Mike in Thailand: March 2009

Shaun had planned a basic trip for us. He had been to the islands many times before but not to Malaysia and Singapore. All we had booked was a train ride down to the islands and then our flight back from Singapore. The first part of our trip was a 14 hour train ride from Bangkok. The train left at 10:40 pm. We took the subway from our apartment to get to the train, but it took longer than expected. We got off the subway at 10:35 and had to run through the station around the block to the train station with our big backpacks on and carrying all of our stuff. We didn’t think we were going to make it, but we got there right at 10:40. We were supposed to get a sleeper train; which has beds so you can sleep for through the night. Because of the language barrier I guess we booked the wrong train and just had regular seats, not very fun for 14 hours. It was a bad start to the trip. But we made it to our stop and then took a 1 and a half our taxi ride to the boat we had to take. Then there we took a 2 and a half hour boat ride, with standing room only, to the island where we were staying. A lot of traveling, but this place was worth everything we went through. The island is called Koh Lipe if you want to look up pictures. I lost my camera on the beach so I won’t be able to take anymore. A canoe boat with a motor like a trolling fishing boat picked us up

from the other boat and took us to the island. They dropped us off on the wrong side of the island and we had to walk about 15 minutes to the other side to find a place to stay. We found a hut to stay in that was on the sand. It was about 20 yards from the ocean. It was very basic. It had a bed, with a bug net, one light, and a fan. There was a door to the outside with and a shower and toilet enclosed by a fence. There was no hot water and not much water pressure. You basically had to use a bucket to fill and up and then pour on you head to wash your hair. This same bucket was used to flush the toilet. You had to fill up the toilet bowl with water to get it to flush. I had never seen anything like this but it was kinda cool, because it was so simple. This place cost 500 baht a night, which is $14, which was split by two of us. Outside our hut was a little stage and bar. In front of th

e stage were tables on mats with pillows on them. This is where we hung out every night playing cards and listening to music. We met a lot of people from everywhere, but a lot of people from Sweden, not many Americans. Every night they had music, mostly island reggae, with fire shows. There were 2 batons, a guy with 2 stings with tennis balls on the end, and a girl who hula-hooped, all these items were lit on fire. One night they even had a local band play that was surprisingly good, because most Thai music is pretty bad. We ate most of our meals sitting on the beach staring at the water and the stars. Our first full day there we went snorkeling. I had never been before and the first 30 minutes I swallowed a ton of salt water learning how to do it. But once I did it was amazing seeing all of the colorful sea life. We swam around about 1/3 of the island. I got burnt bad even though I wore 50 sun block. Every day at 4 we played volleyball. It was far

ang (foreigners) vs. lady boys. The lady boys could play too. But it was decent volleyball and we met a lot of people there. It also rained once a day for about 30 minutes. There were some awesome lightning storms too. The lightning was moving horizontally instead of vertically. The other two days we just hung out on the beach and checked out different parts of the island. We then decided to go to Langkawi Island in Malaysia…..

We took a 3 hour boat ride to Langkawi. It was raining for about the last 30 minutes. Then we had to wait at some hotel for about an hour while they got our passports stamped. We then took a taxi to Cenang Beach which was the cheaper part of the island. We couldn’t find anything for a while and then we found a guest house for 500 baht a night, with a living room with a tv, a kitchen, and two beds in each room. It was run by a man, from Iran who had studied at UCLA and worked for NASA, and his Japanese wife. They hung out and talked to us for a while. It was about half the price of anything else on the island. It was probably about a two block walk from anything else on the beach. We went and got some food and found a pizza place that actually had good pizza. All the pizza in Thailand is not even worth eating, they use very little sauce and a different kind of cheese that is not very good. Malaysians speak very good English. Everyone we came in contact with could easily speak with us. They are a Muslim country; it was really different seeing all the women with the veils over their head all the time. One time we even saw a group of Muslim women go into the ocean with all their clothes and head dresses on. The next day we got up and decided to rent a car. It was tiny. It was a manual with the steering wheel on the right side and you had to drive on the left side of the road. We went and checked out some waterfalls. At the waterfalls there were monkeys all over the place. They were stealing stuff from local shops. One woman was using a sling shot to shoot at them. We were watching one and he came at us for a second trying to steal our chips, but Shaun growled at him and he backed down. We then went to the cable cars. It takes you high up in the jungle to this place where they built a bridge to walk across with an Amazing view. It was scary but a cool experience. The next day we drove to the nicest beach on the island we were told. We found a Four Seasons hotel and decided to sneak in and walk around. I have never seen anything so nice. The pool and all the villas were incredible. We walked around for about 45 minutes before people kept looking at us, knowing we shouldn’t be there. This was about halfway around the island so we finished the drive around the whole island. We stopped at a couple of markets and other things before getting back to the guest house. The next day we went to a fruit farm. You pay like $3 and get a tour and get to try all the fruit they had. Most of it was gross, but they had the best pineapple I had ever tasted. We had to get back to return the car before two. We hung on the beach for the rest of the day. The next day we got up and went to the beach where they had a beach soccer tournament going on. We watched for a couple hours before we had to leave. We took a ferry to the mainland. It was like an airplane as far as seats go. They played a movie and everything. It took about two hours and then we took what was supposed to be a 6 hour bus ride to Kuala Lumpur. It was miserable. Our bus driver took a couple of wrong turns and the bus smelled terrible. It took about 8 hours. We got to Kuala Lumpur at 7:30 in the morning. Our flight left from Singapore in 3 days so we decided to book a sleeper train so we didn’t have to pay for a place to stay in Kuala Lumpur. We walked around a little bit. We went to the park and laid down because we were tired, but the police came and made us sit up. There was no sleeping in Kuala Lumpur. We went and watched a movie because we were tired and saw the twin towers. We really didn’t see a lot but I would like to go back; it looked like a cool city. Our train was an 11 hour ride to Singapore and it left at 9pm….

