The Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand

Now that we've finished the rigorous CELTA credential program and have begun the much more lightweight TEYL (Teaching English to Young Learners), we've had time to pick up being tourists again. We visited the highly recommended Grand Palace which is the big time Buddhist temple here in Bangkok. Everything that appears to be the color gold, is actually 24 karat gold leaf. The palace consists of many temples, and a miniature replica of Angkor Wat -- the 12th century temple located in Cambodia.

Our CELTA Students, Bangkok, Thailand

Here's a picture from our last day on the course. This is the elementary level group of students we had. We feel so relieved to be finished and have our credential, but looking back, we really enjoyed working with the students. It was a great course.

Chinatown, Bangkok, Thailand

We met up with Eric's friend, Jimmy, last night who's been traveling the world for years now and is especially acquainted with Southeast Asia. We decided to go into Chinatown since Eric and I have never explored that part of Bangkok. It really felt like a whole different world when we got into Chinatown - the brightly lit signs in Chinese characters, the restaurants offering bird's nest soup, and all the shops full of dried medicinal herbs.

One of the first things Jimmy asked us was, "What do you think of all the rats?" And of course, Eric and I ask, "What rats?" We haven't noticed a single rat. Jimmy was incredulous. He couldn't believe that we didn't encounter rats at our last place. He's staying right next door to the place we were at. He continued to tell the story of the huge rats in the building, how they come up through the drains in the bathroom, and how they're so fat that they often get stuck in the pipes. His story left me thinking about how we probably lucked out in getting the less dingy place right next door.

After our bowl of noodles, we're walking along the sidewalks, and to prove his point about the rats, Jimmy points to a massive rat's head sticking out behind a pile of trash bags. Suddenly, that's all I see. There are rats everywhere. They're behind the trash bags; they're running past us carrying huge chunks of food in their mouths; their tails are sticking out from under boxes.

And if I hadn't been grossed out enough, Jimmy made sure to mention how likely it was that they could bite you if you accidentally startled one and then rabies would be imminent.

I hope it's not one of those things where all of a sudden you see something you never noticed before, and then that's all you notice. We're left wondering if the rats are just way more visible in Chinatown because we've never seen them before. It was late in the evening and there were trash bags full of the day's trash all over the sidewalks.

CELTA at ECC Bangkok

We're beginning our fourth week of the course and are ready for it to be over. It's been extremely difficult and the pace, pressures, and workload are unbelievable. I brought my camera in the other day and snapped a few shots of the facility. It's actually a really nice place to train and everyone we are studying with is really kind and helpful. We are 17 total, made up of people from the U.S., England, Australia, Scotland ,Canada, and couple from Singapore (who are technically native English speakers). Our students are mostly young adult refugees from Sri Lanka, the Congo, Laos, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Somalia. They will eventually be placed in various countries and learning English to some degree is a requirement. They are all very sweet, extremely motivated, and wonderful to teach. We both look forward to continuing with this type of teaching in the future. It's simply the observation and critique that we can't wait to leave behind.

The Apartment Rules, Bangkok

Motorcycle Taxis, Bangkok, Thailand

Every neighborhood has a small fleet of boys on scooters waiting to bring you from the main roads to your door step. The buses, subways, and sky-trains will drop you off on the main roads, and if you're too lazy to walk the block or two into your neighborhood to get home, you can pay a few baht to one of these guys and hop on the back of his bike. Every single side street has these guys waiting around on the corner where it meets the major road. The smaller side streets (sois) have just a few guys to cover their neighborhood, and the larger side streets have a long queue of bikers waiting their turn to handle the demand. Interestingly, often you'll see women riding side saddle on the backs of these bikes, which looks horribly precarious to me as the driver zooms off like an eager pizza delivery boy trying to hurry back to pick up his next fare. We have no need to use this service, fortunately we live right off the main road.

The Dollar Store, Bangkok, Thailand

Pam mentioned this once, and it's a really accurate description -- Bangkok is like a giant $1 store. Nearly everything costs roughly a dollar or under. It doesn't matter if it's a full entrée or a simple beverage. They're each about a dollar. 34 baht is a dollar and nearly anything you might want to eat ranges from 20-45 baht.

