Nightlife

If sitting down, having a beer and a nice conversation at Surreal didn't meet you expectations of a "night out", there was always the option of going to Bar-Nana. Bars and nightclubs usually have stupid sounding names kind of like racehorses in Sweden do, but Bar-Nana? Most likely made up by some humorous thai person very aware of most thais problem with the R-sound, and therefore the name . Bah-Nana, Baahh-Naana. It took me a while to figure out the actual name of the place, and it made me stop my pronunciation exercises with the locals. "No, it's called banana, the fruit you know?!" Anyway, it was a nightclub. Where you not only could, but were supposed to bring your own alcohol, except beer. They had no license to sell anything stronger I guess, so instead they would provide you with anything you would like your beverage of choice to be mixed with. Let's say you're in the mood for Gin & Tonic. You bring the Gin and they bring you Tonic. We didn't care for that fancy western stuff and stuck to SangSom thai whiskey which I'm sure.....must have been the same as what we used to fill up our scooters with. It looks, smells, tastes(?) and cost about the same as that stuff. Just a different label.

Nightclubs in other countries have this thing called a dancefloor, not in Thailand. A DJ? No, coverbands all night long. Occasionally a clown on stage? Yes. People would dance right where they were standing and that's pretty much all you could do since the music was way too loud for any type of conversation. Lots of people dancing by their table and pretty crappy music, that's a night at Bar-Nana (or Hollywood, same same, but different). You either hate it or love it, and some nights I hated it and some nights I loved it. Depends on how much scooterfuel I drank. There was also thaimassages offered in the mens bathroom. Maybe not really offered, you would just feel a pair of hands around your neck as you're washing your hands and before you know it you've had your back and neck cracked and your arms massaged by two other guys. The first time it happened to me I thought someone was trying to strangle me, but you quickly got used to the little guys attacking you as soon as you entered the bathroom. I didn't have any money to tip them at one point, so I went and got some volunteer girls for them to massage, seemed to have been just as good as hard cash.

Surreal

After dinner on my first day in Nong Khai, everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction, this place called Surreal. I had no idea what kind of place it was nor did I understand why people freaked out when they discovered that it was closed that particular day. What's so special about one bar? There were plenty in Nong Khai. I would have the same feeling later though, and to say that Surreal became almost a third home, a third dorm is not an exaggeration.

There were a lot of bars along the Mekong but most would have the same crowd and atmosphere, old dirty farangs with young thai women, the kind of things you unfortunately can't really miss if you go to Thailand. Squeezed in between all those places were this little bar with a completely different vibe and no dirty farangs in sight. Run by the married couple Mark & Jane, it felt more like stepping into their livingroom than a bar. Most of the time the crowd would be dominated by people from Travel to Teach, local thai people and friends of Mark & Jane. If you were looking for someone, they would either be at Meechai or Green dorm, or at Surreal.

It became a natural thing to stop by Surreal almost every night either for food or drinks, or just a game of pool and a cup of coffee. Every weekend spent in Nong Khai would be spent at Surreal and every going away party or special occasion would be celebrated there. Great fun, great people, great times. I've always wanted to have my local bar where I knew everyone and where it only took a subtle movement, nod, or eyecontact with the bartender to get "the usual", and in Surreal I found that place. A place where everyone knows my name...

Mark did not resemble Ted Danson in any way though.

Happy birthday

The next weekend I found the balcony outside of my room being decorated with palmtrees, coconuts, carpets and a variety of other things in order to make the place look as good as possible for that nights celebration of the 4 year anniversary of Travel to Teach. About 400 balloons later the place was almost unrecognizable but looked really nice. Too bad we couldn't keep it like that.Later that evening everyone somehow connected to the organization gathered for a night of food, drinks, speeches, traditional thai dancing and music, and of course.....karaoke. A party in Thailand isn't a party unless someone brave steps up to the mic and takes it away. An unexpected phonecall saved me from having to give my own interpretation of ABBAs "Dancing Queen". Nevertheless, It was a great night that ended around 5am with some cigars on the balcony under the full moon.

