I am almost shuddering at the amount of time that has passed since I was last on here updating this. I could list off a plethera of reasons, but I won't bore you.
That said, I still don't have anything remarkable to share. (maybe the reason that I haven't typed anything of significance in 3 weeks...)
Life goes on here -- it's very strange to have things continue on as they were before. It's very strange to realize that things continue on in Thailand without me. I guess that's inevitable.
well...
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Friday, May 13, 2005
travel speed experiments
Alright - again, I have nothing specatular or amazingly wonderful to say except that I'm getting married.
OK. that's a lie.
It's not even close. Just thought I should throw in a shock statement for kicks and giggles.
I WENT to a wedding last weekend though. A big huge congratulations, a big round of applause and one more toonie to Kenn and Cora.
Since coming home, I've discovered a profound truth of life and travel. YOUR HEART DOES NOT MOVE AT THE SAME SPEED AS THE REST OF YOUR BODY. You may think that you are prepared to move back home, and you may even be excited about it. No matter how much you tell yourself this, it sometimes is not the case. I think that when you travel, your heart takes a few months to catch up with the rest of your body. You may be physically in Canada, but your heart is somewhere over the ocean. You're pretty sure that it departed Thailand, but apparently it forgot to arrive with your luggage on the other side. Right now, you're pretty sure that your heart's in a paddle boat, slowly making its way across the ocean, and it may take a while to catch up with you. Until then, you're closer to the Thai side of the ocean, and that's where all your thoughts are....
oh well.
Anyway, even though that may be true, I'm doing well. I've been working as a babysitter for my cousins for the past two weeks, and it's a good way to ease into society. (except for the potty training part, and the tantrum part...) It's been good to get to know my family again, and learn what everyone has changed to be like now. I've semi-moved out of home; I'm home on the weekends and occasionally during the week, driving my brother's old truck. Strange to get into a groove again.
Anyway, nothing earth shattering has happened here.
I should carry on. Have a marvellous week. Hope to hear from you soon!
r
OK. that's a lie.
It's not even close. Just thought I should throw in a shock statement for kicks and giggles.
I WENT to a wedding last weekend though. A big huge congratulations, a big round of applause and one more toonie to Kenn and Cora.
Since coming home, I've discovered a profound truth of life and travel. YOUR HEART DOES NOT MOVE AT THE SAME SPEED AS THE REST OF YOUR BODY. You may think that you are prepared to move back home, and you may even be excited about it. No matter how much you tell yourself this, it sometimes is not the case. I think that when you travel, your heart takes a few months to catch up with the rest of your body. You may be physically in Canada, but your heart is somewhere over the ocean. You're pretty sure that it departed Thailand, but apparently it forgot to arrive with your luggage on the other side. Right now, you're pretty sure that your heart's in a paddle boat, slowly making its way across the ocean, and it may take a while to catch up with you. Until then, you're closer to the Thai side of the ocean, and that's where all your thoughts are....
oh well.
Anyway, even though that may be true, I'm doing well. I've been working as a babysitter for my cousins for the past two weeks, and it's a good way to ease into society. (except for the potty training part, and the tantrum part...) It's been good to get to know my family again, and learn what everyone has changed to be like now. I've semi-moved out of home; I'm home on the weekends and occasionally during the week, driving my brother's old truck. Strange to get into a groove again.
Anyway, nothing earth shattering has happened here.
I should carry on. Have a marvellous week. Hope to hear from you soon!
r
Saturday, April 30, 2005
for the lack of anything better...
As many of you have figured out, I'm not in Thailand anymore!! Wow. How strange is that? The strange part is not that I'm home, but more that I'm not going back. I've been sitting in front of my computer/university calendar trying to figure out courses and pre-req's, and all of the ins and outs of applying to university. I'm mostly just bored and decided to update this blog for lack of anything better to do....
The last 2 weeks have been really good (wow - 2 weeks already!!). I arrived here last Monday, and on Wednesday, the older brother of one of my students came to vist. Rit, who is 9, came to visit for a little over a week. It was really neat to show him things he doesn't usually see. We shot a .22, and a bow, visited my uncle & aunt's sheep (thx uncle sam!!), played on the playground, watched Steven's baseball game, visted the library, learned how to ride a bike, and did a whole shwack of other things. It was good! He left on Thursday night, and now I feel like I have nothing to do. Good, and yet, strange! (I guess it's a small pre-taste of parenting.)
