thehostelwitness

loss.

During my trip to Thailand, the group visited a small school out in the country,

Goodbye Thailand

Has it been three months already? Apparently. Confession: my last couple of weeks in New Zealand, I was weighing in on a decision as to what to do next. The two options I were heavily considering was 1) to go to Mexico and 2) apply for a working holiday visa and stay in NZ for an entire year, working as a bar tender. SE Asia really didn't appeal for me, alone for that pull that I mentioned in previous posts.

But Mexico was shelved for another trip another time and the idea of being a bar tender, while sounding like fun, at 30 years old seemed a like a bit of a reach for me. I would become "that guy" - and one of many occupations that "that guy" excels in, is bar tending. So I came to Asia with a bit of hesitance.

And its been one of the very few times in my nearly perfect life that I was mistaken. Its great out here.

Below is a picture of my thai "family" - Aunt Pi Phoon, Cousin Amy, and Uncle Montri. These guys have been incredible for me, with Pi Phoon cooking me weekly dinners, Amy driving me all around Northeast Thailand, and Montri supplying me with a never ending supply of Singhas. I'm going to miss their laughter, food, and companionship.

So...what's next? Its time to get this thing rolling again. Friend Sally of Italy and London fame is going to be meeting me in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday and Amy's sister Nong was kind enough to host us for the first few days. I'm sad to be leaving, but fortunately, I'll always have friends waiting for me here.

Sala Kaew Ku, Nong Khai Province

My friend Amy was nice enough to take me up to Nong Khai, just south of the Laos Border, so I can take some pictures of Sala Kaew Ku, a surreal sculpture park combining Buddhist, Hindu, and Mystic elements.

And that was a really long sentence.

Nong Khai photoset

All wrapped up

Not long after wrapping up with work, I was asked by the president of the my company to meet for a few drinks. He's a great guy and played an instrumental role in getting me to come out to NYC. I appreciated the offer tremendously - here I was leaving after only a year and this was his way of saying "no hard feelings".

Drinks went fine. We just chit-chatted about my plans and he nodded along, but it wasn't until I mentioned the possibility of spending some time volunteering at an orphanage later in the year did his eyebrows raise up sharply.

"Wow. I don't know if I could do that."

I guess that was the first instance where I got the hint that this was going to be a different kind of trip. Here was a guy, CEO of a major corporation, one of the most interesting people I've known, and this was something that even he had doubts about doing. I guess because it was still pretty far down the road at that point - I still had 7 months to travel before even entertaining Thailand - I didn't think much of it.

Today was my last day at the orphanage - well, Girls Home to be exact. Not all the girls are orphans. There is so much love there between the girls though that it doesn't really matter. They are all sisters, they are all away from home, they all in the same boat. I've never seen anything like it in my life, that sort of camaraderie between so many kids. And as I stood there today, in front of a group of about 20 of them saying my goodbyes, I felt incredibly privileged that they had included me in their lives.

Ooy, a girl of 14 and one of my closest friends there, motioned me over and whispered, "I hope that you will not forget me."

How could I possibly ever forget?

I don't know exactly why I felt like I needed to be here, only that when the possibility was first mentioned to me all those months ago, it was as if I could hear a door opening inside of me. It was an epiphany - I had to come. I didn't really know why, but I just knew I had to be here. And slowly, after spending day after day here, I came to the realization that those kids were doing so much more for me than I was for them, by a magnitude of thousands.

I had spent the previous 8 years of my life becoming a hardened creature. People were my trade and I began to see the whole world that way. I learned to shed any feelings at having to discipline anyone, lost my temper often, and developed an internal switch where I could become a prick in a matter of seconds. I became a material person. I had difficulties opening up to new friends and it was a simple impossibility to become emotionally involved with anyone at all. It wasn't as if I didn't know these things about myself, I did.I didn't like it. I just had no idea of how to change back to the person I was before all of this.

A little girl, 2 years old, ran up to me and put her arms around my legs, asking to be picked up. She said something in Thai - a girl there translated - and I had to put her down quickly and tickled her to change the subject. She was asking me to be her father. What the hell can I say to that?