Roadtrip

Back in Nong Khai, suffering from a slight post-beach depression and missing some of my friends who'd left Thailand at the end of our trip, it was nice to hear about the plans some of the others had of renting scooters and taking a little roadtrip along the Mekong. I didn't have any plans that weekend and hanging out by the pool seemed a little bit...pointless. So, initially it was me and seven others who went looking for a place crazy enough to rent scooters to a bunch of farangs embarking on a 150km drive to the sleepy little town of Chiang Khan. It turned out to be a lot harder than we'd thought, and as we kept walking around to different places asking the same questions, getting the same answers ("no, crazy farang! you only drive in city!"), more and more people dropped out and eventually there were only three of us left. Finally we found a british guy who had just bought a bar down by the Chinese Market and who couldn't care less how far we were going as long as we brought the bikes back in decent shape. Just what we thought too, so on a Saturday around noon, Yvette, Sophia and I took off heading for Chiang Khan and some supposedly beautiful waterfalls along the way. The roads were surprisingly good and traffic wasn't bad either which made the drive a very pleasant experience. Relaxing, with some beautiful scenery along the way and a comfortable temperature as long as you weren't going too slow. The first waterfall wasn't that exciting, since it didn't meet the most important criteria of a waterfall. It had no water. The second one was a major improvement, even though it wasn't exactly the Niagara Falls, we were excited to just see water running, and it still had its charm and felt like a place you could spend a lot of time doing absolutely nothing at. We still had more than a few hours to drive so we wasted no time, except for a quick swim in the water, and got back on the road again. About an hour or so from Chiang Khan in the middle of nowhere, Murphy showed his ugly face and Yvette & Sophia had a flat tire leaving us standing on the side of the road with only a short time till sunset. Since we hadn't seen much traffic for a while and the only passing vehicles were other scooters, we didn't have much hope for a happy ending. Sometimes it feels great to be wrong though, and we were extremely grateful for the help we got from a guy with a pick-up who stopped and gave the girls and the bike a ride while I drove ahead trying to get to Chiang Khan before it was completely dark outside. It required some unsafe driving at speeds not intended on those roads, and a severe amount of swallowed bugs, mosquitos and whatever else flying around, but it was worth getting there and getting the bike fixed before it was too late.

Chiang Khan was an old-fashioned, quiet and traditional little village/town by the Mekong with basically only two streets with a few guesthouses, restaurants and shops. A short walk around town, dinner, and then a few beers by the river and we were pretty much done for that day. The next morning we continued our drive out west and went up to a big buddha statue on a viewpoint overlooking the river. Great view but unfortunately too cloudy that day. We didn't have any specific plans but instead we started our drive back towards Nong Khai and figured we could stop by the waterfall again and maybe stay a while longer this time. It actually turned out to be more than a few stops along the way and when we finally got to the waterfall we realized that we weren't going to make it to any guesthouse before dark. No problem though, we just needed some food and drink and then we could always sleep outside in the jungle next to the waterfall. We couldn't find any food but with plenty of beer, crackers, cookies and anything else eatable that we could find in a little shop a bit further away we had our dinner. Bamboo doesn't provide the best firewood though, so after about an hour in front of the fire there was only the stars and the moon left to light up our campingplace. It's pretty cool how dark and silent it gets in the jungle and sleeping on the ground wasn't a big deal at all, except for all the rocks where we'd decided to make our bambooleaf bed. No mosquitos either and we were so excited that we wanted to go back some other time but then bring sleepingbags, proper food and try to get a real fire going. Three days on the road and a night under the stars was great, and definitely one of the highlights of the time in Thailand.

Holiday...

I guess a trip to Thailand without going to the beach would feel like a visit to the Empire State Building and taking the elevator...to the basement. Possibly nice, but with a feeling you might have missed out on something. I wasn't the only one with that feeling, so after little over a month in Nong Khai I joined Jodie, Rani and Marcella on a 12 day trip including some beach-time, crazy Bangkok nightlife, and a bit of cultural/historical sightseeing in Cambodia.

First out was Bangkok, and some temple sightseeing. They've got a whole bunch of them there, but we concentrated on the big ones within walking distance. My personal favorite is Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Big things are always cool and you can't really go wrong with a 46 meter long and 15 meter high golden Buddha image. I had been there before but it's always amazing to walk in to the temple and see that huge statue.
No visit to Bangkok and its temples would be complete without a visit to Wat Phra Kaeo, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Not the biggest one, but the most important buddhist temple in Thailand and the Emerald Buddha being the most important icon for thai people. No pictures were allowed and like all other buddhist temples it had a calm, almost soothing atmosphere with the Emerald Buddha centered around various different buddha images and sculptures.
Located withing the grounds of the Grand Palace is not only the temple, but a large number of amazing buildings, temples, stupas, museums and even a small scale model of Angkor Vat. It's easy to spend a whole day walking around inside those giant walls admiring the beauty in which the thai's reverence to the buddha manifest itself.
Also the one place where it's required to cover your knees and shoulders at all time, with stuff to borrow for those whose clothing didn't live up to the dresscode, like me. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a pair of very stylish purple silk pants, slightly oversized, resulting in a tourist/clown look I felt very proud to display for the thousands of others who planned ahead that day and wore long pants. No pictures were allowed (by me) of them either.
After a few days, having seen some cultural sights, the huge weekend market and the rest of the time spent inside giant shopping malls due to the extreme heat and humidity, we decided to take on Bangkok's nightlife starting with the circus that is Khao San Road. Lots of cheap cocktails, a visit to Bangkok's not so nice areas, and some tuk-tuk adventures later we were pretty much done with the city for that time and couldn't wait to get out of smelly, hot, crowded Bangkok and enjoy the beaches of Koh Chang.





