We managed to make it to Inburi around 7am after the looong overnight bus. I know this was the most exhausted I have been after traveling in Thailand. I usually have a hard time falling asleep, even if I am tired. But I hit the bed hard right away, and was barely functioning in the time in transit from the bus to my bed. The whole first day home was kind of a blur. I think I came down with something bad from all the dirty mud of Laos, on top of the debauchery and traveling.
Anyways, I worked my way through the week back to good health again and it wasn't a bad week to do it. One of the days of the week Felix and I ended up with no classes after lunch. Eh, and PiTu, two of our Thai teachers, decided to take us on a mini trip around sites in Singburi, our neighboring town. First they took us to an amazing restaurant for lunch in Inburi that was far away down a road we had never been on, so we never knew it was there before. They told us it was famous for som tam though, which is papaya salad and one of Felix's favorite Thai dishes. For 4 people, they ordered about 4 or 5 som tom dishes for us to eat, 3 different kind of pork and herb dishes, fried noodles, guy-yung (grilled chicken), and sticky rice. It wassss needless to say, incredible. The we tried som tom hoy dong (oyster), dang quaa (cucumber), kye keim (salt egg), and my favorite, som tam poy la mai (apples and fruit salad!). We walked away from this little restaurant hut surrounded by rice fields em mack (very full), and happy that we had such great company to take us to these places.
After the meal, we headed towards Singburi to visit some of Singburi's famous Buddhas. The first was under construction, but it was a giant laying Buddha. Surrounding it were all kinds of shrines. Also at this place there was many many elaborate wooden carvings on display. Trees had been carved into boats, or columns full of incredible and intricate scenes along the whole length of the wood.
From here our next temple was in a house and we were greeted by a monk. There were security camera all over the place and as we climbed the steps we realized it was because of the Buddha shire that laid before us on the upper level. The Buddha on display here was small, but made entirely of real gold. There were "Baht (money) trees and many many flowers surrounding it. Usually the Buddhas are just painted gold so it is rare to see one entirely made of gold. We left this temple and continued on to our next Buddha tour, which was one of a man and a woman Buddha, each with giant hands raised like they were giving the "stop symbol". These were also under construction so the view was slightly obstructed. We think this had something to do with the flood that happened in Inburi and Singburi the previous year. There were pictures at this temple of the Buddhas surrounded by water that would have been at our waists.
Our last temple stop was closer to home and along the river. This was a really nice building that held the Princess of Thailand's emblem, they said because she visited here often. Inside was a very beautiful and more feminine looking Buddha. We prayed here and shook sticks with numbers from a can to receive our fortune (a custom Thai's do at temples). At this place there was a small basement under the buddha that was dark and dingy. To our surprise, Felix and I were lead down to it by two monks, and with the help of Eh, started a ritual that was yet again, for good luck. We could barely stand in this place but had to crawl around and through a tunnel within the basement 3 times while praying for whatever we wished. Doing this was supposed to give us great fortunes. We rushed through this as fast as possible as it wasn't that enjoyable and were happy to be released from the basement, and back into the airy temple.
Before we left here we headed down to the river to throw some fish back into the water. We have found Thai people will do anything if they are told it will bring good luck, which we find pretty ridiculous but happily play along with. A man has a job of catching fish and then he sells buckets of them and we buy them to throw back in the river for luck. Eh eagerly purchased some buckets of slimy river fish for us and we headed down to the river muddy bank to release them back to their home.
The weekend following we had a field trip planned for the "good students". Each grade is split up into 7 classes and the first of these classes (ex. 1/1, 2/1, 3/1) who are what we would call honors students in America. We were looking forward to the trip with the students, but not to the fact that our first weekend home we were set to have to wake up at 5am to be at the school at 5:30 to leave! We somehow woke up with the sun though, and got on the bus to WIDE awake students to head to our destination of Nakorn-Nayok. We mostly dozed on the way there and awoke to find our first field trip stop to be at a cadet school for soldiers. The students worked on some team building exercises there, the typical stuff you do at summer camps where you have to complete obstacles as a group. Our Thai teachers took us to yet another delicious and plentiful meal in the local market and then we came back to visit the cadet museum. Beside the musuem there was a field of flowering yellow trees that I was mesmorized with. It reminded me of something you see in the asian zen/karate movies. The mountains were in the background and these trees held some flowers, while most of the giant yellow buds were covering the ground. The trees were in perfect rows too which gave the whole field a very serene field. I insisted we walk around and play in the field for awhile and I don't know why but places like this make me very happy.
