Ten Days with Animals Part 2 – Sri Racha Tiger Zoo

Continuing on with my nine day adventurepade, our school took a field trip with the M1s (the equivalent of 7th graders and the main grade that I teach) to the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo. You’re probably wondering if this is THE Sri Racha – where the sauce is made – and I’m proud to say that YES, it could very well be that place, since it has the same name as the sauce. I have no idea, though. I didn’t ask.

The trip started with the teachers getting on board the bus full of students. There was a caravan of thirteen buses leaving the school (One for each of the twelve M1 classes and 1 for the EP kids) and we foreigners sat on the bus with the English Program students.

I’ve been seeing buses around Thailand with swirls of color and poorly painted Dragonball Z characters, playing loud music and I’ve wondered what they’re for: I received my answer. Our bus had Naruto drawings on it and the first song that started bumpin once we got on was Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.

Just kidding. It was Gangnam Style.

Naruto says “Welcome.”

Police escort cause we roll presidentially.

After an hour and a half-ish of bass and drums and Thai music and the kids dancing like it was the last night of their lives, we got to the zoo. Here come the pictures:

The kids getting prepped to terrorize some unsuspecting animals.

Me and a small tiger/large house cat.

They went on to stick pretty much every body part into the crocodile’s mouths.

An intimate moment.

Me and mah boys. They mock me every time I do a thumbs up so I hit ’em wit the deuces.

So we went to an elephant show. They elephants did some cool stuff, then the trainers asked for two volunteers. I figured it would be another elephant massage like in Kanchanaburi, so I was down. I raised my hand, got picked, walked down like a boss and got my massage.

Then tragedy struck.

There’s a video on Facebook that captures it better, but the host let the other volunteer leave and kept me for part two, where they strapped me to a board, but three balloons next to me (one under each armpit and one between the legs. Of course.) and showed off of their elephant’s dart-throwing skills. It was pretty cool; he would lift the oversized metal darts above his head with his trunk then launch them forward. The only weird thing was that the elephant REALLY SUCKED AT THROWING DARTS. He hit 1 out of 4, then they were like, “Alright, let’s do this.”

They blindfold me (which I was actually pretty thankful for cause then I wouldn’t have to watch the dart smash through my glasses and eyeball and brains) and the elephant goes to work. I can’t see anything, but I hear the announcer count “1….2….3!” each time, then I hear a pop shakes with the force of the dart and I hear a popping balloon. This happens three times and I, somehow, walk away unscathed.

Yolk’s on me, though, cause I later found out that they brought out a different, sober elephant while I was blindfolded and he actually popped the balloons from point-blank rather than fifteen meters away. Haha. Haha. Ha.

Moses

What I’m reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: …I don’t know really. A mix of grad stuff and continuing to work on my novel. And songs! Writing songs.

What I’m Listening To: Creul Summer by G.O.O.D Music

Ten Days with Animals Part 1 – Chiang Mai

The next three posts will collectively cover events from December 7th to December 16th, 2012

Wahwahweewah.

I had a nine day period (I put ten in the title because it’s a better number, objectively) recently, that, all things considered, was one of the better nine day periods of my life. Starting on Friday, the 7th, I got on a bus for a 10 hour ride up north to Chiang Mai. I didn’t really know any cities in Thailand before I came out here (other than Bangkok and Phuket), but I heard a lot about Chiang Mai and figured it would be worth a look-see.

First of all, Thailand knows what they’re doing when it comes to bus travel. Not only was it characteristically cheap, but the accommodations were great (comfortable seats, a blanket, free drink and croissant), there were plenty (but not too many) of bathroom and food stops, and I was able to choose a seat that had plenty of leg room because Thai people are considerate and no one took the seats for us long-legged folk.

I got to Chiang Mai about seven in the morning and met up with my All-Canadian travel compadres. The first thing we did, naturally, was go to McDonald’s.

Notice the Christmas decorations. In Thailand, they have a piece of legislation called “No Holiday Left Behind.” It allows them to celebrate everything.

Then we went to the hotel, dropped our things off, and hit the streets to…well, to wander, really. It was nice outside and our hotel was pretty centralized, so we checked out what they call “Old town.” One thing about Chiang Mai is that, since it’s in northern Thailand, it doesn’t have the crazy, oppresive, tropical heat. In fact, it got pretty cold at night. To the point that my wearing a beanie was only a little bit strange. Also, it was pretty touristy, but not so flagrantly as a lot of other tourist spots. And there were plenty o’ temples:

Interior of one of the temples.

After wandering, we took a trip to the world famous Chiang Mai zoo! I think I’m gonna make it a point to go to the major zoo of every city/country I live in. Not because there are a bunch of animals that I feel I haven’t seen, but because I can act like a child at the zoo and the haters can’t say anything because -…well, I guess they can, but they don’t.

First, we were greeted by otters…

…then, we went to go feed their bull male elephant…

THEN WE GOT TO SEE SOME WHITE TIGERSSS!!SS!!11!!1S!!

The white tigers were the highlight of the zoo trip for me. One of the few big cats I’d yet to have seen and one of the visually more impressive creatures on the planet. When we were there, the two cats they had were pretty active, strutting around and posing on rocks and what not. I’m about 88% sure it could’ve cleared the gap between us with a running start, but I suspect that the animals in Thailand are just as relaxed as the people.

