mass email #?: "bizarre restaurants and mai suay"
greetings!!!!!!!!!!!!
back to the daily grind...mondays are always a little rough. my weekends here are filled with bliss and sanook (fun) and then monday morning, the alarm goes off at 6am...and back to the real world. or rather...as real as the world can be here.
things here are going....well...better every day. i mentioned i had been a little sick, and i think i am better...though i still cough like a banshee. i think i am finally getting used to the weather, and with it being monsoon season now, it can be 40 degrees (Celsius) one minute, and then raining buckets and 30 degrees the next. the change affects the thais really badly, and didn't bother me at first, but now i think my body just expects it to be hot as hell all the time.
school is going well...we had a little mishap last week that i didn't write about yet. in thailand, the teachers hit the students, full stop. they hit them. if they don't listen, if they don't line up "well," a metal ruler...YES METAL is thrust against their tiny brown legs or hands with the force of godzilla, also known as, the nazi thai teachers. they teachers always ask me why i do not hit the students. i tell them, because i am canadian, and in canada, if you hit a student, you are likely to a)go to jail, b)get fired or c)be hit back, harder, by many students. they laugh, but it's the truth. you don't hit kids. you don't hit, at all...in my opinion. i still remember when i was about 7 my mother (you will love me sharing this mom) trying to get me to listen or something, and she wound up really well to slap my tush, and i moved, and she slammed into the back of a chair and dislocated her finger. ha ha. i wish that would happen to the thai teachers. (once again, sorry mom). but last week, or rather, two fridays ago, mark lost his temper in class, and while being told all around to hit the kids, hit the kids hit the kids, he finally was at the end of his rope with a student and gave him a slap across the back of the head. this would be fine, if it weren't for one small detail. in thailand, the head is sacred. you never touch another person's head, and you CERTAINLY would never think of hitting someone in the head. mark, NOT BEING THAI AND ALL...didn't know this, or rather, doesn't have the same social conditioning to realize not to do it...and he got in trouble. not by the school...but after school...a teacher came to get him and said, "i think we have problem." the boy who had been hit had called his rough and tough older brother to come to school to beat the hell out of mark, who had also called the boy's uncle...a charmingly toothless motorbike taxi driver, who later showed up to perhaps finish mark in. if they had been let at him, i am fairly certain mark would not be alive today. he sought refuge in the art room at school...but they found him, and luckily there was staff there, so there was no fighting, and they talked it out. mark, however, was certain he was fired, and he almost was. our boss had to drive here from hat yai (7 hours) for a meeting on monday morning, conducted entirely in thai with no translation, and i suppose it was resolved. we didn't understand, but mark comes to school every day, and no one bats an eyelash, so i am guessing all the mumbojumbo was to say "don't hit." but it was a nice bit of drama for the school. yee haw!!!
the weekends here have been really great. i have been picking up a lot of thai from a good thai friend i have who teaches me something new every day. it's kind of funny...how hard the language is, but how simple at the same time. to ask a question, no matter who the subject, you say "mai" at the end. so, "is it good?" is "arroy mai" and "is it beautiful is "suay mai" and is it spicy is "ped mai?" and the answers to these questions, for yes, would be "arroy," "suay." "ped." or no, "mai arroy," "mai suay" "mai ped." it's so simple. and there are no opposites in thai. beautiful is "suay" and ugly is "mai suay." no subject, nothing. simple simple simple. but then you throw the tones in, and to say "nine white rice," is "kow kow kow." with different tones. WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE MORE WORDS? oye. moving on. i have been trying all sorts of good food...had frog, bones and all last week at a birthday party...order fish and it comes, full fish, head and all. something i swore i would never eat when i first got here, but turns out to be one of the most amazing things to order. i'm growing a palate for the thai food...it gets to be a lot after a while. so tonight i had a club sandwich...and precisely 11 french fries. massive portions here, i tell you.
this past weekend the english teachers were invited by one of the student's parents to stay in their hotel on the beach about 30 minutes by bike from phuket town, and so we went and stayed on friday night. it was beautiful! even though it was still so close it was nice to get away from town and to be on the beach. we were literally a three minute walk from the beach...over a shaky footbridge made out of bamboo. on saturday we found a little path that we rode down about a 45 degree angle on rocks and sand (the most dangerous thing i have done yet) to a little beach where there was NO ONE! we had the whole beach to ourselves all day...except for all the crabs. it is things like this that really make me happy. sitting on the beach on saturday i said to mark "i never want to leave this moment, right here," it was so surreal.
