Christmas eve EVE post

Wow, can you believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. CHRISTMAS EVE!!I think this is so monumental to me because I always thought to myself, once you make it through Christmas, it will be easy  from then on. Although not quite the half way mark it is super close and after surviving a major family oriented holiday on my own, I should be able to face anything. Another reason this is so huge to me is because living in Thailand, you don’t really see or feel Christmas coming. It just does. One morning you wake up realize you have a week til Christmas and you haven’t done a single festive thing. So you run out to the nearest mall buy all the over marketed things you can find and decorate your bedroom. The gifts start arriving in November and let’s not lie you definitely had a few weak moments and have already opened a couple but, they helped to make this Christmas away easier. A few days before Christmas you start to panic. What am I going to do Christmas morning? Just sit on my bed and open my presents, skype my family and probably go back to sleep. Its depressing, its heart wrenching and its straight up terrifying. Then your host parents tell you they are leaving you home alone for the weekend. When you are all down and depressed, the holiday season brings good news. Luckily for me exchange students have this deep motivation to make their year  abroad amazing so we have our tricks and schemes that always make something work out.

Tomorrow, I will head down to Khon Kean, a city about forty five minutes away. I will quickly shop for a secret Santa present and then head out for lunch or something with my friends. We will attend a Khon Kean Rotary Christmas Party then ALL of us will head back to Mamma Kai’s ( a very amazing host mom in Khon Kean who let’s us hang out at her house), for a sleepover. We will wake up the next morning exchange our secret Santa’s and head off to church. Then I am not sure what the plan is. So although I will not be with my loving family from home this year I will be with another amazing family. My Exchange family.


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody!!J

English Camp

Next on my adventure I headed to Bangkok to, volunteer at an English camp. I boarded a bus  on Friday morning en route to Bangkok, to meet with a lady from the agency who  I had only talk to twice on the phone. It was a little nerve racking to not know where I was staying or who I was meeting but it was a learning experience. When I arrived at the bus station, I called the lady, Indy and after a little bit of confusion and miscommunications we finally found each other. She brought me to the AYC offices and introduced me to some of the staff I would be working with, got me a T-shirt and a map to the offices. She informed me I would be staying in her apartment for the night because she was going to visit family. We walked to her apartment building, just down the road from the offices and she showed me her apartment and gave me a key. She told me to be at the office by 6am the next morning. She also informed me I had to be covered from my knees to my neck. Fun. Nothing in my wardrobe fits that description. So I headed to the only place I knew where I could find below t shorts that went to my knees in Foreigner friendly sizes and food, Khao San Road. I shopped around grabbed some food and headed back home. I finished my night by cuddling up in bed and watching Tangled.

The next morning I woke up at 5 am and had a lovely cold shower (<sarcasm) and walked to work. When I arrived there I found out I was the only exchange student and the only female foreigner… great. We got on the bus and headed to pick up the students. When we got the students we sang some camp songs on the bus and played some games like bingo. Next we stopped for breakfast and there was a Starbucks.(HALLELUJAH!!) Next we stopped at Oasis Sea World to eat lunch and watch a dolphin show and finally arrived at our resort in Chantaburi at around 4pm. We played some soccer and went swimming in the sea before dinner and played camp games and sang some songs before bed. I then did room check and also went and passed out in my room. Let me tell you the best investments to make in Thailand, sleep mask and earplugs. Without them I would have never fallen asleep. I had to share a room with two Thai ladies and a lady boy and they are soo loud.

The next morning woke up and had breakfast at seven. We played a bunch of games and I taught a lesson about broadcast journalism to a class of about 40. Then I had to work with the class to write a script and produce their own news show. I was given a camera and told to follow the students orders while guiding them in a productive manner. After a lunch break and a few more shots our news show was complete. We then had an Olympic walk relay where I had to lead a bowling game with a different group of kids every 5 minutes. After that we had free time so I went swimming again and then went and took some pictures before dinner. After dinner we had a dance party and talent show that was very … uhhh…. Interesting. The children and staff are morally allowed to be complete inappropriate and downright offensive when it’s in English.  The kids did dances and skits for their talent shows and there was swearing, murder, suicide, gang beatings, sex, if its offensive it was there. And to make it all better the theme was Christmas. I was shocked but everyone was super chill and didn’t even notice.

The next day we played a few games around camp and then got on the bus for the five hour drive back. Once again I had no idea where I was going. So I just decided I wanted to go home. So I grabbed a taxi outside the AYC offices and headed to the bus terminal. There I called my host mom who was trying to get me to take this company of bus no one could find, so I just went to Information and told them where I wanted to go and they help me buy a ticket and walked me to my bus. It was strange though because my ticket was half the regular price. I got on the bus and told my mom that I was on a bus that the Info people recommended. she started panicking, so I handed the phone to some very confused looking Thai guy and he told her what bus I was on, because honestly, I had no idea. Turns out it was the right bus company just second class. All  that means is that it would make more stops taking me longer to get home but it was already 8pm so, what difference did it make if I arrived home at 12 or 4. None to me. So I cuddled up and fell asleep courtesy of my sleep mask and earplugs. I woke up around four am just in time to get off at my stop.

When I got off in my little village there were a bunch of creepy men standing outside the temple who kept yelling at me. So I called my host mom to ask her to come pick me up but of course she didn’t answer so I walked home at 4 am through my village. This was fine and dandy until we got to the house beside mine with its nasty dogs that always try to attack me. The dog was trying to bite me so I ran to my gate and slammed it shut. For some reason the later at night the crazier the dogs are. I walked up to my front door to find it locked. LOVELY. So I sat outside for about forty minutes until one of the aunt’s woke up and came and woke my Grandmother up, who then opened the door for me. I slept that whole day.

On Wednesday, I went in town to see the Princess who was coming through. My host mom was so excited. She told me the princess was not a human but a  Goddess and that she helps everyone and is so very kind. She was in town to give out the degrees at the local university and would be coming through town to see the students. I went in to town around lunch and found my host mom standing along the streets with all the students. All the students sat in rows on the side of the road and the school soldiers lined the streets. I was expecting like a parade or something because they had cleared the streets but no. there were 8 ambulances that sped by then, a few cars then about five police cars. These cars sped by, going at least 60km/h. Then all the students stood up and started walking back to school. My host mom turned to me and said did you see her, she was sitting in the back of the car with the blue flag.  I said no, and honestly I doubt anyone actually saw her she was traveling so damn fast. But oh well at least we were graced by her presence, right?

Then today Friday, I spent cooking ALLL DAY!! Last night I made a late run to the grocery store after spending yesterday picking through online recipes. Then today I woke up early and using my families newly discovered mini convection cooker, I baked 2 apple pies and one sugar pie. Two dozen maple cookies and I made devilled eggs. Next week, I am going to cook my family a huge Christmas dinner, with tourtiere,  mashed potatoes, vegetables, pie, cookies, egg nog, and anything else Christmas-y I can think of. Today was just a trial but everything turned out so lovely, so I am bringing it to share with my friends tomorrow.


Well that’s it for now. TaTah!

Xoxo Chantel <3

Chapter 36

Wow, I have been so busy, that I haven’t blogged in like 2 weeks AGAIN!! Gosh, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be one of those bloggers who just sorta gave up, I promised myself I would stick through it and blog this WHOLE EXPERIENCE! I promise you that I am trying my best, seriously, but with traveling all over the place and having limited packing space and limited strength ( laptops are heavy), its HARD! I will try and do my best though.

Ok so where did we leave off in this story? Oh yes, right before I left for the Chang Rai Conference.

Ahheemmm…

“ Chapter 36: Chang Mai, Mae Sai and a whole lotta Bus. So our story continues with our beloved Chantel boarding a night bus for Chang Mai, ( Not Chang Rai as expected), with her second host mom, and second host brother Junior, at 5pm on Thursday, December 8th. As she sits down and looks around, her host mom, comes and insists she sits by herself on the opposite side of the aisle and not with her host brother Junior. Chantel was extremely confused, she had just sat down in the first available seat, she didn’t mean to cause any drama, so she picked up her stuff and shuffled across the aisle to the lone seat. While she settled in and got comfortable she realized she forgot her Ipod. So she grabs her computer and flips it open to turn on Itunes, but then realizes her laptop is at 12% battery and she has no earphones. So she shoves her laptop back in her bag and looks out the window, waiting for the 13 hour bus ride to be over.

Around three am she is woken up by her head smashing off the window as the bus rounded a sharp turn. She was wide awake and had no interest in trying to sleep in such rough terrain, it would just leave her with a head ache. So she sat up and watched the mountains pass. It was one of those serene moments you never forget. When you realize that you are seeing and experiencing something so beautiful. Picture it from her perspective, driving through the huge tropical mountains on a dark night bus, being the only foreigner on the bus and the only person awake, the perfect silence letting your thoughts wander as you marvel on the fact that you at sixteen are in the mountains of Thailand on a night bus headed to Chang Mai. How many people can say that. It’s one of those moments when Chantel truly realizes why she is here, doing what she does.

