It's only Wednesday, and already I know that this can be written off as a bad week. I've been called fat, directed to wear a clown costume, been turned away from Thai costume shops that don't stock my size, and been poked and prodded at for being shaped funny. Naturally it only gets worse.
This morning as I walked into school after raising the flag, the secretary pulled me aside and spoke to me about my clothes, which are apparently inappropriate. I would like to point out at this juncture that I am wearing a non-revealing black top, three-quarter pants and sandals, the same thing I wore at Cambridge for almost three years.
It is not acceptable to the owner of my school that I wear flat shoes AND short pants on the same day. I can wear short pants, but must then wear heels or closed shoes. If I want to wear sandals I must wear long pants or a skirt.
Now, if you know me, you know that I am physically incapable of moving at anything faster than a crawl when wearing heels. I just can't do it, God knows I've tried. In the interest of efficiency in doing my job, heels would be a hindrance.
The other issue is that I have big feet, by Thai standards, and so cannot find shoes to fit. So I wear open backed sandals so that my heels can hang off the edge. Naturally, with closed shoes this would not be possible. The options here are therefore either to be really slow at getting anywhere (and uncomfortable within an hour) or in agony all day and develop ugly blisters on my heels.
The pants issue also presents a problem for several reasons:
1) I live maybe 15 degrees north of the equator, in Southeast Asia. It is SWELTERING hot, every day.
2) Thai people don't make pants my size cos Thai people don't wear pants my size. So they are nowhere to be found, except in the very expensive places.
3) Number 2) also applies to all skirts that are not of the wraparound variety.
You can see why I feel like a behemoth all the time, with my self esteem swiftly eroding. Feet too big, too tall, boobs too big (I get stared at on the street), hips too wide, hair too curly... I mean I'm foreign!! Of course I look different! Although I think they would find my foreign-ness easier to accept if I wasn't brown. Ai.
So it would appear that I have nothing to wear, again, and no money really to rectify the situation. Because who came to Thailand expecting to have to buy a whole wardrobe? Certainly not I.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Another first
Today I experienced another first time, my first Thai massage. Nicola's has been raving about them since I arrived, but somehow it hasn't happened until today. We took a walk down the road (literally less than 200m, massage parlours on every corner in this place) and it's not even expensive, 200baht for an hour. But boy she works your body hard! And to be honest, in the beginning I felt like it was a bit invasive. I mean, she twists and turns you in all different ways and that's great, but to do that you have to become quite intimate withe the lady. She's nothing but professional though, and she did a great job. I think it was more of a workout for her than for me!
In other news, school's plodding along nicely. Nicola and I were discussing a trip to Chiang Mai (up north) for Loy Krathong festival next weekend, but my school put paid to that idea. We're having a big celebration at school and all the teachers are expected to attend. Even more than that, we're expected to wear traditonal Thai dress, which is going to be very interesting. I don't really mind so much, as it should be good.
Loy Krathong is a festival when Thai people say thank you to the God of Water for what she gives them, and also to apologise for wasting water so much. You make what's called a krathong, a small floating device with a candle and flowers, and you light it and loy/float it down any body of water. There's a big canal in front of my school and that's where the ceremony will be taking place. It's clearly very important to the owner of my school, as they've built a jetty and put in a fountain en alles. I thought this was normal Thai practice but some of the other teachers who have worked at other schools here before said that this is the first time they've seen such a big deal made out of it. I wonder why?
Anyway it should be fun.
The biggest news I've left until last: In exactly 19 days mine own Kassandra will be here in Krungthep (Thai word for Bangkok) and working at my school, and a whole 9 days later Tyron will be here too. I simply cannot wait!! I've been trying to plan a nice December, but haven't wrapped my head around it yet. So excited!!!
In other news, school's plodding along nicely. Nicola and I were discussing a trip to Chiang Mai (up north) for Loy Krathong festival next weekend, but my school put paid to that idea. We're having a big celebration at school and all the teachers are expected to attend. Even more than that, we're expected to wear traditonal Thai dress, which is going to be very interesting. I don't really mind so much, as it should be good.
