The Golden Triangle

Last weekend was one of those weekends we decided not to go away and to stay in Mae Sai to save money. But this didn’t stop us from planning a great adventure! We filled up our scooters with petrol, (this only costs about 60-80 thai baht) and headed towards Mae Chaen for the golden triangle. The golden triangle is the point where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet on the Mekong River. It also has something to do with the opium trafficking in this area, hence the name golden triangle. It took us about forty minutes to scooter there over some beautiful mountains overlooking the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. I was taking one passenger and Emma was on her own scooter, with plans to swap for the journey home later.

We arrived in a quaint little backpacker town with a few shops, markets, a giant Buddha and an amazing little pizza restaurant which we went to for lunch. We looked around the town and watched a Thai dance performance that we stumbled upon along the road. The drive home was equally if not more stunning with mountains, rice fields and jungle stretching ahead endlessly.

Chiang Rai Temples

Weekend in Chiang Rai

We took the van from Mae Sai to Chiang Rai on Saturday morning. The vans run all day and leave whenever they fill up, which is about every 20 minutes. It costs 46 baht for the 1 hour, twenty minute drive. Our friend who lives in Mae Chan hops on when it goes through her town, and it only costs her 30 baht.

We had wanted to see the White Temple; Wat Rong Khun since we had been in the north of Thailand, as its one of the most famous temples due to its stunning white sparkling appearance. The temple was built in 1996 due to the original Wat Rong Khun being in a bad state. We hired a taxi driver to take us to see the White Temple and The Black House, another tourist attraction in Chiang Rai.

We arrived at the White Temple during the Lunch hour when it was closed, so managed to get some photos of it without any people in front of it. Us girls were given sarongs to wear as we weren’t allowed to go inside it wearing shorts. The outside was decorated with masks, hands and other decorations symbolising ‘world temptations, desired and greed’ that the monks are learning to escape from. You can read about the history of the temple here.

https://www.renown-travel.com/temples/wat-rong-khun.html

WE then travelled to the black house, or Baan Dam. Created by Thai artist Thawan Duchanee, it’s a museum of dead animal skins, sculptures, and carvings. There are many small buildings that look like mythical teepees, with chairs in a circle inside like a fantasy meeting room. Outside were fields guarded by live ponies, and more sculptures of tall mushroom looking sculptures and rock formations. Both the White temple and the Black house were free to view.

Bangkok

Bangkok: Gateway to South East Asia.

Getting to Bangkok from anywhere in Thailand is reasonably painless as all airports fly directly and there are many trains and buses travelling into Thailand daily. We had a long weekend so Monday off school so we decided to have a weekend away in Bangkok for some of the girls who had never been there before. From Mae Sai we had to get a taxi for an hour to get to Chiang Rai air port. Splitting this between four of us was only 170 baht each which is a really good price. I flew nokair which was about 3,500 baht return. After a flighttime of less then an hour we descended into the big city where I met some of the girls to grab a taxi to the khao san road.

I was meeting one of my friends that I had met on my tefl course in Chiang Mai. We had opted to stay at a hostel a few roads away from the Khao San road which was one of the cheapest hostels we found (only 170 thb a night). The dorm had eight beds in it, there was no air conditioning only a few fans and it was far from luxurious. We had decided to go into a hostel so we could meet other travellers and hear their stories. We met up with another girl from the TEFL course and set off to do some sightseeing.

After talking to a few taxi drivers we learned that the main river that runs through Bangkok was just a five minute walk away. We couldn’t see it because of all the tall buildings and market stalls around us. We walked down there in the hope of getting a longtail boat down the river. A lady tried to charge us 300tbht each. Luckily our two months in Thailand meant that we recognised this was ridiculously overpriced, and soon found a boat that ran the entire length of the river for only 15thb.

My one piece of advice to people visiting Bangkok is that you don’t judge Bangkok only on the Khao San Road. So many travellers come to Bangkok and stay, shop and drink on the Khao San Road, maybe straying once or twice to the Soy Cowboy, another strip of sleazy clubs a twenty minute taxi ride away. Travellers who do this often leave with the impression of Bangkok as a dirty sleazy city with street vendors hastling you constantly in broken English.

Bangkok is so much more than this if you can take the time to explore further. We got off at the last stop on the boat at a large ferris wheel. Here was music, and upmarket restuarants and bars along the river.

After a bit of time exploring here we got the boat back down the river and watched the sun go down behind the tall buildings which was beautiful. Luckily one of the girls had counted how many stops we were away from the ferris wheel so we got off t the right place and walked back to our hostel to get ready for a night out.

The next few days are a bit of a blur as we partied, ate, shopped and caught up with more friends from the TEFL course. I was definitely devastated to leave my favourite city on Monday morning and get my flight back to Mae Sai. I mentioned to a friend that it was back to reality… adding that my reality in Northern Thailand definitely wasn’t bad either.

A day in the life of a teacher in Mae Sai.

A day in the life…

A typical school day for me begins with my alarm going off at 6am. I wake up and am ready to go for school by 7am. I have to be there before 7.30 to scan my fingerprint in and is only a ten minute walk, but I like to have the option of stopping at the local café for an iced coffee or iced green tea if I feel like one. The walk to school is very enjoyable, theres many Burmese workers out working on the houses being built. As well as dogs, chickens and cows in the paddocks surrounding the school.

After scanning in my fingerprint on the lower level, I walk up to the top floor where is my office with one other English teacher and two Chinese teachers. I set up my laptop and check what class I have to teach first and whether Im teaching first period.

At 8.00 am the first bell rings for students to get ready for the flag ceremony. The whole school gathers on the courtyard out front and watches while two students raise the Thai flag. One of the school directors then chants in Thai and the students repeat.

This lasts about ten minutes before the students trudge back upstairs ready for their first class.

A typical day I would have about four classes to teach, some days are less and some are more. I see all of Pratom 1-4 (primary) and all of Anuban 2 (kindergarten). Because I have so many students in my classes, up to 40x20 classes, I am not able to print worksheets and activities for all of the students. Therefor I have to be creative in the way that I engage the students.

The best purchase I have made is a small bouncy ball from tesco. Its amazing the way that having the ball makes students more engaged. For example simply getting all the students to stand up and pass the ball around the classroom saying my name is ____, what’s your name? is a fantastic five minute warm up at the beginning of each class. Its important to always have visuals to stick on the blackboard such as flashcards of the vocabulary you are teaching or themes. For example this week I was teaching how old are you? I am _____ years old, so I had images of balloons and a cake. This makes the topics more relevant to the students and also they are more likely to remember the vocabulary you are teaching.

I usually finish teaching by about 2.40 but have to stay at school until 5pm, when I can fingerscan out of the school for the day. Its really long hours but it means you can get everything done at school so no need for planning in the weekend or at evenings. The only thing is that there hasn’t been any wifi at school so I have to be searching for images at night and saving them ready to use at school. Fingers crossed It will be up and running again soon.

After school me and two of the other girls go straight to the gym where we stay for about an hour depending on how tired we are. We then take the scooters out, two of us doubling and get dinner. We usually get street food as it’s the cheapest, and occasionally go to one of the restaurants or cafés.

On some of the days that we don’t go to the gym, we do yoga on our rooftop at sunset, the views are truly magic.

After dinner we come home and chat and relax, sometimes we have a facetime or skype scheduled for back home or emails to catch up on, then we head to bed to do it all again the next day.