It's curious - how I feel about being home right now. Everyone expects you to be jubilant that you're home, but really, I don't feel that. It's a strange mix - I'm happy to be home, yet it's frustrating to be home. I'm sad that I'm away from Thailand because I love it so much, and yet, I'm glad that I'm here. I want to be there, I want to be here. It's unfortunate that I can't always have what I want. It's good to know that God will always give me what I need, and what is best for me, even though I don't want it right now, or see how it's good. Until I see it, he'll remain the same. How wonderful! It's good to know that it doesn't all rest on me, especially with jet-lag and culture shock hanging around my head!
Have a wonderful week! I'm going to go make some coffee and decide what my major's going to be.
r
The last 2 weeks have been really good (wow - 2 weeks already!!). I arrived here last Monday, and on Wednesday, the older brother of one of my students came to vist. Rit, who is 9, came to visit for a little over a week. It was really neat to show him things he doesn't usually see. We shot a .22, and a bow, visited my uncle & aunt's sheep (thx uncle sam!!), played on the playground, watched Steven's baseball game, visted the library, learned how to ride a bike, and did a whole shwack of other things. It was good! He left on Thursday night, and now I feel like I have nothing to do. Good, and yet, strange! (I guess it's a small pre-taste of parenting.)
It's curious - how I feel about being home right now. Everyone expects you to be jubilant that you're home, but really, I don't feel that. It's a strange mix - I'm happy to be home, yet it's frustrating to be home. I'm sad that I'm away from Thailand because I love it so much, and yet, I'm glad that I'm here. I want to be there, I want to be here. It's unfortunate that I can't always have what I want. It's good to know that God will always give me what I need, and what is best for me, even though I don't want it right now, or see how it's good. Until I see it, he'll remain the same. How wonderful! It's good to know that it doesn't all rest on me, especially with jet-lag and culture shock hanging around my head!
Have a wonderful week! I'm going to go make some coffee and decide what my major's going to be.
r
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Songkran
This past week was Songkran. It's the Thai New Year's festival, and it's one of the only national holidays that almost EVERYONE gets off. It's also celebrated in a strange way -- a HUGE COUNTRY WIDE WATERFIGHT. For at least 3 days during the week (this year, it was from wednesday to friday), everyone grabs their water guns, and sets up buckets with hoses and dumps water on everyone else. Everyone who's not standing on the side of the road is in the pack of a pickup truck, ready for the fight with huge tubs of water, guns and jasmine powder. You may think that I am exaggerating. I'm not.
Colleen and I took a walk down to the market on Thursday, and we ended up joining a family who had a bucket set up outside of their business. It was so neat to play with them, and have the little girls giggle when Colleen and I poured water on their heads. We splashed everyone - Colleen and I would stand in the center of the road with our water guns and spray the people on the non-aircon busses through the windows. HILARIOUS. It was a fun way to start Songkran for me - I missed the festivities last year, and this was a great way to ease into it.
On Friday, our Pastor invited us to come on the pickup truck he was renting. There ended up being 9 of us on the back of this really old rickety truck, driving around splashing and getting splashed. It was hilarious. It took us 20 minutes to empty the first round of water, and then our driving took us back to the river to fill up. (for those of you who don't know the river, it's DISTGUSTING) But, the water was free, and we couldn't argue with the driver, so we filled up and were on our way again. Pretty soon, we were slowing down to stop to splash a group, and the guys onthe side of the road started pointing and shouting, and we looked down, only to see that our wheel was rolling away and we had broked our back axel!!!! We all jumped out, and the thai guys started dumping water on our now smoking pickup. They decided that the truck being in the center of the road was a bad idea, so they all tried to come and lift it up. Problem: we just filled up with water! SO, there went out water, and once the truck was empty, they stopped a bunch of motorcyclists and asked them to help get our truck out of the way. It's a hilarious thing to see 35 Thai guys picking up the back end of a truck and rolling it off the center of the road.
We waited an hour for a new truck, but finally one appeared, and we filled up with water yet again and proceeded to be driven to one of the main party streets in our area. It was completely nuts and totally hilarious! Music playing, people dancing, and almost everyone is drinking. There were so many people crammed onto the street and into trucks and on motorbikes that it took us almost 2 hours to go 3 or 4 blocks. Fortunately or unfortunately, we were the ONLY white foreigners in the area, so all of the crazy drunk dancing splashing Thai people paid special attention to us. We were so wet, and covered with Jasmine powder by the end, it was crazy. But it was a good time.
