Ahten (อาเดิน) Coffee and Restaurant

UPDATE 2019 Ahten Coffee and Restaurant is no longer open.

Price: $$

Amenities: air con (inside), fan (outside) free wifi, free water
*Important to note there are no outlets available!

Location: Fairly central in Buengkan city, close to the river on Ruksangub Road just off of Meechai Road. It is just across the street from a temple.

Taste: even though I ordered an espresso unsweetened, it still tasted fairly sweet. Also, the coffee wasn’t the strongest and it tasted more like an iced coffee with milk than an actual espresso. It still tasted alright, but it didn’t quite have the kick I was after. Caramel latte and green tea are both good at this location per friend reviews as well. 🙂

Menu and ease of ordering: The coffee menu had all the standard drinks on
it. It was in both English and in Thai. They have a small selection of cakes and desserts to choose from that are displayed in the front. There is a full food menu as well, but it
is written in only Thai with no pictures, so if you can’t read Thai and/or aren’t feeling somewhat adventurous and willing to try out the whole “point and see what you end up with” option, you might be out of luck. (If you want to do that here its ok, it is a tame menu you won’t end up with anything too obscure!) The staff, while nice enough, can’t speak English. This shouldn’t be a big problem if you just want a coffee, but it might stop you from ordering lunch or dinner.

Special menu: I have yet to try it, but I did see espresso con panna on the menu and that piqued my interest. I have yet to see it on any other menu in Buengkan.

Environment: I really enjoyed the environment here. The temple across the street was beautiful to look at and there is plenty of flora in the outside seating area to feel private and cozy. There is more outside seating than inside, but there are some tables indoors if you prefer. Outside seating is available both under a roof and under the sun. Fans are usually turned on outside as soon as you sit down to keep you cool. While we were there  we enjoyed relaxing music played loud enough to hear and quiet enough to enjoy conversation.

The Coffee Project

Coffee Shop Lingo

There are some key phrases that will be useful to know when travelling to any foreign country. Since I am posting reviews about various coffee shops here in Buengkan, I figured I would help you out a little and teach you some Thai! Because if you need to know how to say anything, it’s how to order coffee.

The basic coffees like espresso, cappuccino, latte, and mocha are all English.

However, coffee is cafe and tea is cha, while green tea is cha keeow.

If you are female, you should end all of your sentences with ka. Males will say krap. This will help you sound more polite.

Some basic vocabulary:

want – ow
I want coffee = ow cafe ka 
Can I have…..? Mee………..dai mai (the mai at the end of a sentence turns it into a question)
Can I have tea? = mee cha dai mai ka

hot – ron
cold – yen
blended – ban
I want an iced mocha. = ow mocha yen ka
Can I have a hot latte? = mee latte ron dai mai ka
sugar – nam taarn
milk – nome
sweet – waan
a little bit – nid noy
to use/put in – sai

*Mai at the end of a sentence makes it a question, but when you put it in front of another word, it makes that word negative.
I don’t want it – mai ow.

Don’t add any sugar = mai sai nam taarn
only a little bit sweet = waan nid noy

I want an iced espresso, not sweet please. = ow espresso yen mai waan ka.
I want a hot cappuccino with only a little bit of sugar = ow cappuccino ron sai nam taarn nid noy ka. 

If you want to know the price of something, how much is tao rai
How much is it? = tao rai ka

Thank you! Kop khun ka!

The Coffee Project: Buengkan Edition

I love coffee. Coffee is life. In fact, coffee has probably replaced most of my blood by now. Since I spend at least…78% of my free time in coffee shops, I have decided to post reviews about all the lovely little coffee nooks in Buengkan, Thailand.

This has spawned possibly more from a case of writers block than anything else since most of you readers won’t be going out of your way to visit Buengkan on your Thailand trip, BUT if you do manage to find yourselves in this somewhat remote town-you will know where to get your caffeine fix!

The following coffee shop reviews will be based on price, taste, location (generally speaking, maybe not an exact address…), environment, menu and ease of ordering.

The list: *UPDATED 2019

• Ahten (อาเดิน) Coffee and Restaurant
• Moomprod (มุมโปรด) Coffee and Bakery
• WaWa Cafe
• Buengkan Passport
• Porlins
• Wo 9
• Coffee House
• Amazon Cafe
• La Ong Pirom
• Little Cafe BK
• Roo Seuk Dee
• Storytime Cafe

Bear in mind that I am no coffee snob, so if you know you are one of those coffee roast connoisseurs then take my review lightheartedly. Actually if you are picky about your coffee I would maybe not suggest Thailand as a country to fulfill your caffeinated desires because…well they love their sugar. And their coffee tends to be more like a treat. Usually.

