trees

I'm trying to blog, but I don't take very many pictures! This is Yangsan, where I went for a walk one afternoon.


There was a warning not to swim in the foot-deep fountain water because you might drown.

I'll follow the night

West Railay is probably the most popular beach, and the biggest beach in/at/on Railay.



West Railay also (obviously) has the best sunsets. Here are two of them:

Rock and roll, part 2

When last we left our heroine, she was recalling those blissful days of her youth... It was sunset on October 29th, 2009, to be specific, and she was watching the sunset from the top of Ta Keo.



She looks a little disgruntled, doesn't she? Maybe it's that the third person is messing with her perception of personhood.

Our third full day (October 30th) began at 4 o'clock in the morning when we awoke to start the day with sunrise at Angkor Wat.

It was worth it.

Later in the day we visited Banteay Samre


And Preah Khan, which is still in ruins in some places, and has a more tranquil and undiscovered feel to it than even Ta Prohm.







If I'm being one of those people who doesn't want to claim a famous one like Angkor Wat, the Bayon or Ta Prohm, then I think Preah Khan was my favorite. It's got trees growing over it, and it's still crumbled in places, but the most intriguing thing for me was this structure:


It's also one of the quietest temples we had to chance to visit.

We posed for an album cover, just in case.


And then I didn't pose at all before our final sunset at Pre Rup.



Before I knew it, our three day passes were all used up. We entertained ourselves for a few more days in Cambodia before returning for our previously documented trip through northern Thailand. The more I think about Cambodia, though, the more magical I feel it was. If any of you stateside folks come to visit me here, I absolutely insist that we make a jaunt over there. Thailand is a wonderful, rich place, but Angkor is a dream.

We are the pirates of the temples...

It strikes me that after promising to talk about the highlight of my life that was my visit to Angkor in Cambodia, I neglected to post about it. This is the first of two blog entries about my adventures at Angkor Wat--I want to post too many pictures for one entry! All of the pictures in this post are courtesy of the incomparable Lionelle Drabble, who is an excellent travel companion and a fabulous photographer who just started work at a school in Bangkok. You may read of her adventures here.

Angkor Wat is the most famous temple at ancient Angkor. It was part of a vast city of temples and now-forgotten wooden structures that thrived from about 800 to 1300. We bought three-day passes and climbed on temples all day, but still visited less than half of what there is to see. We arrived at Angkor Wat in time to watch the sunset on October 27th. Sunsets became an obsession, as we would seek out the tallest temple we hadn't yet visited each evening and sit and listen to music and watch the sunset. The morning of the 28th we set out to explore Angkor Wat again, in pretty dresses this time because we knew we had a lovely photographer.


That's Jamie, Elle and me.



The next on our must-see list was Ta Prohm. We explored for awhile in the heat of the day, cherishing the shade until a welcome end-of-monsoon downpour surprised us.



Here is Jamie looking lovely in the rain. She's teaching in Trat now and writing about it here.


We went to Phnom Bakheng for the second sunset. This is the most popular sunset venue, and the temple is set atop a hill.

On the second full day of temple climbing, we visited Angkor Thom which is a walled city. This is the city gate.



Those faces are familiar--they decorate the other most famous temple which is located in Angkor Thom, the Bayon:



I love that the Bayon looks like a mountain of rubble from a distance, and it isn't until you're in it that you can really admire the enigmatic Buddha faces in every direction.



The same day, we visited the Elephant Terrace and the Royal Palace and Phimeanakas beyond it.



We watched the third sunset from the top of Ta Keo.



I don't know if the pictures demonstrate the steepness of the climb.



But this one should:


Many of these temples have steep steps like this, which require a person to descend them sideways. Ta Keo offered up another glorious sunset, and glorious sunsets are a great way to end these entries.

I will post again tomorrow with more pictures from the rest of my temple-hopping.

Kicks just keep getting harder to find.

The hottest trend among novice monks here in Ban Phe is flipflip carving. It makes sense, since their clothing is standard-issue saffron robes, that these teenagers would want to show a little bit of originality. Here's a sampling.