Songkran is one of those things that sounds like a joke, but it's not. I sit here and wonder - 'how is it possible that I never heard about this??'. I have no idea how this crazy, silly event has escaped the notice of us North Americans. Consider yourself lucky. You are no longer in the dark :)
Colleen and I took a walk down to the market on Thursday, and we ended up joining a family who had a bucket set up outside of their business. It was so neat to play with them, and have the little girls giggle when Colleen and I poured water on their heads. We splashed everyone - Colleen and I would stand in the center of the road with our water guns and spray the people on the non-aircon busses through the windows. HILARIOUS. It was a fun way to start Songkran for me - I missed the festivities last year, and this was a great way to ease into it.
On Friday, our Pastor invited us to come on the pickup truck he was renting. There ended up being 9 of us on the back of this really old rickety truck, driving around splashing and getting splashed. It was hilarious. It took us 20 minutes to empty the first round of water, and then our driving took us back to the river to fill up. (for those of you who don't know the river, it's DISTGUSTING) But, the water was free, and we couldn't argue with the driver, so we filled up and were on our way again. Pretty soon, we were slowing down to stop to splash a group, and the guys onthe side of the road started pointing and shouting, and we looked down, only to see that our wheel was rolling away and we had broked our back axel!!!! We all jumped out, and the thai guys started dumping water on our now smoking pickup. They decided that the truck being in the center of the road was a bad idea, so they all tried to come and lift it up. Problem: we just filled up with water! SO, there went out water, and once the truck was empty, they stopped a bunch of motorcyclists and asked them to help get our truck out of the way. It's a hilarious thing to see 35 Thai guys picking up the back end of a truck and rolling it off the center of the road.
We waited an hour for a new truck, but finally one appeared, and we filled up with water yet again and proceeded to be driven to one of the main party streets in our area. It was completely nuts and totally hilarious! Music playing, people dancing, and almost everyone is drinking. There were so many people crammed onto the street and into trucks and on motorbikes that it took us almost 2 hours to go 3 or 4 blocks. Fortunately or unfortunately, we were the ONLY white foreigners in the area, so all of the crazy drunk dancing splashing Thai people paid special attention to us. We were so wet, and covered with Jasmine powder by the end, it was crazy. But it was a good time.
Songkran is one of those things that sounds like a joke, but it's not. I sit here and wonder - 'how is it possible that I never heard about this??'. I have no idea how this crazy, silly event has escaped the notice of us North Americans. Consider yourself lucky. You are no longer in the dark :)
Monday, April 11, 2005
Laos (not LAEOHS - Lah-oh)
So, school ended on the 25th, and I updated this on the 26th, and then I was absent for a good amount of time. Let me fill you in on that time.
The week following school was me organizing and sorting, cleaning and prepping for next year's kindergarten teachers. I mostly finished.... (heh heh)
On Thursday night, Colleen and I got into a taxi and headed for the train station... except that she forgot the train tickets on the coffee table in the living room. (OOPS!) We did a u-turn and managed to retrieve the tickets and make the train anyway. We spent the night on the train and arrived at one of the northern border cities around 8am. (that's a total guess.) That day we spent in transit; jumping through all the hoops that crossing the border entails. Eventually we made it to Laos' capital city - Vientiene.
We spent Friday night in Vientiene, wandering around the city and seeing the sights. We found an imitation 'Arch de triumph', which aparently has colored water fountians that go off at 9 and 5. (we missed that.)
Saturday was spent on a bus. A harrowing, nailbiting bus trip that took us from Vientiene to LuangPrabang, which is a city up in the mountians. The trip itself was INSANE - curving around, down, up and back through the mountians. The actual distance between Vientiene and LuangPrabang is 260km. It took us 10 HOURS. By the time we arrived in LuangPrabang, it was starting to get dark!
We spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday bumming around Luang Prabang in the rain! It's so insane. This is supposed to be HOT season, and we were freezing our butts off. It was probably between 16 and 18 degrees the whole time, with drizzling rain. When you're coming from 38 degree temperatures, you'll understand why we wore our sweaters the whole time. There was one day that we went to a coffee shop for breakfast, and ended up staying for lunch t0o because it was raining and we were reading. LuangPrabang is a very beautiful place. It's right on the river, and the pace is so slow there, it's almost a stop. LuangPrabang makes me feel like life in Thailand is rushed. Because of the rain, we didn't end up renting bikes or going hiking or anything, but I enjoyed the quiet and the time to read. I think Colleen was a bit bored, but we made it through all right.