Thailands second biggest island after Phuket, Koh Chang, has surprisingly not been overrun by tourists yet and still has a nice relaxing atmosphere with cheap bungalows on the beach and the feeling of a backpacker paradise discovered not so long ago. There's not one big beach stretching for several miles, but instead there are many small beaches on the island, contributing to the feeling that it's your own little paradise that only you and a handful of fortunate others have discovered. I'm sure it will all change in a few years, and there are places that are even more desolate and untouched, but for us it was perfect. First night was spent on Paradise Beach on the northeastern side of the island, but after having discovered that the tide basically made almost the entire beach disappear until in the afternoon, we took our stuff and headed down south for a better place. The island is pretty big and can offer other activities than just spending time at the beach. There's a national park that offers elephant rides, trekking and swimming in waterfalls. We thought about doing something like that, but once we saw the beaches we pretty much knew were we were going to spend most of our time. And since going back and forth between places can be both expensive and take some time, we wanted a place we could spend the whole week at. The roads in Koh Chang are apparently some of the most dangerous in Thailand, so we gave up the idea of renting scooters and exploring the island. Scooter adventures had its time as well...




We found the perfect spot a bit further down and got a really nice and cheap bungalow. So, what do you do in a place like this? Apart from the obvious things such as relaxing, eating good food, enjoying a few drinks on the beach, a snorkeling trip to four small islands surrounding Koh Chang was however one thing we took time out of our otherwise so very busy schedule to enjoy. Great fun, apart from a pretty nasty sunburn but otherwise perfect. There's not much to say really, I've could have gone crazy with the pictures and posted about a hundred postcard pictures of this paradise but I won't. Everyone who's ever been to a place like this know pretty much what it's like and what you do there. Enjoy beautiful sunsets, avoid getting killed by falling coconuts and wonder why the hell you were born so close to the arctic circle.....The only thing we didn't get to experience was the fullmoon party that had taken place the weekend before we got there. Good reason to go back though...



At first our main goal of the trip was just the beach, but since Cambodia didn't look too far away on the map, we figured we might as well cross the border and check out Angkor Vat. The way things looked on the map and the way things were in reality were however completely different. The province of Trat, where you take the ferry to Koh Chang is pretty much right on the border to Cambodia, kind of like Nong Khai and Laos, but if you're not Thai or Cambodian, you're referred to one of three border crossings available to foreigners. This meant we had to take a minibus up north to a place called Aranya Prathet, get our visas, and then cross into Cambodia.
I'd heard some other backpackers describing the Cambodian side of the border and the city of Poipet as hell, so I figured we had something unpleasant waiting for us on the other side. Personally I didn't think it was that bad though, but I guess if your used to how things operate pretty smoothly in Thailand and the friendliness and respect for foreigners, you're in for a bit of a culture chock. The whole time it was just and endless wait for either buses, people, getting your passport stamped or...the mysterious six people we kept hearing about but that never showed up. Most likely just a lame excuse from the Cambodians to handle the growing frustrations of the people waiting to get out of Poipet.
Once on the bus, we had the pleasure of enjoying an eight hour ride on the bumpiest dirt road known to mankind, in a bus that had seen better days. There were plenty of things to keep one occupied however, dodging flying suitcases and giant backpacks, trying to find a position to sit in that didn't hurt too much, or trying not to pass out from heat-exhaustion were some of the options available as entertainment along the road. We arrived in Siam Reap, the city were the temples of Angkor are located, around 1AM, having traveled since 8AM that day. Sleeping had never felt better...


Next day it was time for the small tour, and with our personal chauffeurs (tuk-tuk drivers) we headed out to the temples. The area itself where they are located is huge, so you need transportation to get around. We saw some brave tourists on bicycles but that must have been pretty hard considering the heat in Cambodia were just as bad as in Bangkok, it just didn't smell as bad.
Walking around the temples was pretty amazing I must say, and the only thing missing was a little more background information about each place. Instead the place was jammed packed with tourists and Cambodian children selling postcards, t-shirts or anything else visitors might be interested in. It was sad seeing all those poor children, some of them not older than 5-6 years old, running back and forth constantly trying to make you by something with their parents always a few steps behind ready to collect whatever money their children (mostly girls) where able to earn.


