November 15, 2009

I feel like so much has happened between my trip to Nepal and now and I have been bad about blogging. In October Donna and I went to Thailand for the October break. The school works its staff members very hard but they provide us with so many nice long breaks-its awesome! People here are always traveling-they will fly to Bangkok just for an orthodontist appointment, its crazy.
Donna's sister lives in Thailand and she came the week before the October break to do some teaching observations because she is trying to get certified as a teacher. She really enjoyed Dhaka. She first went to Thailand in her early 20's and has lived overseas there for quite a while but has gotten so used to it that Dhaka was truly a different experience for her and she loved it! Donna and I picked her up from the airport-it was a cool feeling to pick someone else up from the airport in Bangladesh and be able to point out things to them, saying we do this and we do that and this is where I live. I don't feel like a visitor in the country any longer.
We had U.N. on Thursday, which was a really cool experience at our school. 68 countries were represented and all the kids dressed up in their native outfits and the kids all processed into the gym with their country flags and there was a big assembly. They cheered the loudest with Bangladesh was called. It was truly moving and I teared up because they were so proud and so excited to be repping their countries, oh and I'm also a huge wus bout those things.
We skipped out early and made a mad dash for the airport so as not to miss our flight. 3 and 1/2 hours to Kuala Lumpur and a 7-hour layover in the airport. Donna had booked a hotel for the night but we realized when we got there it was an hour's drive a way! not worth it and no other available hotels. We had a greasy airport dinner at 12 at night and slept overnight in the airport. We woke early the next morning and got on a 1-hour flight to Phuket, Thailand.
We stepped off the plane and onto the runway to warm, tropical temperatures, and sun. Unlike Dhaka, it felt so much more fresh and not smoggy at all. Lia's husband, Ott, and their youngest son Teva met us at the airport. We stopped on the way home for a delicious roadside breakfast. This is another difference between Thailand and Bangladesh; you can eat the street food in Thailand but it is highly discouraged in Dhaka unless you want to sit on the toilet for 3 days. We ate noodles, hot stuff, fresh bean sprouts, pickled onions and beans, hard boiled eggs, and more hot stuff-it was so so yummy!
Thailand seemed so westernized compared to Dhaka-there were things that I recognized everywhere like dentists' offices and print shops and big groceries stores like Tesco. So strange; in Dhaka you really have to know where things are because a normal looking house could be a shop or a butcher or a furniture store. Not many things look like an actual shop, nothing is marked well and if it is marked, it only has a tiny sign hanging outside. So compared to what I've gotten used to over the past couple months, things were a LOT different. In comparison though, there would be a very modern building and right next to it would be a simple grass hut with an elevated floor. This strange mix of modern and traditional was everywhere. They had huge shopping malls and even an outlet mall that looked exactley like the ones back home in Maryland or the Outerbanks or Leeseburg. We stopped here to get Donna some running shoes at the Adidas outlet. It was very surreal after I hadn't seen anything resembling a mall in 3 months. I weirded me out.
We stayed with Lia and her family who have 3 boys. Her husband is Thai and they have lived there for a while so he knows all the best local places and he can always get "Thai price." They own a jewelry shop on Khata beach called Andeman Creations because it's right on the Andeman sea. They have absolutely beautiful jewelry. They work with hill-tribe people to get lots of the stones and silver and they put it together themselves. Ott started out making jewelry with beach glass and stuff he found and selling off a blanket on the beach and has since moved his business up and up.
We went to the beach everyday, either just us or with the boys when they were around. We ate the most delicious Thai food everyday-shrimp kapow with basil, rice, and a fried egg was our go-to that we had at almost every meal. We would drink fresh pineapple, watermelon, and coconut slushees and drink huge Singhas. And it was all so incredibly cheap!
One of my favorite things that we did was go to the market at nightime. Ott drove his motorcycle with Lia on the back and the 5 of us rode in the sidecar. The market was so cool at night with all the vendors under bamboo umbrellas and lights strung up. People selling clothing and cheap toys, fresh meat and fish were strung up, and heaps and heaps of fresh fruit and veg. The vendors cooked delicious meals in huge woks that you could take home with you.
While the boys were in school during the week, Donna and I went to Railay beach for 2 nights. We took a "2 hour bus ride" that turned into 4 hours because the driver made many convenient delivery stops along the way to Krabi beach. We then took a longtail boat from Krabi to Railay, which is the only way to get there. The longtail was soo much fun. I was a little nervous before going on it because the water looked really rough and I could see water coming in all sides of the other boats but once we were on it we were going really fast and it was awesome. You had to go out and around this point and out a ways and then you landed on the island. It was awesome. We were there during low season too so it was pretty quite. You could get cheap Singhas from a tiny minimart and drink beers on the beach. There were lots of reggae bars to go to and more fresh delicious Thai food. They had these bars with cushions on elevated platforms everywhere and you could just lounge and drink beers and listen to music.
During the day we sat in the sun and went sea-kayaking. Although Donna and I both proved that we suck at it and it was impossible for us to do it in unison, it was fun and the water was such an intense blue, it was truly beautiful. Time seemed to slow down/be non-existent. On the morning of the day we left, I got up early and attempted this hike to a lagoon. You scramble up this steep slope and there are some ropes to help you and then hike down into this gully. When I was in the gully, I felt like I was on the set of lost; all these huge palm trees towering over me and jungle noises all around me; it almost seemed fake.
I was sad to leave but we took a speed boat back to Phuket, which was much much faster and really fun. It was about an hour and a half back to Khata beach. When we left Thailand, I was genuinely sad and it is definitely a place I want to go back to. I would like to go to northern Thailand because it is much different and go exploring the hillsides there. I was so happy we had gone though and had been able see a little bit more of the local side of things than most!