Reflections On Our Year in Thailand

So it's finished. We've packed up all our things, said goodbye to this incredible country we've come to love, and headed back home. It's something I've been looking forward to for nearly a year now, but also something sad. We've had homesickness and job uncertainty as well as amazing adventures and wonderful friends, and somehow it seems nearly impossible to be back to our old lives in Canada.

We've talked several times together while we've been here about how our life here seems so totally separate from our life back home. It feels vaguely dreamlike in its dissimilarity. This has been really apparent whenever people come to visit us; crossing the divide between our Canadian life and our Thai life, but is becoming a glaring reality now that we're coming to the end of our time here. Will it all seem real once we're back home? Will home be everything I've been missing and longing for for? What will we miss about Thailand? Will we ever get the chance to come back?

Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy to want to leave this place; there is so much here that I love. But, there are a lot of things I love and miss about Canada too. Before I fall asleep I imagine myself going on a walk in the woods back home; with the crunchy earthy smell of the fall leaves all around. When I'm feeling homesick I think about sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning while enjoying a good cup of coffee. I always knew that I was kind of a homebody; that I am a person who needs to be close to my friends and family to feel really content; but this has come sharply into focus through the homesickness I've felt here in Thailand. I now know that although life sometimes doesn't take you in the direction you expect, I really hope that I can convince it to let me be near my community of people.

On the other hand; we'll miss a lot of things about Thailand. Shane will certainly miss the beaches and the surfing. I will miss the amazing food, the excitement of my students when I walk in the classroom, and how incredibly Thai everything and everybody is (sometimes amusing, sometimes exasperating but always opening my eyes).

So we're both happy and sad to be leaving and coming back home. We're so glad that we've been able to share our experience through this blog, and I hope that you have all enjoyed reading it. Who knows, maybe we'll have to start a "Shane and Hannah's Adventures in Canada" to keep up with our exploits back home? Overall, this has definitely been an experience that has helped us to grow as individuals and as a couple and I wouldn't trade it for anything. As we close this chapter in our lives we'll just hope that the next one is just as full of amazing experiences as this one was. "The straight way's short, but the long way's pretty."

One orangutan, two orangutan, three orangutan four...

So far this vacation has been incredibly memorable! Our first stop after arriving in Sumatra was the jungle town of Bukit Lawang, home to the Gunung Leuser National Park. We signed up for a two day, one night trek in the jungle. The other trekkers were sporting some pretty flashy backpacks and trekking gear while Shane and I hiked the jungle in crocs (on me) and chucks (on Shane) but we made do.

Gunung Leuser National park was home to an orangutan rehabilitation centre, and is now home to wild and semi-wild orangutans. A semi-wild orangutan is one who was originally in captivity but was rehabilitated at the center and now lives in the jungle. At this point they are no longer taking rescued orangutans as the park has a healthy and stable population. The park is also home to other monkeys and even some Sumatran tigers (although it is VERY rare to spot one of these).

Our guide was a charismatic fellow named Thomas who has been leading treks into the jungle for over 20 years! He was really knowledgeable about the jungle and a great guide. We were impressed with his commitment to keeping the orangutans and the forest healthy as he asserted that even our fruit rinds had to be packed out with us so that the orangutans don't get used to following around tourists for food!

This is a Thomas Leaf Monkey. They have hilarious hair.

 After a long day of trekking we got to our campsite which was near this beautiful waterfall. What a great way to wash off the grime from a day of walking in the jungle! After a delicious camp supper of various Indonesian dishes our guide told us some interesting stories about the differences between Western and Indonesian cultures.

During our trek we saw a total of 11 orangutans, including a bit of a close encounter with one named Jackie. She was one of the orangutans who was released into the wild by the rehabilitation centre so she isn't shy of humans. Jackie is a clever girl and has figured out that she should go for people's backpacks in the hope that there will be food inside. If that fails, she grabs a hold of a tourist... luring the guides into bribing her with food to make her go away. Although our guides do not normally feed the orangutans, this was a special case as they were holding us hostage! Shane noted that the orangutan's grip is surprisingly strong...