I got myself some new kicks yesterday too. I hope they'll take me on a great journey.



There has been a change of plans. I finished my TEFL training today. Goodbye, monastery school.



but the company that brough me over had a falling out with their biggest recruiter, which means that most of my class was not able to get placement at schools in other parts of Thailand. Instead, about 10 or 11 of our 18-person class (including me) are going to stay here in Ban Phe and work at Siam English Training School. There are worse places to live, for sure.



The monkey wrench is that the new positions don't start until early November which means I get a two week vacation. So instead of traveling around Southeast Asia after my teaching is finished (and worrying about where to store my stuff during that time,) I'm leaving my luggage safely at the TEFL school and traveling now. I'm not bringing my laptop, but I hope to visit Internet cafes to keep you up to date. I might not post any pictures. I'm tentatively going to visit Cambodia and maybe Laos, and be back here to start work around November 9th. That date is tentative; this is Thailand.

Yesterday

I don't get to actually sit down with the Internet very often, but hopefully within the next couple of weeks when I get my teaching placement it will be in a place where the Internet is a little more convenient. This week I taught my first two classes. It was a learning experience, and I teach more classes next week. In the afternoons and evenings I've spent a lot of quality time with the ocean.



My hotel sits across the street from the beach. On the side of the street with the hotel, there are other (mostly empty this time of year) hotels and some small restaurants. On the beach side, there are lots of beach chairs and umbrellas and tables. Sometimes people order food and then walk across the street to eat on the beach. Sometimes at night people drag sound equipment down there and throw karaoke beach parties.

On Wednesday after school I joined some of my fellow TEFLers at the beach. There was a huge jellyfish in the water, and some of them were trying to play with it while others were keeping their distance. These shots are from my underwater camera.





The top feels like nubbly plastic. It's not at all what I expected. That is not my hand; one of the brave gentlemen was making sure it was safe.

The jellyfish had a live crab inside of it, which later escaped when it was herded to shore for further investigation. Afterward, jellyfish was promptly returned to the water alive. Crab wandered away.

On Thursday I headed down to the beach with a book after class. The sky was clear with some haziness at the horizon and wispy white clouds overhead. Behind me, inland, the sky was overcast but light gray. I was hoping for a spectacular sunset. I sat down with my book (The Masked Rider, by Neil Peart) and started to read. I noticed a flash on the page, which I thought could absolutely not be lightning behind me, until a good few seconds later thunder rumbled above me. This was the longest, loudest thunderclap I have ever heard. I looked around behind me and the sky was still light gray. This happened again until the sky started to downpour on me, and I hurried across the street to take shelter at a restaurant and eat dinner (garlicky squid on rice.) Sudden weather changes are typical this time of year.

Most of my TEFL class was going to go out Friday night for karaoke to celebrate the birthday of one of my fellow students. Our instructor mentioned that a bunch of the TEFL employees and students from the other TEFL class were going to Rayong (the big city with the giant TESCO Lotus) for karaoke that night and that we were welcome to join them. This sounded like a great idea!

So we rented a songthaew (that's a pickup truck with two benches in the bed and a roof on top) and 14 of us rode into Rayong. We joined the TEFL group at a huge restaurant/bar where a cover band was playing songs in Thai and English. After an hour or so of this, the whole horde (about 25 people) walked to the karaoke place where we had a private room. This was amazingly fun. There were a fair number of English selections. I sang "A Whole New World" from Aladdin and "Desperado." I also sang "Yesterday." While I had a great time, I'm glad that I don't work at the karaoke bar. Having to listen to other people's karaoke parties all night long might be one of the worst jobs.



I'll leave you with Chaoying. She seems to live in the Condochain lobby. Her coloring reminds me of my kitty Clarice. She's chewing on my camera strap here.

Spotty Internet

Alas, my accommodation at TEFL training lacks Internet! The Buddhist monastery where I learn to teach and practice teaching has Wi-Fi (is that weird?) but it was quite spotty during the end-of-monsoon season thunderstorm this afternoon.

My first night here, I watched the sunset over the gulf of Thailand.





I probably won't be blogging much here. I hope you understand.