Project Week - Chiang Mai

Project week. Twas really fun, I think everyone’s was! I’m just going to grill down some details and interesting happenings from the trip.

Day One, Friday: I shall count this as a day. Tamar had called me constantly throughout the day about packing issues. I concluded then and there that I had over packed. Decided to leave for Yeen’s place early but me being me left the flight tickets in my room so we had to turn back so I could get them. Smart I know! But I still got there before 11pm, which was when we were meant to meet them. Met Tamar in the parking lot and Jackie was already upstairs. Yeen managed the lock herself out of her bag so we had to wait for Uncle Keat to break her lock. Once that was dealt with we headed over into the car. The four of us were in the back seat of Uncle’s Mercedes and squished in, quite comfortable. Off we went to the causeway and BAM we hit traffic. Disastrous traffic, so bad Aunty Judy was planning on turning around – but turn around we did not.

Day Two, Saturday: The whole car ride through the jam the four of us (Tamar, Jackie, Yeen and I if you didn’t know) talked, laughed, camwhored and hummed along to the soundtrack of POTC. Tamar and I also almost nearly broke the gadgets in the car. Well we FINALLY crossed Singapore immigration at like 2:08am, or something rather. The reason for the jam? Mas Selamat. Every man had to give their thumbprint which pretty much caused the jam. And off we FINALLY headed for KL. We all already drained our energy and fell asleep

I think Uncle Keat sped cause we arrive at the Concorde Inn around 5, took three hours to get near KLIA. Didn’t wake up once in those three hours. Jackie, Tamar and I slugged into our room and just dived into bed. I woke up like at 8:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. Yeen came in at 10am (she was next door sleeping with her parents) and woke us up. Jackie decided to take a shower and who knew she took very long showers, so we ditched her and went to the breakfast buffet which we were already late for. We stole some food for Jackie so when she did stroll out of the shower she could at least eat.

Left the hotel for a quick unnecessary tour of KLIA and off we went to the Marriot where Yeen’s aunt invited us for lunch. It was one of those 25 course Chinese meals which I can never get right because I’m always full by the 2^nd course. This lunch was unforgettable since we gossiped much and Jackie and Yeen were both trying to feed me pork. I think they managed once and since then I’ve was very conscience on what they fed me throughout the week.

Afterwards Uncle Keat and Aunty Judy left us at Time’s Square and they headed up to Ipoh while we went shopping. And then we stared at the roller coaster at Time’s Square for about an hour. Yeen’s freakishly afraid of roller coasters and we were waiting for her to feel comfortable going in. She did in the end and she did go on the roller coaster in the end. Clap for Yeen please. Was fun, I can’t do any ride that takes me around in circles forever and ever cause I get headaches really easily. Bumper cars were fun though!

And we were left alone to get back to the hotel which was like 50km away without a cab. Easy, take the KL carbon copy of the LRT to “KL sentral” and take a bus to KLIA and from there take a free shuttle bus to our hotel. Easy enough – except trying to find the bus to KLIA was a nuisance and we were stalked by crazy taxi drivers. More like TAMAR was stalked by crazy taxi drivers, just because she’s white. So in the end we took the safer train alternative, which cost as much as the train ride to Singapore. Quite strange actually, it was only like 5 ringgit though. The rest was simple – gossiped a lot I guess. Yes we were talking about sex really loudly on the crowded shuttle bus.

Reached the hotel and taught Jackie how to play Ligretto. We played and played and played till we actually had to go to bed cause a) Tamar was falling asleep and b) we needed to wake up damn early for the flight. Jackie and Yeen couldn’t get to sleep – so hyper and Yeen kept giving me 10,000 years of pain. Yet finally they hushed down and went to bed.

Day Three, Sunday: Woke up like early birds at 5am and forced Jackie into the shower then and went back to sleep. Around 5:30am we get a call from Aunty Judy, telling us to WAKE UP which we already were. Headed for breakfast where we ate and came back to pack. Taxi came at 7am and we headed off for KL LCCT where our flight was taking off from.

