This is what goodbye looks like

my scrapbooked journal: now an inch thick with travel stories

traveller bands: the yellow stolen from southern belle Lucy, the pink and yellow made for me by girls at the orphanage, the white and red, some string I found on Mod's porch and fashioned into a band

the brown books: messages from everyone at foundation. We all wrote in each others and vowed not to read them until on the plane home. They have quotes from funny happenings here, contact details and just funny things to read. There are so many beautiful and hilarious messages in those pages, testimony to my amazing and hilarious new friends!

thank you cards: from kids at my last placement: a reminder of the children, the lessons, the songs, the games...

I want to say thank you, lastly to so many people- those who started this journey with me- who sponsored me to come out here and the teachers and friends who inspired me to travel. Those who listened to this blog which now has almost 1000 views, that's so cool to see, thank you! And to the wonderful volunteers and travellers who I shared this experiences with, thank you guys. This summer has gone beyond words (coming from someone who writes a lot...). Anyone on this webpage must fall into one of those three categories, so THANK YOU ALL!

Lastly, my wish for anyone reading this page is that they travel. If you can't get on a plane this summer, get a bus and see your own hometown- go to new coffee shops, talk to strangers, get involved in local culture be it temples, theatres or bookstores nearby. Go out and see the world (well, a bit of it...)

Above 1: A quote I found on the wall in Peace Bar (Chiang Rai) and loved instantly
Above 2: Playing my favourite game- how many people can you fit round a table in Doi Chaang

 

Until next time
"Goodbye"
Georgia <3

Vassa (Buddhist lent)

So. (Notice how every time I start a story I begin with "So"? Sorry.).

Arrive in Chiang Mai for the weekend, sitting with the Irish girls in a café, suddenly a parade goes past us- with monks filing, drums banging and floats being pulled by people. The most unexpected thing!

 

This was the start of the huge festival that is Buddhist lent!

Here are the Monks walking through town to the temple where they will spend the next 3 months. Only under exceptional circumstances can a Monk stay overnight anywhere over than this temple until the end of the rainy season.

 

Asarnha Bucha Day, the full-moon day of the eighth lunar month, commemorates the Lord Buddha’s first sermon to his first five disciples after attaining Enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago. Evening candlelit processions will be held in all Thai Buddhist temples.

 

^Google kindly summarised what this is all about. On our way to dinner we walked past a temple to see Monks circling a pagoda, chanting and holding white lilies. It's crazy, how we keep stumbling upon these things!

 

 

Also, alcohol is forbidden to be sold on this day so our plans to hit the town were instantly dismissed...

We arrived at Mirror in the early evening on Tuesday so we could go to a Wat (temple) and observe celebrations. Sadly, Kartoon, our co-ordinator thought the ceremony would be in the evening, but it was in the morning, so we missed it. Instead we visited the 'temple of light' where we walked up 10 flights of stairs, took photos with a giant statue and had our fortunes told. 

Behold. The temple of light.

 

Ash, Trip I and...Buddha!

 

 

Placement no.3: Teaching

My sister, Nikita, after viewing all the fun posts I blog about weekends and evenings here with other volunteers asked me "Do you ever work Georgia?".
Yes. Yes I do!

Yesterday's timetable went something like this-

10-11 Grade 1 Questions   Joy  Gabby  Axel
10-11 Grade 4 Questions  Georgia  Jane  Aisling
11-12 Grade 2 Questions   Jane  Georgia  Gabby
11-12 Grade 5 Questions   Aisling  Axel  Joy

LUNCH

1-2 Grade 3 Question  Gabby Aisling Joy
1-2 Georgia Axel Jane Free
2-3 Grade 6 Question   Jane  Aisling
2-3 Grade 1-3 Song and Game  Gabby Joy
2-3 Grade 4-6 Song and Game  Axel Georgia

5-6 Karen Hilltribe Class  Georgia Jane

I love so much that 'Song and Game' makes up part of the curriculum. As well as meditation and exercise. It's makes for more well rounded students :) This means all the those I learnt in girl guide campfires became vital knowledge. A musical theatre variation of 'When the saints go marching in' became a favourite of the hilltribe girls last night and Aisling and I just taught 'Ollie Ollie Ollie/Oi Oi Oi' to Kindergarten class. Considering the entire chant consists of only two words this was surprisingly difficult. But they loved it :D

I'm trying to work out how to put this photo into better resolution, it's Aisling and I with this morning's kindergarten class :)      (I'm in yellow)

 

Another highlight of this placement has to be playing football with the children. The heat can be intense and yesterday the field was swarming with dragonflies- it was like a horror movie- the field was thick with dragonflies. It was my team vs Axel's team. We're not sure which team won, given the fact we don't know which child was one which team and because there were too many dragonflies to see what was going on. Fun though. Because even in Thai humid heat wearing flip flop I'm good at football. If only because I have a 3ft advantage over my 8 year old teammates...

PS: I may update this post over the weekend with more photos ect. but I want to publish it while we have internet connection (it comes and goes very quickly)

Placement no.3

Above photo: Taken from the hammock. Not the best quality as I forgot my camera so had to use my laptop camera. Hopefully you can make it rice paddies with a mountain backdrop.

 

I'm staying at the Tom  Karen centre- a functioning building with electricity and mosquito-proof windows. We are spoiled (this isn't sarcasm. The place is lovely). The bathroom has a light, an flushing toilet, dry floor and TOILET ROLL. All of this made for a lot of gasping from us volunteers.

 

We teach at a hilltribe school from 9-3 and for an hour after school at the centre.

 

Mod, our host Mum is wonderful. Last night Aisling told her she'd never seen a firefly, Mod ran to get a bamboo mat for us all to sit on and turned off all the lights Ash and I insisted everyone turn off their phones so we sat in complete darkness (it's not like there's any street lighting here..).
Soon fireflies came some only a metre away from us. It's like zooming fairy lights in the sky.

 

Mod also came to our school during lunch hour today and explained she had cooked tofu sweet and sour for Axel and I as the school was making pork curry and she knew Axel was Jewish and I vegetarian. She made food and bought it in for us. I love Mod!
(She also said she would teach us all how to cook Thai food tonight :D )

 

This is Axel, by the way. He's French and when he says 'Hokey Pokey' it sounds like 'Le Honky Pokeny'. I laugh about this approximately ten times a day.

 

 

TEFL: Teaching English (as a) Foreign Language

My favourite moment of teaching was probably when I was teaching ‘Time’ and, in lieu of a board eraser I used my hand. I then wiped my hand across my cheek (on accident) leaving army stripes on my face. The kids found this hilarious. One boy took out his pen and drew stripes across his cheek too (Ha! I’m a trend setter!).

My teacher partner, Steph, commented “You look like GI Joe” while I got the class to chant (chanting is the preferred method of teaching in Thai schools. I don’t know how much I believe in it, but it’s not for me to challenge their methods. After a month here, hearing Buddhist chants in markets, temples and around I realise just how ingrained chanting is in the culture, it makes sense it’s the centre of education, though I think the students memorise things they can’t understand) “One forty five is quarter to two, Two forty five is quarter to three, Three forty five is quarter to four…” and they perfectly echoed the intonation in my British accent. I try to over-enunciate everything I say so they hear distinct vowel sounds. Basically, I speak with Received Pronunciation, think stereotypical ‘posh’ British- Hermione Granger or Mary Poppins.

So that’s my best TEFL moment. Looking like GI Joe, sounding like Mary Poppins, trying not to laugh as a chorus of Eton-sounding Thai children chanted number patterns.

 

Long live the King(s)!

As my home country, England welcomes the son of Kate Middleton and Prince William, a future king, I thought it would be highly topical to mention about Thai royalty.

 

I’m sure the news at home and in America is saturated with news of the royal baby- here it’s not on any channel or news stand. Simply because Thailand has their own royalty so international ones matter little, rather than the Americans, who have Kardashians as the closest claim to royalty...

 

This is the king of Thailand. He, alongside his wife is framed inside of every school playground, classroom, hostel and roadside. You cannot go more than 10 minutes without seeing his picture. It's reverence approaching awe and worship- speaking ill of Thai royalty is also illegal. Foreigners have been jailed for this.

 

Jake's favourite game on the way to school (usually between a 40 minute and hour drive as volunteer accommodation is rural and 30 minutes from the nearest town...) is to play 'King'. Every time you see a picture of the king (or queen) you poke the person next to you.

 

 

This photo's for you Nan! It's Thailand's queen.

