Thailand / Cambodia

Thailand:

Chiang Rai:

My one night in Bangkok did not turn out to be that oysterous. In LA I had arranged to spend some time working as a volunteer English teacher in Thailand. I was supposed to stay at a school in rural northern Thailand in close proximity to the Burmese and Laos borders – the so called Golden Triangle. Since I got in late that night at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Int'l airport I was picked up by a friendly Thai woman who brought me to the volunteer house.  I took an overnight bus to Chiang Rai after spending the next day shopping around for appropriate clothes (teachers in Thailand enjoy the same social standing as doctors and lawyers as pillars of the society and are expected to dress accordingly). Waiting at the bus terminal I was surprised by everyone standing up and paying their respects during the king's anthem which, as I was told, is played daily at 6pm on TV. Dexter from www.volunteachthailand.org helped me in arranging my travels and picked the first placement school for me. Once in Chiang Rai I stayed at Fun-D hostel for the first of many times. A brand new hostel which catered to all my needs on my frequent stays there. If you ever come to this town stay at this lovely guesthouse. The staff goes beyond its way to help with everything and I made friends with all of them during my stays there.

I finally made it to Ban Namtok the next day where I was supposed to teach kindergarten and elementary school. I met Hannah and Jeyendra – two volunteers from Germany – who helped out at the annual English summer camp during school vacations. Also, Andrew and Katie, a Canadian couple, got there the same day and the three of us would be the first volunteer teachers of the new school year which would start the next day.

Learning our names in Thai

It’s difficult to put into words the experience when we were introduced to the students the next day. After I had a quick bucket shower with rain water (there was no water a lot of the time) we gathered outside at around 6.45 am in front of our (very basic) rooms on the school property while the kids were already sweeping the schoolyard and classrooms. They sang their morning song and raised the flag at the pole and pledged allegiance and all other kinds of organized activities. From that very first day on I was always greeted with a friendly and smiling “Good morning teacher Maik” which made getting up and being motivated in the mornings the easiest thing in the world. At school we taught Kindergarten in the morning and grades 1 thru 6 in the afternoon. Admittedly, the attention span of a kindergarten kid is that of a squirrel, so after singing the ABC song or introducing some words like “Apple” to underline the alphabet we would usually play with them, which – considering the 35°C outside – was a difficult and tiring task. With the older kids we were pretty much free to teach what we considered appropriate. It’s amazing how attentive and polite these kids are in comparison to the average Western student (me included). Afternoon activities included playing football (soccer) with the young boys and organizing sport games and activities that involved teaching some English words and commandos.

I am great/good/ok/so-so/happy/angry/sleepy/hungry

Pink is the new green

In the village I felt a bit like a pop star. The people were extremely friendly and interested in us foreigners. It went so far that one day, hitching back from an afternoon visit to the next town, one guy drove us to his friends and family instead of school and we had to take pictures with each and every single one of them and try their food and home-made liquor mixed with honey. Only then would they let us go back to the school.

On our first weekend we went back to Fun-D hostel in Chiang Rai where we visited the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun - an impressive contemporary Buddhist temple with all kinds of unconventional and sometimes even morbid installations. On the way back a combination of a lack of driving skills and sand/oil on the road let to me having an accident with my 125cc scooter. I suffered a bad, deep wound on my left foot from sliding across the street for 10m with the scooter on my leg. My beloved shorts that already had paint stains on them from when I got myself into student riots in Chile were now finally ready to go to the trash. The hostel staff took care of first aid, but after three days my foot got heavily infected (no surprise with constant heat and humidity) and I had to leave school to go to a hospital. What then followed was a brutal procedure and certainly not for the faint at heart. A needle with an anesthetic was injected 3 centimeters deep under my wound which instantly drove tears into my eyes so painful was it. Once my foot was numb they took a sterile metal toothbrush and scraped out the wound, so that it was clean. Finally I received some more shots of antibiotics directly into the wound. The nurses first wanted me to stay there for 5 days, but then I could talk the doctor into letting me come back daily to check up on the healing process. The whole operation, including prescriptions and wound dressing was less than $10 - well invested money! The foot eventually took over two months to heal entirely. Now I’m probably left with a sexy scar for the rest of my life. 

The White Temple

Ouch!

The next day the school’s principal took us out to visit a wildlife camp where we would ride elephants. Pretty cool activity, although I was a bit worried about the elephants being treated in a bad way. I’d much rather see them roaming free instead of having their will broken that way. I expressed my concerns with the local guides there, but they assured me these ones were treated nicely and with due respect for the animals. Let's hope it's true. The same day we also went to see a Buddhist temple where we were given a private audience with a high-ranking monk and were asked to teach the orphan kids some English for an hour or so.

Elephant (left)

Buddhist monk (right)

The dragon is one of the Four Buddhist Dignities

While school activities were always heaps of fun (we organized student president elections, gave radio interviews and generally enjoyed being in such a peaceful environment) the next weekend was reserved for another city trip. This time we went to Chiang Mai - a fine example of urban Asian culture, a student city coming with a great vibe expat scene without the hustle and bustle of Bangkok or the likes. Do I have to mention the enthusiasm, the cheering and the overwhelming feeling when FC Bayern München won the Champions League title that weekend? We were watching it at a German-run bar in town despite the late kick-off at 1.45am. I was crying tears of joy. Mia san mia!

Will he try the crickets and silkworms?

Yes he will!

By the end of the next week I decided to do a visa-run to Cambodia and join another school in Klaeng, about 3 hours east of Bangkok, when coming back from it. My local contact Dexter suggested going there to see and experience something different.

