Thailand Adventures and more: Back to Laos....AGAIN!!

Ann, my 2nd grade teacher, and I made a quick trip to Lopburi to see if I could get my visa thing figured out. We didn't get the news we were hoping for and I was told that I would have to go back to Laos! When we were catching a little taxi back to the bus, and we and an old man got on, these 3 high school aged boys got out of their seat for us to sit down. As I've mentioned before, respect is huge here. Sometimes I feel that it is a lost art back home. I was thinking that this visa thing was my fault because I didn't know what I had to do to fix it before...but I also feel that the first time this happened and I had problems, that SOMEONE could have mentioned the proper protocol!

I was up at 5am one morning because we were taking our kids to this English Conference in Bangkok. I think of myself as a morning person and that I'm not too grumpy in the mornings, but there are some things that I have found living here in Thailand, that I just don't appreciate at early hours of the morning....and that being REALLY LOUD THAI MUSIC! I decided there was no way I could sleep so instead I played around with the kids in the bus on the way there and we had a lot of fun!

Here is me with my seat partner Ninee.

Here I'm with another precious student, Mint.

With Omsin and Bai-Tong....Omsin IS having more fun than it looks like!

With Mind, Bonus, Korn and March. I don't think back home the kids would get away with being out of their seats and running crazy around the bus....but here, I guess it's okay!

The fab five all pretty in pink! (By the way I HATE the color pink!) This is the Anuban Singburi School MEP crew. Ann, myself, Pat (Head advisor), Tuk and my favorite Thai man James.

Having fun posing with my Thai translators and fellow teachers! I have really enjoyed both of them and feel very lucky and special to have them!

On the way home from Bangkok we stopped in Ayutthaya at a temple and this is a picture of a fruit stand I passed. I believe that most of this fruit is pickled. I couldn't even tell you what most of this fruit is! I know that one of them is mango, but that's it! All the smells were quite overwhelming!

I am constantly entertained by the things I see done on motorbikes! Here March holds the umbrella to keep his mom from getting wet on the way home! Also a quick story...the next day as I was walking through the school yard, coming back from lunch, I saw a little boy running at full speed...BUT, when he saw me, he stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at me! I didn't know if I should have felt good or bad about this! Another similar story, where again I was coming back from lunch, riding my bike through the school, I had some little boys stop and stare and me and then one reached out and touched my arm....to see if I was real? I'm not sure!

So, yet another adventure began for me...back to Laos for another visa! This time, I was lucky to have some people to go with me. There were some teachers from a nearby town that also needed to do a visa run. I met them in Ayutthaya to catch a train to the border. I almost didn't even make it to Ayutthaya because the bus forgot to stop and drop me off until we were almost to Bangkok and I finally asked if we had passed Ayutthaya! Then I had to take a little mini-bus to Ayutthaya...where I was surprised I made it alive because the driver was going like 145kmp (roughly 90mph!) the whole way! Finally I made it and met up with Kevin, from Canada, Shane from California and Dave from England. It was a fun group to travel with. Oh this next picture is of the little glasses of complimentary pop that you get on the buses!

I was irritated about making this trip because I was going to have to spend almost half of my peanuts salary to go. Then on the trip there I found out that all of these boys were getting their trip paid for by their school! I was already having monetary conflicts with my school so there was no way they would pay for this trip! I had discussed it with these guys before, but they could still not believe how little I was getting paid in comparison to them, when none of them have a teaching degree or masters. Over the past month I had talked to many other teachers in the area and all of them told me I was getting taken advantage of and that I should move schools. I had seriously considered it, even though I would hate to leave my kids. I decided that I would wait to see if the school was actually going to give me my promised and deserved bonuses for all the extra hours I had put in over the last two months doing lesson plans. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting...but I was finally promised of a date of when I'll get my bonuses...so we will see if it is in the correct amount. I continue to work very hard for the school, regardless of how they have treated me at times. I guess I don't know any other way. I would go crazy if I didn't work hard!

Monday morning we dropped off our visa applications. When I got to the front of line I saw that I was going to get the same lady who caused me problems last time...and what do you know, instantly she found something wrong with my application! I was missing one number on a document. So I had to call the school, wait for James to find it and call them back. When I got back to the front of the line, I handed them my application and said, you have my passport back there. The lady said, no we don't, it is not here. Trying to remain calm I told her she did not give it back to me. She claimed that she set it on the counter and a man took it. I said, you gave my passport to SOMEONE ELSE!?!?! She acted like it wasn't her fault and that it was my problem and put about 1/100 of an ounce of effort into helping me with the situation. After 3 times of going up to talk to her, I was about to explode, but my friend Kevin went up with me and talked to her for me. He asked her if it was possible it got taken into the other building. She was still being difficult but finally walked over to the other building. After about 5 minutes she waltzed back over to us....with my passport in her hand! Finally, after a couple hours, we could leave the Consulate!

We found a little place on the street to eat. It is a rice noodle, vegetable, chicken sort of soup dish.

One thing that I love about the little street places to eat is they have a plethora of condiments that you can add to your dish, all over the table. I usually stay away from most of it because I don't know what it is and it looks a bit fishy! The big tub in the middle of the table are the bean sprouts, where you just reach your hand in and grab your share! Someone that is concerned about germs would probably not fair too good here!