Sawahdee Kah! Okay so it has been a complete whirlwind since I arrived in the Land of Smiles. I will do my best to cover the important stuff, but I may go on a bit of a ramble.
I flew out of SFO during the afternoon on the 5th. From there I enjoyed a 12 hour flight to Beijing, and promptly hopped on to a 5 hour flight to Bangkok! I flew with Air China, and I must say I had a really pleasant experience- there was a lot of legroom, very updated planes, good service, I recommend.
Anyways, I arrived in Bangkok at about 11:40 pm. Customs was easy and my bag made it through in one piece, but I stupidly forgot to write down any details about where I was staying other than the name. A kind Argentinian boy used his wifi to help me gather more information. The moment I stepped out of the terminal and into the Bangkok air, I was enveloped in a cloud of heat(recall that it is about 12:30 in the morning)! After wandering around for another ten minutes trying to decipher how the taxi system worked, I was able to hail one down. I hopped in and told him that I needed to go to the Louis Tavern, naively assuming he would know exactly where that was. Bangkok is an absolutely massive city and he certainly did NOT know where my hotel was! After another few moments of trying to communicate (which simply did not work, due to our inability to speak each others respective languages), I showed him the phone number of the hotel and he gave them a ring. The receptionist gave him directions, and he seemed to understand, and soon we were off! I must remind you that there was no actual word confirmation about the destination. He just nodded and smiled and I nodded and smiled and hoped to good lord above we were smiling about the same thing.
Bangkok at 1:30 in the morning had a rather eery vibe. There were skyscrapers left and right but they were all shrouded in darkness, it was almost like the city had had a blackout. The drive seemed to go on forever! The entire time I thought to myself "you just gotta trust you are going in the right direction cause there is literally nothing you can do at this point" By the time I was starting to fret, he pulled off the highway and into a suburb of Bangkok. I was still unsure about our actual destination so upon seeing the Louis Hotel stamped across a building in green lights, I experienced a sigh of relief. It was 2 in the morning by the time this whole debacle was settled and I was pooped. I promptly checked in, met my roommate for a few moments and passed out. ANYWAYS This story was not that interesting but after over 24 hours of traveling and very little sleep it felt very important at the time haha.
The next few days of orientation were filled with meeting new people, learning various teaching methods, and learning basic Thai. There were about 75 of us Farangs (Thai word for white person), and we all bonded over our desires to travel, teach and explore. I feel so grateful to have met all these wonderful people, and it has left with a sense of community in this country. Because we were placed all around Thailand, I plan on traveling and visiting all these new friends.
On the fourth day, we visited the Grand Palace in the heart of Bangkok. I had seen photos of the golden structure but had no idea what to expect. This place was POPPIN. Tourists from all over Thailand and beyond filled the grounds. Upon entering the gates, I was in complete awe. It was as if every building had been crusted with gems (which was the goal of the architects). Being that that would have been outrageously expensive, they used a variety of colored glass, porcelain and gold leaf to cover the walls, and the effect was breathtaking. The buildings just glittered in the hot sun. The Wat Phra Keaw or the Hall of the Emerald Buddha was at the center of the grounds and to enter you had to remove your shoes. It was quite a sight to see so many shoes placed outside the Hall. The Buddha itself was approximately 26 inches tall and carved from a single piece of jade, that was thought to have been found in Cambodia in the 15th century. While walking around, a group of Chinese girls got very excited to see some Westerners and asked if they could take a photo with us! I felt pretty special haha. We then had an amazing lunch along the river and headed back to our hotel for more teaching courses.
On the 2nd to last day of orientation, all 75 of us hopped onto buses and drove out to the Kanchanaburi Province to the east of Bangkok. We stopped in the town of Kanchanaburi to see the famous Bridge over the River Kwai. Wikipedia does a better job of explaining the history so here it is- "The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre."
We walked across the bridge and down to the shore on the opposite side where we encountered a herd of Brahman cows. They are the most peculiar looking creatures, with HUGE droopy ears a bulbous forehead, a hump between their shoulder blades, and a large skin flap hanging down from their neck. We all fell in love with them and had a huge photo op. I was so sweaty, one cow went to town on my arm, licking all the delicious salt from my body. I did not expect their tongues to be so very rough, but I was straight up exfoliated by a cow tongue.
