India

This has taken me forever to finish. I finally had to resort to jotting down all of my thoughts as they came to me, otherwise I would've never posted it.

My number-one goal while living in Thailand has been accomplished.

Artwork by Beth Bachmann

But first things first.

Last December, we had a big group of people come to visit us here in Thailand: my parents, my Aunt Beth, and our friends Maddie & Manish with their son Eshaan. It was a lightning-fast whirlwind in Thailand, so this first part is going to be more of a basic description just so I can remember it all.  There was no time for philosophical reflection!

This is how I had to organize their visit, with full sheets of paper for each day. It was crazy.

They all arrived in Bangkok late at night. We had a mini-reunion at 3 am.

Day 2: Sat by the pool as I dealt with work BS. Went to lunch, poked around Terminal 21 (a very cool mall). Went to Grand Temple. Dinner at hotel. One of the nights we went on a dinner cruise, I just can't remember when. It was all fantastic.

Day 3: Early flight to Phitsanulok. I felt like quite the rock star for getting the girls up and ready and the room packed in time for us to be out of there by 5 am. It renewed my respect for single parents. When we landed, there were stairs from the plane onto the tarmac, but then… we had to kind of find our way over to the terminal. Nobody leading us, no van, no attendants, just… there’s the terminal about a football field away: Go! That was funny. There was some confusion in renting the van, but we got it. We drove to my favorite temple and spent a few hours.

I was sad to think I would probably never be there again. Ate lunch at Pino Latte, where Sophie was bitten by a dog and then fell down a spiral staircase. That was eventful.  Drove 2+ hours to Sukhothai and tucked into our guesthouse. Dad & Aunt Beth walked into town for pizza and brought some back. I skipped dinner and fell asleep immediately.

Day 4: After breakfast, we biked Sukhothai. Sascha hurt herself half a dozen times and flipped out each time. I was just happy to be in Sukhothai again. After lunch, we headed north to Chiang Rai. We hit tons of road construction and slow trucks in front of us, so it took way longer than we expected (like 7 hours instead of 5). That was frustrating, but we had a nice lunch along the way at a little roadside restaurant. Rolled into town around 8 and met Nick at Chef Sasa. 

Day 5: Nick took everyone to Khun Korn waterfall, and Sascha and my mom ran errands with me locally. Ran some laundry, went to Makro (our version of Costco). It was really nice to show her a bit of my every day life. Then we made dinner for everyone and had the Billinghams over. Getting everyone to the house on our dirt road was a bit of an adventure. I had a little too much to drink in my typical social nervousness.

Day 6: We had to be in Chiang Mai by 1, but we stopped at the White Temple. I was getting frustrated by everyone’s relaxed pace, and sure enough we were late to meet the Patara guy. But! Patara! It was epic. At one point, Maddie said, "This is the best day of my life!" That was pretty great.

Nick making a friend

Mom was absolutely petrified-- not of the elephants, but of getting injured, a genuine concern at her age. She ended up riding the elephant right out of there like a champ. I was so proud. When it was over, she actually said she would do it again.

Day 7: Chiang Mai. Breakfast at Blue Diamond, my favorite restaurant there. We decided to skip Doi Suthep because we were exhausted. Walked around a bit, went to Art in Paradise.

Ate lunch at the Lebanese restaurant, then went back to hotel to rest. Maddie & I went to get massages from the women’s prison place, and we loved it—we loved them! Sweet women. Met for dinner. Went to night market, briefly. I brought the girls home early and everyone else tried to find the Muy Thai fight, unsuccessfully. It was fine; everyone was exhausted. 

Now... India. 

Day 8: Aunt Beth and I flew to BKK, then went ahead to Gaya. It felt like a huge day, like my wedding day, something I'd waited for for so many years. I had brought half a bottle of wine in my suitcase, not knowing that the entire Indian state of Bihar is dry and alcohol is not allowed. I was stopped on the way in (our bags were also screened upon arrival, not just departure), and they told me to bring the wine over to some guy. I had every intention of following the rules, but we never found the guy, so I broke the law and kept the wine. 

Driving to Bodh Gaya, I felt like my eyes would pop out of my skull. Every cell in my body felt alive, even though I had to remind myself to breathe. I’d wanted to come to India for over 20 years, and I was looking at scenes straight out of every Indian movie I’d ever seen, which is a fair amount. The dust and trash, the cows everywhere, the vibrant colors draped on all the women, the roadside barbers, the incessant horns from every moving vehicle!

 I couldn’t get enough of it, like my eyes were gorging themselves, pigging out, the visual equivalent of stuffing my mouth full of food with my bare hands and letting it dribble down my chin. My heart felt so full.

 

The air in Gaya was so dusty.

We arrived at the Root Institute, where a Spanish woman named Angela was working the desk. She was beautiful, with short curly hair and a wry smile. Everything about her was impish, and I never knew if she was smirking and chuckling at us or with us and our utter ignorance of India. Our room was sparse and utilitarian, but felt sweetly earnest with its heavy wool blankets and mosquito nets on the beds.


We took advantage of the masala chai available around the clock, and the food was some of the best I had in all of my time in India. There were giant pots of chana dal, vegetable stews, paneer soup, and fat fresh-baked rolls I will remember as long as I live. Every meal was a gut-buster.

