Get a job, phuket about it!

From Pattaya, Blake, Lizzy and I boarded an overnight bus to Phuket.  Over fourteen hours later, we got off the bus in Phuket town with ALL our luggage and tried to find a way to get across the island to Patong, where we had booked a hotel.  Most of the normal taxis were too small to fit all our stuff so we had to hire an entire songthaew (covered pickup trucks with benches in the back, also referred to as a baht bus) to take us up over the mountains in the center of the island and to the golden beaches on the other side.  Our hotel, Rico's, was right off the main drag of Patong, a more tame version of Walking St. in Pattaya which allowed for a couple fun nights out.

Kata and Karon Beaches

We originally planned to stay just 3 nights before heading up to Bangkok and get real jobs.  However, we had made a list of things we wanted to accomplish while there such as learn to surf, scuba dive, get tan and just relax.  Not surprisingly, we ticked all those things off our list, but in doing so, four days turned to ten and our bank accounts went from healthy to looking pretty empty.

Kata

Since Blake had already done everything on our adventure list, he took to being my and Lizzy's teacher.  First on the list was surfing!  Now there is nothing wrong with Patong Beach, but the waves did not meet Blake's expectation so we asked around for the best waves which lead us to Kata beach, where we would end up spending most of our afternoons on the island.  After getting ripped off the first day by taking a taxi to Kata, we opted to rent motos for the next few days from Tom, a friendly moto guy along the beach.

No wonder I didn't want to leave...

At Kata, we walked along the beach until we found a surfboard rental place, there we made friends with the worker and got a foam board to learn with.
Before I knew we would be surfing that day, I had chosen a strapless swimsuit so, as you can imagine, that was my biggest obsticle of the day.  After a couple hours, Lizzy and I had both stood up of the board on small waves, and in my case, flashed the entire beach a few too many times.  From there, we spent most days moto-ing to Kata and alternating between surfing a longboard, laying out and tossing a frisbee with each other and a few new friends.

Our biggest goal was to go scuba diving.  This also proved to be the most difficult.  Since we didn't have the biggest budgets we asked around at a lot of places and decided on All 4 Dive.  Unfortunately, we thought we could catch a better deal by heading directly to Koh Phi Phi on the morning ferry, going on an afternoon dive and getting back to the pier in time to catch the afternoon ferry.  We didn't quite budget our time right, and after arriving realized it wouldn't work.  Realizing we were on one of the most beautiful, if not most touristy, islands in the Andaman Sea, we set off to find some snorkel gear as to not waste the entire day.  We got some flippers and masks and headed towards the far end of the marina.  A couple hours later we got back on the ferry and headed back to Phuket.  I was so content on this ride.  I was tired from snorkeling so I layed out on the front of the boat and let the rocking from the waves and late afternoon sun lull me to sleep as I watched flying fish skid across the surface of the sea.

Koh Phi Phi

Scubaa scub-ah-ah

A couple days later we were back on a boat, this time on an actual scuba excursion.  Blake was scheduled to go with other certified divers while Lizzy and I were on a discovery dive with just us and our two instructors.  I was so nervous that I felt sick to my stomach so it didn't help that we were about to experience our worst weather while on the island.  The overcast day turned to rain and the waves began to grow along with the force of the monsoon, so much so that I was actually happy to get off of the boat and into the water for my first ever dive!  It took a bit to get used to, but I ended up loving it and I hated when we had to get out of the warm water back on to the rainy and rocking boat.

After a quick snack, we made it to the next location and suited back up for our second dive.  This one was better than the last and I got to see tons of fish, a morrey eel, swam right over an octopus and her baby and see all the pretty coral.  Unfortunately, the rough weather and cloudy skies meant lower visibility, but it was still amazing...until we got back on the boat.  Lunch was great but as we set back out over the rough waves, I grew seasick and saw my lunch for the second time :(
The boat labored back to shore but the nearly three hour ride back was hell for my head and shaky stomach.