Cambodia:

Siem Reap / Angkor Wat

Crossing the border into the former Khmer Empire now officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia was a hot and messy experience. The travel company asked us to hand in our passports and was going to arrange visas for “only $40 – vely cheap”. Thanks, but no thanks. I jumped off the bus at the border where touts and scams were trying to sell me visas in their offices at prices around $30. I came prepared and walked straight up to the immigration office. A sign there read: Tourist Visa - $20. Aha. After providing a passport photo (luckily I had one on me and could avoid the $5 extra charge for having my picture taken) the not so friendly border official pointed at a handwritten sign that said $7 or 200THB processing fee. Of course, there always is. “Sorry Sir, I have exactly $20 on me.” I kept smiling through his attempts of getting some bribe out of me and reissued my earlier phrase. “Sorry Sir, I have exactly $20 on me.” Finally, I was good to go, obtained my entry stamp at the border, crossed by foot and jumped back on the bus on the other side.

Thai-Cambodian border crossing at Poipet

After a 2-3 hour ride through rice fields we made it to the town of Siem Reap which has something on offer for travelers on all budgets. From major chain resorts to dirt cheap budget accommodation – everything is readily available in this South East Asian micro cosmos of tourism. Me and my new German friends from the bus found something clean and neat for $5 including breakfast. The evening then ended with a traditional Cambodian massage (less painful than the Thai version), an interesting culinary experience thanks to former French influence in the area (frogs, frogs!!), $0,50 Anchor beer cans and the organization of a local driver for the next morning.

Beheaded froglings

Morning in this case meant 3.30am. The driver picked us up in his auto rickshaw (tuk tuk) and drove us the 30 minutes to the world’s single largest religious monument and UNESCO World Heritage site of Angkor Wat. The whole area is vast and said to hold the ruins of over 1,000 temples. It is about 10 times the size of the second largest religious monument in the world – the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala which I had visited on my birthday just a few weeks before. The sunrise over the little lake in front of the main complex was nothing short of magnificent and worth the pain of the early visit. The truly great thing about the complex that used to serve as the seat of the Khmer Empire from the 9^th thru the 15^th century is that its ruins combine various religious influences – from indigenous cults to Hinduism and Buddhism. Obviously, a single day visit cannot cover all there is to see, but with the good planning of our well informed driver we made it to the most interesting sites within the next twelve hours in the largest urban agglomeration in human history prior to the Industrial Revolution. Most notable of the ruins were certainly the main temple of Angkor Wat and the Bayon with its giant carved stone faces.

A new day begins

Angkor Wat

Bayon

Exhausted from a long day in the sun we finished on Pub Street that night and took an early morning bus back to Bangkok the next day.

Thailand:

Bangkok

Oh dear lord, Khao San Road. Have you read the book The Beach or seen the movie starring Leo DiCaprio? Then you will know what I’m talking about. At least I have a fake ISIC student card now that has been successfully in use ever since.

Fat Buddha

Klaeng, Rayong Province

My teaching experience here was quite different from that up north. For starters, accommodation was a luxurious apartment in a Swedish owned vacation property. There was a kitchen, LCD TV, spacious bathroom, a pool, a terrace… what a treat after a few weeks of living in very basic conditions. The friendliness of the people was the same though. I was being invited for lunch and dinner with the teachers and got to taste the best of Thailand’s cuisine. And the spicy food there is just outstanding – couldn’t be happier with it. On top of it you have all the exotic fruits like Rambutan and Durian and Mangosteen and the list continues. One afternoon I went to one of the teacher’s fruit garden and came back home with like a 5 kg bag full of all kinds of fresh fruit. Much to the delight of my new housemates who themselves were teaching at the local elementary school. I was mostly at that school prepping one of the kids for another speech contest, but since I walked into Franzi early into my stay there I had the opportunity to visit her secondary school where she was working as an English teacher for an entire year and ended up being given a few classes to teach Mathematics to. Challenge accepted and I found myself explaining sets, polynomial division and basic stochastic to 13-18 year old students over the next couple of weeks. I loved it. The kids told me they enjoyed it too, although I was quite happy to have one of the teachers jump in every now and then helping with a translation when blank stares were all I got in return for my explanation. Altogether, these few weeks have been something I can highly recommend to every single one. If you have the opportunity to do it – go ahead and don’t hesitate. It’ll change you and the way you look at things. Such a rewarding experience, such great people I met and the kids are just lovely and ever smiling. Thanks again to everyone involved in this: Dexter, Suvanna, Mr. S, Goong, Pissamai, P’Jam, P’Soy. You guys rock!

M6 (year 12) listening to morning announcement

Gifts and flowers were given to the teachers on this national holiday

Lunch with the colleagues

Koh Samet

We spent one weekend on this island just off the coast from where we lived. There was a festival with local bands and it was really nice to be in a place where we were the only tourists with most of the Thai cheering for the bands at the beach stages. Due to the lack of accommodation we had to sleep on the ground in tents that we rented, but I guess that adds to the experience, because the rest of this weekend can be quickly summed up: beaches, hammocks, live music and cocktails J

Picturesque Koh Samet

Phuket / Krabi

I took off one morning to make it in time to Bangkok for my flight to Phuket. A heavily delayed plane, a few hours of waiting at the airport and finally I got there and somebody was already waiting for me. My friend Anne who I was working with at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants the year before had arrived from Germany. I was pleased to meet her and having somebody to travel with me for a few weeks. The next two days were mostly transit. We spent one night in the southern Thai city of Krabi and having made it to Hat Yai the next day we already saw how the predominant religion switched from Buddhism to Islam. Malaysia was our proclaimed destination (partly because my Thai visa was about to expire once again). And what an adventure it would be...

Sawadee-krap! (Thai: Hello/Goodbye)