What's Happening Now

Every time I go to blog, I've tried finishing up our Vietnam trip, but it's been slow going and I wanted to give updates about how things are going right now for us. Plus, I miss writing/story-telling in general.

The school year has started and we're now in our fourth week of teaching. As you know, Thailand's school system breaks down into Prathom 1-6 (equivalent to grades 1st-6th), Lower Mattayom 1-3 (equivalent to 7th-9th), and Upper Mattayom 4-6 (equivalent to 10th-12th). Julia and I co-teach Mattayom 1 (which was coincidental; originally I was supposed to teach Upper Mattayom, but we walked in the first day of orientation and found out we were both teaching M1). We teach 10 classes twice a week. The time slot for each class is supposed to be 50 minutes, but of course the Thai way makes it so assemblies end late and other teachers let out their classes late so that class can end up being cut to be as short as 20 minutes. Luckily, this has made us more adaptable. We can now come up with lessons that can still work in a 20 minute time period or can be expanded to fill the full 50 minutes. Unlike in America, the children's have classrooms and it's the teachers that move from class to class. This is incredibly inconvenient because if we ever have any supplies (our main one usually being a Powerpoint), we have to carry it and take time to set it up in each classroom. This includes hoping the computer works, hoping the monitor works, hoping it recognizes our flash drive, hoping the projector turns on (trying to get a student to stand on a desk with a broom handle to physically turn the projector on, since there's supposedly a remote, but it's impossible to find), and hoping the keyboard and/or mouse work so that we can open and actually use our Powerpoint. It's an adventure every time. Unlike our other school, the classes don't seem to be organized according student intellect. It's supposedly random, but there are definitely classes where it seems students are of similar caliber. For the most part, we only have three classes that are troublesome and difficult. This does however change from week to week, depending on the time of day and how the students are feeling. Our favorite classes (1/7 and 1/9) are ideal in every way. Lessons go perfectly and we always leave them feeling like we're amazing teachers. For our troublesome classes (1/1 and 1/3), we try to go in with the mindset that we'll be able to teach them, but usually end up hoping we can make it through without losing our voice from trying to talk over them or get them to quiet down. Because we don’t speak Thai, we have had to come up with multiple strategies to communicate to the kids what we want; saying “please quiet down” or “just give me 5 more minutes” makes no sense. And a 7^th grader’s natural reaction is to ignore you and talk to their friend, somebody they do understand. Some of the teachers have tried barking like a dog, which startles them into silence, others have tried implementing a “yellow card,” “red card” system similar to soccer, which ends in a child being ejected from the classroom. Julia and I have started the silence game, which involves the kids being quiet for one full minute. If anyone talks, the clock starts over. We believe that part of the reason some of the classes can’t be quiet is because they don’t quite know what quiet means. They think they can’t be heard or seen so if they continue to talk to their friends, it won’t interrupt the class. So if we convey what actual silence sounds like, then they’ll remain actually quiet for the lesson. This surprisingly works, though it takes up about 5-10 minutes of class time, since it takes four or five attempts before the kids can be quiet for a full minute. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to come up with something new soon since I have a feeling this will wear off.

Outside of school, Jules and I have been going on lots of Chiang Mai adventures. One of the things that makes Chiang Mai such a great place to live is all of the wonderful things that are just an hour or two away right outside the city. There’s a great rock climbing site that was built and is maintained by Chiang Mai Rock Climbers. It’s a beautiful area that definitely makes me want to pick up rock climbing as a hobby. We’ve also been to Huay Tung Tao lake, which is a great relaxation picnic area. We have a membership (which is really just a buy 9 get the 10^th free punch card) for a swimming pool. There’s also the floating houses, which is exactly as it sounds, where people eat, drink, and are merry in a house on the water. Some other things I’m looking forward to are the botanical gardens, the hot springs, Mae Sa Waterfall, the Golden Triangle, and other beautiful scenic routes and hikes. We’re going to start taking Thai language classes soon, which I’m super excited about because as I’ve said before, it’s near impossible to learn the language by just listening to it and trying to pick it up. We also volunteer at a nearby dog shelter, Care For Dogs, though we haven’t been able to stop by in a while since we can only go on weekends and things have been hectic with the school year starting up.

It's monsoon season now, which is actually really fun, both getting caught in the rain (depending on where we're coming from) and being inside while it storms outside. Plus the nights are a cool 85 degrees sometimes.

Our big break will be in October and Julia are deciding whether we should go home (since it will have been over a year since we’ve visited America) or travel to more countries in Southeast Asia. We’ve also talked about our various plans for after this year, since if either of us are looking into grad school, we have to start researching, taking the GRE, and applying soon.

I’m sure there are things I’ve forgotten, but I hope this gives you somewhat of an idea of how/where we are now. J

Barely Legal

In light of recent events, I think it's finally time to do that post we've been mentioning for ages - i.e. how to become legal in Thailand. Warning: this isn't meant to be entertaining! Skip this one if you prefer the anecdotes. This is just meant to help clarify the process to those who have found our intermittent updates confusing.

[Sidebar from A: And if our blog ever becomes famous then maybe people living and/or working in Thailand can use this as the guide that we never had (unless everything changes in a year, which it probably will).]

1. The Tourist Visa. 
 - You can technically just enter Thailand by air and get a free 30 days in the country, but that's typically not long enough to leave enough time for finding a job and getting the paperwork done for your new visa. In reality, it's smarter to apply in your home country for a 2 month tourist visa. Luckily, one of 3 Thai embassies in the US is located in LA (the others are Washington D.C. and Chicago), so that's where we got ours.

 Time commitment: Next day processing.
 Cost: $40 (1192 b)
  
2. Non-immigrant B Visa Paperwork.
- After securing a stable and well-paying job (this part was a breeeeeeeeeze, of course), your respectable business should get a start on your non-immigrant B visa paperwork. Honestly, I have no idea what it entails, but it all seems very complicated and, to my understanding, often falsified. The whole process takes anywhere from a week to months, and you just kind of have to hope it's happening and being done for you. The paperwork has to be dated for the day you plan to get your visa and addressed to the embassy you're planning to visit (in our case, Vientiane, Laos). After receiving this, you need a couple hundred photos (okay, like 6) and several copies of everything you have that proves you're human and American and a graduate of some sort of school.

Time commitment: Anywhere from 1 week to...months. 
Cost: None, unless you have to bribe someone to do it all faster.  

3. Trip to Laos.
- Unless you're really good at navigating the Thai/Lao bus system and want to save about 200 baht, it's best to stop in at any number of small tour agencies and book a "VIP bus" to Laos (see previous posts about Laos, where this experience was described in painful detail). You'll need to also buy a Lao visa upon entry (good for 30 days, but only used for 2, typs). The first day, you submit your paperwork and hope that your school didn't forget anything, in which case you would have to go all the way back to Thailand and start again (whiiich happened to the guy in front of us). You pick it up the next afternoon and head back to Thailand. 