Around six am, the bus pulled into the Chang Mai Bus Station. Chantel was so excited to get on the bus to Chang Rai. She was so excited to see her exchange student family again, the last time officially until  April. It was going to be such an awesome weekend. Unfortunately, it is the Thai way to never follow plans and kinda, in western opinion make things more complicated. So Chantel found herself in some strangers apartment at 6am in Chang Mai, no where near her friends. First off she was upset because she found out a) the conference wasn’t even in Chang Rai but Mae Sai, a small town on the border of Burma and B) because Chang Mai was five hours from Mae Sai. She was so confused as to why her host mom made her travel all the way to Chang Mai and not straight to Mae Sai, it could have saved them five hours of driving. But as Chantel and every exchange student on earth has learned its best not to argue or question your host parents, just smile and nod and pretend you are the happiest person in the world.

It wasn’t all bad, later in the morning  Chantel and her host family went and visited three different temples and Museum, before boarding a bus to Mae Sai. Once again on the bus, she found her mom segregating her and host brother. This made Chantel uncomfortable because she felt as though her host mom thought badly of her. She wanted to say, “ look, I am not going to try and corrupt your son with my crazy foreign ways or anything weird like that, ok? I am a normal person, I have no interest in him other than a friend and sibling.” But that would come off as highly rude and inappropriate so she kept her mouth closed and sat the five hour bus ride in silence. Her lovely, host mom even insisted that Chantel keep the AC blowing on her in full even though she was freezing cold. Every time Chantel would try and close the little vent her host mom would reopen it and say” Mai Chai, you need cold air.” Once again, this made Chantel feel insanely uncomfortable because now she was cold and her host mom was forcing her to have the AC on.

When they arrived in Mae Sai, Chantel wanted to run and find her friends, her host mom was starting to drive her a little insane as you can imagine. When they got off the bus, Chantel spotted another young foreigner and asked where she was from and if she was here for the Rotary Conference. It turns out the girls name was, Stephanie, and she was indeed her for the conference but she was a day early and needed someone to hang out. Perfect, thought Chantel, I need someone to distract me from my host mother. So Stephanie came back to the hotel Chantel and her host family were staying at and got her self a room. That leads to  the bedroom situation. Chantel found out she would be staying with her host family instead of rooming with other exchange students and she wasn’t even in the same hotel as the other exchange students. As you can imagine, Chantel, was upset by this and decided once she found the other exchange students, they would figure something out. That night she went out with Stephanie and her host family, for dinner and to wander around.

The next morning, Chantel woke up at 8 am and got dressed in a pair of black shorts and a white and black t-shirt. Her host mom walks in and says, “you need to shower.” Chantel was offended because she didn’t feel that her host mom had the right to tell her to bathe especially since she had bathed the night before. So she jumped in  and showered quickly, keeping her hair dry, because it was freezing cold out. Then she walked out of the bathroom and her host mom said, “ I don’t like what you are wearing , its not pretty, put on the dress you had on yesterday.” Chantel was pissed, who was her host mom to tell her what to wear and she had worn that dress yesterday, it was gross, smelly it had been sat in for five hours on a bus, she didn’t want to wear that. But she did, yep she went and put on her dress and basically ran to the conference hall. On the way down, she passed a hotel with some exchange students outside, when she found out her friends were inside she took off running. To say the least Chantel, might have a difficult time with her second host mom.

When she arrived in side she ran and jumped into her friends arms, she was so excited to see them all again. Immediately they started figuring out where everyone was staying and who had rooms to themselves. The last thing they wanted was to stay with their host families. Chantel found out her friend Jacquie had a room to herself, so they decided to have Chantel move in with her. They rushed to find Chantel’s Host mom and ask for her permission. They didn’t see a problem with it, the town was tiny and there were Rotarians everywhere. There had to be at least 50 in Jacquie’s hotel including her Host father and councellor. So I went and asked my host mom and she was very worried. She had to meet my friends host father, had to call my current host mom and then sit and think about it for a while. It was ridiculous. Chantel was so frustrated, It’s only one night, she thought, and there are Rotarians everywhere. For God’s Sake Jacquie’s host dad is looking at you like your insane, your making such a big deal about this. After consulting with Jacquie’s Host Dad about if my dress was nice enough, the poor guy just nodded and quietly slipped away, she finally said yes. So Jacquie and Chantel, ran legitimately ran, back to Chantel’s hotel to grab all her stuff and move in to Jacquie’s room. For the record all the other exchange students were wearing ripped jean short shorts and t-shirts, normal clothing.

That day Rotary had nothing planned for the exchange students so they wandered around Mae Sai taking advantage of the incredibly cheap prices and marveling about how they were only a few steps from BURMA!! One of the memorable quotes was when giving directions and people would say,” Just walk away from Burma and you’ll see me.” Its not very often that one can say that. That night was equally exciting for the exchange students, they had a banquet dinner to attend with the Rotarians but their tables weren’t even in the banquet hall they were outside. So the exchange students, couldn’t see any of the presentations or shows. Of course, the exchange students, just left, especially after reading the menu. Shark fin soup? No, Thanks.

They decided they wanted to go out for the night with the other district exchange students, who were staying in a hotel about a kilometer and a half outside of town. So thirty some odd exchange students wandered out to this hotel with all these other exchange students.  Little did they know this would be one of the biggest mistakes they could make. The other district’s rotary was strict, they had guards and weren’t allowed to go out. So Chantel and the exchange student’s snuck into their hotel. Once they realized how serious their Rotary was, Chantel and her friends left and found a club down the road. The thing is Chantel’s Rotary is really laid back and they are allowed to go out to clubs and stuff but if another Rotary district gets involved who knows what could happen. So Chantel and her friends realized this and took off. Eventually almost all the exchange students ended up at the club. They had a good time dancing and teaching Thai people Western Music and dance styles. After the club closed Chantel and her friend L.J walked back to the hotel. When Chantel arrived back in her room she found that her friends, Annie and Ashlee had also joined in Rooming with Jacquie. For the record every single time there had been a Rotary event these four ladies had roomed together, it was now tradition. They had mastered the sleeping two people in a single bed technique and even had a good little morning ritual knowing that Chantel usually woke up first and Jacquie last. They all squished into the single beds and fell asleep instantaneously.

The next morning Annie had to leave at 7 am so, she left silently, while the other three slept. Around 11 am they all woke up, showered and packed up. They ended up having to run down to make the twelve check out. The rest of the day was spent wandering around town, shopping and sitting in this cute little coffee and cake shop. Around three pm, Chantel met up with her host mom and headed to Chang Mai again. Chantel was excited to get on the night bus and wake up the next morning home in Maha Sarakham. Unfortunately her host mom had other plans. They were to spend the night in Chang Mai at her host mom’s sisters house. Then leave the next night.

So when they arrived in Chang Mai, Chantel was exhausted. She figured she would get back to the house crawl in bed and read. Once again, there were different plans, Chantel’s host family decided to bring her to the famous Chang Mai night bazaar. The bazaar was really awesome and had really cool, north east tribal crafts, but Chantel had barely any money so she bought, an earring, a head band, a journal and a sleep mask. Her host mom bought her this awesome poncho, tribal style crop top thing. Chantel was super happy with the bazaar trip but exhausted and excited to crawl in bed.  Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, I mean it was 10 pm who goes to bed at 10 pm? Thai people don’t they dragged Chantel’s exhausted butt to diner, at this cute little restaurant were you sat on the edge of the roof with your feet sticking off the sides and ate at a little ledge. After dinner they finally headed home.

To Chantel’s excitement, she would not only be sharing a room with her beloved host mom but a bed too. Trust me, I don’t think Chantel could have slept any closer to the edge of the bed. Half her body was hanging off, but she just wasn’t feeling comfortable with sharing a bed with her host mom, it was just awkward.

The next morning Chantel woke up late and had breakfast, then headed out to go ride an elephant. Yes, you read that right, RIDE AN ELEPHANT. After driving around picking up and dropping off random people  for three hours, they ended up at the elephant park. Chantel was asked to ride the elephant with this random lady and little girl. Which was fine with her, she was just so psyched to be riding an elephant. So she went for a surprisingly slow elephant ride for half an hour . She was surprised at how slow elephants, walked and felt really bad for riding the elephant. She didn’t like to see him get poked in order to move and didn’t like to be supporting a company the exploited animals, but she also knew it was one of those things you have to do in Thailand, so she admired the beauty of the animal and tried to quiet her animal activist mind. After the ride was over she sat and waited with the lady for two hours until her host mom came back and got her.

Then they headed over to the bus station to head home. While boarding the bus Chantel made sure to choose the seat farthest from her host brother and settled in with her sleep mask and ear plugs for a peaceful journey. Unfortunately, Chantel found herself unable to sleep that whole night. So once again she looked out the window for 13 hours and enjoyed the view of the mountains.”

Well kiddies, that’s all for today, I know you want to hear more, but this post is already overwhelmingly long as it is. There is much more to come I promise.

Xoxox Chantel <3

PS Happy Holidays Everyone and Thank You So Much for the gifts!!!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...palm trees, hot weather and Go-GO bars

Dear Blog,

 Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a post when some much has happened and every time you go to write a new post you can’t because something else is happening? Well, I am sure you don’t because you are not an actual being but let me tell you it’s a lot to keep up with.  So instead of being really precise and nice like I usually am I am going to blunt and mean and just put it all out there.

 I think I left off last time around Pattaya.