 

It's miserable and magical, Oh yeah

Previous blogposts of waterfalls and generally pretty things paint an illusion that we volunteers live in luxury. You could say we live 'la viva loca' or that we 'viva la viva' or celebrate 'la vie boheme' because my memories here are wonderful. But most of us are living 'on a shoestring' so we stay in the cheapest hostels avaliable (as long as it's clean I don't care) but yesterday the sink fell off the wall in the bathroom when I put down a toothbrush. It ain't luxury!

Today's hostel has the benefits of sinks securely attached to the wall (I checked) but the water comes out black so I'm washing and brushing using bottled water. It's gross and it's grim but there's about 30 of us staying here so it's kinda great.

 Walking today with Karan and Ash- we didn't make plans or directions. We wanted just to see the city without a guide or attractions, so walking down backstreets, turning random corners we came across a terracotta garden- full of old broken statues of deities: both Hindu and Buddhist :)

 

 

This reminds me of the Muses from Hercules, Thai style!

 

 This is my favourite photo from today. It was so hot and we'd been walking some time. So Ash and Karan found some shade and lay down. This is their high five in relief of the cool breeze.

Obligatory hipster photo

 

Yesterday everyone went to different restaurants and cafes. I've been here 3 weeks now and had never eaten street food, which is embarrassing considering Thailand has world class food for, like 30p on it's streets. So I walked around and got a pancake, some fried rice (funny how as soon as I leave the foundation I crave rice) and another dragon fruit smoothie. It was one of the coolest things because yesterday was the first day of Buddhist lent so I could taste the incense in the air, gongs were sounding and the drone of chants in unison carried over the yells of vendors and hustle. I kept walking until I found a more secluded area- which was full of locals- always a good sign. I sat (cross legged on the floor of a marquee, thai style) eating my food while a group of novice monks (teenagers) sat about a metre away from me, laughing with each other and passers by and switching their face and posture to reverent and melancholy whenever the older monk accompanying them turned around.

I also didn't bring my camera, it was nice to just experience something without looking at it through a lens.

 

 

 On a completely separate note: Thank you to the over 700 people who have viewed this blog- friends, family, strangers and fellow travellers. My sister, Nikita, is currently in Washington DC, America doing an internship in a Naval museum. For any readers here interested in culture and travel here's the link http://nikitagoestotheothersideofthepond.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

Same Same But Different

Today ‘Mee’ (Thai name)one of the staff here threw a party to celebrate the leaving of old volunteers and arrival of the new.  I don’t think I’ll ever be in a hut with so many accents ever again.

 

The Thais are such a chill nation. A favourite Thai-English phrase here is “Same Same, but different”. It’s said here all the time- maybe you’re asking someone which rice cake is pineapple or mango you will get the nonsensical reply of “Same Same, but different”. This really makes no sense at all (same, but different?). But you can buy it on the T Shirts here and everything…

This week, despite all the fun-ness I have actually been teaching (not that teaching isn’t fun). I’ve given two one hour tutoring with staff here and have visited two primary schools (everything else I originally signed up for was cancelled). I did plan to blog about teaching English but I’m not sure how interested the world is in my lesson plans, resource making or jokes between my students and I, trying to translate, not only across language but cultures.

Sitting in the back of a pick up truck (considered totally safe on Asian roads)

Taking a selfie while riding on the back of a songtao (Freedom IS the state of being barefoot on the back of a songtao past rice paddies and farmers with stereotypical circular hats)

At DOI CHAANG (which my student this evening told me translates as ‘Mountain Elephant’) eating cake with Ash

    My favourite conversation this week

Me: (after hearing this annoying, obnoxious weird sound all week, everywhere I went): Please, can whoever has that ringtone, please, just change it or turn it down. Please

Carlo: Georgia? That's not a ringtone. That's a GECKO.

 

Can you believe I've been here 3 weeks and not worked that out?

 

 

Lazy Thursday Morning

This week instead of going on a homestay I opted to stay at the foundation and teach various groups here. Annoyingly four of my scheduled classes have already been cancelled so I haven’t been able to do hardly any teaching. So, I planned to wake up at 5am and watch the sunrise and then go for a run seeing as I had a free morning the next day.
But I have the ‘Week 3 bug’. The old volunteers told me on my first day that illness creeps in around week 3 when your body has lost all the vitamins from your home diet. This is likely why I’ve been walking around sneezing on everything. Anyway I felt to ill to skip sleep or go for a run.