Time commitment: 2 days/3 nights (not including the day of your return, which is lost due to sleep deprivation)
Cost: Bus (1900b) + Lao visa ($35/1043b) + hotel (500b) = 3443

4. Non-Immigrant B Visa.
- You can choose between a single entry and multiple entry visa. Before going through the process, it was almost impossible to know which one we were supposed to get. So we guessed, went for the cheaper one, and hoped fervently that we weren't wrong and wouldn't have to return to Laos. As it turns out (we think) they end up having the same cost/effect, but with drastically different mechanisms of operation. With a single entry visa, after entering Thailand from Laos you have 90 days to complete your paperwork or you must leave, and your visa will be cancelled. After getting your work permit, your single-entry visa can then be extended to a full year. However, leaving the country at this point will void both your visa and work permit, so you have to get a re-entry permit (see below). With a multiple entry visa, upon entering Thailand you again have 90 days to figure out your paperwork. However, if you leave the country during this time, you may do so and then return without cancelling the visa. You can do this 3 times, which essentially makes this a year-long visa wherin you must leave the country every 90 days. 

Time commitment: Next day processing.
Cost: Single entry (2000b) or Multiple entry (5000b)

4a. Visa Pages.
- At this point, becoming legal had eaten up about 5 of my passport pages, and I had a total of 0 left. If you think using up all your visa pages sounds ridiculous, in southeast Asia it's really easy. A combination of poorly-placed stamps and unnecessary visas will do the trick pretty quickly. Additional pages used to be free, but alas, no longer. Annoyingly enough, the US consulate only has appointments to add pages on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and as these tend to fill up weeks in advance, this can really put a spanner in the works for a while.

Time commitment: 2 hours
Cost: $82 (2444) :[  

5. Work Permit Paperwork.
- After getting your non-immigrant B visa, you have 90 days to get your work permit paperwork in order, receive your work permit, and then extend your visa. Again, various Thai documents are procured from some official location, and that tends to take a couple weeks. You will also need to go to the hospital and get a syphilis test and be told, in writing, that you're not dying.

Time commitment: About a month of waiting (paperwork); 2 hours (hospital tests)
Cost: Syphilis test (320b)

6. Work Permit.
Paperwork and 1,000 more photos and copies in hand, you need to head to the labour department, get very lost, and eventually submit your paperwork for a work permit. You can pick it up 7 business days later.  

Time commitment: 7 business days
Cost: 3000b

7. Non-immigrant B Visa extension.
- This is where the fun starts: in the Immigration department. Basically, a very very tiny crowded building with lots of queue signs with red numbers that don't seem to correspond to anything. Our first trip, we spent a while wandering around and going inside and out trying to find somewhere to get a number. Eventually we just asked for help at the front desk, but we were told it was too late to be helped (it was 2pm; the place closes at 4pm) and we would have to come back the next day. A week later, we came at 1pm. We should mention that on weekdays we could only go after work and Immigration is closed on weekends, so we were lucky that school had ended early this day. Again too late, but we managed to plead our case and get a quick appointment. Boom! Visa extended to one year!

Time commitment: 2 hours (if we had done it right, 5)
Cost: 1,900b

8. Re-Entry Permit
- When it came time to head to Vietnam, we had to get a re-entry permit so that leaving the country wouldn't void both our precious visa and work permit. Unfortunately, back to the immigration department. This time, we headed there at 9am (it opens at 8am), heeding the warnings that we were too late to be served last time. We were laughed away and told to come earlier the next day. Bewildered, I went home to do some more extensive research on the Thai expat forums, as the Thai immigration site itself is completely unhelpful. Apparently, if you want any hope of being served, you need to arrive between 6 and 7am. Unexpected. The next day, we arrived at 6:30, received a paper number (later determined to be useless), waited until 8 when the doors opened, received a printed paper number, waited for that number to be called and received a plastic number, and then waited until that number was called. Once called, we handed in our forms and more pictures and copies and waited another 2 hours. Finally, we had a stamp in our passports saying we could leave the country and return.

Note: You can get a single re-entry permit, good for one re-entry, or a multiple re-entry permit, good for the entirety of your visa's validity. (1000/3800b). So it's a gamble - if you think you'll leave the country 4 times on your visa, it's worth it. If not...you're stuck doing this process every time you want to leave, but you might pay less. 

Time commitment: In theory, 5 hours.
Cost: 1000b

9. - until you leave the country for reals. 90 day check-ins.
- If you don't want to get deported, you have two choices - either leave the country every 90 days (after getting the appropriate permit), or check in at immigration every 90 days. The timing has been right, so we have yet to need to worry about this. We'll let you know in...50 days. It's going to be fun!

Time commitment: 5 hours/1+ days every 90 days
Cost: None/re-entry permit (1000b) + trip away (at bare minimum, 1000b) = 2,000b

Time span: 6-9 months and then every 90 days
Absolute minimum number of days on which you must miss some work (if you don't make any mistakes), because nothing is open after school hours: 8 days (so in reality, more like 12).
Total cost: 15,299b ($513)

If $513 doesn't seem like a lot of money to pay to stay in Thailand legally for a year, well...in many ways, it isn't. But for some perspective, here's some other things you can get with that money here: a gently used motorbike, 4 months' share of rent and utilities, 382 delicious Thai lunches, 5 laptops, 15 gently used guitars, 100 skirts ideal for teaching.

But wait! I forgot a step!
...
10. Transferring the work permit and visa to a new job.
- I tricked you! This isn't possible. That's right; all this must, essentially, be repeated, despite us having only really finished it a month ago. But here's the catch: before you can begin the process again, the work permit needs to be returned (a trip to the labour department and some forms), and the extension of stay on your visa needs to be cancelled (a trip to the immigration department). It would be difficult to get these done on the same day, owing to the aforementioned limitations of the immigration office. Once the work permit is cancelled, though, you have 24 hours to leave the country. Every day you stay over will cost you 500b. In practice, people tend to ask immigration for an extension period of 7 days (1900b) and then head to Laos as soon as possible, but you need to have all your paperwork ready and waiting.

And so, the adventure begins for us again...luckily, we think we'll be able to hold onto our work permit indefinitely, and wait until October (when we may return home) to get a new visa in America.

If this post was boring, confusing, and made you feel uncomfortable and tired, it should have. While writing it, I reminded myself of about 5 more things I need to do in the coming months to stay legal. We haven't even dipped into what we've had to do for our motorbike, bank accounts, and phone service. Though I'm not that aware of the process in other countries, I can definitely say that this experience has made me far more sympathetic to immigrants and expats in other countries. Red tape is exhausting, and sometimes the whole process just seems aimed at making sure you don't want to stay another year.

Next post to come: more about our amazing new job!

Vietnam: Nha Trang, Dalat, and Ho Chi Minh City

Darn, we're out of the catchy "H's," but luckily the trip itself just keeps getting better and better.

