Trip to Lang Suan

So the week of developing lesson plans was pretty uneventful – except for the fact that we had to sing, dance, and be a clown and many other things that will still haunt me at night when I sleep. We had to do speaking lesson plans, listening lesson plans and reading lesson plans. (Even when I type this I start to feel nauseous – seriously we had to type lesson plans till it came out of our ears.) And the amount of creativity you need to do that amount of lesson plans can only be induced by a fair amount of alcohol – the catch 22 though is the fact that you may not arrive at class smelling of alcohol. Thus we had to do all our creative thinking being very sober.

The Tuesday morning Steven and I had skype interviews with an agent (which will tell you about later) for (what sounded at the time) a very cool job down south in the lovely little town of Lang Suan. Steven still had to complete 2 weeks of his Tesol and I had to finish this week – that meant I would go down to Lang Suan and check everything out while Steven finished his Tesol.

The Sunday morning I got on the bus to take a VVEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRY long trip down to Lang Suan (one thing you have to understand about the Thai’s is that EVERYTHING is “not far”. Except for Taxi-drivers – from them that you will hear that everything is “too far to walk”.) I had a daunting (every bus- or taxi driver has to take a “scare-your-passengers-to-death driving course before they get their license) 8 hour trip down to what I thought at that stage was Lang Suan.

I asked someone to write a message in Thai for me asking the busboy to show me when to get of in Lang Suan. So after a very long trip the busboy showed me to get off. I phoned the head of the English department (Ajarn Janya) to tell her I am at the station and she told me in very broken English that there is no bus station in Lang Suan and I should give the phone to a Thai person. After a confusing phone call I found out that I am in Chumporn – a town that is about 1 and a half hour away from Lang Suan. So I had to wait for another bus that dropped me of next to the road in the middle of nowhere.

Luckily for me (and not so lucky for them) there were a couple of random Thai people next to the road. So I phoned Ajarn Janya, ran to the unsuspecting Thai people and gave them my phone (you can only imagine the expression on their faces when this crazy farang shoves his phone in their hand and gesture that they should talk on the phone.)

They told Ajarn Janya were I was at and she came to pick me up. And finally I could relax a bit and not worry that I was lost somewhere in Thailand where no one speaks a word of English except for being able to say “hello”. Ajarna Janya took me to the school to show me around.  

After the school trip she took me to my accommodation – a beautiful house in what is supposed to be the center of town. Here are some pictures of the house:

 

While I was sorting out everything in a non-english speaking community Steven had his own very interesting experience in Hua Hin with a mosquito or two. He will tell you all about it in the next blog.

Black mountain water park - release the child inside

Then it was weekend. We went to Black mountain waterpark together with Jaco and Yolinda. Now if there is a little child inside of you dying to get out – this is absolutely the place to go. For only 450 baht (R127) you get a whole day of insane fun. There is 12 different waterslides, a lazy river, 4 pools, a bar built inside a pool, a sauna pool (whytheheck do you want a sauna pool in Thailand??!!), a water ski-park, a fake ocean (VERY fake – no sand and the whole think is made out of cement, the only proof that it is a fake ocean is the fact that you get 2 big waves every hour thrown at you).

My favorite received the nick name of “WITMONSTER” (white monster). It is a super tube that basically has a straight drop to the ground and while you plummet to earth a 1000m/s you get thrown through 5 – 6 loops. (And I wondered who wants to wear a helmet on a super tube.) A very cool ride where you don’t know if the wetness is caused by the water in the ride or by the water in the body…)

 

After the park Steven and I went to Tesco to buy some meat – we were making a South African lunch for ourselves and some other starved souls at the Centennial (at a fee of course) on Sunday.

This is how our grilled pork fillet and slap tjips (French fries) turned out (not a bad deal at 100 baht per person if you ask me):

We made our money back that we spent… (now that is what you call clever) after about 2 hours in front of our small stove we finally got the end result and we ate as much as we could get in. After resting for a while I said to Brian we must go to the beach, because we had nothing to do (the others were busy preparing lesson plans for the next day – but since Brian is a lesson development machine we were finished within an hour) so off we went…

And this is how we ended of our first weekend in Hua hin. Getting ready for a whole week of developing lesson plans and presenting them to our fellow students. (Yes it wasas much fun as it sounds like...)

Culture week in Hua HIn

The next day we had to go to Xploreasia for our first day of learning how to be a teacher. The first week we had a Thai culture orientation program. The first two days we had workshops on everything from Thai politics to how to interact with the local Thai people.

Now that was pretty boring for to adventurous guys like us and we used the time wisely in class to plan the next month or two’s activities via sign language, lip-reading and other forms of unspoken communication.

After class Steven and I went to a temple (I think the standard for building a Thai temple is that all temples should have at least 10000 steps and a random statue or 2 with a very nice view) very close to the school which is called “Monkey temple” – this also seems to be some Thai standard where at least every village/town should have a monkey temple (see our blog later on Phuket and other towns.)

Pictures of monkey temple:

The next day we went to another temple (this time we had the Xploreasia team to act as guides). And alas the 10000 steps stared at us with a very vindictive grimace- the things people will do to get a glimpse of a nice view.

Some pictures of this temple:

After visiting the temple, we had a Thai cooking class by an old Thai lady. She first showed us how to prepare the food and then sent a plate of food around for us to taste. Next we had to implement our culinary skills that was taught to us in a language that resembles absolutely nothing known by the western world and with the use of spices and herbs and other ingredients that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.

So there I was – spatula in hand, containers full of herbs and a massive wok on a gas burner staring at me while the Thai lady is nodding and gesturing. So I started frying and stirring and dabbing and pouring and and and… And I got food. (No idea what it is called but it was loads of noodles with scrambled eggs and STUFF.)

We also went to a pineapple farm during the week to buy a Bakkie load full of pineapples for elephants at the Hudsadin Elephant sanctuary. As you can imagine a visit to a pineapple farm is almost as exciting as a week of Thai politics lessons. The pineapples were extremely tasty though. After walking up and down the plantation (people actually like to do that??!!) we tasted some pineapples, threw bags of pineapples on the Bakkie and off we went to the sanctuary.

The week was ended by a very nice welcome braai on the beach where we had braaivleis and braaibroodjies (with fake cheese) and very real alcohol.

The alcohol in Thailand is a whole new experience. Steven and I had a bottle of Samsong (rum) mixed with Sprite and Redbull (not like you know it – it is a thick, sweet syrup in a very small bottle). The cool thing about Thai alcohol – you can drink LOOAAADS  and not feel drunk. PLEASE note – not feel drunk … and then BAM!! You are walking on the ocean. (Really. The alcohol here does not make your head spin, it makes you feel as if you are walking over ginormous waves. This feeling is further extended to your bed where you pass out and wake up the next day VERY upset that someone built a train station over your bed.