Side Rant: One of the things I’ve encountered a lot out here is that foreigners seem to think that any location in Thailand that harbors animals is a black-market supplying, animal abuse resort. I’m not naive, and I know that such places exist, but I want to use this opportunity to dispel that notion. Thai people love animals and care for them just as much as westerners do (excluding dogs, which Americans have a weird fetish for, but that’s another post). Their zookeepers seemed just as prepared, used the same methods of reinforcement, and showed a genuine appreciation for the animals. I’ll get to this more in part 2, but I wanted to establish that point now. The Chiang Mai Zoo, and nearly every other place in Thailand that I’ve been to that has animals, treats them well. And, more importantly (and this is what people seem to forget is the most important thing), they let people interact with the animals in a way that is safe for the people.

So, yeah. Also, we saw a two-headed rock lorax:

Just kidding. It was two animals, but one was trying to fuse with the other.

After the zoo, we went home to freshen up then went out for some karaoke and other such funtivities. I’ve made it a mantra of mine that I don’t want to go places with a bunch of Westerners (why come to Thailand to see people I could see in America?), but it was pretty nice to see new, English speaking faces and look through songs that I recognize and like. Good times.

That was Friday. We woke up Saturday and, after deciding not to rent motorbikes, took a sawng taew (the covered truck transportation) up a mountain to Doi Suthep. I think it was the first temple ever built or something…lemme check Wikipedia….meh. I couldn’t verify it, so just go with it.

The long road/staircase up to the temple.

I’m only including this picture because Jeff is particular about not having bad pictures of him on the internet. You look dashing, sir.

Drop down and get yo prayer on, girl.

Monks with a View: A new sitcom/indie band debuting this Spring.

So that’s that! I had to catch a bus back home really early the next morning, so we didn’t stay out too late, but it was a full day, nonetheless.

Part 2 coming soon. Miss you all!

Moses

What I’m Reading: …look, I haven’t had much time to read.

What I’m Writing: Grad Personal Statements – 25%, The Lincoln Lions (Novel) – 33%

What I’m Listening To: Walk the Moon by Walk the Moon (Thanks Cristine!)

A Little More Conversation Vol 2. – Making Sense

People drive on the left side of the road in Thailand. Or the right side. Whichever’s easier.

Basically, the rule is don’t drive like an idiot. If you need to get somewhere and it’s faster for you to drive towards oncoming traffic, go for it.

When you get street food, sometimes the food will be crazy hot (soup or meat, most often). You know whose fault it is if you get burned? The seller’s.

…Just kidding. It’s yours. How did you not know soup would be hot?

It even has those swirly heat markers coming out of it, you dummy.

What I’m saying is that Thailand is a country that runs largely on common sense and it is reflected in the behavior of the people. Thai people are, by and large, very sensible. They put ice in all their drinks because it’s hot, they know traffic is insane, so they make public transportation convenient and affordable, etc. The students are given an enormous amount of autonomy, to the extent that they’ll come get us when it’s time for class to begin. This teaches them at a young age that education is their responsibility. If they don’t want to learn, they don’t have to. Very sensible.

In Thai, they spell phonetically, so many words have several spellings. The result is that you just figure it out. My coordinator asked me how to spell my middle name (no easy task), then when I was done, she just kinda wrote what it sounded like. I wanted to be like, “Oh, no, there’s an ‘h’ there” then I realized that it doesn’t even matter even the tiniest bit. Anyone who needed to read it could read it and it would sound close enough. Isn’t that the whole point of writing anyway? To make it readable?

This all comes to mind because I’ve been studying a form of Muay Thai out here and my instructor repeatedly has to tell me that there are no set forms or set positions such as in other martial arts. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is all about knowing what to do from a variety of standardized positions. Karate students learn katas all day. When I ask my instructor “So where does this hand go from here?” he always says “…it depends”. Basically, he just tells me to do whatever makes sense. Any position is usable. If I I’m punching and have no way of protecting myself, then I need to protect myself. If I’ve just parried a jab to the outside and want to counter, it doesn’t matter if I go with a lead counter or back hand counter. Whatever feels right at the time. It’s all very hippy.

Short bit from one of my training sessions

The difference between Thai common sense and, perhaps, “American” common sense is that in Thailand it seems to be institutionalized and pervasive in all parts of their society. In Thailand, it seems that common sense is expected and that the answer to most questions is pretty intuitive. Note that I don’t mean this disparagingly towards Americans. I don’t consider myself a person with an abundance of common sense. While I’m capable of doing things that make people say, “Oh, that’s cool, I never would have thought of that,” I’m never the person that will make you say, “Oh, duh, that’s so obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?” because I’m just not intelligent in that way. I also do a lot of things that don’t stand up to even to most miniscule amount of rational scrutiny, so I admire people that are good at the basic, supposedly obvious things.

There are pros and cons to this, of course. The main con is that common sense doesn’t always work and is largely based on life experience. Traffic in this country is indeed a mess and if you’re tired or not paying attention for a bit, you can pretty easily kill yourself. Real talk. Things just aren’t as regulated and so those “dumb mistakes” that we all make can be pretty costly here. I’ve run into a staggering amount of people that are missing digits or limbs, are deaf in an ear, have burns on their bodies, etc, due to accidents of various kinds.

This is how a Thai highway sees humans.