Nha Trang is a beautiful stretch of beach in South-Central Vietnam. While there are a few sites to see here, the town is mostly about the activities you can do in the area and of course, lounging around on the beach. Julia and I did more of the former than the latter since we're terrible at relaxing for relaxing's sake. It was here that we finally took a cooking course, which we've always wanted to do (and actually still want to do in Thailand if we ever find the time or money). We took cyclos, which are like reverse cycle rickshaws and look like wheelchairs with bicycles attached to the back, to the morning market where they taught us how to pick good fruit, vegetables, and meat. Since it was more of an elementary cooking course we mostly worked on basic techniques like selecting ingredients and cutting, but they throw in some fun extras like flambé and trying out cool Vietnamese dishes (we'll get into those gruesome details later). Though we have a local market near us in Thailand, this trip to the market was quite eventful due to its massiveness, its popularity, and the parts that included chopping up meat and de-skinning frogs. I'm going to warn you right now, if you're at all squeamish or feel like you could be disturbed about any animal, be it fish, cow, or frog, being harmed in any way, then you absolutely should NOT read what I'm about to describe. I'm 100% serious. If you're wondering why I would even put this in the blog then, my only answer is the same answer I would use to explain why anything goes in this blog, because I'm sharing my experiences. (You can continue reading after the break). Are you ready? Have I given you enough time to, at the very least, brace yourself? Okay. Well first of all this image accosted us quite suddenly as you turn a corner and there it is, a bucket of live frogs jumping around right next to a woman who is preparing them for selling (if I were to use the world's biggest euphemism). She grabs a frog and swiftly hits its head against a rock and it instantly stops moving. Not just a frog though, she does this with a couple frogs in rapid succession. She then cuts it along the stomach and somehow (I actually wouldn't be able to tell you the specifics here since I myself am watching this through half-glances. Similar to watching a scary movie through the slits of your fingers, but not wanting to be rude, I just did a lot of looking to the left and right while attempting to passively watch the ordeal) she takes the skin off in one quick motion and throws them in another pile. At this point they're still alive, which is probably the most horrifyingly difficult part to watch. I thought at first that maybe they were just contracting their arms and legs as a biological reaction after death, but then Julia saw one hopping. They're actually like this for a minute or so as she does this to a few more frogs. Then, and I'm telling you it just gets harder and harder to watch, she takes scissors and cuts off their heads and legs, just like that (to be completely honest, I'm getting a little shaken as I write this). Of course, the legs still twitch for a good long while after this, even when they're in our pots hours later for cooking, but this part, thankfully, truly is just a biological reaction. I'd say the most interesting part of this is the woman's manner while performing her job. What else can she be but passive and neutral? She has probably been doing this for her entire life. And she probably will pass this on to her kids. And even if this is too much of a presumption, even if she only came into this profession later in life, she has clearly been doing it for some time. Her and everyone around her who has to complete similar tasks look the same as if they're just doing some laundry. You take the clothes, you put them in the washer, then the dryer, then you fold them. You take the live frog, you hit its head on a rock, then cut the skin off, then you cut its head and legs off. I have a video, but maybe I'll save that for sharing my experiences in person. Surprisingly, due to the life experiences I've had up until now, I think I did a fairly good job of remaining detached as well. Yes I was shaken and yes I still get a little frazzled even now, but compared to some other reactions and compared to reactions I'm bound to get from those who haven't been in similar situations, I'd say I can actually understand a bit more of the Asian perspective on animals for sustenance. In America we've been able to distance ourselves as much as possible from the living creature to what ends up on our plate, often completely unaware of what happens miles away in an automatized cattle or pig farm. I might only be speaking for city folks here, but I myself don't often see the animal from beginning to end when using any kind of meat to prepare a meal, but most people here do that every day (this obviously applies more to frogs and fish. They don't just herd pigs and cows in the market, it's not that big.).

The market trip took a few hours and when we got back we got to make spring rolls, a clay pot dish, and as I mentioned, we set stuff on fire for dessert. If we wanted, we could try a Vietnamese delicacy for dessert: balut. A fertilized duck egg with a nearly developed embryo inside, which is boiled and eaten in the shell. Julia and I were actually willing to try this when we were first asked at the market, but they didn't bring it out until we had already finished our three-course meal and they took one completely out of the shell just to show you what it looks like (since you technically eat it by just cracking open the top of the egg and using a spoon). Needless to say we didn't end up eating it. We also got some fun goodies at the end: a cookbook, a wooden spatula, and a grater. To most people I think this was just a fun cherry on top to the cooking class, or even just an inconvenient addition to their luggage, but for us it was actually an incredibly valuable and useful gift since we're lacking in proper cooking supplies at home.

We also got a mud bath here, which they work up to be a sort of spa experience. It involves a short drive to the getaway area in the mountains, a mineral cleansing shower (which is really just a normal shower that you would find on a beach), the mud bath itself, a sun-baking area, and a hot tub to finish off. The mud bath was actually quite fun and though we paid for the cheapest package, which meant we could be in a bath of up to 12 people, we arrived there a couple hours before closing, so we got to do everything for an unlimited amount of time with just the two of us. The mud itself is more silty-water than actual mud, but it feels like taking a bath in a fancy herbal scrub. If you lie down you can float without trying at all, even though the bath is only a few feet deep. We didn't get any pictures since we were worried about bringing the cameras into the area. Even though it was all fake-spa-ie, it was a really fun experience that I would definitely do again.

The next day was our big "booze cruise" with Funky Monkey. Julia did extensive research about this trip to the four islands of Nha Trang and we knew exactly what we were in for for this excursion, unlike some others on the trip. They pick you up in the morning and start off with a trip to the aquarium on the first island. We already knew the aquarium was overpriced and what's worse is that, like many of the zoos and aquariums we've come across in Southeast Asia, they don't take care of their animals the way one would hope. Too many turtles in one tank. Too many species in one tank for that matter. We had planned from the beginning not to pay for the aquarium. The problem with that is since the entire cruise is just a funnel for tourist money, there's literally nothing else to do and nowhere else to go on the island. The only path is from the boat directly to the aquarium. So Jules and I sat for about 45 minutes sneaking the drinks that we brought in our backpack (give us a break, we were on vacation). Let's just say that when everyone else came back out, we were all set to be social and happy. The second island consisted of a snorkeling trip with the gear provided. The reef there was mostly dead so there were really only a handful of fish. Plus if you've been snorkeling in Belize like Julia or in Hawaii like me then this part was especially comical. Of course we knew this already, so we just had fun being in the cool water on a beautiful day. I actually spend a good 20 minutes trying to dive down to get the breathing part that I dropped since it wasn't attached to my mask and another 15 minutes or so imagining a murder mystery-esque story about how the playing cards scattered throughout the bottom of the reef got there. I'm not sure if I'm making it sound boring or fun so I'd like to clarify that both of these activities were actually really fun. It was lunch on the boat after this. But perhaps the highlight of the trip comes from the Funky Monkey band. The chef has a drum set that he's made using pots and pans from the kitchen. It's actually a really creative and almost not terrible sounding drum set. They set up a mic and a guitar and sing the most random English songs they know. They then make every person or group of people come up and sing a song from their country. Due to their limited repertoire, these songs are also songs that, yes everybody knows them, but how did that song get associated with that country when there are literally thousands that are better, perhaps even more widely known. Case in point: Our song for United States was "I Want it That Way" by The Backstreet Boys. After the concert came the floating bar, which was a guy in an inner-tube with handles on the side for us all to hold onto. Lucky thing they were there too because as the waves continuously crashed into us, he would serve us this terrible concoction of what we thought to be dirt-cheap vodka and orange Fanta. Mix that in with a little bit of sea water and you've got yourself the Funky Monkey cocktail. It was hilarious and funny and we all shouted "Yo!" which is apparently the Vietnamese equivalent to "Cheers" or "Salud." We also got to jump off of the roof of the boat and swim around a bit more. The last island was a fairly miserable beachy island that you also had to pay to go on. These Vietnamese man, they have their "let's get the most money out of these suckers" down. Naturally everybody's good and inebriated by this time thanks to that excuse of a drink served in the "floating bar" so it doesn't really matter. As we had read beforehand, if you're looking for a snorkeling adventure, this wasn't it. And if you were hoping for a little more culture, this definitely wasn't it. So unfortunately there were a few unhappy customers in the bunch, but I'd say most of us just laughed along. Plenty of sun was had that day as well so a run to get some Aloe Vera the next day added to my ever increasing medical kit, which now included gauze, medical tape, Panthenol, Neosporin, and Aloe Vera.

