But we filled our bus time with dancing in the aisles of the upstairs of the bus, and really the bus rides were more fun than sprinting through each market in our allotted 60-minute time slot.
In the morning, we made a 40 minute trip to the exciting part of Cha-Am beach, where I had gone with Tara and Be last summer. With forty minutes, we couldn’t really do much…so we rented two three-person tandem bikes, and biked for 20 minutes then biked back. Certainly 40 minutes well spent. Tandem bikes are hilarious. And then we kind of held the bus up by an extra 15 minutes because we had to have a photo shoot with the bikes. What kind of F-Team would we be if we didn’t do farangy things like rent a three person bike and spend 15 minutes taking pictures with it in front of the beach?
Our next stop was the highlight of our trip, and everyone’s favorite (but most expensive) stop. We went to Santorini Park, a new amusement park in Hua Hin. Though you have to pay the equivalent of 15 dollars per ride, an outrageous price for anything in Thailand, it was just as exciting to see how much fun you could have had if the rides weren’t so expensive. I did go on one ride with one of my M4 students that was attached to my hip the whole trip, and my new best friend, an M1 boy who I have named Tiki Tiki Tembo because I can’t remember his nickname that is probably something easier like Game or Jap. I gave him this name because he was going to be in our play of Tiki Tiki Tembo, but we didn’t have time to perform it, so he didn’t get his chance to shine. They had their money in hand and were ready to do this 20 dollar ride with me, so I invested in the cause to please my students. I didn’t really take a good look at the ride until after we got our tickets, and I watched the people in front of us go on the ride. It’s kind of like a sling shot into the air, with elastic bands holding the passengers from flying into the neighboring mountains. Wonderful. So my two students sat on either side of me in the three-person ride, and I held their hands tight. The guys strapping us in gave the instructions in Thai, which I opted to not listen to, until Faii translated the last part for me… “he says, don’t close your eyes”. And we were ready to go. We were slowly elevated from the ground as the elastic tightened, the tension growing and growing. Tiki Tiki Tembo grabbed my hand hard, anticipating the shock. With absolutely no indiciation of when the elastic would snap us into the air, we impatiently waited, eyes squeezed shut, hands squeezed tight. A minute or two of over anticipation....and we were SHOT what seemed like miles into the air, and in less than a second snapped back towards the ground, spinning around and upside down, until we faced the ground as we fell straight down. That was the worst part, falling face first to the ground at an uncontrollable speed. Just as we were about to crash, we were pulled back into the air by those unforgiving elastic ropes. The ride slowed as we coasted to a suspended stop. And it was over faster than it had started. Faii had a huge smile on her face, saying she has never been so scared for her life. I looked over at Tiki Tiki Tembo, and asked how it was. He said, he was not okay. And he begged me to get off the ride. He started crying and begged me over and over to get off the ride. The descent back to earth took a painfully long time, and I squeezed Tiki Tiki Tembo’s hand and urged him to breathe with me until we could get off. Stepping back onto the platform, I felt really dizzy myself and thought I was going to throw up. That nauseating feeling stuck with me (and Tiki Tiki Tembo) for a long time, but it was somewhat relieved when we watched Bryan go on a similar ride. It was a swingy version of what we went on, and way less scary, but we forgot our nauseousness by laughing at Bryan screaming “Call my mother, call my mother!” “Not fun, not fun. I don’t like this” throughout the entire ride. We probably shouldn’t have laughed at him, but it was too funny.
After all the nauseous fun at Santorini, and an unappetizing meal on the bus, we were dancing our way to the floating market. Thailand used to have a bunch of these floating markets, particularly around Bangkok, when the canals through the city were a common mode of transportation, much like Venice. Now that many of the canals have been paved over to make room for over-congested over-crowded Bangkok, the remaining floating markets are rare…and touristy. Some are cooler than others. This was not one of them. The deceiving name “floating market” leads one to believe that most of the commerce happens via long-tailed boats that come up to your boat to make you delicious hoi tort. Instead there are hundreds of street vendors obstructing the path to the canal that sell tee-shirts, over-priced coconut juice, and cheesy souvenirs like matchboxes that have “Amphawa” printed on them. Yes, I bought all of those things, and ice cream. The canal itself is fairly narrow, and had more empty boats looking for passengers than vendor boats. We decided to take a break from more and more shopping, and hailed a long-tailed boat cab. Some of our students were passing by as we were getting on the boat, so we kidnapped them to come tour with us. For 50 bhat, we had 2 hours to go wherever we wanted.
