Ok, so I've been back now for three months now, but not wanting to leave everything hanging in Cambodia and finding myself with a bit of spare time you can have some more!
I pick up having found myself in Phnom Penh...
My original plan was to enter Laos at the border with Cambodia and head north through the quieter end of Laos, hugging the Mekhong. However, no one could give me a straight answer about visas - did i need to apply before entry? Were they available at the border? No one - not the hostel owners, not other people in the hostel, not even the internet could tell me. I made a decision. I would go from Cambodia, in to Thailand, leg it across the very south eastern corner of Thailand and get in to Laos far further north than I had intended, in a town called Pakse.
The best 'jump off' spot from Cambodia in to Thailand for what I wanted to do was Siem Reap. I got myself a bus and landed in Siem Reap in the early evening - too late to make a run for the border. I wandered around trying to find a travel agent who could get me to the particular border crossing I wanted for the following day. This was not easy as the Khmer New Year was still in full flow and much of Siem Reap was shutdown.
I finally found myself a place that could do it. I explained where I wanted to go and when I wanted to get there. No problem came the reply. "No bus, only taxi. You pay $20 for taxi, the journey is about 3 hours". A decent price I thought, and the comfort of a taxi too. I'll take that. This was my plan:
- Siem Reap to Choam border point
- Choam to Ubon Ratchathani
- Ubon Ratchathani to Pakse, using the official border bus
All in a day. Three countries and about 300km as the crow flies (which in reality obviously doesn't include dead straight, fantastically surfaced roads & 100% safe public transport). Probably closer to 500km or 310 miles for those using old money.
I coughed up and went to get some kip in the guesthouse.
The morning arrived and so did the taxi. The nice travel agent lady actually came to the guesthouse and waited with me for the taxi to come. We got chatting a bit and she asked where I was ultimately heading. "Laos" I replied. "Laos? Why didn't you say? We have a bus going tonight!". All this was a little too late; the taxi had my stuff in it and we were going. "This is more of an adventure!", and with a smile I was off.
I had jumped in the front seat but it was quickly apparent the driver didn't speak a word of English, and my Khmer limited to "ah kun" (thank you), this was going to be a great chance to watch the countryside roll past. We wound our way around Siem Reap for a bit before the driver dipped off on to a dirt road. This isn't quite right I thought; I had been told the road was metalled all the way to the border. We took another couple of turnings before coming to a stop in a small housing block.
Two women and a kid came out of one of the doors, laden down with bags. They then clambered in to the taxi. Off we set again. Eager to get going we looked to be finally heading out of Siem Reap. Until we turned off again down a dirt track and collected another woman. Thinking the back seat was getting a little crowded the driver got the kid to get out, then the driver got back and motioned for the kid to sit next to the drivers seat. Then the door was shut and kid was basically wedged between the drivers seat and the door. Clearly the best solution.
Of we set, again. And we were definitely heading out of Siem Reap. This is it, I'm off. Excellent. Leaving Scambodia and heading for nice cuddly Thailand and Laos. Until we pulled up at a market about 20 minutes in for the driver and the other passengers to have some breakfast. I sat in the taxi waiting, but then the driver beckoned me over and sat me down. We all ended up having some scran and then...really then...we set off.
The kid seemed ok wedged in. His head was about level with the bottom of the window so he could get a view of more than the dashboard and the pedals.
It was on the journey that I seemed to remember that Thailand and Cambodia had been having a touch of wrangling about a temple, right on the border. Somewhere in this area. The wrangling had been armed on occasion. Essentially, there's a dispute over whether the temple belongs in Cambodia or Thailand...the border between the countries had a little nobble in it, where the temple was currently in Cambodian ownership. I also remembered reading that the FCO advised against non-essential travel in this area. It turns out I has opted to use the closest possible border crossing to this temple.
In reality the border crossing straightforward. The border town was a scratty little hole on the Cambodian side, and on the Thai side there was a small market and not much else. After a little delay on the Thai side, and saying goodbye (and good riddance) to Cambodia, I was firmly back in a land I knew I could survive in.
Except I had no transport on to the nearest bus station (about 50km away). I had researched a little on th internet and some accounts told of securing lifts from market traders and customers. I approached one of the Thai guards and falteringly asked where the market was. A blank look was his reply. Trying a different tack, I asked where the bus station was. "No bus" was his reply. OK. He went off to have a word with a group of people. I was again a bit of a tourist attraction in my own right here. Clearly they don;t have many foreigners using this crossing.
After a brief spell of wondering whether to start walking, a woman came up and asked where I wanted to go. I told her I wanted to get to Ubon, she laughed. Reassuring. Her English was reasonable (turned out she worked at Suvarnabhumi Airport) and she explained that the nearest bus station was some distance away, there were no buses from here to there and the traders had mostly packed up and gone home, but her brother could give me a lift for 300B. Quickly factoring a £6 car ride against a 50km hike in the mid-afternoon sun, I agreed. I neglected to mention that I didn't have 300B on me.
About halfway in I asked if there was an ATM on the way, there was and we'd stop. Good stuff. We pulled in to a 7-11 and I took some money. Handily I left my card in it. SWALLOWED. Shite. Cue mild panic and a a couple of calls to the Thai bank and HSBC (who, it would appear, have started using U.S. call centres (centers?) so my surname became 'Barraclow'). The Thai bank confirmed that the card was in the machine, but there was no way of recovering it. Shite. Still, I had £100 on me which should be enough to see me in to Laos. Plus I had another cashcard that I could transfer money on to... if only I could have forseen the bother this would cause me in the long run...i may have insisted on HSBC sending me another one out.
Anyway, I digress.
Leaving a little plastic piece of England in a service station in Thailand, we set off and the family dropped me at the bus station in Kunkhan. A bus to Ubon was due in 40 minutes, a stroke of luck. Saying my goodbyes we heard some shouting over behind us. A bus driver was waving us across. The family had a quick word and it turned out the driver had a bus going to Ubon right now. This was great, as any time made up here improved my chances of getting to Laos before sunset.
I picked up my bags and wandered around the corner to be confronted by a bus clearly past it's best AND packed to the gills with people returning home after the New Year celebrations. Not quite the air con luxury I was expecting to use. When I say rammed, there were people standing on the steps of the bus trying not to place weight on the doors, in case the doors allowed their faces to get friendly with the passing asphalt during the journey. And I was last on. After some shuffling about they made room for me and we were off.
The bus only had fans, and those were temperamental. Its fair to say I quickly got sticky. Luckily the bus thinned out a touch and I did end up with a seat. But not before I noticed that the driver was doing remarkably well considering he only had one hand. Trying not to stare at the stump I glanced around and took in the large number of lucky charms around the cab. I was relieved to get the seat and try to disperse thoughts of bus-related death.
Time was getting on a bit. I had no idea how long the journey was meant to take on this bus. The air con VIP bus that I should've caught probably would've taken 2 hours tops...this second class affair stopping at every little pothole of a village could take the best part of the day.
Eventually, after about 3 hours of wondering where we were we pull in to Ubon bus station. Reclaiming my bag and swatting away tuk-tuk drivers I made for the 'international' desk to ask about tickets. After the taxi ride, after skirting through a military hotspot, after finding myself looking at a length hike, after losing my cashcard and having sweated my bollocks off whilst placing all hope on a one-handed bus driver, it turns out I missed the last bus to Pakse by 30 minutes. Gutted. So it was that I found myself heading toward a hotel for the tonight. I splashed out on an air con room and free wifi internet (£10), washed and went for a wander.
I caught the backend of Songkran in Ubon. The Thais celebrate their New Year with massive days-long waterfights and a lot of drinking. I had missed the majority of it due to the extended dental issues in Bangkok and the knock on from that, but here in Ubon I got a little flavour of it. The local park had been turned in to a waterpark, with showers, sprinklers and fountains all over, and people running about getting very very wet.
I got a couple of beers and a bit of food and took it all in, before getting an early night.
Destination Laos then. Up early doors and to the bus station via a circuitous route on the back of a songthaew. Bagged me a ticket and climbed aboard the bus. After the disappointment of Cambodia (minus the AK47 and Angkor Thom/Angkor Wat), my hopes for Laos were rising. I'd heard a lot of VERY GOOD things about it and I was keen to hit the ground running.
The bus trip was relatively uneventful, the border crossing straightforward as i can be (only a small involuntary bribe needed to recover my passport from the checkpoint guard) and Pakse loomed in to view. Well, loomed as best a non-descript town can.
And that was that, the longest leg of my journey so far. I found myself a room at the only really recommended guesthouse in town and went for a wander. I'd stepped foot in three countries in 24 hours, which is no mean feat in this part of the world. I deserved a beer.
Next up...
Let Loose in Laos.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
The French Have It About Right
I've found myself with a spare couple of hours to fill and a cheap internet connection so you can have an update from Cambodia. I'll even throw some pictures in too. The keyboard here is nearly functional - apologies for any appalling typos.
Having finished my course of dental treatement in Bangkok it was finally time to strike out to new territories - Cambodia was the destination; Siem Reap the first stop. I jumped on a train from Tony's gaff and sat in the open doorway for the whole journey; 5 hours of rattling along through the Thai countryside. Through reading the lonely planet and various internet sites it was clear that Cambodians at the border will try every trick in the book to relieve you of your money for the journey to Siem Reap. Poipet was described as the "armpit" of Cambodia; luckily this was exactly where I was to cross the border.
Leaving Thailand behind, trudging through the casino zone (between border posts), I arrived at Cambodian immigration and presented my Cambodian visa printed for the short of seeing at A4-size. This raised a few smirks but It wasn't my fault if they emailed me at that scale.
Having been stamped in I set foot in Cambodia. Mos Eisley spaceport made real life. Chaos and scum littered the streets and I seemed to find myself wading through plastic bags and filth. Alert to scams I waved away the first gents to approach me offering taxis. I waved away the second group too. At the third group one fella decided he would tail me all the way to where I was wanting to go - the bus station. Except I never made it there. I bartered him down from 1500 baht (thai money) to 500. He then led me to a car that already had two passenger in. They were an aussie father and daughter and were only too happy to have an extra body share the cab fare. Off we set.
Cambodia drives on the right. The car was right hand drive. This provided me with the opportunity to see oncoming cars first, before the driver tried to overtake. Much like Thailand there are laws of the road that seem to be open to interpretation. Combined with wrong-hand drive cars I was a little wary of the possibility of being flung through the windscreen at speed. We made it to Siem Reap unscathed, only for the driver to inform us he doesn't know his way around Siem Reap or to our hotels, so he needs to go and see his friend. We pull into a side street and then the scam starts.
His friend says the driver needs us to pay him an extra 500 baht because the driver paid the police at Poipet. It was never made clear what he paid the police for. The aussie guy starts to mutter. He is in the military in Australia, had been for 20 years, and so I suspected he wasn't one for verbal negotiation.
We sat there for 15 minutes, the aussie guy and me telling them we agreed 1500 for the whole taxi all the way to our hotels. The Cambodians were adamant we pay. We stood our ground. The aussie was getting a little hot and bothered. Sensing there could actually be some bother fairly soon the Cambodians agreed to only take an extra 100 baht. How very kind of them...
I finally landed at the hotel and freshened up and took a wander. The old French Quarter of Siem Reap is actually very nice; loads of bars and restuarants and pretty good vibe about it - once you became immune to the begging kids. The next three days were spent touring the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other surrounding sites.
See. Fan-bloody-tastic. Really an embarrassment of riches for Cambodia; they're rightly proud of them. Many are still be restored. Some, admittedly, have been subjected to some poor 'restroration' using modern materials. By and large though you have some awe-inspiring feats of building.
Along with ancient buildings and tourists I saw MONKEYS! Monkeys stealing bags of bananas from passing tourists. And monkeys being chased by women with sticks! Quality stuff.
At the end of the first day I also decided I needed to work on my tan lines.
Or have a shower.
It was during my time in Siem Reap I began to see just how expensive it was to be a tourist. The tuk-tuk drivers take you for as much as they can get. Even the hotel-recommended driver tried to charge my $30 for a tour that should've have cost $20. On top of this they expect you to buy them lunch at noodle shacks that are no more than clip-joints. $5 for a pot noodle tipped on a plate? Don't mind if I don't thanks. Everyone basically has a scam running.
My last day in Siem Reap I tuk-tukked ($25) it out to see a riverbed that had been carved. The 1.5km 'moderate hike' to the river (not my words, the words of Lonely Planet) was, at times, as close to climbing as you can get without having ropes. Eventually though I was rewarded with some impressive carvings. Unfortunately the dry season meant that the riverbed was mostly full of stagnating ponds and the "refreshing waterfall" (Lonely Planet) was a dribble of brown water.
Anyway - here is a pic of some of the riverbed.
On the way back I stopped off at the Cambodian Landmine museum. It's run by a chap that diffused hundreds of mines in the Cambodian countryside. The centre-piece is a greenhouse housing all the mines he got rid of. Loads. Although you shouldn't laugh at the atrocity of war, oppression and it's long-term after effects, I had to have a little smirk at this...
Clearly, by trying to move on from the past, the best way to do this is to give the name of the one thing that ruled your life for the last 20 years or so to one of your kids. Good work fella.
After Siem Reap I hopped on a bus to Battamabang, apparently Cambodia's 4th most popular visitor destination. Fuck knows why. It is a hole of a place. The guesthouse I found to start - having decided to go off piste and dispense with Lonely Planet for more adventure, was decent enough. Only I opted for the cheapest room which was like a furnace. It would have been cooler to sleep in the corridor. I lasted one night there before consulting Lonely Planet once again... the owner had a face like a smacked arse when I told him I was checking out. Christ knows why.
Anyway, I pottered around Battambang for a couple of days - trying to find the one decent looking gin palace I'd heard about, only to find out it'd closed after the owner started to drink the stock. I went off to some temples in the countryside; one which had been used by the Khmer Rouge to imprison people. Nearby was a cave that they used to push people in to. The drop, 100 feet, killed most. Their remains were placed in a small structure for all to see.
I got back to Battambang by train. Bamboo train. There are no train services in Cambodia, so the locals have made their own. It consists of a buggy that sits on the rails and can be totally dismantled to allow other trains to pass in the other direction. Here it is.
I had to hire the whole thing for $8; but this didn't stop a load of other CAmbodians enjoying the ride with me. Bloody freeloaders. It seemed the intention of the driver and my moto driver for me and a female passenger to get it on. Knowing winks and laughter were exchanged between them. I just kept shaking my head and watching the buckled tracks loom in to view and bracing for impact. It was a great laugh. Then the train ran out of petrol and we had to abandon it...still paying full-whack mind, some 5km from Battamabang.
Having had enough of the town - really there is nothing in the town to look at or do - I opted to go to the seaside. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's premier beach destination. And beach is just what I wanted.
After a 12 hour bus ride, via Phnom Penh, I landed. I'd got chatting to Londoner alled Paul who'd been living in Wakefield most recently; we both checked in to the same gaff and knocked about together. It was good to have some company. Sihanoukville, unsurprisingly, is a fucking hole. The beach that I plumped for, Serendipity Beach, was awash with litter and rubbish and backtwatters. The sea was also full of shit. Not too fantastic really. I retired to the bar back at my gaff and met up with Paul. We headed to a few bars and got drunk. That about sums up my three days in Sihanoukville. Except for agonising toothache that started. Conscious of the last dental problem that croppped up I decided I should hightail it to Phnom Penh, missing out a trip further up the coast, to get this sorted.
Phnom Penh is pretty cool; not at all like the rest of what I had seen of Cambodia. The hostel I opted for has a good crowd in of longterm residents. Three British kids and an Aussie chap called Dennis, who can't get back in to Thailand...
The British kids, Luke, Monica and Kat, are all teaching here and know Phnom Penh very well. On arriving Luke brandished a can of beer which I duly sank, then after a few more we headed in to town. We got some scarna and then Luke rang one of his Cambodian buddies. HE joined us then invited us all to his house for a party...off we set. The house was down a warren of backstreets lacking any sort of lighting. A few lads loitered in the shadows. We ended up in a cul-de-sac, at one end of which was a soundsystem. It was switched on and the khmer tunes started up. The neighbours came out to find 6 foreigneres doing pretty awful impressions of traditional dancing. We gave up and headed in to a house and started boozing. One eye on the time, and conscious that my toothache was still making its presence felt, I was happy when mutterings of going back began.
The next morning I tramped of to a dentist recommended by the hostel owner. The dentist saw me straight away and got to the root of the problem (excuse hideous, non-intenional, pun) - some pesky tooth that hadn't come through my gumhad got infected. Extraction was the only viable option. And so within half an hour of walking in I found myself with my gob open and, not for the first time, peering up the nostrils of a south-east asian dentist. He grappled with the blighter for a while; swapping sides for extra leverage or something. Meanwhile I've taken am incredible fascination with the air-conditioning panels in the ceiling and counting the number of ceiling panels - anything to not look at the handy reflection of my gob in the glass of the light.
After a 15 minute struggle it popped out. Huge it was. Sure enough, some lovely infected pulpy stuff was clinging to the side of it. I handed over the $65 and stumbled back home trying to stem the trickle of blood from my mouth. The rest of the day was a wipe out really. I think the Dental Gods are getting payback for drawing Dr. Govan's blood as a kid. I hope now they are appeased and the rest of my travels can go on unimpeded.
Today! Yes today! Finally I had time to do tourism. So that's precisely what I did. The plan - go to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, be moved by human atrocity, then go to Tuol Sleng Prison and be moved by human atrocity. The tuk-tuk driver whisked me off to the Killing Fields first. The site was unassuming; the Cambodian government have constructed a large stupa and placed bones and skulls of the those found in the mass graves at the site inside. There are 17 tiers of remains. It's quite a sight to behold - confronted with row upon row of human skulls. But at the same time, I wasn't moved. I find with these sort of things that I feel these are other people's sorrows, and that emotions such as sorrow are hard to feel if you have no connection with them.
I placed my level of interest at 'morbidly fascinated' at how someone can do this scale of killing without the general populace finding out.
Next on the tour was Tuol Sleng Prison. This was, before the Khmer Rouge, a school. The KR converted it in to a detention and torture facility. However, on the way between the two sites the tuk-tuk driver asked me, in broken English, if I fancied shooting.
Without hesitation my reply was "yes". I'd heard tales of people being able to shoot bazookas and other stuff in Cambodia, but had yet to come across it. I wasn't going to let this opportunity slide. Off we went. We drove out of town and down a few bumpy roads. We pulled up outside a military base (the checkpoints were in the shape of bullets. First class), the driver signalled to one of the guards but the guard pointed round the back. Off we went again. We were driving down a street and some lass shouted at us and pointed across the road. Two gates slid back and we entered a little compound. In it was 2 armoured personnel carriers and a cafe. It was a touch surreal.
The fella came from behind the desk and asked that I don't take any photos of the shooting range or of the staff. Quality. I walked around a corner and there was a wall full of guns - AK47s, Rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG), handguns, M50 assault rifles, pump-action shotguns, sniper rifles and heavy machine guns. My eyes lit up. I couldn't help but laugh.