We also saw several other kinds of monkeys in the park, as well as birds and some beautiful plants. Thomas showed us all kinds of plants and trees that are used for food, medicine or other things in the jungle. We even got to taste the bark of the quinine tree (not advised, it is VERY BITTER) which helps to keep away malaria.

It was definitely an experience that neither of us will forget, it isn't every day you get to see an extremely rare ape in the wild!

Time for Vacation!

Yes, the semester is done and after we finish our weekend classes this Saturday and Sunday we'll be headed off to Sumatra, Indonesia. Sumatra is a big island right on the equator, but has fairly mountainous terrain so we may be in for a little bit of refreshing cooler weather. This is one of only two places in the world where Orangutans still live in the wild so we're really hoping for a sighting. There is a national park where apparently sightings are very common so we are definitely heading there for a visit!

We'll try to update while we're there but aren't sure about the internet access so it might have to wait.

If you're interested, more information on Sumatra can be found here and here.

My Baby Brother in Thailand

His visit might have been short but we got a lot done! Tim arrived on Saturday night and we took him shopping to shake off the jet lag, then sent him off to Rayleigh on Sunday for a little time on the beach. After the beach it was a night at pub quiz, and some celebrating my birthday.

Good times were had by all!
The next day was snorkeling. No pictures there, we forgot to put a memory card in the camera! We took Tim to our favourite restaurant for a birthday dinner and then ice cream for dessert.

On Friday we spent the morning at soi dog walking THREE pens of dogs! So many happy tails.

Next it was time for a surf lesson! Teacher Shane took Tim out to the beach to teach him to surf. Tim did great and even managed to get onto a few waves on his first day!

The last stop on our whirlwind tour of Phuket was the big buddha. They are building this monument on the top of one of the mountains here in Phuket. In order to help fund the project they let you buy a square of marble and write a message on it; then they use the square to continue the mosaic on the buddha. Tim took this opportunity to get a little thank-you gift for Aunt Barbara who generously helped to fund his trip!

We were sad to see him go! Luckily I will get to see everyone VERY SOON when I come home on October 6th!

Monsoon Racing

In Phuket, monsoon season supposedly runs from April-October. We were a little apprehensive when we moved here, picturing rain all the time for six months. However, it turns out that for most of monsoon season it is actually pretty damn sunny... until the last few weeks.

All of a sudden, our tropical paradise has turned ugly. The rains come often, they come fast, and it rains really hard! I don't know about rainfall in other parts of the world, but if you took the average Ontario rainstorm and multiplied it by 5 you wouldn't be far off.

Unlike rain back home, which warns you with days of gray skies before anything actually happens; Thailand's rainstorms come within a few minutes. Today's rainstorm went like this:

I drove back from the apartment under partially cloudy skies.  (Neither blue nor gray skies seem to be an accurate predictor of good or bad weather).

I called Shane to ask where he wanted to go for lunch. "Soup place sounds good Shane, I see a big cloud coming over Monkey Hill... it's about to start raining I've gotta go!" At this point I figured I had maybe 2 minutes to get indoors.

I started walking down the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard a "whooshing" noise, it sounds a lot like wind but we've been here long enough that I knew to turn around. I saw this...

Monkey hill and our apartment building were already being poured on. There were 100 metres between me and the motorcycle repair shop (which has an awning over the sidewalk) and of course I was carrying my laptop in my backpack. I started to sprint...

The rain was chasing at my heels but I managed to make it... until next time monsoons.

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Rental Bike

Today's post SHOULD have been full of adorable pictures of our dog-to-be and his friends. Today I was headed to the north end of the island to the soi dog shelter, but Shane needed to head south to go surfing. Our solution was to rent a bike from the place down the road, not too expensive and then we could both go where we needed to. Or at least so we thought...