Last stop on the first day was Angkor Vat itself, the biggest and most well preserved of the temples. It's always an amazing feeling seeing something you've read about and seen tons of pictures of for yourself, and Angkor Vat was no exception. Gigantic, rugged and the largest religious monument in the world built in stone, it was a cool experience climbing its steep steps to the top and looking out over its great surrounding walls.
Next day we started where we left of, getting up early to catch the sunrise over Angkor Vat before heading out on the grand tour including Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple as highlights of that day. All the temples had its special atmosphere and vibe, but I've got to admit that after two days of nothing but tons of sculptures and temples it all started to get somewhat tiring, and on the third night we were more than satisfied and couldn't wait to get on the bumpy roads that would take us back to Thailand.

A day in the life of...

If there were any normal days they would always start pretty early, on weekdays because of school, and on weekends and days off because it wasn't possible (at least not for me) to sleep once it started to get hot.

School would last from 8AM to around 1PM. There would be two classes, each two hours long with a 5-10 min break in between, and after that we had lunch. Back in Nong Khai there would be some time to relax in the afternoon, do some emailing, read, just hang out with the others or go downtown for a visit to the market or to stop by the Green Dorm. Once a week the afternoons were spent at the orphanage, trying to avoid getting crapped on, and later on an addition to the afternoon volunteer activities was made when we started helping with the renovations of the Meechai School, just next door to the dorm.

Evenings were twice a week spent teaching either the monks or the university students, each for about an hour and a half, and it would start around seven or eight. After that we went out for dinner and if it was your free night, it often meant waiting for the others to finish teaching so that as many as possible could eat together. Usually since eating took place pretty late, we weren't finished until around ten o'clock, after which there was always the option to either go out for a few beers or head back to the dorm and get some rest.

The weekends were the time to travel, check out what the surrounding areas had to offer, or just hang out by the pool and prepare for a big party night. Most of my weekends were spent elsewhere and I can only remember a couple of weekends were we/I didn't have anything planned outside or away from Nong Khai. Most of the others did the same thing, leaving the city almost empty of volunteers sometimes, except for maybe a few who volunteered in Phon Phisai or Namsom, little villages where there really wasn't anything to do and therefore would visit Nong Khai during the weekends.

The Dorms

Meechai Dorm

Located on Meechai Rd, one of the three major streets/roads the city was built around, was this old house which provided accommodation for up to 10 volunteers at a time, including me. The house itself was pretty big with five bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, computer room, a common area/TV-room, one big balcony and a terrace. We all shared rooms with someone, even though I had my room for myself the first week I was there before two other guys moved in. It was pretty basic, a mattress on the floor and a fan next to it. Nothing fancy, but all you needed. It was only a place to sleep and store your stuff, maybe the occasional nap if there was time. Otherwise it was probably the place I spent the least amount of time in. It was on the top floor, which meant a lot of running up and down stairs, which, considering any physical activity would result in an enormous amounts of sweating due to the heat and humidity, sometimes made it kind of pointless going down to take a shower, when you felt like taking another one as soon as you got back to your room. That was pretty much the case with any activity in Thailand more exhausting than picking your nose, and the feeling of being nice and clean was a luxury that would only last from turning off the shower to closing the bathroom door on your way out. On the upside though, was the huge terrace just outside of our room where you could hopefully find some place in the shadow to relax, or watch the sunset over the park. Probably my favorite place in the house.



Green Dorm

The Green Dorm was smaller than Meechai, right in the city center between two of the main roads. The location was definitely better than the other dorm with walking distance to a lot of nice little restaurants and markets, and because of its closeness to everything it became the meeting place whenever there was something going on. There wasn't much more in the house than bedrooms, a balcony and an outdoor kitchen (a good place for BBQ's), but the balcony surrounded by palmtrees always provided a nice oasis in the shadow, also the place we had our thai-lessons at. There were hammocks at the green dorm, which we didn't get until the week before I left, and there was always the battle between which dorm was better than the other. We had more space and our computers, they had their nice location and their hammocks on the balcony. I guess it was a tie between the both, and they complimented themselves in a good way which resulted in people spending times at both dorms instead of just isolating themselves in one place. It brought the volunteers more together and made it feel like one, instead of two groups living in different places.

