Sports week

"Takraw"

(above is our school's swimming pool.)

We missed monday and tuesday classes due to our visa run, and showed up wednesday, which is the first day of what Thailand calls sports week. Which is basically a five day long sports extravaganza, pitting all of the high schools in the Chaiyaphum province (there are 42 of them) against each other in all different events. The first day included a giant ceremony where all the schools paraded and sang their school songs. We were able to catch some swimming, which was at our own Muangpayalae, and "Takraw", which is a game that originated in Thailand. It involves a rattan ball and a low volleyball net, the players are only allowed to use their feet or heads to move the ball, and the rules are similar to ping pong or volleyball. Here are a few pictures of some Chaiyaphum students playing the game. As you can see the games get pretty intense and are very fun to watch. On friday we watched some Muay Thai boxing and a few basketball games. Thursday ended with an elephant sighting on the way to the gas station.

(Above are pictures from the ceremony)

(and the elephant on the way to the gas station)

Khon Kaen Visa Run

This week began with an interesting visa run, after a fun weekend in Bangkok. We woke up monday morning to pick up our work permits at the local Chaiyaphum office, and made our way to Khon Kaen, (a two hour open air bus ride.) We arrived around 1:30 pm. When we arrived we went straight to the visa office where we encountered a long queue with "take a number" box. we took numbers 71 and 72. We then sat and sat while watching other teachers, some american families, but mostly American men with thai wives/girlfriends receive their visas. 3 hours went by, and we were still 10 numbers away from being helped, and we were told to come back the next day. We took it in stride and grabbed a city bus back to the city center. and found a cheap hotel for about $6 USD. We took this as a chance to explore Khon Kaen, a city of about 250,000, though the census numbers in Thailand seem to be skewed. Khon Kaen is very different from Chaiyaphum, it features an airport, a train station, many nice restaurants (Chaiyaphum has 1 nice restaurant), but the pride and glory of khon kaen is its brand new 6 story super-mall which was constructed last year. We bowled a round at its bowling alley, and then grabbed some street food, and an english newspaper published in Bangkok, and headed to bed. The next morning we woke early and camped out at the visa office at 7:30, we were finally awarded with our visas around 10 am.

Liz's Birthday in Bangkok

We headed to Bangkok for a weekend of birthday celebrations. We met up with some of the other teachers from our TESOL course on Khao San road (backpackers paradise, in other words cheap hostels, cheap food, clothing vendors, and bars). After a long bus ride and a mix up with our hotel we finally got dinner around 9:00. After being in Chaiyaphum for 2 months the idea of pizza was impossible to resist. We then went to meet up with everyone and celebrate our friend Sara’s birthday. Saturday we woke up and ate brunch and decided to head to the markets on the other end of Bangkok. After a boat taxi and sky train ride we finally made it with less than two hours to walk around since we had a reservation for dinner. We probably managed to see about a tenth of what there was to see at the markets but it was plenty with the crowds and heat. For dinner Dylan took me to a wine bar that had a Saturday deal all you can eat tapas and a bottle of wine. You would think with this kind of deal they would try to get you in and out as quickly as possible and we weren’t sure the tapas would really fill us up. It was the exact opposite. The waiter made sure to check on us after every dish came out and would encourage us to keep ordering more. After goat cheese, apple walnut salad, tuna, asparagus wrapped in bacon and many more tapas we couldn’t possibly eat any more; this is when the servers come out with a half a cheesecake and sing Happy Birthday. It was the perfect place for my birthday, exactly what I wanted. Afterwards we walked around Bangkok center and it started to feel a little bit like Christmas with all the decorations and then we met up with our friends. On Sunday we had a hard time leaving and ended up taking a late bus in evening but it was totally worth it, such a fun weekend.

Stonehenge of Thailand and the Sticks

Today we took a trip to the "Stonehenge of Thailand" which is located about 35km away from Chaiyaphum, up in the mountains. The trip was interesting as we were trying to read the signs in Thai script that directed us to this natural wonder. After a few wrong turns we found ourselves climbing the final leg of the journey on a dirt road dodging construction equipment and oncoming traffic. Finally we were rewarded with the sight of many rocks jutting out of the hillside about 40 to 50ft high, and a bustle of Thai people, we knew we were in the right place. The rocks were sandstone, and I think they were the remnants of a giant reef, though we can't be sure because all of the signs were also written in Thai script. We snapped a few pictures and began to head home, as we drove back down the hill we noticed that were the construction equipment had been working before, it had all stopped. We scootered past one of the construction workers hiding behind a rock, with a long lead wire headed to a rock the size of the car that we were now driving right next to. I put it all together and realized we were driving through a blast site, we continued driving and found another construction worker. I asked him dynamite? He nodded, and then I asked, meu-arai? Which means when, he muttered the word for now and pointed at the ground and smiled. He then yelled to the man behind the rock, seconds later rock was sent a hundred feet in the air, decimating the road we had just driven over. We continued on our way, stopping at a small music festival in a village, and taking some pictures of the countryside. It was an interesting trip and it was good to get out of Chaiyaphum to see the slower side of life for a day.

Some school pictures, some days off.

Gate Duty, basically say hello good morning 1500 times

The last week has been interesting, we've been settling in nicely to our teaching positions, our apartment and Chaiyaphum. We have to apologize for not updating this blog more often, but its not often where we are around Internet. Last Monday, we were told that school was cancelled for the day, and an activity would hold its place. All of the classes put together presentation boards to display what they had been working on this semester, and all of the students who will not be going to a university next year prepared food and drinks to raise money for their class. On Friday we participated in a celebration for the king's birthday where all the students and teachers lined up along the school roads and gave gifts to visiting monks as they walked through a gauntlet of people. It was hard to keep the students attention because of their anticipation for the long weekend and the festivities planned, but it gave us a good excuse to take some pictures.

Liz teaching her young ones.

Liz giving food and money to the monks

Me and some students from my 5/1 class, Hibari and Lactosoy.

A few of my students from different classes