Working Girl

After my extended period of relaxation, I have finally accepted a full time job. My title is Sped Para aka Special Education Paraprofessional. As there are these little things called confidentiality laws, I can only write so much about what I do. My day is spent in a fourth grade classroom. I am assigned one-on-one with a student, but I am able to interact with the entire class. The students are so well behaved, it is a drastic difference from my last teaching position.
My new school is only a half mile from home, so I have walked to work - even in the freezing cold! CPA is a charter school with students in grades K-12, and a very diverse population. Those of you reading from Thailand will be excited to hear that a majority of my students are Hmong. They were excited to hear about my travels.
In the process of getting my job, I also did some temp work. If you are ever looking for a truly professional temp agency, I highly recommend Dolphin Staffing. The crew there is super. I also toyed with the idea of working full time at Ihduhapi (YMCA camp), but why drive 45 min to work when I can walk?

Is it December already? Time to go home...

Upon my return to America, I learned my Grandmother can touch her nose too! This was early on in our night of dancing in Bangkok's RCA. I spent my last weekend in Bangkok so the Girl Gang could go out on the town, and so we could say bon voyage to Loren as she headed for India with Kate.

Loren and Rosalind prove that skirts are just fine for the platform seating. I think American bars should provide this type of seating, even if it is only for V.I.P. We had reclining cushions, a plush white rug and a bright blue drink, but we got out stain free.

Oh said that she is "getting boring of saying good-by." Meaning that she is tired of always saying good-bye to her friends. I decided to spend my last night in Ayutthaya at the Moon Cafe. It was a calm night, so we basically had the place to ourselves.

Amazing women. Noi, me, Took, Rosalind and Oh.

The band that "always" played at the Moon Cafe wasn't playing that night. Gai was kind enough to hunt down a folk guitar and give me a final show.

Ok, so I ended up spending one more night in Ayutthaya. It made much more sense to get a cab straight to the airport than it did to try and navigate Bangkok. I spent my last night watching the elephant show. It is a reenactment of the fight between Burma and Thailand. There were real elephants!

After the show, I had a great late night noodle dinner with Ros and Geab, but I didn't get any pictures.

At 4am Took meet me in her pajamas to make sure the cab she arranged showed up. It was a little late, but with no traffic in the wee hours of the morning, I made it to the airport in an hour and a half. Maybe I was groggy, but I couldn't believe I was actually headed home. Only 30 hours of travel to get home...

Hua Hin

In Hua Hin, I spent a lot of time with Linda and her Thai boyfriend Nueng. He worked hard at the beach bar, while we relaxed in the cushioned chairs. I was set up with them through a man I met in Ton Sai, they were so nice and treated me wonderfully my entire stay.

I went up a lage hill to get this great view of the town. The hill in the far distance is Khao Takiab, "Chopstick Mountain".

This is also Khao Takiab, from a much closer perspective.

The mountain is home to over 100 monkeys. As I entered the monkey area I was eating an ice cream bar. One monkey wanted me to share and ran up to me, touching my leg. It frightened me a bit; enough so that I didn't want to try to feed the monkeys.

It was Motorcycle Week in Hua Hin, so one night we went to a huge biker rally. I had no idea that so many Thai people owned Harleys.
That night we also went dancing. Outside of the club there was an argument between the "Harley motorcycle riders" and the "New Age bikers" who ride smaller faster bikes like Yahama and Honda. Engines were revved, but no one was hurt.

At night we hung out at a bar that allowed us to bring in most of our own food and drinks. We only bought ice and soda water from them. The man in the back is Bew. He runs a shop at Chatuchak, the giant market in Bangkok. Linda met the blonde couple by over hearing them speak Swedish on the beach. She meets a lot of Swedish people in Hua Hin that way. It was often very confusing to me to be surrounded by two foreign languages at the same time.

When I first arrived, Linda and nueng were hanging out with two Swedes, Ericka and Lotta. Lotta's mom is Thai so she understood a lot of the language. They had a friend that I only met briefly. Her name was Anna Berglund!