Our final day was spent with a few hours lounging on the beach before we were off to Dalat.

We originally were going to go straight from Nha Trang to HCMC but since the bus inconveniently ran from 7 am to 9 pm (rather than being an awesome night bus that would replace the cost of a hotel), we decided to split that trip in half. From the package we could choose to go to Mui Ne, which was described as another beach town but for more of the action/adventure tourist who enjoys water sports, or Dalat, which was described as Vietnam's alter-ego with a French vibe that was an eternal spring because of its pleasant mountain weather. Without a doubt Dalat was the best choice. Ever. We both fell in love with the place. So much so that we would without question live there if we were to live in Vietnam. It's incredibly beautiful with its greenery and flowers and the weather is just perfect. Like April 25th, it's not too hot, not too cold, and all you need is a light jacket. It's also not too big, but not too small. And it's not too overwhelming, but not too boring. It's just the perfect combination in every way.

All right, I wanted to fit all three cities into this entry, but time flew by and since work has started I actually have to go to bed at a decent hour. Hopefully I left you enough to read about before I finish it up!

____________________________________________________________________________

Okay here I am two months later ready to finish up my Vietnam trip entry. :)

So a bus ride up the mountain to Dalat brought us to a place where all of the milk in Vietnam seems to be from (although we did not see one cow there). It was a bit difficult to find a place at first since our few Lonely Planet choices were full. Dalat is a relatively small place but all of its streets are winding and extremely confusing, so we got lost multiple times. Eventually we found a place with an owner who looks ALMOST EXACTLY like my mom. She was basically my mom (in stature and looks) but she had rounder eyes. Julia noticed it first and when she pointed it out to me I didn't believe her. But then after that it felt like my mom was showing us the room and taking our passports and telling us about the tour options she has. I wanted to try and sneak a picture but the awkwardness was too much to try to communicate to someone who barely understands English that I wanted a picture of/with her, let alone the reason behind it.

Our first day there, we soaked up the perfect weather with a visit to the market, a walk around the entirety of the absurdly green lake (which was a mistake; the lake definitely looked much smaller than it was and every turn revealed another mile or so and we kept thinking that we were closer to the end than the beginning so we might as well keep going and anyway I looked it up later and the quick walk turned out to be 7 km [or 4.35 miles]), some Vietnamese coffee, and a night out.

There are many chances in Vietnam to get around on an Easy Rider tour, which presumably started out with one dude on a motorcycle trying to convince people that for a certain sum of money, they can hop on the back of his motorbike with all of their belongings and he'll give them the tour of a lifetime. This apparently worked and has become widespread to many parts of Southeast Asia. Vietnam is an easy place because if they catch you in HCMC or Hanoi, they can take you up or down the entire way and suddenly you have your transportation and tour guide set for the rest of your trip. Countries that are less obviously laid out for travel might have a harder time with a set route for travelers. Also, since this form of touring has become so popular there are tons, TONS, of imitation Easy Riders. When the copycats started showing up, the original Easy Riders apparently forked out money for some high-class snazzy blue jackets with the website on the back. But of course, imitators then did the same. It's near impossible to figure out which one is the legitimate original company, but it's not 100% necessary to find the OG Riders, just as long as you still end up with a legitimate company.

For most of the places we visited so far, it was more cost-efficient and made more sense to do our own tours via walking. Though you miss out on a few Wats, temples, and fields of nature, we decided to save our money for things like museums, cooking classes, delicious foods and drinks, and the like. Much of what makes Dalat a fun getaway is what surrounds the city (in Lonely Planet, the 6-page chapter is called "Dalat & Around". To give perspective, the chapter on Hanoi alone is 40 pages.). The main things to do in town are to see the lake, the market, and the "Crazy House," a Disney-like structure that I'll talk about in a bit. So we booked a full day Easy Rider and it was definitely an awesome decision. Our day started with a visit to the Dragon Pagoda, which also had a bit of an amusement park feel with its huge dragon statue looping around the majority of the garden in front.

Blogspot won't let me save this without publishing, so I guess my draft will have to be posted. More to come.

Vietnam: Hue and Hoi An

Vietnam's tendency to have their major tourist cities start with the letter "H" makes for catchy blog titles.


Made some Vietnamese coffee and now I'm pumped (at 1:40 am) to write another entry. :)


So now we're in Hue which was the former capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty in an attempt to unite northern and southern Vietnam. Any time we heard about central Vietnam, fellow travelers would say between Hue and Hoi An that one of them is boring and disappointing while the other is fantastic. The problem is that everyone always mixes up the two cities and nobody can quite remember which one was which! So I'm here to clear that up right now: Hue is incredibly boring and Hoi An is wonderful and vibrant and lively. The main thing to do in Hue is to see the Citadel, which was built to house the Emperor and family. Unfortunately the Citadel was heavily bombed during the war, which means the main thing to do in Hue is to see some ruins. Yes some of the history is interesting and worth learning, but the Citadel consists of meandering through fields and fields without any guidance or understanding of what each empty piece of land originally was. As a historical site, it's poorly structured and uneventful. There are about two original buildings  that survived the bombing, but I use "original" loosely as one of them was completely renovated on the inside (and the other is closed to the public) and then there are two re-built buildings that emulate what the Citadel used to look like, which leaves about 20+ plots of overgrown grass and weeds with bits of rubble if you're lucky. The whole thing can be covered in a couple hours. Also I think I've mentioned this before, but this is yet another city that has no business being as expensive as it is. And we ran into not one, but three places that carried out the most annoying and petty "I'm going to pretend there was a miscommunication that ultimately ends in me overcharging you" gag ever, which is when we order a bottle of something like sprite or iced tea (which is 12,000 dong) versus a can (20,000 dong) and then they either tell us the prices are switched or they just give us a can and then charge us (one restaurant went so far as to take a pen and draw arrows on their menu pointing to the true prices, because even though it clearly said "bottle ....... 12,000 dong," it's actually 20,000. Sorry the menu's just printed wrong. Our bad. But yeah you're going to have to give us that money.) It's the principle of the thing gosh darnet. So there were a couple of museums that we went to as well, such as the Ho Chi Minh Museum. There is one in every city, but trusty Lonely Planet said that this one is "better than most" as he lived there for about 10 years. Another common theme in Hue was that every place was completely empty and would look closed when we showed up. So we'd walk in and then someone would eventually come out and sell us a ticket and then they'd go turn on all the lights and the fan for the museum, because why leave on all of this electricity when literally nobody is coming in? Funny, eerie, and weirdly empowering (like we paid for a private viewing) to be the only ones in the museums (in that whole city really). We also ended up eating at an Indian food restaurant for dinner as we had wanted some for a while. We got into Hue around 9 am and left around 7 am the next morning. And our total expenditure for that day (which Julia will go into more detail in another post) was only on lunch, dinner, and two museum tickets. So that's Hue.