Price: $-$$$$
$ = the cheapest coffee you can get. There won’t be any $ on this list because I consider that the 25 baht coffee you can buy off the street, and that’s your standard instant coffee whip up mixed in with 80% cream and sugar. There are literally too many of those places to count and you find them all over Thailand.
$$ = 30-45 baht range. Fresh ground coffee. This is the price range you will find in most coffee shops, at least in Buengkan.
$$$ = 45-65 baht range. This price is fairly uncommon local shops and usually only found in chains. I think there is only one place in Buengkan within this price range.
$$$$ = 70+ baht. Think Starbucks in Thailand. Like, actual Starbucks in Thailand. I’m pretty sure they just kept the American prices and converted them into baht, which makes the cost of coffee there skyrocket in comparison to local places. It’s ridiculous I don’t know why anyone would go there, but apparently they do. This price range is usually found with overseas companies and various chains within Thailand. They wouldn’t make it in this town, so fortunately Buengkan is free from this price range. 🙂

Taste: I’ve decided on an iced espresso, not sweet to order across the board for the drink of choice.

 

 

Mountains and Moonshine

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL YOU LOVELY PEOPLE OUT THERE!!

Ok, so its about a week late. Close enough.

The last New Year celebration found me in Bangkok receiving pity drinks from strangers because I was squeezed in next to my friend and her boyfriend at the time on a tiny couch, awkwardly trying to ignore their furious making out. The year before that I was in Chiang Mai with an anonymous crowd, crammed together in the street like sardines for the countdown. I decided to get away from it all this year. I’ve done the big cities, been in the big crowds; it’s beginning to feel a little overrated.

So this year I went on a trip to the mountains with some friends for an overnight trek to a waterfall. You guys, this place is untouched Thailand. It seems to be a fairly popular travel destination for other Thais, but the foreign tourism industry either chose to bypass it or simply hasn’t found it yet. I only saw two other foreigners at the resort we stayed at when we weren’t trekking. The small town has a tiny little walking street with local, handmade products. This place is a hidden gem, an absolute treasure, and because of that I am somewhat reluctant to even disclose it’s location. But because you, dear readers, are but a few I think it is safe to share the secret with you. 🙂

This dusty town at the end of the road is Umphang (อุ้มผาง), found in Tak Province. And it literally is at the end of the road. From Mae Sot you have an approximately 165km, 4 hour journey of perilously steep twists and turns through the mountains along the “Death Highway” (there are exactly 1219 curves to conquer) before ending at Umphang. There is literally nowhere else to go, the road ends here. This is the only road in and out of Umphang; this lack of accessibility could also potentially explain the lack of foreigners. The area is host to an abundance of natural beauty, including waterfalls! In fact, Thi Lo Su, found in this province, is meant to be the biggest and tallest waterfall in Thailand! Its a wonder more people don’t make it out here.

Our group woke up a the crack of dawn on the 30th to eat breakfast, assemble, and head to the river. We spent most of the day rafting down the river, enjoying each others company, the scenery, and the occasional series of rapids. After spending maybe 5 hours on the river, we made it to base camp and blazed through the jungle for another 20 minutes or so to see Thi Lo Le waterfall (น้ำตกทีลอเล). Unlike the larger Thi Lo Su waterfall this one, nicknamed the adventure waterfall, is smaller and hidden deep in the jungle.

That night we enjoyed some good camp food and, later, the local home brewed white whiskey clocking it at only 30 baht a bag. I can tell you via firsthand experience that if you have to do any activity the following day you will regret every shot. It should go without saying: don’t play last man standing when you have a hike the following day (but I could have done with a reminder anyway…..)!

 

As you can guess, the next morning we had to walk ourselves out of the jungle. This trek through the mountains took about 6 hours, it was not an easy start haha. However it was beautiful, and a bit easier because we had elephants that carried all of our stuff so we were backpack free! I am not used to this type of hiking, but I like it. I could get used to it. 😉 To be honest if I was not hungover it would have been a fairly easy hike, humidity aside. Yet headache or not I was still able to enjoy the beauty of the jungle! I LOVE this sort of thing- some of the Thai girls we were with were not keen to ever do anything like that ever again, but I find it exhilarating. I’m definitely more of a mountain girl than a beach bum.