The geezer produced a menu of weapons ("No Photos Of Menu"). Sure enough, I could fire anything I wanted from the wall. The AK47 was $40 for 25 rounds, as were a couple of other machine guns; handguns were $30; Sniper Rifle $50; RPG $350; hand grenade $80. So on and so forth. Glancing in my wallet and not finding $350 (actually only $30) I decided simply to go for the AK47. There was no problem with the lack of funds, all I had to do was get to an ATM and give it to the driver on the way home. He asked where I was from and if I had shot a gun before; "England and shotgun" came the reply (I didn't think .22 air rifle would have quite the same impact). And then we were off.
I walked in to the firing range, which looked EXACTLY like you would imagine a seedy, semi-legit shooting range to look like - targets at one end, tires behind them, some kind of smokey fug hanging in the air. There was a desk and chair and a support. I was told to sit at the desk whilst the gun was put in the support. I shouldered it and was told that the gun was set to one shot.
Five rounds later I was smiling like a loon and saying "fuck" quite a bit. "You want automatic?". "Of course I bloody do my good man!"
WAHEY! Blammo motherfuckers! It was ace. remembering everything I had learnt from...erm...war films I let off 4 shorts bursts of fire (longer ones disrupt your aiming ability you know). I couldn't even see if I was hitting the target. I could see the sparks from the end of the barrel though, and hear the shell casings hitting the floor.
And that was it. I was in there about 3 minutes but its the most fun I've had for 30 quid since...umm...well, ever! They did allow one photo to be taken:
Finally getting to Tuol Sleng, it looked unassuming from the outside. I suppose that hows they got away with it. Inside are the faces of those killed during its operation. Kids, women, men. Some women had their babies with them in the photos. Many photos the people looked fine. Solemn but Ok. This was because they had been told they had been chosen to advance their education. In truth, only seven people lived to tell their tales.
And thats it for now. I'm trying to get to Laos but I've been told there is no Visa on arrival if I come from Cambodia in to Laos. Which means I either hang here for a week whilst the Khmer New Year holidays happen and the Laos Embassy reopens, or I try to go in via Thailand. Right now I fancy the Thai route, purely because it saves time (providing I can actually travel during the festivities - I'm not entirely sure that will be possible).
Oh, and the title of this blog - The french for Cambodia is 'Cambodge'. I can think of no better description of the place.
Having finished my course of dental treatement in Bangkok it was finally time to strike out to new territories - Cambodia was the destination; Siem Reap the first stop. I jumped on a train from Tony's gaff and sat in the open doorway for the whole journey; 5 hours of rattling along through the Thai countryside. Through reading the lonely planet and various internet sites it was clear that Cambodians at the border will try every trick in the book to relieve you of your money for the journey to Siem Reap. Poipet was described as the "armpit" of Cambodia; luckily this was exactly where I was to cross the border.
Leaving Thailand behind, trudging through the casino zone (between border posts), I arrived at Cambodian immigration and presented my Cambodian visa printed for the short of seeing at A4-size. This raised a few smirks but It wasn't my fault if they emailed me at that scale.
Having been stamped in I set foot in Cambodia. Mos Eisley spaceport made real life. Chaos and scum littered the streets and I seemed to find myself wading through plastic bags and filth. Alert to scams I waved away the first gents to approach me offering taxis. I waved away the second group too. At the third group one fella decided he would tail me all the way to where I was wanting to go - the bus station. Except I never made it there. I bartered him down from 1500 baht (thai money) to 500. He then led me to a car that already had two passenger in. They were an aussie father and daughter and were only too happy to have an extra body share the cab fare. Off we set.
Cambodia drives on the right. The car was right hand drive. This provided me with the opportunity to see oncoming cars first, before the driver tried to overtake. Much like Thailand there are laws of the road that seem to be open to interpretation. Combined with wrong-hand drive cars I was a little wary of the possibility of being flung through the windscreen at speed. We made it to Siem Reap unscathed, only for the driver to inform us he doesn't know his way around Siem Reap or to our hotels, so he needs to go and see his friend. We pull into a side street and then the scam starts.
His friend says the driver needs us to pay him an extra 500 baht because the driver paid the police at Poipet. It was never made clear what he paid the police for. The aussie guy starts to mutter. He is in the military in Australia, had been for 20 years, and so I suspected he wasn't one for verbal negotiation.
We sat there for 15 minutes, the aussie guy and me telling them we agreed 1500 for the whole taxi all the way to our hotels. The Cambodians were adamant we pay. We stood our ground. The aussie was getting a little hot and bothered. Sensing there could actually be some bother fairly soon the Cambodians agreed to only take an extra 100 baht. How very kind of them...
I finally landed at the hotel and freshened up and took a wander. The old French Quarter of Siem Reap is actually very nice; loads of bars and restuarants and pretty good vibe about it - once you became immune to the begging kids. The next three days were spent touring the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other surrounding sites.
See. Fan-bloody-tastic. Really an embarrassment of riches for Cambodia; they're rightly proud of them. Many are still be restored. Some, admittedly, have been subjected to some poor 'restroration' using modern materials. By and large though you have some awe-inspiring feats of building.
Along with ancient buildings and tourists I saw MONKEYS! Monkeys stealing bags of bananas from passing tourists. And monkeys being chased by women with sticks! Quality stuff.
At the end of the first day I also decided I needed to work on my tan lines.
Or have a shower.
It was during my time in Siem Reap I began to see just how expensive it was to be a tourist. The tuk-tuk drivers take you for as much as they can get. Even the hotel-recommended driver tried to charge my $30 for a tour that should've have cost $20. On top of this they expect you to buy them lunch at noodle shacks that are no more than clip-joints. $5 for a pot noodle tipped on a plate? Don't mind if I don't thanks. Everyone basically has a scam running.
My last day in Siem Reap I tuk-tukked ($25) it out to see a riverbed that had been carved. The 1.5km 'moderate hike' to the river (not my words, the words of Lonely Planet) was, at times, as close to climbing as you can get without having ropes. Eventually though I was rewarded with some impressive carvings. Unfortunately the dry season meant that the riverbed was mostly full of stagnating ponds and the "refreshing waterfall" (Lonely Planet) was a dribble of brown water.
Anyway - here is a pic of some of the riverbed.
On the way back I stopped off at the Cambodian Landmine museum. It's run by a chap that diffused hundreds of mines in the Cambodian countryside. The centre-piece is a greenhouse housing all the mines he got rid of. Loads. Although you shouldn't laugh at the atrocity of war, oppression and it's long-term after effects, I had to have a little smirk at this...
Clearly, by trying to move on from the past, the best way to do this is to give the name of the one thing that ruled your life for the last 20 years or so to one of your kids. Good work fella.
After Siem Reap I hopped on a bus to Battamabang, apparently Cambodia's 4th most popular visitor destination. Fuck knows why. It is a hole of a place. The guesthouse I found to start - having decided to go off piste and dispense with Lonely Planet for more adventure, was decent enough. Only I opted for the cheapest room which was like a furnace. It would have been cooler to sleep in the corridor. I lasted one night there before consulting Lonely Planet once again... the owner had a face like a smacked arse when I told him I was checking out. Christ knows why.
Anyway, I pottered around Battambang for a couple of days - trying to find the one decent looking gin palace I'd heard about, only to find out it'd closed after the owner started to drink the stock. I went off to some temples in the countryside; one which had been used by the Khmer Rouge to imprison people. Nearby was a cave that they used to push people in to. The drop, 100 feet, killed most. Their remains were placed in a small structure for all to see.
I got back to Battambang by train. Bamboo train. There are no train services in Cambodia, so the locals have made their own. It consists of a buggy that sits on the rails and can be totally dismantled to allow other trains to pass in the other direction. Here it is.
I had to hire the whole thing for $8; but this didn't stop a load of other CAmbodians enjoying the ride with me. Bloody freeloaders. It seemed the intention of the driver and my moto driver for me and a female passenger to get it on. Knowing winks and laughter were exchanged between them. I just kept shaking my head and watching the buckled tracks loom in to view and bracing for impact. It was a great laugh. Then the train ran out of petrol and we had to abandon it...still paying full-whack mind, some 5km from Battamabang.
Having had enough of the town - really there is nothing in the town to look at or do - I opted to go to the seaside. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's premier beach destination. And beach is just what I wanted.
After a 12 hour bus ride, via Phnom Penh, I landed. I'd got chatting to Londoner alled Paul who'd been living in Wakefield most recently; we both checked in to the same gaff and knocked about together. It was good to have some company. Sihanoukville, unsurprisingly, is a fucking hole. The beach that I plumped for, Serendipity Beach, was awash with litter and rubbish and backtwatters. The sea was also full of shit. Not too fantastic really. I retired to the bar back at my gaff and met up with Paul. We headed to a few bars and got drunk. That about sums up my three days in Sihanoukville. Except for agonising toothache that started. Conscious of the last dental problem that croppped up I decided I should hightail it to Phnom Penh, missing out a trip further up the coast, to get this sorted.
Phnom Penh is pretty cool; not at all like the rest of what I had seen of Cambodia. The hostel I opted for has a good crowd in of longterm residents. Three British kids and an Aussie chap called Dennis, who can't get back in to Thailand...
The British kids, Luke, Monica and Kat, are all teaching here and know Phnom Penh very well. On arriving Luke brandished a can of beer which I duly sank, then after a few more we headed in to town. We got some scarna and then Luke rang one of his Cambodian buddies. HE joined us then invited us all to his house for a party...off we set. The house was down a warren of backstreets lacking any sort of lighting. A few lads loitered in the shadows. We ended up in a cul-de-sac, at one end of which was a soundsystem. It was switched on and the khmer tunes started up. The neighbours came out to find 6 foreigneres doing pretty awful impressions of traditional dancing. We gave up and headed in to a house and started boozing. One eye on the time, and conscious that my toothache was still making its presence felt, I was happy when mutterings of going back began.
The next morning I tramped of to a dentist recommended by the hostel owner. The dentist saw me straight away and got to the root of the problem (excuse hideous, non-intenional, pun) - some pesky tooth that hadn't come through my gumhad got infected. Extraction was the only viable option. And so within half an hour of walking in I found myself with my gob open and, not for the first time, peering up the nostrils of a south-east asian dentist. He grappled with the blighter for a while; swapping sides for extra leverage or something. Meanwhile I've taken am incredible fascination with the air-conditioning panels in the ceiling and counting the number of ceiling panels - anything to not look at the handy reflection of my gob in the glass of the light.
After a 15 minute struggle it popped out. Huge it was. Sure enough, some lovely infected pulpy stuff was clinging to the side of it. I handed over the $65 and stumbled back home trying to stem the trickle of blood from my mouth. The rest of the day was a wipe out really. I think the Dental Gods are getting payback for drawing Dr. Govan's blood as a kid. I hope now they are appeased and the rest of my travels can go on unimpeded.
Today! Yes today! Finally I had time to do tourism. So that's precisely what I did. The plan - go to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, be moved by human atrocity, then go to Tuol Sleng Prison and be moved by human atrocity. The tuk-tuk driver whisked me off to the Killing Fields first. The site was unassuming; the Cambodian government have constructed a large stupa and placed bones and skulls of the those found in the mass graves at the site inside. There are 17 tiers of remains. It's quite a sight to behold - confronted with row upon row of human skulls. But at the same time, I wasn't moved. I find with these sort of things that I feel these are other people's sorrows, and that emotions such as sorrow are hard to feel if you have no connection with them.
I placed my level of interest at 'morbidly fascinated' at how someone can do this scale of killing without the general populace finding out.
Next on the tour was Tuol Sleng Prison. This was, before the Khmer Rouge, a school. The KR converted it in to a detention and torture facility. However, on the way between the two sites the tuk-tuk driver asked me, in broken English, if I fancied shooting.
Without hesitation my reply was "yes". I'd heard tales of people being able to shoot bazookas and other stuff in Cambodia, but had yet to come across it. I wasn't going to let this opportunity slide. Off we went. We drove out of town and down a few bumpy roads. We pulled up outside a military base (the checkpoints were in the shape of bullets. First class), the driver signalled to one of the guards but the guard pointed round the back. Off we went again. We were driving down a street and some lass shouted at us and pointed across the road. Two gates slid back and we entered a little compound. In it was 2 armoured personnel carriers and a cafe. It was a touch surreal.
The fella came from behind the desk and asked that I don't take any photos of the shooting range or of the staff. Quality. I walked around a corner and there was a wall full of guns - AK47s, Rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG), handguns, M50 assault rifles, pump-action shotguns, sniper rifles and heavy machine guns. My eyes lit up. I couldn't help but laugh.
The geezer produced a menu of weapons ("No Photos Of Menu"). Sure enough, I could fire anything I wanted from the wall. The AK47 was $40 for 25 rounds, as were a couple of other machine guns; handguns were $30; Sniper Rifle $50; RPG $350; hand grenade $80. So on and so forth. Glancing in my wallet and not finding $350 (actually only $30) I decided simply to go for the AK47. There was no problem with the lack of funds, all I had to do was get to an ATM and give it to the driver on the way home. He asked where I was from and if I had shot a gun before; "England and shotgun" came the reply (I didn't think .22 air rifle would have quite the same impact). And then we were off.
I walked in to the firing range, which looked EXACTLY like you would imagine a seedy, semi-legit shooting range to look like - targets at one end, tires behind them, some kind of smokey fug hanging in the air. There was a desk and chair and a support. I was told to sit at the desk whilst the gun was put in the support. I shouldered it and was told that the gun was set to one shot.
Five rounds later I was smiling like a loon and saying "fuck" quite a bit. "You want automatic?". "Of course I bloody do my good man!"
WAHEY! Blammo motherfuckers! It was ace. remembering everything I had learnt from...erm...war films I let off 4 shorts bursts of fire (longer ones disrupt your aiming ability you know). I couldn't even see if I was hitting the target. I could see the sparks from the end of the barrel though, and hear the shell casings hitting the floor.
And that was it. I was in there about 3 minutes but its the most fun I've had for 30 quid since...umm...well, ever! They did allow one photo to be taken:
Finally getting to Tuol Sleng, it looked unassuming from the outside. I suppose that hows they got away with it. Inside are the faces of those killed during its operation. Kids, women, men. Some women had their babies with them in the photos. Many photos the people looked fine. Solemn but Ok. This was because they had been told they had been chosen to advance their education. In truth, only seven people lived to tell their tales.
And thats it for now. I'm trying to get to Laos but I've been told there is no Visa on arrival if I come from Cambodia in to Laos. Which means I either hang here for a week whilst the Khmer New Year holidays happen and the Laos Embassy reopens, or I try to go in via Thailand. Right now I fancy the Thai route, purely because it saves time (providing I can actually travel during the festivities - I'm not entirely sure that will be possible).
Oh, and the title of this blog - The french for Cambodia is 'Cambodge'. I can think of no better description of the place.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
No More
I'm not going to get much chance to update this for the next 5 weeks, as I head in to Cambodia & Laos which are both likely to be lacking quality internet.
For those that don't know, my planned saunter around SE Asia has been obliterated by a hideously expensive and painful dental disaster, which has taken from me one third of my travel budget and 3 weeks of my time. To say I'm fucking gutted is an understatement. Briefly, a gold crown came out, which has required two sessions of root canal and a new crown. Today I should be getting it finally fixed in, although my appointment has just been delayed by two hours, a not entirely unexpected final twist in the saga.
I have many tales to tell of the last three weeks but frankly I've lost enthusiasm to type them out. I'll probably fill you all in when I see you. I'll try to get brief updates done but no promises.
Take it easy.
For those that don't know, my planned saunter around SE Asia has been obliterated by a hideously expensive and painful dental disaster, which has taken from me one third of my travel budget and 3 weeks of my time. To say I'm fucking gutted is an understatement. Briefly, a gold crown came out, which has required two sessions of root canal and a new crown. Today I should be getting it finally fixed in, although my appointment has just been delayed by two hours, a not entirely unexpected final twist in the saga.
I have many tales to tell of the last three weeks but frankly I've lost enthusiasm to type them out. I'll probably fill you all in when I see you. I'll try to get brief updates done but no promises.
Take it easy.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Unexpected Bonus
EXPLANATION - OK, I'd typed this out ages ago. Though I may as well let you lot see it. It's basically covers the last few days in Chiang Khan before I left - about 4 weeks ago.
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Chiang Khan fades in to the distance. My last few days were spent teaching in a new school and trying to pack.
Pi Kuan had asked me and Adam to go to her school once we'd finished at St. John's. She 'teaches' kindergarten at a state primary school along the Mekhong from Chiang Khan. On the Monday morning (8th March) we arrived to many shouts of "farang! farang!". The younger kids were reluctant to enter the gates of the kindergarten, warily eyeing up the odd-looking white things standing in their playground. Some refused to enter; others would only come in as long as they were locked tightly around their parents necks. Once deposited they all took to hiding or standing stock-still just in case one of us made a grab for them.
Thinking I would give them a chance to play I went for a wander in to the school field. Immediately swarms of kids came for a look. The more confident lads took to asking to shake my hand, and upon doing so ran off laughing and waving their hand in the air like it had been given the lurgee. The girls would say hello then collapse into fits of giggles with their friends when I replied.
The plan, as was my understanding, was that we would teach 3 one-hour classes, each with a different class. After a baffling 'meeting'/silence with the School Director (Pi Kuan had basically ushered us on our way - not good when she had the best English in the school) we were shown to separate classrooms and left to teach. I got a combined 3rd/4th Year class. After two and a half hours, having nearly exhausted my entire repertoire of simple games, easy songs (head, shoulders, knees & toes went down a bomb) and basic subjects I popped my head round the corner in to Adam's class. He also seemed to be reaching the end of his teaching stock/tether. There was a distinct lack of other teachers knocking about, which made me wonder if there were actually any other classes going on. Given my experiences so far, I'd hazard a guess at "probably not".
It was agreed, between us, that we would finish. At which point the school's english teacher came in to tell us to finish.
After lunch, we were again left in separate classrooms. I got the 6th year, who, by virtue of them being the oldest, should be the best at English. It was like getting blood from a stone. They wouldn't do head, shoulders, knees and toes; they couldn't get a couple of games; and they usually just looked at each other blankly. One lad was quite handy though, and if it wasn't for him it probably would've been a lot of silence and staring. Sure enough, 90 minutes passed and there was no sign of any teacher to tell us to stop. I called a halt when other kids started drifting in from other classes. I was fairly sure it was home time; and if it wasn't I was going to make it home time.
The next day started like any other; up, shower, bananas, coffee. There was no hint of the car-crash of a class that was about to unfold.
After walking around the school again with plenty of "SHAKE HANDS!" and picking the kids up and holding them upside down whilst tickling them (one lad lost 10 baht...sorry kidda), we were again shown to separate classrooms and left to teach. I copped for the class that Adam had the day before. This would normally be fine with one hour lessons; but seeing as they had had the marathon lesson I was struggling to think of new subjects to teach them that were enjoyable and relevant (will they really need to give directions? will they ever find themselves shopping for furniture?).
