# 24 By Air, Bus, or Motorcycle

If its by plane, bus, motorcycle, or cart, Thailand has a pretty good line of transportation set up, thats cheap too! One surprisingly cheap way is by air with the wonderful AirAsia! They do flights all over Asia with prices as low as $20 to fly to vietnam. I recently booked all my flights to Malaysia and Indonesia for my month of traveling before coming to the states and I'm happy I'll be able to come back home with a little money still left in my account. Thank you Airasia!

For my two months of traveling for summer break the most common way of travel was bus. Some of the schedules might be a little iffy but for the most part the bus system was an extremely easy and cheap way of travel. For my 11 hour bus ride to Bangkok we take the VIP bus (pictured above) which is equipped with big reclinable chairs, a bus stewerdess who serves you a dinner and breakfast, face wipes when you wake up in the morning, and an overall comfy ride, for about $20. Of course not all buses are as pimped out at the VIP and make numerous stops to let people on and off which makes a 3 hour ride turn into a 6 hour one. I was impressed by them though and immediately as I passed over the border into Lao the quality went down drastically. The buses allowed me a nice scenic view of the country as I toured almost all regions in thailand.

In the villages and cities the most common way of travel is motorcycle. I have never seen so many people fit on one motorcycle before usually with a baby in arm. It makes US safety laws look ridiculous over the exact way a baby needs to be strapped into a car seat and such. In Thailand 2-3 year olds cling on to whatever they can and babies clutch in an arm as they swerve through traffic. With that said, There is a high toll of deaths due to motorcycle accidents. During my months of from teaching one of my favorite activities was renting a motorcycle and riding around for the day. One of my favorite memories in Thailand was the day Pi Yok taught Amanda and I how to ride her motorcycle. Ending with one of us almost going straight into a ditch and have to have the motorcycle lifted off.

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***Photos taken from Peter Pfister

Here are some pictures taken of unique transportation in NKP. The one in the middle, of the rice farmer, is the most common that you'll hear rumbling out to the fields in the early morning and returning in the evening. The first is a cart full of Thai brooms which I love! They sweep amazingly well and I want to get one back to the states somehow.

The sleeper train to Chaing Mai from Bangkok is another great way to travel in thailand!

# 25 Thai Language

Thai Alphabet ^^^
The one thing I was most nervous about before coming to Thailand was the language. Having zero experience with a tonal language I knew it would be a challenge to learn sounds unknown to the english language. Take the following sentence for example " mai mai mai mai mai (with varying tones), can mean the ‘new wood doesn’t burn does it?’ Or the length of sound in kii, which could mean ‘ride’ or ‘shit’ depending on which way you say it as volunteer Ben found out as he tried to explain "ride" the bus but instead said "shit" the bus to his students. Even worse is the similarity between glai, where only a falling tone differentiates the meaning from ‘near’ and ‘far’. I have definitely had my moments of mixing up the tones sending my students into fits of laughter but at the end of the day you just have to roll with it and laugh at yourself. In all honesty I'm extremely impressed by how much language the other volunteers and I have been able to pick up over the course of the year. I can't have in-depth conversations with my co-teachers but I've gotten to the point where I can understand the topic of whatever their conversation. My best language teachers have definitely been my students. My thai vocabulary mainly has come from them if its the words that we are learning in english or simple classroom commands. They are pacient with me as I butcher thai words at them slowly repeating them back at me in correct sounds.

Living in northeastern Thailand, has its own set of challenges learning thai since predominenately the village people in this region speak in a dialect of thai called Issan. This has caused quite a bit of confusion mixing up the languages often. However, I have really come to like the Thai language due to its practicality. There is no tenses, no plurals, no ending puncuation, no capitals, no spaces between words, rare use of pronouns, and no articles . However, you can probably now see how difficult it is to teach a language with as much grammar as english does, to students who have no experience with it in their native language. I spend lessons solely on teaching my youngest students that you need a space in between words and how you can't switch back in between capital and lowercase letters. Here are some direct translations of Thai words that I find really great.

Meow Nam: Cat Water: Seal

Ma Lie: Horse stripes: Zebra

Nam: can be used for water, soup, juice

See Fah: Color sky: Blue

See Khao: Color rice: White

Dtam Ahan: Do food: cook

Hong Nam: Room water: Bathroom

Nam Kaeng: Water strong: Ice

#26-Cha Dam

This is to my lovely adopted thai dog Cha Dam- Black Tea. He is actually our neighbors dog but in reality he spends more time at my house, basically becoming our dog. You can usually find him lounging in our dining area on the cool cement floor reeking the benifits of our ceiling fan or pestering his girlfriend, Shampa, a beautiful golden mix that lives down the street. Before he had to be tied up during school hours he'd be Amanda's shadow throughout the day, following her to all her classes. During dinner time he lounges under our chairs waiting for the scraps from dinner with us more than often having to give him a bonk on the nose, to keep him from pawing us. Recently, he has been accompanied by a new litter of kittens who wander in and out of the house. Amanda and I joke that our house has become some sort of animal refuge. At one time containing a dog, litter of kittens, colony of frogs (in the bathroom), and dozens of geckos. Cha Dam is a very unintentional present figure in my life, being the first one to greet me on my way home to school and seems to always 'be there'. He is the source of Amanda and my entertainment for the weeks that we don't have internet, always putting up with our antics. I first met Cha Dam during our orientation month where he harassed all the volunteers endlessly. He, like thai people, is very excited by the foreigners. To now, being my Thai dog. He even starts whining if he can't get to Amanda and I.He definitely fills the void of my american dog, Holly, who I miss very much!

Cha Dam likes: Watermelon, meats, sticky rice, kittens, girlfriend- shampa, foreigners, harassing students

dislikes: spicy food, water, hot weather, other dogs who try to be my friend

Holly and I enjoying a day at the river.

#27 Mosquito Net

# 27 Mosquito Net

Over the past year I've grown quite fond of my mosquito net. Especially now, during raining season when mosquito are at an all time high and I swear by the number of mosquito bites I have I'm bound to get malaria (joke, joke). Its become part of my routine to tuck in and out my net in the morning and night protecting myself from the swarms of mosquitos and gecko droppings that shower my floor every night. The mosquito net is something unique to my life in Thailand and although it might not be as significant as other aspects of this culture it has become an everyday routine that wont be a part of my life returning to the states. I remember my first few nights sleeping under it in my new house with feelings to excitement and fear of my first days teaching. Now, I have come to my last month with my beloved pink net and not wanting to let it go. Like so many little aspects of my thai house and routines I've adapted to over the course of the year such as sweeping the house every night of fallen bugs, boiling pots of water for a shower, hanging my laundry out to dry on the line, and doing dishes in buckets, the mosquito net is one of them.