After the bridge, we drove a little further up the river where we boarded these restaurant structures that floated on the water. At first I thought we would just be dining on the shores of the river, but quickly realized that we would in fact be cruising along the river, pulled by a much smaller tugboat. After dinner(which was delicious duh) a few of us hit the dance floor for some seriously sweaty and awkward dancing times. We were allowed to dip our feet in the river and it was pretty much the opposite of refreshing, I'd guess around 80 degrees. The water was murky and all I could imagine was some anaconda emerging from the depths and grabbing a wayward foot. No one was consumed by a snake and we made it safely back to shore.
We spent one more night together at this fancy resort and then somehow it was our last day of orientation! A few of the teachers were leaving directly from the hotel and we said our goodbyes. The rest of us headed back to Bangkok where we would go our separate ways from there. I actually felt rather sad as everyone departed, we had all really bonded during this time together.
Near 7 o'clock, there were only a few of us left at the hotel. Me and the two other girls also going to my town were to take a night bus to our town Kalasin, which was about an 8 hour drive away. We were dropped of at Mochit, the worlds largest freaking bus station. It was a three storied monster, with hundreds of buses filing in and out at all times. We finally boarded our bus (which are super nice and spacious!) and went right to sleep. I woke at about 5:30 the next day and ta da we were in Kalasin. This post is absurdly long so I'm going to cut it off there. All I can say is I am so so so lucky and happy to be placed where I am. More on Kalasin soon!
*I apologize for the length of this post and the inevitable typos!
I flew out of SFO during the afternoon on the 5th. From there I enjoyed a 12 hour flight to Beijing, and promptly hopped on to a 5 hour flight to Bangkok! I flew with Air China, and I must say I had a really pleasant experience- there was a lot of legroom, very updated planes, good service, I recommend.
Anyways, I arrived in Bangkok at about 11:40 pm. Customs was easy and my bag made it through in one piece, but I stupidly forgot to write down any details about where I was staying other than the name. A kind Argentinian boy used his wifi to help me gather more information. The moment I stepped out of the terminal and into the Bangkok air, I was enveloped in a cloud of heat(recall that it is about 12:30 in the morning)! After wandering around for another ten minutes trying to decipher how the taxi system worked, I was able to hail one down. I hopped in and told him that I needed to go to the Louis Tavern, naively assuming he would know exactly where that was. Bangkok is an absolutely massive city and he certainly did NOT know where my hotel was! After another few moments of trying to communicate (which simply did not work, due to our inability to speak each others respective languages), I showed him the phone number of the hotel and he gave them a ring. The receptionist gave him directions, and he seemed to understand, and soon we were off! I must remind you that there was no actual word confirmation about the destination. He just nodded and smiled and I nodded and smiled and hoped to good lord above we were smiling about the same thing.
Bangkok at 1:30 in the morning had a rather eery vibe. There were skyscrapers left and right but they were all shrouded in darkness, it was almost like the city had had a blackout. The drive seemed to go on forever! The entire time I thought to myself "you just gotta trust you are going in the right direction cause there is literally nothing you can do at this point" By the time I was starting to fret, he pulled off the highway and into a suburb of Bangkok. I was still unsure about our actual destination so upon seeing the Louis Hotel stamped across a building in green lights, I experienced a sigh of relief. It was 2 in the morning by the time this whole debacle was settled and I was pooped. I promptly checked in, met my roommate for a few moments and passed out. ANYWAYS This story was not that interesting but after over 24 hours of traveling and very little sleep it felt very important at the time haha.
The next few days of orientation were filled with meeting new people, learning various teaching methods, and learning basic Thai. There were about 75 of us Farangs (Thai word for white person), and we all bonded over our desires to travel, teach and explore. I feel so grateful to have met all these wonderful people, and it has left with a sense of community in this country. Because we were placed all around Thailand, I plan on traveling and visiting all these new friends.
