Our journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai last Friday was a wonderful adventure. We slept on a train and it was rather magical! I've always wanted to do that, ever since seeing pictures of sleeping berths on the Canadian Pacific Railway when I was a child. Our small traveling room had sleeping accommodations for 4 people, two lower berths and two uppers: bunk beds! (Another secret desire.) We boarded the train at 7:30pm. Immediately a woman came and offered us a tray of fresh fruit, followed by offers of beer & dinner. We declined these but did order breakfast to be brought to us the next morning. We had mistakenly thought that the train was an express. Not so. One or two stops down the line, a young man entered our little room, gave respectful greetings, and soon retreated into his little cocoon behind the curtains and began quietly snoring! Guess he'd had a hard week of work in Bangkok.
Our purple overnight sleeper train. Thais love the colors purple and pink.
When we had arrived on board, the top two bunks were already made up with fresh linens, ready for sleeping. As it got to be a bit later in the evening, the steward came round and made up the lower bunks, which had served as seats for traveling during the day. Each of the four compartments had a curtain to be pulled around them, like in a hospital, giving privacy to the occupant. The beds were surprisingly comfortable, and the rocking motion of the train soon lulled us off to sleep. Despite this, I did not sleep well. I guess I was too curious to see what was happening outside the window, each time the train stopped, which it did throughout the night.
In the morning, we were still rocking along - but the landscape outside had changed to a much more hilly terrain. In our little sleeping room, a young man emerged from the opposite berth - but it was not the guy who had entered the previous evening! Apparently the first guy had gotten off in the middle of the night, and one of the stewards had snuck in for a little shut-eye! (This would be a great setting for a mystery novel.) We got ourselves organized for the day. It didn't take long. The bathroom at the end of our car left a little to be desired! I decided to wait until we got to Chiang Mai to do any washing up.
Despite being an hour behind schedule on our arrival, Barb & Paul, our Prince Edward Island acquaintances (good friends of Dori and Dan) met us at the station and whisked us off to the dorm, of sorts, that Barb had arranged for us to live in for the month that we are here. Barb is the elementary vice principal at the Chiang Mai International School and has warmly welcomed us into the school community. That woman gets things done! In the short time that we've been here, she has found meaningful volunteer opportunities for us at the school, introduced us to the community church that they attend, taken us out to eat twice and to the grocery store, procured a toaster for our room, and on the very first day, she got Bruce into a pulmonary specialist to assess his continued coughing/breathing problems. It turns out that he has acute bronchitis. The good news is that his Guatemalan pneumonia is finished! The other good news is that he's on some new med's and is beginning to feel his energy flow back. We are so grateful to Barb for all that she is doing for us!
If you look closely in this photo, you can see wooden elephants beside the sign and orchids behind the sign (in addition to Barb, Bruce, and Linda).
We were lucky to begin our volunteering at Chiang Mai International School during Teacher Appreciation Week. This is the lunch that the Korean mom's prepared for the teachers.
The Chiang Mai International School serves pre-school through Grade 12 with an American educational approach - and a triple shot of Asian academic rigor! I was quite taken aback on my first day in the kindergarten class. These little tykes are doing what would be first grade work - in my experience - with nose to the grindstone all day. They have fantastic teachers and wonderful lessons. I'm really enjoying my time and learning a lot. Chiang Mai, it turns out, is a hotbed of missionary activity, so many of the children come from missionary families. In fact, the school originated to serve the children of missionaries. Nowadays, the student body also consists of many Thai children (whose parents want them to be immersed in English), as well as other ex-pat families from all over the world.
Bruce is working with a Korean high school student who needs more practice in English. He's also been a chaperone on a 4th grade field trip to the market, as well as doing a clinical assessment of a student. It's not always easy to plug in a couple of random volunteers who show up for a month only, so we're impressed with how the school is able to use us.
This high school student performed a traditional Thai dance for the Teacher Appreciation assembly.
Our new "home away from home" is interesting. We are in a 3-story building next to the school campus. It is a modern administrative building for the church organization that runs the school and has offices and meeting rooms on the first two floors. There are dorm rooms on the third floor, but they are all empty except for ours! So at night and on weekends, we're here alone, down a long, dark corridor. It was a little weird and spooky at first but seems quite normal now.
Our room is on the top floor on the left corner. At night we're the only people in the building.
The room itself is delightful - large and bright with big windows looking out to the school gym and trees and other big buildings. It's on a very busy street with lots of traffic at all hours. In the morning we hear announcements and beautiful, soft Thai music being piped out from another, massive and toney private school nearby, followed by the national anthem at 8am.
One of Barb's most important revelations to us was her secret for easy meal prep in Thailand: order dinner from the chef at the school cafeteria! For $2.50 total, we order dinner each morning and pick it up at 2:30pm, bring it "home" and heat it in our microwave. Alcohol is not allowed in the dorm, so we often walk down the street for a beer at an outdoor Thai bistro (we're always the only "farongs", ie foreigners, and must point to what we want in the cooler - except that they know us now!)