You can't come here expecting to save anyone. It will kill you. You can't take them home. You can only open yourself up completely and just absorb as much love and laughter as you can. And then you have to leave, hopefully taking a bit of them with you for the rest of your life. I have no clue what it'll be like for me when I re-enter the workforce. I don't know how much of this will stick with me and how much of the old habits will come back. But that doesn't matter - because when I get home, because of these girls, when I get home I will have a second chance to move forward. A clean slate. And there's no way I could have done this without them. 

Another year down

A year ago, I was well on my way to losing a healthy sum of money in a Las Vegas casino. Oh, the tables were cold that weekend, my friends. Very cold. Even so, it was one of the better weekends of that year - surrounded by friends, drink in hand - it can't get much better than that, can it?

So it was a little bit of a different experience this year; a bit more reigned in, but not any less memorable. I joined my friends Amy and Dat at Dat's restaurant for dinner, was sung happy birthday, and consumed massive amounts of birthday cake. I can't tell you the last time I had a birthday cake. Dat also requested a special birthday song for me from his band and it was with a laugh that I realized the 7 piece band was playing "Hava Nagila". Well...Toda Raba. I was going to tell him that I'm not Jewish when I realized he probably had no idea what the song was about in the first place, only that it sounds kick ass with two guitars, a bass, bongos, a sax, and drums playing it. And it does.

And things here are quickly wrapping up. I have just one last weekend at the Girl's Home. I spent most of yesterday travelling to Khon Kaen to visit the Vietnamese consulate to pick up a travel visa for Vietnam, where I'm heading in less than two weeks. It'll be a short trip there and I'm afraid I won't see nearly as much as I want to, but alas...

Thanks to all the emails wishing me a happy birthday. 30, it turns out, was a great year for me. I can only hope 31 will be just as much fun. And to Lindsay, Palmer, Heather, and Jenn Tesch - happy birthday to you all as well.

Mae-sa Valley, Chiang Mai

These past few days in Chiang Mai have been a blast. For those not "in the know", Chiang Mai is located in Northern Thailand, just a couple hours south of the "Golden Triangle" - an area composing the border zones of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. Chiang Mai is famous for its beautiful mountain scenery and many Thais come here in the wintertime for a respite from the heat.

There are loads of things to do and I was blown away by the options. Canopy tour, jungle hike, elephant camp, white-water rafting, etc. What to do? Well, inspiration struck in the form of a 300cc Honda motorcycle. Hell, I survived Laos - what better place to go riding than here in the mountains?

Its the only way to go. What better way to experience the tranquility of the Thai countryside than by ripping through it on a loud bike? I rode up Doi Suthep mountain, a hill overlooking Chiang Mai, to visit the winter palace. From there, it was down through the Mae-sa Valley, one of the most scenic areas I've ever seen. I spent a couple hours off bike at the Mae-sa waterfalls, a series of 10 waterfalls to cool me off on the hot summer day.


I loved it. And since that famed day, I've been in recovery mode. Thai massage and photo editing is the theme of the last couple of days. I visited my friends at the restaurant - the famed "vagina cleaning" restaurant and last night they offered me a lotion to cool off my sunburned arms. I looked at the bottle labeled "intimate cleanser" and politely declined. What is it with this place?

Its back off to Udon Thani tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy some photos!

Chiang Mai photoset

The Green Tulip, Chiang Mai

With my Thai classes on a one week break, after a quick weekend back in Udon visiting the kids, I decided to head up north, to Thailand's famed Chiang Mai. Sadly, its not much cooler here...with the heat index registering 104 degrees. Still, the temples here are beautiful and I'm hoping to be able to explore a little bit out of town today.

Last night I had dinner at a small Thai restaurant and had a blast. The two waitresses were both in English school, so were more than happy to practice their English with me. One of their friends, a boy of about 15, joined us. I'm afraid my English became progressively worse and harder to understand as I was plied with Chang Beers. The boy had just returned from the store where he had picked up pictures of his boyfriend as well as some facial cleanser.

"How do you say what this is in English?, " he asked.
"Ah, its "FACIAL CLEANSER", " I naively replied.
"OK. Did you know that the girls use this stuff to clean their VAGINAS!"