Loy Krathong is a festival when Thai people say thank you to the God of Water for what she gives them, and also to apologise for wasting water so much. You make what's called a krathong, a small floating device with a candle and flowers, and you light it and loy/float it down any body of water. There's a big canal in front of my school and that's where the ceremony will be taking place. It's clearly very important to the owner of my school, as they've built a jetty and put in a fountain en alles. I thought this was normal Thai practice but some of the other teachers who have worked at other schools here before said that this is the first time they've seen such a big deal made out of it. I wonder why?
Anyway it should be fun.
The biggest news I've left until last: In exactly 19 days mine own Kassandra will be here in Krungthep (Thai word for Bangkok) and working at my school, and a whole 9 days later Tyron will be here too. I simply cannot wait!! I've been trying to plan a nice December, but haven't wrapped my head around it yet. So excited!!!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Bangkok weekend
This weekend I had so much fun doing things that I don't normally do, and I feel so good about them that I must get it down.
On Friday night I went to a party at a teacher friend's house, Jay. He's married to a lovely Thai woman, May, and the party was to happen on the rooftop. I thought my rooftop was cool (its in fact the furthest thing from cool) but Jay's is the epitome of cool. So for starters, I've never even been on the rooftop on an apartment building before (22 floors) and secondly I've never partied on a roof top before. We had so much fun, jamming with a jembe, did some singing, Jennie did some piggy-backing, and so on. I did leave fairly early though, no one else was going in my direction, and I didn't want to take the risk of falling asleep in the taxi all by myself.
On Saturday I got way out of my comfort zone and played tennis. I know, right? Just weird. I don't voluntarily do sport, its not my thing. But Nics was really keen, and Shawn (my packrat landlord) has loads of spare rackets and balls, and my building has a tennis court. I really enjoyed it, and am determined to get better at it, so Nics and I have decided to play every weekend. During the week would be great too, but I don't get home till after dark.
I have also decided that I should take up running again. Its a crying shame to have brought my takkies all this way and then not have shown them anything, Plus there's a really nice park around the corner from me that is perfect for that purpose.
After tennis, we sat up on the balcony having some beers and singing our little hearts out. But African harmonies don't work so well if you only have two voices, neither of which is a bass. KC will be useful for that purpose also :)
We then went adventuring, looking for a nice place to have a drink. I love it when a really good night kind of sneaks up on you. We were planning on a quiet one, and then bed, but an internet search said there was a salsa festival happening this weekend, so we went looking for it. The place was closed (weird) so we met up with Jennie, Taylor and some friends of theirs at this place near home called The Australian. I didn't expect much from it, having seen my fair share of Sukhumvit bars, but! They have this great Filipino cover band who are actually really good, and the vibe is cool. So that was a very pleasant surprise, and our quiet drink brought us home at 3am. Not bad!
I'm enjoying challenging myself by doing completely different things, and its so worthwhile when they turn out well. Like right now, I'm sitting on my bed, having just eaten something I would never before have considered an entire meal - rice with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. And its great. I love that I'm breaking barriers and changing myself. This weekend I really feel like I'm accomplishing my mission.
On Friday night I went to a party at a teacher friend's house, Jay. He's married to a lovely Thai woman, May, and the party was to happen on the rooftop. I thought my rooftop was cool (its in fact the furthest thing from cool) but Jay's is the epitome of cool. So for starters, I've never even been on the rooftop on an apartment building before (22 floors) and secondly I've never partied on a roof top before. We had so much fun, jamming with a jembe, did some singing, Jennie did some piggy-backing, and so on. I did leave fairly early though, no one else was going in my direction, and I didn't want to take the risk of falling asleep in the taxi all by myself.
On Saturday I got way out of my comfort zone and played tennis. I know, right? Just weird. I don't voluntarily do sport, its not my thing. But Nics was really keen, and Shawn (my packrat landlord) has loads of spare rackets and balls, and my building has a tennis court. I really enjoyed it, and am determined to get better at it, so Nics and I have decided to play every weekend. During the week would be great too, but I don't get home till after dark.
