Space: the final frontier

Now one week into my teaching career, starting to get into a bit of a
rhythm. Sean and I designed a neat lesson for this week about outer
space. We have a powerpoint to go along with it and so far the
students seem to appreciate having pictures and words to follow along
with what I say. One of the exercises is that the world is going to
explode, and there is only room on the spaceship for 3 people. Teams
have to convince me why their person, designated by a profession,
should be allowed on the ship. My star Monday class again impressed
me by explaining how a movie star would make attacking aliens laugh
and stop attacking. They also reasoned that the female math teacher
(as depicted on the powerpoint) should be allowed on the ship because
all the other professions (as depicted on the powerpoint) were men.

Again its tricky to try to get everyone involved. My afternoon senior
class is very passive and almost half the kids just have their noses
buried in books the whole lesson. The weird thing is that I glance at
what they're reading, and often it's English. Now in my books it
doesn't get much more exciting than a lesson on space (well, maybe
dinosaurs) but that's besides the point: even at a senior level the
students don't have strong speaking or listening skills. Why bother
learning all those words if you can't understand them when spoken?

We were also sort of thrown to the wolves this morning. Our teaching
recruiter committed us to teach 4 primary lessons each week. We had
no schedule information, we just had to meet the primary school
teachers at 8:20 this morning (early!) and then start teaching at
8:25. The teachers handed me some flashcards (numbers 1 to 12,
colours, and some prepositions) and ushered me up in front of a class
of 6-year olds. That will wake you up.

Last weekend I returned to Chengdu and went to visit the city's most
notable attraction: the giant pandas. It doesn't take long to
accumulate many pictures of pandas munching on bamboo, all the while
learning that the only reason pandas are still alive is that they are
so damn cute. We were shown the "Moonlight Nursury" where scientists
try to mate the pandas during their three day? mating window. This
usually doesn't work so they're resorted to artificial methods (maybe
too much detail provided about this in the accompanying movie!) And,
when pandas do give birth, the mother pandas are often so afraid of
the newborn that they attack it and can seriously harm it. Pandas eat
bamboo which has very little nutritional value and dies en mass every
once and a while. So maybe pandas are dumb, but it's likely that
human beings are dumber:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7743748.stm

The main reason for the visit was to bring my bike back to Leshan
(about 200km away). The easiest way to do that was by cycling. Ah,
how nice it was to get back in the saddle! The Sichuan Basin isn't
quite as endearing as the countryside of Thailand, the roads are busy
and the smog is unfortunate. Would Al Gore ever have a thing to say
about China! However, I did end up lost among the small villages
several times and enjoyed some quiet roads through the cabbage fields.
It's a China I hadn't seen up until now, one that seemed a lot
simpler. Indeed both the best roads and worst roads I've biked on
have been in China. The worst drivers? Yes, I'd give them that one
too.

The spring weather here is ideal and the translation of Chinese
characters continues. Looking forward to another good week. Hope all
your NBA All-Star and Oscar dreams came true.

A tale of three classes

Today was my first day of teaching. I had three very different
classes that I taught essentially the same lesson to. (Is that proper
English? Now that I'm an English teacher with a "Foreign Expert's
Permit" I'd better start acting the part and watching my
prepositions). I had spent a bit of time just thinking how I was
going to meet the conflicting goals of classroom order, getting all
students to speak, teaching something useful, while at the same time
keeping up to 50 kids with a range of abilities interested in what I
have to say. I ended up with a mix of introducing myself, talking
about my family and Canada, getting the students to tell me about
themselves and Spring Festival, and then a good old fashioned game of
Broken Telephone.

And it was almost a crash and burn with the first class. Is this what
it's going to be like? The kids were very distracted and loud:
talking, reading, facing the wrong way. I'm going to have to get a
whistle! Broken Telephone was giving it to much credit, that
telephone was smashed to a million pieces and with no hope of working.
I spent lunch quizzing Sean to try to determine how I was going to
get through to the students. Mr. Feng, our coordinator at the school,
had warned us that the Junior 2 students "can be a little naughty".