On the fourth day, we visited the Grand Palace in the heart of Bangkok. I had seen photos of the golden structure but had no idea what to expect. This place was POPPIN. Tourists from all over Thailand and beyond filled the grounds. Upon entering the gates, I was in complete awe. It was as if every building had been crusted with gems (which was the goal of the architects). Being that that would have been outrageously expensive, they used a variety of colored glass, porcelain and gold leaf to cover the walls, and the effect was breathtaking. The buildings just glittered in the hot sun. The Wat Phra Keaw or the Hall of the Emerald Buddha was at the center of the grounds and to enter you had to remove your shoes. It was quite a sight to see so many shoes placed outside the Hall. The Buddha itself was approximately 26 inches tall and carved from a single piece of jade, that was thought to have been found in Cambodia in the 15th century. While walking around, a group of Chinese girls got very excited to see some Westerners and asked if they could take a photo with us! I felt pretty special haha. We then had an amazing lunch along the river and headed back to our hotel for more teaching courses.
On the 2nd to last day of orientation, all 75 of us hopped onto buses and drove out to the Kanchanaburi Province to the east of Bangkok. We stopped in the town of Kanchanaburi to see the famous Bridge over the River Kwai. Wikipedia does a better job of explaining the history so here it is- "The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre."
We walked across the bridge and down to the shore on the opposite side where we encountered a herd of Brahman cows. They are the most peculiar looking creatures, with HUGE droopy ears a bulbous forehead, a hump between their shoulder blades, and a large skin flap hanging down from their neck. We all fell in love with them and had a huge photo op. I was so sweaty, one cow went to town on my arm, licking all the delicious salt from my body. I did not expect their tongues to be so very rough, but I was straight up exfoliated by a cow tongue.
After the bridge, we drove a little further up the river where we boarded these restaurant structures that floated on the water. At first I thought we would just be dining on the shores of the river, but quickly realized that we would in fact be cruising along the river, pulled by a much smaller tugboat. After dinner(which was delicious duh) a few of us hit the dance floor for some seriously sweaty and awkward dancing times. We were allowed to dip our feet in the river and it was pretty much the opposite of refreshing, I'd guess around 80 degrees. The water was murky and all I could imagine was some anaconda emerging from the depths and grabbing a wayward foot. No one was consumed by a snake and we made it safely back to shore.
We spent one more night together at this fancy resort and then somehow it was our last day of orientation! A few of the teachers were leaving directly from the hotel and we said our goodbyes. The rest of us headed back to Bangkok where we would go our separate ways from there. I actually felt rather sad as everyone departed, we had all really bonded during this time together.
Near 7 o'clock, there were only a few of us left at the hotel. Me and the two other girls also going to my town were to take a night bus to our town Kalasin, which was about an 8 hour drive away. We were dropped of at Mochit, the worlds largest freaking bus station. It was a three storied monster, with hundreds of buses filing in and out at all times. We finally boarded our bus (which are super nice and spacious!) and went right to sleep. I woke at about 5:30 the next day and ta da we were in Kalasin. This post is absurdly long so I'm going to cut it off there. All I can say is I am so so so lucky and happy to be placed where I am. More on Kalasin soon!
*I apologize for the length of this post and the inevitable typos!
Chinese Beer
We drank a lot of miracle water so hopefully some miracles will happen
This is a durian, and honestly it tasted just as bad as it smells
Rambutan
OUT OF THIS WORLD pad thai for like $1
Dragon Fruit
Bridge Over the River Kwai
Brahman Cows, check out them ears
salt lick status
Smudge or Gollum the kitten upstairs from me
They have such fun toiletries here, i bought Gingko body wash, lemongrass shampoo, and kaffir lime and mint conditioner
My home!
Bedroom
View from behind my apartment
House rules
View from my door
Lucky Mansion!
Grand Palace
Detail
There are pretty little water basins like this everywhere
People would dip these flowers in water and then sprinkle it on their head to cool off. How romantic is that
A woman applying gold leaf
dinner cruise
what our contraption looked like
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