That brings me to my next point. There was some curiosity before we left the states about whether a Thai Iced Tea is simply called an Iced Tea if you're in Thailand. I HAVE THE ANSWER! It's called an Iced Milk Tea. They seem to generally have 2 kinds of tea at most low budget restaurants, green tea or red tea. Red seems to taste like the Thai iced tea we're familiar with whether it has milk in it or not. And yes, it's roughly a dollar depending on where you buy it.

Fried Rice Balls, Bangkok, Thailand

September 3, 2009

So the cheap food options haven't been what I expected. It tends to be very oily, spicy, sweet, or salty. Plus, proccessed meat is in abundance - entrees are full of proccessed seafood or pork balls, bright pink hot dogs, or other strange unidentifiable meat parts. Don't get me wrong - I love processed meat like Spam and hotdogs. But I do like having real meat more often. I think we're figuring it out now and came across some really really good things, and in one day we had -

For Lunch:
thai/chinese dim sum style food for 65 baht ($2) total for me and Eric

* fried sticky rice balls - green curry flavor and chicken basil
* steamed thick rice noodle stuffed with carrots, bamboo shoots, and green onions (think shrimp wrapped in those thick stacks of noodles at dim sum)
* pan fried version of the above
* egg tart and a corn tart (like an egg tart with corn pieces)

For Dinner:
100 baht ($3) total

* very nice green curry
* fried tofu stir fried with pork and mushrooms

Eric and I were both happy and full at the end of each meal. I'm looking forward to more fried sticky rice balls in my future.

Lumpini Park, Bangkok, Thailand

August 21

Lumpini Park is one of the largest parks in Bangkok's city center. We had been staying near it for the last week, but we simply used the park as a landmark to orient ourselves when wandering around Bangkok. We learned there was a public pool in the park. So, in an effort to keep cool, we walked over to check it out.

It's the average city park. It is clean and does provide many park activities for Bangkok residents. There's a pool, an outside weight room (like Muscle Beach), small manmade lakes, trees, exercising people, people pickinig under trees. Everything about it was what you would expect, except for the gigantic iguanas swimming and hanging out along the lakes edges. It was pretty alarming. I regret that I don't have a picture of it.

Moon Cafe, Bangkok, Thailand

Moon Cafe
Atop the Banyan Tree Hotel on Sathon road in Bangkok, the Moon Cafe bar and restaurant is a must experience. It sits on the 63rd floor in the open air. Drink prices are outrageously expensive for Thai standards at $5 - $10 U.S. per drink, but it's definitely worth at least one. There was a crazy electrical storm in the sky while we were there. Luckily it was off in the distance and didn't produce any rain over head.

Boat Ride along the Chao Phraya River (and red shirt rally), Bangkok, Thailand

The Chao Phraya
We took a public river bus along the Chao Phraya as an economical river cruise -- price: 13 BT (38 cents). We got off at the N13 stop and walked around toward the Kao San Road area, which was where young tourists hang out. Everything was overpriced and westernized so we continued on wandering around and ran across a red shirt ralley (see video below).


































































































The Red Shirts Are Coming!
We stumbled apon a red shirt rally. Tons of people pouring out of tour busses and just hanging out trying to find their friends, or slowly walking along the sidewalk. They weren't threatening or angry, just being there. Being a presence as participants was enough to express their political opinion.

Chit Lom, Bangkok, Thailand

Chit Lom

We took the subway and then the skytrain from our new place in south Lumpini to the Chit Lom area where our course will be held so we could get a visual on it. The subway was incredibly clean and fast, and seemed to be 4 levels deep with different lines. It was very intuitive and easy to figure out how to use it. The skytrain was nice too, and it seems you may often have to use both systems to get to where you're going. Next we'd like to try the water transit system, as the canals look really cool too.

Inside one of the super malls we found a food court that blew our minds. It was so cheap and restaurant quality. We ordered a beautiful crab fried rice and papaya salad and watched while it was prepared fresh on the spot. They sold beer with an interesting tower option that was their version of a pitcher but had a tube down the middle for ice and a dispenser tap.

