Ode to a Stolen iPod

It's the sort of thing that you never think will happen to you. You hear the warnings, and the terrible stories. You know people it's happened to. And you know that they've never been the same since.

But not you. It could never be you. You're better than that. The world is a kinder place than that. Right? You certainly don't deserve it. God no. Think of all those good deeds you've done. There was that blind woman you helped cross the street, the countless people you've given accurate and in depth driving directions to, the shiny coins you've tossed magnanimously to many a homeless man or woman. And don't forget all the times you said, 'Keep the change' even when you didn't really want that conniving timewaster of a taxi driver to do anything of the sort. So no. You know, it won't happen to you.

But then, it does.

At first, you're in shock. You don't believe it. There must be some mistake. Soon, however, much too soon, reality sets in and you realize you have to try and cope. But the pain is too fresh, too new, your metaphorical wound yawns open and you realize you don't know where the nearest metaphorical hospital is, or even where you parked your metaphorical car, so you'd have to take a bus there.

Anger comes next, consumes you. A vermilion haze that does not part or lift for days. You feel stronger, safer, invulnerable within it. But it doesn't last for ever, and soon you are left with a quiet despair.

This is when you realize that maybe you should just get over it and buy a new iPod. I mean, come on, they're a hundred dollars cheaper now than the last time you bought one, right?

*************

All melodrama aside, it does really suck to have your iPod stolen. It makes you feel, for one thing, like an easy mark. And Evan and I convinced myself that I must have left it at home, after we discovered it not in my bag as I expected in the first few days of the trip, so I spent the whole trip thinking it was safe and sound, only to find out when we got home that it wasn't there at all.

Yes, it's just hunk of metal with a little plastic thrown in. But it's been to 14 countries with me, been my companion in many European museums, and kept me sane at crazy desk jobs. Plus, I keep thinking of the inscription I had Apple put on the back: 'Omnia mea, mecum porto.' Which is Cicero, if your Latin's a little faulty, and basically means 'All that is mine, I carry with me.' Which is a cute (if supremely dorky) thing to write on a mass storage device, and a good motto for someone like me who schleps a bunch of crap with her everywhere she goes. But of course, it also means more. And I'm not sure if I could bring myself to reuse it on a new iPod.

Anyway, Part 2 of our saga is on its way. Just had to get this out of my system first.

Getting There

The reason it's been so long since our last post is not that we don't love you, nameless faceless internet, we do - we just had to go away for a little while. Where did we go, you ask? Good question. Make yourself a hot drink, sit back, this may take a while, but we will tell you everything. And while you're making that hot drink, make me one too, will you?

Part 1

Our winter vacation officially began at 3:20 pm on December 23, 2008. That morning we had left our house at 7:30, towing all our luggage with us so that we could head off immediately after school. Here's a rundown of that day, transportation-wise.

6:00 AM - Alarm goes off, Evan continues to sleep. As a result of this, I get dressed in the dark and later find out that I managed to put two pieces of clothing on inside out. Thanks a bunch, lazy boyfriend.

6:45 AM - Massive flurry of last minute packing and cleaning. Evan even manages to make the bed before we leave. Do we have everything? Seems like it: one large backpack/suitcase, one camera bag, one laptop bag, and one purse sort of bag.

7:30 AM - We walk out to the road, and pray for a songtaew to come rescue us so we don't have to run the 3 km to school in the half an hour we have left. Fortunately, one comes soon, we hop on with all our crap, and off we go!

7:45 AM - We get off that songtaew and switch to another one that will actually take us to the school. Come on, you didn't think it would really be that easy, did you?

7:55 AM - 20 baht poorer, but on time, we arrive at school.

3:20 PM - Done with classes, we grab our stuff, head out the door and hop into Jimmy's car, which takes us about 2 km, across the street from the police academy.

3: 45 PM - We get into the van to Bangkok. 35 baht for me, 35 baht for Evan, 35 baht for the seat we had to buy for the suitcase = 105 baht total, less than $3 for the three of us for the one hour ride into the capital of Thailand. A steal.

4: 30 PM - We arrive in Bangkok, but we're still not where we need to be, so a taxi is hailed, and the three of us (don't get confused, I'm still counting the suitcase) jump in and take a 15 minute ride to Kao San road, to find a travel agent who speaks English and can finagle us a last minute bus ticket down south.

4: 45 PM - The first place we go wants to charge 1100 baht (about $33) each to Pha Ngan. Total ripoff, so we politely decline.

4:55 PM - The second travel agent we go to is a little more reasonable. She will sell us two tickets for a bus leaving in one hour, 750 baht each. This is still a ripoff, but it's the 11th hour so we suck it up and buy the tickets. Excellent! Time for dinner.