Hoi An on the other hand is a sharp contrast to the dullness of Hue. It's a small former port city that managed to stay on the map even after being heavily bombed (and rebuilt) and after losing its status as a major port to nearby larger towns by being declared as a Unesco World Heritage site in 1999. It's the first I've heard of an entire city being a World Heritage site although I'm sure there are a few others as well. Such a smart move and such a beautifully fun preserved city. Where do I begin! There are tons of 600-year-old houses (I say "tons" as in relative to your average town) as well as temples, pagodas, chapels, and old workshops and they're all in Old Town. So what you do is buy an Old Town ticket, which is a package that gives you 5 tickets for you to use as you like amongst the 800+ historical buildings. Sounds overwhelming but a lot of them are actually free and the most popular and interesting ones are obvious as you walk around. The old houses had similar themes with blends of Chinese, Japanese, and Thai architecture. I know I'm going to forget or mix up some of the main facts but I believe Chinese was in the roof tiling which was often a Yin and Yang design, Japanese was in the pillars (which had three vertical lines to represent the three lines on the human palm and five horizontal lines to represent the main elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water [I looked this up so we're all set, don't worry this is correct]. I kind of like that these are the main elements because what happened to Wind? And why is Metal in there? Obviously a lot of thought was put into it but I had never heard of these being the main categories in which everything naturally breaks down, but maybe if I sat down and started a list I would find that everything really does fit neatly into those five), and Thai is in everything else. Since the houses are built right on the water, many of them get flooded during the rainy season, so they have lines marking water heights during various years, some of them taller than Julia! Rather than building the houses on stilts (a la traditional Lanna homes), they still have a first floor with furniture, but the wood is a strong wood that doesn't get damaged so all of the non-water-resistant items just get moved to the second floor during this time. It's fun to think about how having 5 or 6 feet of your city flooded once a year could just be a natural part of your life. Just, yup this is when I boat to school instead of walking and oh yeah the living room is just going to be underwater for a couple few MONTHS so we'll just eat upstairs.

We also went to the Tran Family Chapel which was full of history and interesting facts. For example, when babies in the family were born, they would bury the placenta in the backyard to cement/reinforce the idea that no matter where they traveled in life, they would always have a part of them back home. They also have these antique yin and yang coins that you shake in your hand while making a wish and then throw it into a bowl; if they land one side yin and the other yang then you will have success in that endeavor. A wish in this case is not your typical "I wish I could fly" type of deal but more of a realistic "I hope to be successful in my career." What I love even more is that the guide said you can do this up to 3 times to try and get yin and yang and if even after 3 times you weren't successful, THEN maybe you should rethink your wish. I'm no statistics major but I'm pretty sure that those odds just show how much we as humans come up with superstitions and rituals that will only feed into our belief that we will be successful and that all is good and that life will work out in the end. A brilliant psychological move on the part of the brain I should say, so, tip of the hat to our minds. We also went to an ancient apothecary which we both thought was going to contain some awesome old-timey medicines and bottles with interesting facts about how cocaine used to be used for toothaches (true fact), but it was just...a room full of plates? That was weird. Oh I should mention that most of these places are still occupied by the homeowners who live upstairs, so some of them feel like you're just wandering into someone else's home uninvited.

Ah and Hoi An is just so beautiful. The colors! All the buildings are this rustic yellow that works perfectly with the climate of the city. The way the sun hits the buildings at any time of day, but especially during sunset is just a photographer's dream (except really, an SLR-owner's dream). It's the main city where we wish we had brought Julia's SLR (but we were ultimately glad we didn't because we were too afraid it would get wrecked (not to mention take up half the space in our tiny backpacks) and though there are plenty of artsy photos to be taken in Vietnam, we had a good enough time with my dinky point and shoot). There are tons of crafts and beautiful clothing sold there as well. Julia and I normally don't seek out souvenirs for loved ones back home; we're more the type to buy something that jumps out at us. But here we found the perfect small gifts for my dad and for Kali (not telling though! It's a surprise!). :)

Hoi An also has an awesome and vibrant night life. There are tons of beautiful strings lights and lanterns throughout the city and there's an hour in the night when they turn off all the lights and everybody sits there in the intimate and dimly lit dark. Then when a gong goes off to signify the end of the Earth Hour-esque time, everybody cheers and takes a sip of their 4,000 dong "fresh" beer on tap. Sigh, I miss it already :). We also wandered into a bar that served very cheap "shots" and "buckets." Why the quotes? Well I tried to get a good scale picture but the shots are barely bigger than a thimble (not exaggerating....maybe a little exaggerating but think tiny) and the buckets are actually literally just jelly jars. Love it. They also had a pool table and a wall that you could write on (I'll try to include the pictures at the end) and the sweet owner pleaded with us to stay, even if we didn't buy anymore to drink because they just need it to look like it was a cool hangout place, so we spent a good hour as he gave us tips on how to improve our pool game haha. Also if you're white and looking for a job (again, white is a loose term here, since I'm considered white in Vietnam), it's a thing in this town to hire you to promote their bar (which just means handing out flyers to tourists every night). Tempting, because we would be paid the same amount as we do teaching. Last but most definitely not least, this is where we tried more signature Vietnamese dishes like the White Rose which is a dumpling stuffed with shrimp and spices. Omnomnom.

I forgot to mention in the last post that our frantic xe om ride from the bus to the train station in Hanoi was where Julia got her "Thai Tattoo" or "Vietnamese Victim" (the second one I made up so don't go around repeating that one), which is a burn on your calf from the muffler/exhaust pipe that's exposed on the right side of the bike. Since motorbikes are so common, these burns are also really common. We walked into a pharmacy and pointed at it and they immediately gave us everything we needed to treat it. And at one point we were stopped on the side of the road to fix the gauze/tape and a woman stopped and was like "from motorbike yes?" and gave us advice on how to help it heal. All in all NOT a fun wound but a great battle scar story once it's healed.

We stayed in Hoi An for a few days and then we were on our second overnight bus to Nha Trang, the "hedonistic beach party capital." Halfway done! The second half of our Vietnam trip consists of Nha Trang, Dalat, and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Then I'm going to slip in an entry about more of our current happenings, which include volunteering at our local dog shelter, participating in weekly pub quiz nights, more vacationing, and preparing for the new school year.

If you're reading this between when I posted the writing a la carte, then the supplementary pictures (part of a complete breakfast) are coming so check back! (I think I'm getting a little loopy as it's now 3:30 am). Although I am admittedly in a great mood as I finish this entry because of all the reminiscing about our trip to Vietnam. :)

Vietnam: Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

For U.S. citizens, Vietnam requires a visa no matter your length of stay. Through extensive research we discovered that rather than going through all the hassle at a Vietnam Embassy in Bangkok, we could apply online to get a Visa on Arrival. Supposedly this entails paying a small fee to a program that gets a letter from immigration asking Vietnam to let you in. You then go to a station when you arrive, fill out a form, pay another fee for the visa itself and badabing badaboom you've got your visa. We were sufficiently worried that this may not be a real thing and that we would end up getting deported from Vietnam before our vacation even started, but through Julia's faith in research and my Dory-like faith in not knowing what's going to happen but trusting it'll be okay, we stuck to this service and it all worked out perfectly. We brought American dollars to Thailand just for this purpose because many countries still accept USD as well as their local currency. (We'll see if that remains true in another 20 years or so.) And holding American money is like holding play money, except it's not nearly as fun because unlike almost any other currency in the world, it's incredibly boring and all the same color. I'd like to think that once your "home" currency becomes not just weird, but sufficiently surreal to hold and use as valid money, then you have definitely lived long enough somewhere else to call it home.

Our first couple meals in Hanoi were Banh Mi, which are Vietnamese street sandwiches, heavily influenced by the French (hence the baguette) but with sufficient Vietnamese flare (everything inside of the baguette). Julia LOVES these and I quite enjoy them as well. They vary from doner kebabs to simple sandwiches with omelettes (made to order of course), laughing cow cheese (the most common cheese you'll find in Asia since it doesn't need to be refrigerated), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, possibly pâté or some other meat, mayonnaise, hot sauce, and whatever else you can think of really. If I could bring street food to California, I would in a heartbeat. It's funny that it's something quite prevalent in New York City and even on boardwalks for some of California's beaches, but it's still not something that is frequent or widely accepted. It should be. Let me tell you, we are thoroughly missing out in America.

Hanoi is the current capital of Vietnam and it's where our friend Jenna (who was Julia's roommate in India and whom we realize we've seen in 4 countries now, which we believe confirms us as lifelong friends) is currently living and teaching English. These two facts combined to make Hanoi one of our obvious favorite cities in Vietnam (though you'll soon see that it's actually hard for us to pick favorites because every city was wonderfully unique. It's actually easier to pick the cities that weren't quite up to the high standard that the rest of tourist-Vietnam sets). My absolute FAVORITE dish by far was Bun Cha. It's this delicious soup served with vermicelli noodles and basically grilled pork meatballs. And you dip in various greens and herbs. It's served at a coolish temperature, which is interesting because it seems like it's supposed to be served hot. It's also only available from 11 am-2 pm throughout Hanoi, though I'm not sure of the reason. It's awesome because people will set up stands in alleyways that just have one sign that says Bun Cha with an arrow underneath. So you go and sit down on these extremely temporary plastic miniature stools and eat this incredibly delicious meal. And then an hour later the whole station is gone without a trace. Jenna toted us around on the back of her motorbike to tons of local food stalls and coffee shops, including a coffee shop that is hidden behind an art store. You actually drive your bike through the store to park in the back and then go up a bunch of winding staircases to get to this absolutely beautiful view of Hoan Kiem Lake in Old Quarter, which is basically central Hanoi. We tried egg drop coffee which is delicious Vietnamese coffee topped with a sweet whipped egg yolk. We also tried delicious traditional Vietnamese drip coffee with condensed milk. And we tried Vietnamese coffee with yogurt, which gives it a really tangy creamy taste.

Food aside, since Jenna lives in Hanoi and isn't really a tourist (like us with Chiang Mai, but more so with Thailand as a whole), she did some touristy things for the first time with us. One of these is the Water Puppet Show which originated in the rivers of northern Vietnam and moved to an enclosed theater. It involves puppeteers waist-deep in a pool using a rod to manipulate the puppets and tell traditional stories of Vietnam. It was pretty cute and fun to watch and one of those must-dos for Vietnam and specifically Hanoi since that is where it originated. We also went to Beer Corner, which isn't a specific place but rather a fun activity where you sit on those ubiquitous miniature plastic stools (which Julia says isn't good for people with long legs. I wouldn't know) and drink a cup of 5,000 dong draught beer (which is about 20 cents but is equivalent to paying like a nickel for beer). From the "Fresh beer" signs we learned that vendors sell beer that production centers make fresh everyday and it goes bad within 24 hours because it doesn't have any preservatives. It's an interesting concept and a one of a kind experience, though can get a bit hectic with vendors being really pushy about you sitting at their corner, ordering more beers, or leaving immediately after you've paid. It's also something that easily went from a fun local tradition to a backpacker craze in Vietnam, but no complaints here for almost free beer. :) We also walked around Old Quarter where all the shopping is. The streets are laid out in a very interesting manner; they are named after the product that is sold on the street. So most streets begin with the word "hang" which means merchandise or shop, followed by the name of the product. If you're looking for scarves, try scarf street. Maybe you need jewelry from silver street or a raft from bamboo raft street. It's great and it's almost like a child's drawing coming to life with such an intuitive and simple way of laying things out. What's fun and very meta is that many stores sell things like mannequins or LCD signs, which is kind of confusing. I'll be looking at a bunch of naked mannequins, wondering what clothing the store is selling and then I'll realize they're selling the actual mannequins. Or I'll be reading a light up sign to see what it's advertising, and it's blinking the words "LCD Sign."

One of the beautiful places to visit in Vietnam is Ha Long Bay, which is a 4.5 hour bus, boat, bus ride from Hanoi. It's a weekend getaway of kayaking, snorkeling, rock climbing, scuba diving, and breathtaking views. Cat Ba Island is one of the more popular and largest amongst Ha Long Bay's 366 islands. Jenna loves rock climbing there so much that she goes there about twice a month, which is saying a lot considering the long and tedious trip to get there and back. You know when guide books tell you the on and off seasons for visiting certain places? And since it's dependent on weather it usually just means that off season has lower prices and fewer people. That's why my family always went to places like Death Valley in the summer time or Sequoia National Park in the winter. Well for Vietnam (and I imagine much of southeast Asia), off season means basically nobody else is there but you. This became very apparent in places like Cat Ba Island. It was like that one time my parents and I went to Coney Island when it was closed; a place that's normally lively and somewhat chaotic and filled with noises and sights and smells is just...closed. It was kind of fun to be two amongst a mere handful of tourists and locals on the island, despite the construction and less-than-perfect weather. Jules and I really wanted to go rock climbing because many sources told us about how it's the perfect place for beginners and experts alike, but we just didn't have the funds. Instead we took a peaceful kayaking trip around the islands as well as a hike to Cannon Fort which boasts amazing views of the bay below. Unfortunately our weekend getaway was incredibly foggy the entire time so we definitely did not get to see the epicness of Cat Ba's beauty. Jules and I got some great pictures of us holding up the guidebook (with a picture of what the view should look like) over the real viewpoint (which is what we actually saw). When it comes to the weather, you win some and you lose some.

The trip between Hanoi and Hue (in central Vietnam) is the longest trip that a backpacker takes in Vietnam as there aren't any tourist destinations between these two cities even for the traveler who likes to go off the beaten path. We had bought a train ticket from Hanoi to Hue that was leaving at 7:30 pm the next day, which enabled us to spend a day and a half in Ha Long Bay before heading back to make the evening train. We wanted to leave the island around 1 pm to give us plenty of time to get back to Hanoi, possibly share a meal with Jenna, and comfortably get on the train. Unfortunately, this is not what the universe had planned for us. The earliest bus we could get was 2:30 pm. With a 4.5 hour trip, this would be cutting it a bit close, but there wasn't much we could do but hope we made it on time. A bus, a boat, a bus, and another bus later, we pull up to the bus station at 7:20 pm, our backpacks ready and our anxiety high. The minute the bus stopped we jumped off and hopped on a xe om, which is basically a motorcycle taxi. We told them we needed to be at the train station in 10 minutes to make our train and they thoroughly understood that. I know this because they ZOOMED through Hanoi. That was one of the fastest and definitely most dangerous rides I've ever taken, putting full trust in a stranger to keep us alive. We get to the wrong train station at 7:29, which I communicate to them and we immediately hop back on and go down to the correct station. We SPRINT into the station and my watch, the train station clock, and my iPhone all say it's 7:30. But the train had left. Even describing this moment now, sitting in my home in Thailand, fully aware of how the story ended, my heart is starting to beat fast again. I was SO upset. Yes it was our fault that we weren't earlier, but I know for a fact that the train left early and that just killed me. Those tickets were $32 each, which is a lot of money by American standards, let alone by our Thai living standards. We worked so hard to save enough money to go on vacation and we just threw $60 out the window. I was thoroughly upset and did all I could to get at least a partial refund, but they just wouldn't have it. What bothered me more was their lack of customer service; it's simply not a thing in Vietnam. There's no such thing as trying to reach an understanding or making the customer feel valued. If you're not buying something from me, then go away, is the attitude there. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it is definitely very different from America, where a business arguably can't get away with that kind of attitude. Let me be clear here, it sounds like I'm complaining that they didn't immediately come to me with a glass of water and a pat on the back. What I'm saying is the way they wave their hand away and ignore you before you even say a word; the way they throw your ticket at you or frown or roll their eyes and act like you're the scum of the earth. It's something I can deal with as a whole, but in this moment it took all I had to keep it together and try to persuade them to even listen to me at all. At the end of it though, I was able to get through to a lady who explained that she just couldn't do anything because it's against the law to refund money after 4 hours before the train departs. Sigh.

But what better place to be "stranded" than with Jenna in Hanoi. So we stayed another night and were able to find something called an Open Bus Ticket. Basically, you buy a ticket package that covers all of your transportation for the whole of Vietnam. They have one or two buses that leave everyday and all you have to do is book the bus on the day you want to leave. The total of those tickets for each of us was $42. So instead of rebuying the train tickets that take us only to Hue, we were able to get a pretty good deal. The reason people don't generally use the Open Bus is because they're fairly uncomfortable and a bit dangerous as the drivers go at incredibly fast speeds over bumpy roads.

So the next evening we were on a sleeper bus on our way to Hue.

And that was Hanoi :)



Note: I didn't have time to proofread this entry before posting so I apologize if my natural tendency towards using too many words to say things gets confusing, like this very sentence.

Bangkok Revisited

Alright alright already! So many complaints about lack of posting but we've been too busy living life! (Semi-joking, I've also just been bad with posting because the times when I'm most inspired to write, I'm usually in the middle of doing something like working or grocery shopping and by the time I get home I just want to drink tea and watch Breaking Bad and read the Ender's Game series while helping to cook some awesome new dinner that Julia thought up. It's now summer break and since we're back from vacation I have no excuses.)

We have so much to catch up on both on our life in Thailand and on our trip to Vietnam! I think I'll start with Vietnam and possibly go backwards from there. Because it was a 26 day trip that included a visit to Bangkok, I'll probably break it up into a few blog entries. So here we go, Vietnam travels days 1-3: Bangkok

Julia made this brilliant insight a while ago before we began teaching about how our memory of past experiences and people who have come in and out of our lives end up being summed up in a sentence. This not surprisingly seems to apply to many aspects of life, from the way we describe our 1st grade teacher to the way we describe that 6 month study abroad trip when we come back and everybody is like, "Welcome back! How was [insert country here]?" and there's no way you can answer such a broad question with anything but a sentence that you repeat for every person who asks. She talked about how it's crazy that we're going to be with these students and see their progress and develop lesson plans for them for a year (or in our case, half a year) and they'll go on to other teachers and other schools and live their lives and we'll become a sentence. The sum total of our effort and caring and love and it will end with, "Yeah she was a good teacher" or "Yeah I didn't really like my ___ grade teacher." It's an interesting thought about our impact on other people's lives and of course, makes one think about the sentence that other people and memories have become in our lives. (At the end of our last day of teaching, I turned to Julia on the ride home and simply said out of context, "Do you think we're a good sentence?" and after figuring out what I was talking about she smiled and said, "I think we are.")

I didn't really like Mrs. Gilbert, my first grade teacher, but I liked all other elementary school teachers.

India was a crazy amazing experience and it's weird to be back.

Vietnam was a beautiful place with history and we are so grateful we were able to go.

With this one sentence realization, we've been trying to focus on fleshing out the experience in our minds before we lose all of the wonderful and nitty-gritty detail. Luckily, with the help of diaries, blogs, and pictures, we get to capture even more about our experiences to share with others and to reminisce when we're older and are fondly looking back on our lives.

Our vacation began with a train ride to Bangkok, where we would fly to Hanoi (if you're looking at this on a map, [Kendrice and JB I'm sure you are] it doesn't geographically make sense for us to do this, but these were the cheapest tickets). Bangkok is still a part of Thailand so of course we enjoy the city, but the appropriate sentence for Bangkok would be, it just isn't Chiang Mai. Everything is expensive, there's not much to do by way of tourism (it's definitely a city that's probably more fun to live in than to visit), and it's hotter than Chiang Mai as it's further south and more of a metropolitan area. (I've emphasized this in our blog entries in the past, but I want to make sure to say once again that this is not me complaining, at all. In fact, if you could hear me read this blog entry out loud, you'd realize that the way I describe everything is just me putting my own spin on our experiences. Julia and I actually have more of a tendency to laugh at and appreciate experiences than it is for us to complain about or regret them.We lived in India for goodness' sake.) I should say though that street food in BKK is different from northern Chiang Mai food so we had an awesome time trying bits and pieces of every delicious stall we saw. Jules and I spent our time in Bangkok mostly wandering around, marking the beginning of our losing weight as we always do when backpacking because we walk EVERYWHERE to save money and (Alex you would hate this), we also don't eat as often as we should. But that isn't about saving money, it's usually just bad timing.

We went to the Songkran Niyosane Forensic Medicine Museum & Parasite Museum. And I'll intro this with the Lonely Planet book description (as well as the description in the link), "This gory institution contains the various appendages and remnants of famous murders, including the bloodied T-shirt from a victim who was stabbed to death with a dildo." It was much more than that however. It was like if you took the Bodies Exhibit and made it so nothing had to be censored because we're in a third world and nobody would sue the museum for accosting their senses with such unexpected raw images. It included everything from real life preserved babies with birth defects to a section about how to test yourself for breast cancer (which included this awesome bust that had a small lump in it that you had to find. It was quite informative as I felt it's hard to determine when a lump is cancerous or normal, but this example showed me that it is in fact fairly obvious). The museum is across the river in an area dedicated to medical students. There is a school for medicine and nursing, clearly many talks are held here about the future of medicine, and there are tons of doctors and nurses walking around the area. In short, not many tourists go to this museum, so everything's in Thai and Julia and I had a fun time reading the Latin names for things and figuring out what that translates to in layman's terms. Interesting museum; probably not something people normally do in Bangkok.