I have also decided that I should take up running again. Its a crying shame to have brought my takkies all this way and then not have shown them anything, Plus there's a really nice park around the corner from me that is perfect for that purpose.
After tennis, we sat up on the balcony having some beers and singing our little hearts out. But African harmonies don't work so well if you only have two voices, neither of which is a bass. KC will be useful for that purpose also :)
We then went adventuring, looking for a nice place to have a drink. I love it when a really good night kind of sneaks up on you. We were planning on a quiet one, and then bed, but an internet search said there was a salsa festival happening this weekend, so we went looking for it. The place was closed (weird) so we met up with Jennie, Taylor and some friends of theirs at this place near home called The Australian. I didn't expect much from it, having seen my fair share of Sukhumvit bars, but! They have this great Filipino cover band who are actually really good, and the vibe is cool. So that was a very pleasant surprise, and our quiet drink brought us home at 3am. Not bad!
I'm enjoying challenging myself by doing completely different things, and its so worthwhile when they turn out well. Like right now, I'm sitting on my bed, having just eaten something I would never before have considered an entire meal - rice with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. And its great. I love that I'm breaking barriers and changing myself. This weekend I really feel like I'm accomplishing my mission.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Catching up
So its been a while since I wrote anything, mostly because time's just getting away from me.
What's happened since Phuket?
I haven't really been going out very much, last month scared me a bit in terms of making it through the month with my meagre earnings, which are meagre again this month as a result of paying too much rent. I'm looking for private students to supplement my income though. Naturaally when I say I'm looking, I mean that I've thought about it and the process hasn't really developed beyond that point yet. Oh, the woes of being a lazy sod.
Well, school started up again, and our director left, after just over 2 months in the position. There are mixed feelings about this amongst the staff, with the general consensus being 'good riddance'. However, in his place we have a vice director, the main disciplinarian, a very confusing man. Sometimes I wish for people like Spencer Welman and Grassy Buitendag to come and make sense out of my school.
So what I've been doing lately is getting involved with discipline stuff and setting up relevant programs to deal with this stuff. On the one hand, I'm thinking that this is NOT what I signed up for, but on the other hand its kinda cool figuring out firsthand what works and what doesn't.
Some frustrations are mounting at school, things not working they way they should. I think its mostly because the teachers here are not career teachers, most of them have never done this before in their lives. They still think, as I did when I started my PGCE, that a teacher goes into a class and teaches their subject, and that's their whole job. People complain about doing duties, and having to go the extra mile and sitting detention, and all that kind of thing, but are also complaining about how nothing seems to work at our school, the kids have no discipline and respect, this that and the next thing, and they really don't seem to see the link between the two. Its weird for me starting a new job, and being one of the people that knows what's going on. I didn't even know what was going on at Cambridge half the time!
The most important thing to mention about school is that my dearly beloved bestie has managed to secure herself a position here, starting 7 December, as an English teacher, and I can hardly wait!! I won't have to translate perfectly good Safrican English into American all the time anymore, because somebody will FINALLY understand me! Woohoo! I literally cannot wait. She'll be living with me for the first little while, until she sorts herself out.
Another arrival that I'm waiting for with bated breath - today marks 40 days until Tyron/Pyron arrives for a visit. I'm so excited I could pop. Its been a tough 7 weeks without him, nothing could have prepared me for it. But its also forced us to develop in other ways, so good and bad. I learned how to do long distance from my friend Bethelah, and she told me "Communication is key!" Remembering her wise words is helping out more than I would have believed at the time. So we're soldiering on, and that's amazing.
Other interesting things that have happened lately:
1) A great Hallowe'en party that Nicola and I went to, that was very cool. We got dressed up en alles, and I even sliced my finger open to add to the gore. Alas, that part wasn't planned. Pictures to follow, when I'm more organized.
