Renu Nakhon

I am currently living in a small rural rice farming town of no more than 10k people. the town itself is no more than 2 miles long by 1 mile wide and once you get to the city limits , there is nothing but rice fields are far as you can see. There aren't any major tourist attractions or much of really anything to do and so I rarely see any other foreigners. The pace of life around here is slow and revolves around food and family. Thailand is known  as the "Land of Smiles" and rightfully so. I'm just lucky enough to live in one of the friendliest parts of  the "Land of Smiles." Do you know where that is?

"I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where the beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I;m talking about  a little place called Renu Nakhon." 

Harry: Oh, don't know Lloyd. The French are assholes."

So I have tried to take a few photos from around town to give you an idea of what's it's like here, but as always pictures never does it justice. I guess you'll just have to come visit to find out what is really like!

this is my room and yes i made the picture small because its not as  clean as i usually keep it, and yes i actually do keep it clean compared to my room back in VA. I am a bit spoiled in this room b/c i have cable tv, hot water, AC and everything is  new and clean

my front porch, always gotta have a hammock. in fact Thai's probably invented the hammock b/c they love them too.  i can count at least 5 hammocks that are around just our house alone. just my type of people right

this is the guest house that i live in in 

the view from the street of my host families "compound" (contains 2 houses, the downstairs of one  has been converted into a private tutoring school, my guest house, and a garden)

the street i live on

my little neighbor, Fighter

Pim and Pad, always greet with an excited and friendly "hello" as i come home from school.

"downtown"

one of many buildings at my school. over 2000 students

"main street"

it's almost got a Fan like feel but a little more tropical

a traditional wooden thai house

the daily night market. just a block long but its one of my favorite parts of the town. it feels like a the fair every night

Fighter (16 months) wai'ing (pronounced like "why"ing = when you put your hhands together like your praying, its how they say hello)

lighting a fire lantern. works like a hot air balloon, you let them float away for good luck

 a small rural primary school where i volunteer on some weekends

my neighbor is the kingpin of the local cockfighting scene

fishing in a rice field water levy. not even exaggerating we caught two 20-30 lb fish and they were delicious but of coarse i dont have any photos  

So that's a bit of Renu. what'd you think?

Ant Soup, Pig Ears, Fish Eyes and Cow Stomach... its whats for breakfast!

Hello! not sure if anyone out there still reads this blog but i figured i'd start it up again. And yes I really have had all this stuff for breakfast. the other day i was still half zombie like while i was eating breakfast when i noticed my little Thai brother named Ice(9yrs old) digging out and eating the eyes of a fish. i snapped out of my zombie mode and smiled. it was just a friendly reminder that im not in Kansas anymore.






so even though its been a while since my last post, it doesn't mean things haven't been happening  life has gone on and boy has it gone quickly. but the past is the past and the now is now so i won't bore you/im too lazy to recap for u the past few months. current situation: i am now living in a cool little town called Renu Nakhon. i live with an amazing host family and have my first career job as a teacher at a rural high school. Life is good!

Today's lunch conversation

Me: what's so funny
Kasame: we laugh at Kru Nuu
Me: why
Kasame: today Kru Nuu forget teach
              he walk around school
              he look at uhhh... what is het in english?
Me: mushroom?
Kasame: ahh yes mushroom haha
Kru Nuu: haha yes i nong (confused)
Everyone: hahahah

haha for some reason i feel like in the states a certain someone would be getting fired after this converstation but its thailand so mai pen rai

Cambodia!

A month ago I was fortunate enough to make a trip to Cambodia. I had originally planned a 5 day trip but due to some luck in the calander, it turned out to be a 10 day trip. Though my time in Cambodia doubled, I would soon realize that 10 days couldn’t even scratch the surface.

There were 7 of us WorldTeach volunteers on this trip, all first timers to Cambodia. I was a bit hesitant to travel with this many people but it was a laid back group so in the end I had no regrets. One of the high lights of the trip for me was the first 3 hours in Cambodia on the  taxi ride from the border to Siem Riep. I sat in the front seat with our Cambodian driver, Choy, while midway thru the trip the 3 other volunteers passed out in the back. I stayed awake the entire trip determined not to miss a sight and was rewarded with many. One of the top sites had to be a moped driving by with 3 huge dead pigs strapped to the back seat on their backs with their legs dangling up in the air. (Haha, oh the things you see on mopeds have yet ceased to amaze me).

Anyways back to the ride. Choy hardly spoke a word of English, but we soon realized that he did speak some Thai! So we chatted with him for a little bit using our limited knowledge of thai. Our vocabulary quickly diminished and the conversation slowed. But before this trip I had promised myself that I would always learn a few basic phases before traveling to another country. So I tried a few out on Choy, and though he was not very impressed with my pronunciation, he was excited that I was trying.  So for the rest of the ride while the others slept, he taught me some basic Khmer phrases using the only common language we had… Thai! I was so impressed with myself for not only learning some Khmer, but learning it through only speaking Thai!

As much as I enjoyed learning Khmer with Choy, im not ready to say that a taxi ride was the highlight of my trip to Cambodia. But I will say the highlight of the trip, and one of the sole reasons for the trip, was our time spent at Ankor Wat and all the other ruins. My fourth grade vocabulary can’t begin to describe with words how amazing it was. The scale, the detail, the physics, the age, the beauty… all mind blowing. So enough words, here are just a few pictures of the highlights from our trip.

still missing a few pictures from the last few days but ill put them up when i get to it

5 o’clock traffic!

for the past two months, this has been the seen on the road behind my school.

 Prior to this semester, this road was rarely used but now it is the rice planting season and so everyone and their mother heads out to the fields to help out. So on my evening jogs, these are some of the friendly faces that I pass during the 5 o’clock traffic in my village.

the traffic is a far cry from… just about everywhere else. maybe one of the only places where i look forward to the 5o'clock traffic