At the airport Tamar bought like one milkshake so we could sit in the coffee shop and play Ligretto. Played until our flight which we boarded. AirAsia gave us the cheapest boarding pass ever – a receipt. The flight was rather eventful. Halfway through, while we were asleep, this air stewardess woke us up and said “Ladies and Gentlemen this is one special flight. Mr. dunno-what if about to propose” and yes, the guy proposed on a budget airline. Ok, kinda sweet! Apparently this was the third ever on that flight alone, one proposal including the air pilot. After the 1001 claps they made us give we tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t so we played Big Two. It sucked because Tamar was sitting across the isle from me and Yeen next to me so they kept looking at my cards.

We arrived in Chiang Mai realizing we might’ve given Bridges Across Boarders (BAB) the wrong flight time, which we didn’t. What we didn’t give them was a flight number – stupid enough. Not we, Tamar! But we got out the gate and met Corn – who helped us a lot throughout the trip. We got into this red truck, very cool, and took the 10min drive to BAB headquarters. We got through the gate (of which I still can’t remember the correct way of opening) and walked through the doors and got our room. Nothing exciting there. Tamar and I slept on the top floor while Jackie and Yeen at the bottom. We were chilling in the bottom room when we hear a knock at the door, I open it and see Wendy. I stuck my hand out and said “Hi, I’m Huey” and she said “I’m Wendy. Stop this nonsense and give me a hug”, and so I did, and so did the rest of us. Wendy gave me the warmest introduction I have ever gotten, and probably ever will. Won’t forget her.

Carrying on with the story, we got a SIM card and directions to the 7-11 and the main road. We went there and back and met Bruce – the main guy for BAB Thailand. We had lunch with them and got to know about the Thai Youths (YPDA) who we were to meet in a few hours.

After lunch, we thought of ice-breaker games we could play with the Youths. We did and decided to get some shut eye because none of us really did during the night. After 45mins I woke up to my Bhangra alarm clock (which I think Tamar hates by now) and woke the girls downstairs for our appointment at 3pm. And then we waited… And waited… And waited for the Youths… Till finally around 4pm people showed up. By 4:30pm we did start and got to know them and their names. [This is where New first laid eyes on Jackie and Golf on Yeen.] It was quite fun but between us was a language barrier as their English wasn’t first class.

Afterwards they took us to the Sunday night market where we didn’t buy much. We ate a lot. Mango sticky rice, fried banana’s and a lot of random crap. All deserts. Thai deserts rule, officially!

We came back and just fell asleep really.

Day Four, Monday: Our first real day with the school we were working at. Woke up at 7am and heard The Others (Afifah, Billy, Simon and Mairead) at 7:30am. We left for the school at 8am in a pick-up truck which was driven by the school principle. Us eight and a few Thai youths all scrambled into the back. I felt like a construction worker in Singapore but with white people. It was a 40min drive up there to the outskirts of Chiang Mai to a school which was in the village area. On the way we saw Dunkin’ Donuts and donkeys.

Once arrived Poam (the YPDA youth leader) told us to separate into English teaching and computer teaching classes. No one wanted Computers so I did and so did Tamar. So the both of us were there and boy, were we bored for three hours. Basically we helped them make Powerpoint’s which we had no idea what it was about. They typed in Thai and some of the computers, the interface was in Thai so it was extremely difficult. The YPDA were teaching with us too and so they did most of the talking. But the kids we were with were the same kids Jackie taught. We taught two different shifts and they were so cute!

After 3 hours of yawning we had lunch at 12pm and then around 1pm we cleaned the walls with water and the rubbish in the garden. Divya showed up round about now, alone with Jen (who is an intern at BAB) and we started to get to know her then.

We went back into the truck and went back to BAB where we cleaned up a bit and walked out. Yup, we went to the night market and shopped shopped shopped. Yeen and Jackie spent the most and for dinner we went to the food court and all of us had MANGO STICKY RICE!!