Small wonder Jessica Simpson swears by the stuff...

Prince Prajak Monument, Udon Thani

There's not much beauty to find in Udon Thani. No matter what standards you compare it to, there is little to be found in the concrete slabs of buildings and 4 lane roads. Its ugly.

But it would be unfair to say that Udon is alone in this judgement. Most of Thailand is like this once you get away from the famous beaches and jungle landmarks, or the pristine temples which benefit from their resident staff of monks who clean it daily. The same can be said for pretty much anywhere - no one doubts the beauty of the United States, but it isn't exactly Kent, Washington or Detroit that they are sticking onto the postcards. Like anywhere - except mayble, Kent - the beauty of Udon comes in the little things.

One of my favorite little things is a normal, run of the mill roundabout. This one happens to have a statue of a Thai prince in the center, but at any time in the year it'll be decorated with flowers, adorned with amulets, and hidden in a thick smoke of incense rising from the hundreds of candles burning at its base. This is no buddhist monk, so what's the big deal?

It turns out, the locals gather here to pray - no, wish - for good things to happen to them. They wish to get a promotion at work or for a sudden windfall of cash. And the best part about this particular roundabout, which is always surrounded by an army of cars buzzing around it like ants, is the people jogging around the statue no matter what part of the day. At first, I thought that this was another weird little excersize quirk - the sidewalks are so horrible here that it might just be better to go running in circles for a half hour. The truth though, is that these people who you spot running around this statue are fufilling their part of the bargain. At some point, they needed something, they came to the statue and made a wish, and in return for the granting of the wish, they promised something - in the case of the joggers, they promised to run around the statue 100 times.

So while it is odd to see, its also happy - you see these joggers and you know that something postive has happened to them in the past week. For me, and for the people that live here, its a little symbol of hope.

There are other little beauties that you find here. Whole streets come alive at night with food stands, all clustered closely together. Most of these vendors have been doing this all of their lives and have formed a sort of bond with the other - so the one stand will serve noodles, the other serve concentrates on rice dishes, some serve seafood, and others do chicken and pork - but none do everything. Everyone charges the same prices and there is no undercutting. Capitalism, but without the cut-throat sense of competition. Pretty much how it used to be.

I get to the orphanage on the back of a sangtaew, a pickup truck with benches. Lately, with school starting up they become packed with people and so its not unusual to find me going down the freeway, standing on a stepladder behind the tailgate - the concrete is litterally flying beneath my feet. A slip and its history for me - but besides being hella fun, its one of those things that you can literally never do back home and here, its perfectly acceptable.

Really though, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere if I waited around for an empty sangtaew to roll by. Even if I do get a seat, I eventually lose it as women board (a custom seen everywhere in the world) and suddenly, I'm back on the outboard. And it never fails to bring smiles to their faces to see the tall farang clutching the metal railing for his life.

In fact, most of the locals I interact with are women, only because they tend to be the ones working in the stores and shops while the men tend to be out laboring somewhere, and also because, well - why not?

Wet willy's in Udon Thani

Yesterday was a happy reunion of sorts, as Amy - one of the original volunteers at the orphanage - turned up with boxes of custard cake in hand. I was very happy to see Amy, not only because she's Thai and could help translate, but also for the aformentioned boxes of custard cake. The lady can bake.

She pulled up in her Toyota as I was involved in yet another serious session of freeze tag. "Aren't you supposed to be teaching English?", she asked me.

Well, um..yeah. I guess so. Yes, I am.

So it was that 10 minutes later, I was teaching English. Its hard enouch teaching new words to kids, but harder still when they can't even understand the characters to properly record the pronunciation of the word. The best they could do is write what it sort of sounds like in Thai, but even that's impossible when you are talking about sounds like "its" - there are no Thai words that use that sound. The same goes for "th" - as in "they" or "the".

I had the same problem when I moved to the States from Japan. Every other day I had to be pulled out of class to sit with a language specialist to work on my "th"s and "ts"s. At least then I had the advantage of knowing how to read the words. Here, the kids don't even have that, so it can be quite a challenge.