Beautiful woman eating a beautiful lunch

The vast majority of the food in India is vegetarian. In the west, you might see a restaurant advertising its vegetarian options as an additional feature; in India, it’s the exact opposite, with “non-veg also available” in a little star on the side of some restaurants’ signs. I liked that, and often ordered vegetarian even when meat was on the menu. My go-to dish was vegetable Sikh kabab, but I’d happily dip my naan into everyone else’s plates as well. The food in India lived up to my every gluttonous fantasy. Even after a few weeks of eating the same dishes for breakfast, lunch & dinner, I’d get excited for the next meal. I was Homer Simpson in hell with the donuts. More. More. MORE.

The town of Bodh Gaya is very… local. There were very few Westerners. I felt like my blond hair was so conspicuous that I bought a scarf to cover my head just to blend in better. We quickly found out that getting money in India is next to impossible (a heads-up on this would be my #1 piece of advice for anyone going there; also, hang on to your boarding passes because they are checked many times even after you're off the plane). Either the ATMs wouldn't work or their limit was a small amount of money, the banks would be closed, or they'd have some other reason they couldn't give us rupees. One time, the bank told us they were just... out of money. Done for the day, thank you, bye-bye. We had to budget and borrow and piece our bits of cash together to make it stretch until nearly the end of the trip, when Maddie's dad was able to solve our issues for us. But... maybe a little fitting, no? When in Rome...

The central focus of visiting Bodh Gaya was the Bodhi Tree, where the Buddha first achieved enlightenment. We took turns going alone so we could watch each other’s phones, which were not allowed. They searched our bags on the way in, and the female guard was enthralled by the tube of liquid Pear’s soap I’d bought for my face.

Sitting under that tree, I suppose I had a bit of enlightenment myself. I watched all the people in deep states of worship, walking, bowing, singing and praying, grown adults prostrating themselves on the ground. I dug deep. I thought hard. I reached inside my heart, and…

I felt nothing.

I just felt nothing. There is nothing that would inspire me to lay myself out on the ground in front of a statue, or sacred tree, or person. The rituals are puzzling. It’s too vulnerable and suspicious to me. I have certainly felt spiritual connections before, most notably while working in my soft, sweet garden back when I was pregnant with Sophie, and listening to Bach cello on my headphones. But really, almost nowhere else. I think I’m just missing that… thing.

The highlight of my Bodhi Tree pilgrimage happened as I was sitting next to a girl of about 8 and her grandmother. The grandmother was holding beads, rocking, deep in prayer; The little girl just looked bored. She was wearing a dust mask so I could only see her eyes. I noticed a squirrel playing around inside a light fixture just above us and caught the girl’s eye, gesturing my eyes toward the squirrel. Her beautiful almond eyes broke into a slow smile above the line of her mask. That may have been my favorite part of the entire trip to Gaya, which was pretty great in itself. I also got a friendly, curious sniff from a soft black cow while walking back into town.  

Day 10: Christmas Eve. We flew to Delhi the night before everyone else arrived so that we could meet them early the next day. We stayed in my first Air B&B, which was a guest room in this fabulous woman’s apartment. She is an artist and her house was full of her work. She also had an enthusiastic yellow lab and a house servant who cooked for us. That was a pretty cool experience.

The rest of the group arrived in Delhi, where we also met up with Manish’s sister Aparna and her daughter Dimpi, who is in college. (We never took a group photo! Damn!) We had two hired vans ready to take us to Jaipur, our first stop. We would get to know those vans intimately over the next two weeks.

These three kids were total champs!

Our hotel in Jaipur was just gorgeous, and a great place to spend Christmas.

I’d ordered some of the gifts on Amazon and had my parents bring them, but they weren’t wrapped. While Nick put the girls to bed, my mom & I wrapped gifts in my parents’ room using Hindi newspapers. We draped my Gaya scarf on a coat rack in place of a tree. The kids were thrilled.

We opened gifts in the morning and rolled around in pajamas playing for a short while, when Maddie came in and told us we had sightseeing plans for the day. I think all of us were disappointed to hear it, but we were so glad we went! We saw the Amber (Amer?) Fort, this massive work of art that actually moved me to tears. The pictures cannot capture the scope of this place. I was clutching my chest all day.

The sheer SIZE of it!

Monkeys everywhere.

Oh my Christ, was this ever delicious. I think it was bhel puri?

After the Amber Fort, we had a midday Christmas dinner at a local restaurant. Manish told the waiter that I was a chef in the US (truth bomb: I was a lowly pastry cook for two years, 20 years ago), and could I possibly tour their kitchen?

This is one of my favorite memories from the whole trip. I got to see a real-deal Indian kitchen. One of the cooks showed me the tandoor oven and demonstrated how to make naan. I was in absolute heaven. I don’t know what Manish told them, but there were guys crowded in doorways peeking in like I was Anthony Bourdain.

We got back to the hotel and some of us decided to go tour the City Palace. My mom and Aunt Beth stayed back with the girls. That night, my mom told me that there had been… an incident. She took the girls outside to play. This is what it looked like:

Sophie saw the green grass beyond that window, ran, and launched herself over that little wall without a thought.

Nobody knew that there was a 10’ drop to a stairwell below.