From here we headed to apart of the camp that had a lake and we were given tickets to use for activities. There was kayaking and paddleboating on the lake, paintball, zipline, bb-guns, and bicycle riding. We had some time on the paddleboats and with the guns, but we mostly just enjoyed watching our students run around and have fun. These students often never get a chance to have a trip like this and get a break from school. While we have been in Inburi, we have realized that the good students are good students because they study 24/7. Many of them go to school not only in the week but also on Saturdays, and then they spend their entire Sunday studying. They often don't have money or means to ever leave Inburi either so this was a very exciting day for them to just play and be themselves, whether they were 12 or 17 years old.
After some time here, we loaded back up on the bus again to head to what we were told would be a waterfall, but was actually a river with a small kind of rock slide slope. We were so hot by this point though and were excited to swim, waterfall or not. You could rent a tube and go down the little natural slide or float around, so we did this with our students swimming around us. We found out then though that many of our students couldn't swim. Eh, our teacher friend who is our age, after wading in with me then told me she didn't know how to swim. As we were walking the bottom dropped off, and because she is so short she immediately couldn't stand and frantically grabbed on to me. Felix had to come and save the day as he transported her on his back to shallow water again by the slide. Despite not knowing how to swim, many of the students still didn't hesitate to get in which was surprising and we thought brave of them. Eh had another episode where she fell in and had to be "rescued" by some boy students, as well as two other little girls who accidentally let go of the tubes and went straight under and we had to grab their arms to pull them back up. Nothing seemed to be too big of a problem though, until we were getting out and wading back to shore. We had been swimming our tiny lagoon of the river for about an hour by this time. Apparently, when we first arrived to the river however, a man had approached many of the teachers and asked if we had seen his daughter who was wearing a red shirt. She had disappeared 5 minutes before and he couldn't find her. The area we were swimming in was very small, and never deeper than right above my head. I often would go under to touch the bottom and show the students how deep it was. The water was very murky also and you couldn't see anything under you. At the point where we were leaving however, a man with wearing goggles, who had been swimming around RIGHT beside us, came out of the water holding a little girl in a red shirt. It had been over an hour. All we caught sight of was the girl being passed on the bank too what we found out later was the father, who then ran with her up the shore and into a taxi bound for the hospital. There was no way the girl survived due to the fact that she had been under the water so long, and she was completely limp in his arms and our teachers on the other shore had said her skin had turned green. She was a very small girl, and only 8 years old.
We were pretty shook up at this point. The trip had been great, but after we moved on and boarded the bus for the 3 hour ride home, I couldn't stop thinking about what we saw. I can't imagine the pain the father had to feel to hold his tiny daughter in his arms and know there was not even hope that she had survived. Beyond that, I started to realize that she had been under right where we were swimming the whole time. My pain for the family out shadowed the concern for myself greatly, but I couldn't imagine how I would have felt if it was Felix or myself, who were often touching the bottom that had found her. Or if it had been one of our students! There was nothing that could be done by us though so we had to just bottle up our grief. Thai people respond much differently to death than than we do, and while they told us sad details of the story that we didn't know, they easily moved on from it and it didn't seem to damper their day anymore.
