Matt’s Travel Blog

Its that feeling you get inside you thats pure happyness.. no wait.. its the exact opposite!

I think its actually the name of my town that I have crash landed in. Its really beautiful. I think i’m in the beggining of the nothern mountain range with forests and small lakes and all that jazz. Very peaceful.

Thats the happiness part.. the rest is found wanting I would say…

I live in a craptacular dirty cement cabin that smells like a washroom.. wait!?!? thats cause there is no door between the one room myslef and a 25 year old Thai teacer share and the cesspool that is the bathroom. YES! .. ugh. All my clothes smell slightly damp and gross now. There is also no kitchen , and no shower so eating and washing are relative surprises.. although i’m still managing my strickt diet of rice for breakfeast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. My bed is made of an old door.. no.. its two halfs of two old doors on a rusy steel frame with some musty comforters on top. Throw up a very successful mosquito net covered in dead bugs and voila! “Home!”.. home isn’t in quotes cause i would exclaim it, it’s in quotes because it’s questionable.

If I were living with a poor Thai family in a wooden house.. it would be fine..i’ve been to those houses.. there would be food and a shower and my bed would aleast have the oringinal intention of being a bed. But living with a poor 25 year old is way worse.. he has no house.. all he has is a sweet ass motorbike. Dude.. next time pass on the chrome and buy a fridge.. or perhaps a new door for my bed.

But all in all it’s survivable for sure.. and at times (mostly when im not in my room of pestulance) its quite liviable and enjoyable. And i’m only here for one more week.

This weekend i’m escaping to Bangkok for a warm shower and sleep.. cause i ain’t gettin any where I am now.

I would write a post but pictures are worth 1000 words and time is worth Bhat soo… i will cross my fingers and hope with works.

They should be as thumbnails now so just click the picture to see the full size. Thanks Luke

And congrats to Lukey V. for having boys that swim so well ;P NICE ONE!

On a farm on the Cambodia Thailand boarder with a Durian. A durian is a really spikey fruit that smells nasty, but it can double as a serious weapon so its cool.

Muay Thai!!!

Matt learning to use shadows as weapons.

Me with another volunteer in the rain at a temple made entirely of glass bottles. Monks gotta pass the time somehow…

Me with my host ‘father’ infront of 101 foot Buddha in Roi-Et.Biggest Buddha in the world!

Host family and me at a shrine with buddhas bones.

My ‘little brother’ Nu Ni and myself in front of famous monks.

I am the gong master of Thailand listen to my war cry!!! When I started acting weird like a viking my host family just smiles.

Giant temple on top of a mountain that I can’t remember the Thai name for…

Temple hall, this temple had 5 floors .. all beautiful. Most of the pictures above are in this temple too.

Me ringing the bell 3 times for good luck.. and I hit that thing hard so everyone knew there was a white boy around.

Some sweet dragons for protection.. when i get house in Canada it will have dragons. And if you show up with bad thoughts they eat you, making my house awesome.

Picture of Isan (Northeast Thailand and Lao) from temple.

Me pay respect and making offereings for good luck and long life.

Me eating a Giant shrimp head.. blah..but i ate it. And we are sitting in a hut out in the rice fields .. nice one! But hot!

Me Playing Sapat Takaw.. vollyball with your feet. Nothing like sports in 34degree weather.

Antoher volunteer andrew at a river with in Kao Yai national park. This is where i went swimming -> eye infection! Sweet.

Students at my school in Selaphum.. 2300 of em.

Classroom ..

My school.. some of it..

Some students..

Me most recently at a farm in Sakhon Nakhon..

With some teachers from my school..

Sunset in Selaphum.

Thats all for now folks, im outa time.

Peace out.

Just a quick update.

This weekend is my last here. Today the teachers took me to Sakun Nhakun province and I got blessed by monks. Then we went a prayed at the ashes of a very famous monk (name??) whos ashes turned into crystals. Is anyone even checking for this back home? After that we went to a farm and I went picking bananas,papays, and dragon fruit.

I’m not to sure where i’m going next. I think the next province I go to is called Chayaphum (spelling is wrong im sure). I think im teaching there for 2 weeks to make up for a volunteer that didn’t workout so well. And then I do 2 weeks of English camps, one for training teachers not students.

Right now im just chillin in the back of an internet cafe thats playing some Thai music that just down right sucks. I would be philosophical about Thailand and all but that takes time .. and this lady looks like she wants to close the shop shes just being really nice to the Farang (white guy) or shes afraid of me for the same reason. Experience here says.. its probably both. I will be nice and leave now so she doesn’t have to attempt to say ‘leave’ in english.. which from Thai translates to ‘You go home now.’