In America, we make it easy to get by without common sense, because everything is regulated and labeled and has fail-safes. We also have a society that is concerned with liability, so in the work place and in our daily lives, we tend to always defer to an expert or somehow who is “allowed” to make a decision, as if our own brains are defective.

As a person with dangerously low intuition, American society is geared towards my strengths and I look forward to getting back to the states and letting the world share some of my thinking load. However, it is nice to go to a bank with a request and not have to talk to a supervisor.

Moses

Floats & Fighters (56k warning)

This past Wednesday was Loy Krathong, one of Thailand’s bigger holidays. “Loy” (or “Loi.” They spell phonetically, so most words have several spellings) means float and “Krathong” is a boat-thing made of banana leaves. On Loy Krathong, everyone goes to the river to float their banana boats as an offering to the river spirit to apologize for the rest of the year, when they toss empty green tea bottles and baby diapers into her waters (I’m assuming).

Though that’s, perhaps, the most central aspect of Loy Krathong, the holiday includes a boatload of other fun stuffs that I got to experience first-hand. Me and the other American teachers got picked up by our coordinator to head to the village celebration. Though poor Amy was sick and had to stay home (singing the Loy Krathong song to herself), so there were only three of us.

The Loy Krathong Song feat. Sisqo. “Kra-thong, Kra-thong-thong-thong!”

It was pretty much your standard partybration. People were out in the streets, tents of food, a dance floor consisting mainly of older women, etc.

Me outside the temple with Buddhist Bart Simpson.

We ran into a ton of students. Here’s one of mine making a Krathong. She’s one of my sweetest, most enthusiastic students, so I was pretty surprised that she wears a shirt of skulls when not in her school uniform. I’m gonna start calling her Rattleshirt in class.

The entries from the Krathong building contest.

Everybody Loying their Krathongs. Most people put a bit of money on their Krathong’s for good luck. The boys “help” eveyone who doesn’t want to get ankle deep in dirty water by pushing their Krathong’s further out. And only for the small fee of whatever people put on their Krathong’s. Hustlin’.

We watched a beauty contest and each cheered a different woman to win as if they were racehorses, because we’re animals. Some tall, pale, 15 year old that none of us chose ended up winning by a furlong. She’s the mare that’s third from the left.

Possibly the coolest additional tradition of Loy Krathong is the lighting of the sky lanterns. You see all those UFOs in the sky above the temple? Turns out they’re not UFOs at all! They’re giant, mini-hot-air-balloon lanterns and people light them as a symbolic letting your woes and burdens float away type thing. The carefree meaning is ironic because lighting the lantern and letting enough smoke fill it so that it can sustain flight is a terrifying ordeal [for simple-minded foreigners]. We let our lantern go two or three times, thinking it was ready to fly free (and because our hands were on fire), only to have to catch it when it started plummeting towards the power lines beneath us.

The lighted bridge on the left is where we sent our lantern up from.

I didn’t get any pictures of us sending up the lantern because, I was trying not to die in a fire, but here’s a Youtube representation of Loy Krathong’s majesty. It’s really beautiful.

So that was Loy Krathong on Wednesday. Pretty great day. The second part of my title, though, happened on Friday. Long story short:

I MET BUAKAW!! SU SU BUAKAWWWWW!!

Buakaw’s facebook group advertised a meet & greet with fans. I wasn’t sure if anyone would speak English, but someone barely did and I made a reservation. The event was from 7 to 10pm on Friday night, but I underestimated the trip time and didn’t end up getting into Bangkok and meeting up with Taylor until around 8. Then we had to travel to the hostel to drop our stuff off and didn’t end up getting to the place (far from central Bangkok) until 10. By the time we searched the mall to find the actual restaurant, it was after 10, but lo’ and behold, he was still sitting there downing a glass of wine and chillin with the entourage. I imagine he’d had a long day and probably didn’t have the energy or desire to fumble his way through English, so we didn’t exchange any words, but everyone treated everyone there like family. We were sat down, fed (it was 2000 baht to eat, but when I said that I didn’t bring enough money, they were like “0 baht is cool too” and gave us plates of food) and welcomed, even though we showed at closing time. There was a cool band playing that I should’ve taken pictures of, Buakaw signed a shirt for me and fun was had by all. Man…awesome time.

Then Saturday, the Suphanburi teachers came down to Bangkok and I got to see Liz get a sweet birthday tattoo. And when I got back to my home and working internet, I learned that my brother had sung the national anthem live on ESPNU like a BAUCE!!

Good weekend.

Hope you’re all doing well! Miss you!

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White (It’s becoming one of the best books I’ve ever read, so I don’t know what’s taking me so long)

What I’m Writing: Grad School Personal Statements

What I’m Listening To: Love is a Four Letter Word by Jason Mraz

A Weekend in Bangkok – Thai Hospitality

On Friday, I hopped on a van to Bangkok to meet up with Taylor and Liz. I’d also made plans with Kelsey and our Thai friend, Burm (a guy we met in Ko Samet that plays guitar), so it’d be the five of us hanging for the night.

There was a 100,000 person protest set to take place in Bangkok on Saturday morning and it was going to be around where we were staying on Friday night (Khao San). When Burm showed up, Kelsey and I asked him what the deal was and he explained that the Yellow Party (I doubt that’s their name, but he said that’s their color) was against the governmental policies of the Red Party (the current, reigning political party. Also probably a pseudonym). When the five of us were being taxi’d over to the first of Burm’s suggested hang out spots, we saw hundreds of police decked out and lining the streets, ready for the next day’s battle. The driver jokingly mentioned that there would be free food at the protest if we wanted to go. A shame I hadn’t packed any yellow shirts.