So the boat driver took us out of the market, out into the open river, and to a nearby temple on the opposite bank. All of students agreed: this temple was the most beautiful temple we had ever seen and it was completely empty except for the monks conducting a meditation session. The inside of the temple was covered in intricately carved wood, except for the golden Buddha in the middle. We sat inside the cool temple for probably half an hour, and examined the carvings, trying to put together the story it was depicting on all the walls. It was a very calming and humbling moment, in the midst of a crazy weekend.
And back on the bus! More dancing and singing on the way to the hotel. The second night we stayed in a resort with cabins built over a lake, connected by their front porches. Can you imagine, being in 7th grade, and spending the night in a cabin with 7 of your best friends, with essentially no supervision? (the boys had to stay in a separate, but similar resort down the road). And what did the students want to do? Hang out with their farang teachers! Tara and I took a walk around the resort around 9PM, and were pulled into almost all of the cabins in the resort to hang out with the students. We hung out in a group of 7th graders' cabin for about an hour, before one of the Thai teachers had to come in and yell at the kids (and farang teachers) for being too loud! She laughed when she saw me, and asked why they were bothering me in my room. I felt bad correcting her, and told her no, we are bothering them in their room! The girls escorted us back to our cabin, so that no ghosts came to scare us on the walk back. So who are the chaperones on this trip?
In the morning, we started our long journey back home. I don’t know who’s idea this was, but we deviated from our painstakingly thorough itinerary to stop at a teddy bear factory?? And this was where we decided to take our group photo…though it was a ridiculous stop, the giant teddy bears totally made the picture better. I’m not gonna talk any more about this stop, because I want to erase it from my memory- it was that lame. Except for the part where we all got to make little baby teddy bears, and decorate their faces ourselves.
Our last stop before returning safe and sound in Sawankhalok was where else but... at a market! We went to Talaad Roi Et, or Samchuk market in Saphanburi. They had the same variety of key chains, tee shirts, and bags as Amphawa, but with “Samchuck” smeared on the front. As much as I love open air markets, once you’ve seen one…you’ve really seen them all. But as I accidentally made into a habit at every stop on this trip, I got my ice cream. Coconut ice cream in a coconut shell with peanuts on top. For 50 cents. Unbeatable.
Though exhausted and starting to feel sick, none of us were really ready to go home. The last hour of the ride home, all the kids were groaning “mai yak glapbhan…” I don’t want to go home. But I don’t think any of us would have survived another day. I slept the entire next day, only getting out of bed to get dinner, and going right back to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.
To top the weekend of crazy student love, the following weekend was a complete 360. My cousin’s friend, P’Krit, was getting married to a Dutch man she met from the motorcycle gang. If there is anything stranger than the chopper gang in Thailand, it’s all of them being in Sawankhalok at once for a wedding.
BaNee picked me up early in the morning for the traditional Thai ceremony. They had a session with the monks, preceding the march from house to house, a drunk guy leading the calls, and the rest of the procession shouting in response. We approached P’Krit’s house where the morning ceremony had been held, and BaNee and I ran up to the balcony to watch. I don’t know if this is how all weddings go, but this was hilarious. I guess the groom is supposed to go through a series of barriers to get to the bride, who is waiting upstairs. But all the barriers were old Thai women, probably P’Krit’s aunts or grandmother or something. But since he can’t speak Thai, he was accompanied by boisterous Thai women. The old women and the groom's body guards would shout at each other and argue, meanwhile someone is going crazy on the bongos, and they would only let the groom and entourage through once he’s paid the agreed upon price, none of which he would have a say in because he can’t speak Thai. He had to go past several old women, until he was finally granted access to find his bride who was hiding upstairs, and then they made a huge offering to the Buddha and did some more ritual things I didn’t understand and can’t begin to describe. But BaNee got bored at this point, so we peaced out and got lunch. |
| Every offering needs a bottle or two of Blend Whisky |
That evening, I went back to P’Krit’s for the party. I was supposed to go with the German guy that lives in Sawankhalok, and his wife (if I’ve never mentioned the German guy before, he and his friend live in Sawankhalok but can’t speak English. So whenever I see him, we speak Thai with each other….really weird to speak Thai with a German guy), but I thought my cousin was coming to the wedding, so I was waiting for him. Turns out he couldn’t make it, so I ventured there on my own, and ran into the German guy’s wife later in the evening, and she was beyond wasted. Hilarious.