I began with saying hello. Simple. I got those that didn't reply in the group to wave and say it individually. Then one lad got up, came over and asked to shake my hand. I obliged. Then another lad came. And another. Then some lasses. Soon enough the whole class was jostling, shoving and pushing to shake my hand. Kids were being thrown on their arses and elbows were being used. Realising things were getting a bit violent I got them all back to their seats and tried out some simple animals, accompanied with noises. This was quickly done. I moved on to describing people: short, tall, fat, thin; all with corresponding actions. Again, this went down well.
Now, I'm not sure at which exact point the lesson derailed. It may have been the third or fourth repetition of "SHAKE HANDS!"; it may have been the point at which I lifted one of the lads into the air to demonstrate 'tall'; but all I do know is that within what felt like a split second I had kids clambering up me like giddy macaque monkeys; two girls yanking my t-shirt trying to get me to sit down; this didn't placate those that wanted me standing so that they could sit on my shoulders; lads drawing cars, lorries, people and animals on the board (the lesson wasn't a total write-off then); kids hanging off my neck; tables and chairs being thrown about; and kids joining from other classes. In amongst all this, the english teacher showed his face, took some photos and left without a word. Thanks mate. Realising I needed a way of stopping the kids tearing the classroom (and me) apart from the inside I managed to corral them and be quiet(er). I then went to each corner of the room and drew animals on the wall in chalk. Next I cleared the desks and chairs to the sides of the room.
With the benefit of hindsight, trying to calm the kids down by getting them to run to animal I was making noises for, then getting them to mimic the noise, was not my most inspired moment. Quickly exhausting cat, dog, hen and pig, I added elephant and monkey. Ending the game just as they were reaching implosion levels, I made them sit down and copy pictures of the animals.
It didn't take long for the boys to start acting up again. Then the girls followed. The same two girls yanked at my shirt trying to make me sit down. Kids were climbing on the tables to try and jump on to my back. Some took to punching my bum, others kicked my shins (I'll be honest here, it was about now that I retaliated with a swift kick of my own). A lad from another class came in carrying a craft knife, to which a lass replied by brandishing two flick knives. I tried to take them off her but she wouldn't relent. Not wanting to force the situation I went to find the English teacher. He was sat with his feet up at a desk in another classroom whilst the kids copied from the board. He came a confiscated the knives and I got evil looks form the lass for the remainder of the day. I was quickly seeking out the English teacher again when one lad burst another lads nose with a peach of a punch.
At one point Adam came in, found me playing patty-cake with the two shirt-yanking lasses and walked off again, smiling. It was when I heard my shirt rip and received an accurate and swift fist to the penis that I thought I should end the lesson and seek respite in the kindergarten. By comparison the kindergarten was serene - all the kids were dozing and Pi Kuan was reading a book. There seemed to be a lot of sleeping done in that kindergarten. I did wonder if they doped them.
The afternoons lesson was unexpected but easy. We had been told that the School Director did not want us to teach in the afternoon due to the heat. I was expecting to go home and crack on with some stuff that needed doing. What transpired was that we were to stay "for one hour for some photos", as Pi Kuan described it. The one hour actually meant teaching a lesson whilst the teachers took photos of the two sweaty, frazzled farang try to get the 6th year to open their gobs.
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I thought there was no point it sitting there and not being available to read.
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Chiang Khan fades in to the distance. My last few days were spent teaching in a new school and trying to pack.
Pi Kuan had asked me and Adam to go to her school once we'd finished at St. John's. She 'teaches' kindergarten at a state primary school along the Mekhong from Chiang Khan. On the Monday morning (8th March) we arrived to many shouts of "farang! farang!". The younger kids were reluctant to enter the gates of the kindergarten, warily eyeing up the odd-looking white things standing in their playground. Some refused to enter; others would only come in as long as they were locked tightly around their parents necks. Once deposited they all took to hiding or standing stock-still just in case one of us made a grab for them.
Thinking I would give them a chance to play I went for a wander in to the school field. Immediately swarms of kids came for a look. The more confident lads took to asking to shake my hand, and upon doing so ran off laughing and waving their hand in the air like it had been given the lurgee. The girls would say hello then collapse into fits of giggles with their friends when I replied.
The plan, as was my understanding, was that we would teach 3 one-hour classes, each with a different class. After a baffling 'meeting'/silence with the School Director (Pi Kuan had basically ushered us on our way - not good when she had the best English in the school) we were shown to separate classrooms and left to teach. I got a combined 3rd/4th Year class. After two and a half hours, having nearly exhausted my entire repertoire of simple games, easy songs (head, shoulders, knees & toes went down a bomb) and basic subjects I popped my head round the corner in to Adam's class. He also seemed to be reaching the end of his teaching stock/tether. There was a distinct lack of other teachers knocking about, which made me wonder if there were actually any other classes going on. Given my experiences so far, I'd hazard a guess at "probably not".
It was agreed, between us, that we would finish. At which point the school's english teacher came in to tell us to finish.
After lunch, we were again left in separate classrooms. I got the 6th year, who, by virtue of them being the oldest, should be the best at English. It was like getting blood from a stone. They wouldn't do head, shoulders, knees and toes; they couldn't get a couple of games; and they usually just looked at each other blankly. One lad was quite handy though, and if it wasn't for him it probably would've been a lot of silence and staring. Sure enough, 90 minutes passed and there was no sign of any teacher to tell us to stop. I called a halt when other kids started drifting in from other classes. I was fairly sure it was home time; and if it wasn't I was going to make it home time.
The next day started like any other; up, shower, bananas, coffee. There was no hint of the car-crash of a class that was about to unfold.
After walking around the school again with plenty of "SHAKE HANDS!" and picking the kids up and holding them upside down whilst tickling them (one lad lost 10 baht...sorry kidda), we were again shown to separate classrooms and left to teach. I copped for the class that Adam had the day before. This would normally be fine with one hour lessons; but seeing as they had had the marathon lesson I was struggling to think of new subjects to teach them that were enjoyable and relevant (will they really need to give directions? will they ever find themselves shopping for furniture?).
I began with saying hello. Simple. I got those that didn't reply in the group to wave and say it individually. Then one lad got up, came over and asked to shake my hand. I obliged. Then another lad came. And another. Then some lasses. Soon enough the whole class was jostling, shoving and pushing to shake my hand. Kids were being thrown on their arses and elbows were being used. Realising things were getting a bit violent I got them all back to their seats and tried out some simple animals, accompanied with noises. This was quickly done. I moved on to describing people: short, tall, fat, thin; all with corresponding actions. Again, this went down well.
Now, I'm not sure at which exact point the lesson derailed. It may have been the third or fourth repetition of "SHAKE HANDS!"; it may have been the point at which I lifted one of the lads into the air to demonstrate 'tall'; but all I do know is that within what felt like a split second I had kids clambering up me like giddy macaque monkeys; two girls yanking my t-shirt trying to get me to sit down; this didn't placate those that wanted me standing so that they could sit on my shoulders; lads drawing cars, lorries, people and animals on the board (the lesson wasn't a total write-off then); kids hanging off my neck; tables and chairs being thrown about; and kids joining from other classes. In amongst all this, the english teacher showed his face, took some photos and left without a word. Thanks mate. Realising I needed a way of stopping the kids tearing the classroom (and me) apart from the inside I managed to corral them and be quiet(er). I then went to each corner of the room and drew animals on the wall in chalk. Next I cleared the desks and chairs to the sides of the room.
With the benefit of hindsight, trying to calm the kids down by getting them to run to animal I was making noises for, then getting them to mimic the noise, was not my most inspired moment. Quickly exhausting cat, dog, hen and pig, I added elephant and monkey. Ending the game just as they were reaching implosion levels, I made them sit down and copy pictures of the animals.
It didn't take long for the boys to start acting up again. Then the girls followed. The same two girls yanked at my shirt trying to make me sit down. Kids were climbing on the tables to try and jump on to my back. Some took to punching my bum, others kicked my shins (I'll be honest here, it was about now that I retaliated with a swift kick of my own). A lad from another class came in carrying a craft knife, to which a lass replied by brandishing two flick knives. I tried to take them off her but she wouldn't relent. Not wanting to force the situation I went to find the English teacher. He was sat with his feet up at a desk in another classroom whilst the kids copied from the board. He came a confiscated the knives and I got evil looks form the lass for the remainder of the day. I was quickly seeking out the English teacher again when one lad burst another lads nose with a peach of a punch.
At one point Adam came in, found me playing patty-cake with the two shirt-yanking lasses and walked off again, smiling. It was when I heard my shirt rip and received an accurate and swift fist to the penis that I thought I should end the lesson and seek respite in the kindergarten. By comparison the kindergarten was serene - all the kids were dozing and Pi Kuan was reading a book. There seemed to be a lot of sleeping done in that kindergarten. I did wonder if they doped them.
The afternoons lesson was unexpected but easy. We had been told that the School Director did not want us to teach in the afternoon due to the heat. I was expecting to go home and crack on with some stuff that needed doing. What transpired was that we were to stay "for one hour for some photos", as Pi Kuan described it. The one hour actually meant teaching a lesson whilst the teachers took photos of the two sweaty, frazzled farang try to get the 6th year to open their gobs.
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I thought there was no point it sitting there and not being available to read.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
And that’s it! I’m now done at St. John’s Tha Bom. Crumbs.
The last week and a half were devoid of any lessons, all cancelled for exams or leaving events for the third years, for the other years and for me, Adam, Bambi and Sister Vin. A lack of lessons meant that the days dragged and the school’s internet connection was abused.
Friday 24th February (just to give you a date reference to follow for the next few thousands words) was the last day for the third years. The whole day was devoted to them and to leaving ceremonies. The morning saw them receive certificates confirming that they had been to St. John’s and had managed not to fall asleep in too many lessons (boys) or actually worked hard and done very well (girls). The ceremony had been practiced in full the previous day, compete with applause, so it went without hitch on the Friday.
The afternoon was a replay of the “Ceremony of the Strings” that the supernuns experienced on their visit; unknown to me until about three minutes before, I was to be part of this. Bambi (Phillippina volunteer going back home), Sister Vin (off to Tanzania), Adam and me were all plonked down in front of the students. The strings were attached to an intricate banana leaf and candle origami-type…um…candle, which was sat in the middle. We were each asked to impart some words of wisdom to the students. I tried to keep it short and went along with something like “Stick with English, it’s worth it. My English got me here; yours can take you anywhere” and further cod-philosophy. Seemed to go down as well as it could without anyone understanding a word really. We were given a small gift and then Sister Sol came along, offered a prayer to the towering banana leaf/candle/string/wood health-and-safety nightmare and lit the candle at the top.
The teachers then queued, many on their knees, to tie bits of string around our wrists and offer us their blessings. Following on came the students. Then the ceremony opened up to include the third years, with the other students tying string around their wrists. It was all very nice. Probably best I can say really. I’m not one for big pompous goodbyes and don’t get overly emotional at them. The formality stifles the emotions; I was to get more emotional at the smaller, more personal events (more of which later). Furthermore, this wasn’t really goodbye yet, I was still going to be around the following week and I’m going to be back in April and May. Anyway, we were told that we couldn’t take the strings off for three days, or we’d break the blessings, or summat.
The afternoon petered out a little, and then the third years were again reconvened for final final goodbye in which all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted further words of wisdom to the third years (the rest of the students had been let out already). They were restless and keen to go, 10 weeks off school and all that tends not make for long attention spans at 3.30pm on a Friday. Then they were gone.
Friday evening saw all the teachers and staff attend the wedding celebrations of one of the teachers. We hopped in Kae’s pick up and zoomed off to a village. The wedding was to be a street party. They had blocked the road off and erected a stage and put loads of tables out. And karaoke. I have an aversion to karaoke. I’m acutely aware of my inability to hold a tune. I never set foot towards it, no matter how ratted I am. Luckily, for me, there is another farang present who is a little less reticent. Adam had cracked a tune (Creep – Radiohead) out at a school event a few weeks back and many of the teachers – well, Shelle - were keen for him to reprise his performance. We ate first and drank. The beers came. Then the whiskeys. Adam’s self confidence was bolstered and he succumbed to Shelle’s request for that wonderful wedding ditty ‘Creep’ by Radiohead. I encouraged him along with a hearty “GET OFF!” before he’d even drawn breath.
He did OK. He got supplied some lao khao by the locals and duly drank it. A short while later, and getting increasingly well oiled, he had a stab at an Aerosmith tune. He stabbed it fairly well. More lao khao. Then a bit more. Then a lull in proceedings as the bride and groom came on stage with a small entourage. The entourage proceeded to speak individually about the bride and groom, the usual wedding speech stuff as far as I could understand.
Then the karaoke was switched back on. What’s this? Someone’s climbing the steps. He doesn’t look local. Oh, it’s Adam. He’s swaying a touch look. He’s got a glass in his hand. Oh, and someone’s just handed him another. The bride and groom were still on stage at this point. Even through my own slightly beer-induced fug I spotted the excellent potential of a great deal of schadenfreude to be enjoyed imminently. I sat back.
Adam later recalled that he had been badgered all night to sing ‘Winds of Change’ by Scorpion. Clearly the greatest compliment (and complement) to the smiling, happy couple on stage was a rendition of Winds of Change by a battered farang. Bless him. And bless them, as they stood there mugging a grin through one of the most ear-wrenching performances of ‘singing’ I’d heard in some time. Even I winced with slight embarrassment (albeit through my laughter). The teachers were saying to me “why doesn’t he stop?” which I gladly relayed in shouts of ‘encouragement’.
In all fairness, the crowd loved it. This is what they do all the time. They get drunk, they sing. Nearly every house I have been in since being here has a karaoke machine and microphone. It is nothing unusual. Thai’s LOVE getting up and singing and don’t care two hoots if you’re shit or not.
Adam didn’t quite see it this way the next morning. I have never seen such self-flagellation; he adamant that he would be apologising to the bride as soon as humanly possible; that he had caused some terrible diplomatic chasm to open up between the UK and Thailand; that he was a VERY BAD PERSON (wade through his blog here and here for a taste of it). I tried to placate him with the fact that no-one will have even batted an eyelid; no-one will give a damn. He wouldn’t have it. The rest of the weekend was, in essence, one long period of regret for him. Sure enough, come Monday morning, none of the teachers really mentioned it (I had to egg them along a little even *insert evil laughter*). Sure enough, he apologised.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Saturday was to be a day and night out in Loei. Adam hadn’t had one yet and I wanted one to say goodbye to the place. We booked in the hotel early and joined Shelle for a trip to her Uni. She’s having to study for a English teaching certificate so every Saturday and Sunday she comes through to Loei to got to Uni for 7 hours a day. We popped in to see her classmates and say hello and took part in an exercise where we had to form sentences including stuff like “not only….but also….”. We rattled off the exercise inside 10 minutes and then allowed Shelle to copy it. In the end she didn’t copy it, she simply wrote her name on the top of the paper and passed it off as her own. The cheeky scamp. Then her and Gene had to head back home as their kid, Matthew, had come down with a fever.
Saturday night came and went really. We went for a pizza, and I think being stuffed with that added with the previous nights booze knocked the edge of my enthusiasm for the evening. We had a wander around; took in a couple of bars. We had been warned about one bar – Robot 2029 – which contained ‘coyotes’. ‘Coyotes’ are essentially bargirls who join you for drinks at an inflated price, and that we should rebuff the advances of any lasses in bikinis. We needn’t have worried, as we weren’t at all troubled by them. I thought this to be a touch weird as usually as farang you are pounced upon the moment you walk through the door of such places. Some inquiries back in Chiang Khan the next day provided the answer why. The ceremony of the strings is also used at weddings apparently. It’s the bride and groom that benefit from them. So, essentially, we’d been walking around advertising ourselves as a married couple. Great. Adam – somewhat disconcertingly – was quite happy about this. “That’s why we weren’t bothered by the coyotes!” he said triumphantly. I didn’t quite understand why a single lad in Thailand who has stated his heterosexuality several times would be so very happy to have AVOIDED the attentions of attractive ladies. I didn’t press him on the matter.
Back to the night anyway. Pi Kuan’s son was playing in a band in one of the other bars, and when they left there he asked us along to the next place, where they would be playing again. They sing Thai stuff but I reckon it’s very close to some ska tunes; I considered trying to tell them to look up The Specials but then none of them spoke English. We wandered off to the next bar, it was the place that Golf had taken me to on my first weekend out in Loei way back in November. I was not feeling much for the place this time and decided to go back to the hotel. I slipped out, leaving Adam with some of Shelle’s classmates we had bumped in to.
Sunday came along and I pottered around Loei for a while. I met up with a teacher that I had met at the provincial sports day and she took me for lunch. She is batty. She’s about 50 and after supplying her my number & email at the sports day (she said she knew of some paid work) she rang me about 30 times and emailed in abundance during the following week. Then again the following week. I neglected to answer or reply as, frankly, she was scaring me a touch. But there was this nagging voice in the back of my head.
I had come to Thailand promising myself to say yes to everything (within reason…). We had bumped in to each other at the teachers sports day too (there are only so many places to hide in a big, empty box), where I let slip I’d be in Loei for a weekend. Sure enough the calls peaked again in the lead up and I thought “sod it, I’m intrigued”. I’d either end up in a shallow grave or have something at least a little worth while to talk about on the blog. We went for lunch at a Vietnemese place where Shelle & Gene had taken us to the previous day; and she ordered the exact same platters. I had to feign revelations at Vietnamese foodstuffs. Her English is sketchy so there was a lot of silence and me trying to work out when best to leave. We went for ice cream. I said I could do with a haircut. “You need haircut? You want haircut? I take you!” came her worryingly enthusiastic response. “Er…yes?”. She took me off and took me to a barbers where I got a cut of sorts. Then we went for a coffee where I told her I had to go back to Chiang Khan at 3pm – a look shot across her face that made it look like the shallow grave option was the winner. “Oh…[long pause]…I though you stay me tonight?”. I swear I could hear sirens going off somewhere. “Er…no…I said we’d meet for lunch”. “OK. Next time?”. Alan Partridge pops in my head (he’s prone to that) “No chance you big mentalist” I nearly said after giving a quick glance to her bag to check for any knife-shaped bulges in it. “Sorry, I have to go back to Chiang Khan”. Our time was ended abruptly as she scootered me round the bus station and then, without much word, left. Close shave there lad, I thought to myself.
I found myself heading back to Chiang Khan with an unexpected, but not wholly unneeded, haircut, another memory and a can of Leo beer. As we were leaving Chiang Khan outskirts one of the St. John’s third years jumped on the bus. It was Luktan (I think), the lass who on my very first day turned round to me and said, with a smashing smile, “Don’t be shy!” when I was stood in front of the whole school about to dance to some tune about Doraemon. It was a piece of advice I held throughout my time there. She didn’t clock me at first but then when the bus thinned out a bit she came over. “Hi Teacher! I sorry you leave! Please come back Tha Bom and visit us. You make laughs!”. If you were on that bus you may have seen a farang lad with a dodgy haircut get something in his eye. A tear it was. She turned back to a friend and chatted a bit more. I heard a couple more “Teacher Dave’s” in their conversation. When she got off she gave a cheery wave, another huge smile and a “Goodbye! Good luck!”. As the bus pulled away I watched her walk along the road and then duck off. I wondered what she’ll get up to in the future.