On the bus the students, despite having been up for around 13 hours, were entirely full of energy. The bus cranked the music up and the students had a dance party for almost the entire ride. We luckily sat in the front row separated from all the madness, and were happy about this as I don't think we would have held up after the long day. We made one stop at a shop selling all kinds of sweets, that must have been something special because all of the students on the 4 or 5 buses absolutely CLEARED the place out of all of its candy, cakes, and bags of homemade sweets. It was here we got to see our students in a different light as well. We are so used to seeing them in their uniforms everyday, it surprised us to see them in normal street clothes. The students wear their uniforms after school too, so if we ever see them at the market they look the same. It was hard to recognize some of them now however, as the girls could let their hair down (long hair is permitted for the older girls but is always in ponytails) and everyone was REALLLLY trying to express themselves. Some of my "popular" 12th grade boys took this to the max. The group of boys each wore a different BRIGHT shade of capri/scrub like pants. They had on flat sneakers all with different colored laces as well. They also wore neckties loosely over their necks over their t-shirts ahah and completed the look with bright giant glasses that had clear lenses. Other boys I had no idea were ladyboys, I quickly realized were. One little boy had his shirt tied up in a knot with a trendy women's belt on his tight pants and carried around a purse. We quite enjoyed all of this.
After the weekend, the whole next week of school was "sport week" this meant the classes were shortened so school was only a half day, the the rest of the day was devoted to playing sports! We watched the sports in the afternoon, and then would usually motor home early. The last day on Friday there was no classes though and the morning started with the big sport day parade. If we thought the lady boys and their outfits stood out on our field trip, this was their real day to shine. The students were DECKED out in elaborate costumes of feathers and netting and sequins, including the boys. The girls (and ladyboys) had their hair done up in crazy quofs and had so much makeup and fake eyelashes on we had a REALLY hard time recognizing them. There were four teams: red (dang),violet (mooah),blue (fa),and pink (chompu) and each had their own theme and outfits. The students also each had their own decorated bleachers which were adorned with streamers and balloons and they all had certain kinds of pom poms. Everything was VERY elaborately done and it reminded me of harry potter and their cheering sections for Quidditch. The day was all field games, and just as much focused on each teams "cheerleaders" dancing. The ladyboys were also the leaders in this and danced their hearts out at the head of formations for their teams.
So in the end, we came back from our travels with a very relaxing two weeks from Inburi school. We saw our students in a new light, but mostly just got to see them as themselves and having fun which was fantastic. And of course we got to rest and a lot of the teaching pressure taken off of us. Ahhh.. our next plans for the weekend was a trip to Khao Yai National Park, meeting yet again with our teacher friends!
Anyways, I worked my way through the week back to good health again and it wasn't a bad week to do it. One of the days of the week Felix and I ended up with no classes after lunch. Eh, and PiTu, two of our Thai teachers, decided to take us on a mini trip around sites in Singburi, our neighboring town. First they took us to an amazing restaurant for lunch in Inburi that was far away down a road we had never been on, so we never knew it was there before. They told us it was famous for som tam though, which is papaya salad and one of Felix's favorite Thai dishes. For 4 people, they ordered about 4 or 5 som tom dishes for us to eat, 3 different kind of pork and herb dishes, fried noodles, guy-yung (grilled chicken), and sticky rice. It wassss needless to say, incredible. The we tried som tom hoy dong (oyster), dang quaa (cucumber), kye keim (salt egg), and my favorite, som tam poy la mai (apples and fruit salad!). We walked away from this little restaurant hut surrounded by rice fields em mack (very full), and happy that we had such great company to take us to these places.
After the meal, we headed towards Singburi to visit some of Singburi's famous Buddhas. The first was under construction, but it was a giant laying Buddha. Surrounding it were all kinds of shrines. Also at this place there was many many elaborate wooden carvings on display. Trees had been carved into boats, or columns full of incredible and intricate scenes along the whole length of the wood.
From here our next temple was in a house and we were greeted by a monk. There were security camera all over the place and as we climbed the steps we realized it was because of the Buddha shire that laid before us on the upper level. The Buddha on display here was small, but made entirely of real gold. There were "Baht (money) trees and many many flowers surrounding it. Usually the Buddhas are just painted gold so it is rare to see one entirely made of gold. We left this temple and continued on to our next Buddha tour, which was one of a man and a woman Buddha, each with giant hands raised like they were giving the "stop symbol". These were also under construction so the view was slightly obstructed. We think this had something to do with the flood that happened in Inburi and Singburi the previous year. There were pictures at this temple of the Buddhas surrounded by water that would have been at our waists.