Pattaya:

Pattaya is where I spent the 24-27^th of November, with my fellow Rotary Exchange students. We were there to help raise money for the flood victims of Thailand. Like anything in Thailand it was poorly organized, and we were basically allowed to run around free range in the sex trade capital of the sex trade capital of the world. Boo ya? Of course within two hours of arriving two of my friends had some Thai guys threatening to call the police on them because they supposedly had damaged so Jet skis,( they didn’t it was just a scam of course), they luckily called on of their host dads and got off fine. A few hours later after hitting up every international food chain we could find we went back to the hotel for a Rotary meeting where they told us we were allowed to go out at night as long as we didn’t break any D’s and were not brought home by the cops, if any of the aforementioned happened we would be sent home. Yep, that’s Rotary Thailand, encouraging us to explore Thailand’s Red Light District. That night we all made our way down to Walking Street, IE, Sex Trade Alley and explored. Interesting fact about night clubs in Thailand, the big expensive ones card, while strip clubs, go-go bars and the smaller ones don’t. We unfortunately wandered into a few strip clubs and go-go bars, and swiftly left once we saw what they had to offer. In the end all of the exchange students ended up at a small nearly empty club. That was until 35 exchange students filled it up. We danced the night away.

The next morning we woke up had breakfast, went back to sleep, woke up later walked in a parade to raise money, then performed in an ill-advised and organized talent show that was more embarrassing than anything. We were then free for the day. I took this time to take advantage of the Farang (foreigner) - friendly shopping in some name brand, (hello, Top shop), stores.  Later I went back to the hotel and hung out with my friends while we got dressed up for dinner. Dinner was very long and boring but we were faithful little exchange students and stayed till the very end. Just putting this out there, 90% of the Thai people left an hour in, but stayed strong and well half asleep. That night we skipped out on the Go-go bars and strip clubs and went straight to our little unknown club. It was another fun night of dancing.

The next day we woke up late and wandered around town, making sure to take advantage of the farang-friendly grocery store that had fresh sour-dough bread, lemonade and Campbell’s canned soup. Then I took the lovely night bus home.

The week after:

I did nothing.

The weekend after:

I went on a tour of Maha Sarakham, the province where I live with my host mom and her matieme one, (sixth grade) class. That was enjoyable yet long. I really enjoyed this park full of monkey we went to because well who doesn’t love monkeys and this giant monument representing the ancient town. The bus ride was long though because I was shoved in the back of this gross bus with fifty twelve year old Thai girls, so around the maturity of  nine year old Canadian girl. It was nice to get out of the house though. On Sunday I cleaned my room and started packing for the end of the month when I change host families.

Monday:

Was the kings birthday, a.k.a exchange student sleep all day, err day.

Today:

Today I woke up and went to my cooking classes at the vocational college. Sara and I made Tom Yum Goong, a type of soup consisting of lemon grass, garugal, some herbs, chilli paste mushrooms, shrimp, and coconut milk. We also made deep fried omelette and a banana dish consisting of boiled banana’s sugar and coconut milk. It was all very delicious. We were finished around 10 am so we hopped on a bus and headed to Khon Kean. We decided to try and get into the Christmas spirit by ordering Christmas Themed drinks at Starbucks and drinking them HOT, not iced. We then sat outside beneath the artificial Christmas tree and shut our eyes and pretended we were cold. I sang a few Christmas carols as loud as I could while wondered aloud about whether all Canadians were so strange.  We then found a store with a 70% off sale and normal sizing, no way a Christmas miracle and a half if you ask me. So we tried on a million different items and terrorized the staffing by trying to get them to put something on hold.  I received a phone around then by a lady from AYC English camps, asking me to join in on some camps this month. I get paid 1000 baht a day as an honorarium and it’s with a bunch of other exchange students. My host mom said it was fine and will call her tomorrow for all the details. After that we wandered around until we wandered right by the Gelato place. Now I don’t know if I have told you about Sara, and her fierce hatred towards bad imitation Italian food, which Thailand is full of. She won’t even let me eat a pizza here, because she says, it’s all wrong and a disgrace to her country. So when we saw this she had to try it out. I have eaten the gelato from here a million times and think it is exceptionally delicious, even better than Kawartha ;). So now it was being put up to the ultimate test an actual Italian. While she did say it was good she said the Italians make it better. We finished off our day by finding me a new bag and then heading home.

 When I got home there was a glorious package waiting for me from CANADA!!! The first of my Mom’s Christmas, Packages had arrived, while it was kinda sad to have to see all my Christmas presents just sitting in a pile in my room with no tree or loving family around them, it was still super exciting. The best part? The unwrapped allergy meds. I also received a slip telling me my lovely, new laptop from Grandma Molly, had come in, A huge Thank you to Grandma Molly for that. All you blog readers out there owe her a thank you too, because without that new laptop these posts would not become regular again. And now I am sitting in my kitchen enjoying some vegetarian Indian food that my host family whipped up by chance. How that for starting to feel a lot like Christmas... well it’s a start.

My plan for the upcoming few days includes spending the night at my friend Sara’s house tomorrow, for her birthday and heading to Chang Rai, a city way up north on Thursday. Best part about this next adventure, it’s so foreign I have to take malaria pills. Well, I hope it snows down hard on you all and the ski slopes start to shape up. My Christmas gift to you all is a little bit of my courage and bravery and a challenge for you all to try snowboarding.

Xoxo Chantel

IMMM BACCCKKK :D

Wow I am a terrible person for not blogging in aeons. I apologize profusely, for my absence and unreliability. I assure you as soon as I resolve my current computer issues I will continue to haunt your homepage with stories of my glorious travels.

On November ninth I squished myself in to a van with twelve other exchange students for a three hour bus ride to PHU KRADEUNG.   Also known as the tallest mountain in North east Thailand at an exhausting height of 1316m.

We arrived in the small town at the base of Kradeung and checked into our lovely “resort”. The reason I use quotation marks is because it was motel-esque settlement with rooms that put horror movies to shame.  Our toilet didn’t work there was one bed and five girls. To make it even creepier beside the bed was a broken mirror. After we unpacked we set out to the town to join in with the towns festivities celebrating Loy Krathong.

 Now Loy Krathong, I am not sure what it is to celebrate, because Rotary, didn’t really explain it basically they put us all on a bus and dropped us off down town. There were some beauty contest type of shows and a big dinner. It was strange though because all of us exchange students ate before the rest of the town. Which I feel kind of defeats the purpose of trying to get us to intermingle with the culture and the people. After dinner all the people in the town lit a candle on a banana leaf boat set it in the river. Legend has it if a boy and girl put a boat in at the same time they will fall in love in this life or the next.

After that we bought some lanterns to light and set up in the air. It was so beautiful. You light your lantern make a wish and let it fly. It was amazing to see so many lanterns so many wishes soaring up in the air, so many wishes.

After that my friends and I headed back to the bus because the Rotarians told us we were leaving shortly. We sat on the bus for an hour practising our freestyle rapping waiting for the rest of the kids and rotary. They arrived later after a fight broke out at the festival. We spent a very uncomfortable night trying to sleep in our sketchy hotel rooms.

 The next morning we rose at 6 am to start our 5km climb to the top of Phu Kradeung. To fuel our bodies for this treacherous hike we had a well-balanced breakfast of..... Wait for it..... TOAST!! Yumm.  We started the hike in semi high spirits for hungry tired teenagers, these high spirits quickly faded after we found ourselves hiking alone with no guide, no water up a miserable trail. My one friend slid down a cliff at one point when we took the wrong trail and people were crying and miserable. Five hours later we made it to the top, where we found out we had to hike 3 km to our lodges. So 3km we all arrive at the visitor’s center hungry and tired. Rotary had set it up so this one restaurant/ convenience store would let us eat whatever and as much of it. So we pigged out on food.

We finished our day by just lying in the sun complaining about how much we hated climbing mountains. Come on we are teenagers, that’s just what we do. That night we got a lovely speech by none other than our esteemed Rotarian, Pa On. Did I mention she got carried up the mountain and then told us all she walked but one of the kids saw her get unloaded. Yeah four men carried her on a chair. Anyways she told us that there were leaches so be careful and then as a joke she told the girls they couldn’t go pee or the leeches would crawl up their.... THIS WAS A VERY BAD IDEA!! Never joke about that kinda thing with a bunch of exhausted teenagers that are mad because their parents paid for a trip and we had to climb a mountain which no one found fun. Then we got shown to our lovely cabins. These cabins made the horror hotel we stayed in the previous night look like 5 star resort. There were holes in the floor the toilet was beyond backed up and there were just mattresses on the ground.  So we all settle into our cabins separated by boys and girls of course and just hung out. Then it got cold, like really cold, so people started going to other cabins to get sweaters and stuff. Then when they came back we found leeches all over them. As you can guess after Pa Ons little speech this did not go over well because no one had salt, no one had a first aid kit, (well I did of course, but it was used up on like three people.) People went crazy, people were crying and screaming and Rotary did nothing. Then of course we got angry, because sure Rotary can’t stop leaches but they can be helpful, and provide us with the means to get through the night.

One of the girls host mom had packed her with bags of salt, so a few of the guys started going around giving each of the cabins some slat to get the leaches off. But the people didn’t know how to us the salt so they just started throwing it around the cabins thinking it would work as a repellent. Eventually we all settled down I think at that point there were ten people in my cabin and we were all huddled in a corner trying to stay warm and avoid the leaches, which could crawl through the giant gaps in the floor. One of the French girls in my cabin found two leaches on her and one in her bed and started vomiting. So the guys who were in my cabin went and found Pa On like, “hey this girl is sick we have no toilet, we have no heat and there are leaches everywhere. Pa On came to our cabin and told the girl, “mai pen lai,” which means don’t worry about it. So as you can imagine we were enraged, like people are crying bleeding, screaming fainting and now vomiting and you are telling us not to worry. The French girl spent the night in another cabin throwing up out the window.