I headed up the highway and stopped to fill the bike up with gas. After filling it wouldn't start! The nice guys at the gas station helped me kick start it (the electric starter was dead) and I was off.

Fifteen minutes later I was driving along when I heard a "pop" and suddenly the engine was revving but the bike wasn't going anywhere. The belt had snapped :( I called Shane and he gallantly came to my rescue at a TINY repair shop in the middle of nowhere (a cow across the road was roaming around eating grass while my bike was fixed). We switched bikes so he could take the broken one back (and then head out south to the beach) and I could still get to soi dog since I was halfway there.

I headed off on our bike, and arrived at soi dog just in time to answer my phone. It was Shane "arrrrrgh the belt broke again, I am stranded on the side of the highway". I quickly explained to the soi dog staff the reason for my super quick visit, and headed off to rescue Shane.

After I found Shane on the side of the road we went back to get the original mechanic, who talked on the phone to the rental place. The rental place said they would come get the bike, of course this is Thailand so they didn't exactly jump on it and we waited from around 11 to 2 for someone to show up. Too late to go to soi dog we headed home...

What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad motorbike!

Dog Love

As many of you know, I have been volunteering every week at the soi dog shelter since we arrived in Phuket in April. It has been a really great experience and I continue to enjoy going out each week to walk and hang out with all these lovely dogs.

What you might not have known, is that we have been thinking about adopting one of the little guys for some time now! It is impossible to see them every week without falling in love.

After much deliberation (it is pretty hard to choose from almost 200 dogs) we have decided on this one!

 He is medium-sized and has nice thick fur, perfect for coming home with us in October when Canada starts to get cold! It might be a bit of a change for him, but I think he'll really enjoy the cooler temperatures (most of the dogs here don't look like they enjoy the heat too much)!

 He is a really sweet calm boy. When the other dogs are climbing all over you to get their turn to be petted or walked, he will wait on the sidelines until there's a space and then snuggle in to have you all to himself.

 We can't wait for everyone to meet him!!!

We haven't decided on a name yet. He has a name here at the shelter but the dogs don't really know their names and we don't really like it... I am still processing the fact that we are actually going to be bringing this little guy home with us in just a little while! Sooooo excited!

Canadians in Thailand -Shane's first blog post!

Recently the two of us have been fortunate enough to have friends and family come to visit us here in Thailand. Our house has had quite the revolving door. We had my brother Nick in July, my friends Nathan, Suds and Hammy in August, and soon Hannah’s brother Tim in September. We love Thailand and are thrilled to share it with whoever is willing to make the trip half way around the world. It is hilarious to see the shock, delight and amazement on our friends' and families' faces when they see things that have for us become daily life: wild driving, delicious food, beautiful beaches, street dogs and chickens among many other things.

Here are a few pictures from our adventures with Nathan, Suds and Hammy.

Riding a Song Tao on the way to Krabi

Exploring sea caves on Rayleigh
As not much of a sea cave explorer myself, I stayed and watched the boats... this turned out to be a good idea as the tide started coming in and the boats tried to escape.





The boys extremely excited to be renting scooters. Thai roads had never been more dangerous.
I don't have anything to say about this picture, I'm still trying to repress these memories.





Suds and me conducting a fire show
To all of you who are wondering "who gave Shane and suds fire???!" I think that the guy was a little drunk. Also there weren't too many people around so I suppose he figured any damage would be to themselves rather than others? 

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Beach bar on Ton Sai where the boys spent the night despite having already purchasing a room.
Shane doesn't mention that this is a picture of Suds and Nathan taking a shot of rum which had a snake and a scorpion in it. The very chill Thai bartender keeps it on the bar to attract the kind of people who want to drink things filled with snakes and scorpions. The cat was just along for the ride. 

 Deep sea fishing where we caught 6 tuna and 2 mahi mahi.
Well, other people mostly caught fish. Shane and I mostly tried not to be sick... I was more successful than Shane. Seasickness cures offered to us by our friends were "beer and cigarettes".