2) Thursday morning a crazed old Thai lady burst into my bedroom without knocking, and started shouting at me, I can't imagine what for. She spoke absolutely no English, and kept asking me if I live there. Well, I mean, I'm lying in the bed, and was clearly asleep, what else would I be doing there? She shouted some more, clicked her tongue at me and left. Without closing the door behind her. WEIRD!!! Note to self: Lock the door before falling asleep.
3) I can't remember what the third thing was. The bizarreness of the second thing made me forget.
4) Oh I remember! The building I live in is populated mostly with Indian people and farangs, so they were putting up lights and decorations for Diwali yesterday. I think at some point it got too much for our poor circuit board, and half the street was plunged into darkness at about 8pm last night. Naturally nobody thought to just unplug some fairy lights, so the electricity stayed off till about 3am, when I was woken up by the lights that I had left on. As they say, TIT (this is Thailand...)
What's happened since Phuket?
I haven't really been going out very much, last month scared me a bit in terms of making it through the month with my meagre earnings, which are meagre again this month as a result of paying too much rent. I'm looking for private students to supplement my income though. Naturaally when I say I'm looking, I mean that I've thought about it and the process hasn't really developed beyond that point yet. Oh, the woes of being a lazy sod.
Well, school started up again, and our director left, after just over 2 months in the position. There are mixed feelings about this amongst the staff, with the general consensus being 'good riddance'. However, in his place we have a vice director, the main disciplinarian, a very confusing man. Sometimes I wish for people like Spencer Welman and Grassy Buitendag to come and make sense out of my school.
So what I've been doing lately is getting involved with discipline stuff and setting up relevant programs to deal with this stuff. On the one hand, I'm thinking that this is NOT what I signed up for, but on the other hand its kinda cool figuring out firsthand what works and what doesn't.
Some frustrations are mounting at school, things not working they way they should. I think its mostly because the teachers here are not career teachers, most of them have never done this before in their lives. They still think, as I did when I started my PGCE, that a teacher goes into a class and teaches their subject, and that's their whole job. People complain about doing duties, and having to go the extra mile and sitting detention, and all that kind of thing, but are also complaining about how nothing seems to work at our school, the kids have no discipline and respect, this that and the next thing, and they really don't seem to see the link between the two. Its weird for me starting a new job, and being one of the people that knows what's going on. I didn't even know what was going on at Cambridge half the time!
The most important thing to mention about school is that my dearly beloved bestie has managed to secure herself a position here, starting 7 December, as an English teacher, and I can hardly wait!! I won't have to translate perfectly good Safrican English into American all the time anymore, because somebody will FINALLY understand me! Woohoo! I literally cannot wait. She'll be living with me for the first little while, until she sorts herself out.
Another arrival that I'm waiting for with bated breath - today marks 40 days until Tyron/Pyron arrives for a visit. I'm so excited I could pop. Its been a tough 7 weeks without him, nothing could have prepared me for it. But its also forced us to develop in other ways, so good and bad. I learned how to do long distance from my friend Bethelah, and she told me "Communication is key!" Remembering her wise words is helping out more than I would have believed at the time. So we're soldiering on, and that's amazing.
Other interesting things that have happened lately:
1) A great Hallowe'en party that Nicola and I went to, that was very cool. We got dressed up en alles, and I even sliced my finger open to add to the gore. Alas, that part wasn't planned. Pictures to follow, when I'm more organized.
2) Thursday morning a crazed old Thai lady burst into my bedroom without knocking, and started shouting at me, I can't imagine what for. She spoke absolutely no English, and kept asking me if I live there. Well, I mean, I'm lying in the bed, and was clearly asleep, what else would I be doing there? She shouted some more, clicked her tongue at me and left. Without closing the door behind her. WEIRD!!! Note to self: Lock the door before falling asleep.
3) I can't remember what the third thing was. The bizarreness of the second thing made me forget.
4) Oh I remember! The building I live in is populated mostly with Indian people and farangs, so they were putting up lights and decorations for Diwali yesterday. I think at some point it got too much for our poor circuit board, and half the street was plunged into darkness at about 8pm last night. Naturally nobody thought to just unplug some fairy lights, so the electricity stayed off till about 3am, when I was woken up by the lights that I had left on. As they say, TIT (this is Thailand...)