The next morning we woke up mad, cold and miserable and were delighted to hear we were going on a hike. Some of the kids just didn’t go, I went and we walked to a little pond thing and then to this waterfall which was awesome. I hiked up behind it and set behind the water fall, watching everyone below. Then I saw some of the guys debating going in and decided that would be fun. So I walked down took my shoes of and jumped in.  The guys were being pansies; the only way to do something is to just do it. Of course once one person gets in, especially a girl all the guys jumped in. I was the only girl brave enough to go swimming in that water fall though. CANADA REPRESENT!! After that we walked to this crazy high cliff and ate lunch. Then I started feeling a little nauseous and had really terrible chaffing from my wet shorts, so we went home early and get this we got free hot showers. YES!

That night we all grabbed as much food as we could and headed to our cabins early, to avoid the leaches and just stayed there until morning. The next morning we slept in and just hung out around the site. Later that day I went for a hike with some of the guys on a search for  some waterfalls to swim in but just ended up hopping along rocks in the river on the mountain for a couple of hours. We later hiked to another waterfall, ignoring the repeated warnings for wild elephants after three pm. around five we hiked back   to the site for dinner, and went to bed preparing for our hike back down the mountain.

I woke up from my friend Annie screaming at me, “ Chantel, its five am we have to leave now, so I hopped out of bed, with a tired head and threw all my stuff in my suitcase, grabbed my phone and started looking for  my bathroom bag when my friend Luis, asked me what time it was. I looked at my phone and it was the middle of the night. But on plus side the next morning when it actually was 5 am I had already packed.

 I hiked/fell down the mountain by myself, because I found it easier to go quickly and not have to listen to other people complaining because that would only remind me of how unpleasant the experience was. When we got to the bottom we had to wait a few hours for the others so we ate ice cream and slept. Then we got in the van and drove home.

That night I went to central, with my host family for dinner. The next day I was back in Khon Kean to renew my visa and then I went back the next day to hang out with my friends in Khon Kean. I also went back on Friday and then on Saturday. I have found that all of this is so much easier when you have friends who are going through the same thing.

 I spent that Saturday night at my friend Ashlee’s house in Khon Kean. We spent some time at a garden outside the mall with our friend Andre from Mexico, who is living in Khon Kean because of the flooding in Bangkok. The garden was situated beside a huge Christmas tree. It was so beautiful, and then we went to the night market to meet up with some other Khon Kean kids. We spent the night at my friend Ashlee’s ultra modern, Khon Kean house.

The next day we went to her house in Nam Phong where we met up with her friend who goes to school in Maha Sarakham, (where I live). So we went back there and spent the night in a hotel at the university. We went out to a club that night and Ashlee and I got invited to dance on stage, in a contest. We collectively won one ticket to some concert of some band we had never heard of so we ripped the ticket in half and made it into pins for our blazers.

 I know that only brings us up to November 19^th of my journey but to be honest  Mamma Mia just finished downloading and you know how I love my musicals. Tomorrow I will write another blog post telling about my weekend and Pattaya and upcoming adventure.

Toodleloo

Xoxo Chantel <3

I am alive, unfortunately my keyboard isn't doing so well

 Wow, I am so sorry, for not blogging for the past two weeks. Don’t worry though, I am ok and I had a good reason for not blogging too, my keyboard is broken. My “T” and “Y” keys don’t work and I know, you’re thinking, “So what? Two keys don’t work and you just abandon us?” Well think about it in the past paragraph alone I have used 20 “T’s” and 10 “Y’s,” they are kinda essential.

So I know you are wondering what I have been up to in the past fifteen days and I am happy to say, I can’t recall everything I have done off the top of my head. So I will dedicate this post to telling you about the memorable things that have happened. Unfortunately, it might be rather brief.

Ok here we go.

 As far back as I can recall anything memorable happening has to be October, Friday the 28^th, when I went with my Host cousin May and my host brother Go to the Chinese Opera and market, that was in town. It was really crazy they were selling everything imaginable and there were people everywhere. My cousin, brother and I walked through the market, but then had to go home because none of us had money and they didn’t tell my host parents we were going.

 The day before that while, Sara and I were out for our weekly Thursday milkshakes, there was a Chinese parade in the town that literally consisted of a bunch of Thai people with Chinese heritage, dressing up in traditional outfits and throwing firecrackers around in the middle of the street. An ambulance showed up just in case things got out of hand,( if you ask me they started out of hand.) There were also two of those dragon costume things you always see in Chinese festivals in the movies, so that was pretty cool.

It was funny because later that day while Sara and I were in the mall, the people brought the dragon costume through the mall… it was so random.

 On Tuesday, November1st, I woke up and got ready for school like any other day. I was eating breakfast when my host mom asked me if I wanted to go to a dance competition, I said yes, of course because the first rule of Rotary is always say yes. Then, she said ok you go today. I thought, ok I get the day of school sweet. Then as I was packing my school bag getting ready to leave my host mom says, “You need to pack for three days.” WAIT, WHAT?!? THREE DAYS?? But being a good exchange student I ran upstairs and threw some clothes in a bag and put a smile on as we left my house. The problem was once again, I had no idea where I was going, no idea who I was staying with and no idea what to bring or how much it would cost. So I brought my stuff to school and waited until a random Thai girl told me to go with her, so I did, into a car with her family and we drove away. At this point based on what I knew about the situation I was convinced that this was my eventual demise. Isn’t that against every rule you ever learn in elementary school, don’t get in the car with strangers, even if they say they have something good like a dance competition because they will take you some strange place and bad things will happen. Wow, kinda sounds like an exchange.

 I am just kidding. It turned out fine we went to a dinosaur museum and they were amazed that I had seen dinosaur bones before. Then we went to the dance competition which was held in a university conference room. It was a ballroom dance competition which was cool. So they practiced for a bit then we went out for dinner then we went back to the hotel. I was supposed to share a hotel room with these two other dancers but they decided they didn’t want me to sleep there so I had to share a room with the family that brought me. Now this was awkward because a) I was intruding, b) there was only one bed and five guests and c) I didn’t know them. To make matters worse staying in tune with Thai hospitality they let me sleep in the bed… with the two sisters… in the middle of the two sisters…who both felt the need to sleep as close to me as possible. Now as tempting as it was to accidentally elbow them in the face while sleeping, I didn’t I kept my cool and just stared at the ceiling. The next day they competed for the morning and then we went to a temple for the afternoon. Then we went shopping and out for dinner then right back to that cozy bed situation. After another long night, I was soo ready to finish this dance competition and go home.

Now being exhausted, after two nights of no sleep all I wanted to do was sleep on the car ride home but that was impossible for a few reasons.

Reason why I could not sleep on the car ride home from dance competition in Sakhon Nakhon:

1.       It was sunny. Like really sunny and right in my eyes the whole car ride.

2.       I was squished.  I was tucked up behind a driver who apparently likes his leg room and doesn’t consider mine, now why they put the tallest person behind him; I don’t know just some more Thai hospitality.

3.       Thai road developers are raging drunks. The road we drove on had an average of 10 seconds between each hair pin turn. By hair pin I mean 180 degree rotation drive for ten seconds then repeat. Also the roads are extremely uneven and bumpy. So you try sleeping with your whole body bouncing up and down from the bumps and your head swaying left and right every ten seconds. You try dealing with that for two hours nonstop.

4.       Annoying horn blasts every ten seconds. Thai drivers truly believe that they always have the right of way no matter what. Now this family I was with, the father really loved his car every morning he would wash it by hand and he put a cover on it at night. He also had a fancy smancy horn installed that goes like hoonk honkhonkhonk hoooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkk as it slowly fades out. So instead of just an immeadiate burst of sound it went on for like two minutes after he pressed it. To make it even better he suffered from CHD (compulsive honking disorder) and he suffered bad.

But in the end I did make it home.

 Then last Saturday, November 6^th, I decided to go meet some of my exchange student friends down in Khon Kean. I asked my host mom she said Yes, like always and it was set. So on Saturday morning my host brother drove me to the bus stop. I waited and waited and eventually half an hour later the bus showed up and it was full. So I waited and waited and waited some more until another half an hour later when the second bus showed up and reluctantly let me on. I had the best seat in the house, standing on the platform beside the door at the front of the bus. Basically, if we were to crash, I was to act as the airbag. Now for those of you blog readers that are familiar with Harry Potter, Ernie Prang, the Knight bus driver is a legend in these parts and all bus drivers try to mimic his maneuvers, resulting in one scary bus ride.

But once again, I made it to my destination relatively unscathed, with only a slight mishap of running out of time on my phone. Since this was my first time to Khon Kean, I hadn’t the slightest idea how to get to Central, the big mall, where I  was meeting my friends, so I decided to just take a Tuk Tuk, since it was direct and easy.  Now thing about Tuk Tuk’s is they make the Knight Bus from Harry Potter look like the equivalent of a carousel compared to Drop Tower. Tuk Tuk drivers don’t require a license or a speed limit, so although it’s terrifying, it’s fast. So I arrived at Central, did I mention this mall is huge and I started looking for my friends. I used my keen deductive reasoning skills and decided they shouldn’t be hard to find they are foreigners and they are probably at a restaurant. So I went up to the food floor and sure enough they were all tucked in a Steak House. 

So we hung out for the day hopping from international food chain to international food chain. Dunkin Donuts, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, we hit them all up finally stopping at the food haven for all exchange students in Thailand, Tops Market. Tops Market is what Thai people call a gourmet fancy smancy grocery store; it’s what we call an average grocery store, equipped with normal food. I was good though, I only bought some cookies and salad dressing.

Then it was getting late so we all decided to head home. My friend Tipsy gave my friend, Emo and I a ride. She dropped Emo off at his house then we got lost trying to find the bus station. Now the buses stop running at six pm and it was like 5:50pm or something and we were totally lost. So we found the bus station and she drops me off and I go to get on the half empty bus and they won’t let me on. So I go to buy a ticket but none of the ladies will sell me one except for this one lady who has a huge line up of people waiting to buy tickets from her. So I get in line and wait. I look down at my phone just as it says low battery and shuts off. Great, I think how am I going to call them when I get to the bus stop? Oh well, I think first deal with getting on the bus. So finally I buy a ticket and go try and get on the second bus, but they still won’t let me. So I just stand there and keep trying and finally they let me on the bus and get this I get to sit down this time.

So we are driving along fine and I am trying to ignore the fact I have to pee ridiculously bad but couldn’t go because I had to catch the bus. I am listening to my music and staring out the window, when suddenly the bus just stops in the middle of the road. The lights turn off and everyone is quiet. We sat there for like fifteen minutes until the bus finally started again. I made it home around7:15pm and called my host mom, so scared she was going to be mad at me for not calling or being out so late or something, but no, she’s not even home so she sends Go to come pick me up and that’s that.

My last adventure is really an adventure more so a very strange experience. Two days ago my host mom asked me to come watch a dance competition and go out for dinner at food street a celebration celebrating the week before Loy Krathong (more on that later), food street I think, awesome. We end up in some field crawling with bugs where a bunch of vendors have set up around a big stage. Well first of all we couldn’t find a place to sit and when we finally did, we ordered dinner. It was delicious of course except I had to keep picking bugs out of my food because there were so many they would land for a second and get stuck and you had to pick them out. I didn’t even bother with the soup because in like the first ten seconds it was on my table five flies had drowned in it. 

After dinner my host family went to watch the dancers. I decided to walk around and see the vendors. Something bit me on the back and caused this extreme burning and itching feeling to spread all over my back and I started going crazy I was trying to scratch it or get whatever bit me off and it hurt so bad. I was so close to ripping my clothes off and had there been a bathroom nearby I would have. It eventually stopped hurting. I went and sat and watched the dancers for a couple of hours until I became so incredibly tired and bored I could actually focus on the dancers my eyes would just sorta cross and stay there.  I had to get up and get moving because once again he bugs were driving me insane so I went to a little vendor set up cutting hair. I figured hey I could use a trim, so I asked how much. Then this older Thai guy dressed like a cowboy who was very obviously gay, comes over and says for you free. Ok, I think so I tell them in Thai just a little bit please and they start cutting my hair. Every single person that walked by stopped and watched me have my hair cut. Seriously, there were like fifty people just watching me. To make it even weirder when I was finished, they went and picked up my hair. When I went back half an hour later all of my brunette hair was gone but all the black Asian hair was still there. They did a beautiful job cutting my hair though, it’s just like a wanted, just a little trim.

But seriously, how many people can say guess what I did last Monday, I got my hair cut for free at a night market in Thailand by a gay Asian cowboy and I had people watch and take locks of my hair home.

Tomorrow, I head to Phu Kradung for my first Rotary Trip. We are going to celebrate Loy Krathong, (which I will tell you about when I find out what it’s all about) and then we are going to hike up a mountain and stay there for few days then hike back down and come home.

Sorry, for the wait and rushed post, but I am hungry and I hear they have free food in the Canteen.

Xoxo Chantel <3

Just Another Wednesday

  So, it was just an ordinary Wednesday, nothing exciting, or extraordinary about it, just another day. I woke up at 6:30 am like any other day when I am too lazy to go for a run, (on the days I go for a run I wake up at 5:45 am), and I walked down stairs for my shower. I was about to jump in the shower, when I realized I left the new bottle of shampoo on the table, so I had to redress and go out and grab it. As I was exiting the bathroom, my host mom saw me and told me my councillor had called. She said we could talk about it after I got out of the shower.

My first thought was yes they called and talked about a) me meeting up with my councillor for lunch sometime to discuss host families, b) dance lessons, or c) my third potential host family. I have emailed my councillor and talked to my mom about these things but never get answers, so I thought, I would finally get some answers.

I showered as quickly as I could and threw on my uniform and ate breakfast. Then I packed my bag and sat on the couch until it was time to go. Just like every other morning. My host mom comes over and says, “oh there is a family in town, (potential host family maybe:D), who recently moved here from Bangkok, (with a connection to Bangkok :D), The husband is the top policeman in our area and the wife is a university professor at the top school in Bangkok, they are very rich, ( a rich host family :D) they want you to teach their child English. (OhhhhL)”

Then my host mom starts telling me how, the child is scared of guys but likes girls and how I would start today at 10 am. WAIT A MINUTE! Today, at 10 am you want me to teach some random kids ENGLISH! So of course I said, “Today? At 10 am?”

My host mom said, “yeah you are ok with it right? I mean we already said you would do it.”

Well, then I guess I will do it, given my apparent choice.  Then my host mom asks me what lessons I have prepared. Oh well in the past millisecond, I prepared a multimedia presentation, four work sheets, two colouring pages, a short story and a song introducing the basic conversation skills of English. Nothing obviously, because technically, it’s against Rotary’s rules for me to work. I came here to be an exchange student not an English teacher, but in Thailand they forget that. So she gave me a work book from her desk and told me to just find games online.

So that morning, in my hour and half prep time, I found a few games online. Then something amazing happened, my best friend, Holly and I happened to be on Skype at the same time. It was so great to talk to her, I miss her like crazy and I love catching up on her life back home. Unfortunately, she had math homework and I had an English lesson to prepare, so our talk was short but very sweet.  After that I watched a few videos describing teaching English. My friend, Sara from Italy, came and found me and we sat in the English room talking for a bit.

We discussed how we really missed weird things from home. Things you would never think to miss. For example, I miss my bathroom across the hall from my bedroom that I only have to share with my NINE year old brother, (sharing a bathroom with a nine year old brother is easy considering he rarely uses it.) I miss having a kitchen with a stove with for burners and an oven. I miss have ingredients that I know how to use. I miss my bed and bedside trunk filled with old Polaroid’s, vintage clothing and records. I miss my brother coming and knocking on my bedroom door every night telling me to turn my music down. I miss being able to shut the blinds and sleep to noon. I miss my family and my friends. Sarah misses similar things and it’s funny because you never expect to miss those things.

During our conversation, a policeman showed up with my host mom, to take me to the children’s house. I would later find out that policeman wasn’t even the father. My host mom asked Sarah if she wanted to join me but she was smart and said, no. So I get in the fanciest car I have seen here and we drive, down one block and turn into the police station, then we drive to the back to a house. As we get out, I see two girls playing with a lady, so I assumed it was the mother; at this time I was still under the impression the guy who drove me was the father. Then we went inside and I realized the lady was too young to be the mother for she was hardly out of high school, so I assumed it was an older sister. Then another man walked in and handed me a cell phone. The lady on the other end, who I assume to be the mother spoke perfect English and told me about the girls and what to teach them.

 So, I set up my laptop and tried to get on the internet but of course it did not work. So I pulled up paint and started playing guesses what I am drawing. That went along well, until I ran out of things to draw. So I pulled out the workbook and we started going through just basically reading it and playing find the object. It went along great until the girls started getting tired around 12:10pm. Which figures because I had been teaching them for two hours, but I continued teaching until 12:30, then we went and ate lunch. That was when everything finally made sense to me.

There were two tables set up, one in the middle and one off to the side. The old lady, I had assumed to be the grandmother went and sat at the table off to the side and so did the girl, I assumed to be the sister. Then I and the two girls sat at the main table. Then two ladies, who were in the kitchen brought us dinner and the father, the second man I met, who handed me the phone, came and sat with us.  Basically, the family appeared to have a nanny, three maids, and one of the police officers, working for them. This was so strange to me, having never been around families that have a staff. Now, add me as the family English tutor. After lunch, I asked to go back to school because, they girls were done with learning English and I was done teaching. The police officer drove me back to school. 

When I arrived back at school my host mother asked me how it went, good I told her. She told me she wants me to teach there every day until they go back to Bangkok. I think that’s kind of a lot, considering, I don’t actually know how to teach and I am not even getting paid for this. Back home a two hour English lesson for two girls would make me good money and I know that foreign teachers here make good money for that sort of work, so, I don’t think every day is very fair.

So, now I am back at school for another two hours and then I will go home and sleep, because believe it or not, teaching English tires you out.