on friday night we went into patong, only 4 km from kamala where we were staying. patong is basically the las vegas of phuket, and i hadn't believed so until this moment. until last friday i had never been to patong at night, only by day, littered with Weiner schnitzel germans groping thai girls and families being had by the locals. but patong by night is something totally different. we went to a street called "soi eric," filled with "catoys" (ladyboys....a whole society on their own) and had a couple of drinks. i was tired from work, but still went, and i don't think i would believe it if i didn't see it for myself. there were ladyboys everywhere, and one told mark is was ESSENTIAL for him to touch his silicone breasts. mark being a nice gentleman, accepted. what a sight. all night he kept looking at me and saying "i really just felt a bloke's tits! awesome!" haha. classy town that patong is. as we were leaving soi eric a thai woman came up to me (i think it might have been a man, but i couldn't tell by this point.) and said "MAI SUAY!!!!!!!!" which means "YOU ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!" i did nothing to provoke it. thai women don't like farangs. i thought it was pretty funny...and well...rude, at the same time. after eric we went to the famous club called "banana," which has a bona fide dance floor. i know a british guy in phuket town who has a lounge here, and he has a sign that my thai friend read to me the other night. it says "this place is not for dancing." he asked the guy why, and david (brit) said that by law, in thailand, they are not allowed to dance. it is strictly forbidden. so they have to have this sign, and if someone comes in to enforce the law, they just say "i am sorry. i couldn't stop them. they are all insane." so everywhere you go has these signs, and there is no true dance floor. but somehow banana has slipped through the cracks and there is wicked music and a really big dance floor...so we had a good time and...well...danced!
i almost forgot...on our way to kamala on friday we got stopped by the police for a routine check of license, etc...and mark's bike wasn't inspected or something (we still don't understand.) and they held his bike until he went to pay the ticket at the police station. i didn't really want him to go alone...having heard the stories...all the damn stories of thai jails, so i went with him. we walked a little way to the station, through a chicken yard to this dark building on a hill. we went inside, and the officers were all chatting and having coffee, which i guess, is universal for police officers. but as mark was paying his ticket, i saw a pair of jeans on the officer's desk. not being able to keep my mouth shut i asked why they were there (in broken thai.) he said he had just bought them, and he really liked them, and they were only 1200 baht! (a lot for jeans here...in the market they are 150 baht...about $3 american) i didn't want to piss the guy off so i told them they were beautiful...and that he spoke good english (i told him in thai, because, in fact, his english was miserable.) he was looking at me a little weirdly...and then out of no where, this creepy guy walks in with a shopping bag full of jeans, ready for the buying! in the police station!!!!!!!!! they follow you everywhere!!!!!!!! you cannot walk ten feet in thailand without being asked if you want to buy something. so bizarre. in fact, at school today, there was a man outside my office who somehow slipped by security and followed me through the school to my class to see if i wanted to buy his sarongs!!!!!!!! the thai teachers had to chase him away. and our school is in gates, with security, set back from the road. how he got in there, i have no idea. but man, they never leave you alone!
last night we went to one of the most bizarre restaurants i have ever been to. brandi had been there last week with a friend of hers and said she wanted to take us. so caroline, brandi, tommy (my thai friend) and i went to this restaurant a bit out of town, where you show up, and walk to the bank of a river. you then proceed to hop onto a little floating raft thing with a shelter overhead, with a table in the middle and cushions on the floor. you order your food, and they give you some fish food, and you paddle yourself into the middle of a lake. while you wait for your food you throw a little bit of fish food in the water...and i was thinking we would be seeing minnows or some tiny little fish. but the fish in this lake were catfish about two feet long, jumping and snapping and going nuts for this food!!!!!!!!!!! tommy threw a lot in thinking it wouldn't be anything, and all of a sudden there were about 50 fish a meter from my face snapping and jumping. what a bizarre little place. the food was great, and we ate in the middle of the lake, which was quite nice. but something you would never see anywhere but thailand i think.
this weekend i am going away again...renting a car and driving 9 hours up the coast (not me driving....don't you worry. damn steering wheel is on the wrong side!!!) to a town called "hua hin." it's on the ocean and is where tommy is from...it should be interesting. he said there are never any farang there, and so i should be stared at plenty. if i don't write again it was because i have been sold to a fisherman for thirty fish. i leave all of my earthly belongings to my brother owen...because he has probably taken them all already anyway.