Our last temple stop was closer to home and along the river. This was a really nice building that held the Princess of Thailand's emblem, they said because she visited here often. Inside was a very beautiful and more feminine looking Buddha. We prayed here and shook sticks with numbers from a can to receive our fortune (a custom Thai's do at temples). At this place there was a small basement under the buddha that was dark and dingy. To our surprise, Felix and I were lead down to it by two monks, and with the help of Eh, started a ritual that was yet again, for good luck. We could barely stand in this place but had to crawl around and through a tunnel within the basement 3 times while praying for whatever we wished. Doing this was supposed to give us great fortunes. We rushed through this as fast as possible as it wasn't that enjoyable and were happy to be released from the basement, and back into the airy temple.
Before we left here we headed down to the river to throw some fish back into the water. We have found Thai people will do anything if they are told it will bring good luck, which we find pretty ridiculous but happily play along with. A man has a job of catching fish and then he sells buckets of them and we buy them to throw back in the river for luck. Eh eagerly purchased some buckets of slimy river fish for us and we headed down to the river muddy bank to release them back to their home.
The weekend following we had a field trip planned for the "good students". Each grade is split up into 7 classes and the first of these classes (ex. 1/1, 2/1, 3/1) who are what we would call honors students in America. We were looking forward to the trip with the students, but not to the fact that our first weekend home we were set to have to wake up at 5am to be at the school at 5:30 to leave! We somehow woke up with the sun though, and got on the bus to WIDE awake students to head to our destination of Nakorn-Nayok. We mostly dozed on the way there and awoke to find our first field trip stop to be at a cadet school for soldiers. The students worked on some team building exercises there, the typical stuff you do at summer camps where you have to complete obstacles as a group. Our Thai teachers took us to yet another delicious and plentiful meal in the local market and then we came back to visit the cadet museum. Beside the musuem there was a field of flowering yellow trees that I was mesmorized with. It reminded me of something you see in the asian zen/karate movies. The mountains were in the background and these trees held some flowers, while most of the giant yellow buds were covering the ground. The trees were in perfect rows too which gave the whole field a very serene field. I insisted we walk around and play in the field for awhile and I don't know why but places like this make me very happy.
From here we headed to apart of the camp that had a lake and we were given tickets to use for activities. There was kayaking and paddleboating on the lake, paintball, zipline, bb-guns, and bicycle riding. We had some time on the paddleboats and with the guns, but we mostly just enjoyed watching our students run around and have fun. These students often never get a chance to have a trip like this and get a break from school. While we have been in Inburi, we have realized that the good students are good students because they study 24/7. Many of them go to school not only in the week but also on Saturdays, and then they spend their entire Sunday studying. They often don't have money or means to ever leave Inburi either so this was a very exciting day for them to just play and be themselves, whether they were 12 or 17 years old.
After some time here, we loaded back up on the bus again to head to what we were told would be a waterfall, but was actually a river with a small kind of rock slide slope. We were so hot by this point though and were excited to swim, waterfall or not. You could rent a tube and go down the little natural slide or float around, so we did this with our students swimming around us. We found out then though that many of our students couldn't swim. Eh, our teacher friend who is our age, after wading in with me then told me she didn't know how to swim. As we were walking the bottom dropped off, and because she is so short she immediately couldn't stand and frantically grabbed on to me. Felix had to come and save the day as he transported her on his back to shallow water again by the slide. Despite not knowing how to swim, many of the students still didn't hesitate to get in which was surprising and we thought brave of them. Eh had another episode where she fell in and had to be "rescued" by some boy students, as well as two other little girls who accidentally let go of the tubes and went straight under and we had to grab their arms to pull them back up. Nothing seemed to be too big of a problem though, until we were getting out and wading back to shore. We had been swimming our tiny lagoon of the river for about an hour by this time. Apparently, when we first arrived to the river however, a man had approached many of the teachers and asked if we had seen his daughter who was wearing a red shirt. She had disappeared 5 minutes before and he couldn't find her. The area we were swimming in was very small, and never deeper than right above my head. I often would go under to touch the bottom and show the students how deep it was. The water was very murky also and you couldn't see anything under you. At the point where we were leaving however, a man with wearing goggles, who had been swimming around RIGHT beside us, came out of the water holding a little girl in a red shirt. It had been over an hour. All we caught sight of was the girl being passed on the bank too what we found out later was the father, who then ran with her up the shore and into a taxi bound for the hospital. There was no way the girl survived due to the fact that she had been under the water so long, and she was completely limp in his arms and our teachers on the other shore had said her skin had turned green. She was a very small girl, and only 8 years old.