Now that my teaching plans and then morning plans were not going to happen I walked to the village shop and then sat on a wall over looking the rice paddies eating my rice cake (ironic, I know) and watching butterflies (they move too quickly to attempt a photo but they are big and black with pink and white patterns).

All of this came to 35Baht- 74p!

Churro, one of the many dogs that hangs around the foundation came with me from the foundation to the shop, the rice paddies and back to foundation. What a cutie!

Some good news though, owing to yesterdays cancelled lesson a group of us went to Doi Chaang  (Doi Chaang!!!!) and ate cake. And in the evening 7 of us girls watched ‘The Parent Trap’ on Ash’s laptop in her dorm (she's in the wooden cabin, just like the ones in the parent trap!). That was fun :)

 

Thai Culture

FOOD!

Not gonna lie. The thought of eating something other than rice has me excited all week long. Because there’s only so much comfort given by Oreos. So while people around me plan temples to visit and daytrips, I create menus in my head. Tonight I had a cocoa frappe (a week without dairy products made the arrival of a cream-laden chocolatley drink to my table worthy of whooping) tomato soup, fries (A CARB THAT ISN’T RICE!) and a Dragonfruit (try it) and Kiwi smoothie. I’ve literally been walking round the town making food plans for tomorrow “So breakfast can be pancakes and then it’ll be pizza for dinner…”.

On weekends we volunteers tend to gorge ourselves on western food- fries, pizza, milk, cheese, chocolate, waffles, pancakes. Obviously the rich, oily, sugariness came as a shock after a week of rice so a lot of us spend Saturday night feeling ill. But I have no regrets

This is half the volunteer group at Doi Chaang, the Asian version of Starbucks. So far I’ve had around thirty bowls of rice. Rice is good. Rice is constant. It’s the side dishes- the mushy dark green, foul looking vegetables that I’ve taken to avoiding. Ew. Hey, I tried them. My first week I tried every dish but I kept making this face, every meal. So I soon gave up.

 

PANTS!

I don't know if there's an actual name for these type of trousers but we all just call them pants. Perfect for this climate: loose fitting, pretty pattern cotton pants. We all wear pants. We all love pants. Pants! That is all.

 

SA WAT DE KA!

This is the standard Thai greeting (for girls, for guys it’s Sa Wat De Krup). You cannot buy anything at the shop, ask a question or say hello without saying SA WAT DE KA!  And wai-ing. (Smiles are also obligatory :D )

 

MOSQUITO NETS!

SQUAT TOILET!

Urgh. Not so glamorous. There’s not really much to say about squat toilets, except that they are everywhere and they are not my favourite thing.

 

MONKS!

The Monks here are just Thai men who happen to wear orange robes. They own iPhones, have tattoos and go to cafes around town.

 

SHOES!

In Asian culture it’s polite to take your shoes off before entering any temple, classroom ands some cafes.                   

 

THAI TIME!

Everything runs late. I call it “running on thai time” because if you arrange to meet up at 8.30 and show up at 9.15 you’re not considered late. Similarly, last week my first class of the day started at 9am but the school didn’t collect me until 9.15am.

Above: Chiang Rai clock tower that lights up on the hour

 SKIN WHITENING!

It's funny how at home everyone wants to be more tan and here girls lather themselves in skin whitening products...

 

STREET VENDORS!

For those brave enough (so far Emily and Sam) there is a variety of fried insects to buy and eat. That’s right. People PAY to eat bugs here. Mealworms and Crickets and other winged beetle things.

 I was quite excited about getting street food, which is world class here. Here I am, getting a dragonfruit smoothie. I think my excitement shows…

 

 

 



 

 

Mission Waterfall

Woke up around 10.30am, ate a pancake and then some of the others had already made plans and booked transport to take us to a waterfall. So there I was, drowning my pancake in honey to find plans already made for me! Perfect.

 

So, in the heat of mid day (33 degrees) and the humidity that comes with monsoon season, mountains and waterfalls we made the half an hour hike/trek to the enchanting waterfall in Chiang Rai.

 

Man, it was sweaty. And the altitude was HIGH. And the path is rocky (I mean boulders, not pebbles you had to watch your feet the whole walk). But when we reached the top-

Enchanting

*Insert Hallelujah chorus here*

I forgot my swimming costume. So, here I am, in my best dress, after swimming/frocking/posing/climbing the waterfall. That was fun. Imagine being so hot and so tired and so sweaty and then reaching a paradise. That was the best shower I’ve ever had.