When we first got to Thailand we were still suffering from jet lag, so we never had our "One Night in Bangkok" yet. So this time, we were sure to fit that in. In the evening we wandered around to places like Cheap Charlie's, this eclectic street bar (to say the least, I got a few low-quality pictures of the place for you tosee) run by an expat that serves extremely cheap drinks. For some reason we also got this huge hankerin' for Indian food but funnily enough, Indian food is way too expensive anywhere else in the world, which made me miss India a little bit (more on that later, as while we went to Vietnam, our friends Haleigh and Sarah made a trip to India that reminded us of how much we love/hate it and want to go back/never want to see it again. It's a complicated relationship). We also went to Soi Cowboy. As I've described before, Thailand's street system is composed of main streets with a bunch of side streets called "soi's." Normally soi's are the name of the main street and then a number, so we live on Nimman soi 8, but this soi in Bangkok managed to become so infamous that they were actually able to get a giant light up sign up that has the name of the soi in big flashy letters. I say infamous because this is where the red-light district is and it's what Bangkok is famous for as far as the sex industry. It's like Las Vegas on speed cramped into this one 400 meter street. We went to see it for many reasons: 1. Whether Bangkok likes it or not, it's a significant part of the city 2. We were curious and wanted to analyze it from our weird sociological and psychological perspective as two young girls who are probably about the same age as many of the dancers and "dancers" in the bars. Soi Cowboy is also where you go if you want to see the Ping Pong Show, which if you don't know what it is, I am not going to describe nor link to it. It was an incredibly uncomfortable experience walking down that street, not because anything happened with us, in fact we were largely ignored because we weren't older white men, but because of the things we saw. And all I wanted to do was learn about the girls and their story. Why are they there? Do they enjoy it? Do they want to achieve more in life? And who am I to judge? Who am I from my feminist American girl empowered perspective to assume that this is something negative and low-down from which Thai women need to be saved. Anyway, I could (and Jules and I did) go on about that forever.

So those were our activities in Bangkok! There are two airports in Bangkok and the one we were flying out of is actually an hour outside of the city. To save money (of course), we decided to take a train there, which meant that we had to leave at either 11 at night or 5 the next morning. Since our flight was at 7 and we didn't want to push it, we slept (or rather "slept") in the airport.

Next up: Hanoi and our wonderful friend Jenna

Terrible picture of Cheap Charlie's, but captures some of the eccentricities

Soi Cowboy

 

Julia sticking out like a sore thumb

A New Leaf

So I'm back at my trusty cafe, the one I talked about the last time I hadn't posted in a long time and the one that always serves as an inspiration to be more diligent with the blog, but this time around the reason we don't have much to say anymore is because we live here now and have been just working so really this is just daily life now and as you well know, that isn't always that easy to write about because the most interesting things are the small everyday things, like a kid giving you candy and a heart sticker, rather than the big things, like you riding and bathing an elephant.

*Deep breath*

It's getting much much hotter here in Chiang Mai. We had a solid two months in which no air conditioning was needed, but now I can barely stand the heat. And at least I can sweat. Julia's body doesn't know what to do since it's supposed to be living in England, so it's just freaking out. Meanwhile my hair is fabulous. If you didn't understand any of that, not to worry, it just means you're not a girl and/or you're not racist (one more explanation, the racist part is because Julia says I was biologically and evolutionarily made for this kind of weather and that's why I'm thriving, hence the hair).

The first thing I'd like to write about is our new job! With the help of our fabulous friend Haleigh, we've managed to get a job at the Prince Royal's College, which is google-able and has been around for 100 years, which is impressive considering Chiang Mai has only just become a city of prominence in Thailand second only to Bangkok about 100 years ago. Do you know how exciting it is for us that we can tell you where we work and you can google it? And not only that, you can find it on google maps! And it has a web site! In English! Anyway, this job will be full time for a year. Along with the prestige will come a higher salary, health insurance, paid holidays (we get Christmas off!), and help with our visa/work permit stuff (which of course isn't needed anymore since we already went through all the steps on our own from our current job). We'll also have an orientation that comes with swag. All of this may sound matter-of-fact and obvious to someone with a job in America, but this is really awesome and a step up for us here in Thailand. It's about a 20 minute commute (that includes traffic) on our motorbike (no more hour commute!) as it's right on the other side of town.

The most obvious downside is that we have to leave our students, and naturally it comes right at the time when we feel we've gotten through to them and could really begin to make a difference if we continued teaching them. We love our morning school (in fact, we have a big ASEAN celebration/parent-teacher party thing where all of the students are performing and I'm giving a short speech on a stage with a microphone! That's this Saturday and I'm sure the next entry will describe the adventures of that) and we would gladly work there again if it weren't for the commute. One of the teachers has already told me we should just move to Lamphun (in an adorable manner that this is the obvious solution and why didn't I come up with it myself), but in all honestly that would be like being asked to move to Bakersfield after living in LA (not hating, just saying that the only time I went there was for soccer tournaments and there was nothing but windmills and flat land and one huge building that seemed to be the only hub for all their entertainment, from pizza to movies to bowling to beer). The other smaller cons are that our days will be longer (7:30-4:30 rather than our current 9:30-3 and sometimes 2, but that's not including the commute), but there will be fewer actual contact hours (2-4 classes a day max compared to our current 5 classes a day every day). We'll also have only a handful of grade levels (I'll be taking upper Mattayom which is like 10-12th graders, while Julia will be taking lower Mattayom, which is like 7th-9th graders) and if you haven't already googled the school by now (shame on you for not interactively reading this blog entry so that you can grasp the full scope of our lives and how we're feeling and what it looks like), it's a fairly prestigious school so the students overall tend to be ones that work hard (excepting the ones whose parents are the ones that want them to succeed and are just pushing them along, hoping that the motivation will eventually become intrinsic). Another interesting factor to this new job (you can decide for yourself if this is a pro or a con) is that appearance is a big thing. We've already heard plenty of stories from the other teachers about how important it is to be well-dressed with skirts past the knees and no nail polish, or only light colored nail polish, and hair and make-up done, etc. etc. As with a lot of things in Thailand, it's all about appearances. This is also true for our current job, as when we were first interviewed, we were only considered for the kindergarten jobs and we quickly found that everyone who worked at the kindergarten looked a bit like us, while basically each person who worked at the upper grade levels was a sharply dressed over 6-foot white male. But at PRC, appearance means always looking like a pristine Marry Poppins-esque teacher even outside of school. Alas, someday our skill set and experience will be what's important, but maybe it's a good thing that day is not today.

Well the computer/internet is freaking out on me so I think it's time to bring this entry to a close. My ramblings will continue soon with a nice detailed entry about the entire process of getting a visa and work permit here (if our blog ever gets famous, I think it would be nice for someone to have an easy to understand step-by-step process, something that we couldn't find during our adventures. Of course, since the likelihood of that happening is minimal, that entry will instead most likely serve as entertainment for you all who can chuckle at the red tape and relish the fact that it wasn't you who had to dance around the Thai government for months, trying to remain legal).

Happy Valentine's Day from here in Thailand! Love and miss you all.