We were pretty shook up at this point. The trip had been great, but after we moved on and boarded the bus for the 3 hour ride home, I couldn't stop thinking about what we saw. I can't imagine the pain the father had to feel to hold his tiny daughter in his arms and know there was not even hope that she had survived. Beyond that, I started to realize that she had been under right where we were swimming the whole time. My pain for the family out shadowed the concern for myself greatly, but I couldn't imagine how I would have felt if it was Felix or myself, who were often touching the bottom that had found her. Or if it had been one of our students! There was nothing that could be done by us though so we had to just bottle up our grief. Thai people respond much differently to death than than we do, and while they told us sad details of the story that we didn't know, they easily moved on from it and it didn't seem to damper their day anymore.
On the bus the students, despite having been up for around 13 hours, were entirely full of energy. The bus cranked the music up and the students had a dance party for almost the entire ride. We luckily sat in the front row separated from all the madness, and were happy about this as I don't think we would have held up after the long day. We made one stop at a shop selling all kinds of sweets, that must have been something special because all of the students on the 4 or 5 buses absolutely CLEARED the place out of all of its candy, cakes, and bags of homemade sweets. It was here we got to see our students in a different light as well. We are so used to seeing them in their uniforms everyday, it surprised us to see them in normal street clothes. The students wear their uniforms after school too, so if we ever see them at the market they look the same. It was hard to recognize some of them now however, as the girls could let their hair down (long hair is permitted for the older girls but is always in ponytails) and everyone was REALLLLY trying to express themselves. Some of my "popular" 12th grade boys took this to the max. The group of boys each wore a different BRIGHT shade of capri/scrub like pants. They had on flat sneakers all with different colored laces as well. They also wore neckties loosely over their necks over their t-shirts ahah and completed the look with bright giant glasses that had clear lenses. Other boys I had no idea were ladyboys, I quickly realized were. One little boy had his shirt tied up in a knot with a trendy women's belt on his tight pants and carried around a purse. We quite enjoyed all of this.
After the weekend, the whole next week of school was "sport week" this meant the classes were shortened so school was only a half day, the the rest of the day was devoted to playing sports! We watched the sports in the afternoon, and then would usually motor home early. The last day on Friday there was no classes though and the morning started with the big sport day parade. If we thought the lady boys and their outfits stood out on our field trip, this was their real day to shine. The students were DECKED out in elaborate costumes of feathers and netting and sequins, including the boys. The girls (and ladyboys) had their hair done up in crazy quofs and had so much makeup and fake eyelashes on we had a REALLY hard time recognizing them. There were four teams: red (dang),violet (mooah),blue (fa),and pink (chompu) and each had their own theme and outfits. The students also each had their own decorated bleachers which were adorned with streamers and balloons and they all had certain kinds of pom poms. Everything was VERY elaborately done and it reminded me of harry potter and their cheering sections for Quidditch. The day was all field games, and just as much focused on each teams "cheerleaders" dancing. The ladyboys were also the leaders in this and danced their hearts out at the head of formations for their teams.
So in the end, we came back from our travels with a very relaxing two weeks from Inburi school. We saw our students in a new light, but mostly just got to see them as themselves and having fun which was fantastic. And of course we got to rest and a lot of the teaching pressure taken off of us. Ahhh.. our next plans for the weekend was a trip to Khao Yai National Park, meeting yet again with our teacher friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment