NEW THAI TOWN!
So I’m back again after quite a long hiatus. Our first semester of teaching ended for us in March and we spent 5 weeks traveling around India and then came back to Thailand for a 2 week tour with Felix’s parents. With them we visited Bangkok, our hometown Inburi, Kanchanaburi to see Erawan falls, and then to the islands visiting Phuket and Ko Phi Phi again as well as two new islands for us Ko Lanta, and Railay beach.
Their trip was amazing and we couldn’t have hoped for a better visit in that we got to show them all our favorite places, and every day of their visit was filled with unbelievable memories. After they left we were back in Nai Harn beach in Phuket , where Felix and I spent our first month in Thailand training to be teachers. This time however, WE were the in the observer position, which meant that we watched the new crop of teachers in their practice teaches around Phuket for a week and gave them advice on teaching. We got to stay at a beautiful resort for free for the week, right on the beach, and spent our mornings going to schools to watch the teachers, and afternoons louging by the awesome pool or swimming in the insanely big waves on the beach. Once this ended we met up with our friend Rich and headed to another island we hadn’t visited yet, Koh Tao. This place was beauuutiful. It’s low tourist season so the island was pretty empty so in the day we wandered the quiet avenues and snorkeled on the beach, and by night hung out at the free movie showings in restaurants and enjoyed the western food and laid back nightlife. After all of this it was time to head back to Inburi for a few days to stay with one of our teachers, PiTim who was graciously keeping all of our stuff, and after resting up we FINALLY began the move to our new town we were going to teach in for the next semester, Chaiyaphum!
Chaiyaphum is in Esan, a different region of Thailand, that besides for a trip to visit our friends who were already teaching here early in the last semester, a completely unexplored region of Thailand for us. It a 7 hour bus ride northeast from where we were placed for the last semester (it’s a realllly slow bus) and the region borders Laos. With giant suitcases in tow for the first time since 7 months before, we made our way to Chaiyaphum. Rich, Felix and I were the new comers to Chaiyaphum while 4 of our friends from the previous semester were staying there, and a few new teachers we met observing were moving there too. Only one of the reasons this semester was going to be entirely different for us was that we were with so many people now whereas before we were isolated in tiny Inburi by ourselves. Chaiyaphum is a city, not huge, but world’s bigger than Inburi. There is traffic on the streets (Inburi barely had a traffic light) and a lot going on. There is a TESTCO (Thailand’s Wal-Mart) right beside our new place (a 30 minute motorbike ride for us before) and a few bars, a nightly bazaar, concerts, gyms, even random things like a driving range.
Our new place was so luxurious compared to our previous humble abode. While we liked living in TUK Homestay in Inburi, I can’t deny I was excited to move into a new apartment with so many amenities. HOT WATER, AIR CONDITIONING, a T.V (not like we can watch the thai channels, but hey it’s something), a mini kitchen area with a mini fridge, glossy new floors and painted walls, a western toilet that flushes… and a bathroom that isn’t filled with cockroaches/scorpions/spiders/ frogs a general stench, do you get the point yet?! It really..really seemed to good to be true. This even beat our home in Hawaii. The place has a big open front room with some furniture, but because it has no chairs really the only time we spend here is to make trips to the fridge. Our room is next which is pretty big with new furniture, and EVEN a double bed that is actually only ONE bed and not two twins pushed together (almost unheard of in Thailand), past our bedroom we have a porch (on the 3rd floor) with a sink where we keep our wok and rice cooker for dinners, and then there is the luxurious bathroom that provides us with our first daily hot showers in Thailand. All in all, we were prettttttty happy with all of this.
Our first weeks here were honestly pretty boring however without any friends back yet. We motored around the town and ate at the night market almost every night. The variety of food we now get it also crazy too. We can get almost any kind of thai food we want at the market as well as some good western things too like waffles, ice cream, fruit shakes, etc… whereas in Inburi dinner was pretty much a standard 2 or 3 dishes. The whole Isan area is full of national parks and almost nothing else. There are a few big cities which should provide some good weekend fun, but it looks like the semester is going to be full of camping trips and travels to isolated towns. Around Chaiyaphum there is a waterfall we have still yet to see, and what they call “Thailand’s Stone Henge”. Chaiyaphum has a flower blooming festival coming up as the area is known for a beautiful pink flower that fills the fields around the end of June, and there is a silk village nearby where we already made one day trip to where we saw a drunken festival in the streets full of dancing, and we visited the area’s famous “tame crocodile”. He was supposed to be about 50 years old and he was in an outdoor temple with kids and an old woman surrounding him when we came up. He was frozen with his mouth wide open and when I asked where his eyes were the old lady proceeded to poke him in the eyes to get him to open them and pour water on his head, all without him seeming to care at all. We touched him a bit but honestly the whole thing was a bit weird for me and I was more into watching than sticking my hand in his mouth. Strange.. but alas, something else Chaiyaphum offers to visit.
So here we go! A new town, totally different from our last one, FULL of foreign teachers and things going on. I already miss Inburi greatly, and our teacher friends and students even more, but for our last semester in Thailand this should introduce something a bit different for us and just help build on the incredible memories we have already made.
WANT TO send us some love? Here is the brand spanking new address!