Sunday evening saw us head to the village of Ban Na Bon and the site of Kae’s new house. Her and her husband Pi Ti are building a new place up on a hillside just outside the village. It is tradition to have monks come to bless the foundations and then have a little party. We got picked up; then we drove to a temple. I looked behind me and three monks were clambering in to the back of the pick up and the head monk – a small elderly chap – sat in the front and placed a little Buddha on the dash board. We got to the site (fantastic views out across the farms below, and to mountains in the distance) and the monks started their chanting. It was quite hypnotic in a way. This went on for 15-20 minutes then they all stood up and started to walk around the foundations hammering things in to them and lowering small candles into the holes. They came back and chanted again and then departed. The whiskey came out and the food too. About 15 of us sat on the hillside, watching the sun go down and a big fire burn on a mountain in the distance. Whiskey was had and food plentiful. It was very pleasant indeed.
Monday and Tuesday floated past. As we were leaving here on Wednesday for good, I hammered the internet, researching places in Cambodia, Vietnam and Cambodia. There was to be a do for the teachers on Wednesday, to say goodbye to me and Adam. Wednesday was also the last day for the rest of the students.
Another leaving ceremony was had in the afternoon; again all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted words of great wisdom. Bambi took it as an opportunity to say goodbye, as did Adam. Again, it being late in the day, I kept it short “Hello! Goodbye!” then passed the mic whilst the kids groaned. And they were then released. I was gearing up for the farewell do when I was told that actually, I’d be back in tomorrow as Adam and I had been volunteered to go around the local primary schools telling them how great St. John’s is and all the Grade 6 kids should go there next school year. I felt a little uneasy being used as a marketing tool. Perhaps not wholly within the ethics of volunteering I think. Particularly as I won’t even be there next year.
So Wednesday’s farewell do wasn’t to be the final goodbye. That would be reserved for Thursday. Which kind of made me hold back a little on the drink. Karaoke came out, again, as everyone ate and drank. I broke my rule after much ribbing from the teachers and assaulted them with Hey Jude. It was all done and dusted by 6pm; however as everyone departed, the younger female teachers looked a little glum – like they were expecting the party to go on. Kae was fairly keen to take us home. We dropped one teacher off and through stilted conversation managed to work out that Kru Pung, Kru Num and Kru Oy (the glum ones) were actually off out in Loei that evening. I was decided. I got Kae to ring them and they offered to come and pick us up. Adam umm-ed and arr-ed “I think it would be sensible to go home and sleep” he said; “I didn’t come to Thailand to be sensible” was my retort. This swayed him and within the hour we were heading to Loei. The lasses took us to a restaurant for more food. It had a live band on and we got a couple of songs dedicated to us.
It was when I was returning from a trip to the khazee that I noticed one of the waitresses take a long look at me. I didn’t think much of it, other than to conclude that actually she wasn’t a waitress; more accurately she was a waiter-ess, if you catch my drift. S/he flitted around behind our table. Sitting behind us and making sure s/he caught my eye every time I took a look around at other diners or the band or over the shoulder of Num in to the kitchen. S/he fluttered his/her eyelashes at me; preened his/her hair. I was reminded a little bit of a Fraggle. Then s/he pounced – came straight up to the table and asked my name, shook my hand (incredibly soft skin I thought) and laughed and smiled and plonked herself more-or-less on my lap. Well I wasn’t really expecting this. She (I’ll give up with the s/he – it’s both awkward to type and I think you get the bloody idea now) asked for a photo; I obliged without much say in the matter. Then she tottered off to see to her table. Now every time she was passing she was winking and waving. Cripes. We finished up and made our way out. She sprinted the length of the restaurant and embraced me and buried her head in to me. Yikes. “She likes you” said Num. No shit. “I go Robot tomorrow – you come?” she asked. “No can do love”. She then puckered up and planted a kiss on my cheek. Zounds (I’m running out of outdated exclamations now). I extricated myself from her clutches and climbed into Pung’s pick up. “Drive. Drive quickly” is all I said.
We drove on to Robot 2029 again and took up position with a bottle of whiskey. Pung was guzzling it just as much as anyone. The cabaret fired-up: lots of cover versions of pop songs; dancers; comedy and then DJing. Oh, and semi-naked lasses gyrating on poles. And then for the gays, some beefy looking chaps. We called it a night at about 12.30am. Pung, having drunk as much as me and easily being half my size, drove us home with only one wild veer across the carriageway.
Thursday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. We waited to go off marketing. Waited. Then waited some more. About lunch time it became clear we wouldn’t be going anywhere. “We go tomorrow” said Gene.
Friday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. And then we went! It wasn’t so much a big goodbye. I didn’t really get to say it in the end. Just walked off to the School’s pick up that was to take us to the other schools. Understated but probably for the best.
There were 13 schools on the list to visit. St. John’s catchment area stretches across about 100 miles. This was meant to take one morning. I wasn’t surprised to be dropped off in Chiang Khan at 4pm. It’s heartening, in a way, to see the usual disorganization right up until the very end. I enjoyed the trip though. I actually enjoy getting up in front of people and thinking on my feet. We had no prepared speeches. Gene, Shelle, Adam and me were the marketing team – I suggested we mount a shock and awe campaign and by the end we had the kids rolling in laughter. I went off down the path of bombastic enthusiasm for English – “At St. John’s we LOVE English! We love English because we think you can do ANYTHING YOU EVER WANT with ENGLISH! TRAVEL THE WORLD! Get the BEST JOBS! Follow the FOOTBALL!” and so on. About three schools in Shelle suggested I should stand for President. Many of the schools were out in the sticks (even moreso than Tha Bom), so many cries of “FARANG! FARANG!” could be heard from the kids. We brought a number of schools to a standstill. It was a great end to my official duties with St. John’s. Another bunch of memories for Alzheimer’s to whittle away many years in the future.
That will do for now. It’s my final few days in Chiang Khan. I leave on March 11th for Bangkok and adventures beyond. Between now and then, I’m going to Pi Kuan’s school on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is Kae’s birthday (and the reason I’m not leaving on the 10th). There’ll probably one more update before I leave. Stay tuned. Or don’t.
The last week and a half were devoid of any lessons, all cancelled for exams or leaving events for the third years, for the other years and for me, Adam, Bambi and Sister Vin. A lack of lessons meant that the days dragged and the school’s internet connection was abused.
Friday 24th February (just to give you a date reference to follow for the next few thousands words) was the last day for the third years. The whole day was devoted to them and to leaving ceremonies. The morning saw them receive certificates confirming that they had been to St. John’s and had managed not to fall asleep in too many lessons (boys) or actually worked hard and done very well (girls). The ceremony had been practiced in full the previous day, compete with applause, so it went without hitch on the Friday.
The afternoon was a replay of the “Ceremony of the Strings” that the supernuns experienced on their visit; unknown to me until about three minutes before, I was to be part of this. Bambi (Phillippina volunteer going back home), Sister Vin (off to Tanzania), Adam and me were all plonked down in front of the students. The strings were attached to an intricate banana leaf and candle origami-type…um…candle, which was sat in the middle. We were each asked to impart some words of wisdom to the students. I tried to keep it short and went along with something like “Stick with English, it’s worth it. My English got me here; yours can take you anywhere” and further cod-philosophy. Seemed to go down as well as it could without anyone understanding a word really. We were given a small gift and then Sister Sol came along, offered a prayer to the towering banana leaf/candle/string/wood health-and-safety nightmare and lit the candle at the top.
The teachers then queued, many on their knees, to tie bits of string around our wrists and offer us their blessings. Following on came the students. Then the ceremony opened up to include the third years, with the other students tying string around their wrists. It was all very nice. Probably best I can say really. I’m not one for big pompous goodbyes and don’t get overly emotional at them. The formality stifles the emotions; I was to get more emotional at the smaller, more personal events (more of which later). Furthermore, this wasn’t really goodbye yet, I was still going to be around the following week and I’m going to be back in April and May. Anyway, we were told that we couldn’t take the strings off for three days, or we’d break the blessings, or summat.
The afternoon petered out a little, and then the third years were again reconvened for final final goodbye in which all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted further words of wisdom to the third years (the rest of the students had been let out already). They were restless and keen to go, 10 weeks off school and all that tends not make for long attention spans at 3.30pm on a Friday. Then they were gone.
Friday evening saw all the teachers and staff attend the wedding celebrations of one of the teachers. We hopped in Kae’s pick up and zoomed off to a village. The wedding was to be a street party. They had blocked the road off and erected a stage and put loads of tables out. And karaoke. I have an aversion to karaoke. I’m acutely aware of my inability to hold a tune. I never set foot towards it, no matter how ratted I am. Luckily, for me, there is another farang present who is a little less reticent. Adam had cracked a tune (Creep – Radiohead) out at a school event a few weeks back and many of the teachers – well, Shelle - were keen for him to reprise his performance. We ate first and drank. The beers came. Then the whiskeys. Adam’s self confidence was bolstered and he succumbed to Shelle’s request for that wonderful wedding ditty ‘Creep’ by Radiohead. I encouraged him along with a hearty “GET OFF!” before he’d even drawn breath.
He did OK. He got supplied some lao khao by the locals and duly drank it. A short while later, and getting increasingly well oiled, he had a stab at an Aerosmith tune. He stabbed it fairly well. More lao khao. Then a bit more. Then a lull in proceedings as the bride and groom came on stage with a small entourage. The entourage proceeded to speak individually about the bride and groom, the usual wedding speech stuff as far as I could understand.
Then the karaoke was switched back on. What’s this? Someone’s climbing the steps. He doesn’t look local. Oh, it’s Adam. He’s swaying a touch look. He’s got a glass in his hand. Oh, and someone’s just handed him another. The bride and groom were still on stage at this point. Even through my own slightly beer-induced fug I spotted the excellent potential of a great deal of schadenfreude to be enjoyed imminently. I sat back.
Adam later recalled that he had been badgered all night to sing ‘Winds of Change’ by Scorpion. Clearly the greatest compliment (and complement) to the smiling, happy couple on stage was a rendition of Winds of Change by a battered farang. Bless him. And bless them, as they stood there mugging a grin through one of the most ear-wrenching performances of ‘singing’ I’d heard in some time. Even I winced with slight embarrassment (albeit through my laughter). The teachers were saying to me “why doesn’t he stop?” which I gladly relayed in shouts of ‘encouragement’.
In all fairness, the crowd loved it. This is what they do all the time. They get drunk, they sing. Nearly every house I have been in since being here has a karaoke machine and microphone. It is nothing unusual. Thai’s LOVE getting up and singing and don’t care two hoots if you’re shit or not.
Adam didn’t quite see it this way the next morning. I have never seen such self-flagellation; he adamant that he would be apologising to the bride as soon as humanly possible; that he had caused some terrible diplomatic chasm to open up between the UK and Thailand; that he was a VERY BAD PERSON (wade through his blog here and here for a taste of it). I tried to placate him with the fact that no-one will have even batted an eyelid; no-one will give a damn. He wouldn’t have it. The rest of the weekend was, in essence, one long period of regret for him. Sure enough, come Monday morning, none of the teachers really mentioned it (I had to egg them along a little even *insert evil laughter*). Sure enough, he apologised.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Saturday was to be a day and night out in Loei. Adam hadn’t had one yet and I wanted one to say goodbye to the place. We booked in the hotel early and joined Shelle for a trip to her Uni. She’s having to study for a English teaching certificate so every Saturday and Sunday she comes through to Loei to got to Uni for 7 hours a day. We popped in to see her classmates and say hello and took part in an exercise where we had to form sentences including stuff like “not only….but also….”. We rattled off the exercise inside 10 minutes and then allowed Shelle to copy it. In the end she didn’t copy it, she simply wrote her name on the top of the paper and passed it off as her own. The cheeky scamp. Then her and Gene had to head back home as their kid, Matthew, had come down with a fever.
Saturday night came and went really. We went for a pizza, and I think being stuffed with that added with the previous nights booze knocked the edge of my enthusiasm for the evening. We had a wander around; took in a couple of bars. We had been warned about one bar – Robot 2029 – which contained ‘coyotes’. ‘Coyotes’ are essentially bargirls who join you for drinks at an inflated price, and that we should rebuff the advances of any lasses in bikinis. We needn’t have worried, as we weren’t at all troubled by them. I thought this to be a touch weird as usually as farang you are pounced upon the moment you walk through the door of such places. Some inquiries back in Chiang Khan the next day provided the answer why. The ceremony of the strings is also used at weddings apparently. It’s the bride and groom that benefit from them. So, essentially, we’d been walking around advertising ourselves as a married couple. Great. Adam – somewhat disconcertingly – was quite happy about this. “That’s why we weren’t bothered by the coyotes!” he said triumphantly. I didn’t quite understand why a single lad in Thailand who has stated his heterosexuality several times would be so very happy to have AVOIDED the attentions of attractive ladies. I didn’t press him on the matter.
Back to the night anyway. Pi Kuan’s son was playing in a band in one of the other bars, and when they left there he asked us along to the next place, where they would be playing again. They sing Thai stuff but I reckon it’s very close to some ska tunes; I considered trying to tell them to look up The Specials but then none of them spoke English. We wandered off to the next bar, it was the place that Golf had taken me to on my first weekend out in Loei way back in November. I was not feeling much for the place this time and decided to go back to the hotel. I slipped out, leaving Adam with some of Shelle’s classmates we had bumped in to.
Sunday came along and I pottered around Loei for a while. I met up with a teacher that I had met at the provincial sports day and she took me for lunch. She is batty. She’s about 50 and after supplying her my number & email at the sports day (she said she knew of some paid work) she rang me about 30 times and emailed in abundance during the following week. Then again the following week. I neglected to answer or reply as, frankly, she was scaring me a touch. But there was this nagging voice in the back of my head.
I had come to Thailand promising myself to say yes to everything (within reason…). We had bumped in to each other at the teachers sports day too (there are only so many places to hide in a big, empty box), where I let slip I’d be in Loei for a weekend. Sure enough the calls peaked again in the lead up and I thought “sod it, I’m intrigued”. I’d either end up in a shallow grave or have something at least a little worth while to talk about on the blog. We went for lunch at a Vietnemese place where Shelle & Gene had taken us to the previous day; and she ordered the exact same platters. I had to feign revelations at Vietnamese foodstuffs. Her English is sketchy so there was a lot of silence and me trying to work out when best to leave. We went for ice cream. I said I could do with a haircut. “You need haircut? You want haircut? I take you!” came her worryingly enthusiastic response. “Er…yes?”. She took me off and took me to a barbers where I got a cut of sorts. Then we went for a coffee where I told her I had to go back to Chiang Khan at 3pm – a look shot across her face that made it look like the shallow grave option was the winner. “Oh…[long pause]…I though you stay me tonight?”. I swear I could hear sirens going off somewhere. “Er…no…I said we’d meet for lunch”. “OK. Next time?”. Alan Partridge pops in my head (he’s prone to that) “No chance you big mentalist” I nearly said after giving a quick glance to her bag to check for any knife-shaped bulges in it. “Sorry, I have to go back to Chiang Khan”. Our time was ended abruptly as she scootered me round the bus station and then, without much word, left. Close shave there lad, I thought to myself.
I found myself heading back to Chiang Khan with an unexpected, but not wholly unneeded, haircut, another memory and a can of Leo beer. As we were leaving Chiang Khan outskirts one of the St. John’s third years jumped on the bus. It was Luktan (I think), the lass who on my very first day turned round to me and said, with a smashing smile, “Don’t be shy!” when I was stood in front of the whole school about to dance to some tune about Doraemon. It was a piece of advice I held throughout my time there. She didn’t clock me at first but then when the bus thinned out a bit she came over. “Hi Teacher! I sorry you leave! Please come back Tha Bom and visit us. You make laughs!”. If you were on that bus you may have seen a farang lad with a dodgy haircut get something in his eye. A tear it was. She turned back to a friend and chatted a bit more. I heard a couple more “Teacher Dave’s” in their conversation. When she got off she gave a cheery wave, another huge smile and a “Goodbye! Good luck!”. As the bus pulled away I watched her walk along the road and then duck off. I wondered what she’ll get up to in the future.
Sunday evening saw us head to the village of Ban Na Bon and the site of Kae’s new house. Her and her husband Pi Ti are building a new place up on a hillside just outside the village. It is tradition to have monks come to bless the foundations and then have a little party. We got picked up; then we drove to a temple. I looked behind me and three monks were clambering in to the back of the pick up and the head monk – a small elderly chap – sat in the front and placed a little Buddha on the dash board. We got to the site (fantastic views out across the farms below, and to mountains in the distance) and the monks started their chanting. It was quite hypnotic in a way. This went on for 15-20 minutes then they all stood up and started to walk around the foundations hammering things in to them and lowering small candles into the holes. They came back and chanted again and then departed. The whiskey came out and the food too. About 15 of us sat on the hillside, watching the sun go down and a big fire burn on a mountain in the distance. Whiskey was had and food plentiful. It was very pleasant indeed.
Monday and Tuesday floated past. As we were leaving here on Wednesday for good, I hammered the internet, researching places in Cambodia, Vietnam and Cambodia. There was to be a do for the teachers on Wednesday, to say goodbye to me and Adam. Wednesday was also the last day for the rest of the students.
Another leaving ceremony was had in the afternoon; again all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted words of great wisdom. Bambi took it as an opportunity to say goodbye, as did Adam. Again, it being late in the day, I kept it short “Hello! Goodbye!” then passed the mic whilst the kids groaned. And they were then released. I was gearing up for the farewell do when I was told that actually, I’d be back in tomorrow as Adam and I had been volunteered to go around the local primary schools telling them how great St. John’s is and all the Grade 6 kids should go there next school year. I felt a little uneasy being used as a marketing tool. Perhaps not wholly within the ethics of volunteering I think. Particularly as I won’t even be there next year.
So Wednesday’s farewell do wasn’t to be the final goodbye. That would be reserved for Thursday. Which kind of made me hold back a little on the drink. Karaoke came out, again, as everyone ate and drank. I broke my rule after much ribbing from the teachers and assaulted them with Hey Jude. It was all done and dusted by 6pm; however as everyone departed, the younger female teachers looked a little glum – like they were expecting the party to go on. Kae was fairly keen to take us home. We dropped one teacher off and through stilted conversation managed to work out that Kru Pung, Kru Num and Kru Oy (the glum ones) were actually off out in Loei that evening. I was decided. I got Kae to ring them and they offered to come and pick us up. Adam umm-ed and arr-ed “I think it would be sensible to go home and sleep” he said; “I didn’t come to Thailand to be sensible” was my retort. This swayed him and within the hour we were heading to Loei. The lasses took us to a restaurant for more food. It had a live band on and we got a couple of songs dedicated to us.
