hotel, motel

Nancy Drew's got to have a mystery out there called "The Secret of the Navi Hotel."

I first visited it with Peter on Valentine's Day when we took a walk along the beach and he needed to use a washroom.

The open doors on the ground floor showed a shiny gold sign that says “Navi Hotel.” The front desk was on the fourth floor, so we took the elevator up and entered the dark, bare front desk area. Behind the desk there was sheet-covered polyhedron of chairs. This was not a bustling hotel. Pete wandered down the hall and managed to turn on the light for the bathroom. I wandered into the dining room, which overlooked the sea. A screen split the room in half, and the far side was piled high with unused furniture.

On the civilized side of the screen, there was a table with coffee service, and the stirring-spoon was in a dish of water with a quarter of an inch of evaporation. Someone had made tea and then tossed the teabag into the bin. The samovar was still plugged in. This place had recently been occupied.

The most unnerving sign of a quick departure was a turntable that sat spinning silently on a table by the entry. How many days ago had the record finished?

(This is where we danced to Roy Orbison. Come on, it was Valentine's Day!)

Anyway, I went back with Autumn last Saturday night. This time, we saw that the lights were on on the 4th floor, but the elevator was completely dead (there were actually spider webs.)

We climbed the stairs to the 4th floor and ended up in the outdoor patio area. This is the view of Haeundae beach.

Inside the dining room, there was a man sitting at a table. He didn't seem to notice us. When we left, we walked through the 3rd floor which is where the hotel rooms are. The elevator was stopped, gaping, on this level. All the doors were dark except for one that was open with a woman inside watching television. She looked up at Autumn and I and we hurried down the hall like really, really bad secret agents.

it's a gas gas gas

If you are on the subway system during an emergency, please wait patiently for someone to come with a key so that you can get one of the dozen masks available at some, but not all subway stations.



Also happy Christmas Eve!

moonbeams and fairytales

I was going to go to Ayutthaya on Monday, as part of this grand, historical Tour of Ancient Capitals. I bought a bus ticket and got on the bus in Sukhothai, and it entered various cities along the way and stopped at their bus station. It didn't do this in Ayutthaya, though. It pulled to the side of the road and I didn't get off and ended up staying until Bangkok.

(I have a great distaste for Bangkok. I can't explain it.) To perk myself up, I said "Yes! This is a horrible idea!" when a motorcycle taxi offered to take me where I needed to go. There's nothing like an 80kph motorbike ride, swerving through Bangkok traffic at night, to help you feel human feelings again. ("Oh, shit; we're going to hit a bus!" is a feeling, right?)

I arrived safe and sound and shaken at a nice little guesthouse and made a day trip to Ayutthaya the following morning.

My first stop was Bang Pa-In Palace, which is nothing like the Grand Palace in Bangkok, all cluttered with dazzling golden temples. This one is like the setting for a fairytale. It's open and landscaped and dreamy. It was mostly used in the second half of the 19th century.





Rabbits! And the floor inside the tower is black and white tile. And this is not Wonderland.

But maybe it is, because this little building, which also has a checkered floor, has the strangest proportions. The ceiling is very low on the bottom, but not on the top floor.

You eat ants?

I have a gecko. He doesn't have a name, and normally just chills behind my air conditioner. He's been very excited lately, though.

Along the main drag in Ban Phe there sits a string of stores that sell seashell curtains, dried fish, jewelry and candy. There are four or five of them, and they all sit in a row and have nearly the same selection as one another. The best thing they sell is coconut taffy. I bought a bag right before I left for Cambodia, and left it unopened in my suitcase for those three weeks and a bit after.

I finally opened the bag and ate a couple of pieces, and then made my tragic mistake and forgot about it. The taffy ended up in my box of stuff I bought for people but didn't send them.

And then there were ants. Tiny little brown ants, much smaller than even the littlest ants in the states. Not a whole highway of them, praise Buddha, but more than a few. How very strange, I thought, since I don't have any food in my room. Except... for... the taffy! There were some happy ants in that bag of taffy! I threw it away, but I don't think the other ants believed me when I told them. They're still looking for it, or seeking their fallen comrades. Or revenge.