5:05 PM - We buy a battery charger for my DSLR, as the second set of batteries has been threatening to fail for weeks now, and I apparently left the charger in California. This is a major relief, and now we have everything we need for the trip.

5:15 PM - Green curry tofu for me, Tom Yum Gai for Evan (Gai means chicken), both delicious, for a total of 70 baht (~$2.10) at our favorite streetside vender on Soi Rambuttri.

5:50 PM - Evan is compulsive about being on time when we travel, so here we are at the travel agency.

6:20 PM - Someone comes and leads all the travellers who are going south to a large street two blocks away. No explanation is offered, but theoretically a bus is coming soon to pick us up.

6:30 PM - No bus yet.

7:00 PM - Still no bus.

7: 30 PM - The mosquitoes swarm around our bags and we have nowhere to sit. We've been standing by the side of the road now for over an hour, with no idea of when the bus might show up.

7:45 PM - Finally the bus arrives, and we get some idea of our itinerary. Looks like the bus will stop at 3:30 in Chumpon, where we won't get off, and then the last stop is Surat Thani at 6 am, where we transfer to a ferry that will take us the rest of the way to Pha Ngan.

3:30 AM, December 24 (Christmas Eve) - As scheduled, the bus stops in Chumpon. We blearily crack our eyes open, then think better of it, and fall back into the half sleep that is only possible when sitting up and rocking back and forth for hours.

5:30 AM - Oh good, we're early! We stumble out of the bus, check that we still have all our limbs, and hopefully all of our luggage, and take a glance around to see what might happen next.

5:35 AM - People motion us to a truck, we get in and assume more passengers will follow, but surprisingly, no one does. So Evan and I get a private taxi ride through Surat Thani, not to the pier as we expected, but apparently to another bus station where our truck driver exchanges our ferry tickets from Suratthani to Koh Phangan for bus tickets to Don Sak (about 100 km away) and ferry tickets to Phangan from there. I assume he must have made some money in this transaction, otherwise it baffles me why this was done.

6:00 AM - We are shown to a bus and motioned to get on. Our newly acquired tickets are stamped in red 'AIR CONDITIONED BUS.' Correspondingly, of course, the bus is about 80 degrees, warmer than the temperature outside, with its only ventilation apparently originating somewhere near the tail pipe, because the air is thick with diesel fumes. This bothers Evan a lot, but I have fallen into a jaded complacency and couldn't care less. I shut my eyes and try to sleep.

6:30 AM - The bus finally starts moving.

8:00 AM - We arrive at the pier at Don Sak, and board a ferry seemingly meant only for cars, as we have to walk alongside them to board it. This doesn't phase us at all. Fortunately there are seats for people on the top deck, so we grab a couple and settle down.

10:00 AM, or thereabouts - The ferry arrives at Thongsala, the main pier on Koh Pha Ngan. You might think the journey ends here. You might be wrong.

10:15 AM - We have to get across the island, to Haad Rin, of Full Moon Party fame, and the only way to do that is in a taxi. Normally, as a tourist, you arrive on a ferry full of other tourists and form groups which then bargain for taxis together. However, since there were no other tourists to speak of on our car ferry, we were not in a good bargaining position, and were in a very good position to get hosed. So we did, and spent 400 baht to go 11 km. Oy. However, this is half of what was originally proposed to us, a stunning 800 baht for those same 11 km.

10:50 AM - Haad Rin. Now we had to get a long tail boat to take us to our destination, a cove just around the corner from Haad Rin, but not accessible by land.

1:00 PM - Unfortunately all the boatmen had been told it was Christmas Eve, and had doubled their prices. They knew they had doubled their prices, we knew they had doubled their prices, but they had the boats, and we had too much luggage to swim, so after almost 2 hours of holding out on our parts to try to get them to see reason, we bit the bullet and paid them 400 baht for a 7 minute boat ride to the wrong cove because apparently the waves were too big to land in our cove.

1:10 PM - We land in the cove next to the one we want to be in, and gather all our stuff, then we have to hike to our cove over the mountain in between the coves. It's pretty steep, there are a lot of stairs carved into the stone face of the cliffs. Imagine one of the steepest hikes you've been on, and then imagine doing that with the luggage from your last two week vacation.

1:30 PM - We finally arrive at our cove, and are greeted by Hannah. Yay! We are also filthy, very sweaty, and mentally and physically exhausted.

End of Part 1, tune in for Part 2 tomorrow!

Humble Abode

It has been a while, hasn't it.  Over two weeks to be exact, and yes I am to blame.  Jessica has tried to get me to update the blog, but to no avail.  Finally though, I bring you our new house in Sam Pran, Thailand.  The house isn't the end all be all, but it is such a comfort after being in a single room for over a month at the hotel, Sam Pran Mansion.

We have air conditioning in our bedroom, and the house cools off quickly in the evening after the windows are opened.  Ants and mosquitoes can be a problem, but by keeping the food put away and the screens closed around dusk there really isn't that much to deal with.  They have this fun to use zapper device here.  It looks like a tennis racket, but instead of strings it has electrified wire.  It can't be that safe, and I've heard it really hurts if you touch it.  However it is extremely good at killing bugs and it gives you a satisfying zap sound when you get them.

Here is our place, starting with our main room:

Our bedroom:

Our guest room/storage room:

Our flushable toilet bathroom:

Our warm shower/non-flushable toilet bathroom:

Our kitchen:

(The sink is off to the left)

The motorbike that comes with the house, all 125cc of it:

Here is a picture of the entrance to the house:

Our backyard, which has a canal, a banana tree, and a small orchard with Chicken's across the way:

The road down to our house:

I hopped you like the tour.  I will work on updating the blog regularly, but I am not promising anything.

The Bangkok Zoo, and Animals in Thailand

So two weekends ago, before we moved into our new house, we spent a weekend in Bangkok, and ended up at the Bangkok zoo (basically we got tired of so much traffic and noise, so we took out our map, looked for the largest green area and pointed at it for the next taxi driver). The Bangkok zoo is in the Dusit area of Bangkok, near the king's house. We were not suitably attired for a visit to the king, so we decided to visit the zoo instead. The first animal to greet us when we arrived was the giraffe.

It was living with a few zebras. Bangkok, even in the cool season, rarely gets below 80 degrees. And although it was afternoon, the temperature was probably hovering around 90. So although we were feeling a bit warm, the animals seemed perfectly comfortable. I've always felt sorry for the animals at the SF zoo, because most of them are so far from their natural habitats.


They had a whole island devoted to birds. Some of the colors are just incredible! A few of the larger more exotic birds were in cages, but many were just walking around the island. It was nice to see animals who were in a zoo but still had a little bit of freedom.






Speaking of birds with freedom, this white bird was outside the zoo. Evan took this shot. I think it's an egret? Mom?
Here are some of the other animals at the zoo. It's not as large as the San Francisco zoo, and it's a longer walk between animal enclosures, with arguably more places to buy food in between (but it's a tough call). Still, they have some amazing animals. Some seem cooped up, but a lot of the enclosures are fairly generous in size.






This monitor lizard (? not sure) was one of many walking around wild around the zoo. I guess they must be indigenous and not very dangerous. They like water and seem to move pretty slowly, but were not interested in being close to humans.

Also, here in Thailand they have a few flavors of potato chips we don't have back home. We didn't try the double cheese pork burger flavor, but Evan tried the spareribs one and said it wasn't half bad. I think it's amusing it has the Statue of Liberty on the front. I mean, I guess that's what we are, a nation of ribs eaters.



And here are a couple of non zoo random pictures: iced drinks on the street at night, and a kitten who lives at the school. Evan says I'm not allowed to take it home, but we'll see.


That's it for now, expect a post from Evan about the new house soon!

Loy Krathong, More Nakprasith and Sam Phran, Plus Various Food Musings

Okay, okay. I know.

It's been two weeks, and you are foaming at the mouth, champing at the bit, straining the traces, desperate for news from Thailand, and more importantly, from us. Sorry, we've been a bit busy, what with life and all.

Okay, so we will start with about a week and a half ago. In Thailand once a year they have a festival called Loy Krathong. Everyone makes or buys a 'krathong' (basically a little platform made from banana leaves and stalks, with flowers and a candle on top), lights it, and then floats it down the river. Before you float your krathong, you are supposed to apologize to the spirit of the river for all the damage humans do to it. I think, anyway, I'm not completely sure I understood correctly.

Here is a picture of Evan with our krathong, and a close up of the krathong:



It was beautiful to see them floating down the river lit like fireflies. There are also krathongs built like small hot air balloons of paper, which are lit and then rise until you can't see them any more. Apparently, sometimes these krathongs fall down and light people's houses on fire. But they are very beautiful to watch ascend.

We went to Loy Krathong with Jeremy and two of the Thai teachers who teach with us at Nakprasith, as well. We bought krathongs, floated them, apologized to the river and made our wishes, then ate some noodles and ambled home. It was a nice evening.

Okay. Now on to what I think you all have been most curious about: the school. And what it is, exactly, that we do there. As I said before, the school is called Nakprasith. It has about 5000 students, from kindergarten until the equivalent of the end of high school. Evan and I both teach 25 hours a week in one hour blocks, and Evan teaches from first to sixth grade, while I also teach some of the high school classes. The kids are very well behaved for the most part, and super cute especially at the younger ages. I don't have any pictures of them yet, but I will post some later. Here is a picture of Evan in his uniform; we have to wear these blue polo shirts every day with black pants.