I go home now.

Busy like Toronto….

Last week I started training Muai Thai 2hrs every night. I don’t think I have ever sweat so much in my life. Its this small place under a thatch roof hut in the sand with bad lights. It looks like something out of a movie. I have pictures when i get the chance. But due to my definate overexertion… or eating some of the sand at the Maui Thai place.. or just happenstance I got sick. I pretty much thought I was going to spend the rest of my life on a toilet, but then I found out(from an american friend here) in Thailand you don’t need prescriptions from doctors to buy medicine. He suggested I ‘nuke my insides’ with antibiotics. I figure if Americans know about anything it’s blowing stuff up.. so I went and bought antiboitics for $5 canadian. Seems I will not be spending the rest of my life on a toilet. Nice one.

This weekend I ended up traveling to Korat (where I waged my biowar) to teach english camp. It was here I did one the most fun and stupid things yet in Thailand. I hired a motorcycle taxi to take me from the bus station to the volunthai house with my huge backpack and smaller one. These bikes are big but I pretty sure we were crusin at atleast 80km/hr with me almost falling off the back due the weight and size of all my bags. I thought it was hillarious, and I figured if i fell off in the middle of a busy Thai street at night I would just land on my dirty laundry anyways. But I made it…eventually..we got a little lost.
The English Camp itself was fairly uneventful. It was in Khao Yai national park which has alot of rivers and waterfalls n stuff. The big event was getting to go swimming in the waterfalls.

Once I got back to Korat I got offered to go on the radio station with the head of the Volunthai organization. It was pretty sweet cause he has this totally badass chopper that we took over. Its got skulls on the handlebars and a grim reaper painted on the gas tank. We were flying through Korat city on this big beefy American chopper, it was awesome. Being on the radio in Thailand is like teaching english… it doesn’t matter what you say cause no one understands you anyways. But I did get to request a song so at 11:30 am monday morning I made Thailand listen to Gordon Lightfoot. They had other songs that I liked more but I felt it was my duty as a Canadain to make it happen for 4 cord Gord.

Now I’m back in Selaphum after a sweaty 5 hour bus ride, and will be here for another 6 days. Then I go two another town that I can’t remember the name of right now to go and teach. I also seem to have an eye infection. How this happened I have no idea.. its not like I was swimming in dirty Thai rivers… opps! If my eye falls out I’ll let you know..

Thanks for the comments everyone, I would reply but it takes to long on slow internet.

Peace out.

So Canada Day came and went with me on the exact opposite side of the planet. How was it? Did it rain? Or was it really nice and sunny?

This weekend I went to the local weekend market, which was a fun… sunglasses for 80cents! But I restrained myself and bought only weird fruit. I need to keep my clothes buying under control or else I will have to much stuff to put in my bag.
On Saturday I was taken to a lunch party at a school in the country. This school has 47 students and no chairs or desks, the students sit on the floor. But the countryside of I-San (the part of Thailand I’m in) is really nice. After we went to Roi-Et City and visited the museum or Roi-Et and the fish museum. Both were interesting, especially the fish museum cause it had this tunnel walk way underwater where you can look up at the stingrays.
Today I got to drive a motorbike! HAHA no licence no experience..all balls. Then we went to a HUGE Temple on a mountain (Can’t remember the name of it, it’s a Thai name that’s long) This temple covered the entire top of this hill/mountain and had 5 really big floors. At the top you can look out over I-San and see the boarder of Lao. At the very top is a room that is supposed to hold the bones of the Buddha. I got to take a moment to pray and think about what its like to be in a room that has the physical remains of such a being,which I’ve found is really hard to grasp. But it was really cool anyways.

Other than that heres’ a few observations about Thailand that I can think off …
- No toilets, there’s a porcelain thing with a hole but its not a seat its more of a suggested place to stand. And there is no flush, you pour water in it to ‘flush it’
- Motorbikes of the 100 or 125 size or the most popular way to travel, where ever you look you will see swarms of kids on bikes.
- driving age in Thailand is 13.. dang yo.
- Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner, rice as dessert
- Food here isn’t just spicy it’s down right painful at times
- Every Thai town has aerobics at 6pm.. no matter where you are in Thailand you can have an aerobic workout in the park. Everyone can see you sweat!
- Gay culture is at its peak here.. I have 12 year old ladyboys in my class and on one in Thailand thinks twice about it.
There’s a tone more.. whateves.
Peace out.

Some pics from my english camp sent to me by a Thai teacher..quality is poor but I can upload on dail up so you know.. asia n stuff

edit : ..had to take the pics off cause they were messin stuff up