A bit more abou Lang Suan and also the Non profit English camp

Monday after school I decided to go rent a scooter (CHEEAAAP. Only 2500 baht and no deposit – R710 for the whole month). Well then I realized that it was semi-automatic and I looked like a massive idiot trying to change to a higher gear and ending up to put it in 1^st gear all the time. (Think bobberhead dog meets earthquake) Our scooter:

I decided rather to walk and explore the area and discovered the most beautiful river area about 1 km from our house:

On my way back I Bought some some stuff for our house – a dustbin, plates, glasses, washing bowl etc. I got EVERYTHING for 250 baht (R71). 

At school on Tuesday they told me that the contract with the recruiting agency will not be renewed and that I will only be employed until the end of the semester (which meant I would only have a job for 2 more weeks), they also told me that it is not necessary for Steven to come through since the semester is only 2 more weeks and a new teacher will only confuse the learners. (Couldn’t they have told me this before I spent our almost last money on food, home stuff and a scooter. Well at least we would be classy hoboes.) So I immediately started job searching – I didn’t mind being a hobo, but Thailand does not have a very big niche for beggars and it did not seem as if the dogs would like to share the only bridge in Lang Suan.

On the plus side – I had off on the Tuesday and Wednesday – there are a lot of surprise, unplanned school holidays in Thailand. So Tuesday after school I headed back up to Hua Hin – to talk to Steven about what we are going to do in terms of employment, help him move the rest of our stuff down to Lang Suan and to help at the volunteer English camp.

Some photos of the English camp:

 I have no idea why they call it a camp, since no one is actually camping (except if you call teaching under a tree with a portable white board camping). The general set up of an English camp in Thailand is like this:

·         It is usually 2 days.

·         There is a MASSIVE opening ceremony that takes 4 – 5 hours. This is where they give thanks, recognize and praise every single person in Thailand that is NOT part of the camp. Then they spend another 1 or 2 hours thinking the actual contributors to the camp.

·         You go to the venue where the “camp” is held – usually a city hall or school.

·         Learners get divided into groups while you set up camp (mobile classroom somewhere comfortable under a tree away from sunlight and snakes).

·         Learners then rotate in groups and you teach each group for about an hour.

·         Everyone goes home at the end of the day and the next day more or less the same happens – except for the ceremony which gets replaced by a massive breakfast and lunch.

So in actual fact you only teach for about 6 hours in a 2 day English “camp”.

After the camp we packed all our stuff and checked out of Centennial to start our next leg of the adventure. In the next blog Steven will tell you about his first experience on the trains in Thailand and there will also be pictures of Hua Hin train station.   

Bangkok Inernational hospital

There I sat for 7 hours on a fairly comfortable train seat in an air-conditioned coach  - different coaches have different prices and different degrees of comfortability – aircon 3^rd class will cost you 280 baht (R79)from Lang Suan to Hua Hin. The lady opposite me showed me where to get off (thank goodness for the letters written in Thai.)

And there I was at 2 in the morning on Hua Hin train station. I was extremely tired and just wanted to get to the hospital to see if Steven is okay, so I decided that I will take a scooter taxi from the station to the hospital. But after asking three taxi guys to take me to Bangkok international and them wanting to take me to Krungthep (Bangkok city), I decided that it may be saver to walk 4 kilometers to the hospital than sitting 250 kilometers on a taxi in a whole different direction.

I arrived at the hospital and the staff immediately showed me to the correct room. I would highly recommend Bangkok international to any person in need of medical treatment. They have highly competent, extremely friendly staff member, beautiful 5 star rooms (better than almost any hotel) and amazing medical care.

Steven was asleep so I just greeted him and made the couch in the room my new best friend. If I thought I would have a peaceful night’s sleep I was mistaken – nurses coming in every 30 minutes to check on Steven, machines beeping, Steven making noises and dripping of intravenous machines kindly kept the dust fairy company and she forgot to come visit me.