Felix (and/or) Brienne
J Kat Apartment
5/2 Moo 4 Nonsathorn Village
Sathornklang Rd, Muang Chaiyaphum Province
Thailand, 36000
So I’m back again after quite a long hiatus. Our first semester of teaching ended for us in March and we spent 5 weeks traveling around India and then came back to Thailand for a 2 week tour with Felix’s parents. With them we visited Bangkok, our hometown Inburi, Kanchanaburi to see Erawan falls, and then to the islands visiting Phuket and Ko Phi Phi again as well as two new islands for us Ko Lanta, and Railay beach.
Their trip was amazing and we couldn’t have hoped for a better visit in that we got to show them all our favorite places, and every day of their visit was filled with unbelievable memories. After they left we were back in Nai Harn beach in Phuket , where Felix and I spent our first month in Thailand training to be teachers. This time however, WE were the in the observer position, which meant that we watched the new crop of teachers in their practice teaches around Phuket for a week and gave them advice on teaching. We got to stay at a beautiful resort for free for the week, right on the beach, and spent our mornings going to schools to watch the teachers, and afternoons louging by the awesome pool or swimming in the insanely big waves on the beach. Once this ended we met up with our friend Rich and headed to another island we hadn’t visited yet, Koh Tao. This place was beauuutiful. It’s low tourist season so the island was pretty empty so in the day we wandered the quiet avenues and snorkeled on the beach, and by night hung out at the free movie showings in restaurants and enjoyed the western food and laid back nightlife. After all of this it was time to head back to Inburi for a few days to stay with one of our teachers, PiTim who was graciously keeping all of our stuff, and after resting up we FINALLY began the move to our new town we were going to teach in for the next semester, Chaiyaphum!
Chaiyaphum is in Esan, a different region of Thailand, that besides for a trip to visit our friends who were already teaching here early in the last semester, a completely unexplored region of Thailand for us. It a 7 hour bus ride northeast from where we were placed for the last semester (it’s a realllly slow bus) and the region borders Laos. With giant suitcases in tow for the first time since 7 months before, we made our way to Chaiyaphum. Rich, Felix and I were the new comers to Chaiyaphum while 4 of our friends from the previous semester were staying there, and a few new teachers we met observing were moving there too. Only one of the reasons this semester was going to be entirely different for us was that we were with so many people now whereas before we were isolated in tiny Inburi by ourselves. Chaiyaphum is a city, not huge, but world’s bigger than Inburi. There is traffic on the streets (Inburi barely had a traffic light) and a lot going on. There is a TESTCO (Thailand’s Wal-Mart) right beside our new place (a 30 minute motorbike ride for us before) and a few bars, a nightly bazaar, concerts, gyms, even random things like a driving range.
Our new place was so luxurious compared to our previous humble abode. While we liked living in TUK Homestay in Inburi, I can’t deny I was excited to move into a new apartment with so many amenities. HOT WATER, AIR CONDITIONING, a T.V (not like we can watch the thai channels, but hey it’s something), a mini kitchen area with a mini fridge, glossy new floors and painted walls, a western toilet that flushes… and a bathroom that isn’t filled with cockroaches/scorpions/spiders/ frogs a general stench, do you get the point yet?! It really..really seemed to good to be true. This even beat our home in Hawaii. The place has a big open front room with some furniture, but because it has no chairs really the only time we spend here is to make trips to the fridge. Our room is next which is pretty big with new furniture, and EVEN a double bed that is actually only ONE bed and not two twins pushed together (almost unheard of in Thailand), past our bedroom we have a porch (on the 3rd floor) with a sink where we keep our wok and rice cooker for dinners, and then there is the luxurious bathroom that provides us with our first daily hot showers in Thailand. All in all, we were prettttttty happy with all of this.
Our first weeks here were honestly pretty boring however without any friends back yet. We motored around the town and ate at the night market almost every night. The variety of food we now get it also crazy too. We can get almost any kind of thai food we want at the market as well as some good western things too like waffles, ice cream, fruit shakes, etc… whereas in Inburi dinner was pretty much a standard 2 or 3 dishes. The whole Isan area is full of national parks and almost nothing else. There are a few big cities which should provide some good weekend fun, but it looks like the semester is going to be full of camping trips and travels to isolated towns. Around Chaiyaphum there is a waterfall we have still yet to see, and what they call “Thailand’s Stone Henge”. Chaiyaphum has a flower blooming festival coming up as the area is known for a beautiful pink flower that fills the fields around the end of June, and there is a silk village nearby where we already made one day trip to where we saw a drunken festival in the streets full of dancing, and we visited the area’s famous “tame crocodile”. He was supposed to be about 50 years old and he was in an outdoor temple with kids and an old woman surrounding him when we came up. He was frozen with his mouth wide open and when I asked where his eyes were the old lady proceeded to poke him in the eyes to get him to open them and pour water on his head, all without him seeming to care at all. We touched him a bit but honestly the whole thing was a bit weird for me and I was more into watching than sticking my hand in his mouth. Strange.. but alas, something else Chaiyaphum offers to visit.
So here we go! A new town, totally different from our last one, FULL of foreign teachers and things going on. I already miss Inburi greatly, and our teacher friends and students even more, but for our last semester in Thailand this should introduce something a bit different for us and just help build on the incredible memories we have already made.
WANT TO send us some love? Here is the brand spanking new address!
Felix (and/or) Brienne
J Kat Apartment
5/2 Moo 4 Nonsathorn Village
Sathornklang Rd, Muang Chaiyaphum Province
Thailand, 36000
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