Overall, I had a great time on Phuket, got a decent enough tan and wanted anything other to head to Bangkok, but we had it in our heads that we wanted to work in Bangkok.  So after 10 amazing days, we had to kiss the golden beaches and turquoise water goodbye and head into the smoggy and overcrowded capital.

You're a teacher, Maggie!

My last two weeks of training had me practice teaching at an elementary school.  I team-taught with Cody Monday, Tuesday and Friday and with Lizzy the other two days of the week.  My classes ranged from P1 to P6 our equivalent of grades 1-4, which means my students were between the ages of 6-11.  For those of you out there who know me a bit, you would know that I’m not the biggest fan of kids.  As for why I would pay to travel halfway around the world to teach them, I’m still not sure, but it wasn’t all that bad.  Granted, had I not had a Thai teacher in the room with me to keep the students under some semblance of control and to deliver instructions when the English was too far over their head, it would have been a complete disaster.

   

Cody drawing for the kids during lunch

The school I taught at was in a town about 40 minutes south of Pattaya so not only did I teach the most out of everyone in my program, I also had one of the longest commutes.  For example, one of the other trainees taught at a church under two blocks from where we lived and had class.  Because of the commute, I typically had less than half an hour after I got back to eat, change, and prep for class.  For the next two hours, we had Thai language and culture class.  While we barely made a dent in our Thai handbook (which was already pretty short to begin with), I did learn enough to get by.  The most important things that I learned were the numbers, how to order a few dishes at a restaurant and very basic directions/instructions.

The final two hours of class were dedicated to lesson planning.  While these classes are supposed to be mandatory, after just a couple days our instructors realized it was useless trying to get us to stay the whole two hours and after a few more days for us to come altogether.  Thankfully, this left us with some actual time to get out, eat a real meal and a chance to see more of the city unlike while we were in Phnom Pehn.

Cool cats

Most of my evenings were spent with Blake, Gordan and Lizzy at our favorite hookah bar just off of Walking St. hanging out and watching Gordan haggle with all the hawkers who passed by.  To get an idea of Pattaya you should know that it is described as a mix of Vegas, Atlantic City, Miami and other glitzy cities….only trashier, in my opinion and Walking St. is the epicenter of it all.  As you walk down this street, not only are you blinded by all the bright neon lights, you are affronted with one person after another pushing their bars’ ping-pong and sex shows at you.  If that’s not your thing, you can instead spend your time people watching.  We liked to play a little game involving a point system – you got one point every time you saw a lady boy, two if they were with a client.  As you might guess, we racked up quite a few points each stroll down the street.

Lemurs!

One good thing about the street is that we found some ladies holding little lemurs/slow lorises that we got to hold!  They were so cute and cuddly and wearing tiny little knit dresses.

Anyway, after two weeks of teaching in the morning and just hanging out at night, we were finally ready to “graduate” our program.  I had not fully completed one of the activities and I’m sure our instructor could tell, but I’m pretty sure they were both itching to be done with us, so the let it fly and gave me my certificate. 

While some of the group took off for Bangkok and job interviews, a few of us hung back for the rest of the weekend to gather our bearings before taking off to find a job.  This small break allowed us to witness our first flood.  I woke up Sunday morning and was about to gather the others to hunt for some lunch when I looked out the window and saw the street had turned to a river!  We were pretty hungry so we did the logical thing…threw on shorts, sandals and rain ponchos and headed out into the water.  We splashed around in knee-deep water and walked all the way down to the now washed-away beach.  It was all fun until we saw people catching catfish in the street and we decided to get the heck out of there and head back to dry land.  Monday, we decided that getting a real job could wait and headed off for a couple days of R&R in Phuket!

Just going for a swim in the street,  NBD

Catching catfish on the boardwalk? No thanks.

Thailand, at last

Hangover + ferry...not a good mix

Our first taste of Thailand was on the lovely Koh Chang, which translates as “Elephant Island.”  The first day was mainly travel, dinner and calling it an early night.  The following day Lizzy, Jenn, Cody and I set off to ride some elephants.  Blake and Gordon were planning to meet us there on their motos, but didn’t make it far enough down the street to see us to join.

I thought I was excited to do this, but as soon as I actually got into the little seat atop the elephant’s back, I began to doubt my previous excitement.  To top it all off, we opted for the two-hour tour which included swimming with our elephants instead of just one hour.  It took me almost half an hour to feel somewhat comfortable riding in the seat, mainly because Lizzy and I just got so engrossed in conversation that we forgot what we were actually doing….then came time to swim with them.

Extreme elephant riding

We pulled up to a platform, the mahouts (elephant trainers who devote their lives to just one elephant) got us off, took off the seats, and ushered us back on.  Now, riding an elephant bareback wasn’t really on the top of my to do list but we really didn’t have much of a choice at that point.  Lizzy and I got back on and the mahout led our elephant into the crystal clear river nearby.  I also wasn’t ready for how cold the water would be and how much the creatures would love to frolic around in the water.  From here, “swimming with elephants” turned into an underwater bareback elephant rodeo.  All I had to hold on to was a rope tied around her middle and was thrown from her back several times, which I think freaked Lizzy out more than I did.  After my tenth or so ejection, we begged to be brought back to dry land, but were told the other elephant had to leave first and he really loved the water.  Then our elephant dropped the biggest turd into the water.  As it approached my foot, we FINALLY got to leave the river, dry off and finish the rest of our ride.  Overall, it was a great experience but not something I am jumping to do again, let alone pay for.

White Sand Beach

The rest of the weekend was spent walking along the beach, swimming in the pool and just plain enjoying the island atmosphere.  Saturday night, our instructor, Indy, took us to a market built up on docks over the water.  It was raining and the sun was setting but he continued to lead us to the very end of the dock.  Thankfully, it was all worth it when we were lead to our table, a glass table low to the ground surrounded by cushions so you can sit around the table and let you legs dangle about 10ft above the water!  It was a nice dinner but I think we had a little too much fun providing commentary to all the little fish fighting the current beneath us.

Sunday, we had one more excursion before getting back on the ferry and heading to Pattaya.  We piled all our stuff back in the van and headed to a waterfall.  After a short hike past several smaller waterfalls we reached the end.  Here we had a chance to fight the currents and swim towards the base of the waterfall.  It was definitely a work out!  Our whole time here we had a stray dog following us who even took a nap on the warm rocks while we were swimming and escorted us back to the camp for lunch and our van.  We filled up on grilled chicken and sticky rice and settled into the van to finish our journey to Pattaya.  Once there, we ate at a hot pot restaurant and returned to our hotels to prep for our first day teaching the following morning.

Wat Wat

My two weeks in Cambodia flew by.  Coming into the country, I had no idea what to expect, but I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it.  Granted, most of my time was spent either in class or in a tuk-tuk going to and from class.  For those who don’t know, a tuk-tuk (in Cambodia) is a moto with a carriage attached.  The ones we rode in had two benches facing each other.  Since there were 10 people in our group we split it five to a tuk-tuk.  It was a tight fit everyday, but hey, they were paid for by LanguageCorp so our only expenses were food and any shopping we wanted to do.

One night it started to rain super hard while we were getting ready for our welcome dinner.  Blake, Gordon and I shared a tuk-tuk and on the way all the way back across town to the restaurant, we came to a street that was under a couple feet of water…enough water to drown the engine of the moto and cause us to be stranded in the middle of an intersection while trying to make a U-turn!  A few boys watching from the sidewalk gave us a push, so thankfully I didn’t have to get out and walk through the water in my nice clothes.

As for training, we had class everyday from 9am-5pm that was broken up in four two-hour long classes with an hour for lunch.  My head hurt everyday from the crazy amount of info thrown at us for so many hours on end and the fact that we kept the room at a chilly 21°C (69 F).  When it’s pushing 90 outside, I tend to forget that so many Americans want to keep it as cold as possible inside so I should dress for that instead.

During our lunch breaks we tended to walk next door for yummy baguette sandwiches filled with a friend egg, some ground pork and sweet and sour coleslaw.  Other days we walked around the corner for fried rice and sat in a park across the street to fill the rest of the break.  However, one day we took advantage of extra time and made our way out to see the Killing Fields.

Old graves coming to the surface

The Killing Fields hold mass graves of thousands of Cambodians who were killed during the Khmer Rouge Regime between 1976-79.  You can still see some of the bones and clothes protruding from the ground, and others are housed in cases near where they were found.  During the Khmer Rouge, the cities of Cambodia were emptied and everyone was marched into the countryside and forced into peasantry.  Between executions and disease caused from being over worked, nearly 1/3 of the population, over 1.7 million people, died.  Our visit to the Killing Fields was a sobering one and I’m glad we made the time to go.

Can't wait to try it...haha

The kids won't take it off
until you buy something.

Midway through our two weeks in Phnom Pehn, we took a weekend trip to Siem Reap.  During the 8-hour drive there we stopped at a little market where I had some kids put a tarantula on my shirt and then proceeded to eat a fried one!  It’s didn’t taste all that bad, but I won’t be eating another one anytime soon….but maybe a cockroach?  Anyway, we continued to Siem Reap, grabbed some dinner and went to sleep so we could get up way too early for a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat.

At 4am the following morning, we were headed towards the main complex in the dark.  Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we just stood there and watched the sky lighten behind the towers.  Around 7 we headed back to the hotel and Lizzy and I had the chance to hold a baby crocodile.  When we got back to our room, I looked out my window to see the humongous farm with thousands of crocodiles behind out hotel.  Around 9 we returned back to Angkor Wat and spent the rest of the day exploring the various complexes of this ancient capital.  My favorite was the Bayon.  This temple has a bunch of towers with a giant face bearing a serene smile on all four sides.  That night we all got dinner in downtown Siem Reap and while everyone else chose to go to bed, Blake, Lizzy and I decided to enjoy the nightlife of this touristy town.  We ended up having a great time watching girls dance with the air conditioning unit and trying to get strangers to pose with us and a chicken puppet we “borrowed” from class.

 

Our last day there we went to Beng Melea another temple complex that was sort of the trial run for Angkor Wat.  Over time, this complex was forgotten so nature has taken over and tourists are allowed to run free and explore every nook and cranny.  We climbed over so many walls and squeezed through old windows for a couple hours before returning to the bus sweaty, dirty, tired and ready to go home.

The remaining week flew by and ended in a goodbye dinner celebration.  It started with just our class on a boat with one of the trainers.  We turned it into a booze cruise and shared a few bottles of whiskey and played a few drinking games to pass the time.  This was followed up with a dinner at the owner of LanguageCorp’s restaurant with other graduates from the program.  It was fun, but I think we all had a little too much fun considering that many of us had to be ready to leave for Thailand at 7am the next morning…

Back to the Beginning

Like I said in my first post, I've got a lot of catching up to do since I've already been here for THREE months.  So... back to the beginning.
My trip started out with me almost missing my flight in Chicago due to a slight delay out of Green Bay and too long of lines as I made my way through customs.  My next flight took me straight north passing right by good ole GB, up through Canada and back down through China only to land in Seoul, South Korea over 14 hours later.  I had about 4 hours to kill before my next plane landed so I found a great (and free) lounge where I could recline in a comfy chair and sleep some more.  I got back on a plane and made my way to Bangkok.  By this time is was just past midnight and all I wanted was to collect my bags, find a cozy bench and sleep away my next 7 hour layover before continuing on to Phnom Penh.

View from my bench in Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok

For some reason or another I suspected the worst from baggage claim and my gut instinct didn't let me down.  I spent the next half hour scanning the belt and watching both the number of remaining bags and travellers dwindle down until I had to accept that mine wasn't coming.  I found the right office and put in a lost baggage claim where I was told that, unlike me, my suitcase never made it out of Chicago but that it would be sent to me the following day in Phnom Penh.  As happy as I was to know that it was indeed coming, the idea of wearing the same outfit-one that I had already been wearing for almost 2 days-for another day was upsetting.  Anyway, I fought back a tear and claimed a bench to wait out the next 6 hours.