Tired but happy, we decided to stay another day and go see Thi Lo Sue waterfall. Why not? The next morning we were up and at it early again (I think this trip could be themed ‘you can sleep when your dead’) to jump back into a raft for the first half of our journey. This day was much more

relaxed, no rapids and just floating along. At first I was reminded of the Boise River, but then we turned a corner to face small waterfalls and towering cliffs and then I remembered where I was.

 

After maybe 3 or 4 hours of floating along, we hopped into our songthaews and drove another hour along a very bumpy dirt road to the trail head of Thi Lo Su (น้ำตกทีลอฃู). Following the pattern of the day, the trail was short and sweet (and flat!). Because it was New Years Day, there were many people there, but that did not take away from it’s beauty. It’s impressive, even now in the dry season. I can only imagine what its like in rainy season! 

We woke up again the following morning at 5am to go to a lookout above the clouds to watch the sunrise. I am not much of a morning person, but I was able to appreciate the beauty anyway. 🙂 After briefly re-grouping at the resort, our group split and went our separate ways to do some shopping and grab breakfast before the long drive back home.

Umphang is such a highlight and, even though I am leaving Thailand this year, I am already scheming ways to get back there for another trip someday. I even have an itinerary some ideas for next time I make it back! This has been my favorite New Year celebration in a long time. Happy heart and a great start to the new year!

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Wedding Season Is Upon Us

“Wedding season” has begun in Thailand. My friend Yim recently got married here in Buengkan and she invited me to the wedding. I have been to a few ceremonies but I have never actually been a Thai wedding and I was pretty excited to see what it was all about! Now I’m not sure it if was the language barrier, poor listening skills, misunderstanding or a combination of both-but I was under the impression I was going to this wedding to simply watch and instead I ended up a bridesmaid.

Now Yim did tell me to wear a Thai style dress and the theme was gold. I thought that everyone wore fancy dresses and so I didn’t think anything of it. So I went and I got the dress. Then the night before Yim was drilling me about who I was at the wedding: “Who’s friend are you?” “….yours…” “and what am I?” “…the bride.” So I was a friend of the bride. I just didn’t know that ‘friend of the bride’ was synonymous with ‘bridesmaid’. Since she was making me answer in Thai I just thought she was making me practice my Thai language skills! In retrospect it might have been quite clear that I was a going to be in this wedding and the fault may lie with me for being so surprised come wedding day.

I woke up at 5am on a Sunday morning and hopped into a tuk tuk by 6:30 to meet Yim at her resort. I arrived, threw on my dress, and was directed by Yim to go outside with another bridesmaid and follow her lead. Fortunately I wasn’t required to do much, because with the language barrier I was essentially useless. We stood with a rope blocking the path to the bride and in order for the groom to be allowed to pass his family had to give us each some envelopes with money in it (kind of as a wedding favor..?). I didn’t understand that at first and almost let them through for free! Fortunately I was stopped and everyone got a good laugh out of it 😀 What to do with the envelopes once I actually got them took over half the day to figure out as well 😛 (write your friend’s names on them and give to them for good luck, apparently).

I have no idea what’s going on…

It was a long but lovely wedding. Yim was beautiful, and her and her now husband Kaow were all smiles together.  A Thai wedding ceremony is definitely  unlike what I am used to. The ceremony starts very early, mostly because the monks will come to bless the new couple and they must return to the temple to eat before 11am. After the monks leave the couple greets and accepts all the guests as they, I think, give their blessings to the newlyweds (as far as I could tell).

Thai weddings seem to be a lot more ceremonial than American weddings. I stood (mostly because I was too afraid my not so Thai sized ass was going to rip out of my rented dress if I sat down) and watched Yim and Kaow sit through many speeches and blessings. After all the ceremonies were finished everyone enjoyed a nice, catered lunch. Everyone, that is, except the bride and groom themselves. First they sang together, which was really cute and what I assume was similar to a first dance together, and then they had to do the rounds and say hello/thank you to all the guests.

I am so grateful to Yim for allowing me to be a part of her and Kaow’s special day! It was a truly unique experience, and I had a lot of fun meeting her friends and laughing over our height (and general size) difference. One girl was so tiny she literally looked like a mini me.  I  enjoyed every minute of it and I feel blessed to know Yim, she is one of the kindest people I know and I will really miss her now that she has moved to Bangkok!