My gecko, on the other hand, is super duper excited to be alive right now. He's been running around all over the walls. I tried to get a picture of him but I scared him and he actually fell down and ran under my bed. Since my bed is only about an inch and a half above the ground, I hope you appreciate the difficulty I had in getting this horrible photograph:



He is going to get super fat despite all this exercise. I'm glad for him.

Don't rock the boat, baby

Not a secret: I am not a good swimmer. When I came to Thailand, I got nervous when I couldn't touch the bottom with my feet. As time went on I became comfortable with swimming in the ocean without worrying about the bottom, but I'm not generally confident in the water.

Last Sunday I went out in a little sit-on-top kayak while Autumn practiced windsurfing and Bert paddled around on a windsurf board without a sail, giving instruction. I'm totally comfortable in a kayak and enjoyed myself immensely, actually. But after a long couple of hours in the sun, when my hands were sore and I was ready to go back to the beach, my kayak started rocking violently with each wave. I was maybe hundred meters from shore, and had some flashes of panic as I realized that there was more water than appropriate in the bottom of the kayak, and it really wasn't supposed to be so tippy.

And then I capsized. And I'm very impressed with myself, in hindsight, for not completely flipping out in panic at that point. I'm not a good swimmer, I was far from shore, and the water here wasn't clear enough to see but I knew that jellyfish loomed in those murky depths. I couldn't get the boat back over, and I yelled for Autumn who was paddling on one board while Bert was farther away on the one with the sail. As it turns out, there was an important plug that had disapparated and my kayak had slowly filled with water. I hoisted myself onto the extra windsurf board and paddled back, while Bert saved the day (or at least the kayak) by windsurfing to shore with Autumn on the back of his board, dragging the waterlogged kayak.

We drained an impressive amount of water out of that thing when we got it back to shore.

Bert's sunglasses were unfortunately lost when the boat tipped over, but praise Poseidon that my (waterproof) camera did not drift out of my dress pocket when I was treading water. I could not otherwise have shared Autumn's windsurfing.

Do you want to know a secret?

I'm posting this now because, unfortunately, it's no longer a secret. Probably for the best.

I said before that most of the buildings on Soi Suan Son are vacant. It might be because the street is haunted, or it might be... actually I can't think of any other reason why someone wouldn't want to live here.

One of the most glorious vacant buildings is right at the bottom of the street across from the beach.



As in America, vacant buildings often have broken windows. They don't tend to be boarded up, though, and the strangest thing of all is that they don't tend to be full of beer bottles and dirty magazines, just dirt and rubble. Or the one I explored was, anyway.

The back of the building has a lovely view down the block.


(That's Autumn)

But the front of the building has a better view of the gulf.



And the roof, of course, has a great view of everything.



This building is was a strong candidate for Top Secret Clubhouse of the Fabulous Moustache Club.

What's in your head?

This week I discovered that it's possibly a bad idea for a couple of girls to go kayaking at night. There are rocks in the ocean. We had to carry the kayak across the beach for a bit but made it back safely. Back on the beach I came the closest I had yet to singing "Zombie" in Thailand, but the guitarist didn't know the whole song and neither did I.

Rocks, by the cold light of morning:


The next day I got to skip class to go on a fruitless field trip to the labor department. The staff of my school took the opportunity (being in the Big City of Rayong and all) to get the tires changed on the van, so I had a couple of hours at the mall to kill with Autumn. I've written before about this mall, where all the clothes are too small and quite expensive. What I discovered last time I went there, though, are the little glass karaoke rooms on the top floor. Autumn and I copied the Thai staff and rented one. It took awhile to figure out how to show actual karaoke instead of a music video with no lyrics, but once we got it down we got it down!



It was in this small glass room that I came even closer to singing "Zombie" than I had the previous night. The song in the catalogue was called "Zomble" which was apparently not a typo, and it was a crazy dance version of the song...with no lyrics on the screen. Foiled again!

The following day was New Years Eve which was fantastic! I have no pictures of the evening, but a group of us went to dinner at Christies and then moved to the Tawan Inn for karaoke! This time, Autumn and I requested "Zombie" right off the bat. We didn't want someone else to sing it before us, since it is probably the most popular English-language karaoke song in Thailand. I think we rocked it. Other karaoke highlights not sung by me include "My Heart Will Go On," "La Bamba," and "Looking Out My Back Door."

New Years Eve was great for other reasons, too. I've made sweeping changes in my life and it feels like a great opportunity to recognize that. I also got to see the fantastic Alan (who taught me to teach and now works in Singapore.) All the company was great, actually. There was dancing on the lawn! There were fireworks at midnight! We kept going until about 3:30 in the morning, but I felt plenty refreshed this morning. I only dislike the unfortunate pattern of singing karaoke at the Tawan Inn with awesome people who will shortly leave the country.

I hope that your 2010 or 2553 is fantastic!

It is perhaps worthy of note that almost every adjective in the preceding tale was going to be "fantastic" until I made a conscious effort to change most of them. I think "fantastic" might be the word of 2553.

Feeling near as faded as my jeans

The night of the king's birthday didn't hold just the excitement of parade, ceremony and abundant free food. After the ceremony, Autumn and I were invited to hang out with Bert's cool friends at the windsurf place. Now Bert's pretty much the coolest guy in Ban Phe, with his aloofness and his irony and his janky fabulous old Mercedes. Autumn and I were confident that if we did not end up covered in pig's blood, this was going to be an awesome time.

Bert's cool windsurfing friends are indeed pretty cool. His friend Ter, who I had met before a few times and whose name I hope I am not misspelling (*I was misspelling it but have now corrected it--Ter is pronounced like "Duh,") was playing guitar and some dozen or fifteen windsurfers and windsurfer groupies were singing and drinking and generally being awesome. I practiced my Thai a little. I regretted still not knowing the words to "Zombie," but did sing the first verse of a few songs in English. It was great.

As the evening went on, Autumn and I decided to go swimming-or-kayaking. Autumn wanted to go kayaking, but my thought process was that my jeans would get wet, so I would have to take them off and if I take off my jeans I might as well just go swimming. So that's what we did. We put our jeans on the rocks by the shore and went swimming in tee shirts and underfrillies. Bert and Ter, having witnessed our decision-making skills, dragged some kayaks into the water and we all went kayaking around Ban Phe harbor at night, with only the light from the moon and the piers and the festival. It was beautiful. And when Ter and I returned to the beach, I discovered that the tide had come in and my pants had been taken by the sea.

Oh how magical evenings can turn sour, even without pigs blood. My fairly nice Seiko watch was in the pocket of those cheap Old Navy jeans. I scoured the shoreline with some of the cool windsurf people but it became clear that my pants were at sea, and it remained unclear whether I would see them again. I was lent a pair of board shorts and lay shivering in a beachside hammock, contemplating my pathetic life for a bit before the other kayakers returned and we searched the shore again.

Lo! What dark matter was this teasing Autumns feet with each wave? My jeans! And my watch! Still ticking! The bountiful ocean was feeling generous that night after teaching us a lesson in humility-and-leaving-our-pants-above-the-tide-line.

Autumn's pants would not wash ashore until the following day, but we made the shameful trek back to the windsurf place in the morning to retrieve my pants, at least, and to cheer for our new friends.

She hit the flo'

My apologies, folks. Aside from having a generally uninteresting life lately, and a cold for the last few days, I haven't been taking my camera with me when I go out (on mundane errands) and thus have absolutely nothing to blog about!

Evidence: the highlight of the last week, until tonight, was taking a trip to the pharmacy in town to get cold medicine. It was a highlight because it afforded me the chance to ride side-saddle on a motorbike taxi (I was wearing a pencil skirt for work.) I'm so reckless. The pharmacy here is wonderful. My medicine was 20 baht, about $.60. Then I took a songthaew back to my school (these pickup trucks with two covered benches in the bed act as our public transportation here.) As accomplished as I felt after running this important errand, I felt that I couldn't blog about it because I had no pictures. So I didn't. Ha.