When I first arrived, I luckily found P’Krit as soon as I walked up to her brother’s mukata restaurant. Knowing P’Krit has been really cool- though many people don’t think very highly of her because she’s not your typical modest Thai girl (wearing whatever she wants, showing off her tattoos and peircings), everyone knows her brother because of his restaurant, and apparently he’s rich from it. Now, her brother, P’Meng, knows me too. And always greets me when I come to his restaurant. I don't know why knowing P'Meng feels like knowing a famous person..he's just a casual, every-day guy that just so happens to own an incredibly successful hot pot/do-it-yourself BBQ restaurant. So I got to the party, and P’Krit tried to find a suitable crowd for me to sit with. The Sukhothai bike gang was there, and I recognized some of them, but none of them were people I have ever had a conversation with. So I sat with P’Dew, a very pregnant woman that works in the office at Sawananan, and Eugene, a dentist that was born in India, studied in the Philippines, and landed himself in Sawankhalok where he’s been working at a clinic for the past 10 years. I think he was the first English speaker to move to Sawankhalok, and knows its secrets very well. So dinner was much more interesting than I anticipated, as he translated all the conversations around me, and told me the background of almost everyone in sight. Meanwhile, P’Dew basically ate mukata for three hours straight, not really talking to anyone, and not really listening to anything either. Just grilling and eating the whole time.
Later in the night, after NOT catching P’Krit’s bouquet (my chances of staying in Thailand growing slimmer and slimmer…), I was inevitably approached by some of the farang at the party. There were people from all nine chapters of biker clubs in Thailand, and about half of them are old farang men. So I had some really boring conversations with an Australian guy, a few Dutch men, and I think an Irish guy. (But I was the only American! And also, the only white girl). I also met the founder of the first biker club from Chiang Mai, P’Moo. He was my favorite- his English was flawless, yet he kept talking to me in Thai and insisting he couldn’t speak English well enough to talk to an English teacher. And of course, as soon as they found I was an English teacher, my name was forgotten and I was called "kon Kru", or teacher, for the rest of the night. As I was heading home, I told P’Moo I was planning on heading to Chiang Mai the next day to meet my friends (the F-team) who were already there. He told me he and the rest of the Chiang Mai gang was heading up to Chiang Mai too, and I was welcome to join them on their ride up.
It seemed like a really good idea at the time. And when I woke up at 7 the next morning to catch the 8 o’clock bus, it seemed like a super-good idea. So I went back to sleep and waited for P’Moo to call. When 10 o'clock rolled around, and I hadn’t heard from anyone, I decided to call and wake up P’Moo. I finally met them for noon for breakfast at my favorite riverside restaurant. The normally quiet, empty restaurant was stampeded with farang and Thai bikers. I felt like I was in another Sawankhalok, seeing all these white people in my restaurant. Apparently, every time they meet up in Sawankhalok, they come here for their hangover breakfast, and they're known quite well by the staff. By the time we got on the road, it was nearing 1:30, the time I would have arrived in Chiang Mai if I had caught the morning bus. No worries, I was having fun with these guys. And the drunk woman I sat next to in the car affectionately called me her daughter, (it was Mother’s Day in Thailand, and when I told her Happy Mother’s Day, she gave me a big kiss on the cheek and told me her own daughters forgot it was mother’s day) and let me sleep on her lap for most of the ride up, so I felt loved and happy. Until we stopped for a snack not even an hour into the trip. We were still in Sukhothai province, and had to stop so "Mer" (mother) could get another beer. After our hour long stop, we drove straight through Lampang, and made one more stop just before entering Chiang Mai province (so close…). By this time it was about 5:00, and the F-team was waiting up for me. The whole biker crew- 9 choppers and the four people in our car- met at a restaurant. They were half way through their first bottle of whisky when our car got there, and when they opened a second, I figured there was no chance I was going to get to Chiang Mai in time to do anything, so I might as well join in on the second bottle. So we hung out for two hours with my new friends, pretty much officially welcoming me to their club.
I eventually did make it to meet up with the F-team in the city. Tara, Be and Bryan were in an empty mall (all the shops were closed because of Mother’s Day) at the only open shop- a tattoo stall. The three of them were getting their first tattoos. Be’s tattoo took about 6 hours- and while waiting, Brian and I filmed a music video and a movie trailer for a movie we will never make. But an empty mall was a great setting.