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The rest of Phuket, finally
I'm very anxious to get this over with, its hanging over my head a like a very heavy thing that can cut my head off (the true idiom escapes me). I almost don't care about not having it perfectly recorded anymore, because I've left it for so long and I'm anxious to get to other things.
But we soldier on...
Monday was a day of adventuring: Ben went off with Avery (Kimmie's housemate) to rent us a motorbike for the week. I say motorbike, but it was really a scooter with a very small seat for my bum and really high foot thingies - very uncomfortable indeed. But Mr Ben is a great driver, and I am a great navigator, though we did get lost a few times before I found a great map.
Naturally just as we managed to find our way (by stopping at a Ducati dealer and asking for directions) we had a puncture, and amper amper split our heads open in the road in full traffic. Luckily it had stopped us right outside a Shell, and a nice man pumped the wheel up for us while laughing at our near-death experience in the road.
Ten whole minutes later, the tire was flat again. This time we'd pulled over right in front of a bike repair shop - I've never been so lucky in my life. They didn't speak a word of English, but one man did have a swastika tattooed on the inside of his wrist, I forget what the original symbol meant.
After what was literally 4 hours, we reached our destination of Patong Beach, the main tourist hangout in Phuket. And to be honest, it wasn't worth the trip. Patong looks like Pattaya, with lots of old fat white men looking to get off with Thai girls. The good thing about there being lots of farangs around is that it means the Thais speak better English, so its easier to make yourself understood.
But the beach is not very pretty, and we arrived too late to do anything anyway. Oh well.
Tuesday was another fun lazy day, spent swanning around in the ocean. You have to see it to believe it. Ao Yon is a very protected bay, and there are absolutely no waves. I've never seen such flat ocean in my life. Patong had some baby waves, and I saw some really good waves on Kata Beach, both on the other side of the island.
The one constructive thing we did on Tuesday was take a drive up to Big Buddha to watch the sunset and have supper. Big Buddha is exactly that: a huge statue of Buddha built out of marble slabs. He is still being built, and tourists can donate a slab of marble with their names on it to be put on him. I did no such thing. Big Buddha is very beautiful, and 6km up a very steep mountain on a little scooter with two large bums on it. It was touch and go for a while there. He is also no good to watch the sunset from, as he is facing east, and is so big that he blocks out the sunset. So we had a look at him and moseyed back down the mountain to have some supper at a restaurant with a great view in the right direction.
It was the night before Big Buddha that Ben and I decided not to go see as many islands as we could and meet up with Jay (a friend from school). Instead, due to financial constraints, we decided to cut our trip short and go home instead. A wise choice, with hindsight!
Wednesday was thus our last day, and we spent a part of it adventuring at a waterfall near Kimmie's house. We didn't go very far up, and apparently it gets much more impressive, but having mixed feelings about waterfalls as I do, I was content to just stay fairly close to the bottom.
Afterwards, we had a quick supper with Kimmie and Avery to say thanks for letting us stay, and then hopped back on the bus for a long, long trip home.
But we soldier on...
Monday was a day of adventuring: Ben went off with Avery (Kimmie's housemate) to rent us a motorbike for the week. I say motorbike, but it was really a scooter with a very small seat for my bum and really high foot thingies - very uncomfortable indeed. But Mr Ben is a great driver, and I am a great navigator, though we did get lost a few times before I found a great map.
Naturally just as we managed to find our way (by stopping at a Ducati dealer and asking for directions) we had a puncture, and amper amper split our heads open in the road in full traffic. Luckily it had stopped us right outside a Shell, and a nice man pumped the wheel up for us while laughing at our near-death experience in the road.
Ten whole minutes later, the tire was flat again. This time we'd pulled over right in front of a bike repair shop - I've never been so lucky in my life. They didn't speak a word of English, but one man did have a swastika tattooed on the inside of his wrist, I forget what the original symbol meant.