It was when I was returning from a trip to the khazee that I noticed one of the waitresses take a long look at me. I didn’t think much of it, other than to conclude that actually she wasn’t a waitress; more accurately she was a waiter-ess, if you catch my drift. S/he flitted around behind our table. Sitting behind us and making sure s/he caught my eye every time I took a look around at other diners or the band or over the shoulder of Num in to the kitchen. S/he fluttered his/her eyelashes at me; preened his/her hair. I was reminded a little bit of a Fraggle. Then s/he pounced – came straight up to the table and asked my name, shook my hand (incredibly soft skin I thought) and laughed and smiled and plonked herself more-or-less on my lap. Well I wasn’t really expecting this. She (I’ll give up with the s/he – it’s both awkward to type and I think you get the bloody idea now) asked for a photo; I obliged without much say in the matter. Then she tottered off to see to her table. Now every time she was passing she was winking and waving. Cripes. We finished up and made our way out. She sprinted the length of the restaurant and embraced me and buried her head in to me. Yikes. “She likes you” said Num. No shit. “I go Robot tomorrow – you come?” she asked. “No can do love”. She then puckered up and planted a kiss on my cheek. Zounds (I’m running out of outdated exclamations now). I extricated myself from her clutches and climbed into Pung’s pick up. “Drive. Drive quickly” is all I said.
We drove on to Robot 2029 again and took up position with a bottle of whiskey. Pung was guzzling it just as much as anyone. The cabaret fired-up: lots of cover versions of pop songs; dancers; comedy and then DJing. Oh, and semi-naked lasses gyrating on poles. And then for the gays, some beefy looking chaps. We called it a night at about 12.30am. Pung, having drunk as much as me and easily being half my size, drove us home with only one wild veer across the carriageway.
Thursday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. We waited to go off marketing. Waited. Then waited some more. About lunch time it became clear we wouldn’t be going anywhere. “We go tomorrow” said Gene.
Friday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. And then we went! It wasn’t so much a big goodbye. I didn’t really get to say it in the end. Just walked off to the School’s pick up that was to take us to the other schools. Understated but probably for the best.
There were 13 schools on the list to visit. St. John’s catchment area stretches across about 100 miles. This was meant to take one morning. I wasn’t surprised to be dropped off in Chiang Khan at 4pm. It’s heartening, in a way, to see the usual disorganization right up until the very end. I enjoyed the trip though. I actually enjoy getting up in front of people and thinking on my feet. We had no prepared speeches. Gene, Shelle, Adam and me were the marketing team – I suggested we mount a shock and awe campaign and by the end we had the kids rolling in laughter. I went off down the path of bombastic enthusiasm for English – “At St. John’s we LOVE English! We love English because we think you can do ANYTHING YOU EVER WANT with ENGLISH! TRAVEL THE WORLD! Get the BEST JOBS! Follow the FOOTBALL!” and so on. About three schools in Shelle suggested I should stand for President. Many of the schools were out in the sticks (even moreso than Tha Bom), so many cries of “FARANG! FARANG!” could be heard from the kids. We brought a number of schools to a standstill. It was a great end to my official duties with St. John’s. Another bunch of memories for Alzheimer’s to whittle away many years in the future.
That will do for now. It’s my final few days in Chiang Khan. I leave on March 11th for Bangkok and adventures beyond. Between now and then, I’m going to Pi Kuan’s school on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is Kae’s birthday (and the reason I’m not leaving on the 10th). There’ll probably one more update before I leave. Stay tuned. Or don’t.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
The End Is Nigh
Or an alternative title: Shitty Fingers, Thailand’s Number One Man, Proper Grub, and FIIIIIIGHT!
School is winding down towards the end of term. The kids are restless and deep in exams. The third year, the poor blighters, have another set of exams following their national exams. These current exams are set by the school and are seemingly pointless. The third years can choose to leave for another school after this school year; many have already secured their places in their chosen schools and a mighty 14 have applied to stay at St. John’s. That’s 14 from 72. I’m told the poor take up is due to St. John’s ‘majoring’ in English, which is evidently unpopular. So their exams now seem to be for the sheer hell of sending them off with fond memories of their time at St. John’s.
Last week there was a small leaving ceremony for the 3rd years, or rather, a ceremony of atonement. It culminated in them writing down on a slip of paper all those students and teachers they want to apologise to, or the names of people they feel have wronged them in some way. These pieces of paper were then ripped up and placed in a jar in front of a small figure of Mother Mary. In its way it was quite touching. All the teachers were then invited in to the room and asked to sit in the centre of the third years (whilst the rest of the school got torn to bits by unsupervised kids) and the kids worked their way around each of us, saying thank you, saying sorry, saying goodbye. Naturally, a room 50% full of 15 year girls quickly found itself suffering a deluge of tears, and I also very nearly succumbed. Nearly. There were some in there that I have got to know well; girls who shared their som tam with me; lads who asked me to play football and takraw; the class scamps that usually felt the sharp end of a flying bit of chalk; the lasses who were actually good at English. I say now that I’ll remember most of them, but I’m sure over the course of time those faces will fade, and only those that made a real impact will still glimmer. So thanks Pop and Toon for taking me to the waterfall (and the rest of their gang); thanks Oil (?!), Toey and Gus for being bloody good at English and feeding me lava-like som tam; thanks Kyu and Tek for being actually very funny in class. Thanks to all of you. Not that you’ll ever see this on here. And if you did you probably wouldn’t understand it. Sorry to the rest for never learning your names. You didn’t make it easy though by all looking the same with your brown skin and black hair…
OK, less of the soppy shite, more of DRUNKEN ANTICS! More of WEIRD FOOD! More of WIPING MY OWN SHITTY ARSE WITH MY OWN FINGERS!
Let’s get the latter out of the way first. Come on, it has been a while since I talked toilet habits – largely because they’ve settled down – but you know you’ve missed it really. You also now already know the punchline. I had asked Tony more or less on my first day to clear something up for me; something that would I was absolutely sure prove to be a useful piece of knowledge. The lack of shit tickets, bog roll, call it what you will, in Thai bogs had been bothering me. I was aware that the water jet besides most toilets was there for a purpose and put two and two together. I think my exact words to Tony were “Let’s get this straight, if there’s no bog roll I have to squirt the shit away and then use my own bare hands to cleave away any stubborn shit from my own arse, yes?”. “Yes”. Luckily for the first three and a half months of my stay I have never had to resort to this. All this changed last week; the house was all out of Andrex and I was in dire need of waving Mr. Brown and his friends off to the coast. I sat down and thought of England. Time came. I squirted. It felt alright actually. I had a delicate fumble with my fingers and did the deed. Job done. Proud, in a way. It was about three steps out of the bathroom that it didn’t quite feel ‘right’ in the way bog roll does. I had visions of Olympic skidmarks. These didn’t materialise.
Now fast-forward a couple of nights. We’ve been on the whiskey and had a good feed, but all day my bowels have been working against me. It’s late. We’re in a bar that Kae’s husband Pi Ti has taken us to. A traditional Thai bar. With a traditional Thai shitter. Traditional Thai shitters don’t even have the water jet. They have a tub of water to one side with a scoop in it, that you use to sling water in the general direction of your shit-smeared arsehole. Not good. Realising that we wouldn’t be leaving any time soon for the comfort of the house bog, I trotted off, dropped me keks, squatted and pebble-dashed the ceramic. Then came the fun part. Have you ever tried to throw water at your bum accurately, whilst trying to keep your shorts and boxers dry, and also scrape excrement from tha’s bum? No? Neither had I. So I stumbled out looking like I’d fallen in the bastard water tub; piss wet through from the waist down and waddling like I was carrying a load in my boxers rather than just having made a deposit at ‘Rhoids Bank (big in Japan I hear…).
A touch miffed at my abject failure I then spotted napkins. Napkins on every single table. I watched. I had an idea. My idea was proven right. Everyone else that headed to the bog (all of whom also happened to be Thai) took a good wad of napkins. The little bastards had never told me that trick. So now I tell ALL OF YOU so in future you know. Make a mental note. Do it.
That’s shit out of the way. What next? Hmmm…WEIRD FOOD? Ok, this is a quickie. We’d sat down for tea one night with Pi Kuan and her sister Pen. The usual fine spread was put out before us, and then a dish was handed to Pi Kuan. “One season” she says. “Huh?”. “This food is only available for one season” she says. “Oh right. What is it?”. “Caterpillar”. “Caterpillar?”. “Yes! Caterpillar without hair”. “…”. “Caterpillar from the ground”. “Back up a minute their love…without hair?”. “Yes. They become insects!”. Cue glances between me and Adam. “You mean grubs?”. “Yes. Grubs. Caterpillars without hair, from ground, become insects. Want to try?”. “Yes? I do?”. In for a penny and all that. I fished one out, asking specifically for a “juicy one please”. They had been bashed about a bit in the cooking, but yup, there was the fairly unmistakable body of a grub. Pale and bald (bit like Gollum). And now I’m putting it in my mouth. And now I’m tasting it. It’s tasting a lot of soil and phlegm. Not wholly unpleasant but I can’t see Odeon stocking them any time soon. I passed on further grubs.
Last Friday I got a taste for booze. After getting back from school I took a wander out to town to pick up a new toothbrush and some more mozzie ‘repellant’ (I may as well throw water at my legs and hope they don’t like damp). On the way back I fancied an ice cold beer, so I got a small can of Leo. I headed to the market, which was on the way home. I’d finished that beer by the time I got to the market, so picked another small can up. Between the market and home I had bumped in to Adam and also picked a third small can up.
Pi Nu and Pi Tai had a friend up from southern Thailand; I had anticipated a heavy session and I was not disappointed. We cracked on with a bottle of whiskey, ate, and cracked on with a second bottle whiskey. Now quite merry Pi Nu, Pi Tai, Chai (their mate), Adam and me found ourselves wandering towards the karaoke bar. Previously we had been in when drunk and I was given Hotel California to sing, because it was the only English language sing they had. It came on again. I didn’t sing, again. But I did drink. Another bottle of whiskey came along and was sunk. It was only heading up to about 11.15pm and the others were looking at heading home. I didn’t fancy it and I knew there was another bar open further up the road. I managed to get Adam to come along too and we went for a wander. A couple of wonky-faced hostesses came and tended to our drinks and we tried to make conversation with them but it wasn’t easy – we didn’t have much Thai, they didn’t have much English, nor for that matter Thai as they had come from Laos to work. The place was empty too, so we did one and stumbled back towards the house.
Very much drunk at this point, we made it through the gate only to find the house doors locked. Oh shit. I rang Pi Nu but no answer. I rang Pi Tai but no answer. As any drunk will testify, anything can look comfortable when under the influence. I was influenced enough just to lay down on the porch, close my eyes and sleep. I woke up in my bed. I have no recollection of getting in to the house. Indeed I didn’t have any recollection of going to sleep on the porch until Adam relayed it to me the next day. It turns out that one of Pi Nu’s police colleagues had driven past and seen me prone on the porch. He had then radioed Pi Nu on his police radio (Pi Nu as Police Chief has it on, always) to tell him of a particularly lethargic intruder on his doorstep. Pi Nu had knocked up one of Pi Kuan’s sons who was back from Uni for the weekend and had told him to fetch/drag me in. In the mean time, Adam had found a way in to the shed outside and was kipping there, missing the chance to get in the house.
I woke up feeling rough as fuck at 8.30am. I shat and went back to sleep, eventually resurfacing at 12.20pm. My appearance downstairs was greeted with a cheer and much laughter from Pi Kuan and Mam Tur. They then began to fill me in on what I’ve just told you.
Anyhow, a couple of nights later, walking back home from a quick milkshake, me and Adam happen across Kae and Pi Ti (a copper also) eating outside the house of another copper, Pi Dit. Clearly word had got round the Police in town, further laughter was had. Then a bottle of lao khao appeared and we were offered three shots of it…mixed with brandy. After necking those, a neat brandy was offered. After that, more laughing at my Friday night hi-jinx…and the proclamation from Pi Dit that I was “The Number One Man in Thailand”. Pi Ti seemed to agree. I took it gracefully and headed home.
And finally…
School this week is a bit of a write-off. Exams have decimated the timetable, I have two lessons all week. And even they’re just a maybe. The kids have one eye on holidays and none of them want to be in class. Today it was announced there would be an impromptu exam for everyone on St. John’s, Christianity, the relationship status of the teachers and the names of the cooks (I’m not joking!). As I went along to a class to offer some exam assistance (as it had been told to us), I was then told I’d be sitting the bloody thing. I sat down and scanned the questions: What is the name of the new Bishop of Udon Thani? (Jeff. Jeff the Bishop); Name the teachers who are single; What is the symbol of St. John? (I avoided ‘crashing disorganisation’ and instead plumped for ‘a tiny fluffy kitten’).
After setting the 4th year classroom up like an exam hall it took all of ten minutes for it to turn into a group session. Tables were quickly shuffled back and even the teacher in charge started giving answers (it turns everyone had to sit it, including the teachers). I was sat with some of the 4th year lads when I suddenly became aware of noise. Not usual classroom banter noise but more the noise of fist against skull and cheek. I turned round to see two lads full at it; I took a quick look around found a place to put my glasses and piled in to separate them. By the time that happened the punches had stopped and it was more like a vigorous cuddle. I got one in a headlock and put my leg behind his to bring him down, than sat on him for good measure. I looked up and both neighbouring classes had gathered to peer through the windows; the military instructor was there; the PE teacher had arrived; and Gene was manhandling the other lad away to the other side of the classroom.
I’m sure Sister Deanna will be overjoyed to hear that her idea for a lighthearted bit of end-of-term fun turned to violence. Not the first time Christianity’s had that effect I suppose. Nor the last, I‘m sure.
Right, that’s your lot.
School is winding down towards the end of term. The kids are restless and deep in exams. The third year, the poor blighters, have another set of exams following their national exams. These current exams are set by the school and are seemingly pointless. The third years can choose to leave for another school after this school year; many have already secured their places in their chosen schools and a mighty 14 have applied to stay at St. John’s. That’s 14 from 72. I’m told the poor take up is due to St. John’s ‘majoring’ in English, which is evidently unpopular. So their exams now seem to be for the sheer hell of sending them off with fond memories of their time at St. John’s.
Last week there was a small leaving ceremony for the 3rd years, or rather, a ceremony of atonement. It culminated in them writing down on a slip of paper all those students and teachers they want to apologise to, or the names of people they feel have wronged them in some way. These pieces of paper were then ripped up and placed in a jar in front of a small figure of Mother Mary. In its way it was quite touching. All the teachers were then invited in to the room and asked to sit in the centre of the third years (whilst the rest of the school got torn to bits by unsupervised kids) and the kids worked their way around each of us, saying thank you, saying sorry, saying goodbye. Naturally, a room 50% full of 15 year girls quickly found itself suffering a deluge of tears, and I also very nearly succumbed. Nearly. There were some in there that I have got to know well; girls who shared their som tam with me; lads who asked me to play football and takraw; the class scamps that usually felt the sharp end of a flying bit of chalk; the lasses who were actually good at English. I say now that I’ll remember most of them, but I’m sure over the course of time those faces will fade, and only those that made a real impact will still glimmer. So thanks Pop and Toon for taking me to the waterfall (and the rest of their gang); thanks Oil (?!), Toey and Gus for being bloody good at English and feeding me lava-like som tam; thanks Kyu and Tek for being actually very funny in class. Thanks to all of you. Not that you’ll ever see this on here. And if you did you probably wouldn’t understand it. Sorry to the rest for never learning your names. You didn’t make it easy though by all looking the same with your brown skin and black hair…
OK, less of the soppy shite, more of DRUNKEN ANTICS! More of WEIRD FOOD! More of WIPING MY OWN SHITTY ARSE WITH MY OWN FINGERS!
Let’s get the latter out of the way first. Come on, it has been a while since I talked toilet habits – largely because they’ve settled down – but you know you’ve missed it really. You also now already know the punchline. I had asked Tony more or less on my first day to clear something up for me; something that would I was absolutely sure prove to be a useful piece of knowledge. The lack of shit tickets, bog roll, call it what you will, in Thai bogs had been bothering me. I was aware that the water jet besides most toilets was there for a purpose and put two and two together. I think my exact words to Tony were “Let’s get this straight, if there’s no bog roll I have to squirt the shit away and then use my own bare hands to cleave away any stubborn shit from my own arse, yes?”. “Yes”. Luckily for the first three and a half months of my stay I have never had to resort to this. All this changed last week; the house was all out of Andrex and I was in dire need of waving Mr. Brown and his friends off to the coast. I sat down and thought of England. Time came. I squirted. It felt alright actually. I had a delicate fumble with my fingers and did the deed. Job done. Proud, in a way. It was about three steps out of the bathroom that it didn’t quite feel ‘right’ in the way bog roll does. I had visions of Olympic skidmarks. These didn’t materialise.
Now fast-forward a couple of nights. We’ve been on the whiskey and had a good feed, but all day my bowels have been working against me. It’s late. We’re in a bar that Kae’s husband Pi Ti has taken us to. A traditional Thai bar. With a traditional Thai shitter. Traditional Thai shitters don’t even have the water jet. They have a tub of water to one side with a scoop in it, that you use to sling water in the general direction of your shit-smeared arsehole. Not good. Realising that we wouldn’t be leaving any time soon for the comfort of the house bog, I trotted off, dropped me keks, squatted and pebble-dashed the ceramic. Then came the fun part. Have you ever tried to throw water at your bum accurately, whilst trying to keep your shorts and boxers dry, and also scrape excrement from tha’s bum? No? Neither had I. So I stumbled out looking like I’d fallen in the bastard water tub; piss wet through from the waist down and waddling like I was carrying a load in my boxers rather than just having made a deposit at ‘Rhoids Bank (big in Japan I hear…).
A touch miffed at my abject failure I then spotted napkins. Napkins on every single table. I watched. I had an idea. My idea was proven right. Everyone else that headed to the bog (all of whom also happened to be Thai) took a good wad of napkins. The little bastards had never told me that trick. So now I tell ALL OF YOU so in future you know. Make a mental note. Do it.
That’s shit out of the way. What next? Hmmm…WEIRD FOOD? Ok, this is a quickie. We’d sat down for tea one night with Pi Kuan and her sister Pen. The usual fine spread was put out before us, and then a dish was handed to Pi Kuan. “One season” she says. “Huh?”. “This food is only available for one season” she says. “Oh right. What is it?”. “Caterpillar”. “Caterpillar?”. “Yes! Caterpillar without hair”. “…”. “Caterpillar from the ground”. “Back up a minute their love…without hair?”. “Yes. They become insects!”. Cue glances between me and Adam. “You mean grubs?”. “Yes. Grubs. Caterpillars without hair, from ground, become insects. Want to try?”. “Yes? I do?”. In for a penny and all that. I fished one out, asking specifically for a “juicy one please”. They had been bashed about a bit in the cooking, but yup, there was the fairly unmistakable body of a grub. Pale and bald (bit like Gollum). And now I’m putting it in my mouth. And now I’m tasting it. It’s tasting a lot of soil and phlegm. Not wholly unpleasant but I can’t see Odeon stocking them any time soon. I passed on further grubs.