Breaking Point (and other updates)

I think I have very nearly reached breaking point. One part of Thai culture I have adopted quite well is the healthy habit of letting things slide along with the not so healthy habit of bottling up the things that do bother me rather than dealing with them. As a result I am cool as the summer breeze until all of the sudden I’m….not.

The rope of sanity began to fray around finals week (first week of October). We have a program to input the grades on excel, but it is all in Thai language and while my reading skills have improved my comprehension is not at technical level so I have no idea what any of it means really. However, with the help of my co-worker Pang I had figured it out and, after multiple restarts due to computer crashes, I had finally nearly finished inputting attendance and grades for all my almost 1,000 students. “You can fail the students,” they told me all semester, “if the student does not come and does not do work you can fail them.” This is new. And exciting! I don’t want to say I am a teacher that enjoys failing my students, but…..sometimes it really is satisfying to see that zero. I probably wouldn’t have understood this until I became a teacher, particularly at a school where the students are boss and they pass no matter what, but it was wickedly delightful to be able to fail a student who put in no effort, never came to class, or disrupted class whenever they did show.

As I said, the fraying began finals week- when I was completing the grades and realizing that this stupid program would NOT in fact let me fail them. It wouldn’t compute.
I ranted. I raved. Pang told me to just jai yen yen (calm down) and I yelled, “No!! I will NOT jai yen yen Pang, this entire system is STUPID!”  I don’t think she knew what to do with me.
A 50 is a pass, and after some experimenting I found that if you give students exactly a 49, it will register as a fail. So I went through each class and took great care to give each failing student a 49. These kids would not pass my class. The next day Pang came to me and, with some trepidation, informed that in a meeting that day they changed the way to input grades and we put the final grade in the wrong page. My sanity frayed a little more.  She showed me, I glowered, I did it their way.

I had already booked a ticket back to Christchurch for a week and I was soooo ready to go. Every year, even every term, the grading system is different. In my two years here the way we do the grades has never once been the same. It is aggravating. On the last day of school, at 3pm, they called a meeting for all the teachers to talk about grades. A few more strands of my sanity snapped and frayed. We went to the meeting and they, on the last day in the last hour before school break, told us that instead of the program we have been using all term we needed to use an online program. Not only did this online program require you to do each grade individually, it was also entirely in Thai. And all the other schools in the area had used this program and finished with the grades already. And my school thought it would be fun to tell us that we needed to do this over break and submit it before school started up again. To top it all off, the vice director was up front explaining everything in Thai, and for some reason the username and password we foreigners were given was not correct so we couldn’t even log in. And nothing was being done about it. And I finally snapped. At this point there are zero f***s given.

In the middle of the meeting I closed my laptop, stood up, and walked out.

I printed the grades and put them on my supervisor’s desk. I left school, left town, left the country. Left the grades to be his problem.

Was this a good thing to do? No probably not. Did it feel good anyway? Oooooh yeah. (And I still have a job!) I have chided and tsk tsk-ed  foreign teachers in the past for walking out without finishing their grades to school standard on their final term but God forgive me, I understand completely now. When you’re done you’re done.

Returning to Christchurch was both awesome and awful for me. I needed the break, but once leaving, my Thailand bubble was popped. I’m not content here anymore. I’m certainly happy, but not content. I remembered that there is a big world out there I need to see, there are so many things I need to do, and I can’t stay in little Buengkan forever; I won’t be satisfied with my life. I needed to be able to talk to friends on more than a basic level, who understand me on a deeper level than the one the language barrier prevents me from reaching with my Thai friends. I didn’t realize how much Christchurch and the people there felt like home to me.

I  also didn’t realize how much of an impact Thai culture had on me when it came to body image. It would be reasonable for me to say that I get called fat here at least once a week. Maybe even more. If I lose a bit of weight some people will say I am thin but later that same day someone else will still call me fat. I thought I was doing a really good job of ignoring it, I think I am doing a really good job of ignoring it to be honest, but when I went back to New Zealand one of the first things my best friend there said to me was, “Holy shit you are thin!” That shocked me, because while I don’t think I am fat by any means I definitely wouldn’t classify myself as thin. I find myself fretting about my little belly bulge more than I used to, and maybe not eating so much in public because I honestly don’t want to deal with another “fat” comment. While I’m mentally strong enough to not let these comments spiral me into a bout of bulimia, it has impacted my confidence in my body more than I thought.