We had decided to leave LP on Wednesday, and mercifully, God stopped the rain for us. Our chosen mode of transportation was a speed boat. Also an insane mode of transportation. The speedboat is the fastest way out of Laos. You can fly, take a bus back to Vientiene, take a bus to Thailand (21 hours later...), or you can take a speed boat. I wish I could describe accurately how small it was, and how painful it was to sit in that thing for 7 hours. It was basically sitting on the floor of a boat with your knees to your chin with someone right next to your elbow the WHOLE time. It was interesting. The highlights of the trip being when the boat broke down as we were stopped for lunch, and the started taking a hammer to the engine and pulling parts off. Luckily, we changed boats, and God took us safely to the land of smiles again. After reaching the border, we took a 5 hour minibus ride to ChiangMai.
We stayed in Chiang Mai with some friends who used to live in Nonthaburi with us. They're living there with their 3 kids, going to Thai language school. Staying with them was definately a breath of fresh air - it was good to talk with them, and laugh and enjoy the time together. We stayed with them and hung out in ChiangMai for a few days, and took the night train back to BKK just in time for church on Sunday.
The last couple of weeks have been a lot of travelling, but lots of fun. I'm glad that we went! Now I mostly have fun stuff to do - get clothes made, pack, clean, watch movies, be VERY VERY HOT, and get ready to come home! I look forward to being back on the "home" side of the ocean, but I'm sad to leave too. It's so good to know that God has worked out all the details for me to be here, and that he'll work out all the details for me to be there too!
have a wonderful week!
r
The week following school was me organizing and sorting, cleaning and prepping for next year's kindergarten teachers. I mostly finished.... (heh heh)
On Thursday night, Colleen and I got into a taxi and headed for the train station... except that she forgot the train tickets on the coffee table in the living room. (OOPS!) We did a u-turn and managed to retrieve the tickets and make the train anyway. We spent the night on the train and arrived at one of the northern border cities around 8am. (that's a total guess.) That day we spent in transit; jumping through all the hoops that crossing the border entails. Eventually we made it to Laos' capital city - Vientiene.
We spent Friday night in Vientiene, wandering around the city and seeing the sights. We found an imitation 'Arch de triumph', which aparently has colored water fountians that go off at 9 and 5. (we missed that.)
Saturday was spent on a bus. A harrowing, nailbiting bus trip that took us from Vientiene to LuangPrabang, which is a city up in the mountians. The trip itself was INSANE - curving around, down, up and back through the mountians. The actual distance between Vientiene and LuangPrabang is 260km. It took us 10 HOURS. By the time we arrived in LuangPrabang, it was starting to get dark!
We spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday bumming around Luang Prabang in the rain! It's so insane. This is supposed to be HOT season, and we were freezing our butts off. It was probably between 16 and 18 degrees the whole time, with drizzling rain. When you're coming from 38 degree temperatures, you'll understand why we wore our sweaters the whole time. There was one day that we went to a coffee shop for breakfast, and ended up staying for lunch t0o because it was raining and we were reading. LuangPrabang is a very beautiful place. It's right on the river, and the pace is so slow there, it's almost a stop. LuangPrabang makes me feel like life in Thailand is rushed. Because of the rain, we didn't end up renting bikes or going hiking or anything, but I enjoyed the quiet and the time to read. I think Colleen was a bit bored, but we made it through all right.
We had decided to leave LP on Wednesday, and mercifully, God stopped the rain for us. Our chosen mode of transportation was a speed boat. Also an insane mode of transportation. The speedboat is the fastest way out of Laos. You can fly, take a bus back to Vientiene, take a bus to Thailand (21 hours later...), or you can take a speed boat. I wish I could describe accurately how small it was, and how painful it was to sit in that thing for 7 hours. It was basically sitting on the floor of a boat with your knees to your chin with someone right next to your elbow the WHOLE time. It was interesting. The highlights of the trip being when the boat broke down as we were stopped for lunch, and the started taking a hammer to the engine and pulling parts off. Luckily, we changed boats, and God took us safely to the land of smiles again. After reaching the border, we took a 5 hour minibus ride to ChiangMai.
We stayed in Chiang Mai with some friends who used to live in Nonthaburi with us. They're living there with their 3 kids, going to Thai language school. Staying with them was definately a breath of fresh air - it was good to talk with them, and laugh and enjoy the time together. We stayed with them and hung out in ChiangMai for a few days, and took the night train back to BKK just in time for church on Sunday.
The last couple of weeks have been a lot of travelling, but lots of fun. I'm glad that we went! Now I mostly have fun stuff to do - get clothes made, pack, clean, watch movies, be VERY VERY HOT, and get ready to come home! I look forward to being back on the "home" side of the ocean, but I'm sad to leave too. It's so good to know that God has worked out all the details for me to be here, and that he'll work out all the details for me to be there too!
have a wonderful week!
r
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