The kids don't know much English, but they are willing to try for the most part to learn. All in all, the job is going pretty well. Here is a picture of the front of the classrooms we use:


All right, now on to the food musings. It continues to be difficult to find good vegetarian food, although the one restaurant we've found still makes very good food for me. Most other places though, seem bemused at the idea, and aren't really sure of the definition, evinced by serving me meat or fish multiple times. Today we move to our new house, which has a kitchen! We'll let you know how it goes.

Visa Run to Laos

Well it has been nearly 28 days since we arrived in Thailand, which means it was time that we renew our visa. We had a couple of options, the first was to make a quick run to the Cambodian border and walk across and back in. A quick run means a four hour van ride each way, and this option would allow us to receive another 30 day Visa. Thailand immigration law states that you may only receive three 30 day visa's in each six month period. The second option would be to go to Laos, which is quite a bit farther away. Laos is almost nine hours each way by van, including stopping for quick breaks. The benefit of going to Laos is that we would be able to receive a 60 day visa with an option of extending it another 30 days without having to leave the country. Jessica and I decided to go to Laos as it made much more sense to get an extended length visa to save on the hassle of traveling back and forth out of the country. We ended up going with http://thaivisaservice.com/ for the visa run. They weren't all that great, but they did get the job done. The worst part was that they spoke no English once you left the meeting point in Bangkok, which became very frustrating why trying to figure out what was going on.

We left at 9:45p and arrived just before 6:30am. There were probably 5 break stops, nearly all of which were really annoying as they kept waking us up from sleeping. We then walked across the border and out of Thailand. Next a bus took us across the Friendship Bridge and we purchased a 30 day visa for Laos. For the next step we were drive to the Thai Consulate in the city of Vientiane. There we waited in line to turn in our passports and visa application form. In line we discovered that we could apply for two 60 days visa's at the same time, which we ended up doing. Next we had to wait in a very small room with nearly a hundred people in it. Their was one lady calling up people to pay for their visa's, and she was calling up people by sticking up their very small passport pictures in a glass window. After that ordeal was finished the visa service company took us to a hotel that ended up being very nice. From the lack of sleep the night before we took a quick nap and then off to do some exploring. For dinner there was a buffet which was also very good.

The next morning Jessica and I walked through the central market area of the city and then meet back at the hotel for transport back to the border. Keep in mind at this point that we still do not have our passports back as they were collected by the Thai Consulate. Our service went back to the Thai consulate and picked up the passports and brought them to us at the border. After more waiting we finally made our way out of Laos, followed by more waiting on the Thai side of the border until our passports were processed. All told we left the hotel at 12pm and got back on the vans at 3:55pm. After that it was another long trip back to Bangkok, and we arrived just before 1am. Another thing to mention is that the drivers of these van had to be driving nearly 100mph at times going in and out of traffic. It was absolutely nuts at times.

Here are some pictures we took during our trip:

A smoke filled field in Vientiane, Laos.


Hand prints on a wall:


Homemade intruder discouragement at the top of a wall:


Alleyway where we found the wall:


Building construction:




Random Picture:




The money is called the Kip. This 9000Kip bill is worth about 30cents.
Front:


Back:

Food

Food in Thailand is generally delicious. When we were staying in Bangkok and looking for jobs, the food near Kao Sarn road was plentiful, cheap, and varied, with menus in English and enough vegetarian options for me. We ate Tom Yum, Phad Thai and green and red tofu curry almost every night, with delicious Thai iced teas to wash it all down.

At this restaurant the rice was shaped like teddy bears when they brought it out.

That's green curry, rice, and a noodle dish. So far, the Thai food here tastes like the Thai food at home. Some of the Thai food at home was even (gasp) better.

And you can't really get roti very often at home, whereas here they're on every street corner. There are several different options with roti: plain, which is like a plain crepe, cut into small squares and drizzled with condensed milk and then sometimes added sugar (the Thai are not afraid of too much sugar); then you can choose banana or egg to go inside, or both if you are feeling decadent. This one is drizzled with chocolate, but I think that's just for the tourists. I haven't seen that option anywhere else.


Here (Sam Phran) the options for vegetarians are more limited, although we have found one place across the street from where we are staying that can make me a couple veggie dishes and some meat for Evan as well. On our first night here we went to an all-you-can-eat restaurant where you fill a plate with raw meat and then cook it over coals at your table. Here's a picture:

In the foreground, the shrimp and other meat stuffs cooking, in the background on the right Jeremy, a fellow new teacher from Napa, of all places! On the left is our new boss, Sam, head teacher at our school. After dinner was over, Jeremy won a pig playing darts.


That's it for now! See you all again soon.