My class after lunch was the exact opposite. Incredible. I came into
the room and after saying hello, one student came up to the front and
formally welcomed me on behalf of the class. After that, they were
hanging onto every word I said, nodding their heads in rapt attention.
I selected students to speak, and when I was ready to move on others
kept volunteering. We had a few good laughs during a brainstorming
activity. Broken Telephone was a huge hit, with the final team
members running to the front of the classroom once they received the
message from the front.

The third class was a Senior class. With faraway looks on their faces
and notebooks filled with trigonometry problems, this class will
present a different sort of challenge. I imagine it would be annoying
in Grade 10 to be learning about serious history and math and then
having a smily foreigner with long hair come and play word games. The
class progressed fine, but I'll need to find a more direct way to
engage the students. It's tricky, because in all three classes the
students seem to pay most attention when you are talking, especially
if you write a new word on the board and explain it. That's all well
and good and I could just talk the whole time, but I am teaching
conversational English and need to get the students to improve their
speaking. But I have lots of ideas...

So a good day, and one to be repeated for the rest of the week.
That's one thought, that I may get tired of teaching the same thing 18
times per week. Hopefully the students keep it interesting. Or maybe
I'll try to do one class each day in a different English accent.

Leshan is slowly becoming my home. I think I've convinced the hot
water heater to do its job, I've located the closest supermarket, cake
place (these little lighter-than-cupcake things that I could eat
forever and provide a bit of starch? is it, to a generally very soupy
or noodley diet). I tracked down some peanut butter so all fears of
starving to death are gone.

Sean and I are trying to locate a decent neighbourhood bar, and a few
favourite restaurants. There are many restaurants, but they're not
all winners. Tonight we saw little lobsters which would be
interesting, but we were both feeling a little less adventurous after
a lunch of intestine and noodle soup. This was our second such
intestine soup, and though it's not bad, there's not much meat to it
and it's not very filling, and you know, sometimes you just want to
recognize the bits of meat you're eating. I have a menu sheet from a
restaurant that I spend a little time every day translating, and a
character that I have learned very quickly is 'chang' (intestine).
And there seem to be a lot of places in town with this "speciality".
We've had some other good food so far - an expensive sweet and sour
chicken, BBQ meat skewers with the really good Sichuan hot pepper
sauce - but we don't have a super reliable local cheap place that I'd
take you if you were visiting. Well, we have one: a little place by
the park that makes trays of steamed dumplings. Delicious. Tomorrow,
the quest continues.

Arrival in China

Well what an interesting few days it's been! I am indeed sitting in
my apartment in Leshan, Sichuan, as promised. The Canadian flag is
handing in my bedroom and my freshly cleaned clothes are drying and
maybe just maybe in a week or so I'll be comfortable enough to call
this my home. But not yet.

It was a great final day biking to the Chinese border and across to
the nearest town of Mengla. Mostly downhill. The differences were
clear very quickly, from getting stamped out of Laos in what amounts
to a glorified street shack to getting stamped into China in a deluxe
multi-story airport hanger of an immigration centre. The border town
of Mohan, China had tree-lined streets and manicured gardens and
clean, colourful stucco-type buildings. And the road! My 50km ride
in China was a beautiful new road with tunnels and bridges to minimize
the climbing. Maybe a little boring after a while, but a great
welcome to this place.

Had a great scare in Mengla when none of my four ATM cards worked at
any of the bank machines. Uh oh. A slow panic began to develop and
my thoughts turned to the worst case scenario which included five
packs of instant noodles, two bottles of water, $15 USD, and a bike to
get around. I was ready to beg to a luxury hotel to give me an
advance on a credit card. Luckily, I had about a hundred dollars of
Thai Baht that I was able to change to USD with a seller at a
vegetable stand at an exchange rate that makes you cringe. Converted
that to Chinese Yuan at the bank just before closing (where they use
abacuses to do math!) and grabbed the overnight bus to Kunming, the
capital of the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. In Kunming, I had
no luck getting money at the first ATM I tried. At the second, I was
flooded with relief to hear the familiar sound of money shuffling
through the machinery. Being stranded in a faraway place without
money is one of the scarier prospects I can imagine, and I pledge to
have a bit more of a border plan next time.