The next day Steven looked a lot better (with better I imply that he did not look like a crab in boiling water anymore) and the reports showed that everything was okay. He still had killer headaches, terrible bouts of fever and no appetite – he did not even want to eat chocolates (MASSIVE RED LIGHT that he is sick). Some pictures of Steven in the hospital:

With him in the hospital were two employees of XploreAsia that got attacked by the same Kamakazi mosquito.

Sunday morning I quickly went to the train station to buy a ticket for my journey back to Lang Suan. I decided to take the cheaper ticket since we were on a very tight budget. A ticket for a fan coach cost me 164 baht (R46). After spending the day at the hospital and ensuring that Steven was okay I went to wait for the train that was supposed to arrive at 17:00 but ended up arriving at 19:30.

I arrived in Lang Suan the next morning at 2:30. After eating, washing clothes, washing myself and prepping my lesson I eventually got some sleep.

Lang Suan fruit and the train journey to Hua Hin

So here I was in this strange town where absolutely no-one speaks English and where TIT (this is Thailand) is very applicable. Let me quickly give you the Thai philosophy of life in one sentence: “Everything that is not too much effort will be done tomorrow, everything else will never be done.” You have to understand that Thai’s have a very chillaxed outlook on life – everything is a game or fun. The moment it seems as if something will upset their serene life they just turn around and walk away with a “No speak English.”.

So this meant that for the first few days I had to go without my ever so important wifi. This might seem trivial, but if you take into consideration that I had to eat EXACTLY the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner because I only knew how to ask for Kao pat moo (fried rice with pork) then you might understand my longing for some English/Afrikaans conversation. Please note this is not for a lack of trying to speak to the local people. A normal well established conversation would go something like this:

Brian (big awkward smile): “Hello.”

Overly friendly Thai person: “Haloooo”.

Brian (showing off): “Sawadee khrap.” (Translate – hello)

Now VERY overly friendly Thai person: “Sawadee khrap. Kuhn phuut pasaa dai thai khrap?” (Hello. You can speak Thai?)

Brian (slightly faded smile): “Hehe. Nitnoi khrap.” (A little bit.)

VEEERRRY excited (hopping up and down excited) Thai person: “gibberish gibberish gibberish. Gobledeegook yadda yadd gobledeegook gibberish gobledeegook yadayad.” (If I could translate it I would have used real words – why are you even looking if there is a translation…?)

Brian: “Nit noi khrap. How are you?”

Less excited Thai person: “Yes.”

Brian: “Can you speak English?”

Thai: “Yes.”

Brian: “How are you?”

Thai: “Yes.”

Brian: Grunt “Sawatdee khrap.” (Goodbye)

So eventually after walking in circles for 3 hours (please note that the whole town has one BIG main street of about 5km – but yes I got lost…TWICE), I found an internet café and ET could finally phone home (well sorta). Spoke to Steven and I thought by myself “Self this Skype thing really makes Steven look really pink.” Apparently it was not the “Skype-thing”. Steven had fever – as he told you in the previous blog. So I was all stressed out. I gave him instructions on what to do (from my vast medical experience…). Told him to go sleep and of to my (very empty) flat I went.

The next day I was worried and extremely homesick. Missing EVERYONE I know, knew and still will get to know. I was not in the mood for teaching little energetic YESSES wrapped in skin. And then the most amazing thing happened. If there is one way to make a person feel at home it is to feed that person. My one co-teacher (who became a very good friend – Khun P’Nan) had the whole class bring me fruit. Now imagine a class of 32 learners each bringing you a BAG full of fruit. Lang Suan is a fruit farming village – so there is no shortage of fruit. Here are some pictures of the fruit I received:

Just to give you an idea of the amount of fruit that I received. I took half of what I received down to the other teacher’s office. Half of what was left in my office I shared between myself and my fellow foreign teachers, the quarter that I kept for myself I further halved and gave half to my landlord. Now of the one eighth that I had left I gave another half to my neighbors. The sixteenth that was still left from giving fruit presents to everyone is what is shown in the pictures – you do the maths…

I Skyped Steven that night and everything was going great. He felt better, he looked better, I could eat fruit and not Kao pat moo. And there was only a few days left before he came to join me.