On the bright side, going did pull me out of the rabbit hole long enough to take a deep breath and clear my head. I have come back to Thailand feeling much less jaded and ready to make the most of my time here. Enjoy the love these lil kiddos shower me with and do my best to suffer through the administrative nightmare of my final term at Buengkan School. Soak it all in and love the heck out of everything I can about this beautiful place before it is time to venture off into the great big world again.

The 4 Tiers of Tat Pho

I hadn’t seen my friend Boat in a while and it had been a little too long since we last adventured together, so we grabbed our friend Yim and headed out to conquer the four tiers of Tat Pho waterfall within Phu Langka National Park. We had stopped by this waterfall once last year but it was too late in the day to hike all the way up and so, one year later, we finally returned to finish our quest.

I am going to tell you now, if you come to SE Asia and you are not Asian, you WILL be hit with the “tourist price”. I’ve been here for 2 years now and I can tell you this is bulls**t. Thailand isn’t the only culprit, Malaysia does it too and I’m sure other counties as well I just haven’t been there yet. Now an extra 30 baht or even 50 baht I would….probably understand. I’m admittedly very reactive so in the moment maybe not but upon retrospective contemplation I would be ok with it. So I showed up to this waterfall with two of my Thai friends. We tell the guy we are going to see the waterfall, he tells us that would 20 baht for my Thai companions and 200 baht for me. What. My mouth dropped open and, I will be honest, my first thought was You corrupt bastard how dare you…(even though it was posted on the sign so technically he wasn’t the corrupt one) and it is a good thing that I was not in the driver’s seat and my friends didn’t really give me a chance to speak because I may have had some regrets. They said I had lived in Buengkan for two years already and so he gave me a 100 baht discount. Not even cool. It feels like no matter how long I live here I will never really fit in. But this is putting a negative spin on an otherwise awesome experience so I will leave it at this: expect a ridiculous jack in prices almost anywhere in Thailand because of your skin color.
Price for waterfall:
Thai people: 20 baht
Farang/”Tourists”: 200 baht

Tips:
*Try hiding in the back of your friend’s car to avoid the stupid fee (ha…ha…kidding…)
Real advice:
*Eat before you go or pack a lunch. Unlike some of the waterfalls I don’t remember seeing much in the way of food or drinks for sale anywhere.
*Bring a small pack or backpack to carry along your snacks and water. I really want to stress bringing water because you will be doing some hiking if you want to explore past the first tier and it can get hot.
*Wear non-slip shoes like hiking boots you don’t mind getting wet because I am not kidding when I say some of those rocks are SLIPPERY. So wear some all terrain shoes or go jungle native like Boat and I did and don’t wear shoes at all! It is a mile up to the top though so, you know, the choice is yours.
*As I’ve said before, don’t show up for a dip in the water in your bikini. You will feel very out of place and it would be more culturally mindful to swim in shorts and a tank top or t-shirt.
Tier 1 is easily accessible and visible from the parking lot. It is only a short 50m jaunt along a path and you are there. This is Tat Pho.

This tier is stroller and family accessible. It is also lazy person accessible; if you want to see a waterfall with minimum work this is it! There is no hiking involved whatsoever and it is quite beautiful.

The 2nd tier is called Phasawan Waterfall. Phasawan is about 400 meters up from Tat Pho. At the start there is a bit of a short but somewhat steep climb, or you can take the alternate route which is an easier access road. After that initial climb you follow a smooth, gradually increasing trail. This trail is very easy to follow. Once you get to the 2nd tier, you can stop at the bottom and risk climbing across the rocks for some cool photos. It isn’t dangerous in the sense that if you fall you will get swept away, but it is incredibly slippery since moss grows on the damp rocks and you kind of have to take your time and spider crawl. If you are not keen on attempting this, it’s perfectly fine as the top of this tier is just as beautiful! After the second tier the trail begins to get a little bit difficult.

At some point during this 1,100 or so meter stretch of trail to the 3rd tier it becomes more of these slippery rocks, and that is when we decided to ditch the shoes and go barefoot. Tier 3, or Sai-Ngam Waterfall, is arguably more stunning than the first two. The waterfall spans across the rock in two parts, and right in the middle above you can see the rest of the waterfall cascading down in the distance. Unfortunately due to the lighting you can’t see it in the pictures, but I guess that’s part of what makes it so magical in my memory and makes it something you have to see for yourself. 😉 Just like at Phasawan, you can stop at the bottom or the top. Actually you have to cross over the top of this one to continue on to the next tier. The bottom is great for a  cool down swim, and we stopped at the top for a quick snack and water break. For the most part the water either constantly runs over the rocks or not at all, so it isn’t too slippery up at the top but you do still have to be careful.