Another difference - I rarely miss a day of work. And though I realize that this doesn't exactly qualify as work, it feels like it and so I try really hard not to miss a day out there. But when you have days like today - when the polluted air and playing tag with little kids finally gets to you and you find yourself with the sniffles and coughs, even though you know you can get through a day easy, its just not worth the risk of giving a cold to one of the sick kids. I don't like being a person that says "see you tomorrow" and then doesn't show up, but I certainly don't want to be responsible for giving someone a chest cold. Its a bit of adjustment.

After leaving the orphanage, Amy and I headed over to Pi Phoon's house in the northern part of town for dinner. Pi Phoon is great - she runs a medical supply company with her husband, Montry and son, Tang. Montry always has a cold half-liter of Singha waiting for me and it doesn't take long for Pi Phoon to whip out four different Thai dishes - including one Chinese dish, Chap Chae, which is also a Korean dish - so I got a little taste of home.

So after class today, the only real item on the agenda was to mail off a thick envelope filled with letters written by the kids to the other volunteers, now stateside. I was given 12 stamps to affix to the envelope - its a good thing it was a big envelope - but even affixing the stamps proved to be a challenge. All the stamps have images of the king on them. And because of this, it is illegal to lick the back of a stamp. I ended up sitting in the post office for a good five minutes, trying to figure out how I was going to do this without looking like an ignorant falang when I remembered I had a water bottle in my bag. Dip the finger in the water bottle, rub the stamp, affix stamp, repeat 11 more times.

So no licking, but wet-willy's are A.O.K.

Its a long way from Bangkok by bus.

Just stepping off of a 9 hour bus ride from Bangkok for a quick weekend away. Not really a fun ride, but its incredibly cheap - about $14 each way. The bus ride to Bangkok was late and delayed, so it actually ended up taking about 10 hours and on the ride back, the bus had to pull in for repairs to the air con. Literally, the bus pulled into a repair station while we all sat and waited. Other than that, it was fine and worth the $14 ticket.

My favorite part though, was the Thai Karaoke shown on the tv screen on the way back. Thai karaoke is a special, special breed of karaoke video. Not only do you get the cheesy acting and production values as American karaoke, but each video has an important moral to tell. My three favorites, in no particular order, were:

1. Boy works with girl. Boy has a crush on girl, but his love is unrequited. Boy moves on and gets a girlfriend. Girl, seeing what she lost, now pursues the boy. Boy is happy. Current girlfriend shows up to pick up boy from work, but boy shows her the hand and tells her to go away. Boy and girl end video smiling and holding hands.

2.Girl is poor, working a factory job to pay for her tiny apartment. Boy always spends his nights cheating on the girl, leaving girl home alone on her birthday. Boy is broke, so poor girl gives him her necklace, which he pawns and then quickly takes his mistress out to dinner. The next day, girl gets hit by a car and the boy discovers that his mistress has a husband. He's heartbroken, but visits his girl at the hospital, realizing what he was missing all along. Girl never finds out he's a cheat. Boy and girl end video, holding hands and smiling.

3. Boy and girl grow up loving each other, but girl's affections fade away as she's romanced by a married customer at the restaurant where she works. At first, his affections are ignored, but slowly he grinds away at her resolve and she proceeds to have an affair with the man. The man's wife catches the two of them canoodling at the restaurant and cold cocks the girl. The next day, the man ignores the girl. Heart broken, the girl proceeds to hang herself on a noose she's tied to a tree. Her old boyfriend discovers her as she's hanging and cuts her down. Girl wakes up to boy smiling into her eyes. Song ends.

OK, I lied, the third video was my favorite.

Other than that, the weekend in Bangkok was pretty fun. I ended up hanging out with some friends I had made during my last trip and even got to catch an English language movie (Iron Man). On Saturday night, I took advantage of being in Bangkok to go and get a good Thai Massage, which ended up being one of the funnier conversations I've had in a while - I had made the mistake of letting my massuese know that I had come to Healthland three times before, which apparently is the ok for super painful massage time. My massuese explained to me that she got many korean customers coming through. I asked her if she knew any korean and she said "Only one word. 'Opoh'".

I couldn't stop laughing. "Opoh" how a Korean says "ow"!

It was appropriate - the massage hurt like hell.