Last Friday I got a taste for booze. After getting back from school I took a wander out to town to pick up a new toothbrush and some more mozzie ‘repellant’ (I may as well throw water at my legs and hope they don’t like damp). On the way back I fancied an ice cold beer, so I got a small can of Leo. I headed to the market, which was on the way home. I’d finished that beer by the time I got to the market, so picked another small can up. Between the market and home I had bumped in to Adam and also picked a third small can up.
Pi Nu and Pi Tai had a friend up from southern Thailand; I had anticipated a heavy session and I was not disappointed. We cracked on with a bottle of whiskey, ate, and cracked on with a second bottle whiskey. Now quite merry Pi Nu, Pi Tai, Chai (their mate), Adam and me found ourselves wandering towards the karaoke bar. Previously we had been in when drunk and I was given Hotel California to sing, because it was the only English language sing they had. It came on again. I didn’t sing, again. But I did drink. Another bottle of whiskey came along and was sunk. It was only heading up to about 11.15pm and the others were looking at heading home. I didn’t fancy it and I knew there was another bar open further up the road. I managed to get Adam to come along too and we went for a wander. A couple of wonky-faced hostesses came and tended to our drinks and we tried to make conversation with them but it wasn’t easy – we didn’t have much Thai, they didn’t have much English, nor for that matter Thai as they had come from Laos to work. The place was empty too, so we did one and stumbled back towards the house.
Very much drunk at this point, we made it through the gate only to find the house doors locked. Oh shit. I rang Pi Nu but no answer. I rang Pi Tai but no answer. As any drunk will testify, anything can look comfortable when under the influence. I was influenced enough just to lay down on the porch, close my eyes and sleep. I woke up in my bed. I have no recollection of getting in to the house. Indeed I didn’t have any recollection of going to sleep on the porch until Adam relayed it to me the next day. It turns out that one of Pi Nu’s police colleagues had driven past and seen me prone on the porch. He had then radioed Pi Nu on his police radio (Pi Nu as Police Chief has it on, always) to tell him of a particularly lethargic intruder on his doorstep. Pi Nu had knocked up one of Pi Kuan’s sons who was back from Uni for the weekend and had told him to fetch/drag me in. In the mean time, Adam had found a way in to the shed outside and was kipping there, missing the chance to get in the house.
I woke up feeling rough as fuck at 8.30am. I shat and went back to sleep, eventually resurfacing at 12.20pm. My appearance downstairs was greeted with a cheer and much laughter from Pi Kuan and Mam Tur. They then began to fill me in on what I’ve just told you.
Anyhow, a couple of nights later, walking back home from a quick milkshake, me and Adam happen across Kae and Pi Ti (a copper also) eating outside the house of another copper, Pi Dit. Clearly word had got round the Police in town, further laughter was had. Then a bottle of lao khao appeared and we were offered three shots of it…mixed with brandy. After necking those, a neat brandy was offered. After that, more laughing at my Friday night hi-jinx…and the proclamation from Pi Dit that I was “The Number One Man in Thailand”. Pi Ti seemed to agree. I took it gracefully and headed home.
And finally…
School this week is a bit of a write-off. Exams have decimated the timetable, I have two lessons all week. And even they’re just a maybe. The kids have one eye on holidays and none of them want to be in class. Today it was announced there would be an impromptu exam for everyone on St. John’s, Christianity, the relationship status of the teachers and the names of the cooks (I’m not joking!). As I went along to a class to offer some exam assistance (as it had been told to us), I was then told I’d be sitting the bloody thing. I sat down and scanned the questions: What is the name of the new Bishop of Udon Thani? (Jeff. Jeff the Bishop); Name the teachers who are single; What is the symbol of St. John? (I avoided ‘crashing disorganisation’ and instead plumped for ‘a tiny fluffy kitten’).
After setting the 4th year classroom up like an exam hall it took all of ten minutes for it to turn into a group session. Tables were quickly shuffled back and even the teacher in charge started giving answers (it turns everyone had to sit it, including the teachers). I was sat with some of the 4th year lads when I suddenly became aware of noise. Not usual classroom banter noise but more the noise of fist against skull and cheek. I turned round to see two lads full at it; I took a quick look around found a place to put my glasses and piled in to separate them. By the time that happened the punches had stopped and it was more like a vigorous cuddle. I got one in a headlock and put my leg behind his to bring him down, than sat on him for good measure. I looked up and both neighbouring classes had gathered to peer through the windows; the military instructor was there; the PE teacher had arrived; and Gene was manhandling the other lad away to the other side of the classroom.
I’m sure Sister Deanna will be overjoyed to hear that her idea for a lighthearted bit of end-of-term fun turned to violence. Not the first time Christianity’s had that effect I suppose. Nor the last, I‘m sure.
Right, that’s your lot.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Insert Title Here
A week of little doings this week. So not very much to write about I’m afraid (to your relief I’m sure). I was aghast at the number of typos in the last blog, so aim to rectify that in this one and make it prefect.
Crap news from back home arrived in the shape of an email from the tenants – they don’t want to take the house beyond the end of the tenancy agreement. This means that I have to find tenants from half way across the world; or rather, press upon those back home to find me tenants that won’t make the place in to a cannabis farm, crack den or brothel (or all three). If anyone reading this knows of anyone wanting a delightful, furnished, affordable 2-bed back-to-back terrace for 500 nicker a month in Leeds then do drop me a line.
I was horrified this week to find myself yanking a hair out of my ear. Two centimeters long. How foul, but luckily it was sun-kissed. My arms are also turning a nice shade of brown, although a little over-exposure last weekend on a 40km bike ride has seen much of my skin decide to leave my arms. I am cultivating a definite T-shirt tan; my torso is still as lily-white as when I left Blighty (and a little flabbier I suspect), and my legs seem impervious to everything the sun throws at them.
This week I have tried in vain to find a witty comment about a Thai chain of supermarkets going by the name of ‘Big C’. So far I have been unable to crowbar any sort of pun or play on words or relation to actual cancer from the name. I guess it’s a subject that simply isn’t funny, unless you count the line in Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap!, which can be enjoyed about 160 seconds in to this.
Thursday saw Adam and I invited to the Sisters house for supper. It was the blandest cuisine I have had since I last ate at the Sisters house. I couldn’t find any chilli flakes to throw at the spag bol, pork cuts or chicken legs, so ate it without flavour. It was a novelty to reacquaint myself with knives as a piece of cutlery; Thais generally eat with a fork and a spoon and ensure that there is never any need to cut meat in meals by making everything bite sized. Usually though the meat is cooked on the bone, meaning you crunch down unexpectedly on bone or, if you spot it, try to carve/stab/scrape the meat away from the bone with fork and spoon. Not very easy and probably why surgeons use scalpels rather than teaspoons. The alternatively is to lob the meat in your gob and let your teeth skeletonize the meat, then gob it back out on to your plate. Either way, I’m usually left with a small pile of gristle and bone on the side of my plate after most meals. I ask that you all try to cut meat with a spoon. Go on. Anyway, the Sisters had laid knives out and I found it so very easy to slice through animal flesh using one with accuracy and without frustration.
Dessert was gorgeous, a chocolate heart-attack on top of a biscuit base that you find in cheesecake. Delicious. Chatter was generally about plans after school; Sister Deanna heads to the Philippines on the 19th February and returns after I have finished at St. John’s. Sister Vin (a new nun who is only here for 2 or 3 months before heading to Tanzania) was very keen to impart her knowledge of Vietnam when I mentioned I may be heading there. All of us chatted about how much of an experience it’s been for everyone having me (and lately Adam) here; general feedback is good. That was about it really.
Friday saw a day of activities in the school; the morning devoted to ‘academic’ activities from each of the departments. There was bingo from maths (it has numbers); throwing darts at balloons from the science teachers (flying is sort of science); karaoke from..er…don’t know; English karaoke from the English department, alongside thrill-a-minute scrabble; food from the social sciences; a globe from geography (still showing the USSR); and a few other bits and bobs. The kids from Mahathai primary school came down too so the place was busy. A bit of an aside here but I have been impressed by the range of plaits the girls show in their hair; you have your common pigtails but also the very intricate like spirals around the head and the like. I’ve half a mind to photograph some sometime. I wonder whether it’s due to the lack of variety in hair colour that makes them try to do different things. Anyway, it’s by the by. The activities went well and largely without mishap. The kids were being charged for the bingo and the darts and the Thai karaoke and the food and all proceeds were (I think) going towards the Haiti aid effort. Overall, 50 quid was raised which will go to digging some poor blighters out of rubble or giving them a tent and water.
The afternoon’s activities were all Valentine’s Day related. This basically involved a talk about love from Sister Deanna, handing out of little paper hearts to all pupils with shorts extracts from the Bible about love (Corinthians chapter 13 for those who like that sort of stuff) and also me and Adam being volunteered to read the aforementioned chapter out. Say what you like about the Bible (“it’s a load of bloody bobbins which can be interpreted in so many different ways it makes it virtually useless as written set of guidelines for modern society to run its life by” for example) but reading the passage out was quite enjoyable; it had a nice rhythm about it.
Did you know the Bible also has an ISBN? Seems pretty pointless to me “Excuse me, have you a copy of the Bible in stock?”, “sorry, which book?”, “the Bible”, “nope, sorry, I don’t know what you’re on about, have you got the ISBN and I’ll look it up?”.
The kids were let out early to descend like a plague of child-shaped locusts on the street vendors outside the school and then the teachers were invited to a re-run of the heart-giving exercise. Interminably dull. Friday done and dusted at school and back in Chiang Khan, I wandered down to the river to watch the sun set with a couple of beers. It really is very pleasant watching the big red disc sink into the ground as the distant mountains turn various shades of violet, whilst the people potter about on the river catching fish. Whilst sat there I was waved over by three men. They asked what I thought of Chiang Khan and explained that they were here for the weekend on behalf of Channel 7 television, and pointed over to a camera taking shots of street vendors and tourists. For a fleeting moment I thought I was about to get on national TV but thankfully I wasn’t lumped in front of the camera. We chatted a little longer about England and what I was up to before one of the fellas, after me asking “what have you got planned this weekend then?”, motioned the international sign for shagging – thrusting of groin and arms held slightly out to the sides. Bloody TV execs eh? I made my excuses and retired to a beer, some distance away.
Saturday was an early start, like all Saturdays recently it seems. It was another Sports Day, this time for the teachers of the non-state schools in Loei. Up at 5am, we had to be in Loei for 7am for the start of the parade through town. Arriving at about 6.45 I was overjoyed to see a completely empty schoolyard where all the schools were meant to meet. At about 7.30am everyone else started coming along in dribs and drabs. By about 8am we were ready to wander the streets causing traffic issues and to be gawped at by the early morning citizens of Loei. Adam and I were volunteered (a common theme) to carry the St. John’s banner. The banner was about 10 feet long by 3 feet wide and was to be carried at chest height, length ways. This involved carrying it with my arms in a position probably used by the CIA/FBI to illegally extract confessions from wrong-looking Arabs in the dusty, war-torn streets of Kabul. After what felt like an hours march about the town we finally headed to the venue for the days proceedings – Loei’s ‘Health Encouragement Exercise Service Centre’; or the towns indoor sports complex. I say complex, it was about as complex as a big box with lines on the floor. There was, as far as I could work out, knockout volleyball and football competitions and a tug of war. I had been drafted in to the 5-a-side football team (along with 14 others…) so received a strip, a fetching maroon not too far removed from Heart of Midlothian’s strip. I was also placed in the tug of war team, more for weight advantage than any show of strength.
Almost immediately, the music started. They essentially reversed a flat-bed trucks worth of speakers in to the big, echoing sportsbox and pressed play. Then for good measure threw in some commentators screaming over the music, commentating on the games. Then for further good measure, each school had brought with them an assortment of drums, cymbals and tambourines, which were all then thrown around in a dustbin for about 10 hours solid. The sheer noise, pounding ‘rhythms’, mass of balloons and banners and costumes were as close as I’ll ever get to discovering what Indiana Jones found in the Temple of Doom, minus the sacrifices. And the hat. Kind of Indiana Jones and the gaily-decorated Temple of Gaudy Doom.
Amongst this, the male teachers cracked open the white whiskey and beer. The female teachers regressed to teenage girls and screamed and danced and also drank. I avoided the booze for a while; citing my ability to play footy better when not trying to kick two balls.
First up was tug of war, which we actually won. We romped the first round then came to the final. A good contest fought keenly by two equal-ish teams. We scraped by and won that one 2-1 (I think, I didn’t really follow the rules – how hard can it be? “Pull until the others fall over”) and lots of high-fiving and high-tenning ensued.
During football, I discovered that dusty, parquet flooring is not the easiest to grip when running at speed and a sharp turn is required. In the end we played three games of football, and having been told that we were only playing one, I was well oiled by the third. We didn’t win a single game. I did however manage to kick two of the opposition in to next week (first one I got the ball, honest; the second occurred in the second game and resulted in me shouting “Oh get up you soft shit” to the prone victim’s back). After the third game it all became a bit of a haze…I remember having a shower; being asked by the bargirl if I’d like anything else with the beer (beer was all that she sold so I don’t for the life of me understand what ‘anything else’ could have been *takes off naivety cap*); poking Sunisa the maths teacher’s ear for about 10 minutes purely because she was sat in front of me; drinking some whiskey that tasted like brandy; and then offering to buy everyone a KFC on the way home. This apparently filled in five hours of my time.
Arriving back in Chiang Khan, the family were still up and Douglas had joined them for supper. I sat there for about five minutes trying not to be drunk; giving that up as a bad idea I stated “Mao maak” (very drunk), pointed upstairs and toddled off to bed.
WILDLIFE OF THE WEEK
A small spider no bigger than a midge and coloured like a bluebottles back, creeping along a bench, then as I bent forward to take a closer look at the bright little fella it leapt 4 inches on to my book. Cue me shaking the book furiously and stamping on the spider when it fell to the ground.
Crap news from back home arrived in the shape of an email from the tenants – they don’t want to take the house beyond the end of the tenancy agreement. This means that I have to find tenants from half way across the world; or rather, press upon those back home to find me tenants that won’t make the place in to a cannabis farm, crack den or brothel (or all three). If anyone reading this knows of anyone wanting a delightful, furnished, affordable 2-bed back-to-back terrace for 500 nicker a month in Leeds then do drop me a line.
I was horrified this week to find myself yanking a hair out of my ear. Two centimeters long. How foul, but luckily it was sun-kissed. My arms are also turning a nice shade of brown, although a little over-exposure last weekend on a 40km bike ride has seen much of my skin decide to leave my arms. I am cultivating a definite T-shirt tan; my torso is still as lily-white as when I left Blighty (and a little flabbier I suspect), and my legs seem impervious to everything the sun throws at them.
This week I have tried in vain to find a witty comment about a Thai chain of supermarkets going by the name of ‘Big C’. So far I have been unable to crowbar any sort of pun or play on words or relation to actual cancer from the name. I guess it’s a subject that simply isn’t funny, unless you count the line in Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap!, which can be enjoyed about 160 seconds in to this.
Thursday saw Adam and I invited to the Sisters house for supper. It was the blandest cuisine I have had since I last ate at the Sisters house. I couldn’t find any chilli flakes to throw at the spag bol, pork cuts or chicken legs, so ate it without flavour. It was a novelty to reacquaint myself with knives as a piece of cutlery; Thais generally eat with a fork and a spoon and ensure that there is never any need to cut meat in meals by making everything bite sized. Usually though the meat is cooked on the bone, meaning you crunch down unexpectedly on bone or, if you spot it, try to carve/stab/scrape the meat away from the bone with fork and spoon. Not very easy and probably why surgeons use scalpels rather than teaspoons. The alternatively is to lob the meat in your gob and let your teeth skeletonize the meat, then gob it back out on to your plate. Either way, I’m usually left with a small pile of gristle and bone on the side of my plate after most meals. I ask that you all try to cut meat with a spoon. Go on. Anyway, the Sisters had laid knives out and I found it so very easy to slice through animal flesh using one with accuracy and without frustration.
Dessert was gorgeous, a chocolate heart-attack on top of a biscuit base that you find in cheesecake. Delicious. Chatter was generally about plans after school; Sister Deanna heads to the Philippines on the 19th February and returns after I have finished at St. John’s. Sister Vin (a new nun who is only here for 2 or 3 months before heading to Tanzania) was very keen to impart her knowledge of Vietnam when I mentioned I may be heading there. All of us chatted about how much of an experience it’s been for everyone having me (and lately Adam) here; general feedback is good. That was about it really.
Friday saw a day of activities in the school; the morning devoted to ‘academic’ activities from each of the departments. There was bingo from maths (it has numbers); throwing darts at balloons from the science teachers (flying is sort of science); karaoke from..er…don’t know; English karaoke from the English department, alongside thrill-a-minute scrabble; food from the social sciences; a globe from geography (still showing the USSR); and a few other bits and bobs. The kids from Mahathai primary school came down too so the place was busy. A bit of an aside here but I have been impressed by the range of plaits the girls show in their hair; you have your common pigtails but also the very intricate like spirals around the head and the like. I’ve half a mind to photograph some sometime. I wonder whether it’s due to the lack of variety in hair colour that makes them try to do different things. Anyway, it’s by the by. The activities went well and largely without mishap. The kids were being charged for the bingo and the darts and the Thai karaoke and the food and all proceeds were (I think) going towards the Haiti aid effort. Overall, 50 quid was raised which will go to digging some poor blighters out of rubble or giving them a tent and water.
The afternoon’s activities were all Valentine’s Day related. This basically involved a talk about love from Sister Deanna, handing out of little paper hearts to all pupils with shorts extracts from the Bible about love (Corinthians chapter 13 for those who like that sort of stuff) and also me and Adam being volunteered to read the aforementioned chapter out. Say what you like about the Bible (“it’s a load of bloody bobbins which can be interpreted in so many different ways it makes it virtually useless as written set of guidelines for modern society to run its life by” for example) but reading the passage out was quite enjoyable; it had a nice rhythm about it.
Did you know the Bible also has an ISBN? Seems pretty pointless to me “Excuse me, have you a copy of the Bible in stock?”, “sorry, which book?”, “the Bible”, “nope, sorry, I don’t know what you’re on about, have you got the ISBN and I’ll look it up?”.
The kids were let out early to descend like a plague of child-shaped locusts on the street vendors outside the school and then the teachers were invited to a re-run of the heart-giving exercise. Interminably dull. Friday done and dusted at school and back in Chiang Khan, I wandered down to the river to watch the sun set with a couple of beers. It really is very pleasant watching the big red disc sink into the ground as the distant mountains turn various shades of violet, whilst the people potter about on the river catching fish. Whilst sat there I was waved over by three men. They asked what I thought of Chiang Khan and explained that they were here for the weekend on behalf of Channel 7 television, and pointed over to a camera taking shots of street vendors and tourists. For a fleeting moment I thought I was about to get on national TV but thankfully I wasn’t lumped in front of the camera. We chatted a little longer about England and what I was up to before one of the fellas, after me asking “what have you got planned this weekend then?”, motioned the international sign for shagging – thrusting of groin and arms held slightly out to the sides. Bloody TV execs eh? I made my excuses and retired to a beer, some distance away.
Saturday was an early start, like all Saturdays recently it seems. It was another Sports Day, this time for the teachers of the non-state schools in Loei. Up at 5am, we had to be in Loei for 7am for the start of the parade through town. Arriving at about 6.45 I was overjoyed to see a completely empty schoolyard where all the schools were meant to meet. At about 7.30am everyone else started coming along in dribs and drabs. By about 8am we were ready to wander the streets causing traffic issues and to be gawped at by the early morning citizens of Loei. Adam and I were volunteered (a common theme) to carry the St. John’s banner. The banner was about 10 feet long by 3 feet wide and was to be carried at chest height, length ways. This involved carrying it with my arms in a position probably used by the CIA/FBI to illegally extract confessions from wrong-looking Arabs in the dusty, war-torn streets of Kabul. After what felt like an hours march about the town we finally headed to the venue for the days proceedings – Loei’s ‘Health Encouragement Exercise Service Centre’; or the towns indoor sports complex. I say complex, it was about as complex as a big box with lines on the floor. There was, as far as I could work out, knockout volleyball and football competitions and a tug of war. I had been drafted in to the 5-a-side football team (along with 14 others…) so received a strip, a fetching maroon not too far removed from Heart of Midlothian’s strip. I was also placed in the tug of war team, more for weight advantage than any show of strength.
Almost immediately, the music started. They essentially reversed a flat-bed trucks worth of speakers in to the big, echoing sportsbox and pressed play. Then for good measure threw in some commentators screaming over the music, commentating on the games. Then for further good measure, each school had brought with them an assortment of drums, cymbals and tambourines, which were all then thrown around in a dustbin for about 10 hours solid. The sheer noise, pounding ‘rhythms’, mass of balloons and banners and costumes were as close as I’ll ever get to discovering what Indiana Jones found in the Temple of Doom, minus the sacrifices. And the hat. Kind of Indiana Jones and the gaily-decorated Temple of Gaudy Doom.
Amongst this, the male teachers cracked open the white whiskey and beer. The female teachers regressed to teenage girls and screamed and danced and also drank. I avoided the booze for a while; citing my ability to play footy better when not trying to kick two balls.
First up was tug of war, which we actually won. We romped the first round then came to the final. A good contest fought keenly by two equal-ish teams. We scraped by and won that one 2-1 (I think, I didn’t really follow the rules – how hard can it be? “Pull until the others fall over”) and lots of high-fiving and high-tenning ensued.
During football, I discovered that dusty, parquet flooring is not the easiest to grip when running at speed and a sharp turn is required. In the end we played three games of football, and having been told that we were only playing one, I was well oiled by the third. We didn’t win a single game. I did however manage to kick two of the opposition in to next week (first one I got the ball, honest; the second occurred in the second game and resulted in me shouting “Oh get up you soft shit” to the prone victim’s back). After the third game it all became a bit of a haze…I remember having a shower; being asked by the bargirl if I’d like anything else with the beer (beer was all that she sold so I don’t for the life of me understand what ‘anything else’ could have been *takes off naivety cap*); poking Sunisa the maths teacher’s ear for about 10 minutes purely because she was sat in front of me; drinking some whiskey that tasted like brandy; and then offering to buy everyone a KFC on the way home. This apparently filled in five hours of my time.
Arriving back in Chiang Khan, the family were still up and Douglas had joined them for supper. I sat there for about five minutes trying not to be drunk; giving that up as a bad idea I stated “Mao maak” (very drunk), pointed upstairs and toddled off to bed.
WILDLIFE OF THE WEEK
A small spider no bigger than a midge and coloured like a bluebottles back, creeping along a bench, then as I bent forward to take a closer look at the bright little fella it leapt 4 inches on to my book. Cue me shaking the book furiously and stamping on the spider when it fell to the ground.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Stings & Stung
OK, OK here’s some more for you.
Provincial Sports Day proved to be not quite the right name. As far as I could make out there were only about six schools in attendance; furthermore, the paucity of sports being played meant that the event was about as far removed from the name as possible. There were only three sports being contested – football, volleyball and takraw. Of these, St John’s were playing in the final of the boys football, boys takraw and the semi-finals of the girls volleyball. As is the Thai way, the day started with a parade. This one wound it’s way down one of Loei’s main streets; causing the first traffic jam probably since the last Sports Day.
It was just as we were leaving the compound to start the parade that the clouds above us decided to drop their loads on us. The thirty minute trudge through increasingly heavy rain meant that as the stadium came in to view the parade became more of a scuttle. We abandoned the organisers intended lap around the clay sports track (now resembling a rice paddy) and took shelter under the stand. Unfortunately for the participants, the opening ceremony was still to go ahead. From across the pitch came a huddle of dancers and singers, skating their way across the mud and getting in to formation. Amongst them were a group of lads from a primary school dressed in skirts and school ties, a la Britney Spears in the video for Oops I Did It Again…
The ceremony got under way and the music started booming. The rain kept falling too. The singers sang and the dancers danced. Then after the singers the dancers took centre-stage. Each troupe had their individual costumes and individual dance routines to the same music blaring out. This is when those lads in skirts came into their own. Or rather, one portly kid slap bang in the front-middle came into his own.
The fat lad’s dancing became quite raunchy. His tie came loose so he threw it, burlesque dancer-style, over his shoulder. He grabbed his crotch and made like he was humping. Everyone in the stands was wetting themselves, which only spurred him on. At the end of the song the whole crowd gave a huge cheer and the dancers headed to the stands to act as cheerleaders for their schools. The chubster kept up his performance all day.
First up was football, which due to the incessant rain turned out not to be a game of flair and skill, but simply a test of who could stay on their feet long enough to twat the ball towards the goal, in the hope that: a) the wet ball will squirm under the keeper; b) the keeper will end up on his own arse after over-estimating his ability to stay on his feet; and c) the ball will not stop dead in the deep, muddy puddles in the goalmouths. The choice of flat-soled plimsolls by most players didn’t help their game or their chances.
The first game turned in to a rout (4-0), then St. John’s were up. I’d played footy with some of the lads in the team and they are very good. That is to say, very good on dry land. Cast adrift in a sea of shit and water, their skills weren’t really able to shine. Slide tackles carried on for about 20 feet; the ball failed to bounce; lads swung to clear the ball and found themselves looking up at the rain or face down in mud. A peculiarity of watching football in Thailand made itself known – complete and utter excitement from the crowd whenever the ball gets within 10 yards of the goal, no matter who has the ball or what’s happening with the ball. Proper screaming and shrieking. Admittedly mostly from the girls who, by gender default, can’t understand the game (…any feminists out there?), but also a few of the lads. Anyhow, St. John’s lost 2-0 to Loei Technical College but hit the woodwork and the ref gave a decidedly dodgy freekick for the first. Unlucky fellas.
The volleyball and takraw were being played on the drier bit of the pitch (Loei City FC will be fuming about the pitch being carved up), a good 100 metres from the stands. At that distance, there was little chance of following the games. A few brave souls ventured out to watch, tip-toeing over the mud, but by and large everyone stayed in the stands. St. John’s failed to win at any of their remaining competitions, and my interest in the events waned quickly. The practiced cheerleading and chanting carried on unabated though; a concept I couldn’t quite get my head around, as St. John’s had no-one left in any competitions to cheer on. Still, it kept the kids from fighting with the other schools, something which has apparently happened in previous years.
At the end of the day St. John’s returned with a runners-up trophy for football and the winners trophy for cheerleading. Everyone returned home and readied themselves for the next day…a school trip to the neighbouring province of Khon Kaen. The whole school. And we were setting off at 3am.
I was up at 1.30am; having gone to bed at 9pm with a good dose of whiskey in me. I was tired, but not hungover. I maintain I would’ve been equally tired (and therefore pissed off) if I hadn’t drank. Kae picked us up and we landed at school, where a few kids were milling about and playing, and a Highway Police patrol car was in attendance. Adam and I were assigned one of the third year classes to travel with; a fleet of buses had been hired, seven in total.
The departure time came and went. The kids were boisterous and the teachers were trying to keep a lid on them until they could box them up in the confines of a bus where they would surely settle down for the long journey ahead. I was looking forward to getting some more sleep also. Finally the buses showed up and we set off shortly before 4am. I closed my eyes and drifted off. At about 4.30am I was woken by music. Loud music. VERY LOUD MUSIC. The driver had turned on the CD player and treating us all to the latest Thai pop songs. The kids went nuts. Dancing in the aisle; leaping on seats; screaming like The Beatles were playing on the front seats.
At one of the service stations we stopped at I went for a wazz. Bizarrely none of the lads were using the urinals and instead they were queuing up to use the stalls. I sauntered past and relieved myself. I then felt something wet on my foot. Glancing down I realised that the urinals hadn’t been plumbed in and I was simply urinating directly on to my own feet. This did little to lift my mood. It gave the lads something to laugh about though.
We arrived at Khon Kaen Science Education Centre at about half nine. Five hours of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food made Dave very grumpy indeed. At the two stops we’d made on the way down I’d necked Red Bull to try to see me through. This had little effect, so I progressed to a bottle of M-150 which has much the same effect as Red Bull. I was further dismayed to hear that only our bus had had music on on the way down; all the others had a bit of quiet time and caught up on sleep.
The Science Centre was done and dusted by 10am and we were off to the next stop; a temple. After about 45 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at a grand 9-tiered Buddhist temple. My appreciation dulled by the bus journeys, I laboured up to the top floor, which turned out to be the size of a garden shed and becoming increasingly full of St. John’s kids. In amongst the kids were people offering prayers to the Buddha at the top. TIP FOR TEMPLE DESIGNERS: If you’re going to build a temple in a city without many tourist sights, a temple that will inevitably become a tourist sight, please make the stairs wider than one person. People will want to go down as well as up. Either that or lob a slide down the side.
The temple now sacked by the kids we were back on the bus and heading for Khon Kaen Museum. After about 45 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at the Museum. The kids filed in and were told not to touch anything and immediately set about touching everything. The displays were quite interesting to me, and also in English. Probably the town planner geek in me but there were some ace explanations of the city states that used to dot this region of Thailand.
Getting close to lunch time I asked where we would be stopping. I was told that one of the teachers has a friend that owns a restaurant and we would all be going there. Then five minutes later we weren’t. We all boarded the bus again and set off to our next destination. The Highway Patrol car that was at St John’s had, it turned out, been with us all day, and helped us through the traffic of Khon Kaen as we crawled towards wherever we were going. After about 30 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we pulled up on the side of the road, got pointed towards a small 7-11 convenience store and unleashed 7 coachloads of kids on it. This was lunch. The 7-11 was part of a filling station, to give you an idea of size. And it was filled with kids for a solid 45 minutes. Their takings must’ve been through the roof. I had to laugh when I saw the faces of normal customers as they pushed the door open to be confronted by a sea of light green shirts all clutching whatever foodstuff they could find. Even I gave up and went to sit outside until it all died own. When I did venture in all the decent food had been scavenged and I was left to pick up a ropey tuna sandwich and a can of pop. An hour or so later we set off again.
After about an hour and a half of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at a dinosaur museum. Fossils had been found in the jungles near Khon Kaen and they’d built an attraction out of it. It was a modern building that had more than a passing resemblance to the dinosaur museum in Jurassic Park. There was much to read but I didn’t, in all honesty, feel in the mood for looking at rocks. I wanted sleep. I wanted to murder. I wanted to rip out the speakers on the bus, stab the driver in the face with them and get some bloody sleep.
After whizzing around the museum it was time to trek out to the actual sites of the fossil finds. A 5 kilometre round trip it turned out. Up a mountain. 281 students walking up a mountain at 5pm, and the sun due to set at 6pm. I did question whether all of them would make it back to the bus. I sprinted ahead (I did actually run) which caused much laughter and mimicking. My reasoning was that the quicker I did it the sooner I could get back to a bus without kids, and therefore without thumping music and shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, and hopefully find some sleep. I paid cursory glances towards the fossils themselves and then headed own. I was joined by some of the ‘academically challenged’ lads from the third year. The ones that continually play up in class. It came as a great surprise that they were genuinely interested in trying to talk to me and ask me about England; I was quite touched really. I made a note to myself to try and take them out of the classroom for a lesson or two and go for a wander around Tha Bom, in English.
We were wandering down the track and I was beginning to get a touch concerned about getting back…we hadn’t seen anyone else come past us and couldn’t see anyone behind us. The sun was gone too. My Dad had rang at this point, so I was regaling him with tales of how we were going to have to sleep out under the stars with the tigers and the ants and the snakes. After about 20 minutes we hit a metalled road, I was still on the blower when all the lads sprinted off. I looked up and they’d commandeered a passing pick-up. And it was moving away from me. I hung up on Dad and ran like the wind. As I got close I dived in to the back of the pick-up head first (no exaggeration!) which was greeted with howls of laughter and many high fives. We made our way past others, laughing at them and waving cheerio. We made it back to the buses, only to find that nearly everyone had given up on the full circle. The shits. Even more annoying, some of the teachers hadn’t even bothered going up the bloody hill and had, judging by the empty plates and bottles, had quite a trough. The double shits. And so it was I was faced with a 5 hour ride home, consisting of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food.
Sure enough, no sooner had we turned our backs on the fossils than the music was cranked up to 11 and the dancing started. Only this time there was the added bonus of Kru Pung (Kru = Teacher) whipping the kids into a frenzy on the mic (turned up one louder than the music). A frenzy sustained until we were 30 minutes short of Tha Bom. At one point I gave in and joined them for some dancing. Adam was more willing and was up for some time, doing a good impression of someone’s dad at a wedding disco. I gave up after 15 minutes, sick of cracking my head on the overhead fans. I sat there; piercing Kru Pung on the mic; the kids doing serious damage to their larynx; pounding Thai beats, all the while wishing for a mute button. I took to putting rolled up bog roll in my lugs which only slightly took the edge off the volume. I resorted to putting my hoody over my head and pretending to be asleep, only so every fucker would leave me the fuck alone thank you very much now fuck off.
I hope this gives you some impression of my ordeal.If it doesn't then maybe this will:
There was a moment of drama and a great example of Thai-ness at one of the stops on the way back. The impatient kids, eager to ransack another 7-11 had made the driver open the door before he had stopped, and were leaping out of the moving bus. The dinner ladies, who had joined us on the trip, followed suit. Only one of them slipped as she was jumping off and got dragged along the ground before her disconcerted face disappeared from my view. I had visions of her being a touch flatter by the time I saw her next. I jumped off too to see her sat on her bum with a number of other dinner ladies tending to her. She then decided it was the drivers fault for her fall and not of course anything to do with her decision to jump from a moving vehicle. She dusted herself down and went to remonstrate.
We landed in Tha Bom and blessed quietness was upon us. We clambered wearily back in to Kae’s pick-up and headed home. Sleep was blissful. Twenty-two hours awake, about 18 of them in a moving sensory assault machine in the form of a bus.
I was still recovering by the time Monday came round. In my emails came a message from Paul in Bangkok asking if I fancied a night out clubbing the following Saturday. I said yes. The week in the school passed by with the usual confusion and organised chaos. The school had asked, early on in my time, to teach the teachers English also. I had said yes but hadn’t pursued it. Typically they’ve waited until I have 4 weeks left and have now instigated the lessons. Not only for St. John’s staff but also Mahathai Primary. I was told initially I would be doing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after school. This then morphed in to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at St. John’s and Monday and Friday at Mahathai (which frankly I thought was taking the piss), and then they finally settled on Monday and Tuesday at Mahathai and Wednesday and Thursday in St. John’s. Excpet that in the first lesson at Mahathai we had 4 attendees. So now Mahathai will be joining St. John’s, who will extend their lessons to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, i.e. the original plan. To convey the exasperation and hilarity of the organisational ‘skills’ of the school is near impossible. On top of the teacher’s lessons, the third year have had their national exams this last week. In the lead up Adam and I were tutoring them at lunchtimes. They certainly know how to use free labour (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think they were taking the mickey just a touch). It was depressing to see the regularity of typos, poor grammar and ambiguous questions in the past exam papers. The kids don’t really stand a chance if they’re faced with such a mass of shoddy papers. On top of this, the kids were achieving 3/10, 4/10 or at best 5/10 in the questions we asked. Uh-oh.
In normal lessons I did ‘Job and Ambitions’. They went fairly well overall; in the last lesson with the 5th years I asked them what they wanted to do for a living, and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of answers, particularly from the girls. Most want to go on to University; one wants to be an architect; two want to be doctors; another couple, tour guides; two receptionists who want to study English at Uni. The best answer though was from one lad who said that he wants “to be the best barber in Thailand”. Quality.
It was also decided by the powers that be that I would stop going to the state run primary school, in order to help the St. John’s kids practice their exams. I have been invited back for an end of term party though; and also presented with some small gifts of gratitude from the kids – some noodles and dried soup powder (egg flavour). The kids gave me a few handmade cards, many of them saying ‘I love you Dave’. Bless.
Bangkok was calling and Adam and I caught an overnight bus down on the Friday night. I achieved about 1 hours sleep and we were spewed out at Mor Chit bus station in to the thronging mass of tuk-tuks and taxis. We landed at Paul’s at 5am and crashed out for a few more hours kip. In the day we took a quick tour of some Bangkok sights – JJ Market; Khao San Road; a boat up the river. Adam had a friend in town who he had met in Nice on his travels through France, so we met up with him. Douglas is a tall, bald Canadian chap about 50 years old. He seems very chilled and has more than a passing interest in astrology (and he’s at pains to distance himself from the ‘tabloid’ version of astrology). He also has no passport at the moment as he got himself caught up in a drug sting and arrested for possession of some marijuana. It was interesting to hear a first hand account of the Thai legal system. I use the term ‘drug sting’ quite loosely though; he bought some, the kid disappeared so he sat down on the street kerb (…), pulled his guitar on to his lap and began to skin up there and then (…). Talk about making trouble for yourself. Anyway, he’s followed us back to Chiang Khan and taken a room for a month until he heads back to court to hear of his fate. He’s anticipating a small fine.
Back to Paul’s and then out for food. We met up with Tony and Cholor and had Japanese. It was the first time I’d seen Tony since he left Tha Bom with a cheery wave. It was very good to see him, catch up and fill in. After the grub Paul, his girlfriend Poy, Adam and me headed off to the club night. It was at an exhibition centre and was bloody massive. On reflection, probably too big for the event; but we still had a good dance and a few beers. Two people came up to me and said they recognized me from Leeds and Sheffield respectively. I couldn’t remember them for toffee but they managed to place me at many of the bars and clubs I’ve been known to stumble out of. The lad from Sheffield was a good laugh and we ended up agreeing that Sheffield is better than Bangkok, by a significant margin. Giving up at 3am we headed home via McDonalds and the rebuffed advances of a ladyboy prostitute.
Christ knows why but I was awake at 8.30am on the Sunday morning. I had come down to Bangkok with a shopping list too; reasoning that there would be more chance of finding clothing for the larger/Western gent in Bangkok. We brazed up to the bus station and secured bus tickets for the way back then hit town. I’m fairly sure I paid over the odds for most of my stuff (memory card for camera: 20 quid, 10 in the UK…; Nike Cortez for 40 quid but some doubts over the authenticity; two polo shirts for 12 quid which should’ve been 20). We headed back to Paul’s and packed, departed and went to catch the bus. Paul is a top bloke and only too happy for me to abuse his hospitality – cheers mate.