After what was literally 4 hours, we reached our destination of Patong Beach, the main tourist hangout in Phuket. And to be honest, it wasn't worth the trip. Patong looks like Pattaya, with lots of old fat white men looking to get off with Thai girls. The good thing about there being lots of farangs around is that it means the Thais speak better English, so its easier to make yourself understood.
But the beach is not very pretty, and we arrived too late to do anything anyway. Oh well.
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| Patong beach |
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| Stolen sunset from a hotel's private beach. |
The one constructive thing we did on Tuesday was take a drive up to Big Buddha to watch the sunset and have supper. Big Buddha is exactly that: a huge statue of Buddha built out of marble slabs. He is still being built, and tourists can donate a slab of marble with their names on it to be put on him. I did no such thing. Big Buddha is very beautiful, and 6km up a very steep mountain on a little scooter with two large bums on it. It was touch and go for a while there. He is also no good to watch the sunset from, as he is facing east, and is so big that he blocks out the sunset. So we had a look at him and moseyed back down the mountain to have some supper at a restaurant with a great view in the right direction.
 | ||
| A much better sunset view |
It was the night before Big Buddha that Ben and I decided not to go see as many islands as we could and meet up with Jay (a friend from school). Instead, due to financial constraints, we decided to cut our trip short and go home instead. A wise choice, with hindsight!
Wednesday was thus our last day, and we spent a part of it adventuring at a waterfall near Kimmie's house. We didn't go very far up, and apparently it gets much more impressive, but having mixed feelings about waterfalls as I do, I was content to just stay fairly close to the bottom.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
More Phuket
Today, having more time than money (more anything than money, really), I have done absolutely nothing. So I might as well finish the Phuket story, because when school starts again I don't think I'll get a chance.
So we arrived in Phuket Town itself at about 8am on Saturday morning. Coming in, it didn't look like anything I had imagined, and it didn't until I got to Kimmie's house, in a taxi that cost 400baht for a 30 minute trip. That's the second thing I noticed (after noticing that it wasn't what I had expected) - public transport in Phuket is nothing like Bangkok. None of the taxis have meters, apparently there's a taxi mafia that prevents this, and even motorbike taxis are hard to find. I hadn't realised how dependent I've become on public transport in one short month, having never used it before moving to this country. Also the taxis aren't cabs like in Bangkok, its more like a songtaew (a bakkie with benches on the back and a roof). But these are bigger, like a truck version.
Anyway, the man agreed to take us to Kimmie's house as per Nicola's instructions. Honestly, its for the greater good of mankind that that girl is learning Thai, I don't know where I would be without her. Lost in Phuket, that's where. Everything I know how to say is from her (except hong nam, that I learnt from Jay).
I couldn't resist taking some pictures on the way. The landscape is so much different to that of Bangkok, and absolutely beautiful. For once, Discovery was telling the truth :)
Saturday night was to be the culmination of the week's celebrations of the vegetarian festival, so there were believers lining the streets as we drove into town, all dressed in white. But more about that later.
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| Thais lining the street for Vegetarian Festival |
Everybody at the house had had quite a Friday night, so our early arrival wasn't quite as appreciated as it would have been later in the day.We headed down to the beach (a mere 15 steps from the house) and lazed around for most of the morning. This was perhaps not so wise, as I was a bit red and sensitive the next day or so. The beach is so incredibly beautiful, I think if I lived here I would never go to school.
Kimmie lives in Ao Yon, or Yon Bay, which is a little secret in Phuket. Its like a little village of foreign travellers, hardly any Thai people around. The up-side of this is that you can communicate with everybody, while the down side is that you could be on an island anywhere in the world.
After roasting ourselves on the beach we had lunch at Pedro's house (a nice teacher-trainer from Ecuador). He's really well-travelled - next on his list is Nepal, and maybe at some point 'Black Africa'. I had to laugh.