To those of you who can’t make it half way around the world we are glad to have you all as readers so we can share Thailand through our blog posts.
You should probably just come out though... seriously.

Kids will be cats...

Today was not one of my finest days as a teacher. It was the first day back to school for my grade 2s after a week of holidays (not sure why they had a week off... I still had to go to work). This class is rowdy at the best of times, and after a week of freedom they were absolutely out of control. By the end of the class I was totally out of ideas as to how to shut them up, after taking away half of their team points and refusing to let them play any games unless they behaved better.

We were doing a cutting and pasting activity. At the end of the class when I asked the kids to clean up, they sort of did, but brought me one gluestick without a lid. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I only have 6 gluesticks for my whole class, so to lose one would really be a pain. "Nobody is going for lunch until we find that lid!" I bellowed. About 3 kids started looking for the lid, and the rest of the class dissolved into a game of "cats".

This is what it felt like. In this scene, I am off to the side losing my mind while the kids crawl around on the floor meowing and getting in cat fights. I hate cats at the best of times. At one point, one kid came and rubbed her head on my leg, meowing like some kind of feline demon. All I wanted was a gluestick lid. Why wouldn't they just find the damn gluestick lid? SOMEBODY COME AND MAKE THESE ANIMALS FIND THE GLUESTICK LID! After abandoning the search and ordering the kids back to their desks before lunch, I finally found the lid. One of my students was pretending it was a cat toy and batting it around the classroom. At this point my head blew up. I tried to enthusiastically thank the kid who brought me the lid, but I really wanted to turn into some kind of hulk teacher "YOU WON'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M MAD!!!" and sentence them all to some terrible punishment.

This is how it probably really played out. Teacher was freaking out at the front of the room, but didn't seem to be asking anyone to do anything specific. Cats sounded like a fun game. Hey, cats was a fun game! Let's see if teacher wants to play cats, maybe it will cheer her up and she will stop yelling...

Thai Street Food Extravaganza... Part 1?

One thing that we really DON'T miss about home is the VERY limited street food. Back home, you can get a sausage. That's it. In Thailand you can get just about everything...

We have been hoping to do a post about Thai street food for a while, but we just haven't had the camera with us during those quick street food runs! Tonight we decided to do dinner, street-food style.

 Mmmmmm fried chicken. Fried chicken in Thailand is SO GOOD with its thin crispy batter. This was fried in a BIG wok full of oil, over a propane burner on the side of the road. Perfection!

 Quartered tiny pineapples. At about 1/4 (or less) the size of regular pineapple, they are sweet and delicious; with none of the sour-ness in regular sized pineapple. These were for dessert.

 Noodle soup in a bag. One bag has the noodles, kale and bean sprouts and the other has broth and various meat (this time it was fish... not as good, we prefer chicken or pork soups).

 Steamed pork shumai, these are little dumplings filled with spiced pork. The bamboo stick is so you can eat them while walking down the street.

 A pork bun. This one was pork and preserved egg but our favourite is red pork. It is a rice-dough bun filled with spiced pork (or other delicious fillings). We often have red pork buns as breakfast on weekends.

 Dinner! Thailand gives out more than its fair share of plastic bags... what else are you going to serve take-away soup in?

 Here's the soup in a bowl.

Here is the chicken, pork bun and pork shumai on a plate :)

Hopefully we'll remember to take the camera out for some more pictures soon!

The Epic Chicken

First of all, while you are reading this post you must imagine the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you can't imagine it click the link... It is better if you play it at high volume, or imagine it at high volume at least.


He was resplendent. From his dazzling peaked comb to his fearsome talons. His feathers; a beautiful mosaic of reds, greens and blacks, shimmered like precious gems in the morning sunlight. He swaggered about the yard on his long, strong legs, puffing out his muscular chest as though he knew how remarkable he was. Onlookers gathered as time went on, pulling over their motorbikes to look at the chicken. Nobody had ever seen a chicken quite this epic.

In Thailand, there are often chickens running around everywhere. We live in the city mind you, not in a rural area. It isn't rare to see a couple of chickens scratching in the dirt in front of a restaurant or near a shady bush.

Chickens in Thailand would ruin Canadian chickens in any contest. Canadian chickens are soft, with their large breasts and short legs, they have neither the strength, speed, nor stamina of a Thai chicken. Shane and I call them chocobos after the Final Fantasy creatures.

The chicken described above was one Shane saw on the way home from work one day. People were actually pulling over to get a look at this chicken because he was just so handsome. Speaking of handsome, you may be thinking "Wow, look at that chicken picture, it is amazing! It is the best thing anyone has ever drawn!" Yes, that is because we bought a drawing tablet for the computer! No more will the male stick figures in our blog have no hair... with my drawing tablet I can give them hair and even maybe ears! They will still be stick figures though...

This Post May Be Offensive for Some Viewers (Cat lovers, I mean you)

In other news, we have this cat around our neighbourhood lately. Maybe it is in heat? Maybe it is just annoying, but it "meows" ALL NIGHT LONG.

Sitting watching a movie "meow!"
Get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, "mrrrraaawwww"
Trying to fall asleep "REOW!"
This is what I imagine the noisy cat looks like:

The green lines are stink lines. It is probably missing some fur and part of an ear. Sometimes the noisy cat will fight with another noisy cat. This creates even more noise.

We have tried speaking sweetly to the noisy cat, "here lovely kitty, go somewhere else you pretty cat"
and yelling at the noisy cat, "UGH! Go AWAY you stupid cat!". Nothing works. Instead we end up with conversations that go like this:
Hannah: "What do you want for MEOW"
Shane: "What do I want for what?"
Hannah: "for dinner! ugh, stupid cat."

Unfortunately he has chosen a rather obvious bit of cover...

We have many little house geckos, or "jing jok" living in our new apartment. They are shy little critters, coming out when the lights are off and then scurrying to safety as soon as we come in the room. Occasionally you see a tail or a brief flash of movement while one runs into a good hiding spot.

Except for one. We have one gecko who is either old and confused, or else really overestimates his hiding ability. Sometimes he will hide like this:

 ... that is, just sprawled out on the floor, frozen. They can kind of change colour, so maybe he thinks we can't see him? Other times he will choose something to hide behind, but usually it ends up like this:

... with his tail sticking out one side and his nose out the other. Once we even found him on the counter, licking a cutting board like this:

... he was licking up the juice from a pear we had cut there earlier. It is a little known fact that geckos love pear juice. Also, they have cute pink tongues.

Where will he be next? At the foot of the bed? In front of the TV? Under the laundry rack? We never know, but we are always amused by the gecko who isn't very good at hiding.

Lost Island and

Apologies on the long wait for a post... I've been up to my ears in a paper on Learning and Play as well as bidding farewell to Shane's brother and trying to restore order to our lives (remembering we're not on holiday is always unpleasant). So, 
After trying for AGES to find Rayleigh on google maps, and failing, I have decided that it must be like the island from Lost and therefore can only be found if you are meant to get there. Luckily this little peninsula is greedy for your tourist dollars, so as long as you have a couple thousand baht in your pocket you should be able to get there without a problem.

We left from Phuket after work and boarded a bus for the 3 hour drive to Krabi town. Shortly afterwards, two SUPER DRUNK Thai guys got on the bus and sat behind us. They barely had time to crack a "beer leo" before one passed out, sprawled across the entire back 3 seats on the bus. As the bus filled up with school kids (in Thailand a bus is a bus, and space is not to be wasted!) the last seat left was the one where the drunk had his feet.  The guy lying down is passed out, the guy on the right is his friend who was not impressed, which is why I drew him frowning. In real life they had noses and hair but I struggle with details in MS paint. The little boy came to the back of the bus and kind of stared at them, so the less drunk guy (on the right) tried to shake his friend awake so he'd sit up. "Argleph" he replied. There was nothing to do but sit on his feet, so the poor kid rode home having to sit on someone's sneakers.