Visa run

After almost one month in Thailand it was time to cross the border and get my visa renewed. It was Jodie, Rani and Martin and I who all came to Nong Khai the same day who went to Laos together. Since the Mekong being the only thing separating Thailand from Laos, it's possible to just cross the friendship bridge and back again within a couple of hours. We figured like many others that since we're so close we might as well check out what Laos has to offer. After a somewhat chaotic experience at the border where I was squeezed into a bus with what felt like 400 others and alone had to keep track of everyones bags (long story), we got to the Lao side. We took a taxi to the capital, Vientiane, in what by far is the crappiest car I've ever seen. It made those old american cars on Cuba look like brand new Bentleys. However, it did its job and got us to Vientiane, which I must add, has to be the most boring capital on earth. I guess a few decades of communism kind of brings down the vibe a bit. After one night and one day in Vientiane with some temple sightseeing , and a visit to the local market, we headed north for Vang Viang, a backpacker place in the mountains about four hours from Vientiane.

Vang Viang was a small town crowded with backpackers. Guesthouses would attract customers by showing the Simpsons, Friends and Seinfeld and pretty much every popular sitcom and also having the option to lie down while eating your breakfast/lunch/dinner watching TV at the same time. Pretty much all my prejudices about backpacker hangouts were confirmed, and when we got there at night it was hard to tell why this little town had become such a popular place. The next day when woke up and saw the mountains and beautiful surroundings it made more sense.

The town it self didn't provide much more than a place to eat sleep and have a few drinks, instead people go there for trekking, tubing or any other nature experience that could be offered by the many places organizing tours for the visitors. We didn't have much time so we decided on a one day tour including some trekking, tubing through caves and kayaking along the Mekong with a stop along the way for some relaxing and the option to swing into the river, very fun I must say.


The next day we just took a little walk, took some pictures and then it was time to get on the bus back to Vientiane and later head back to Thailand and Nong Khai.



Laos was a lot different from Thailand with a lot more poverty, fewer smiles on peoples faces and infrastructure that had seen better days The country seemed more quiet, and people more reserved than in Thailand, but still had a nice atmosphere. It was interesting to see though and even if we didn't have much time it was a different and new experience and we all had a great time.

Stray dogs vs The Banana Pancake Lady

I remember Jessica, the international program coordinator, telling us during our introduction weekend that one thing she still hadn't gotten used to after all the time she'd spent in Nong Khai were the gangs of dogs roaming the streets at night ready to scare any poor farang who ventured out into the dark. During the day they would just lie on the sidewalk looking more dead than alive, but as soon as it got dark they immediately took every chance they got chasing whoever they say not holding a thai passport. That's what confused me, how could they tell we were foreigners from a long distance and start barking and running, whereas thai people could basically step on them and they wouldn't move! Do we really smell that different?! Some gangs were worse than others, and some dogs were really bad. They tried to jump and bite you as you were biking past them, and I particularly remember one little sidestreet, where some evil little furry thing made a really good attempt at taking a bite out of my leg. I wished for a second that I'd taken the rabies shot before I left, but fortunately he missed and I was gone with the wind. The same thing happened to a volunteer friend of mine, but that dog actually managed to rip a hole in his pants. After that it was war. Different methods such as waterguns, bb-guns and other things were discussed as options to keep the little (the little ones are always the worst) devils away. What turned out to be the best solutions was to always keep a handful of pebbles, or any kind of gravel with you ready to throw at the ones who got to close. I, on the other hand tried reverse psychology on them and would just bark back and start chasing them instead. It worked pretty good but resulted in some suspicious looks from thai people, so I stopped.

If the dogs represented Nong Khai's dark side, the Banana Pancake Lady definitely represented the good. Every night she would stand on the sidewalk on Prajak Road opposite Dee-Dee's, making her beloved pancakes. They were so popular among the volunteers that I suspect at least one or two dutch girls had to go through some kind of rehab to handle the loss once they got back home...
I wasn't that addicted though, normally I'm not a huge fan of sweet things after I eat, but I got to admit they were good. One whole pancake easily filled you up more than any thaifood would, so I'd stick to the small ones. When I came back from Koh Chang and Cambodia, she asked me where the other girls where, and I told them they already left Thailand. She asked me when I was leaving and told me I'd get a free one before I left. She actually remembered the week I was leaving even if I was to stressed to realize it, and sure, I got my free pancake.

cultural clash in the classroom

Very strict hierarchies is one thing that I personally think screws up not only a students ability to learn, but is a limiting factor in many peoples life in general. That is one of the factors you just have to accept when visiting a new culture, but it is far more frustrating when it has an impact on what you are there to do. In the west, I guess, we are taught critical thinking and questioning authorities as a way of learning and understanding. In Thailand it's pretty much the opposite. What anyone with a uniform, a higher rank or whatever tells you, is the law. And in the classroom teacher is God. That might sound pretty nice, and it was in the beginning, but it made the actual teaching a lot harder since it was almost impossible to get the students to ask if they didn't understand or work independently . There would also always be one or two smart kids who would do all the job and the rest would copy. Happens a lot everywhere, I know, but there it was completely accepted and out in the open. Not even the thai teachers would care, instead they would just openly declare to the rest of the students how stupid they were and that they had to work harder. I heard stories from other volunteers of how teachers sometimes would hit the kids, and I'm glad none of that took place in my school.