Or better yet…

The first place we went to was called the Saxophone Pub. I’d been there before on one of my earlier nights in Bangkok, but it was cool to be there again. It’s a pretty swingin’ place. We sat on the top floor this time, which had a pool table and was a bit less loud, allowing for more conversation.

Burm said he knew about a place that played hard rock, so we all immediately said that we wanted to check it out. My phone was out of battery, so I wasn’t able to get any pictures, but we walked in to a 5 person Thai band decked out like professional rockers, all with long hair and a grungy feel. Whereas Saxophone Pub is a pub with a stage for music, this place (I think it was simply called The Rock or something like that) was primarily a performance stage with a bar and seating nearby.

When we sat down, they were finishing a song. The lead singer then asked us if we had any requests. Burm had explained earlier that 80s bands the most typical on their musical menu, so we asked for anything Guns N’ Roses. They launched into a face-meltingly rocktastic rendition of Welcome to the Jungle. The singer’s voice actually had quite a bit more grit than Axel’s (his singing voice, anyway. His speaking voice sounded like Johnson & Johnson baby oil).

It would go from this to a lifelong chain smoker when he went from talking to singing. Incredible.

Night was boss from there. We sang along to more Guns N’ Roses, Rob Zombie, Bon Jovi, The Cranberries, AC/DC, and so many more. It was like one of those Now That’s What I Call Music infomercials. Highlight of the night had to be Livin’ on a Prayer. That song is even fun when some drunk, tone-deaf idiot slurs his way through it for karaoke, so you can imagine how awesome it was to have competent musicians rock out to it hard. Good times in a very culture-clashy way.

Saturday morning, the plan was to find another place to stay since the protest was going to be flaring up and would probably make getting around pretty difficult. Kelsey headed off to a museum, so me, Taylor and Liz went to watch Skyfall (Great movie. I laughed a lot. Not necessarily just because of the funny dialogue, but because some of the things that happened were so over-the-top fantastic that laughing was the only appropriate reaction. Komodo Dragon fit pit? Why not?). Liz departed after that, so Taylor and I went to find a hotel to chill at while we waited for other peeps to get in for Saturday night hanging out.

This is when the day took an interesting, unforseeable turn:

“Come with me if you want to live.”

The hotel I’d researched didn’t take phone reservations, so we had to actually go there. Ugh, I know. How primitive. Unfortunately, the directions the lady gave me over the phone didn’t jive with the map I had (in reality, I just have truly childish navigation skills), so we decided to go to another hotel. We stopped to ask a group of school girls if they could point us towards this new hotel and within seconds an English speaking Thai person came over and helped. He spent time reading the map, asking the girls and other passerbys, and making phone calls, and was able to figure the place out. He then called a cab and explained our destination to our driver.

The driver set off immediately in the wrong direction. Not really sure what happened, but something must have gotten lost while translating from Thai to Thai. We drove around Bangkok for 30 to 40 minutes to get to a place that was just a bit beyond walking distance from where we’d left.

And we weren’t even there. The driver dropped us off at the wrong place. When we DID finally find the place, their prices were ridiculous. Also, I left my Thai phone in the cab, because when it rains it pours. And when it pours, you lose important things.

They all had cell phones in their free hands until it started pouring.

We wandered for a while after that, but, honestly, I was in a pretty bad mood and was gonna suggest that we just go home and never return to Bangkok.

Suddenly, a wild Thai college student appeared! She must have seen us looking depressed, cause she just asked what we were looking for. We explained, then she thought for a bit and said that her apartment building sometimes had empty rooms and that her landlord might rent one to us. She said that we should follow her, then walked off down a rabbit hole.

We followed, but I was a little wary. She had just been standing out on the street, doing nothing. What, does she just hang out on corners all day and stare off into space, waiting for people to need help? Did she not have anywhere else to be or anything to do? When we went to her apartment building, no one was there. So she took us to the next one. That one had no rooms. Then she took us to another. Then another.

We eventually found an apartment that was open and ready to be rented out. It was also way cheaper than any other comparable room we’d looked at. I guess it wasn’t a trap after all. The girl had to go because apparently she’d been waiting to meet a friend to study, but had dropped everything to spend an hour finding us a place to sleep. I’m living in the country with the kindest people on earth.

Once settled, we collapsed from exhaustion and ended up not going out. Haha…mai pen rai.

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: The Lincoln Lions – 25%

What I’m Listening to: Home Again by Michael Kiwanuka

Khao Yai Part 2 – National Parkour

So when I left off, we had just started our jungle trek.

Jungle

Our hike a few weeks back in Ko Samet was pretty cool, but in terms of ruggedness this was far superior. This was raw, unadulterated jungle; place was bananas. We had to wear long, canvas socks the tour guide provided us so that we didn’t get AIDS from the forest leeches. The “trails” we walked were just parts of forest that had space to walk. We had to crouch under branches or step over forest growth on several occasions. There were spiders so big that we saw a truck trapped in a web one time. True story!

…okay, not true but they was some big spiders. We also saw trees that killed other trees by crushing their trunks.