He and Carlos (another very well-travelled guy, Mexican) made som tam, which is a Thai salad made with papaya and shrimp. It is very very spicy. I might even want to put another 'very' in there. But it is also lovely, and they fried some fresh fish to go with it. Yummy. I say 'shrimp' because here there is no differentiation between shrimp and prawn. I'm sometimes disappointed by my order arriving with only little babies in it, where I expected big prawns, but more often than not they're great. Prawn/shrimp/gung are very commonplace and cheap, even in Bangkok. My mama would be in her element.
We went back to the beach for a short while and had a shower before making a move towards the festival celebration in town.
Now, about this Vegetarian Festival...Do not be confused by the word 'vegetarian' into thinking, as I did, that this was a peaceful hippy gathering of people protesting for the rights of the chickens. It is in fact almost the exact opposite.
The festival is the beginning of the Taoist Lent, so really a Chinese festival. What happens is that followers of this religion abstain from meat and a host of other things for the period of lent, which is the only vegetarian thing about it. On the Friday night and earlier in the week, followers had been making themselves more inviting to be possessed by ancient spirits. Still doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, the way they do it is by ritual mortification - piercing their cheeks with sharp objects and lashing themselves, grazing the blade of an axe across their backs and so on. The reason for this is that pain purifies the soul, and enough of it induces the person into a trance state whereby they are more inviting to the spirits.
The Saturday night, as I said, was to be the culmination of all this mortification, where those who had been selected by the spirits would be possessed at the beginning of the procession, and then walk for about 4 hours blessing families and stuff. The procession is quite something, they move through the streets of Phuket and the rest of the city crowds around them, throwing fire crackers at them. You've never heard such a racket in your life. And the spirits enjoy the fire crackers, so the possessed people actually stand still and let you throw the crackers at them.
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| Most people were wearing masks to avoid smoke inhalation. |
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| The lady in pink is the one posessed, the rest are there to help her and give her water and so on, they walk the whole way with her. |
The video explains it better, but I took it sideways and now don't know how to flip it.
We returned to Kimmie's house, tired and having had enough noise, to have drinks on the beach and play the song game, although Ben and Pedro didn't sing very much. I've really missed Kimmie.
Sunday was a lovely lazy day, we had lunch at a restaurant just down the road called The Beach Bar, lay around on the beach cementing my sunburn some more and did absolutely nothing productive. Lovely.
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| The path down to the beach bar. |
I go Phuket
I'm going to have to write this one in instalments, because otherwise it will be ridiculously long, and take days both to read an write.
So I'll start with last Friday, the last day of term, when we left for Phuket. 'We' is me and Ben, a teacher-friend from school. We were on our way to stay with Kimmie, who I hadn't seen in three whole years, which neither of us had realised. It was maybe not the best time for a holiday, with me still not having received a full month's salary yet, and having to budget intensely for the trip, but I was determined, so we set off. The first leg of the trip was on the Wednesday to the terminal to get the tickets. Being the organised and paranoid person that I am, there was no way I was going to show up at the terminal on Friday with only a hope of getting a ticket. Alas, this trip didn't go so well - the taxi driver swindled us by driving us practically all the way round Bangkok, a distance of 50km, and charging 350baht. Not cool. Especially when we then managed to get a bus home for a mere 18baht, a 20-minute journey. Pig.
Anyway, so we had the tickets and set off on Friday after school, meeting up at Victory Monument (which I still need to take pictures of to show you my morning route). Our next unwise decision was to take the 515 bus to the terminal, the same one that got us home on Wednesday. A wise choice in that it was only 18baht, unwise in that this was at about 17:30, and rush hour. It took us an absolute age to get there, and the people on the bus were laughing at us for getting antsy. Ben then wanted to get out and walk the last 2km, in the pouring rain. He did not at that stage know how heavy my bag was, luckily I talked him out of it.
Made it to the terminal at about 7pm, for a bus that was leaving at 7-30. But wise Mr Ben also pointed out that this is Thailand, nothing happens on time. And he makes a very good point; African time has got nothing on Asian time, its truly a whole new perception of time and punctuality.
The next difficult part was making sense of the bus station. All the signs saying 'platform' pointed to floors above us, and we reached the fourth or so floor, before wise Mr Ben again came forth and suggested that the bus could hardly take off mid-air, so we ignored all signs and headed back downstairs. We got some food and libations for the 12-hour journey; what had at first appeared to be a chicken burger later revealed itself to be a shrimp burger. It was proclaimed 'well-nice' though.
All this food and libation buying and getting lost and finding the toilet, took ages, with the result that we only happened upon our platform (and quite by accident too) at 7-27, three minutes before scheduled departure. And then we were even some of the first people on the bus! The bus duly left at 8pm, which was quite annoying after all that running with the heaviest bag in the world. Just like the Translux then.
It is a very long and very boring trip to Phuket. The bus stops once or twice in the 12 to 13 hours, the reasoning being that the bus is equipped with a hong nam (toilet) and so there's no need to stop. However, there has never been a more smelly hong nam since my life, and we could smell it from our seats the whole way. Ugh.
May told me before I left that I should wear closed shoes on the plane, in case my feet swell. I wore closed shoes on the bus too, because Thai people like having the aircon at subzero temperatures, and while my tootsies did remain toasty warm, they also swelled to elaphantine proportions, and so I had fat ankles for a full day in Phuket. Not my sexiest day.
More to follow soon :)
So I'll start with last Friday, the last day of term, when we left for Phuket. 'We' is me and Ben, a teacher-friend from school. We were on our way to stay with Kimmie, who I hadn't seen in three whole years, which neither of us had realised. It was maybe not the best time for a holiday, with me still not having received a full month's salary yet, and having to budget intensely for the trip, but I was determined, so we set off. The first leg of the trip was on the Wednesday to the terminal to get the tickets. Being the organised and paranoid person that I am, there was no way I was going to show up at the terminal on Friday with only a hope of getting a ticket. Alas, this trip didn't go so well - the taxi driver swindled us by driving us practically all the way round Bangkok, a distance of 50km, and charging 350baht. Not cool. Especially when we then managed to get a bus home for a mere 18baht, a 20-minute journey. Pig.
Anyway, so we had the tickets and set off on Friday after school, meeting up at Victory Monument (which I still need to take pictures of to show you my morning route). Our next unwise decision was to take the 515 bus to the terminal, the same one that got us home on Wednesday. A wise choice in that it was only 18baht, unwise in that this was at about 17:30, and rush hour. It took us an absolute age to get there, and the people on the bus were laughing at us for getting antsy. Ben then wanted to get out and walk the last 2km, in the pouring rain. He did not at that stage know how heavy my bag was, luckily I talked him out of it.
 | |
| The slowest bus driver in the world. |
The next difficult part was making sense of the bus station. All the signs saying 'platform' pointed to floors above us, and we reached the fourth or so floor, before wise Mr Ben again came forth and suggested that the bus could hardly take off mid-air, so we ignored all signs and headed back downstairs. We got some food and libations for the 12-hour journey; what had at first appeared to be a chicken burger later revealed itself to be a shrimp burger. It was proclaimed 'well-nice' though.
All this food and libation buying and getting lost and finding the toilet, took ages, with the result that we only happened upon our platform (and quite by accident too) at 7-27, three minutes before scheduled departure. And then we were even some of the first people on the bus! The bus duly left at 8pm, which was quite annoying after all that running with the heaviest bag in the world. Just like the Translux then.
It is a very long and very boring trip to Phuket. The bus stops once or twice in the 12 to 13 hours, the reasoning being that the bus is equipped with a hong nam (toilet) and so there's no need to stop. However, there has never been a more smelly hong nam since my life, and we could smell it from our seats the whole way. Ugh.
May told me before I left that I should wear closed shoes on the plane, in case my feet swell. I wore closed shoes on the bus too, because Thai people like having the aircon at subzero temperatures, and while my tootsies did remain toasty warm, they also swelled to elaphantine proportions, and so I had fat ankles for a full day in Phuket. Not my sexiest day.
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