I passed out as soon as I got on the train. I got woken up at 7 to go through customs. We had to get out and check our bags and then get back on the train for 30 more minutes into the city. We walked around til we found a place for about $12 a night. It was a one bedroom place with a loft on top of the bedroom with two mats on the floor. It was in the morning and we didn’t know where we were staying. We ended up in Little India. The hotel was nice, but Little India was awful. Indians everywhere and at about 6 o’clock it turned into the ladyboy red light district. Obviously we didn’t hang out there at all. However there was one cool place. At one restaurant they played wrestling videos 24/7. Literally every time we walked by they had wrestling playing. Singapore is an incredible city. It’s very strict and so there’s not much crime (which is one of the reasons we were surprised about the place we stayed). The subway system in incredible and get you anywhere in the city. We went to a central place in the city and walked around. At one point we were in a mall and sat down against a column. The security came over and told us we couldn’t sit down. We were shocked, but we went and ate somewhere and I found mountain dew. It was literally the only place I have found since I have been here with it. No other place in Singapore or the rest of Asia has had mountain dew. At night we went to this big Music Theatre. They had free outdoor music every night. Some Japanese rock band was playing that night. It was on the water, almost like river stages. It was a very cool place. Everything in Singapore shut down between 12 and 1 am. So we went back to the guest house. We somehow got a crazy taxi driver (all are crazy but this one was over the edge. On a small one way street, he honked his horn and tried to go around another taxi, almost crashing into him. The other taxi honked his horn back and our driver became extremley mad. He decided to follow this guy for a few minutes, trying to run him off the road. It was kinda scary and kind of funny. Finally the other taxi stopped on so do our driver. He was ready to get out of the car and fight, but he just said a few words and then drove off. This is a little extreme, but not much above the norm of a taxi driver. The next day we went and looked around before our plane left. I wish we had more time and money for Singapore. It is a lot more expensive than the rest of Asia. They had a beach, a night safari, and a lot of other cool stuff we didn’t get to see. San Diego has been my favorite city in the world so far. But, Singapore may have taken it over. There is a casino finished being built in a few months. When this gets done, and if the beach is good, Singapore would probably become my favorite city. Everything is very nice and they have everything you could want in a city. They even have an indoor snowboard and snow ski facility. It so easy to get around everywhere, it’s very safe, and people besides Little India are all nice. They have a wide variety of restaurants and it’s very easy to travel all over Asia from here….

I’m down to about $20 left. But we are heading to go work another camp tonight. They are giving us a hotel room and all of our meals. After camp we are going to either go to Phuket (another beach town) or to Cambodia where it is even cheaper than Thailand. I’ll write again after camp.

We just finished working the camp. It was incredible. Today we went to a theme park. It was pretty bad, but to the kids it was Disney World so it was fun. Later on they took us to a restaurant with a sky view of all of Bangkok. It was amazing. I learned so much about the culture through this camp....
We were treated like rock stars. As bad as it sounds, the two most important things in Thailand are 1. money and 2. skin color- the whiter you are the better. For example, the kids told me and Joey (both white skinned) that we were very handsome and told my friend Shaun (darker skinned he's mexican) that he was not very handsome. They really don't care about other features, just skin color. In all the advertisements only light skinned actors are used. One woman that worked with us was Filipino. She told me how she use alot of skin whiteners to try to look more white. She was telling me that her salary was about half of an English person's salary. She has a degree and is a hard worker and good teacher, but none of that matters. So anyway, whatever we did and wherever we went they were always taking pictures of us. Teachers, kids, whoever were always taking tons of pictures. They could communicate very little but loved us. It will be so hard to go back to a camp in the states after working here. Teachers/counselors are very highly respected. It was/is a great feeling. Even outside of camp, everywhere we go people are staring or will whisper and giggle after we pass....
Thais are also not politically correct. They do take things serious. Like when I said they told my friend Shaun he was not handsome, they were serious in saying it, but it just wasn't a big deal. At the theme park one of the kids told one of the Thai teachers he was too short for the ride, he then told the chubby girl that she was too fat to ride it. At first I thought it was awful, but the more I thought about it, it is much better to things like this alot less seriously....
We worked at a Muslim school. But Thai Muslims are alot less strict. Some girls would wear their head coverings one day and decide not to wear them the next. The society is just very very relaxed....
The women we worked for works for the American Embassy using a grant. She really liked us and thinks she can help us get one and would allow us to start our own business basically. We would submit a business plan for them to decide if they liked. The three of us have done many camps. We all are involved in sports. The other two guys are also very into art and photography. So we could try to start a camp based on teaching English through the arts and sports. We could do this all over the world. The US does this to try and show the world that we are still a positive influence around the world and that we are not a hateful culture, especially towards Muslims (looks like we need to be doing this at home too mom). This would be another option for us rather than teaching in a classroom...
We are headed to the south tomorrow so I will probably be without a computer for a couple of weeks, but go watch the movie "The Beach" cause that is where I'm going. Then we will be in Malaysia and Singapore after that.