Not a joke. Apparently, its scientific name is the “Wayne Brady” tree.

So after plenty of walking, we reached this massive, massive, massive tree where we took a pit stop to eat snacks and chill while Lek (the aforementioned guide) went off to respond to the cal of nature. I tried to climb the tree, but there were too many spiderwebs and too much moisture and I didn’t want to terrify my compadres by dangling 40 feet above their heads.

Lek comes back from using the bathroom with a “present” for us. He has is tucked tightly in his shirt and allows us to touch it to guess what it is. I thought it was a chicken foot or something, which would’ve been a pretty strange present. Wasn’t a chicken foot, though.

Pictured (from left to right): A scorpion.

Instead of something we could eat or pet, Lek brought us something we could be victimized by. He didn’t even go to the bathroom! He’d gone to the scorpion’s house, baited it out (he explained the technique he used to attract it, which was pretty cool), then brought it back to show it to us.

Wait, did I say show it to us? I meant attach it to us.

Lek would periodically blow on it to make it move because a still scorpion isn’t scary enough, I guess.

We each got the scorpion treatment and handled it pretty well for sissy Americans (excluding Jordan’s four simultaneous heart attacks). In addition to putting it on us, Lek showed us this cool trick where he put the scorpion to sleep by covering it in his hands. Really weird and really nifty. He also explained that the big, black scorpions are pretty docile and that the smaller, brown ones are the ones we should worry about. When we asked if he’d ever been stung by a black one, his response was “Oh yeah, quite often.”

As the long-awaited moment came where we got to finally leave the jungle, Lek stopped. “Chameleon,” he said. He hunched down and began to wave his hands over the ground like a shaman or David Copperfield.

Now, understand our mental state. All day, Lek has been terrorizing us all day with snakes and scorpions. And each time, he would pretend everything was cool then throw some terrible creature in our face and laugh like a pastor’s daughter on Christmas. So we were all pretty nervous when he stopped. There was no chameleon in sight, and it seemed like another trick. He waves his hands around some more, then makes a sudden grabbing motion and stands up with a flourish of his hands and a stir of drifting autumn leaves.

Nothing. We all stare at him, but there’s clearly nothing in his hands. “Lek, what did yo-

“Oooohhh….you meant THAT chameleon…”

So we actually, really, seriously leave the jungle after that and emerge into this surreal landscape of the tallest, greenest field captured on film since Planet Earth was released on Blu-Ray.

It wasn’t all fun and beauty, tho. We also had to help the Von Trapp family escape.

This led us to a lunch break in some clearing with a watchtower where Kelsey taught me and Jordan gymnastics. I did a front hand spring! And I also broke my back.

From the fields, we went to check out one of Khao Yai’s many waterfalls. This might have been the highlight of the trip for me, and that’s saying a lot. Not because the waterfall was particularly beautiful or anything…

Even though it was.

…but because there were rocks EVERYWHERE and they were slippery and I could run and jump across them perilously. Felt like Batman running through Gotham. I shoulda videotaped it as my audition for Ninja Warrior. Gah…it was awesome. I even missed the group picture we took in front of the falls because I got too excited and started prancing across the rocks.

From foreground to background: Me, Jordan, Kelsey, Katie and Adam. They put up with my frolicking shenanigans and joined me shortly after.

We left the falls and made our way back to the truck for a final ride through the park in the hopes of seeing elephants or some other cool animals. We’re almost back to the rooms when our driver starts screaming in Thai. I’m pretty confused. The truck stops quickly and Lek comes running up to join us in the truckbed.

“Elephants!” he says.

I turn to find a family of seven elephants crashing through the trees (they’re not charging, but they’re elephants so it counts as crashing) onto our street.

Animal Fun Fact #74: Elephants don’t look both ways before crossing the street.

We drove a bit further up the street to give Mama ‘Phant and her brood a bit of space and we came right into contact with…

“Huh. What are those grey shapes in the distance? Lek! Bring me your telescope.”

More elephants! Elephants in front of us! Elephants behind us! It was exciting because there were elephants everywhere, but it was terrifying because there were elephants everywhere. City-slickers like us tend to assume that non-carnivorous animals aren’t super dangerous (Jordan: Lek, can we pet them?), but these elephants looked like they were death row inmates compared to the elephants we’d seen previously in Thailand (Lek: No, they will kick your ass!). They were wild and angry and several hundred pounds heavier than the nearest vehicle.

Luckily, their hunger drive overrode their murder drive, so we stayed out of their way and the street family joined the bigger family in the salt licks and all was well with the world.

We went on to enjoy a great dinner back at the hotel, learn more about Lek, and go to sleep with dreams of sugarplums and scorpions dancing in our heads.

A fitting end to an amazing day.

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: The Lincoln Lions (working title) – 24%

What I’m Listening To: Echoes of Silence and House of Balloons, both by The Weeknd

Khao Yai Part 1 – The Most Interesting Man in the World

Now…this is my first time abroad so maybe the fact that I’m enjoying all this so much is just me being a travel noob, but Khao Yai National Park was the got-damn BUSINESS! The trip started in usual hectic fashion. Adam and I missed out bus, so we took a van straight to Bangkok to meet up with Kelsey. From Bangkok, our plan was to take a bus straight up to Pakchong to meet up with Jordan and Katie (who live there…sorta. More on that shortly) then get picked up from there by the Khao Yai park ranger and taken to our hostel at the park.