Day Five, Tuesday: Funny story here. The bed Jackie and Yeen were sleeping in look EXTREMELY tempting and Tamar fell for it and jumped on the edge of the bed while in attempt to wake them two monkeys up. She jumped and KABOOOOOOOOOOOM the bed broke. It slanted a bit and all and man was Tamar freaked. We tried to fix it but couldn’t and decided we’d need tools for it. But the bed looked like it had been broken before so it was no fault of Tamar’s.

Back to the pick-up truck and back to the school. This time Divya was with us and she taught computers with us. The kids continued with the Powerpoints and Tamar left to buy paint. So Divya and I wondered around, checked our emails, played a few games and some how passed those three hours. We kept wandering out and looking at all the fun Yeen, Afifah and Billy were having next door, being red with envy. We did chill with them and helped them out a teeny weeny bit.

At lunch the people who had gone to buy flowers and paint came back and we ate together. The Others started gardening while we started the white wash for paint. Once we finished that we, along with the Thai Youths went to the playground where we started painting it. We played with the paint, like normal people, which is where New got really close to Jackie and Yeen. Painting was fun and the colours looked great once we were done. Then it started raining, a pathetic hard rain which lasted ten minutes. Because of that we had to pack-up and head back to BAB.

Came back to BAB, hung out and then off we went to a temple where Jackie started drawing and Tamar started stalking Monks for a good photo. Yeen decided to draw, Tamar did eventually too. I kinda just lazed around and thought, and afterwards drew too. Did get yelled at by Jackie though – a lot! Yeen too actually. Tamar also. Ok I just got yelled at a lot. Divya also ended up yelling at me on Thursday but that is to come later. A monk came by and talked to us and admired Jackie’s sketch of the dragon we were drawing. With him came a monk in training who talked to us too as he has a passion for talking English. Funniest moment though is when he said to Yeen: “You look like a Tom, you know a man who likes other men.” It was SOOOOO FUNNY!! And on top of that he asked for her e-mail address.

Afterwards, like a ritual we went to the night market and ate mango sticky rice. I do not want to bore you about the loads of shopping we did so we won’t. However on the tuk-tuk back the driver got lost so we had to call Corn and he talked to the driver for us. Came back to the BAB headquarters and realized that the paint we so lovely stuck onto our body doesn’t like to come off. We noticed it there and we had to douse ourselves in turpentine. At BAB the only thing that worked was my cleanser which was used over everyone’s body.

Day Six, Wednesday: Back we went to the school for another day of teaching Powerpoint. We were so bored took out a big book of Sudoku which was one of the books that were donated and we played some puzzles from that. Corn saw that the three of us (Tamar, Divya and I) were bored and said that the next day we can skip this class and paint. I really wished I could understand what they were saying. But I did skip over to Jackie’s class and help her for a while.

After lunch with The Others we finished up painting the playground. This was done in joint collaboration with the YPDA and was finished quite quickly I guess. The students helped us too and someone stole my brush when I went to wash my hands so I was bored for a while. Some other students played apart of their marching band and played songs for us which was really sweet. They were really good.

After we finished Yeen and Jackie started to draw and Tamar and Divya started to garden. Seeing Yeen and Jackie wouldn’t let me touch the wall and Tamar and Divya didn’t need help for gardening I kinda just stood there. I remember talking to Corn and sleeping and what not. Whipped out my camera too.

Back we went into a construction worker truck and went back to BAB. By this time the YPDA had taught us abuses in Thai which was funny and Yeen and Jackie kept saying them to New and Bank. We went back and took a shower, trying to get the paint off. I gave up ages ago and my paint was piling up. Oh yes, Jackie came and called the two of us, it so happened that while we were gone the bed miraculously fixed itself. In other words someone fixed it for us. We were so shocked! I managed to break Jackie’s new sunny’s so I told her I’d buy her a new pair. We sat and played Big Two and Ligretto for a while before we left to meet Tamar’s friend Kathleen, Tamar’s friend from Swiss School. We were late and she called Tamar to tell her she was there. We were in the bus and I saw this white girl just standing there so I pointed and said: “that isn’t by any chance Kathleen is it?” and it was! She was really nice and we all had dinner together, hung out and had coffee. No, this is not where Tamar got high. We talked for like an hour on in the coffee shop before Kathleen had to go home. We hung out for a while before heading back to BAB. The tuk-tuk was awesome as he played music, hip-hop stuff and Tata Youngs version of Dhoom! Back at BAB we had missed movie night – Hotel Rwanda. This is when Tamar mustered the courage to tell Wendy she had broke her bed earlier. Wendy’s response? “Oh really? Aahahahahahahaha that’s really funny. Aahahahahha no one told me my bed was broken. Aahhaahahhahahhaa. And no one told me they fixed it. Ahahaahahahahahaha. Don’t worry about it!” Tension not!

While Tamar was upstairs sleeping Jackie, Yeen and I were watching Season 2 of Ugly Betty when Divya popped in and scared the living daylights out of me. Together we gossiped till three in the morning where I had to go upstairs and sneak in without waking Tamar up. I managed to wake her up the night before but this night I didn’t, even though I stepped on the wooden plank which creaked.

Day Seven, Thursday: The last day at the school. We arrived and Tamar, Divya, Jackie, Yeen and I got straight into painting. Painted and painted till lunch with The Others. After lunch we painted and painted some more. The Others finished gardening and decided to paint another wall totally yellow. And then they started complaining – asking us to hurry up. Got annoying, especially Mairead in her little fashion. At least help us pack up if you didn’t want to paint!

We said good-bye to the kids and they were sooo sweet. Billy did our speech for us and I totally agreed with what he said. And the kids said something back which was uber sweet too – how we’ve totally changed their schooling environment and had a lot of fun with us. Then, as a whoole group we did the “boom-chicka-boom-boom-boom” song. We all paired up with someone and did it, I did it with Golf. Funny and memorable!

Once we finished painting we headed off back to BAB. The Others we set to leave so we said bye to them and went off with Divya to the night market where we shopped and shopped. Divya bought a lot of silver and I bought a bracelet (which “makes me look Sikh”). Divya and I parted ways to get money from the money changer while the rest went to some store which I was meant to know the whereabouts of but I didn’t realize it was that far away and starting freaking out that I had lost them. I ended up calling Tamar and we met again and I stopped hyperventilating. We met Dorren, Sander, Bas and Anne and Divya talked to them for a while. Turned out the pair of sunglasses I bought Jackie were bigger than the ones she bought originally and so she has to get them exchanged. Tamar had bad experience as she was looking at this clock she wanted to get her dad and this guy came up from behind her and smacked her hand rudely. Later when he was laughing and making the slapping motion he said “yeah baby common”.

We were extremely tired and decided to go to the coffee shop where Tamar had her infamous latte and she giggled and giggled. All you had to say was “Tamaaaaar” and she started laughing. (Facebook link). That’s all it took, all from one latte. And her hyperness didn’t end there, she was giggling the rest of the night and camwhored by herself while we were buying boxers.

We came home and started watching Superbad. They didn’t really like it and by 12:40 we were all falling asleep so we called it quits and went to bed. Snoore.

Day Eight, Friday: Today was slack day – our day off. We said bye to Divya in the morning and she had her flight to catch. We started late after playing a few games of Ligretto and what not and packing. We went to a spa! They picked us up from the house and we went in. Body scrub and oil massage for $50, really nice and relaxing and she got most of the paint off me. The oil massage, she touched me and poof I fell asleep!