Sightseeing boat on the Mae Ping River in Chiang Mai.
So, that's our new life, so far. No elephant training or Thai cooking classes or temple visits yet - but we're eager to do all of those activities. In the meantime, Bruce, our travel arranger, is spending great amounts of time trying to stay ahead of our ever-moving caravan, so that air flights, visa conundrums, hotels, etc. can be worked out in advance, which saves money, of course, and keeps us legal, we hope. Our friend, Paul, Barb's husband, visits inmates in the Chiang Mai prison. Some of them are farongs who have had visa problems. We don't want to be one of his visitees!
When we had arrived on board, the top two bunks were already made up with fresh linens, ready for sleeping. As it got to be a bit later in the evening, the steward came round and made up the lower bunks, which had served as seats for traveling during the day. Each of the four compartments had a curtain to be pulled around them, like in a hospital, giving privacy to the occupant. The beds were surprisingly comfortable, and the rocking motion of the train soon lulled us off to sleep. Despite this, I did not sleep well. I guess I was too curious to see what was happening outside the window, each time the train stopped, which it did throughout the night.
In the morning, we were still rocking along - but the landscape outside had changed to a much more hilly terrain. In our little sleeping room, a young man emerged from the opposite berth - but it was not the guy who had entered the previous evening! Apparently the first guy had gotten off in the middle of the night, and one of the stewards had snuck in for a little shut-eye! (This would be a great setting for a mystery novel.) We got ourselves organized for the day. It didn't take long. The bathroom at the end of our car left a little to be desired! I decided to wait until we got to Chiang Mai to do any washing up.
Despite being an hour behind schedule on our arrival, Barb & Paul, our Prince Edward Island acquaintances (good friends of Dori and Dan) met us at the station and whisked us off to the dorm, of sorts, that Barb had arranged for us to live in for the month that we are here. Barb is the elementary vice principal at the Chiang Mai International School and has warmly welcomed us into the school community. That woman gets things done! In the short time that we've been here, she has found meaningful volunteer opportunities for us at the school, introduced us to the community church that they attend, taken us out to eat twice and to the grocery store, procured a toaster for our room, and on the very first day, she got Bruce into a pulmonary specialist to assess his continued coughing/breathing problems. It turns out that he has acute bronchitis. The good news is that his Guatemalan pneumonia is finished! The other good news is that he's on some new med's and is beginning to feel his energy flow back. We are so grateful to Barb for all that she is doing for us!
The Chiang Mai International School serves pre-school through Grade 12 with an American educational approach - and a triple shot of Asian academic rigor! I was quite taken aback on my first day in the kindergarten class. These little tykes are doing what would be first grade work - in my experience - with nose to the grindstone all day. They have fantastic teachers and wonderful lessons. I'm really enjoying my time and learning a lot. Chiang Mai, it turns out, is a hotbed of missionary activity, so many of the children come from missionary families. In fact, the school originated to serve the children of missionaries. Nowadays, the student body also consists of many Thai children (whose parents want them to be immersed in English), as well as other ex-pat families from all over the world.
Bruce is working with a Korean high school student who needs more practice in English. He's also been a chaperone on a 4th grade field trip to the market, as well as doing a clinical assessment of a student. It's not always easy to plug in a couple of random volunteers who show up for a month only, so we're impressed with how the school is able to use us.
Our new "home away from home" is interesting. We are in a 3-story building next to the school campus. It is a modern administrative building for the church organization that runs the school and has offices and meeting rooms on the first two floors. There are dorm rooms on the third floor, but they are all empty except for ours! So at night and on weekends, we're here alone, down a long, dark corridor. It was a little weird and spooky at first but seems quite normal now.
The room itself is delightful - large and bright with big windows looking out to the school gym and trees and other big buildings. It's on a very busy street with lots of traffic at all hours. In the morning we hear announcements and beautiful, soft Thai music being piped out from another, massive and toney private school nearby, followed by the national anthem at 8am.
One of Barb's most important revelations to us was her secret for easy meal prep in Thailand: order dinner from the chef at the school cafeteria! For $2.50 total, we order dinner each morning and pick it up at 2:30pm, bring it "home" and heat it in our microwave. Alcohol is not allowed in the dorm, so we often walk down the street for a beer at an outdoor Thai bistro (we're always the only "farongs", ie foreigners, and must point to what we want in the cooler - except that they know us now!)
So, that's our new life, so far. No elephant training or Thai cooking classes or temple visits yet - but we're eager to do all of those activities. In the meantime, Bruce, our travel arranger, is spending great amounts of time trying to stay ahead of our ever-moving caravan, so that air flights, visa conundrums, hotels, etc. can be worked out in advance, which saves money, of course, and keeps us legal, we hope. Our friend, Paul, Barb's husband, visits inmates in the Chiang Mai prison. Some of them are farongs who have had visa problems. We don't want to be one of his visitees!
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