Christmas in Trang

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

While many of you are enjoying a nice vacation or at least break from school or work, Patrick and I have to continue to work on Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas Day. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist country with some Muslims and Christians. Unlike the States they do not recognize Christmas or the time around Christmas as a holiday. Last Thursday at our weekly faculty meeting we learned that we would in fact be celebrating Christmas at school by doing various Christmas activities on Christmas Day. Pat was volunteered to dress up as Santa and I was assigned to teach each of my classes a different Christmas song (yes that would be 10 different Christmas songs.) After having a failed lesson on Thanksgiving, I was going to avoid Christmas and just do seasons and months, but I was informed that we had to partake in the “Christmas activities” with our classes. For the past three days I have been teaching “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Must be Santa Claus,” etc which has made for a lot of solo, acappella singing which is not pretty. The Christmas cheer has been brought to Thailand, so do not worry. (Pat and I also have a small Christmas tree in our house that is attempting a festive mood at our place. It is hard to believe that Christmas is tomorrow as the weather is hot and humid and we are living in a tropical place.)

Two weekends ago, we went back to AoNang Beach in Krabi. After such a wonderful weekend in Phuket, we had a hard time wanting to stay in Trang for the weekend. We caught a fairly early bus allowing us to arrive in Krabi before the sunset. To keep the cost down, we ate mostly at the roadside Thai food stands outside of the Krabi McDonalds and Starbucks. We could get Pad Thai or Fried Rice for 35 baht (or $1) as opposed to the touristy restaurants that charge closer to 120 baht or more for meals. We spent plenty of time reading on the beach and playing in the water, walking along the shops on the streets and eating Thai food. While there were still a fair amount of tourists, we noticed much less than even the month before. You could also sense a sadness and desperation from the shopkeepers. The bad economy and the closing of the airport are definitely affecting Thailand. The number one industry is tourism and both have had a hard hit.

Last weekend we took a rode trip with Daniel and our motorbikes to a nearby island, Koh Mook. On our ride we noticed a huge amount of police officers lining both sides of the road maybe 150 ft apart. The road was also lined with Thai flags and purple flags. We were very curious as to what was going on and for miles we observed police and flags. After taking a ferry across a river in Kantang, we passed Thai students lined up along the road waving Thai flags. We stopped to take pictures and learned that the King’s son’s wife was driving through. It was quite the scene for the King’s son’s wife.

The drive to the pier was about one hour and then we chartered a longtail boat to Koh Mook which took around 30-45 minutes. We ended up staying in a bungalow on the beach with a fan and bathroom. It was nothing too nice, but it was on the beach with a great view. We quickly found that the power was turned off from about midnight until 6pm the following day, so having a fan really meant nothing. On Saturday we chartered a boat and visited some other islands in the area and went to the Emerald Cave. The Emerald Cave is a natural chimney. You swim into the cave and through the dark for about 10 minutes and then you come to a beach that is surrounded on all sides with limestone rocks. It was absolutely gorgeous, but everyone and their brother was there. There was a hoard of Asians jumping and splashing each other while taking pictures. We swam back out and loaded up our longtail to go snorkeling a bit and then visit Koh Hai and Koh Kradan. We ate lunch on Koh Hai and walked along the beaches admiring the white sand and amazingly turquoise water. From Koh Hai we took a painfully bumpy boat ride to Koh Kradan where we laid on the quiet beach and swam. The ocean was incredible rough, which sent us bumping up and down on the longtail boat and gripping the sides with white knuckles. For dinner we ate at a resort on the beach. There was a grill set up on the beach beside the tables with a small wooden boat full of ice and fish for display for the diners to choose. There was a marlin between 2 and 3 ft long along with other large fish, Phuket lobsters, Tiger Prawns (that were HUGE), and crabs. Pat and I split the marlin and a pizza, that was really delicious!! Throughout the weekend we spent a lot of time at a place called Mookies. It is a restaurant, bar and tent hotel run by an Australian and his Thai wife. The hotel is made up of a handful of tents that have a bed, fan and light. We were at first turned off by the idea of spending the weekend in tents, but after staying in the bungalow on the beach we decided we would stay at Mookies if we ever went back. The atmosphere was fun and we met some cool people from around the world.

That is quite a bit of catching up to do. We are spending this weekend in Trang in preparation for our trip to Bangkok and Chiang Mai on Tuesday.