And then the next day everything went Thai on me (ie everything changed like night from day, black to white…) teaching was crap, Steven was very ill. So I decided that first thing on Friday I will get on the train/bus/taxi/whatever and go up to Hua Hin. In the meantime my sis sorted everything out with the insurance and Steven got admitted to Bangkok International.

So on Friday after my EXHAUSTING week I had to go buy a train ticket at a train station of a village where no one can speak English. Deep sigh, massive frustration. Thank goodness for the angel in Thai form that was sent to me. Khun P’nan went with me to the train station and bought the ticket for me. She even wrote me different letters in Thai to show to the people on the train to show me when to get on or off the train.

So there I was on the train station. Having no idea where to go or what to do. And since this was my first time ever on a train it was especially daunting. Here are some pictures of the train station:

 

Once you figure out the system (it took me 4 trips on the train to do this) you realize that Thailand actually has a very good (DELAYED) railway transport system. Rule of thumb is to always add 1 hour to the time that the train is actually supposed to depart. After 7 hours I eventually ended up in Hua Hin. I will write in the next blog about the hospital and the journey back to Lang Suan. 

And that's what you call Dengue Fever...

After Brian left the Sunday morning I went back to my apartment and planned to be lazy for the whole of Sunday – plans that were quickly ruined by a fellow student who knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go with them to the beach.  “No thank you I would much rather prefer you leave me alone and let me sleep” said my brain. “Yes, sure. Why not?” was the quick response of my mouth. Stupid mouth, there goes my game of hide and seek behind locked doors.

Lying on the beach my head got revenge on my mouth because I started to feel dizzy and my head started spinning like the wheel caps of an old Ford in Brakpan. I thought to myself “Self, this sun is a beast, or maybe I should update my sugar register with a few slabs of chocolate.”….. HA HA HA 

Apparently my head also did not like this idea because the next moment it hit me with a big bang. Headache, nausea, headache, dizziness, headache, feverish, headache, sore muscles and did I mention HEADACHE? So I decided to go back to my flat and on my way there get some headache pills. I got home and out of the blue a massive stairway appeared in front of me. I had no idea how I would be able to get to the top without some ropes, harnesses and a fellow mountain climber.  (1 flight of stairs with 15stairs …)

After what felt like a day’s journey to the top I finally got to my room and dropped on the bed like a marathon runner that stepped into a pothole. Slept for almost 2 hours woke up and booooom the feeling was back again. Apparently it made friends while I was sleeping and decided to bring all of them to party in my body. I decided not to join the party and went back to sleep.

After 10 minutes (12 hours) my alarm went off and of course it was Monday… I have to go to class and Boah (b!t$h of a headache) and her little friends were still having their party in my drained body. And of course Boah knew how to pick her party dates and time since I had to go to class today - we had to go to a local school to observe “teaching in Thailand”.

Boah forced me to inform an Xploreasia employee that I’m heading home after the show of “how to teach massive energy balls wrapped in tiny little skins”.  After 10 hours (1 hour) of class observation I went home and you just can guess what I did??????? SSSSLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP!! 

That night one of the students came to my room and said Brian wants to talk to me on Skype. Finally got Skype started, and spoke to Brian. I said ‘’ Dude I’m dying ‘’ or as close to it as you can get I guess. He told me to drink loads of water and eat because he thought I might have sunstroke.

 The next day Boah again decided to throw a massive party in my head, I was also burning out of my skin – and it was not due to my hotness. Haha. No a massive fever got hold of me.  That night I told Brian that I am really feeling terrible. He quickly organized with his sister to sort stuff out with our insurance and I was admitted almost immediately to hospital. (Bangkok International)

Millions of tests were done – and a funny Thai doctor man dude touching me.  I was given a room that was better equipped than any 5 star hotel you can think of. Brian will tell you more about the hospital since I just slept most of the time and was not really observing much – Boah and bouts of fever constantly attacked me.  What I do know is that they told me that I had Dengue Fever. It is Malaria like virus also transmitted by mosquitoes. Here is some more information on Dengue Fever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever