Chiang Mai Part IV

Chiang Mai Part Four.

Second weekend...another R & R. This time round, we hit the road for a trip to Chiang Rai, another province further up north from Chiang Mai. Which means it's even colder than CM. *brrrrr*

Cos it was a 5-hour plus ride, so we stopped at several places for lunch/toilet breaks.

This was our first stopover...

You can boil eggs at the hotspring!

Me and Fi Fi, who always goes "I want nobody, nobody but you..."

Ate the quail eggs that were boiled by the hotspring. Tasted exceptionally salty. Erm...

The next stopover: Glass Temple.

The Art Team! =)

The Pedagogy Team, comrades of the Art Team.

This looked rather eerie, like thousands of hands reaching out to be saved. And one of the hands has a red fingernail can! Creepy.

Finally, we reached our destination at Chiang Rai, where we stayed over at this house, which is situated in quite a secluded but peaceful-looking area.

Had a "Who Sleep in What Room" issue with the 3 xiao meimeis from the other group. They thought that by throwing their bags over the bed, they'd get the biggest room that was attached with a bathroom, which the six of us all thought should be given to the teacher and her daughter instead.

Oh wells. Being the matured ones, we let them have their way. So they got the room in the end. But whatever. I do not wish to go into details. The teacher and her daughter took a smaller room, fyi. But the six of us did not sleep in any of the rooms. We camped inside the van. *hehs*

We had BBQ for the night, and it was very fun towards the end.

Although the six of us did not get to eat much of the chicken wings, prawns and sausages (because they were all selfishly gobbled up by the other group - I do not wish to go into details cos it irks me), we had our own share of delicious food cooked by the Thai teachers.

The Thais are resourceful can...their way of BBQ-ing is very different from us Singaporeans. Usually we'll just bbq the marinated meat etc that are probably prepared beforehand, but the Thais actually brought along garlic, lime, various types of chili sauce, eggs, corriander and salt to serve as seasoning, and it's up to your own preference as to what kind and how much of ingredients you wanna add to add flavour to your meat.

So basically, we were taught how to marinate our fish, chicken and beef with those ingredients and wham! Authentic Thai-style BBQ food just for us. So I dun really care that the other group ate up almost all the I-bet-it-tasted-extremely-normal food.

Setting up a huge campfire that not only cooked our food, but kept us warm at night... =)

Me and Beam, the daughter of the Thai teacher who came along with us. She's a pretty and smart 10-year-old girl who has good massaging skills.

We spent the night drinking and watching shooting stars. I caught sight of 3 precious shooting stars, and they were simply beautiful. =)

The place where I spent the night. Not exactly a comfortable place to sleep. Especially when the weather's unbelievably cold (about 10-12 degrees). I woke up to aching muscles and my internal organs shivered like nobody's business. But still, it was an unforgettable experience. =)

My comrades slept in here as well.

The morning was equally as cold as night. So cold that we exhaled 'smoke'. Something that people from tropical country like us never experienced before. So we kept blowing air at each other, exclaiming pleasant surprises at how 'smoke' could actually escape from our mouth. *hehs*

Took some pictures before leaving the place. Beautiful scenery, beautiful people, beautiful weather.

Another R & R activity: crossing the border to Myanmar. So yeah, I can tell people I've been to Myanmar. For just two hours.

I think we wasted our time at Myanmar, cos there's basically nothing much to shop. I couldnt wait to get back to school fast cos I missed the students already. Plus our wall murals were far from finished.

*** *** ***

Next day: Sports Day and Cultural Exchange.

The Sports Day was organised by the PE people, and they played Tchoukball, a newly introduced sport.

My duty was to be a commentator for the match, and this was when my pek-chek-ness zoomed to the max.

Can I ask, how can you be a commentator when you dun even know the rules of Tchoukball?

I was clueless about the game, and nobody explained the rules clearly to me. So what could I do?

I tried.

But failed.

Cos I simply could not do it. I couldnt make a single comment because I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE SPORT AT ALL.

Luckily Fifi took over my place and she did a really good job. So I let her do it. Which means I had nothing to do.