From this point on the going gets a bit rough so it isn’t for the faint of heart. From the 3rd tier to the 4th the trail basically becomes vertical and you have to claw your way up the mountain. It is doable, but you have to be motivated and probably not afraid of heights as you will be climbing ladders vertically up the rocky bits. The final stretch is probably about…well the sign at the bottom says about 200 meters from tier 3 to 4. That could be true but it is a tough 200 meters that feels like more. However, I promise you the view from the top is definitely worth it! We got to the top at about 4pm, and since we are so good at directions (haaaa)  we couldn’t find the trail to the actual 4th tier and we didn’t want to get lost on a mountain with the sun setting (again) so we called it a day. I think the viewpoint was the highlight of the hike though. It was amazing and I felt on top of the world!

**Some of these pictures are not mine I borrowed/stole them from Boat because his phone camera trumps mine.**

$3 Paradise

Let me tell you all a little secret.

You can go to Phuket, Samui, Phangan, or Phi Phi islands and drop a fair chunk of change for some beach time…or you can seek out less populated spits of land for wayyyy cheaper. It all depends on what you are after, and if you are after the party scene then skip this little gem in the Gulf of Thailand I’m about to tell you about and head for Full Moon on Koh Phangan (I’m not ripping on it, that is seriously one hell of a party and I freaking love that too). If you want an extended island chill out I would recommend Koh Jum (a real hidden gem). However, if you are in the south of Thailand, short on time, and needing a break from everything….go to Pattaya.

You might now be thinking …what? This chick doesn’t know what she’s on about Pattaya is anything but chilled out. You are absolutely correct. Pattaya never sleeps and is has a reputation for being the devil’s playground, but there is more to it behind the neon signs of Walking Street. While scantily clad girls might not be your cup of tea, there are plenty of other attractions to lure and keep you there. I am a prime victim of Pattaya. I meant to go there for a day or two and stayed for a week! Apart from the slightly nicer and definitely quieter Jomtien Beach you can visit temples, gardens, see a show, be amazed by Ripley’s collection of absurdities, etc etc. Visit this link if you want to know more, I will somewhat guiltily confess I did not go to these and instead spent my time stuffing my face with the abundance of street stall goodies and shopping my little heart out. And yes, visiting a go go bar or two with some friends because they were keen and I kinda just figured when in Pattaya…
Besides we had to go in for the free motorbike parking.  😛

ANYWAY….now that I have successfully veered completely off topic…

If you are sick of the crowds and sick of the parties and sick of the noise, the traffic, the never-ending heat…there’s an island called Koh Larn just off the coast of Pattaya. It is a popular spot for the locals and Chinese tourists apparently, and it is a delightful little island. I have come to really appreciate the small town/small island feel of places; its truly something special. I went for only a day trip, my two friends went for one night and loved it so much they stayed for two.

General breakdown of a day trip cost:
>ferry ticket (roundtrip) 60 baht. 30 each way
>songthaew to most beaches- 20-50 baht one way

*Please note we traveled in July. I don’t think this is high season and the amount of people may vary.
* food is admittedly a little more expensive but show me an island where it isn’t. It’s still reasonably priced.
*I can’t comment on accommodation because I didn’t stay but my friends stayed overnight and said it was decently priced. I’m sure some quick research online will yield a few options.

A day trip to this island is easy, doable, and 100% worth it. It’s a cheap option and if you are staying in Pattaya you can leave your bags “at home” and escape for the day baggage free! You are going to want to make your way to the Bali Hai Pier; it’s just at the other end of Walking Street and while it’s closed off at night it is wide open during the day so you shouldn’t have a problem. Once you get to the pier there are various transportation options available. The cheapest is the ferry, which is what I have price quoted above. You can also take a quicker, more expensive speed boat. This website is perfect to check out as it has all the details for getting there and back and it has loads of information! It’s pretty comprehensive and it is available in many languages so give it a look if you want to know ferry times, speed boat times, prices, etc.

The ferry takes a couple of hours but it is a decent enough trip. True to Thai style they WILL try to fit as many people as possible before taking off, so fair warning  you will get rather close to your neighbor! We were late but lucky enough to squeeze onto a side bench so we had a nice view of the sea with the added comfort of a cool breeze. I would recommend maybe getting there a little bit early if you want to secure a seat of your choosing, there is an upstairs deck and shaded downstairs as well. We traveled to Tawaen Beach Pier where we got dropped off. At first glance you will most likely be disappointed and call me a filthy liar because this beach is littered with stalls, vendors, and people. So many people. The beach looks a bit dirty, the water a muddled blueish brown with motorboats aplenty, and you will be altogether largely disappointed. Don’t despair! I thought the same way.