Dear Santa

 Dear Santa,

How are you Santa? I haven’t written to you in about a year. I have been pretty busy being an exchange student in Thailand and stuff but, I am sure your elves had informed you on my current adventure. Well, it’s true; I am in Thailand doing a one year exchange. It’s pretty exciting here in Thailand, Santa, but it is also very difficult adjusting to a new culture. I have been a good girl though Santa, I brush my teeth twice a day and I even mailed out letters and postcards to my friends and family yesterday. They should arrive home in 2-3 weeks. Being in Thailand has made me truly appreciate the life I lead back home.

Enough about me though, I mean you have loads of children that want to tell you about how good they have been. I want to hear about you. How is the weather in the North Pole around this time of year? Cold I presume but does the North Pole experience seasons, like Ontario does? If yes, could you tell me about them? How are the reindeers? I hope they have been keeping active in the past ten months; it would be tragic if one of them suddenly got a cramp and couldn’t complete the long journey around the world, to say Thailand.  And of course the misses, how is Ms. Claus doing? I hope she hasn’t been feeding you too many cookies. Just in case she has I will leave out some tropical fruit for you this year. I would leave out cookies, but unfortunately Thailand hasn’t exactly grasped the concept of making good cookies. They try but it is a recently new, practise to them and just like anyone trying something new, they just haven’t gotten it quite right.

Santa, I am going to be honest with you, I am really scared my family in Canada is going to forget about me on Christmas. I mean it is going to be strange to spend Christmas in a tropical climate and to add on to that, without my family. Hmmm. Christmas isn’t celebrated by many people in Thailand because of it being a Christian based holiday, but you will still come Santa, right? I hope so. Do you think my family back home will send me little gifts for Christmas?  Let me tell you Santa, those little things from home right about now would make me the happiest girl in the world. I don’t want or need much only a few things out of convenience. What I want most, Santa, is to be able to travel around Thailand as much as I can and for that I need money. Humph! Your elves probably don’t have a money press, right? I mean I guess that would be considered naughty, but if they do could you send some my way through my Bank Account in Canada? If you need more information you can ask my Mom, she is always willing to help.

As for the other comforts of home I miss and wouldn’t mind seeing again this holiday season, here are a few ideas:

Kraft Dinner

Lululemon Headbands

Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

 Chicken Noodle Soup the Liptons box kind seems light enough to mail

Toiletries are always welcome because the toiletries aren’t the same here as they are in Canada.

 Work out clothing is also always appreciated because I happen to live in it here between boxing, running and going to the gym. Even when I am not exercising, it is the best comfort clothing. Once again Santa, you can talk to my mom.

  I hope that is not too much, remember I don’t want it all, I just wanted to give you some Ideas, so you could pick and choose. If you cannot make it to Thailand this year please remember mail takes a long time to get here, THREE TO FOUR MONTHS! So you might want to send a package or a letter ASAP. If these things are too difficult, a Christmas card would achieve almost the same effect, the effect of remembering home and getting that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Thank you Santa, once again for making my Christmas’ magical.

Xoxo Chantel <3

It's Raining and Flooding, but Dont Worry :)

 When I think about Thailands current water situation to songs come to mind the first is the ever quoted Bob Marley classic Three Little Birds:

" Don't worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is gonna be alright"

The second is a classic childhood favourite, It's Raining, It's Pouring by Your Parents:

 "It’s raining its pouring the old man is snoring he went to bed and bumped his head and couldn’t get up in the morning"

Just a quick note on how the second children’s song is actually quite grave and morbid.

So in case you recently, came out of the rock we all live under known as safe little Canada and have heard about the flooding in Thailand, I AM ALIVE AND DRY!! I am sad to report that the flooding in Thailand is as bad as the news puts it. I am happy to report though that the Thai people are not fretting and are keeping their reputation as the land of smiled through it all. Mai pen lai, right?

 My town’s river started overflowing yesterday and has now reached one half of our main road. One village has flooded but most of the town is situated far away from the river and is safe. I am luckily far from the river in a field, in my house, in my second story bedroom, nice and dry. My family tells me not to worry that it is the first time it has flood in Mahasarakham in 20 years and that it just means we have to drive the pickup truck to school instead of the car. They tell me the water should only raise slightly high stay for about 2-3 weeks then continue its journey towards the sea. The Thai people do not appear to be worried about the river opening up and swallowing the town whole, like it did Ayutthaya. Some thoughts are pleasant and everything will be ok.

The flooding in Thailand is not something unusual it happens annually here as the rainy season comes to an end. All the water that has accumulated in the mountains in the north must flow down the rivers back out the sea. Unfortunately, the rivers cannot accompany for all this water so they overflow causing flooding.  Some years are worst than others, this year is particularly bad, but Thailand will be ok.

So everyone, can stop bombarding my mom with questions about the flood, you can however keep asking about me;). If anything interesting, exciting or dangerous happens, I will let you know. In the mean time don’t worry about me I am just trying to understand my intro to anthropology, psychology and sociology course work from home. It’s not the floods you need to be worried about; it’s me trying to learn social sciences.

Xoxo Chantel <3

Just another week in Bangkok

Wow, what a week. I don’t know where to start.  I am not going to go into too much detail because most of it was” you had to be there” moments. But basically here is the extremely basic, in as little words as possible rundown of my past week.

Sunday: Boarded a bus to Bangkok at 7:30 am with the cell phone number of my councillor, her two daughters and no other knowledge as to what was happening. When I arrived in Bangkok I called my councillor and she picked me up and drove me to JJ market to meet up with her eldest daughter Anil and her youngest daughter, Anila’s host family from Germany. We went out for dinner and I had a great chat with the German family’s eldest daughter about living in Thailand.

Monday:  Got put in a Taxi with my address written on a card and was sent to the mall for a fun day of shopping. I spent way too much money but had a great time terrorizing Forever 21 by trying on a million outfits including shoes and accessories. I am sure if they knew how to say please, leave the store in English, they would have. I then went outside the mall and waved down a taxi gave them my address card and hoped to dear god, I wasn’t going to get dropped off in Soi Cowboy. (Google it)

Tuesday: Well, I made it home in one piece the night before so I woke up and went with Anila to tour around the city with her host family. We took two taxis, a sky train and a subway in rush hour traffic to get to their hotel. It was beyond crazy busy. We arrived there and helped them book their resort for the next week then helped them switch hotels to a resort in Bangkok on the river that had a beautiful roof top pool. We switched hotels and then went out for brunch. I ordered SPAGHETTI and it was delicious but I can do better. Then while walking to the sky train station I saw a fish spa and suggested we try it out because I had been dying to. It was hilarious, it tickled soo much and felt soo weird. It was definitely worth 100 baht. Then we went and visited temple on a hill. It was like any other temple except it was touristy so there were gongs and bells everywhere to ring. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Then we went by tuk tuk to a museum but the German family wanted to go back to the hotel so we took a taxi back to their hotel. I decided to try and find the famous Khao San road and wandered around, getting lost a few times, but finally finding it. I walked around there for a bit, I got my hair wrapped, got a tattoo (ha-ha just kidding, I am crazy not stupid) and ate French fries at McDonalds. Ahhh yeah! Then I wandered back to the hotel getting lost once more but eventually finding it. Oh I bought a pair of earphones on Khao san road because I was so proud of myself for bargaining the price from 550 baht to 350 baht in Thai!! Mind you I sat in McDonalds for like half an hour before memorizing the bargaining words. I then went back to the hotel and met up with the German family and Anila. We went back to Khao San Road for dinner and cocktails, non-alcoholic for me of course.  Then we took a taxi home.

Wednesday: I woke up at 6 am and got in a taxi heading towards a van station where, I would meet one of Anila’s friends Goi and a German backpacker named Stephen who was couching surfing at her house. (Google Couchsurfing)  I waited an hour and a half in traffic and then I finally arrived getting in a van headed towards Pattaya. After a two hour van ride we arrived at the pier in Pattaya and boarded a ferry to Koh Larn Island. When we arrived we met up with Goi’s friends and rented a motorcycle to tour around the island on. We had to drive straight up this curvy mountain road. It was so steep and then once you got to the top you had to go straight back down. At the end was an island paradise beach overcrowded by fat Europeans stuffed in bikinis and Speedos and speed boats. I was a little disappointed but I realized that we are really spoiled with our empty beaches at home. We stayed and went swimming and then drove to some of the other beaches which were less crowded but still quite busy. Then we had dinner and went back to the hotel room to hang out. Goi’s friend bought a fried pregnant horseshoe crab and ate the eggs. I had a bite. They weren’t bad just really gross texture and all I could think about was hundreds of baby crabs crawling around in my belly and that bothered me. Then I went and read my book in a hammock for a bit before finally going to bed.

Thursday: I woke up early and went and sat outside and wrote in a journal for a bit marvelling on the fact that at the age of sixteen I was alone on an island in Thailand. How many people can say that? We woke up and went to the beach. The Thai’s wanted to sit on the beach but it cost 100 baht to sit on a chair and the sand was wet so I and Stephen decided to walk around taking pictures and talking about travelling. He is doing a gap year after university and is travelling to some amazing places like Bali and Fiji. I am so jealous.  Then we went back into town for lunch and took the next ferry back to Pattaya. I wanted to go to Walking Street a street equally famous for its strippers and prostitutes as it is for its creepy old men. Since it was the afternoon none of the bars or clubs was open and it was pretty dead but once you got off the street and in to Pattaya, you saw the shady crowd. All these old men roaming the streets either drinking or walking around with a young Thai woman on their arms. Ugh it was absolutely gross. Anyone travelling to Thailand don’t listen to what anyone says, DON’T GO TO PATTAYA. We then got on the van and drove home arriving around 7pm. I then flagged down another taxi gave him my card and had to wait another 2 hours in rush hour traffic.

Friday: I woke up around seven and was ready to go at eight but had to wait until nine for my councillor to bring me to the bus station. I then boarded a bus at 9:30 and was off to Khorat for my three bound meeting which started at 12pm. I arrived in Khorat at 3:30pm and got picked up from the bus station by my second host father and host brother. They drove me to the hotel where I met my second host mother and checked in. Then when finding my room I ran into Avry and Luis who were lost and didn’t know what was going on so we followed my mom over to the sports field. They were all just finishing playing soccer and volley ball so I walked back to the hotel and hung out with the exchange students. Oh I love those people soo much. They are all so fun and chill.  We then had dinner and then walked to seven eleven for junk food. We thought we saw some strippers along the way so we got our picture taking with them but when we entered the “strip club” it was just a karaoke place. I don’t know why they had pictures of strippers on the front. Hmmm. We picked up a ton of junk food and headed back to the hotel for a night of dancing in the hotel rooms. Don’t ask me what time I went to bed because I have no idea.

Saturday: We woke up early and had breakfast. Toast and eggs were the only edible breakfast food. We then listened to a lecture on how we cannot get CAUGHT breaking the D’s or else they will HAVE to punish us but if we DON’T get caught, they will not punish us. Go figure. Oh and they told us the drugs over here are totally wack so, be careful. XD oh Rotary. We then proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the except for sit in our rooms listening to music and confusing the hell out of the poor room service people but in retrospect we gave them a ton of money. Then we went and talked to some Thai students about our countries! HA! Yeah right the Thai students were too afraid to talk to us. So we gave each other temporary tattoos and then went back to our rooms for predinner naps. Then we had dinner and a talent show. Canada being extremely unprepared sang our national anthem then plugged in Justin Bieber's  Baby, turned off the light and sang our hearts out. All the inbounds came up and danced on stage and we just jammed out. Basically we rocked. Especially because Avry and I went up front and rapped the Ludacris part like the awesome Canadians we are. Then we walked to seven eleven again bought more junk food and hung out in our rooms.

Sunday: we woke up early rushed to pack and eat breakfast and then found out we had nothing to do except eat lunch together, and then go home.  Way to tell us before. So we just hung out in our rooms and did basically nothing. Then we ate lunch and my second host family drove me home. Oh I really like my host family, they talked to me for about half of the car ride home asking about my life back home and checking to see if I was homesick. They seem like a very loving family and I am excited to have two younger brothers. My one brother will also be going on an exchange next year which is so cool. He wants to go to the US. Then I have another brother who is younger than me so he calls me Phi-Kahn which I love. My second host mom is the librarian in my school and she doesn’t speak much English but she is good at teaching me Thai. In the car she was telling me how to say things. I would love to move in with them tomorrow especially because they were telling me about how they live near the physical college where I work out but I figure it will better to wait another 2 and a half months, so I have something to look forward to.

So that was my week in as few words as possible. Exciting eh?

I also wanted to include some of my favourite quotes from the week.

Bangkok:

Jula: “I don’t think I could do it, I don’t think I could live here for a year.”

Ajan Anuch: “Do you feel safe travelling alone? Oh well its adventure you will learn from danger.”

Pattaya:

Goi: “eww the guys here are so gross.”

Khorat:

Various people in reference to crossing the road: “You have to want it more than they do.”

Luis:” Wow, you look sawai mak.”

Annie: “Do you ever look outside and think I am in Asia? Why the ____ am I an Asia?”

Enjoy that food for thought.

Xoxox Chantel <3

Bangkok Day One

 Well, I did it. I made it two Bangkok with two arms, two legs and one very confused head. I even managed to get off at the pit stop go on a junk food shopping spree and make it back on my bus. Unfortunately, it took me two tries to actually find the right big blue bus, but eventually I did find it.

In respect to the sense of adventure I am taking by travelling to Bangkok, I will also be taking another adventure in to the world of video blogging.

So check out  my first episode about my first day in Bangkok!

xoxo Chantel <3

Trip to Bangkok

 Ok, so just a follow up post, on today’s earlier post. I WILL BE GOING TO BANGKOK TOMORROW!

Who: Me, Chantelle Gabrielle Ouellet

Who will be picking me up: My councillor who I met briefly once and then ditched me at a random school with a random 13 year old, who also ditched me.

What:  yeah, I am asking the same question...

What will I be doing: Helping out at some English camps during the month of October and hopefully touring around Bangkok.

What will I be bringing: My school bag because according to my host mother bringing a carry on suitcase is too inconvenient for these camps. Funny how she knows a tiny suitcase is too inconvenient for these camps yet she knows nothing else about them. -___- So yeay, for living out of my school bag for a month.

Where: Bangkok

Where will I be staying in Bangkok: I don’t know, I asked my host mom where  I would be staying and she said Bangkok, I then asked if I would be staying at a hotel for duration of the camps and she said, I don’t know, I know nothing about this program... great. Yet your sending your exchange daughter and insisting she only bring her school bag.

Where will I be staying when not at the camps: at my councillors daughters house who apparently has her ex host family from Germany visiting. Yeay another language I have to endure.

When: Tomorrow until the 30^th of October

When tomorrow, will you leave: I guess when they yell, “Bah!” at me. Bah means lets go and they always yell it at me like you idiot how come you are not already in the car I mean  seriously it’s not all that sporadic that we randomly decided to go out for dinner with no warning and not tell you even though you have already changed into your pyjamas.

Why: Because my host mom told me I had to go.

How: By bus.

How will you get to the camp: I don’t know.

How will you survive three weeks on four outfits: Hopefully, there are laundry facilities.

How will you contact your beloved bloggers to tell them about your adventure: I am just hoping whatever weird hotel I end up in has free internet.

How will did you end up in such a wacky situation: By becoming an exchange student.

Bon Voyage everyone, I will try and keep you updated on this latest adventure as often as internet connection and time allow. I will however right blog posts regularly and post them eventually.

Wish me luck!

 No seriously, stop what you are doing and wish me luck, if you are religious pray for my luck and if you believe in telekinesis, send me words of wisdom and luck.

Xoxo Chantel <3

My New Hobbies

 OK so maybe I need to blog more often about life in Thailand as it is everyday instead of just when something exciting happens. Because believe it or not even in a foreign country in South East Asia you can have your bad days of boredom. For me it has been hard trying to entertain myself in this foreign country alone for the past three weeks but, I have managed with a few adventures that I have told you about. Although my school break is sadly coming to an end on Monday. I will not be returning to school until November.

My councillor has asked that I participate in an English camp as a volunteer “foreign helper,” supposedly there will be other exchange students there but I don’t really know.  Word for word all the information I have been given is:

“It’s in Bangkok”

“You make money, but not a lot”

“You teach English”

“For the rest of the month”

“Oh you stay with your councillor’s daughter, you will meet her there”

“You travel around Bangkok”

“Yeah other foreigners will be there”

“You take a bus there”

“You leave on Sunday”

So as you can imagine, I am kinda like woooaahhh, you are sending me to Bangkok with the phone numbers of some lady I have never met and telling me I can travel. AWESOME!!!! But also kinda scary.

 So yeah maybe, I don’t know where I am actually staying, or what to do once my bus actually arrives. Maybe I don’t know how much it costs, or what exactly teaching English entails. So what, I mean, I am a sixteen year old girl apparently travelling alone in Thailand, how much planning do you need?

 Well, I have learned to take everything with a grain of salt and just go with it and hope for the best. If worst comes to worst I can just get back on a bus home.

 In the mean time, I have been spending all my free time doing one of five things.

1.       Yoga

2.       Watching movies online

3.       Reading travel blogs

4.       Journaling

5.       Emailing my mom

And I actually want to talk to you guys about some awesome blogs, I have been reading that really make me want to get out and travel.  I never realised until after really reading into hard-core travellers lives that Thailand was such a coveted destination. I mean yes, I love it here. But eleven months ago, I didn’t even know Thailand existed apart from the Tsunami in 2004 when I saw the news and ran and grabbed a poncho from Old Navy that was made in Thailand. Back then, I didn’t even think about visiting Thailand. But now, I realize that, by being sent to Thailand, Rotary has kick started a life of real and exciting travel instead of that touristy fluff and for that I am very thankful. Now I realize that, the most amazing countries aren’t the ones you hear about your cousins, or your friends or that person you know going to. It’s the countries people rarely go to.

For some fun travel stories I recommend these blogs:

http://theadventureblog.blogspot.com/

This blog was recommended on National Geographic’s website and always features unique and interesting stories about some of the most adventurous people in the world

http://www.travelettes.net/

 This blogs tag line is “Backpacking in heels.” I think that basically covers it.

http://www.ytravelblog.com/

This blog is a great site for information on how to travel young, and always tells great stories and has great advice.

These are all amazing blogs I thoroughly enjoy, who knows maybe you will too.

When I am not reading blogs I am faithfully emailing my mother any thought that crosses my mind. From frequent freak outs, to Christmas lists, to future plans for university and travel. I fill up her inbox time and time again. You know you are bored when your mom becomes your best friend over the internet. Wow, how lame!!

 When, I am not emailing my mom, I can be found watching movies. In the past 3 weeks I have watched 25 movies. This is a lot considering, I used to be the girl who couldn’t sit through a whole movie. I guess my attention span has been widened? Maybe extreme boredom does that.

Then there is Yoga, although, I get lots of strange looks from my family as I sit on the front porch in Downward Dog, I really enjoy it.  I also really enjoy meditating. I have become really good at it. I mean I can meditate for like half an hour without losing focus and I don’t flinch when flies land on my eyelids or anything. I am like a beautiful divine creature. XD Until a bug tries to crawl in my mouth, or a lizard jumps on me then I lose my cool and run around screaming. But for a while, all is peaceful.

So yep, that is my life in Thailand.

Xoxo Chantel <3

Motorcycles, Farangs and Sparklers

 Yesterday, I had an adventure.

 My day started out like any other by waking up late and sitting on the couch for the morning watching movies on my laptop. I was pretty depressed you know after watching movies all day every day for two weeks straight, you would be too. That is when I decided I HAD to get out of the house.

 I saw my friend Tack was online on Facebook, and luckily she wasn’t busy. I suggested she take me for a ride on her motorcycle. Thai teenagers love to take me out on their motorcycles because I think it is so awesome.  So she invited me to go to her house for the afternoon. She picked me up on her motorcycle and we started off. We drove down the main street, I go down every day and then we turned off onto this little two lane road, heading basically nowhere. We drove for miles on this two lane road surrounded by endless rice fields. It was so beautiful. Just imagine speeding down this empty two lane road in the middle of these vast rice fields on a sunny day in Thailand. It was awesome.

 We started approaching her little teeny tiny village. It was just sitting there in the middle of these rice fields.  There was one little teeny tiny temple and a little convenience store. We drove down this tiny alley way that was filled with chicken and Thai children running around. Then we came up to her house. In her small village people live really close together and everyone just kinda hangs out, outside.  There was a lady across the road just lying in a hammock nursing her baby, there were children running up and down the alley, my friend’s grandmother was frying crab over a fire, and right next door, a family was making purses.

Tack told me that, they make bags by hand here and sell them. Then she brought me to another house down the lane where they make even more styles of bags.  It was a Sunday so everyone in the family was working even; the kids were cutting out rivets for the bags. They asked if I wanted to buy one and I couldn’t resist, after seeing where it was made, I thought it would be worth it.

Next Tack took me on her motorcycle to the reservoirs where the local children like to swim.  Me and Tack went down to like a drainage pipe thing and were crouching in the shade with our feet in the water, talking when I looked up and saw all the village kids standing there staring at me. They had this what is the crazy foreigner doing look on their face. They stared for a bit then got in the water. The kids just come whenever and jump in. No parents or people watching them. They played in the water for a while until a lady who was nearby chased them away, because she was afraid of them getting hurt. It really made me think of that quote,” It takes a village to raise a child.”

We went back to Tack’s house and I played with her little brother for a bit. He is ten years old and very friendly. He showed me his yo-yos and gave me some sunflower seeds to eat. Then I guess he wanted to take the Farang (foreigner) to a farang (a type of fruit) tree. So all three of us, Tack, her younger brother and I, pile on the motorcycle and take off on some dirt road in the rice fields. We drove for quite a while before we parked the motorcycle on the side of the road and walked to a little opening in the rice patties. Now one thing you should know about rice, it’s grown in water, in a marsh like environment. So we stepped into this ankle deep water and followed Tacks, ten year old brother along this clay path in the water, in the middle of the rice fields. This clay path was put in by farmers, to check their crops. It is about a foot wide about 3 inches under water and if you step off it by the slightest bit you are waste deep in rice water. YUMM YUMM. So as you can guess, I was soaked by the time we finally made it to this little dry patch with a farang tree and two patches of wild bamboo. Yep just sitting there in the middle of the rice field. My friend’s brother then went on to climb the tree to retrieve us down the biggest and bestest farang he could find. He pranced from branch to branch walking out on limbs and swinging down from the top. He reminded me of Mowgli from the Jungle book. After we ate all the good farang we could find, we walked back out of the rice fields and drove home.

Tack had to tidy up and buy dinner so I played with her little brother. He gave me these little exploding things; they are like a powder wrapped up in white tissue, that when you throw at the ground they explode. He gave me half and he took half and we threw them at each other’s feet for a while before dinner.  Then we ate dinner which was some crazy Thai food that I don’t really know the name of or what it consisted of. However I did know that there were these little tiny crabs and a charcoaled fish that the grandma had cooked over the fire. I am not sure where these came from so I tried a little bit of the crab and ate the fish. Did I mention we put the food on a mat on the floor and then sat on the floor to eat? That was a first for me, but I liked it.

After dinner Tacks brother lit me sparklers and we played with those for a while, spinning around and waving them in the air. He thought it was so funny because I couldn’t work the lighter yet he, a ten year old boy could. Thailand isn’t big on safety.

After that tack and her brother drove me home. It was the perfect day.

In Canada....

 Being an Exchange Student is not easy. It is really hard. You leave your family, your friends, your home and your culture for a year and send yourself to a country that when, it gets down to it, and you know nothing about.  In hindsight you wonder why, in foresight you think its ok it’s going to be worth it.  In the moment you just think, I might be crazy.

 Being an exchange student is not only hard because of what you leave but also what you enter. You imagine going on an exchange and live basically the same life you had at home but more exciting and exotic. Your life here is NOTHING like your life at home. Everything is different.

 At home in Canada when I wanted to go out I just asked my mom or dad and it was always ok and they would always drive me whenever they went to run errands or weren’t busy. Here, my family never leaves the house and find it very strange that you always want to go out. Not to mention your friends are reluctant to leave their own houses to hangout. People like to just sit around, while I despise just hanging around.

In Canada if you had an exchange student in your house and you were going somewhere you would invite them to join you. Like hey I am going to the supermarket wanna come? Here people just come and go ignoring your presence.

 In Canada, you keep food in your cabinets and fridge and around your house. Here you buy the food and you need to eat it so if you are hungry and can’t go out to buy your own food you just don’t eat.  I have lost 15 pounds since I have arrived, which when you think about it, is probably due to the lack of food.

In Canada, your parents get worried and or mad if you spend all day on your computer. Here, parents recommend it. It’s like so what are we going to do today, why don’t you go play on your computer for twelve hours like you have been for the last four days.

In Canada, when you have an hour long test during the day it doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything else. Here it’s like no I am sorry I have a test from 9 am to 10 am. I am busy.

 In Canada, when your bathroom goes under renovation its ok because you can use your parents bathroom or another bathroom in the house. Here your other bathroom is in your parent’s room where the door must always remained closed and it is used by 7 other adults. So not only do you have the awkward entering your host parents bedroom when the door is closed, hoping to dear god no one is in there, then you have people walking in on you showering. Did I mention they don’t have showers with shower curtains here? No, it’s just a room with a shower head and a toilet.

In Canada, once you have a laptop or two plus a desktop you realise Wi-Fi is the only way to go. Here you have to try and get one of the working cables into one of the working holes on the stupid internet thing and hope that a) your connection is fast enough to allow you on face book and b) no one goes and switches your cable to one of the whole things that don’t work. We have five laptops in my house here. PLEASE GET WI-FI.

In Canada, it is frowned upon to eat the same meal two nights in a row. Here, you eat the same food, for every meal for up to three days in a row. Breakfast: rice and chicken, Lunch: rice and chicken, Dinner: rice and chicken. And Repeat until you are out of chicken.

 In Canada, a couch is considered a plush sitting object where three people can sit comfortably and watch an entire movie without the slightest notion of their butt getting numb. Here, a couch is a wooden bench with a thirty year old, inch and a half thick hard as rock cushion on it. Well it’s either that or with the ants on the tile floor.

  In Canada, you drink white milk out of a bag. Here you drink chocolate milk out of a carton that is sometimes not refrigerated and makes you wonder what percent of that milk actually came from a cow.

In Canada, when you become 14 you go and watch 14-A movies, when you turn 16 you learn how to drive, when you turn 19 you go out and have your first drink. Here, 18 is the legal age of consent and to do all of that yet no one does it. Everyone just stays home and plays on Face book, living with their parents. Wwweeiirrdddd!

 In Canada, when you turn 10 your parents give you allowance for doing chores. When you turn 15 your parents make you find a job and stop giving you money for frivolous things. When you’re a teenager most parents only pay for necessities not your weekly visits to the movie theatre or for that cute dress you want. Here, parents pay for everything and anything until you graduate college or university.

In Canada, when students decide to skip school they typically leave school and go home or do something more exciting,  for example Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is every high schooler’s dream way of skipping school. Here, kids skip school and stay at school just not in the class they were supposed to be in. It’s like hehehehe we are going to skip French to go to science ahahhahahah we are soo bad. Umm not quite.

In Canada, coming home late is like 12am. Here coming home late is like 8pm. -__-

 I like Thailand a lot but still after six weeks it is still proving to be difficult. This post was more therapeutic than anything. I love Thailand and wouldn’t dream of leaving it umm quite yet but at the same time I would kill for some Canadian normalcy. Oreo’s anyone?

Xoxox Chantel <3