Well we took a bus from Bangkok and it took us to Pakchong, but apparently we’d gotten on the slow bus instead of the fast bus (in Thailand, most buses are just buses, but some are time machines) so we ended up arriving too late for the park ranger to pick us up. Brotha gotta sleep, nameen?

No problem, though. Jordan and Katie said we could stay at their place. Oh! Oh wait…they don’t live in Pakchong. We were still about an hour and a half away from where they lived and would have to wait thirty minutes for the next bus (it was around 11:30pm at this point. We left home at 3:30 for what should have been, total, a 4 hour trip).

After that, we…okay, this is taking too long. Blah, blah, get lost, blah blah, learn a new form of poker with inexplicable rules, blah blah pumpkin seeds, blah blah we meet up with Jordan and Katie, get 2 to 3 hours of sleep, then arrive at Khao Yai on Saturday morning. We’d missed their usual morning tour, but our kindly tour guide sent the other tourers off with a different guide and waited to take the five of us. Kelsey was all politeness as we got off the truck to meet our tour guide.

Kelsey: Oh! Sawatdee Khaa!

Tour Guide: Uh…Hi.

He was Thai, but he spoke English fluently and had a very western sensibility/swagger about him.
So you can imagine that Kelsey looked utterly ridiculous. Utterly.

TOUR TIIIIMMMMMMEEEEEE!!!!!

We were greeted at the door to the park by monkeys. Some with baby monkeys attached to them.

The first of many fantastic views.

The first animal we saw on our actual park trek (the monkeys were right at the entrance), was a Great Hornbill. Pretty good looking birds and large enough that I consider them worthy of life. Our tour guide would walk around with a low power telescope and set it up so we could get close up views of the animals.

We watched this bird for about ten minutes, in awe of what we, at the time, considered “nature.” We were but children; we could not have known the wonders that Khao Yai had in store for us.

Now I’m gonna wax prosaic for a bit. This world, while beautiful when unmolested, is very uneventful without the life it contains. It is the living things – the trees, the fungi, the insects, the mammals – that live out the narrative of planet Earth. Without them, this would be a world with no story to tell.

A microcosm of that is the idea that my own individual life is substantially fulfilled by those that play a role on its stage, even if that role is for but a moment. A large part of what made Khao Yai, as you’re about to read, so awesome, couldn’t be captured in pictures. The people I experienced Khao Yai with were just as fundamental to my enjoyment of it as the things I saw and heard, so major big ups to Adam, Kelsey, Jordan and Katie for allowing me to join them for this journey.

Which leads me to my next point: Lek

Lek was our tour guide for the trip. This man is one of those people you meet in your life that you will still remember when you’re old and senile and have forgotten how to turn off the stove without burning yourself. He is a Thai man that speaks fluent English with a possibly Indian accent. He has a degree in Engineering, but decided to be Bear Grylls instead. He can see through camouflage, talk to scorpions and run on water. Lek is…the most interesting man in the world.

We were driving in the sawng teaw (or however its spelled. It’s a truck with benches in the truck bed and a cover over the whole thing so people can sit in it without getting rained on) when Lek suddenly jumps out and says, “It’s a snake!” He runs onto the street, snaches the snake up then jumps back into the truck and sticks the snake IN OUR FACES. Now, I’m no stranger to combat with deadly animals so I didn’t at all flinch or have a heart attack or try to climb over the girls to get out of the truck, but I will admit that it caught me off guard. The snake was about 20 feet long and easily over a hundred pounds, so I was impressed that Lek could lift that much. Didn’t stop me from eating it, though.

Not pictured: About 18 feet and 99 pounds of snake.

After the trauma of the snake and Lek’s uproarious laughter, we ditched the truck and went out on foot for a 5k through the jungle. I didn’t get very many pictures of the next several hours because my phone was actin’ a fool (I’m sure my travel compadres will post them on facebook soon), but the one picture I managed to take pretty much captures everything.

What? Are you doubting that I took this? Half of those animals are exclusively African you say? Well that just makes our tour that much more unique…

This post is expanding way too quickly, so I’m gonna cap it here and continue on with part[s] 2 [and 3] in the next few days.

I hope you’re all doing well. A month has passed: only four more till I’m back home. Miss you all!

Moses

What I’m Reading: Lol…The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: The Lincoln Lions (Working Title) – 22%

What I’m Listening To: Babel by Mumford and Sons

A Little More Conversation Vol. 1 – The Color Brown

I’ve noticed that most of my posts are a bit lacking. While they’re full of fun references and [ideally] clever wordplay and I do a lot to forward the “plot” of my Thailand experience, I haven’t really been doing much to uncover the underlying themes and the more cultural, foundational facets of my new six month reality. As entertaining as it would be to leave here with a blog full of different things I did in Thailand, I’d also like to be able to look back and examine the little things, the difficult things, and the things that only happened in my head.

So I’ve started a new series of posts entitled “A Little More Conversation.”I’ll try to make them shorter so as not to bore you, but I hope they engage yall, my friends and fam, in a different way. Enjoy!