After that we went for lunch at this really good vegetarian restaurant. Definitely the best meal we had the whole week. We got there when the buffet was closing so we hoarded all this food before it did. Their tea was really good too. After that we went to another temple, the temple where grade 8 Chiang Mai people went to, so Jackie could draw and Tamar could take photo’s. I wrote postcards, wrote in my journal, drew a bit and walked around outside. Afterwards we talked to a monk for a while and learnt a lot about Buddhism and the life of monks. The monk was really nice and his laugh was really sweet.

We came back to the BAB headquarters and continued packing and hanging out before Corn picked us up for dinner with the YPDA. It was fun and the food was good, the only night we didn't have mango sticky rice for dinner. They were really sweet and gave us little presents, and not to the other group. Took a lot of photo’s and Corn took us to another night bazaar where Tamar and I just sat while Yeen and Jackie shopped. We lost them actually. Turned out they were bargaining down the road.

We came back and Tamar went to bed earlier, in her normal fashion, and the rest of us watched more of Ugly Betty. Aah I love it! Sooner or later we went to bed.

Day Nine, Saturday: Our flight was in the morning but for some reason our truck didn’t arrive till late and we were worried we’d miss the flight. We said goodbye to all at BAB which was really sad. I want to go back there – everyone was really friendly and nice. At the airport the YPDA came to say goodbye to us. New and Bank, running late, came and gave us little boxes as goodbye gifts. At this point everyone knew New has a crush on Jackie so everyone was teasing her about it. I wasn’t – instead I kept accidentally stepping on her toes.

After out final goodbyes and hugs we boarded. Thailand Immigration needs a photo of you through a webcam and so when the guy took a photo of me he said to smile and I smiled a big one! On we went to the plane where we saw the couple who got engaged on the flight before. Coincidence.

Arrived in KL LCCT earlier than expected where we met Ritika, Meagan and Myrthe. Chatted with them for a while and heard that Cindy left their group last minute. Interesting. I noticed that we arrived 20mins earlier and that Jackie could still make her flight which her Dad booked for her. We met Uncle Keat outside who drove Jackie to KLIA and we said goodbye to her there.

We hadn’t eaten in the morning and by the time we were in KL it was 5pm so we drove straight to food. Uncle Keat took us to the Hilton for lunch where we were craving for Western food. There got a phone call from Jackie that she left her wallet at BAB. Quote: “You know I almost cried at the airport because I was so hungry and I wanted to buy a hotdog but I had no money.” We had a nice meal of pasta and my dessert was spiked with rum which I didn’t realize till the end of it. We asked if we could have a marshmallow from the buffet and the nice Bengali man let us.

After lunch Tamar and I were dropped at “KL Sentral” where we dumped our luggage and wandered about. After a while it started raining so we hung out at McDonalds and then at Dunkin’ Doughnuts and till finally we hung around on the floor till our train was boarded.

The train journey was ok, it was extremely cold in there and we were going really slowly. We talked for a while till I just instantly fell asleep. The train kept stopping at station’s which is why it took around 10 hours to get to JB Immigration.

Day Ten, Sunday: This was just Tamar and I solo – Yeen was already in Ipoh and Jackie flew to Singapore. There was this little girl at JB Immigration who had a really cool suitcase which was built so she could sit and push herself around. Back we went inside the train where it took 2 hours for the train to go from Woodlands to the train station. Tamar’s parents went to the railroad to wave at us and it was so cool. Later they came to the Bukit Timah station where they waited and Tamar refused to get out because of me. Since Jackie was meant to come with us by train we had a spare ticket so Mrs. Gerber came and rode the train till the train station. Met my parents and said alvida to Tamar and Project Week and went home. A week of unnecessarily saving Yeen from the cars on the road and saving Jackie from all the men who hooted at her and stared at her and stalked her was said goodbye to. One things for sure - I will never forget it!

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this – it’s 3am in the morning! If you finished the whole this, you read 4,373 words :) And photo's for this entry were all taken from Jackie, Tamar, New and Corn on Facebook. And as you can see, I tried to keep it as brief as I could :)