Sports and Sukhothai

Being the lucky ducks that we are, Cyrus and I got a 2 week break from school.  They told us it was something about a sports week and midterms at school.  All we know is that we don't need to be back until the 17th.  Jackpot! 

After our New Years trip to Bangkok and Koh Sichang, we hung out in Suphan for a few days to get ourselves together.  Our coordinator told us that we should try to go the opening ceremony for the Sports Week, which was at the soccer stadium in town.  Since we were in Suphan, we decided to show some school spirit and go check it out.  We expected it to be a little performance by the school, maybe some songs, and a few track and field races or something.  Well, it went down a little differently.  Sports week is actually called the "OPEC Games" and schools from all over Thailand come to compete in a week long tournament of all different sports.  The opening ceremony was seriously like watching the Olympics.  We saw first class marching bands, choreographed dances with hundreds of kids, fireworks, the lighting of the torch, and the procession of all the different school teams.  And we are talking about elementary to high school kids...in public schools.  For a seemingly poor country, they know how to celebrate sports. 

Students from our school performing:

During the procession of the schools:

The lighting of the torch!

After being in Suphan for a few days, we packed our bags for Sukhothai.  It's about 6 hours north of Bangkok and is known for it's ancient ruins from the kingdom of Siam, and fun fact: it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruins were built around the 1200s and I'm not too well informed on the history, but they were really beautiful.  It was around the time when Theravada Buddhism became the official religion of Thailand, so there were a lot of huge statues of Buddha.  Obviously I'm not Buddhist, but there's something about the statues that makes you feel relaxed and kind of spiritual.

  

The ruins are contained in the Sukhothai Historical park, which covers a pretty big area.  We rented bikes to ride around to all the different temples, and because the complex is so big there were a lot of times when we were the only people at a site, which made it a lot more authentic.  Also, please note the artistry that went into taking some of these pics.

If only we were as good at using the camera timer as my mom is....

Just cruising...

A friend of Cyrus' from Kalamazoo teaches in Taiwan, and is coming to visit Thailand this week.  So we'll spend the rest of our break hanging out with him and his girlfriend in Bangkok and showing them around Suphan.

Paige and Cyrus

Happy New Year!

Happy belated New Year to everyone! We had a whirlwind weekend to bring in 2012, consisting of rooftop parties, last minute destinations, island ferries, motorbikes, and too much whiskey.

For New Years Eve, a group of us met in Bangkok to celebrate.  It's funny how jaded we get by being here; to us Bangkok is just an hour's ride away and no big deal, but a year ago, Bangkok sounded so foreign and exotic.  We had to keep reminding ourselves where we were and to appreciate the experience. For the countdown, our group decided to go to a rooftop party on the 40th floor of a hotel.  Unfortunately, it was "farang" central ("farang" are what all westerners are referred to in Thailand, a term that we are growing to resent, because we feel we are more than just tourists), but I guess that should have been expected. Regardless, we had a good time and did a proper job ringing in the new year.

It was awesome to be eye level with all of the fireworks.

Our relationship with Bangkok is what you could call "love/hate".  The "real" Bangkok is alive, loud, dirty, beautiful, in-your-face, and exciting.  But the Bangkok that you are most likely to encounter is  glossed over and full of tourists.  We've been here for three months, living and working in Thailand, so it's disheartening to be treated like "just another farang" when we're there.

So after having enough of the city and all of the tourists, our group decided to relocate for the rest of the trip.  We had originally planned to go camping in a national park, but we had a spark of spontaneity and just chose a place out of the guidebook instead.  It felt so adventuresome to literally choose a destination, pick up our backpacks and go to the bus station.  That's the thing we've noticed about Thailand, there's no use in planning or worrying about not planning, because nothing ever goes the way you want it to anyways.  But everything seems to works out in the end.  You many not take the route you intended on, but you ultimately end up where you're supposed to be.

So we headed out to a small island south east of Bangkok, called Koh Sichang.  The island is nothing that would be on a postcard, but it had an authentic atmosphere and we made up the majority of tourists. We spent the trip riding motorbikes, exploring the island, and eating good food.  It was one of those times, when it's not so much where you are, but the people you are with that shape your experience.  Our small, yet wonderful group hailed from all over the US and the world. With people coming from California, Texas, Philly, Manchester, and South Africa, the conversation and company were always of high quality.  How we all ended up together on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand is an amazing thing.

There's a feeling I'm constantly having here that is much rarer to come by at home.  It's hard to put into words, but it's an overwhelming sense that you are exactly where you are meant to be, doing exactly what you are meant to be doing, with the exact people you are meant to be doing it with.  For that brief moment, everything feels right. 

Lots of love,
Paige and Cyrus