Being black in this world, you learn pretty quickly that there are a lot of people in this world who don’t like the color of your skin or the culture they perceive to be associated with it. I’ve been blessed with enough naivete and good people around me that my most superficial of characteristics hasn’t played too negative a role in my life. At the same time, though, I’ve been an Asiaphile for as long as I can remember. Those close to me know that this trip to Southeast Asia is the culmination of a lifelong dream. In the back of my head, and in the center of my head, and in my prefrontal cortex, I always knew that the preferred skin color of the region is very, very far from mine and that many countries have an institutionalized racism that is substantially more overt than America’s subtle, often inadvertent one.

The Black Ranger is black, the Yellow Ranger is Asian, the Red Ranger is Native American-ish. So? That’s just good color coordination.

Surprisingly, though, I haven’t experienced any of the racism I expected to see in Thailand. This was likely primarily due to my familiarity with other South East Asian cultures and relative ignorance of Thai culture, but I was really really surprised by just how little anyone cared that I was black. People weren’t looking at me any more than they looked at any other farang, and though my students find random pictures of black guys and say “Teechaaa! It’s you!” and the people at the store call me Obama (which, to be fair, I’ve encouraged), those are about as harmless as racism can get and way more harmless than some of the “black jokes” I’ve gotten in the States. No one has asked if it is hotter for me during the summer or asked to feel my hair or any of the other things black people suffer.

“Teeechaaa! It’s you when you were the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court!”

I was having lunch with my school coordinator, who is a Godsend, btw, when I think I got a glimpse into the Thai psyche that explained why. We started talking about Muay Thai, which, of course, led to talking about Buakaw. Buakaw is revered amongst Muay Thai fans as an all around beast and basically the best kickboxer on earth. Youtube him and you’ll be able to see him wreck some very, very capable men.

Anyway, we were talking about Buakaw when she mentioned that Buakaw is his nickname, not his real one. This was before I knew all Thai people went by nicknames, so I was surprised. “Oh. What does it mean?” I asked, while riding a unicycle and juggling fiery chainsaws (I figured all this serious talk is getting boring for you dear readers).

She then explained that “Buakaw” means “White Lotus” and that it is a bit of a joke, given that his skin is really dark.

“He has dark skin, like you,” she said.

Buakaw is the one on the left, about to crush the other man’s ribs.

This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to a lot of you, but I felt really…accepted? Comforted? I don’t know exactly what it was, but I had a good feeling in my chest when I heard her say that. In America, skin color is inseparable from race (for most). The idea that an Asian man could have skin “like me” had never crossed my mind. And the fact that this was a man who is an idol for Thai boys, respected by Thai elders and adults, among the most internationally famous and recognizable Thai people, and, most importantly, praised just as much for his discipline, skill, intelligence and demeanor as he is for his athletic accomplishments really meant a lot to me. All my wariness and confusion evaporated and I would’ve seriously hugged her if it wouldn’t have been odd and uncomfortable. I don’t think she understood how big of an impact her words had on me.

In Thailand, I’m not black, I’m just another shade of brown. Maybe I’m just at the cusp of acceptably dark skin and my brothers from Sudan are relentlessly persecuted here, but I don’t get that feeling. Thailand has a pretty diverse ethnic make-up and though they view pale skin as fashionable and beautiful, they seem to accept that skin color is only superficial.

And I love them for it.

Moses

Ko Samet – Eating Boats Vol. 1

So I spent the weekend down in Ko Samet. To say it was incredible would be an understa- …well, actually, I guess that’d be accurate. It was incredible. Flashback time!:

Adam and I set out from Phanom Sarakham to meet up with Kelsey in Chachoengsao city. We got there later than expected, so we had to take the last bus out, which was headed to Rayong. The plan was to switch buses in Chonburi to a bus that would take us directly to Ban Phe (since Ko Samet is an island, Ban Phe is the departure point from the mainland). Ignore all the city names and just know that our plan was to switch buses at some point.

Well we reached the place to switch buses and got off the bus to take motorbikes to the next bus station. As we approached the motorbike taxis, though, they started waving us back to the buses. We pieced together that there were no more buses running (since it was so late), so we were supposed to stay on our current bus until it reached it’s destination. So we chased our bus down (it hadn’t fully left yet) and got back on.

About a football field later, our bus driver told us that we should get off the bus, that the last motorbike peeps were crazy, and that we should ask these new motorbike taxis to take us to the bus station. Well, we did because we’re silly farang.

The motorbikers took us to the next bus station and – lo’ and behold! – there were no more buses running that night. So we’re about two hours away from our booked hotel (where our friend Jenna was waiting for us), at 10pm, with no transportation available, and a platoon of rabid raccoons closing in on us.

Haha…I kid. A group of raccoons is called a nursery or gaze, not a platoon.

Do you SEE those claws??

Thankfully, the motorbike guy took pity on us (meaning, Kelsey put on the ol’ charm. Not in a dirty way, she’s just smiled big and looked helpless) and agreed to call us a taxi to give us a ride, even though we knew a taxi would be P. Diddy expensive. 30 minutes later, a grey truck shows up and a dude who is clearly not a board-certified taxi driver jumps out and offers a ride for 3500 baht ($115). We try to haggle, but when he doesn’t budge, we politely decline being kidnapped.

Instead, we go to the 7-11 across the street and manage to find a super helpful all-male couple that speaks English, call us a taxi, and gets us a price of 1500 baht ($50). Thai hospitality, nameen?

So we get to to Ban Phe (eventually. Our taxi got lost on the way and had to stop for directions), get some sleep, then take a ferry over to Ko Samet!

