bye bye Bali

Balinese Dress

I'm writing this blog from a coffee shop inside the Bali airport, ready for my return flight back to Thailand to pick up my bag I left at a friend's house and spend one last day in Bangkok. It feels weird saying this but TOMORROW I leave my home Thailand and return to my home in California. Has a whole year really gone by?? I really couldn't think of a better way to spend one year of my life and I know I learned more in this year than attending grad school or working in some job in the US. Anyways here is a re-cap of my latest adventures in Bali...

Upon landing in Bali I was picked up by a nice Balinese couple who I had previously arranged to stay in their house for the first 3 nights. They live in a small rice farming village about an hour and a half outside the city that reminded me of the Thai village I lived in. For the next 3 days I got home-cooked Balinese food, a tour of the surrounding village, sight-seeing all the major temples, and wonderful conversation about the culture, people of Bali, and the Hindu religion. It was a wonderful introduction to the island and I didn't have to swarm with the many ,often intoxicated, young Australians and other tourist and got to see the real Bali. What I was most surprised with is the rich culture that Bali still has despite it being a major tourist destination. Other than a few cities in Bali most of the island is inhibited by rice farmers and the people are just as generous and welcoming as Thai.

Rice Fields in Bali

At each section of field an offering is placed to ensure a good harvest

Temple

Sunset over Tanah Lot

Balinese people carry everything on their heads! pretty amazing

I had a lesson on making Balinese offerings

Wayan and Ngorma- the family I stayed with. They were so kind!

After those 3 days I wanted to see the much talked about Gili Islands which are an hour fast boat ride or 8 hour slow boat ride from Bali. Knowing that my stomach doesn't care much for the sea I decided to spend the extra money for the fast boat. The island I stayed on was very small and you could bike around the perimeter in 45 minutes. For the next 3 days I stayed glued to the beach enjoying the perfect beaches and crystal clear water. There were no cars allowed on the island and all transportation was by horse and carriage.

---pictures have not been loaded on my computer yet!

My final two days were spent in Ubud, the cultural center of Bali, and Kuta a city closest to the airport and is similar to the "Khao San Rd." of Thailand harboring all the backpackers and australian surfers. I did a little souvenir shopping and got a quick glance at the cities and am now on my way back to Thailand!

It's been a great month, that has felt much longer, of travel before I head back to California. Traveling alone in South East Asia would have never crossed mind before I spent this year here but I was continuously surprised by how generous and helpful people were to me as I travelled and I hope to come back to explore the countries I didn't get to this round!

I'm guessing my life back in the states is going to be much less interesting so I'm not sure of the future of this Blog. Thank you for all who have kept with me this year and provided me with encouraging comments and thoughts!I can't wait to see everybody! Who knows I might be back in SEA sooner than I think...

World Heritage

My journey to Malaysia started with a plane ride from Bangkok where I was seated next to a cute 15 year old Thai girl. After overhearing her conversation with a lady next to her I found out she was studying in Malaysia and living with her aunt to hopefully have a better chance at learning english. We were about to land and I asked her what was the best way to get to George Town, the center of Penang. Having her Thai generousity she offered me a ride with her aunt since they would be heading that way too. Her Aunt, Isha, is a large Muslim women dressed in a traditional burka who greeted me with a firm hand-shake and perfect english after passing through customs. After talking in the car I learned we shared many mutual thoughts about the importance of traveling, teaching, and the environment. Isha had studied in Egypt and Indonesia for 7 years becoming fluent in 4 languages, Malay, English, Arabic, and Thai. She is an environment and moral teacher at a government elementary school. After I revealed to her that I had no plans or hotel reservations for my stay in Penang she said, "I think you stay with me, yes." She lives with 3 other muslim women in a small traditional section of the city that usually doesn't allow anyone outside the muslim faith stay there. Knowing this would save me a lot of money and provide me with a unique experience of living in Malaysia in a muslim house, I graciously accepted. She says her house is 'heritage' and contains only the basic necessities.

Throughout the 6 days on Penang Island I toured many different temples and mosques, enjoyed a hike through the national park, walked through 'little india', went to prom, observed a local elementary school, and ate traditional food.

Snake Temple: where dozens of vipers live

Kek Lok Si temple

Chinese ribbon wishing tree

Kindergarden Room at the school

Mosque

Chinese Temple

How tourist travel...no Tuk Tuks here!

Hindu Temple

Penang is known to embrace modernity, with the chains such as Starbucks, KFC, Mcdonalds and skyscrapers scattered throughout the island, while keeping its 'old world charm' and is listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site. This is mainly because of the unique blend of people that live on the island. There are Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, British, Malay, and Thai and can be seen simply by walking down the street or at the vast array of places of worship on the island. Because Penang used to be a British colony, there is an old fortress still standing on the island, the educational system has implemented a british curriculum. This is why all the people could speak fluent english and why Lulu, the thai girl, was sent to Malaysia to study. Also while walking on the street the architecture of the buildings change from one street to the next. There will be a huge european white building and the lane next to it will be filled with chinese writing and orientatial styled shops. I spent a lot of my time simply walking around looking at all the buildings.

Living in the house of Muslim women I was at first very nervous and wanted to make sure that I was be curtious and not offending anyone. The women where surprising friendly and not shy with me. They treated me like a friend and not a foreigner as I somtimes felt like in Thailand. I was allowed to stay in the house because only women live there. With staying in the house though I had to follow their daily life, which meant waking up at 6 am to get ready for school which starts at 7:30. Everything was much more orderly than my life in Thailand, where school starts whenever the teachers get to school and teach when they feel like it. Throughout my stay in the house I learned alot about Muslim culture and religion. Got to witness the 5x daily prayers, learned about the Hijab (head scarf women must wear when outside the home), taught how to eat malaysia food, which is eating steamed rice with your hands. I thought I was dressing modestly in Thailand but these women are completely covered, wrists, neck, hair, down to the ankles. Lets just say I wore as many clothes as I could. My final event in Malaysia was helping Isha chaperone Lulu's prom night. I of course didn't bring anything suitable to wear for a formal event while traveling so Isha let me borrow one of her traditional dresses for the night!

Praying

Thai'd

This past week has been a long, sad, but unforgettable one in Thailand. The time had finally come to say goodbye to my students, teachers, and friends in Pla Pak Village. Goodbyes seemed to be harder than I could have ever imagined. The amount of generosity that the Thai People have shown throughout the year always amazes me. I feel like I have been given and taught so much more by my students and co-teachers then I could ever hope teach or give in a year. My string tying ceremonies, a ceremony that is specially unique to the Issan part of Thailand, at both of my schools were definitely one of those times were I was humbled and put in 'aw' by the amount of kindness that they exude.

For a ceremony a banana leaf 'Kratong' is made and decorated with flowers. The strings that will be tied around the wrist are placed in the kratong and offerings such as chicken, fruits, rice, and whiskey are put around the kratong. The village elder is the one who conducts the ceremony, saying a buddhist chant. Next, each person ties a white string around the recipient wrist that is suppose to preserve good luck and happiness for the person, money can also be tied in as a gift. Many of my student's parents and other village people took the day off of work to come wish me good luck. Both of my string tyings were very touching to see all my students and parents huddled around me wishing me good luck, happiness, and hopefully a return to PlaPak someday. As I looked around I was trying to imprint each of their faces in my memory so I would never forget the day or the people that have given me so much.

My final wave goodbye from the students of PlaPak Noi school!

After a 11 hour drive to Bangkok, Today I fly to Malaysia to spent the next 6 days touring around! Only about 22 days left in SEA...

Students

When will I ever be greeted every single day at school by a swarm of students saying, " Hello Teacha, How are youuu?" and battling with each other over who gets to carry my teaching materials to the classroom? The amount of respect and excitement that I get from my students everyday has made being their english teacher an honor and a truly wonderful experience. Having students that really want to learn has made teaching that much more rewarding.

Throughout the year I viewed my job as the english teacher not only to teach english but to also widen my students cultural understanding of the world. Many of my students barely make it out of their 1 mile long village and they like most of the teachers have very little understanding of how the rest of the world functions. My ending unit with my students was Professions. As their last assignment I asked them "What do you want to be when you grow up?" This might seem like a question that gets asked to children quite often, but I don't know if my students have ever even thought about it. Most of them are without question suppose to follow in the foot steps of their parents and be a rice farmer, which is a perfectly admirable profession. So when I asked them their first response was, Farmer. Slowly as they thought about it one brave student would say, Police Man or Teacher. As soon as someone broke the ice their minds went wild but the majority settled on Teacher, Nurse, and Police Man. Although most of my students viewed this activity as a fun pretend assignment, I hope to have planted a small seed in their minds that they can do and be whatever they put their minds too.

Here is some of their work! (6th grade)

Recently in my classroom I made additions to my world map and put people from different countries around it and taped a string to where they are from. This has ignited a new curiosity. There now is usually a huddle of students pointing to the different people and tracing them back to a country. The student are most curious about the other asian looking people and where they are from. It's been exciting to watch them explore the world from my classroom!