And? Sophie landed on her feet on one step without a single bruise or scratch. In flip-flops. I’m writing this five months after it happened and it still makes my skin crawl. 99 jumps like that out of 100, and she would have broken her neck, or at least multiple bones. But she managed to stick the landing in that 1% sliver of a chance. It was our Christmas gift. An actual miracle. I finished the day with a lot of wine.

The next day was December 26^th. Boxing Day. This one was the hardest day of the whole trip, but probably the most memorable. The plan was to drive to Jaisalmer. According to Google, that’s a 9.5 hour drive, which is already ambitious.

Well… It ended up taking us sixteen hours. In puked-in vans, on partially paved roads under construction that just never ended.

How I spent several days, engrossed in the movie that is India

Cleaning up carsick puke!

The kitchen at one of our rest stops.

While we were on the road, I became obsessed with Indian truck art. It's a thing! There's an entire book and documentary about it.

I remember around dinnertime, already over it, having driven about 9 hours. From the back seat I saw Manish check the remaining distance on his phone, seeing “6 hours” at the top of his screen and shaking my head in denial. It was a great bonding day for the twelve of us though; we named ourselves the Rajasthan Raiders. None of us could believe how well the three kids were handling it. They never complained.

We arrived at our hotel around 2 am. We stumbled out of the van, and as I carried a sleepy Sophie into our hotel I gasped quietly, “Sophie. Oh my god. We are staying in a palace.” It was stunning.

Beautiful, right?

Then we got our rooms.

They were filthy. It was just as ancient and rustic on the inside as it was on the outside. The bedspread was stained. Our room had no toilet paper. My parents’ room had toilet paper but no soap, and a toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. We paid extra for a flimsy mattress on the floor for Nick while I shared the bed with the girls. The girls wouldn’t stop asking “why” questions. Our exhaustion was up to several exponents, so we slept to the best of our abilities.

This is actually quite a flattering picture of the room.

In the morning, we had a little pow-wow at breakfast. Maddie was horrified and had apparently been in tears the night before, since she had booked the place over the internet. The rest of us hated that she felt so guilty. She told us that she found us another place to stay, if we were okay with paying the rather high price. After the previous 24 hours we’d endured, we readily agreed, and slipped out the door past the rude manager (we may or may not have paid… Maddie and Manish would only say “don’t worry about it”).

15 minutes later, we were greeted with drums, fresh flowers, scarves and blessings in the nicest hotel I have ever set foot in. This. Freaking. Place.

This picture has absolutely nothing on the real thing.

All we wanted to do was shower, eat, and sleep, and that was what we did for the entire day. I do believe this is the best hotel experience I have had to date. I think I temporarily died and went to heaven.  

Of course, it came at a cost. But I didn’t care, and four months later when we’re still paying it off on our credit cards, I still think it was worth every penny. I know everyone in our group agrees.

We did a little shopping in Jaisalmer, where I found myself falling in deep, velvety love with that town that became my favorite. It’s tight and messy, dirty, loud, and crumbling, but all spice and character.

Maddie holding court in a sari shop. I had the best chai of my life here, out of a Dixie cup.

Hello, sweet faces.

Jaisalmer is art come to life, surreal and rich like a movie set. Even the merchants seemed less aggressive here.

I get a pulling feeling in my chest around Arabic architecture. The light, the colors, the sandstone everywhere; I was swooning. I must have been Middle Eastern in a past life, probably a woman who was offed for being mouthy, but hey, bygones.

On the 29th, we ventured out to ride camels out in the dunes. It was very touristy, but I still loved it. My face hurt from smiling so much. We finished the day with a light birthday dinner for Maddie and a little champagne.

Trying to wrap her head around it... our #1 activity there.

We left Jaisalmer for Indore, where Maddie & Manish grew up. We took a five-hour train for the first leg to Jodhpur to avoid all the road construction we’d hit coming in. The train was about as luxurious as a yellow school bus. But it was not uncomfortable, and I was glad we did it.

Maddie trying to get us all on the right cars.

There's me!

We stopped overnight in Udaipur, where I made a bold-font mental note to visit again. It looked like an unusually lively and accessible town with a very cool vibe, and I wanted to see more.

Driving into Indore was eye-opening, and throat-closing. Outside of town is a factory district. I do not know what they are making there, but for several miles, even the air inside the closed van had a powerful, bitter, chemical smell and I had to cover my nose. I was shocked that people live in that air all the time, and made a note on my phone to Google cancer rates in India. I also had a bewildered mental chuckle at all the effort I used to make, buying organic milk, reading labels and whatnot in my relatively sparkling Massachusetts existence. I avoided high fructose corn syrup, bought natural peanut butter and sulfate-free shampoo. And people live in this, their entire (probably short) lives.

We arrived at Maddie’s parents’ house in the afternoon. We’d met before, and they were just as warm and sweet as we remembered them. Her dad, a locally renowned scientist, put us up in a guesthouse on the campus of the institution where he works. We were exhausted when we checked in, but the eager staff still made us a several-course meal. The guesthouse had cold showers, the Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More” on a constant loop in the hallways, and wild peacocks on the grounds outside. They also knocked on our door at 6 am with tea service. The rooms cost $1.50 per night.

We had a wonderful time with their family.

Greeting 2017 in Indore

At this point we parted ways with the vans, Maddie and Manish, and all of their family members. We flew back to Delhi for the grand finale.

No trip to India is complete without seeing the Taj Mahal. It was a few hours’ drive from Delhi, and it did not disappoint. The tour guide we hired was a real pro. He had shown Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi around, and he was also Karl Pilkington’s guide on “An Idiot Abroad.”

Ramesh! The man.

This place was incredibly crowded. It left little opportunity for deep reflection or quiet awe.

A very accurate depiction of what it's like to try to get pictures there. All elbows and bodies.

As westerners, we were able to stand in separate lines from the local hoi polloi and get in faster, which made me squirm a little.

"High value"? Yeesh.

I wanted to get a picture on the Princess Diana bench. There was a guard there with a piercing whistle, manhandling people on and off the bench for quick snaps. He pushed people out of the way so the white women could sit. Ugh.

White privilege at the Taj, everyone. This was so rushed, it looks like my mom didn't even get the chance to sit all the way down.

After we went back to Delhi, my parents and aunt headed home. Due to a scheduling misunderstanding, we didn't leave for another two days. This ended up being a blessing in disguise though. We were able to relax and spoil ourselves in another gorgeous Marriott. We hired a babysitter at the hotel and Nick & I ventured into Delhi for a little shopping. I'm not a huge shopper, but the shopping in India is EPIC. In one local mall, we absolutely cleaned up, where Nick got almost an entire new wardrobe for less than $100. Everything he bought fits him so well he wants to find the store online now.

I need to wrap this up because it's been hanging over my head since January. So-- my final impressions:

India is like another planet. Going there is almost like being reborn, because it's so different from the western world that it's like your first time seeing colors, smelling smells, hearing music. Want to try psychedelic drugs? Go to India instead. I wish I had gone there in my 20s, when my standards for hotel rooms and bathrooms were much, much lower. I think of myself at 25 or so, and I think I could have stayed quite a while in India (leaving a trail of romances in my wake, because my god there are some gorgeous men there) and it would have woven itself into the person I am. That said, if you're not 25, it is the perfect antidote if you're feeling jaded or stuck in your life and need a bit of a wake-up. It's a spiritual ice bucket challenge.

The poverty is shocking. It's beyond your wildest imagination. We've all seen it in movies, but seeing it is different. We'd drive down the street at night and see this:

Not in line for the new iPhone.

And it wasn't just one section of street, or one section of town, or one town and not another. It just goes on and on. Naked kids hanging out on the street. Entire families just... sitting on the sidewalk. (I wondered where they'd slept the night before, and then thought... Oh. Right there, I bet.) We had many, many philosophical discussions wondering how aware these people were of the suckiness of their situations. Do they think it sucks? Or do they just not think about it because it's all they know?

Look at this. Do you see what I see? Look at the woman's face.

It is amazing to think of the great intellectual minds that come out of this country, the tech geniuses, brilliant doctors and engineering masterminds.

The garbage is everywhere. I saw a cow munching on a large sheet of newspaper in Jaisalmer. India makes Thailand look as clean and civilized as Sweden. Probably the worst I saw was homemade tents on top of a large trash dump. Many of these are not my pictures (it felt wrong to take pictures of that), but it looked something similar to this:

The tent was flimsier and the garbage was much more of a mountain.

I think the biggest challenge for me was the bathrooms. When my girls were newborn, every night this feeling of deep dread would dawn on me as bedtime approached, because I knew it was going to be a rough night with no sleep. In India, that is how I started to feel every time I had to go to the bathroom. In my head, I'd be whining "noooooo-ho-ho-hoooo, don't make me go."

Again, not my picture. But we saw quite a few doozies like this, most without lights.

On several occasions, I'd look at the bathroom, then look at the large field behind it, and wish I could just squat right out in the open because that was so much cleaner. This would be no problem if I was a dude.

This was such a common sight that we'd count how many "pee-ers" we could see every day. I think we got up to 7 one day?

Public peeing is such an issue that some places will hang pictures of Hindu gods at hip level.

But then, half of the country's people have no toilets. Half. That's a country of over a billion people.

I don't want to finish this on a downer note, because ultimately, I loved it. I loved it so much. It was everything that I'd hoped it would be. It's almost impossible to properly describe India, and we spent most of the trip trying. It challenged everything I thought I knew about everything, and my brain was working overtime. Nick said, "Everywhere you look, it's a photograph." Everywhere, every sight, was WOW. We also agreed that the photographers who win awards for their pictures of India are actually hacks, because India does all the work for you. Everything is in the extreme: the beauty, the filth, the smells, the colors, the flavors, the noise. Do I want to go back? Absolutely, in a hot minute, yes.

And now, I sit here at my table in Thailand with five weeks left in Asia.

93 Days Short

“Short” is a military term which refers to your tour (base assignment) almost being over. It’s when you can see the end.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this. 

Our jobs have taken a sour turn. The students are still some of the best I’ve ever had, lively, funny and bright. They are my sole motivation, and sometimes they’ve been the only reason I haven’t hopped on a plane home early. But in the last few months, staff discontent has been growing, to put it mildly. Having the screws tightened on us has been strangely counterproductive.

Something like this.

Many teachers are looking for new jobs; two quit mid-year. Just before Christmas, my pay was docked when I requested time off for my parents’ visit. It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that my anger hasn’t softened one bit (we did sell everything we owned to pay our own way here). This is partly why I haven’t written here for so many months. I just want to get out of there and be finished. It’s unfortunate, but oddly helpful as it will make it easier to leave when the time comes. 

I am looking forward to the high of moving again; the fresh start, settling into the new place, figuring out our new routines, reuniting with our families and old friends and coworkers. Picking out new sheets and towels! Even the packing and unpacking will be kind of fun (my military brat friends understand this).

Except... I will miss Asia. Asia feels good. It's warm and relaxed, interesting and quirky. Thailand is a police state but I feel so free here. I am very apprehensive about money after we move back. I always felt so limited back home, like our hands were always tied.  On paper we made really good money, but we always had debt, never traveled, and every expense was painful. Here, we make next to nothing and we’ve lived like royalty. 

And the color! I am astonished every day by the beauty here, openly available to everyone. Everything even remotely beautiful in the US is prohibitively expensive. In the back of my head, I have this nagging thought. I’m leaving this…

And going home to, well, this.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

New England is home, though. It's home. The wooly accents, the dirty snow, the great beer and terrible coffee (looking at you Dunks... yeah, I said it), the salty language and sincere, unrestrained laughs. The grungy pizza/sub shops on every corner that smell like old bowling alleys and have menus that look like this:

I love these places

My heart feels so open there. I miss it, and I will love being back, but apart from a few stunning weeks in the fall, I think I will feel a distinct lack of color and spice in my life. There's little left there to explore and discover that I haven't already. My senses will be understimulated. I worry about that. I'm hoping that all of our rediscovered conveniences (and cold weather clothing choices!) will help smooth the transition, but knowing that we can't hop on a plane for a weekend change of scenery, or that we won't be using our passports again for a long time, will be tough. I will probably dive headfirst into grad school to try to distract myself from the nagging ache of wanderlust.

We have one last big trip planned. In April, we're going to the beach. I chose a quiet, isolated island close to Malaysia:

That's the entire island! We're staying on the beach in the foreground.

After a few days there, we'll fly back to Bangkok together where I will split from the family to take a few days in Saigon by myself. I am living for this trip. I will spend a few days walking around the city, listening to music, lost in my own head, probably shedding a few tears. In May, Nick and I will each take final solo trips to Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Then it will be time to turn our attention towards the big move.

I still haven't written about India. That's another reason I haven't written since October. In November I had three visitors, then my parents and other family came for three weeks in December for a whirlwind trip. I was crazy busy. It was the greatest trip of my life, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it, as well as get pictures organized. That entry is going to be a book. Hopefully soon!

Vietnam

The past few weeks have been building in an unpleasant crescendo of stress. It was the end of the term, we were wrapping up grades, teachers and students alike were getting sick, everyone was burning out. Nick and I were testy. The girls each had tearful, exhausted meltdowns at separate times. Two teachers had deaths in their families. Another teacher walked off the job. The principal decided that the last week of school would be a great time to rearrange the schedule for some professional development, for which we would need to prepare work. Everything felt like a tornado.

And then? The King of Thailand died.

School was canceled. We had a day to breathe, and organize our thoughts and suitcases for our Vietnam trip.

The King’s death has been oddly uneventful, so far. CNN had the headline, “King’s Death Throws Country into Turmoil,” and… not really. Everyone is wearing black. There was TV footage of people crying outside the hospital in Bangkok. A lot of plans have been canceled. Every TV channel had retrospectives. I wouldn’t get all Shatner and call it thrown! into turmoil! It’s no wonder people think the world is such a terrifying place, with stupid headlines like that.

Even with the day off school, we pushed our limits traveling that day. It was planes, trains & automobiles for hours on end. Walking, dragging suitcases through chaotic Friday night Bangkok. The girls were absolute champs. We were filthy and exhausted by the time we got to our hotel at 9:30 pm, and after we hosed ourselves down, got bad sleep in a room that never cooled off enough despite the jet-engine air conditioner.

Up & at ‘em 8 hours later!  We made it through the expensive visa labyrinth that is having a US passport in Vietnam. We gawked our way through the cab windows to the hotel, then had a quick lunch. 

I had low expectations for Saigon (also called Ho Chi Minh City), having not heard good things about it from any source. To my surprise, I felt a weird magnetic connection to Saigon. I just… dug it. It’s mostly the Southeast Asia that I know, with people sitting in plastic chairs on sidewalks...

This. Everywhere.

...with some French colonial architecture mixed in, and just enough propaganda to tug at my fondness for all things Soviet. A great part of the city is small streets lined with big shady trees, giving it a homey feel. Maybe we just had good luck there and only saw the best parts, but I definitely feel that I could live there. Especially if I was young and single; it’s that kind of city. Nick and I were both quietly cursing that we wasted our 20s not living in a city like that. Also, holy crap, we stayed in a three bedroom, two bath apartment with a full kitchen and laundry for about $65 a night!

While in Saigon we went to the War Remnants Museum. It was fascinating to see a museum from the perspective of the people who we fought against, and the people who beat us. There were many stories of gut-twisting atrocities, but what bothered me the most was this one couple taking pictures. This vapid twit of a woman was taking semi-sexy poses next to the exhibits, like doing the head-tilted, wide-eyed, hair stroking move next to a display of bullets and grenades, or next to a section of sewer pipe where three children hid and were found and murdered. I was so horrified that I found myself following them around, and I tried to get a picture of one of their poses but couldn’t make it happen. It was so offensive that I had to sit down in the hallway for a little while. Aside from them, and the myriad of selfie sticks (why, people? There? Why?)… great museum. 

Next we moved on to Hoi An, which is about 30 minutes south of Da Nang (we checked out China Beach first, but having just missed a hurricane by a day, there was no swimming). I went on several recommendations. People said they wanted to retire there, a few others said they went for two days and ended up staying longer, so I was intrigued. And? Mmmmehh. I mean, it’s gorgeous. The old part of the city is like a movie set, it has so much character. But that was about four blocks, and it was full of nonstop hawkers. “You want to buy? Please, special price for you!” “Hello! Lady!” “Happy hour!” (lots of “happy hour”), and our favorite, “In the morning!” I guess that was supposed to mean that because it was morning, we got a special price? I don’t know, but we would hear “In the morning!” as a constant sales catcall. 

One thing I can say about Hoi An is that we stayed in the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in in my life. It was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I once spent a day at the Ojai Spa near Santa Barbara, where celebrities go, and this was just as nice… if not nicer. And? $55/night. 

My favorite part of Hoi An was when we rented some bikes. We rode about 30 minutes out to the beach, where the waves were still crazy. I didn’t have a data plan in Vietnam, so without GPS or a map I used my old-school compass on my phone to get us back to town. We had a great time. I love getting lost on a bike. 

Hanoi was next. We had both read in several places that Hanoi was the real charmer, with its historical buildings and whatnot. Okay, picture this: Imagine New York City, with its storefronts and noise and people. Now put the city through the dryer and shrink it by about 75%, but keep the same traffic, people, and noise. OH MY GOD THE NOISE. People in Vietnam drive with their horns to let others know they’re there. With all streets packed full of cars and motorbikes, it’s earsplitting and nerve-wracking. If you know my nervous, Type-A daughter Sascha, you can appreciate how much it bothered her. She would shriek, “Why aren’t they driving on the right side of the road? Why are the bikes riding on the sidewalk? Why are they driving the wrong way down the one-way street?” and so on. I promised her that I’d someday take her to Vienna, the pinnacle of civilization and order, where she truly belongs. Hanoi is just a tangled mess. The storefronts are tiny, sometimes barely wider than the doors.  I didn’t feel any charm, I felt stress and flight (as in fight or flight). We tried to walk around, but all sidewalks are full of bikes so you’re kind of forced to dodge cars and more bikes in the street. The air is thick with exhaust, giving me a nagging cough that has lingered for days. 

Then there are the most aggressive hawkers I have ever encountered. One guy cornered me to quickly glue part of my sneaker that he perceived to be loose, then harassed me for two blocks about “Why you no pay me? I fix your shoe!” Another woman practically shoved a donut hole into my mouth, then demanded about $10 for a bag of them (I laughed). UGGGHH. We were quite happy to hide in our crappy hotel room. Hanoi is not for the faint of heart. 

At the very least, we were able to find an awesome public playground. There are exactly zero public playgrounds in Chiang Rai, unless you count the vintage metal set we found along the river.  I love Chiang Rai, but it is utilitarian. No frills.

And then... Halong Bay. This is one of those places like Switzerland that you cannot believe is real. It is so beautiful, and of course pictures don’t do it justice. And it is so quiet. We really appreciated the peace after Hanoi. We were on a cruise line that was rated #1 on Trip Advisor. This whole visit to Vietnam has got me second-guessing online reviews. We lucked out in Saigon & Hoi An, but I’ve raised an eyebrow at the reviews up north—and after encountering those awful hawkers, it's not too hard to figure out who is putting in the top ratings.

Reviews aside, this is one of the greatest tours I have ever taken. There were only 18 people on the boat. We went kayaking, swimming, and hiking into a cave; we had a white-tablecloth barbecue on the beach and cooking lessons. We visited a pearl farm. By far my favorite has been the swimming. Any chance I could get my body into that beautiful green water, it was a good day. There was minimal trash, a rarity these days, the temperature was perfectly cool, and it had the most wonderful smell.

It's nice to get back to the comforts of a country I know. I didn’t realize how much I rely on Thailand’s ubiquitous 7-11s—Vietnam has no convenience stores. However, my workload at school has gone insane. I got really sick at the end of the term and I blame stress. I had planned to run a half marathon in December, but I think I’m going to have to downgrade to a 10K and I'm very disappointed about it. Between my exhaustion from work and the hot, rainy weather, this has been my training:

I want to plan ahead so that I can breathe a little, but the workload is so staggering that I’m kind of paralyzed. For two of my five classes right now, I’m looking at the subjects going oh my god where in the fresh hell do I even begin with this. I end up just moving through the term patching leaks in the dam instead of building a solid structure. I hate it because my students deserve better than that. But there is only so much one person can realistically do, and it has to be that way in order for me to have time for the kids, to exercise, to cook dinner, to have a life. The silver lining is that I’m in an odd position of power. If the school asks me to do something (run a workshop or club for example), and I politely decline, what can they do about it? Will they fire me? Who will they find to take my place, to pay their own way here and teach five different subjects for a whopping $24,000 salary? It has made me a little braver about not being a yes-man. 

So the next blog post may be about visitors! I have three visitors coming in November and I cannot wait to see their goggle-eyed amazement at Thailand. And seven more weeks until my parents arrive!

First World Lessons

I was writing a lecture for my environmental science class last week, and had a really dumb light-bulb moment (Simpsons fans would call it a “dental plan” moment). Thailand is a third-world country. 

In a way, it’s like “no duh,” but I’m learning that the standards for these categories are somewhat fluid. I’ve gone down several internet rabbit holes reading about this. This article was the shortest and most concise. It’s fascinating. I actually saw one website call Thailand a first-world country. The terms came from Cold War alliances and are technically outdated, but the images they conjure remain.

You think “third world,” and images like this come to mind.

I think, nooo, this isn’t third world. Not here. The people here are witty and friendly, well-fed, and have multi-dimensional lives. The third world is far, far away, somewhere else, like beyond the moon, and people sit around starving and being miserable. You know what? We are far away. There are several houses that look just like these, right on our street! Our neighbors cook breakfast on on open fire out in their yard. Our house’s entire electrical system is basically a mile-long extension cord, and it’s considered a luxury that we get hot water from our kitchen sink. It’s a weird feeling to have this dawn on me. I’ve seen pictures of the “third world” my whole life, and it just looks different in person. Less scary, I guess, and so intensely beautiful. I will fully acknowledge how much of a privileged white princess I sound like when I say all of this, so go ahead and roll your eyes. It’s a learning process. 

So it was no surprise this morning when we got stuck in the mud on the way to work. And of course, it was on a section of our street where there’s no phone signal, so I couldn’t text our boss that we’d be late. 

We will be doing exactly this a little over a year from now, except the mud will be white and cold instead of brown and sticky. Sigh. However, the snow won’t make Mike-Tyson’s-face-tattoo splatters on Nick’s face when he tries to get us unstuck. 

A couple of weeks ago we had another crazy faculty Amazing Race, like we did last year. At one point, we were zipping up the river on a longtail boat. As I was mentally gushing to myself over the beautiful scenery, one of the guys (who has lived here for many years) said, “Can you believe we live here? We live here!” My thoughts exactly. It seems the sense of wonder doesn’t dull over time. 

The same guy, who is Dutch, said something later that day that I think my American friends will get a kick out of. I said something to the other American on the team, calling him “Watson.” The Dutch guy said, “Is that a thing in America, calling each other by your last names?” It was kind of adorable. I had to explain that it’s an informal thing that has sort of stemmed from sports.
 

A few months ago, someone asked me what the latest news was on our horrible ex-landlord from the Miami Vice house. We had gone back & forth with lawyers, he was legally in the wrong, but it would have cost us a lot of money to force him to admit it, so we just put off further contact until it sort of went away. He still has our money, of course. It is very similar to the stories about Trump not paying people. This guy is so Trump-- a rich, powerful narcissist. Anyway, we thought it was over. Out of the blue this weekend, I got a call from a real estate agent who has acted as a messenger between us, telling me that Mr. British Trump is willing to drop the whole thing (meaning, not coming after us for more than what he already has!) if we promise not to take any further legal action. Wow, how generous of him!

Well. Maybe it's because she caught me off guard, but... I gave her a piece of my mind about Mr. Landlord. And I gave her piece after piece for about 45 minutes. How much sleep we've lost over this. How he is in the wrong, in about 658 bullet points. How it's pocket change to him, but it's our entire net worth. I stopped to forward her e-mails where I cite Thai laws he is breaking. By the end of the conversation, I was shaking with blind rage. She said she'd see if she could talk him into giving us back any more money, but I told her I wasn't holding my breath. Unless she has good news, I never want to hear anything about him again, unless it's that he died a firey cancerous death involving spiders and hot pokers and weeping leprosy. 

I need to post this so I can scramble together today's lesson plans. School is kicking my behind. The sheer amount of work involved in teaching this many different classes is a very high bar, and it's a good day if I can barely stretch high enough to tap it. Actually hurling myself over that bar? Forget it. I am at my full capacity for what I'm capable of. It's good to know your limits, but damn. It is really, really hard.

Vietnam is in three weeks! Off to write a Kahoot.

Year Two

Our school has gotten a lot of mileage from our kids on their promotional materials...

We’re now in our fourth week of school. It’s a little different this year. They’ve lengthened the school day by 30 minutes, with many schedule adjustments that are not working out very well logistically. This job is making me appreciate the importance of a union. When the staff is unionized, everyone knows their place and expectations are clear. Without one, there are allegiances and backstabbing and unpleasant surprises. It’s similar to parents having no rules or consistency for their children; it just doesn’t work well for anyone. It’s not just because this is a private school, either. I’m seeing this happen with my teacher friends in non-union public schools in the US, too. One friend in particular is getting overworked to the point of abuse. 

Educating children and making a profit are two diametrically opposite goals. It's like trying to travel north and south at the same time. You can only succeed at one at a time. It seems like the only people who truly understand this are teachers. 

Anyway, so I am teaching five different classes this year, one of which I am literally making up writing the curriculum as I go along (environmental science, which I’ve never taught before). It’s a bear trying to keep my head on straight. That plus the longer day means I’m starting to feel like I did back home: tired, stressed, having to choose between working out or making dinner and usually too exhausted to do either. It’s not nearly as bad though... We still have a 12-minute commute, no pets, a small house to keep clean, no lunches to pack, about 10% of the social life we had back home, and abundant massages if I need to feel refreshed. 

And we have amazing trips to look forward to! I’ve started to plan out our October trip to Vietnam, and I’m out of my tree with excitement. I’ve started reading books about the war and will soon start on the movies (suggestions welcome). We’re going to Saigon, Da Nang, and Hanoi. I want to see as much of the historical sites as I can, but we’re also going to hang out on one of these for three days…

Cue squealing

It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I am much happier to work as hard as I am when I have that to look forward to. Then it's Cambodia for the half-marathon in December, India for Christmas, and Nepal in April. The Himalayas, you guys. I'm trying to arrange a school kayaking trip in Laos, and a senior trip to Bali to work in sea turtle conservation. 

Something like this! For real! For real!

Next year I have to comfort myself with the thought that work will be easier, but the only reward we’ll get is time off to stay at home and try not to spend any money. We'll make three times as much and be able to afford less. It’s okay. We’re squeezing every drop of life that we can out of these two years.

Home

This is one of the best things about working here: The picture below shows our building and where all of our classes are. I get to see the girls all day long! Sascha is two classrooms down from me. I love this so much. 

So that's about it for now. I am hyper-aware of the amount of time we have left here. Yes, I love it, and I find myself smiling spontaneously more than I ever have in my life, but I know it's an affair, not a marriage. It's a fun, exciting, whirlwind affair that makes me feel so incredibly alive, but I know it's not forever. Sascha said we should put a countdown app on my phone, and I refused. 

My girls, watching the clouds in a parking lot. I don't know why I love this picture so much.

However, then we started talking about the dogs we might possibly get when we move home. Things like that make it easier. Ahh, so does the six-inch spider I saw while hiking last weekend! I showed the pictures to my students, and one said "oh yeah, I saw two of those in the school's laundry room the other day," and another said, "oh yeah, those are very poisonous." 

Me:

I was a little less sad about leaving.

What If YOU Did It?

The other day we were sitting in a faculty meeting and the school director was talking about some of the hiring challenges they've had. I thought... I know a lot of teachers. Any of you want to come and do this?

This job would be perfect for either a young single teacher, a teaching couple (I don't know many of those), or a teacher whose spouse could work remotely. Tuition at the school is covered for one child per teacher, so if you're a teaching couple, two kids. I can't honestly say it would be worth it otherwise; tuition is pricey. All contracts at our school are for one year. It's worth a thought! My god, especially if you're young and single. And an elementary teacher. I could walk you through the whole thing.

Why not?

We've started back up again, but just the teachers for now. We go back a full 8 school days before the kids, and 95% of that time is free to set up our rooms. I love it. It forces me to get in and work, and also clearly defines the summer so I don't have to give school a thought until I physically step back into it. I'm not simultaneously freaked out and bewildered like I was this time last year, I was moved to a new room that's way better than what I had, I have some new ideas, and I know exactly what to expect. It's going to be a great year.

I had this moment today of overwhelming happiness. I had just been to the market and had several nice interactions with people. I had a bowl of khao soi.

A local dish; noodles in coconut curry. I could eat it every single day.

I was driving around town and the sky was doing dramatic rainy things in every direction, spilling dark clouds over the mountains here, a sheet of rain over there, bright sunbeams peeking out over there. It was just beautiful. I thought to myself, I have a year of experience behind me, and a year ahead. One year to learn, one year to practice what I've learned*. It's an incredibly sweet spot. I have to strike a balance between appreciating the silence and beauty, and trying not to panic that I only have 11 more months of it. I mean, this is the view out my window right now.

This is my view when I do yoga.

*I've learned to slow down, mostly my brain. I can't say I'm an expert, but I am sleeping like a champ now. However, if I'm gonna talk about things I've learned in a year, my Thai language skills still suck.

I keep meaning to put this somewhere, so here is as good as any. We have these birds outside our house that make the funniest sound. Woop-woop-woop-woop. I call it the Three Stooges bird. It sounds like Curly. I finally looked it up today! Thank you Internet, it's called the Greater Coucal. We see them everywhere. They're gorgeous. But this sound... man, it is the soundtrack to our house, that's for sure. The one in this video sounds a little slower, a little less Curly than the ones around us.

I'll finish this post with a funny story. Today I went to buy some plants for my classroom. I went to a small garden shop where a scruffy old woman was napping on top of stacked bags of soil. (Workplace naps are a common sight here-- having had my share of boring jobs, I love it.) This same woman would later help me load my car, where I would discover that-- surprise!-- she actually smelled great, like fresh sugar cookies. I know.  ???  Anyway, I asked the other employee where the indoor plants were. She showed me this collection of huge, gorgeous, healthy plants. I picked out a few and asked her how much. She said "35 baht." I let out a shocked gasp, because that is one dollar. These plants would easily run $15-20 at Home Depot. She immediately said, "30 baht!" As if I was gasping because they were expensive! Oh, Thailand.