Tonight was different. The king's birthday is on Saturday, and this is a huge holiday in Thailand. Everyone is supposed to wear pink king's shirts this year (don't worry; I bought mine on Monday) and walk in a parade. I'm not sure how it works if the whole town walks in the parade, but they invited all of my school's employees so it doesn't seem like they would turn anyone down.

Anyway, Ban Phe is busy with preparation for the celebration this weekend. The main drag along the beach is turning into a market, and a big stage and a carnival materialized along it. I had to investigate this with the other immersion teacher, and we first came across the rollercoaster which looked freshly assembled so we decided to try it out. It cost as much as my cold medicine, but it was worth it. I think that the extra (or not-yet-assembled) parts piled in the center of the rollercoaster really added to the thrill. There was also a carny baby asleep in a hammock suspended under the track.

And the reason I can post a blog tonight is that I used my phone to take this:


That is the crazy blacklight disco bumper car ride at the carnival. Bumpercars were fun. I crashed into many Thai children.

With luck, the king's day parade will be a much-photographed spectacle. If not, rest assured I will find something to blog about, now that I can just take pictures with my phone.

Monkey Baron vs 10 Humans in Helmets: The Musical

There is an abandoned temple near Ban Phe that is overrun with monkeys. I love monkeys! My decorating scheme at home is mostly pictures, figures and masks of monkeys. It's kind of ridiculous. So I jumped at the opportunity to visit the monkey temple on Saturday.



I hopped on the back of a motorbike and ventured with a group of ten TEFLers to the fabled temple. One of our group had visited the temple on his own before, and he led the way. We made a brief stop at a roadside stand to buy big bunches of green bananas for 20 baht (about 70 cents) a bunch. It had been suggested that we leave our helmets on. I joked that we might end up barricaded in the abandoned temple, subsisting on bananas as monkeys methodically sought a way in. Ha.

As we approached the sacred grounds, we entered a less-abandoned area with a huge staircase going up the hill. The railings of the staircase were five-headed snakes. Rather than climb the stairs, we followed the road up the hill to the beautiful temple. The surrounding trees were infested with small monkeys. One or two was carrying a baby on its stomach or back. The monkeys were adorable and a little shy. They loved bananas but only a few of them were brave enough to come very close for them.







Then there was this guy. He's the Baron of this particular band of monkeys and he did not seem to appreciate our visit. When one of our group bent down to hand him a banana, he bared his teeth and ran at her, which was terrifying. We tried throwing what was left of our bananas at him to make him happy, but he had no interest in them and continued towards the group of six or seven of us as we backed away from the temple, the angry Monkey Baron, our motorbikes and our companions.



Inside the temple gate, the others continued to feed the nice monkeys and take some amazing pictures. Outside the gate, I was completely terrified and so were most of my companions. Monkey Baron ran at us a couple of times and we backed further down the hill. He sat and stared at us. In our frantic fear, we attempted to scare him by singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." He was not amused. Finally we realized that there were still some bananas in one of the backpacks. In the hope that the Baron could smell them and that was why he hated us, these last bananas were tossed toward the jungle in an attempt to get him to follow. It worked, after a fashion, and he moved to the side of the road. We hurried past him, back to the temple and our bikes.

Back at the temple, the few people who had stayed behind were still taking pictures. At some silent signal, the monkeys retreated suddenly into the jungle.



We cautiously rode back down to the base of the staircase, wary of any attempts the Baron might make to have his troops jump from the trees and attack our faces as we tried to leave.

Safe at the bottom of the staircase, we put on our best monkey faces and laughed at ourselves.

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.

First Weekend in Ban Phe

My first week of teacher training is complete.

Saturday I rode on the back of a motorbike around Ban Phe. I actually tried to drive a motorbike, much to the amusement of the hotel housekeepers who were hanging out of the window laughing at me. Jerk forward, screech to a halt, jerk forward, lean sideways, screech to a halt. I'm sure you'll have no difficulty visualizing this. I'm much better as a passenger. I don't think they make motorbikes with training wheels.