Once you get off the ferry walk along the boardwalk maybe 500 or 600 meters. You will come across a break in the stalls and see songthaews waiting to take you to your destination of choice. Since the girls I was with were staying at Lareena Resort near the Na Ban Pier we made our way in that direction by hopping on a songthaew for I think 20 baht. You may have to wait a bit for it to fill up so, per usual in Thailand, be patient. If you feel as lost on where to go as we were, just start walking and you will find a songthaew station with a map of the beaches and how much they cost. We took a blind stab in the dark and opted for Nual Beach at 30baht a person. We were the only ones going which was promising as we wanted something quiet.

Nual Beach is everything I wanted. It’s quiet, it’s empty, it’s large, it’s so delightfully beachy with all it’s smooth, pale sand, it’s water so blue and calm. And it only took 100-120 baht from my pocket! That’s about $3 USD. How great is that?

 

As it was low season the restaurant was closed and there was no food available. There is a stall that sells pricey drinks, but I would instead recommend packing  lunch and stocking up on water before you go. The upside of low season was the emptiness; there was only a handful of other people there. Such a different feel from Tawaen Beach and not that much farther away. I have read on multiple sites that even during peak season Nual Beach is on of the quieter beaches on the island, so really no matter when you go it should be ok. We got back in time for me to take the ferry back to bustling Pattaya that evening, slightly sunburned but relaxed, emotionally invigorated, and satisfied with the day. A bonus: you don’t pay for a round trip ticket at the ferry counter. Instead you pay on the boat, so I arrived at Tawaen Pier and left from Na Ban Pier. The time spend en route is about the same and you end up back at Bali Hai Pier.

Honestly, there are plenty of serene islands in Thailand but this has been one of the most easily accessible ones for me so far. It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s perfect for a day trip or an extended stay. I would 100% recommend Nual Beach on Koh Larn, a mini paradise concealed amidst the flash and glamour of Pattaya.

When You Bring a Gun to School…

(This post will tangent a bit so if you are not prepared for a lengthy somewhat rambling read I would skip to the next post.)

Today in one of my M2 classes (about 8th grade, or 13-14 years old, for reference) I turned around to shush the noisy class when I saw, in the corner of the room, one of the boys brandishing a gun. I registered this with sudden horror and they tried to hide it as soon as they realized I saw it. I quickly walked over and saw, much to my relief, that it was only a black airsoft gun. Lesson in the importance of wearing my contacts? Mayyyybe. But it did look realistic.

I held out my hand, “Give it to me.” These two kids, I love them but sometimes they really are infuriating, tried to pass the gun from one desk to the next without me seeing and held out their hands and pretended to look confused like but I don’t have anything…I repeated, “Give. me. the gun. Now.” and the boy finally realized I wasn’t messing and handed it over. But not before showing me it was empty by pointing it at his face and pulling the trigger. (Never mind that it wasn’t a real gun at this point the last thing I needed was for someone to lose an eyeball) I was infuriated on multiple levels; the most basic for the disruption of class and working it’s way up to the perceived pure stupidity of bringing any sort of gun to school. I didn’t give the gun back after class like I normally do when I take their phones, and instead took it back to the office.

Once I got back to the office I brought it to the Thai teachers and asked them what to do about it. The homeroom teacher ultimately decided to talk to him tomorrow after class and suggested that maybe I should cut his grade as punishment.

….what. That’s it?

Yeah, that’s it. Admittedly I was at first totally mind blown. But I sat at my desk and thought about it for a bit. You know what I concluded? That’s it and for now that’s ok. That’s enough. I’m not in America. Sure Thailand is far from perfect; there’s unrest in the south, military coups and the recent Erawan Shrine bombing, and yes, there have been school shootings here. That being said Thailand does not have the same recurring problem that America seems to have with school shootings. Not yet at least, and definitely not the same caliber of damage. This boy is 13 years old. He was messing around with his friends. He has friends to mess around with. He lives in a different world than the American student who has to walk through metal detectors each day before sitting down to learn. He is spared in his innocence. I posted about this incident on facebook remarking that this is how I know I am no longer in America and a friend replied “it’s an innocent kid, and you know you are not in America when he waves the gun in the class instead of shooting 25 kids! ” How true and sad that is. Should he have brought it to school? No, that probably wasn’t the best idea. But this is one of the few times I will applaud this school’s actions (and here is where the tangent begins, you have been warned).