The day I found out that my phone camera has a panorama function was the happiest day of my life.

Our bungalow. Pretty sick abode. I was standing on the beach when I took this picture, about 30 feet from the water.

Uh, we show-stoppin
Dolla’ bill droppin
Chillin on da beach, got umbrellas like Poppins

It was all adventure from there. The first day, we ate, relaxed, ate again (while a ten year old was spinning fire like Dumbledore), chilled and drank Mai Thai buckets at a reggae bar that played exclusively Bob Marley the entire night (there was a bar with a muay thai ring, but there were no fights going on that night), then went to bed like old people.

The next morning, we got up early (we were supposed to watch the sunrise, but SOMEONE doesn’t know how to set a phone alarm. That someone being me) and went on a hike that started as a pretty cool hike through the woods…:

Not pictured: A hundred thousand angry mosquitos.

…then turned into beast status awesomeness. At some point, Kelsey spies this little side path off the main trail and wants to go down it. Jenna and I, who have almost definitely contracted malaria at this point, are hesitant. But Kelsey wins and we go. As we’re walking, the path closes in more and more, until I’m crouched to where I would have started crawling if it didn’t suddenly explode into a sick, hidden, untouched by modern man, crazy-lookin ADVENTURE CLIFF!! We emerged into a field of dense shrubbery and flowers on the backside of a rocky hill that was right along the water. We were the only people around, that I could see, and it was fantastic. We pranced up and down the hillside, hurled rocks into the ocean, did some minor rock climbing, found sick fishing poles/hunting sticks/walking staffs, chased crabs (and fell on the slippery, water covered rocks and messed up my phone like a dummy. Crabs be tricky, yo), discovered what we could only assume was the den of a feral child, did yoga and handstands at a place where falling meant certain death, etc, etc.

I was having so much fun that I only took a few, not very useful pictures. Also, I got hungry so I started eating the ships out on the water. Tastiest ships I’ve ever eaten, by far.

Kelsey was trying to take a picture of her hand and I got in the way. My fault.

Mmm….boat meat.

Homer Simpson plays a ridiculously large role in most of my decisions.

After the hike, I climbed a tree to play guitar. It was so relaxing, with the ocean waves crashing beside me, that I spent about an hour and a half up there.

The view from the tree. It’s the tree on the right side of the above picture of the bungalow.

I love that tree.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Talk to you all soon!

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: The Lincoln Lions (Novel, working title) – 16%

What I’m Listening To: channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean

First Actual Day of Teaching

So when I was in college, I avoided anything having to do with people aged teenager and below. Developmental Psych, Childhood Disorders & Disabilities, Family Therapy stuff, etc, were all classes that I ignored for one reason: Kids are dumb.

While kids are “fun” in their own way, I thought they were stupid because: 1. They are. Like, they’re pretty uneducated. 2. They have low impulse control, which is ridiculous. 3. Most of them aren’t particularly talented. For example, most kids can play basketball, but none are good enough for the NBA. Who wants to watch amateurs? 4. They don’t know why they do anything. They can be just as terrible as adults, but aren’t aware enough to blame alcohol/bad parenting/torn ACL.

Well now that I’ve finally taught kids for the last 4 days, I have revised my opinion of them (generally, at least. There are still individual children that suck.).

…they aight.

And by “aight,” I mean they’re pretty awesome and better than dogs.

But not better than CatDog

I teach 7th grade (roughly) listening/speaking English (there’s a separate reading teacher) and computers for the school’s English Program (kind of like Honors, but the qualifier is speaking better English and paying).

The computer classes are pretty solid so far. They learned Word, Excel and PowerPoint last semester, so I’m gonna try to teach them Photoshop, Flash, hacking, Sherdog and Advanced Facebook this semester.

Or there may be more I can teach them in Word…yo…

The 7th graders are the real fun. Those kids have enough energy to power Liechtenstein until 2017. All we did was play team pictionary and they were almost literally bouncing off the walls. Good times. Today, the final word to draw was Gangnam Style, which led to someone busting out their phone to put on the song and me and one of the kids doing the dance in front of the class. Ain’t no party like a Thai education system party!

Outside of school, some notable things have happened. The most joyous for me being that I’ve finished the first draft of a short story that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while and can now get to work on my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month in layman’s terms. It’s every November). An additional source of joy is that I managed to find shoes in my size! For those who weren’t aware of my woes, the average Thai man’s feet are much smaller than mine. Even giant Thai men are like ants beside me when it comes to foot size, so I was pretty hopeless when it came to buying running shoes that I need but didn’t pack. But I got shoes! They took 3 weeks and 18 employees to construct, but I can wear them and they fit!

I had to take this picture from forty feet away to get the entire shoebox on camera.

The last bit of fun stuffs is that I got to spend some time with the co-teachers and eat some crocodile meat. There’s more to that story, but meh.

Oh, and the coppers been trying to catch me ridin’ dirty:

Introducing: The Pinocchio Battlecruiser M-Series Mach IV, with rear-wheel spinning technology.

That’s all! This weekend I’m off to Koh Samet for an island adventure, so I’ll be incommunicado (that means “getting hyphy on the beach” in Spanish).

Take care!

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: Children of Mars 2nd Draft – 1%, Untitled Novel – 10%

What I’m Listening To: Vows by Kimbra