alright, i should get to bed. it's about 11 pm here, monday night. i hope you are all doing well, and keep up the emails. it looks like i will be writing some articles for the vermont standard starting in a couple of weeks, so be on the look out for more thai news in there!!!much love,
heather xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
back to the daily grind...mondays are always a little rough. my weekends here are filled with bliss and sanook (fun) and then monday morning, the alarm goes off at 6am...and back to the real world. or rather...as real as the world can be here.
things here are going....well...better every day. i mentioned i had been a little sick, and i think i am better...though i still cough like a banshee. i think i am finally getting used to the weather, and with it being monsoon season now, it can be 40 degrees (Celsius) one minute, and then raining buckets and 30 degrees the next. the change affects the thais really badly, and didn't bother me at first, but now i think my body just expects it to be hot as hell all the time.
school is going well...we had a little mishap last week that i didn't write about yet. in thailand, the teachers hit the students, full stop. they hit them. if they don't listen, if they don't line up "well," a metal ruler...YES METAL is thrust against their tiny brown legs or hands with the force of godzilla, also known as, the nazi thai teachers. they teachers always ask me why i do not hit the students. i tell them, because i am canadian, and in canada, if you hit a student, you are likely to a)go to jail, b)get fired or c)be hit back, harder, by many students. they laugh, but it's the truth. you don't hit kids. you don't hit, at all...in my opinion. i still remember when i was about 7 my mother (you will love me sharing this mom) trying to get me to listen or something, and she wound up really well to slap my tush, and i moved, and she slammed into the back of a chair and dislocated her finger. ha ha. i wish that would happen to the thai teachers. (once again, sorry mom). but last week, or rather, two fridays ago, mark lost his temper in class, and while being told all around to hit the kids, hit the kids hit the kids, he finally was at the end of his rope with a student and gave him a slap across the back of the head. this would be fine, if it weren't for one small detail. in thailand, the head is sacred. you never touch another person's head, and you CERTAINLY would never think of hitting someone in the head. mark, NOT BEING THAI AND ALL...didn't know this, or rather, doesn't have the same social conditioning to realize not to do it...and he got in trouble. not by the school...but after school...a teacher came to get him and said, "i think we have problem." the boy who had been hit had called his rough and tough older brother to come to school to beat the hell out of mark, who had also called the boy's uncle...a charmingly toothless motorbike taxi driver, who later showed up to perhaps finish mark in. if they had been let at him, i am fairly certain mark would not be alive today. he sought refuge in the art room at school...but they found him, and luckily there was staff there, so there was no fighting, and they talked it out. mark, however, was certain he was fired, and he almost was. our boss had to drive here from hat yai (7 hours) for a meeting on monday morning, conducted entirely in thai with no translation, and i suppose it was resolved. we didn't understand, but mark comes to school every day, and no one bats an eyelash, so i am guessing all the mumbojumbo was to say "don't hit." but it was a nice bit of drama for the school. yee haw!!!
the weekends here have been really great. i have been picking up a lot of thai from a good thai friend i have who teaches me something new every day. it's kind of funny...how hard the language is, but how simple at the same time. to ask a question, no matter who the subject, you say "mai" at the end. so, "is it good?" is "arroy mai" and "is it beautiful is "suay mai" and is it spicy is "ped mai?" and the answers to these questions, for yes, would be "arroy," "suay." "ped." or no, "mai arroy," "mai suay" "mai ped." it's so simple. and there are no opposites in thai. beautiful is "suay" and ugly is "mai suay." no subject, nothing. simple simple simple. but then you throw the tones in, and to say "nine white rice," is "kow kow kow." with different tones. WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE MORE WORDS? oye. moving on. i have been trying all sorts of good food...had frog, bones and all last week at a birthday party...order fish and it comes, full fish, head and all. something i swore i would never eat when i first got here, but turns out to be one of the most amazing things to order. i'm growing a palate for the thai food...it gets to be a lot after a while. so tonight i had a club sandwich...and precisely 11 french fries. massive portions here, i tell you.
this past weekend the english teachers were invited by one of the student's parents to stay in their hotel on the beach about 30 minutes by bike from phuket town, and so we went and stayed on friday night. it was beautiful! even though it was still so close it was nice to get away from town and to be on the beach. we were literally a three minute walk from the beach...over a shaky footbridge made out of bamboo. on saturday we found a little path that we rode down about a 45 degree angle on rocks and sand (the most dangerous thing i have done yet) to a little beach where there was NO ONE! we had the whole beach to ourselves all day...except for all the crabs. it is things like this that really make me happy. sitting on the beach on saturday i said to mark "i never want to leave this moment, right here," it was so surreal.