So I went to play basketball with some of the students. I dun care if you think I'm not helping out. I dun care if you think I'm slacking or skiving. Like, whatever. *rolls eyes*

Me and a super funny guy whom I called Joker. His other nickname is Commando, cos he's quite muscular. *hehs* He's always smiling happily, and his happiness is contagious. I enjoy spending time with him, although he likes to make fun of me. My song mak (=very naughty in Thai) friend.

While I was spending quality time with the kids, I was called to play against the teachers in a friendly match of Singapore vs Thailand (and we played to lose).

I could have easily rejected by being selfish, but why should I stoop to their level? So I played loh. Anyway we must lose to the Thai teachers mah, so can anyhow play.

Anyway the guy in yellow is one of the PE teachers in the school, and he's also feminine. Like super feminine.

Me, the odd one out in terms of dressing and group. -_-"

I still prefer to spend my time with the students, even though it was spent doing nonsensical things like these:

During lunch, Stevie came up to me carrying a trophy. Turned out that his team got FIRST in the Tchoukball match. He was so happy and proud lah... And I'm happy and proud for him too. *hehs*

My favourite photo of all.. Me and KK, wearing my specs again. *hah!* So cute.

Me and my basketball buddy. We always played basketball before morning assembly, after lunch and before dinner whenever I had the time.

Okie. This is a hilarious picture. We got Lian Jia to pose beside this particular painting, because we think that he looks like the woman on the left. *muahahah*

At night was Cultural Exchange. Our puppet show was the first item.

I know the other group was waiting to see us flop, but the students did not disappoint us. They put up a really good show, and it was a success. The art team was sooooo proud of all of them.

I was pissed off at the end of the puppet show. NO ONE came to help carry the table off the stage, except John. He was at the stage, signalling to the other guys to help him, but NONE came over.

I dunno if they were blind or they simply refused to help us. But they made it so obvious that they wanted to have nothing to do with us.

Fine. Eleanor me and xinxin were about to go on stage to carry the table ourselves when finally ONE guy decided to step out to help.

Seriously loh, at this point, I'm totally sick of their behaviour. I dunno why they have to do such things to hurt us, who were once their friends. How can people be so selfish and immature?

I'm still rather bothered over the stuff that they did/said over the trip, but I'm totally in no mood to go into great details.

*** *** ***

On the second last day...

More pictures with the kids...

My second last day at the school was spent doing the final touch-ups on the wall murals and washing the corridor.

Many thanks to Angela, Kang Li, Corinne, Fizah, Moiz, John and the students for lessening the burden of the art team. Your contribution is greatly appreciated by us.

Again, thanks to Gary the so-called leader for throwing the scrubs at me, telling the 3 of us to wash the entire corridor while he and his friends cleaned the staircases, and instructing the 3 of us not to go out until our work is completed.

And so, our dear leader left three of his supposedly team mates to 'die on their own' because he and his friends happily went out shopping after their own work was done. They did not even bother to offer their help.

We tolerated their calculativeness and selfishness because we wanted to prove them wrong. They wanted us to 'die on our own'; they wanted to see us struggle without their help, but sorry to burst your bubbles, but we emerged as survivors.

We completed the entire 8 walls, washed up the entire corridor, returned the school its clean and stain-free corridor, and presented the school with 8 vibrant and colourful wall mural paintings, all done without any of your help. The art team has completed their objectives as stated on the proposal, and I believed we did more than that. At the very least, we painted all the walls out of diligence and perserverance. Unlike the 'staircase' group, which in my opinion did not even complete their work.

What ever happened to the first flight of staircase that was supposed to bear the words "Welcome to Anusarnsunthorn School for the Deaf"? All I saw was rainbow colours as the background.

Oh, dun tell me you're trying to cut corners by doing lesser work? Or is it due to plain laziness? Oh, let me guess, perhaps all of you are dying to go out shopping and have fun and so, you decided not to paint that stairs?

I can't think of any other excuses (read: excuses, not reasons) because there's no other possible ones except for the aboved mentioned. Anyway, I'm too tired to continue.

More frustrating details on the way. But they will be compensated by other happy and pleasant accounts. Promise.