The area reminded me a lot of Times Square in New York. Mega glitz and electronic video-advertising jumbo-trons all over the place. Many ultra high rise buildings with first rate architecture. What was striking was the economic disparity in the area. You had extremely high end shopping plazas right next to people living in what looked like condemned buildings.

Thumbs Up for Me and Eric, Bangkok, Thailand

August 17, 2008

I've never really given much thought to the fact that Eric and I are an interracial couple. No one in San Francisco ever stares at us. Then, we get to Bangkok, and I'm suddenly aware of eyes constantly on us. Since everyone here thinks that I'm Thai, I'm guessing that people are thinking one of three things:

- Eric's a sex tourist, and I'm his rented Thai girlfriend
- I'm Eric's mail order bride
- Eric's an ex-pat and I'm his Thai girlfriend

This old Thai man, saw us in the mall and started speaking to me in Thai. He pointed to me and Eric, and actually gave me a thumbs up. I'm not sure what to make of that. Does that mean, "Good for you girl - You've got a farang to pay your bills" or was the thumbs up intended for Eric? He could've been congratulating us because we make such a handsome couple, but I highly doubt that.

Even the expats are confused. Yesterday, an English expat asked where we were from, and asked if we were in a long term relationship because my English was excellent. He couldn't believe I didn't speak with a Thai accent. Even when I explained that I was born in California, a native English speaker, and my parents were from the Philippines, he still couldn't wrap his mind around my American accent. So, he finally understood when I said, "I'm from LA, I have a Californian accent."

Sometimes, I find myself making an effort to speak in the most perfect, clear English when in public. I don't know why it matters so much to me. I guess I see an older Caucasian man with a young Thai boy, and I think, "EW.." So, I don't want people to see Eric and I together and have the same thought. It's probably just the super, ultra sensitive, politically correct side of me that cares. Whatever the case, I'm getting a kick out of it.

First Day In Bangkok

Weather
We expected it to be raining with intermittent thunder showers for the first 4 days in Bangkok but so far it's been dry, and by dry I mean unbelievably humid and very hot... but not raining. Yesterday was very sunny most of the day, while today is a little overcast but still very hot. We drink more water than you would believe in an effort to remain hydrated after sweating so much of it out.

Accommodations
Our first two nights were spent at a nice hotel in the Si Lom neighborhood, which turns out to have quite a bit of night life. In fact, when we first arrived at about 2am we were awake and decided to wander around for a while. We saw many people out and about well into 4am.

We had a full day of shopping yesterday for our next place to stay. We are looking for something a bit less expensive and saw everything from the very rank, to the possibly livable, to the well overpriced. We found some good options and are debating between 2 places now, which we'll stay in for only 2 or 3 days before finding another place closer to where our course will be held.

Food
Our first morning we used a coupon we had for a complimentary breakfast at our hotel. The Japanese breakfast option looked the best, and it consisted of pork katsu, rice, strange pickled things, salty seaweed flake sheets, miso soup, and rice. While walking around we stopped at a street vendor for a bag of corn that had been cut fresh from the cob, and a bag of rambutan fruit.
















Our first real Thai meal was at a small alley restaurant and we ordered green curry with vegetables, and shrimp with a basil and chili sauce. Both dishes were extremely spicy even for our normally spicy pallets.

This morning we had our first dose of street food -- tom yam seafood soup(which ended up having some chicken in it too), and stir fried mixed vegetables(which turned out to be a deep fried pork and onion omelet... um, language barrier). Both were very tasty. We were also served unwanted cups of watery tea. We have been avoiding unbottled or unboiled water. We took a few sips, I'll let you know.




















































Wildlife
We had heard to stay away from the wild dogs around town. They are all over the place and look pretty mangy, but they seem to keep to themselves. We also see a lot of wild cats that don't look too healthy either. No mosquitos so far, and a very few but really large and fast beetles from time to time rush past in front of you on the sidewalk.