on friday night we went into patong, only 4 km from kamala where we were staying. patong is basically the las vegas of phuket, and i hadn't believed so until this moment. until last friday i had never been to patong at night, only by day, littered with Weiner schnitzel germans groping thai girls and families being had by the locals. but patong by night is something totally different. we went to a street called "soi eric," filled with "catoys" (ladyboys....a whole society on their own) and had a couple of drinks. i was tired from work, but still went, and i don't think i would believe it if i didn't see it for myself. there were ladyboys everywhere, and one told mark is was ESSENTIAL for him to touch his silicone breasts. mark being a nice gentleman, accepted. what a sight. all night he kept looking at me and saying "i really just felt a bloke's tits! awesome!" haha. classy town that patong is. as we were leaving soi eric a thai woman came up to me (i think it might have been a man, but i couldn't tell by this point.) and said "MAI SUAY!!!!!!!!" which means "YOU ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!" i did nothing to provoke it. thai women don't like farangs. i thought it was pretty funny...and well...rude, at the same time. after eric we went to the famous club called "banana," which has a bona fide dance floor. i know a british guy in phuket town who has a lounge here, and he has a sign that my thai friend read to me the other night. it says "this place is not for dancing." he asked the guy why, and david (brit) said that by law, in thailand, they are not allowed to dance. it is strictly forbidden. so they have to have this sign, and if someone comes in to enforce the law, they just say "i am sorry. i couldn't stop them. they are all insane." so everywhere you go has these signs, and there is no true dance floor. but somehow banana has slipped through the cracks and there is wicked music and a really big dance floor...so we had a good time and...well...danced!
i almost forgot...on our way to kamala on friday we got stopped by the police for a routine check of license, etc...and mark's bike wasn't inspected or something (we still don't understand.) and they held his bike until he went to pay the ticket at the police station. i didn't really want him to go alone...having heard the stories...all the damn stories of thai jails, so i went with him. we walked a little way to the station, through a chicken yard to this dark building on a hill. we went inside, and the officers were all chatting and having coffee, which i guess, is universal for police officers. but as mark was paying his ticket, i saw a pair of jeans on the officer's desk. not being able to keep my mouth shut i asked why they were there (in broken thai.) he said he had just bought them, and he really liked them, and they were only 1200 baht! (a lot for jeans here...in the market they are 150 baht...about $3 american) i didn't want to piss the guy off so i told them they were beautiful...and that he spoke good english (i told him in thai, because, in fact, his english was miserable.) he was looking at me a little weirdly...and then out of no where, this creepy guy walks in with a shopping bag full of jeans, ready for the buying! in the police station!!!!!!!!! they follow you everywhere!!!!!!!! you cannot walk ten feet in thailand without being asked if you want to buy something. so bizarre. in fact, at school today, there was a man outside my office who somehow slipped by security and followed me through the school to my class to see if i wanted to buy his sarongs!!!!!!!! the thai teachers had to chase him away. and our school is in gates, with security, set back from the road. how he got in there, i have no idea. but man, they never leave you alone!
last night we went to one of the most bizarre restaurants i have ever been to. brandi had been there last week with a friend of hers and said she wanted to take us. so caroline, brandi, tommy (my thai friend) and i went to this restaurant a bit out of town, where you show up, and walk to the bank of a river. you then proceed to hop onto a little floating raft thing with a shelter overhead, with a table in the middle and cushions on the floor. you order your food, and they give you some fish food, and you paddle yourself into the middle of a lake. while you wait for your food you throw a little bit of fish food in the water...and i was thinking we would be seeing minnows or some tiny little fish. but the fish in this lake were catfish about two feet long, jumping and snapping and going nuts for this food!!!!!!!!!!! tommy threw a lot in thinking it wouldn't be anything, and all of a sudden there were about 50 fish a meter from my face snapping and jumping. what a bizarre little place. the food was great, and we ate in the middle of the lake, which was quite nice. but something you would never see anywhere but thailand i think.
this weekend i am going away again...renting a car and driving 9 hours up the coast (not me driving....don't you worry. damn steering wheel is on the wrong side!!!) to a town called "hua hin." it's on the ocean and is where tommy is from...it should be interesting. he said there are never any farang there, and so i should be stared at plenty. if i don't write again it was because i have been sold to a fisherman for thirty fish. i leave all of my earthly belongings to my brother owen...because he has probably taken them all already anyway.
alright, i should get to bed. it's about 11 pm here, monday night. i hope you are all doing well, and keep up the emails. it looks like i will be writing some articles for the vermont standard starting in a couple of weeks, so be on the look out for more thai news in there!!!much love,
heather xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
posted by isobella at 3:40 PM
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