We stayed in Krabi for the night, and then hopped on a longtail boat with some other friendly tourists in the morning. Even though Raileigh is technically connected to the mainland, it is very mountainous so the only way to get there is by boat. Our new friends informed us that we should go teach in Mexico after we finish here... hmm, new blog idea? lol

Rayleigh is a lovely little spot covered in prehistoric-looking mountains and with Thailand's signature beautiful turquoise bays. We stayed in a fairly fancy (for us) resort and spent a day and a bit soaking up the rays and splashing in the water. The guys even got a chance to do some rock climbing!

 I title this picture: cheesing it hard.

 Can't you just picture a pterodactyl circling those peaks? In case you don't have a good imagination, it would look like this.

 After a lovely weekend we were sad to leave, but luckily we didn't have to take the bus on the way home as there was a ferry leaving for Phuket that day! We got on a longtail boat which took us out to the ferry in deeper water, and then had a lovely ride home. We were so glad that Nick got to come and experience a little bit of Thailand with us!

Snoryaking

Yesterday, we tried to rent a longtail boat to take us out to Koh Boo, a small island where there is supposed to be good snorkeling. Unfortunately, the longtails apparently do not run in this season... we were left with two options:
1. quit like quitters
2. epic kayak & snorkeling adventure
Obviously we chose the 2nd one. However, the sea is a cruel mistress, and is not always kind to green sailors out on their maiden voyages... Unfortunately Shane's and my water camera filled up with water the other day (we are not pleased, and are sending angry emails) so we weren't able to take any pictures. Here is the next best thing...

 This is us, after we rented our 2 kayaks and 1 stand-up paddle board. Shane is on the right with the stand-up paddle board (looks like a GIANT surfboard), Nick is in the middle, and I am on the left with curly hair.

 We fought past the break and began to paddle intrepidly out to sea.Shane is kneeling on the stand-up paddle board because every time he tried to stand up he would fall backwards into the water.

 A rogue wave broke, much further out past the usual breaking point! It sent my kayak smashing sideways into Nick's. This was our first taste of the cruel ocean's power...

 We arrived at Boo Island, this was exciting, which is why we are all smiling with our hands waving in the air. Finding somewhere to put the boats was a bit tricky, as you can see the coast of the island is jagged rocks with strong waves.

 We checked out the mooring buoys around the island, luckily they had ropes attached. When we left shore it probably would have been helpful for there to have been rope in the kayaks, but there wasn't. Nick tied an epic knot to keep the boats safe. This is about the point where the rocking of the sea began to make me super-seasick. You can tell because my face is green.

 We snorkeled, the fish and coral in this picture are not to scale. We saw all kinds of neat fish, including some puffer fish which we'd never seen before! Unfortunately, getting in the water did not cure my seasickness as it usually does... my face is still green.

 The seasickness became too much, I sprawled on the paddle board, cursing the sea... Nick and Shane kept snorkeling.

 After a while, we paddled back to shore. It was a long paddle under the burning equatorial sun. When we reached the wave break Nick and I both thought (independently of each other) "A kayak is a lot like a surfboard. If I just catch one of these waves, I will glide smoothly into shore."

 A kayak is not all that much like a surfboard. We are not surfers. Therefore Nick and I both (independently of each other) got flipped over and dumped into the water, along with everything in the kayaks that wasn't tied down. Note to self, next time bring own rope... to tie things with, as the things that weren't tied down were-everything. We spent some time searching for all the things that had tipped out of the kayaks, but luckily the sea was on our side this time and we found everything.

 We were exhausted. We all sat on the beach for a bit before dragging the kayaks back to the rental place. You can see that my face is not green any more, this is because after my near-death experience as my kayak flipped over in the waves, and after returning to shore, my stomach immediately felt better. I also forgot to draw my hair in this one, but you can imagine that it is just slicked back with the water. We drove home and had a nap. A great day overall!