Imagine if a 13 year old kid did this same thing in America. He would be expelled, police would be involved, he would be slapped across the headlines and his life would never be the same. But…the attention! Imagine a kid feeing lost, alone, bullied, has family troubles, take your pick. He see’s the attention this kid gets from the media and the world and thinks, Hey, I could get attention too. That would show them. If you google “Thailand school shootings” you will get few hits. The most notable seeming to be a school shooting at Pak Phanang School in 2003. I have only found a Wikipedia post about it, in which the former Prime Minister Thaksin was quoted as calling this incident a “deplorable emulation of an example set in western countries”. Is this part of Thailand’s save face attitude and an attempt to deflect negative attention? Maybe. But there is definitely more than a grain of truth in that statement. What sort of attention did this 17 year old shooter get? Honestly, in comparison to shooters in America, not much.

Here’s an experiment to try out: google Pak Phanang school shooting. Now google Columbine school shooting. The Columbine shootings, which occurred four years before the Thai school shooting, is still making news. Let’s talk about glorification. You can find articles upon articles of the shooters; who they were, why they did it, what was their motive, how many people they killed, etc etc etc. They may be gone but their legacy lives on. A quote I found while trying to find out more about Thailand school shootings claims, “Not unlike the adoption of American consumer products (e.g. Coca Cola, McDonalds, and KFC) and film and music popular culture, disaffected individuals in other lands have taken their inspiration for mass murder from highly publicized American incidents.” (Madfis and Levin, School Rampage in International Perspective: The Salience of Cumulative Strain Theory)

The problem in America is the result of a snowball effect propelled by the media. Gun laws are not the problem. Lack of campus safety is not the problem. Bullying contributes to the problem, mental illness contributes to the problem, family struggles contribute to the problem, and the media pushes the problem forward with full force. The media highlights the problem, it glorifies the problem, it invites the problem to become an  epidemic. I have known this before now, it’s a fairly glaring fact. However I have not seen this applied so clearly in real life applications until living abroad.

I think of my student and I don’t ever want him to have to go to school in fear, or to live in a world of such shattered innocence. I know it’s natural to feel so much pain you want to the world to know of the injustice caused to your family and community. I know it’s natural to yearn for sympathy and support. The media grabs this and runs with it. I’m not saying those in media are evil and mean to perpetuate violence, but by showcasing these tortured souls who acted out in such a horrible way only sends a message to others struggling with the same issues. When reporting these types of incidences focus on the victims. Focus on the heartache and the sorrow. Stop focusing on the perpetrators; stop focusing on their actions, their motives, their history, their lives. Stop giving them the power. It’s not only America that is watching, the rest of the world is tuning in as well.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

The other day I was giving some of my students a speaking test for adverbs of frequency. As a joke I asked them if they ever picked their nose. The results were somewhat unexpected; as a ten year old girl I would have told my teacher “No! I never pick my nose!” Instead the responses I got from these five girls were surprisingly honest:
“……always!” (after peals of laughter from me) “Teacherrrr……in my room! Nobody sees! ….Teacher!!”
“….I usually pick my nose…”
“*giggles*…sometimes.”
“yes?”
“Oh…always.” (no shame here haha)

One of my favorite kinds of assignments are the ones where my students have to/get to draw. It makes the assignment more entertaining for them and grading more entertaining for me! I just did a preposition practice assignment (draw a buffalo next to the tree. Draw yourself on the buffalo. etc etc) The results were everything I had hoped for.                                                                          Angry birds….
….and an angry koala buffalo?

And this buffalo and snake are equally unsure about each other.

I know some child psychology theories focus on the idea that a child’s behavior, development, perception of things, family life, ect can be elicited from drawings that they do. After doing assignments like this for two years and teaching these kids I would love to learn more about that  because some of these kiddos….well their drawings are very expressive and creative.

A more recent assignment I did was to have them draw their family. I drew mine on the board and labeled the members of my family and asked them to do the same for their family. Most kids understood that, but a couple of them decided instead to draw their own creative interpretations of my family:

To be honest I think my mom probably suffers most in both of these drawings….sorry Mom 😛

Are you ready for this one? This one had my co-workers in fits when they saw it….
“My” face…