Ericka

Lotta

Chang Mai Part II

To get to the hmong Village, we hiked up hill for 45 minutes. We had to cross this bamboo bridge over the river. Once at the top I was confused because the people at the top had trucks and motor bikes. So there has to be an easier way there. It was all staged for tourists, to make us think about how high up they live.

This hut was outside of the main village. I am not sure if anyone lives in it, but it made a great photo.

We rode elephants in a jungle area. We even got to go through the water. This is Jonah and his boyfriend in front of me. As we went it was 20 baht to feed bananas and sugar cane to the elephants. My driver always took some of the sugar cane for himself.


Our secound touristy village was the Karan peopel. They do a lot of weaving. I was able to give it a try. Wow is it slow going. At my speed it would take a month ot make a scarf.

Chang Mai

This is the panda at the Chaing Mai Zoo. It was the same price as Zoo admission to see the pandas, 100 baht. The donation of the panda has really helped the relations between China and Thailand.

This is me with the artificial pandas that can be seen for free.

I went to a monkey show. It was 10 baht (25 cents) for some great mosquito bite stuff and a monkey on my lap. After the show I was able to play with some small monkeys. One stole the orchid I had pinned to my shirt and ate it!


These are mid-sized umbrellas that are hand made at the factory I toured. The umbrellas are shipped around the world. I was told they make some that can actully keep off the rain as well as look beautiful.

This is one of my most artistic shots so far. The monk was at Doi Suthep Temple on top of a mountain overlooking Chaing Mai.


The Yang Tree was planted in 1796. I like how I am wrapped in a scarf and the tree is wrapped too!

When I first saw these 'girls' I swore they wern't lady boys. It wasn't until I stood next to them for a picture that I believed they were men. There are loads of lady boys all over Thailand.

Trains in Thailand... ( a review)

This week I took a train to Chaingmai...

My first experience of riding a train in Thailand receives a mixed review. As for comfort, it was quite nice. I was in a first class sleeper car. I had AC and didn't freeze. The noise was minimal, as were the bumps. The toilet was scary. I could see the track below as I squatted on the Thai toliet. Scary.

So now for the complaints. My train was more than an hour late for its arrival in Ayutthaya. So I actually didn't board until Monday at 1 AM! Not a huge deal, I could sleep the night away.

I awoke to a Thai man peering gently uner my curtain to wake me. He let me know that the train had stopped because of an accident north of us. We woul be moving by 11am. I figured he was joking as it was only 8:30. Turns out he was serious. I later learned that two trains collided. 70 people were injured. 500 trains were delayed. It made the Thai news, so I made sure to text to all of my friends in Thailan so they didn't worry. Pom called himself to make sure I was ok. What a sweetie.

So I finally left the stopping point around 2 pm. It was still another 9 hours to Chaing Mai. So my night sleeper turned into a day sleeper. Still very comfortable. So now the question is do I buy a train ticket home, or is the bus a bettter bet???

Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong means to float a banana leaf cup on water.
We do this to ask Mother of Water to forgive us for polluting the water.
(funny to appologize by sticking things onto the water!)
Loy Krathong Day falls in November when there is a full moon in the sky and there is "full water" in the river.
There are beauty pagents like the Miss Nopamas Competition. I was sponsered by the Moon Cafe to be in the Frarang (foreigner) Beauty Contest, but it was canceled due to the flood.

We bought banana leaves, flowers and pieces of banana tree trunk at the market. To make the krathong, we folded the leaves so they would stand, pinned them down, and pinned flowers on top. We later bought candles and incense to make our Krathong glow.

Mine was quite small and cute. I did add more flowers after this picture was taken.

We lit our krathong and set them into the river. There were little boys who made sure the krathongs got out into the current and floated away. We later realized they were also stealing the coins we added for good fortune. (I guess it is industrious of them, otherwise the money would simply sit at the bottom of the river.)

We didn't think to bring a lighter. As we were discussing what to do, this woman offered us hers. She and her daughter are from Canada, so their English was great. The mother was born in Thailand. The girl is wearing a traditional Thai dress.