It didn't seem to make a difference whether it was a primary school, college or even monk university, asking questions was almost always seen as a sign of weakness and it was much better to just stay silent. One of the monks told me that even during their lessons at the university asking questions was pretty much like asking for trouble. This was one of the things I had most trouble understanding in a country where the people in any other situation always smiles and acts very friendly to one another. I had many long discussions with the monks on this topic and even though they claimed it was good for maintaining discipline and creating structure, which I can agree on, they also felt it was sometimes holding people back. In the end I guess it's one of those differences you just have to deal with and try to be a bit more creative in certain situations.

travel to Teach

Eating bugs, hanging out by the pool or trying to figure out how to use the bathroom was all good fun...but the main reason I was there was to teach. I was assigned to a school called Udon Thani Business College for Tourism and Administration (C-BAT), and it was located in between Nong Khai and Udon Thani, a city about twice the size of Nong Khai about an hour away.

The school had about 900 students in ages 17-21, most of them girls. At first I felt a bit insecure and intimidated about the whole thing and wished I had requested to teach primary school or really small kids instead of not making any requests at all, but that quickly changed and now I actually prefer teaching older students. The first week of teaching I was accompanied by another volunteer who had been at that school for almost two months. That helped a lot as far as getting to know the school and the way things worked around there.

The first thing that caught my eye was the students behavior towards the teachers. I guess problems with discipline in schools is a common problem in many countries, but not in Thailand. They would actually bow to us even in the hallway or cafeteria and sometimes even bend their knees so that they wouldn't be taller than any of the teachers when standing next to , or passing them. That didn't happen to me a lot, even though I'm no giant I'm still a head higher than most thai people, especially girls. The reason for this was not only the general politeness and respect for elders that most thais show each others everywhere, but also the fact that teachers in Thailand enjoy a higher status than both doctors and lawyers and many other professions.

Officially the volunteers are supposed to "assist the thai teachers in their lessons" or something like that. Unofficially the thai teachers either leave after five minutes of the class, or don't show up at all, which means you have the whole class to yourself. Scary? At first of course, but after a while if the thai teacher actually participated it became almost annoying not to have total control over the lesson. Control freak issues maybe...

The students' level of english wasn't nearly as high as I'd expected from a group of 17-21 year olds hoping to one day work in tourism or hotel managment, but it was better than most other thai people. That meant starting with the basics, but not as basic as the alphabet, bodyparts or something else we did in third grade in Sweden. We (I later when I was teaching alone) tried to focus on conversational english in situations they might encounter later in their careers. Hotel and ticket reservations, dealing with food drinks in different ways, stuff like that. It was a lot of fun, especially having them memorize cocktails as homework. What's in a Long Island Iced Tea...? Grammar wasn't much use trying to teach them, mostly because that required a thai teacher who could actually explain it to them, but also because their textbooks were filled with grammatical errors to begin with. One week I was feeling extremely confident in my teaching abilities (ha!) and tried teaching them about irregular verbs...didn't work at all.

They were also very fond of games, no matter what kind of game as long as there was some kind of competitive side to it they would go crazy. Hangman was a big favorite, tic tac another. It was also really fun for us to watch the transformation a group of shy, quiet students can go through once you say the word "gametime!".
The morning routine was another highlight, where the students would line up each morning in front of the school to listen to the teachers and sometimes sing the national anthem. Due to the fact that our driver usually was a little late we'd often miss the lineup and had to go straight to class, therefore this picture is from another volunteers' school. Looks almost like at my school though.

Even though we, or I, didn't get much assitance from the teachers (to their defence, they were pretty busy), they were still extremely helpful in every way and made a big effort trying to make us feel welcome at the school. We would always get the best table in the canteen, students or teachers would bring us food, sometimes with a little surprise to it, and they seemed genuinely happy about having us there. Overall, the school was more modern and felt more like a high school in Sweden than what I had pictured a thai school would be like, even though there are some huge differences when it comes to teaching techniques.

Things to do in and around Nong Khai

Thai people love their markets and you can find them anywhere. Nong Khai was no exception and the biggest one open everyday was the Chinese market down by the Mekong. It was a pretty big semi-indoor market with anything you could possibly need. Another one was the Sunday Night market open only on Sundays between 6-9PM. A little smaller but a better place if you wanted to find real bargains, or eat some bugs. Quality products might not be the word that comes to mind when I think back at some of the stuff for sale, I must have bought at least 3-4 pair of cheap sunglasses that lasted about one week each. Even so, the thai markets provided a nice atmosphere and it was always fun to stroll around in the middle of their organized chaos.

What definitely put the city on the map was the sculpture park, SalaKeawKoo. Located about a 10 minute tuk-tuk ride from central Nong Khai was this very surreal area filled with buddhist and hindu sculptures. Founded by a Lao native named Luang Poo, who's mummified body still can be found in the main building in the park, it depicts over a hundred sculptures from both Theravada and Mahayana buddhism , as well as hindu sculptures and snakes in various forms and shapes. I wasn't too excited when I first heard about it, but when I got there and saw it for myself I changed my mind. Some of those statues are huge! The pictures doesn't really display either the size of the sculptures or the atmosphere of the park, which is a shame, but I guess you had to be there. Or have to go there.

Recreation and thai aerobics

There was a big park pretty close to where I lived. For some reason I don't have any pictures of it, which is really a shame, since it was pretty cool. Kind of the central park of Nong Khai, a place to get away from the not so crowded streets and the pretty slow-paste life that most Nong Khaians (my own word there) experienced every day. Around five o'clock in the afternoon, there would be aerobics in the park. The whole thing was very odd but fun to watch. I remember a lot of people in bright colored jumpsuits jumping along to music I've never heard before. The whole thing was lead by a ladyboy,-kind of the 3rd gender i thailand, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves very much. When there wasn't aerobics there were always people jogging and doing various kinds of healthy activities, and I actually started jogging too, but my newly bought (used) running shoes didn't hold together for more than a couple of runs. Besides, It was too hot to do any exercise anyway and I was pretty lazy. So, I blame it on the shoes.

Thailand can get pretty hot, especially for a Swede coming from a cold, snowy Sweden in January. Since there wasn't a beach anywhere close, and swimming in the Mekong river was neither safe nor healthy, we had to go elsewhere to play in the water. There was a very nice pool that belonged to the Royal Mekong Hotel, a 20 minute bikeride away from the dorm, and we would go there a lot in the afternoons if we had time. The only problem was that whoever built the hotel and pool must have missed that around 3PM the sun would set behind the hotel and that basically meant time to go home. I'm not an architect, but even I could figure out a better location for the pool, or the hotel. Either way, it became our little oasis in the heat as the seasons changed from cold to warm, meaning temperatures constantly over 30 C. Around 90-95 F i think.

Food

If the bathroom business took a while to get used to, the exact opposite applied to the food. Everyone who's been to Thailand knows about the great, really cheap food you can get there. We would go out every night to one of the many street restaurants (some tables and chairs on the sidewalk), get a good meal, and then move on for banana pancakes or something else...


Usually the food wouldn't be spicier than what I could handle, but one of the favorite pranks the teachers at my school liked to play on me was; "let's see how much spices the foreign guy can handle". It must have been the highlight of their day standing around laughing at me crying and sweating like crazy while I tried to keep a straight face. Once a week we would also have cooking class at Meechai dorm, and we'd first get a demonstration of how to cook whatever was on the menu that day, and after that we'd pair up and make our own dinner.

We also had bugs one day, I mean, if people can eat lobster which I think is a pretty ugly thing to put on your plate...then why should bugs be a problem? I wasn't as brave as Martin though, I just ate the little yellow worms. Tasted kind of like burned french fries.

Introduction to Thai culture

The first thing that freaked me out were obviously the toilets*, or lack thereof. Our dorm as well as the Green Dorm were however equipped with both thai-and western toilets, so there was no need for unwanted bathroom adventures if one did not feel like it. As time went by you get used to it though, even if I still much rather stick to the familiarity of a western toilet. It wasn't until much later that I found out the secret trick that will save you a lot of trouble (at least for girls) when going to the bathroom thai-style. All I can say is that it's a matter of turning, depending on your business in there...

*It is not the toilet in the picture that is mentioned in the blogpost.

The first week

Teachers go clubbing!

After having been thrown into teaching pretty much right away, I was hoping to get some time to myself during the weekend to be able to go through the teaching material that I had received upon my arrival and orientation in Nong Khai. Instead I found myself at a going away party for a couple of volunteers that had finished their programs and were off to their home countries. Going out in Nong Khai proved to be a different experience than I'd had in any other country...very different. It started out at local bar, and after a couple of beers and some games of pool we we're all off to...karaoke! Those of you who know me and my endless love (not) for this very strange phenomenon can imagine the chills down my spine as I heard where we were going. But when in Rome... It wasn't that bad though, but I would rather have played another game of pool than listening to various interpretations of Sinatra's " My Way" and other classics. After about an hour or so of watching people fight each other over the microphone (I actually sang a couple of lines myself) we were off again to the nightclub next door. That was quite different as well, but a whole other story. After the police came and closed the place (they do that sometimes if you don't bribe them) we decided to make a final stop at Nong Khai's second nightlub worth visiting, before I could finally go back home and try to cure my jetlag.