In Bangkok and here in Ban Phe there are motorbikes all over the roads but helmets are rare. Some of them pile on three plus people, including children on their laps. I've seen women ride sidesaddle. They don't really have enforced traffic rules so the motorbikes dart in between cars when they can. As a result, at a stoplight there is always a hoarde of motorbikes blazing forward first when the light turns green.


This fella was hanging out in my condiment tray.

Is it sad that it took me until Saturday to get past my knees in the ocean? It was a hot day, and shortly after sundown I took a dip in the warm ocean. I've never been in a warm ocean before, and it was wonderful. I luckily missed the torrential end-of-monsoon thunderstorm, which waited until I was safe and dry in the restaurant/motorbike rental/convenience store/Internet cafe next to the Condochain.

When the rain let up, I walked back to Condochain to the cacophony of the competing karaoke bars on either side of the hotel. I think that the one next to my side of the building has the advantage. Being in a covered pavilion outdoors, the flashing disco lights draw people and moths alike and the music has a much straighter path through the crack where my sliding glass door doesn't slide all the way shut.

Sunday five of us went to Khao Chamao national park. This trip was amazing. I don't know what I was expecting; we knew there were waterfalls and wildlife (elephants and tigers and bears, oh my!)

The first wildlife I saw was this gigantic black and yellow spider:


The hike to the waterfalls required a park ranger as an escort, and they did not let us bring food or water to the hiking trail. It turned out to be a 2.6 kilometer hike each way, but it was very intense. It was an uphill climb through the jungle. The trail went up and through little streams, and required a lot of energy to find the best place to step among the rocks and tree roots. There were about six waterfalls along the trail, and of course they were beautiful but so was just walking through the jungle. The sounds were amazing, the flora was amazing, the sudden drop in temperature as I stepped around a corner and into view of a waterfall was just amazing!



I bought a bag of fish food for 10 baht (33 cents) at the desk where we gave up our water bottles. The first (or second?) waterfall we passed had hoards of fish beaching themselves to get at this food. I tried out my camera's underwater capabilities here, which was a little tricky since I couldn't see the viewfinder.



The hike was grueling, especially without water. Up near the top, we passed an area with a very zoo-ish smell. The guide said it was tiger. We didn't actually meet a tiger. When I emerged from the jungle after four hours (I think?) I was covered in a slimy film of sweat, sunscreen and insect repellant. And leeches. Also leeches.

I pulled this sucker off my ankle:



It was so worth it though!





It started to rain just as we were leaving the jungle, and I had lunch at the park under a little pavilion while the rain turned into a downpour. The largest animal we met at the park was a deer.



One can rent a bungalow and stay the night at the park, which I think would be amazing. After returning to the Condochain I took a dip in the warm ocean and took pictures.



I tried to get a picture with an awesome wave crashing behind me, but it didn't work.

Giant White Lady goes shopping

I now have a Thai bank account with an ATM card and everything. Last night I visited Rayong (the largest city in the province) with most of my classmates for a shopping trip. The mall was disheartening. I don't enjoy clothes shopping, but I was looking for short-sleeved button-up shirts and I found some pretty ones. I asked the sales lady if she had big ones (with an accompanying gesture--I am very eloquent.) She dug around and presented me with a shirt.

The tag said "XL - US 8."

The next stop was the giant TESCO-LOTUS. Tesco is from the UK, and is a lot like Wal*Mart. They sell clothes and electronics and groceries. Here I was so pleased to find shirts up to 3X, for 200 to 250 baht! I bought four XXL's.

Behind the Tesco in Rayong there was a night market. The night market sold pirated cds and games, clothing and all sorts of tasty food. For dinner I bought squid-on-a-stick and was happily looking forward to walking around the market eating my squid from its stick. Instead, the vendor slid the squid off of the stick for me, cut it up into bite-size pieces, and put it into a small bag with cucumber and some sort of sweet sauce. I did get a new stick with which to eat my squid pieces, so it wasn't a disappointment. It was tasty.

Today's picture is a gecko on a sign at the monastery where I go to school.



(I posted this the morning after I wrote it, and my intestines might regret the squid-on-a-stick.)