I slept like a log on the bus; drifting off before getting out of Bangkok and waking up as we pulled into Chiang Khan.
This last week has passed by in a blaze of whiskey. One event to properly shit me up – the first since being here – occurred one tea time. We were all sat around and usually there’s one or two moggies knocking about on the scrounge. This evening was no exception and being a bit of a cat person I covertly dropped the odd bit of chicken on to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I caught something come out of the kitchen. I don’t know why I turned to take a full look but I’m glad I did; the ‘something’ was a fucking scorpion. A big fucking scorpion. I yelped “SCORPION!!” and immediately Pi Nu was up on his feet and Pi Tai soon after. Now I didn’t have my Collins gem SAS Survival Guide book that Mum bought me before departure to hand at this point. If I’d had it I would’ve read that a scorpion’s venom is “…neuro-toxic, causing respiratory or cardiac problems…”, and that whilst the stings are “…seldom fatal in adults”, scorpions should be “treated with respect”. “Respect” in this instance came in the form of repeated strong blows to the body with a metal chair leg. Then a stamp, just to make sure. I felt Pi NU stopped short and should’ve really pumped a couple of rounds in to the jellied mess of exo-skeleton and innards and then killed it dead with fire. That was first bit of wildlife to give me the willies. And I’m intending to go to Cambodia where they eat the bloody things. Things could get interesting.
Today there is a festival in Muang Loei that me, Adam and Douglas are going to take a look at. We’ve been warned by everyone that it’s dangerous. Gang fights are par for the course and we should avoid it, particularly after dark. Stay tuned…
Provincial Sports Day proved to be not quite the right name. As far as I could make out there were only about six schools in attendance; furthermore, the paucity of sports being played meant that the event was about as far removed from the name as possible. There were only three sports being contested – football, volleyball and takraw. Of these, St John’s were playing in the final of the boys football, boys takraw and the semi-finals of the girls volleyball. As is the Thai way, the day started with a parade. This one wound it’s way down one of Loei’s main streets; causing the first traffic jam probably since the last Sports Day.
It was just as we were leaving the compound to start the parade that the clouds above us decided to drop their loads on us. The thirty minute trudge through increasingly heavy rain meant that as the stadium came in to view the parade became more of a scuttle. We abandoned the organisers intended lap around the clay sports track (now resembling a rice paddy) and took shelter under the stand. Unfortunately for the participants, the opening ceremony was still to go ahead. From across the pitch came a huddle of dancers and singers, skating their way across the mud and getting in to formation. Amongst them were a group of lads from a primary school dressed in skirts and school ties, a la Britney Spears in the video for Oops I Did It Again…
The ceremony got under way and the music started booming. The rain kept falling too. The singers sang and the dancers danced. Then after the singers the dancers took centre-stage. Each troupe had their individual costumes and individual dance routines to the same music blaring out. This is when those lads in skirts came into their own. Or rather, one portly kid slap bang in the front-middle came into his own.
The fat lad’s dancing became quite raunchy. His tie came loose so he threw it, burlesque dancer-style, over his shoulder. He grabbed his crotch and made like he was humping. Everyone in the stands was wetting themselves, which only spurred him on. At the end of the song the whole crowd gave a huge cheer and the dancers headed to the stands to act as cheerleaders for their schools. The chubster kept up his performance all day.
First up was football, which due to the incessant rain turned out not to be a game of flair and skill, but simply a test of who could stay on their feet long enough to twat the ball towards the goal, in the hope that: a) the wet ball will squirm under the keeper; b) the keeper will end up on his own arse after over-estimating his ability to stay on his feet; and c) the ball will not stop dead in the deep, muddy puddles in the goalmouths. The choice of flat-soled plimsolls by most players didn’t help their game or their chances.
The first game turned in to a rout (4-0), then St. John’s were up. I’d played footy with some of the lads in the team and they are very good. That is to say, very good on dry land. Cast adrift in a sea of shit and water, their skills weren’t really able to shine. Slide tackles carried on for about 20 feet; the ball failed to bounce; lads swung to clear the ball and found themselves looking up at the rain or face down in mud. A peculiarity of watching football in Thailand made itself known – complete and utter excitement from the crowd whenever the ball gets within 10 yards of the goal, no matter who has the ball or what’s happening with the ball. Proper screaming and shrieking. Admittedly mostly from the girls who, by gender default, can’t understand the game (…any feminists out there?), but also a few of the lads. Anyhow, St. John’s lost 2-0 to Loei Technical College but hit the woodwork and the ref gave a decidedly dodgy freekick for the first. Unlucky fellas.
The volleyball and takraw were being played on the drier bit of the pitch (Loei City FC will be fuming about the pitch being carved up), a good 100 metres from the stands. At that distance, there was little chance of following the games. A few brave souls ventured out to watch, tip-toeing over the mud, but by and large everyone stayed in the stands. St. John’s failed to win at any of their remaining competitions, and my interest in the events waned quickly. The practiced cheerleading and chanting carried on unabated though; a concept I couldn’t quite get my head around, as St. John’s had no-one left in any competitions to cheer on. Still, it kept the kids from fighting with the other schools, something which has apparently happened in previous years.
At the end of the day St. John’s returned with a runners-up trophy for football and the winners trophy for cheerleading. Everyone returned home and readied themselves for the next day…a school trip to the neighbouring province of Khon Kaen. The whole school. And we were setting off at 3am.
I was up at 1.30am; having gone to bed at 9pm with a good dose of whiskey in me. I was tired, but not hungover. I maintain I would’ve been equally tired (and therefore pissed off) if I hadn’t drank. Kae picked us up and we landed at school, where a few kids were milling about and playing, and a Highway Police patrol car was in attendance. Adam and I were assigned one of the third year classes to travel with; a fleet of buses had been hired, seven in total.
The departure time came and went. The kids were boisterous and the teachers were trying to keep a lid on them until they could box them up in the confines of a bus where they would surely settle down for the long journey ahead. I was looking forward to getting some more sleep also. Finally the buses showed up and we set off shortly before 4am. I closed my eyes and drifted off. At about 4.30am I was woken by music. Loud music. VERY LOUD MUSIC. The driver had turned on the CD player and treating us all to the latest Thai pop songs. The kids went nuts. Dancing in the aisle; leaping on seats; screaming like The Beatles were playing on the front seats.
At one of the service stations we stopped at I went for a wazz. Bizarrely none of the lads were using the urinals and instead they were queuing up to use the stalls. I sauntered past and relieved myself. I then felt something wet on my foot. Glancing down I realised that the urinals hadn’t been plumbed in and I was simply urinating directly on to my own feet. This did little to lift my mood. It gave the lads something to laugh about though.
We arrived at Khon Kaen Science Education Centre at about half nine. Five hours of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food made Dave very grumpy indeed. At the two stops we’d made on the way down I’d necked Red Bull to try to see me through. This had little effect, so I progressed to a bottle of M-150 which has much the same effect as Red Bull. I was further dismayed to hear that only our bus had had music on on the way down; all the others had a bit of quiet time and caught up on sleep.
The Science Centre was done and dusted by 10am and we were off to the next stop; a temple. After about 45 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at a grand 9-tiered Buddhist temple. My appreciation dulled by the bus journeys, I laboured up to the top floor, which turned out to be the size of a garden shed and becoming increasingly full of St. John’s kids. In amongst the kids were people offering prayers to the Buddha at the top. TIP FOR TEMPLE DESIGNERS: If you’re going to build a temple in a city without many tourist sights, a temple that will inevitably become a tourist sight, please make the stairs wider than one person. People will want to go down as well as up. Either that or lob a slide down the side.
The temple now sacked by the kids we were back on the bus and heading for Khon Kaen Museum. After about 45 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15 year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at the Museum. The kids filed in and were told not to touch anything and immediately set about touching everything. The displays were quite interesting to me, and also in English. Probably the town planner geek in me but there were some ace explanations of the city states that used to dot this region of Thailand.
Getting close to lunch time I asked where we would be stopping. I was told that one of the teachers has a friend that owns a restaurant and we would all be going there. Then five minutes later we weren’t. We all boarded the bus again and set off to our next destination. The Highway Patrol car that was at St John’s had, it turned out, been with us all day, and helped us through the traffic of Khon Kaen as we crawled towards wherever we were going. After about 30 minutes of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we pulled up on the side of the road, got pointed towards a small 7-11 convenience store and unleashed 7 coachloads of kids on it. This was lunch. The 7-11 was part of a filling station, to give you an idea of size. And it was filled with kids for a solid 45 minutes. Their takings must’ve been through the roof. I had to laugh when I saw the faces of normal customers as they pushed the door open to be confronted by a sea of light green shirts all clutching whatever foodstuff they could find. Even I gave up and went to sit outside until it all died own. When I did venture in all the decent food had been scavenged and I was left to pick up a ropey tuna sandwich and a can of pop. An hour or so later we set off again.
After about an hour and a half of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food we arrived at a dinosaur museum. Fossils had been found in the jungles near Khon Kaen and they’d built an attraction out of it. It was a modern building that had more than a passing resemblance to the dinosaur museum in Jurassic Park. There was much to read but I didn’t, in all honesty, feel in the mood for looking at rocks. I wanted sleep. I wanted to murder. I wanted to rip out the speakers on the bus, stab the driver in the face with them and get some bloody sleep.
After whizzing around the museum it was time to trek out to the actual sites of the fossil finds. A 5 kilometre round trip it turned out. Up a mountain. 281 students walking up a mountain at 5pm, and the sun due to set at 6pm. I did question whether all of them would make it back to the bus. I sprinted ahead (I did actually run) which caused much laughter and mimicking. My reasoning was that the quicker I did it the sooner I could get back to a bus without kids, and therefore without thumping music and shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, and hopefully find some sleep. I paid cursory glances towards the fossils themselves and then headed own. I was joined by some of the ‘academically challenged’ lads from the third year. The ones that continually play up in class. It came as a great surprise that they were genuinely interested in trying to talk to me and ask me about England; I was quite touched really. I made a note to myself to try and take them out of the classroom for a lesson or two and go for a wander around Tha Bom, in English.
We were wandering down the track and I was beginning to get a touch concerned about getting back…we hadn’t seen anyone else come past us and couldn’t see anyone behind us. The sun was gone too. My Dad had rang at this point, so I was regaling him with tales of how we were going to have to sleep out under the stars with the tigers and the ants and the snakes. After about 20 minutes we hit a metalled road, I was still on the blower when all the lads sprinted off. I looked up and they’d commandeered a passing pick-up. And it was moving away from me. I hung up on Dad and ran like the wind. As I got close I dived in to the back of the pick-up head first (no exaggeration!) which was greeted with howls of laughter and many high fives. We made our way past others, laughing at them and waving cheerio. We made it back to the buses, only to find that nearly everyone had given up on the full circle. The shits. Even more annoying, some of the teachers hadn’t even bothered going up the bloody hill and had, judging by the empty plates and bottles, had quite a trough. The double shits. And so it was I was faced with a 5 hour ride home, consisting of thumping music, shrieking, shrill screams of a pitch that only 15-year old girls can reach, minimal sleep and little food.
Sure enough, no sooner had we turned our backs on the fossils than the music was cranked up to 11 and the dancing started. Only this time there was the added bonus of Kru Pung (Kru = Teacher) whipping the kids into a frenzy on the mic (turned up one louder than the music). A frenzy sustained until we were 30 minutes short of Tha Bom. At one point I gave in and joined them for some dancing. Adam was more willing and was up for some time, doing a good impression of someone’s dad at a wedding disco. I gave up after 15 minutes, sick of cracking my head on the overhead fans. I sat there; piercing Kru Pung on the mic; the kids doing serious damage to their larynx; pounding Thai beats, all the while wishing for a mute button. I took to putting rolled up bog roll in my lugs which only slightly took the edge off the volume. I resorted to putting my hoody over my head and pretending to be asleep, only so every fucker would leave me the fuck alone thank you very much now fuck off.
I hope this gives you some impression of my ordeal.If it doesn't then maybe this will:
There was a moment of drama and a great example of Thai-ness at one of the stops on the way back. The impatient kids, eager to ransack another 7-11 had made the driver open the door before he had stopped, and were leaping out of the moving bus. The dinner ladies, who had joined us on the trip, followed suit. Only one of them slipped as she was jumping off and got dragged along the ground before her disconcerted face disappeared from my view. I had visions of her being a touch flatter by the time I saw her next. I jumped off too to see her sat on her bum with a number of other dinner ladies tending to her. She then decided it was the drivers fault for her fall and not of course anything to do with her decision to jump from a moving vehicle. She dusted herself down and went to remonstrate.
We landed in Tha Bom and blessed quietness was upon us. We clambered wearily back in to Kae’s pick-up and headed home. Sleep was blissful. Twenty-two hours awake, about 18 of them in a moving sensory assault machine in the form of a bus.
I was still recovering by the time Monday came round. In my emails came a message from Paul in Bangkok asking if I fancied a night out clubbing the following Saturday. I said yes. The week in the school passed by with the usual confusion and organised chaos. The school had asked, early on in my time, to teach the teachers English also. I had said yes but hadn’t pursued it. Typically they’ve waited until I have 4 weeks left and have now instigated the lessons. Not only for St. John’s staff but also Mahathai Primary. I was told initially I would be doing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after school. This then morphed in to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at St. John’s and Monday and Friday at Mahathai (which frankly I thought was taking the piss), and then they finally settled on Monday and Tuesday at Mahathai and Wednesday and Thursday in St. John’s. Excpet that in the first lesson at Mahathai we had 4 attendees. So now Mahathai will be joining St. John’s, who will extend their lessons to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, i.e. the original plan. To convey the exasperation and hilarity of the organisational ‘skills’ of the school is near impossible. On top of the teacher’s lessons, the third year have had their national exams this last week. In the lead up Adam and I were tutoring them at lunchtimes. They certainly know how to use free labour (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think they were taking the mickey just a touch). It was depressing to see the regularity of typos, poor grammar and ambiguous questions in the past exam papers. The kids don’t really stand a chance if they’re faced with such a mass of shoddy papers. On top of this, the kids were achieving 3/10, 4/10 or at best 5/10 in the questions we asked. Uh-oh.
In normal lessons I did ‘Job and Ambitions’. They went fairly well overall; in the last lesson with the 5th years I asked them what they wanted to do for a living, and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of answers, particularly from the girls. Most want to go on to University; one wants to be an architect; two want to be doctors; another couple, tour guides; two receptionists who want to study English at Uni. The best answer though was from one lad who said that he wants “to be the best barber in Thailand”. Quality.
It was also decided by the powers that be that I would stop going to the state run primary school, in order to help the St. John’s kids practice their exams. I have been invited back for an end of term party though; and also presented with some small gifts of gratitude from the kids – some noodles and dried soup powder (egg flavour). The kids gave me a few handmade cards, many of them saying ‘I love you Dave’. Bless.
Bangkok was calling and Adam and I caught an overnight bus down on the Friday night. I achieved about 1 hours sleep and we were spewed out at Mor Chit bus station in to the thronging mass of tuk-tuks and taxis. We landed at Paul’s at 5am and crashed out for a few more hours kip. In the day we took a quick tour of some Bangkok sights – JJ Market; Khao San Road; a boat up the river. Adam had a friend in town who he had met in Nice on his travels through France, so we met up with him. Douglas is a tall, bald Canadian chap about 50 years old. He seems very chilled and has more than a passing interest in astrology (and he’s at pains to distance himself from the ‘tabloid’ version of astrology). He also has no passport at the moment as he got himself caught up in a drug sting and arrested for possession of some marijuana. It was interesting to hear a first hand account of the Thai legal system. I use the term ‘drug sting’ quite loosely though; he bought some, the kid disappeared so he sat down on the street kerb (…), pulled his guitar on to his lap and began to skin up there and then (…). Talk about making trouble for yourself. Anyway, he’s followed us back to Chiang Khan and taken a room for a month until he heads back to court to hear of his fate. He’s anticipating a small fine.
Back to Paul’s and then out for food. We met up with Tony and Cholor and had Japanese. It was the first time I’d seen Tony since he left Tha Bom with a cheery wave. It was very good to see him, catch up and fill in. After the grub Paul, his girlfriend Poy, Adam and me headed off to the club night. It was at an exhibition centre and was bloody massive. On reflection, probably too big for the event; but we still had a good dance and a few beers. Two people came up to me and said they recognized me from Leeds and Sheffield respectively. I couldn’t remember them for toffee but they managed to place me at many of the bars and clubs I’ve been known to stumble out of. The lad from Sheffield was a good laugh and we ended up agreeing that Sheffield is better than Bangkok, by a significant margin. Giving up at 3am we headed home via McDonalds and the rebuffed advances of a ladyboy prostitute.
Christ knows why but I was awake at 8.30am on the Sunday morning. I had come down to Bangkok with a shopping list too; reasoning that there would be more chance of finding clothing for the larger/Western gent in Bangkok. We brazed up to the bus station and secured bus tickets for the way back then hit town. I’m fairly sure I paid over the odds for most of my stuff (memory card for camera: 20 quid, 10 in the UK…; Nike Cortez for 40 quid but some doubts over the authenticity; two polo shirts for 12 quid which should’ve been 20). We headed back to Paul’s and packed, departed and went to catch the bus. Paul is a top bloke and only too happy for me to abuse his hospitality – cheers mate.
I slept like a log on the bus; drifting off before getting out of Bangkok and waking up as we pulled into Chiang Khan.
This last week has passed by in a blaze of whiskey. One event to properly shit me up – the first since being here – occurred one tea time. We were all sat around and usually there’s one or two moggies knocking about on the scrounge. This evening was no exception and being a bit of a cat person I covertly dropped the odd bit of chicken on to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I caught something come out of the kitchen. I don’t know why I turned to take a full look but I’m glad I did; the ‘something’ was a fucking scorpion. A big fucking scorpion. I yelped “SCORPION!!” and immediately Pi Nu was up on his feet and Pi Tai soon after. Now I didn’t have my Collins gem SAS Survival Guide book that Mum bought me before departure to hand at this point. If I’d had it I would’ve read that a scorpion’s venom is “…neuro-toxic, causing respiratory or cardiac problems…”, and that whilst the stings are “…seldom fatal in adults”, scorpions should be “treated with respect”. “Respect” in this instance came in the form of repeated strong blows to the body with a metal chair leg. Then a stamp, just to make sure. I felt Pi NU stopped short and should’ve really pumped a couple of rounds in to the jellied mess of exo-skeleton and innards and then killed it dead with fire. That was first bit of wildlife to give me the willies. And I’m intending to go to Cambodia where they eat the bloody things. Things could get interesting.
Today there is a festival in Muang Loei that me, Adam and Douglas are going to take a look at. We’ve been warned by everyone that it’s dangerous. Gang fights are par for the course and we should avoid it, particularly after dark. Stay tuned…
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