Kunming is one of the warmer cities of China since it is in the south,
and seems like a nice place to live. There weren't a hell of a lot of
attractions in the city itself, but I biked around and spent most of
the time absorbing my first Chinese city. It is very different than
you'd imagine. The city is much cleaner than I'd expected, and as
modern a city as one you'd find in North America. There are elevated
highways and skyscrapers and public parks and department stores. And
a flower and bird market which is exactly what it sounds like.

I was trying to procure a train ticket to Chengdu, the capital of
Sichuan province to the north, where I would be arranging the final
details of teaching. Unfortunately, I was doing so during the end of
the Spring Festival, a two-to-four week holiday for everyone in China
that centres around the Chinese New Year. And that's everyone in a
country of over one billion. Every student, migrant worker,
transplanted person travels back to their hometown in what is the
greatest annual human migration on the planet. All advice I've read
recommends to not travel during this time. Getting a ticket at the
train station, with families camped out and hundreds of other people
milling about in the plaza in front, with dozens of ticket windows and
huge lines, with every sign and announcement in Chinese, it was all
quite disorienting. Every person I asked for advice seemed to not
know what was going on: "I don't think you can buy tickets for
tomorrow until tomorrow." Eventually I went up to the first ticket
window, asked for a ticket in broken Chinese, and two minutes later,
it was all done. Easy.

The train, again, was much nicer than expected. But any moving
vehicle that you're confined to for 18 hours will lose its luster. I
had bad expectations for the washrooms and held out for the train
station, which ended up being the nastiest washroom I have ever seen.
Two troughs, for #1 and #2. I say no more.

Chengdu is a beautiful city, I could imagine living there very
comfortably. As I worked through details for the teaching job, I had
some time to explore the city, marvel at the twinkling light displays
on all the skyscrapers, see some old streets decorated with Chinese
lanterns (here they just call them lanterns) for the Spring Festival,
and enjoy delicious food (spicy!).

It's hard not to revert to your pre-conceptions about China, but the
level of development is staggering. Construction is everywhere. On
the outskirts of cities you see new train stations and wide roads that
have just been opened. New suburb development looks basically exactly
the same as Markham's Chinatown area, the first time I've noticed
something that could have been cut-and-pasted from home. New roads
out of Chengdu are spotless, have immaculate grass on the shoulders,
bike lanes, sidewalks, and playgrounds and dozens of ping pong tables
for people to enjoy. The Chengdu subway is spotless and easy to use
for an English speaker even if you have never taken a subway before.
The first line just opened and there are plans for 4 additional lines.
New roads, bridges, and high speed trains are all over the place.
And I doubt most of us have even heard of this place!

There were two nights at festivals celebrating the end of the Spring
Festival (and the end of fireworks on the street every night), both
great and very different. I could go on for awhile but I'll have
plenty of time to muse about China in the coming months. I arrived by
bus in Leshan yesterday, it was a cold and dreary day (as it is still
winter here) and most of the past 24 hours has been spent on annoying
details (internet, phone, water heater, food, orientation, light
bulbs, what is that strange meat in the soup I am eating?). It feels
colder than it is because there is no central heating in this part of
China, though apparently the hot, humid days are only a week or so
away. I was surprised to find I have a roommate, a nice English chap
named Sean. It might actually be a blessing to have someone who
speaks English to experience this with, and my theory is that we are
the only foreigners in this town. It's a good sized city, not as
polished as Chengdu but still bustling with activity. I can think of
nowhere better to inspire the young Chinese minds of tomorrow and to
sink my teeth into learning this language and culture. Zaijian!

Testing testing

Have we found a way around the wall?

Laos

They drive on the right-hand side of the road, some of the signs are in French, they serve baguettes, and their money is confusing. Those are my initial impressions of Laos.

After two days of biking across the very top of the country, I've seen a bunch more. It's poor, much poorer than Thailand. The villages don't seem to have electricity, and food on the road is hard to come by since there are barely any vehicles on the road. Most of the cars we see have Chinese plates.

But everywhere we pass (I say we since I met up with two old guy bikers who are going toward China too) the people are encouraging and friendly. You'll hear someone say “Falang” to a family member, which is the term for (western?) foreigner, and they look up in amusement. And in every singly village, no exaggeration, every kid waves and shouts from their house porches “byebye” or “sahbyedee” (hello). In a few places the kids ran after the bikes. It's neat.

And is it ever tough biking. Sheesh, the first day to a very simple stop in Viangphekha, saw three intense hills, one that went on forever. Add in about 20km of gravel road and a hotter than normal sun and it was quite the day. But it was unusually clear (often there is a dust haze since it's the dry season) and in Laos they haven't clearcut all the trees for farming so there are huge trees everywhere so the scenery was rather astonishing. And the Beer Lao tasted great!

Today was much easier, slept in a bit, had a stop at a huge cave, and mostly downhill to a nice little town called Luang Namtha. It's a popular traveller spot for trekking in the hills, though I am a little undecided about whether to fork over the dough for such an experience. The nice thing about biking is you see the villages and the villagers working in the hills and pass through the forests and scenic hills and it's basically free. In fact, getting in early to Louang Namtha, I'm trying to remember what I usually do in cities. Would I rather be biking? Once you fall into the pattern, and get used to the bike seat, it's an incredibly enjoyable way to travel. You don't spend much, but you see a lot. Best of all, you never have to deal with the taxi-touts from the bus stations, or bumpy buses in general. And it makes basically any type of food taste incredible.

Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic since this is the end. I have one day I can spend trekking out here in Laos, and then one more day of biking, a triumphant ride into China at the Boten/Mohan crossing. From there, I have allotted 3.5 days to get up to Chengdu where I'll be lining up all the teaching details. It's maybe 1500km, and it looks like it'll be a bit of bus-leap frog. Don't no what to expect and don't have much of a plan but I'll get there.

Incidently, I might go dark for a few days since I believe blogspot is on the other side of the Great Firewall of China. Regardless, I am unbelievably excited about teaching and exploring and having a home. When you hear from me next it'll hopefully be from an apartment in Leshan City, Sichuan!

A few days out of touch

Phu Chi Fa. Those words have hung over my head for two hot days on the road. Few roads lead there and those that do climb. Climb a lot. Phu Chi Fa, the hill, is supposed to be privy to the best sunrises in the country. The only other thing I know going in is that the riding is supposed to be spectacular. Right on both counts!

The first day is fairly level, though slowly the dusty farms give way to green forests surrounded by a wall of mountains. I lose time hiking around a nifty thermally heated waterfall and having drinks with some friendly Thais (“You! You! Beer Leo!”) and so elect to spend the night camping in the nearby national park. I am lulled to sleep by the sounds of the jungle.

The next day the climbing begins almost immediately and lasts for 17km, but luckily it's a short day. There is a bit of walking of the bike, but no shame. Once in the hills it's quiet but of course wicked, epic views of farm valleys and villages perched on the mountainside. The last 1.5km driveway up to the Phu Chi Fa hill is one where you walk the bike all the way. From the top you're above everything else in the area, you can see into Laos, you can see the Mekong River, you can see the salt stains on all your clothing from the climb.

The next morning, the hill is a zoo, packed with Thai tourists. A few grab me for pictures. With the mist lingering in the lower valleys and the light peeking up from behind the hills, and then some white kid with absolutely horrible hair in the foreground, it certainly would be a shot to remember.

The road follows the ridgeline for a while. It's a weird place, since there's almost no traffic, few signs, no trucks, very little development. The people up here aren't ethnic Thais, a lot of them are from these “hill-tribe” villages. They are minority people with their own language and customs and clothing. It's hard to understand what their situation is, to the Thais the funny dressed kids are a bit of a novelty. But the villages are much poorer than what I've seen elsewhere and they certainly aren't as happy as the Thais and I wonder if all the National Park Stations are actually a means to keep an eye on these people. Does anyone have a National Geographic on the hill-tribes of Thailand?

The descent back to the valley floor and back to the real world is impossibly steep, too steep to really enjoy. I alternate between brakes, hoping that they don't light on fire or something. The few times I do let go the bike goes from 0 to 50 km/h very quickly. My ears pop and it gets very hot again and suddenly there are lots of little shops by the road again so I have an ice cream. In trying to keep my stomach full I have basically turned into the cookie monster.

And then it's up along the Mekong River to Chiang Kong, the end of the line for Thailand. I cross by boat to the Laos city of Houay Xia, pay my $43 for a tourist visa, including $1 surcharge because it's after 4pm (Canadians pay the most of all countries in the world, which makes you wonder what we did to them, especially considering the States bombed the be-jesus out of the country during the Vietnam war). Welcome to Laos!

Today I saw an elephant

Just biking along a quiet road, I heard a noise. Usually I don't look but this time I looked. And there was this elephant, right there, just hanging out eating forest branches. No one else was around, there was no fence and no rope. It was awesome.

I approached and held a mini-banana out on my hand. The elephant took a high swipe at it with its trunk. I jumped, threw the banana at its feet, and retreated. Hopefully he enjoyed it. But elephants are huge creatures, that thing could have crushed me with one step. I got back on the bike and continued on my merry way.

Into the hills

Hello from the town for Phrae. I originally thought that it was pronounced "fray" and then was going to make an "into the fray" comment, but it's more of a "pray". However, like most place names here, it takes a few tries before Thais can understand my pronounciation, since the language is tonal. The tone for Phrae seems to be, say it as if you're angry: "pray!"

One thing is for certain, Phrae is in the hills. Today there was a sudden departure from flat easy roads to steep thigh-killing climbs. Just as I reached the top of a stetch, I'd round the corner, and oh! keep going up. But the challenge was nice. And the scenery was breathtaking. Through the trees hills stretched out in all directions, peppered with little wooden houses perched up on stilts. Green everywhere. The road was quiet but the people I met along the way were the friendliest so far: twice I was offered rides in pickup trucks (one guy gave me oranges when I refused), a village lady filled up my waterbottles from her rain barrel, and there were many waves of encouragement. What goes up must come down, and in terms of actual speed and progress, the hills today weren't much slower than normal days. The 65km/h speed I hit on the way down doesn't hurt.

I can now impress people with a few keywords in Thai: "lee-o sai" and "lee-o kwah". Those mean "turn left" and "turn right", respectively.

The two days before today I cruised through central Thailand. Stopped in Sukhothai to see one last set of famous ruins. Sang karaoke at a restaurant during dinner. One day I tried to navigate on a rural road to avoid the highway. The map said it was possible. Cruising through very peaceful villages, everyone I asked for directions just pointed and I think they said "well just go left/right and follow it back to the highway" which is sort of the opposite of what I had in mind. But after being lost in the maze for far too long I just gave up and headed out to the big road.

Which leads me to my profound thought of the day: roads. I pour over maps planning my route, and the roads provide the means for this biking adventure. I'll take a big one or a small one. On the other hand, the villagers don't need to know how to travel far distances by rural road, they need to know how to get to the highway. Think about what the building of that highway means for people in a small village. Suddenly they have a means of getting their crops to larger markets, they have easier access to hospitals, to police. Buses can now transport people. Equipment and supplies can be shared and bought with larger towns. Maybe roads help alleviate poverty. Maybe it's building more roads that will enable rural populations, say in Cambodia, to raise their standard of living.

Anyway, too much time on the bike the think about these things. Also, apparently there's a lot of teak (wood) in this province. Do you think that's where the word "antique" came from? "What's that nice old wooden piece of furniture made of?" -"Oh, it's a teak" = antique. Maybe that's absurd. Maybe it was just someone who was afraid of bugs on their old furniture: "Oh no, ant! Eek!" = antique. Lots to ponder today.

Nakhon Sawan

My strategy is to get in some big days now, since there seems to be a ton of stuff in northern Thailand, including a lot of hills. These longer days on the flats of central Thailand should in theory be good training. Or, conversely, will leave me too burnt out to continue.

Today was my nicest day of riding so far (of 3 days), and also longest (158 km). I spent the first half on a very rural road, at one point gravel. Note: gravel is not comfortable to bike on. The road was very peaceful, barely any traffic and good insight into life in a farming village. And lots of waves of encouragement. And lots of very majestic birds. I was worried about time for the last few hours of the day, and took Highway #1, the Asia Highway since it was more direct. It became quite busy as I neared the city, but wasn't bad since there were always wide shoulders (in fact, I'm usually not the smallest vehicle on the road). The contrast was also cool, since this road is part of the huge network of roads crisscrossing the continent.

Nakhon Sawan is a large provincial capital, one that is not included in my guidebook. So I spent quite some time perusing the streets trying to find a hotel or guesthouse, even though I don't know how to spell either in Thai. Eventually I ended up by the river in Chinatown and was directed to one. Relieved as it was getting late, I checked in.

(As an aside, I find it remarkable that the past 4 cities I have stayed in have substantial Chinatowns. This suggests to me that the Chinese may very well be the most spread out people on the planet. From San Francisco to Bangkok and everywhere in between, the quest for world dominance is over. They won.)

Anyway, what a dump, this hotel room was EASILY the nastiest place I've ever stayed. Yet it was packed. Is this how the other half lives? I included some pictures that don't capture it at all. I'm all for the sketchy atmosphere of some of these places, the "this is Asia" feeling (Lopburi hostel was a good example), but I don't know if I could take weeks of this sort of accomodation. I ended up sleeping on my mattress pad on the surprisingly clean floor.

I left my room to go find dinner and looked out the window. Below, there were drums and music and people and lights and some huge Chinese New Year carnival basically directly below my hotel. My spirits brightened immediately, and it turned out to be a great night. There was food, people in costume, Chinese drama shows with annoying music, some sort of talent show, fireworks, light displays, you name it. I released some fish into the river, hopefully that was a good thing. Didn't see one other white person. As the pictures below remind me, sometimes the best travel experiences are the ones you don't plan for.

Lopburi

Tried to make today a shorter biking day to see a few of the sights. The "things to see" in this area of central Thailand are ruins and wats. I've already seen quite a few of both. Wats, the Buddhist temples where Thais say prayers, are everywhere: in the cities, in the countryside, atop hills, behind walls. They are usually quite impressive, but they are starting to look the same. Wats the difference really?

Anyway, the ruins of Ayutthaya are all over town, so having a bike to check them out was ideal.

On the other end, I arrived in Lopburi to check out another set of ruins, these ones inhabited by a troupe of monkeys. True to form, as soon as you cross the train tracks into town there are monkeys screeching all over. They hang from the buildings and run on the hydro lines, and the shopkeepers below hold long sticks and slingshots to keep them back. I was wary of my belongings but even then on the way home a monkey grabbed my dangling water bottle. I may have freaked out just a little.

I really liked Lopburi and was glad to make a stop. The monkeys climbing amid the ruins of the old wat and fighting for food were amusing. The rest of the ruins were peaceful, there were no tour buses, and on your own you feel like a bit of an explorer poking around. The town was small, provincial, centred around the train station which was abuzz with street vendors and school kids.

As for the ride. Switched to "clipless" shoes today. These are cycling shoes that clip into slots in the pedals (deceptive name). I'll sound like a biking nut if I say they are supposed to increase efficiency, yada yada, but over the long day they do make a substantial difference. Now your shoes are locked in place, and to release you have to twist your foot by kicking out your ankle. I practised a bit at home and it is really quite straightforward. However, you do forget sometimes that your feet are clipped. I was slowing down today to stop and check my map, and I forgot. Too late. With all speed gone, I tipped helplessly to the side, right into a bush on the side of the road. It was a pretty funny image, since the heavy bike was on top of my leg, which was still clipped into the pedal. I lay there trapped for a little bit. [I'm at 5 falls now. Maybe it takes 10 to really learn?]

Also, later, something rustled in the ditch as I biked by. It looked like a dinosaur. It was some sort of lizard, maybe a monitor lizard, at least 4 feet long. Huge.

And I wish I could speak Thai! If I learn 3 words a day...