Apart from teaching at one school, volunteering in Nong Khai also meant projects in the afternoons and evenings. That included teaching buddhist monks, university students and helping out at an orphanage. We would get a new schedule on a weekly basis where we were assigned to all of the different projects at least once a week. Teaching the university students was by far the easiest, because their level of english was already pretty good, and teaching the monks was both the most challenging but also the most rewarding. How often do you get the chance to sit down and talk to a buddhist monk for an hour or more with no distractions and the ability to ask them any questions you want? They were equally interested in us though, and topics could vary from anything from traveling, sports, buddhism, to social difference between countries or what kind of thai beer we (the volunteers) liked the most.

Shit happens

The orphanage meant playing with the kids, and feeding them (at least try to) since they were too little to talk in the first place. My first encounter with the (cute) little hell-raisers resulted in one of them taking a crap on me. I guess he saw a farang coming and took his chance. We have since made up and there are no hard feelings between us.

The downside of procrastination

I've never been a big fan of keeping a diary when I travel (or at home), instead I've convinced myself that what I don't remember isn't worth remembering either. That strategy works just fine if your ten years old and don't have a lot of stuff on your mind, or if you're overly self-confident when it comes to your own memory capabilities. This time however, I was at least smart enough to scribble some random notes down each day to help me keep track of things. I've come to realize that it was a pretty smart move when I'm now trying to backtrack two months of experiences in Thailand. The challenge of translating them into something worth reading still remains however...

Nong Khai

The seven-headed snake Naga, a buddhist mythological creature, is the protector of Buddha and also the symbol of Nong Khai.


After having dropped of my stuff at the Meechai Dorm, one of two places housing volunteers in Nong Khai, I got a quick tour of the city and some general information before it was time for the weekly meeting at the Green Dorm with the rest of the volunteers, new and old.

The city turned out to be a bit bigger than I had expected, but then again I didn't really have any expectations since I hadn't done much research before I left. Normally I would have, but this time it felt more exiting just getting on a plane without knowing where I'd end up.

With a population of about 60.000, located by the Mekong River, Nong Khai is the border town to Laos and is made up by three major streets running parallel to the river which makes it almost impossible to get lost. Biking was the way of transportation I quickly found out, and with my newly rented travel-to-teach bike (that later got stolen) I set out to explore my new home. My first adventure on my own took me all the way to 7-eleven and then back again, since I had just found out that I was being picked up at 07.35 the following day to start teaching at the school I'd been placed at (or is it in?) A good nights sleep seemed like a good idea but before that could happen I was introduced to the local street food along with the other new volunteers. Two months later, I'm surprisingly still not sick of rice...

Better late than never 2...

I left Sweden on January 15, and arrived in Nong Khai sometime later that week. On a thursday I think. Almost 4 days of traveling and an endless amount of waiting around in airports and bus stations took its toll, and with a serious lack of sleep and general feeling of confusion I was pretty much ready for bed as soon as I arrived. There wasn't any time for that though, first I had about 12 hours in Bangkok to kill before my final bus ride up to Nong Khai , and I realized as soon as I landed that I somehow had managed to forget/misplace my cellphone charger somewhere along the way. Good job!

I've had more fun than running around Bangkok suffering from serious sleep-deprivation trying to find stuff for my cellphone, but as far as I knew Nong Khai could be two huts in the jungle next to a Travel-to-Teach sign with no Sony Ericsson stores to be found. So I figured I might as well get it done right away. It took a while, and I got lost in Chinatown for some time (it smelled really bad there) but I managed to get what I needed and decided to do some well deserved sightseeing, since I still had about 6-7 hours left in Bangkok.


You often hear that thai people are very friendly and welcoming, but I didn't expect to stand on a street corner with a map of Bangkok in my hand, and one hour later having a beer in that same hand trying to explain what Malmo ( a swedish city) was like to a 60-something man who worked in the telecommunications industry and was about to go to Sweden in a couple of weeks on a business trip. Since I hadn't been to Thailand before and he had never been anywhere, we both tried to share as much useful information about our countries as possible. He must have either been very pleased with the information about Sweden he got, or it was all the beer we (he) drank, because he later took me around the city including the old parts of bangkok and some of the temples, and even though I insisted on paying for my beer and at least one taxi ride, I left Bangkok that evening with a new cellphone charger as my only expense*.


*Except for a quick stop at Pizza Hut.