After one more hour-long flight I found myself in the surprisingly small and empty airport of Phnom Penh.  I walked outside and began to look for any white guys as I was told to do in a recent email from LanguageCorp.  Not surprisingly, there were none to be found at the Dairy Queen where I was told to look, let alone in the rest of the airport.  Another half an hour of freaking out some of the taxi drivers that had been harassing me pointed out a Tuk-Tuk driver looking for a white girl, me.  Mr. Smith, walked me across the street to his tuk-tuk and then told me he had to do one more thing before we left for the Marady Hotel.  It was here, a lone white girl in a VERY foreign city, that I began to seriously doubt my decision to do this.

Sweet, sweet reunion!

From there, I couldn't get that idea out of the head as we made our way across the whole of Phnom Penh.  Once at the hotel I was shown my room in near silence and without any more instruction, besides to meet in the lobby at noon in two day's time for a tour of the city, I was left to settle in my non-existent luggage.  I didn't know how to work the water heater so I was forced to take a cold shower and to put on the same clothes as before.  When I went to use my computer to write home, I realized my plug didn't fit and neither did any of my other adapters since my charger has three prongs and not just two.  So, with my battery running low, I called my family, caused my mother to worry even more than necessary, cried way too much and looked for a return ticket home.  When my computer died, I turned into an agoraphobe too afraid to step out of my room.  The city outside intimidated me too much and the fact that you could tell I had been crying deterred me from wandering the hotel looking for food and friends.  Over the next 48 hours I left only to cross back over to the airport and get my suitcase.  I then locked myself up and subsisted on my 7 remaining granola bars and what weak internet signals I could pick up on my ipod.

However, noon on Sunday I finally met the others from my group, went of a tour of the Grand Palace and Wat Phnom (the main temple of the city).  We returned to shower (a hot one since I had accidentally figured out the water heater!) and change for a group dinner with our future instructors.  It was at this point I was happy to have not gone straight home, no matter how embarrassed I was of the two-day pity party I had thrown upon arrival.  One of the benefits of writing this three months out is that I can now reflect on how my relationships with the other trainees and program have panned out.  It still amazes me to look back of pictures from that first dinner and see how close I am to some of them now when they were complete strangers then.

Royal family's got some nice digs

It's Never Too Late to Start, Right?

As I sit here snacking on some chocolate and curse how unreliable the Internet is, I decided there was no better time than now to finally start a blog about what I'm doing.  In case you haven't seen my pictures on Facebook or had a chance to talk to me in a while, here's what's up...

I graduated in May and began to wrack my brain of possible things I could do besides getting a real grown-up job.  I decided that running away to South East Asia to get my TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages..or something along those lines) certificate was the way to go.  

In one month I tidied up what little responsibilities I had in the States, packed my bags and said goodbye.  Nearly two days later I stepped off of my plane and into Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  After two more days of wallowing alone in my hotel room regretting my decision to do this, I finally met the other 9 trainees and things  started to look up.  Following two weeks of intense (and incredibly boring) training and a weekend at Angkor Wat, seven of us were off to Thailand for practice teaching and Thai language classes.  

Two more weeks and many headaches later, I was awarded my certificate and took off for a short vacay in Phuket.  Three days turned to ten and before I knew it I had a golden tan, could surf a tiny wave, did my first discovery scuba dive, partied a little harder than I probably should have and put a big dent in what little savings I had.

In need of money we arrived in Bangkok at 5am, had a job interview (if you could even call it that) at 6, were in a hotel by 7 and slept the rest of the day away.  The next day marked the beginning of a short stint as an underpaid camp counselor for English summer camps.  I was able to meet some interesting people and see some sights/cities around Bangkok I probably wouldn't have otherwise, but I was still in serious need of cash.

Cut to mid-November and I now have a job as an actual English teacher set to start as soon as the floods recede enough for the students and their families to come back to the city.

Bear with me as I slowly work to fill in some of the crazy/interesting things that have happened between boarding that plane and sitting where I am now.  Some of the details may be a bit fuzzy and events out of order but I hope this gives you a better idea of what I have been up to and prepare you for the many stories I am bound to repeat over and over once I see you again!