Sarah Altier - This is my blog from my 6 week Fulbright fellowship in Thailand and Vietnam

In 2011 I was honored to be chosen as a recipient of a Fulbright-Hays fellowship to Thailand and Vietnam.  As one of 16 teachers chosen from around the United States, I was immersed in the culture, history, and economy of the two host countries with a special interest in the ASEAN economic union. Please enjoy reading about my journey!

"To be happy there can be no clinging...."

Buddhist funeral chant:  "All things in Samsara (the world of birth and death) are impermanent. To be happy there can be no clinging."  


After almost six weeks in southeast Asia I am spending my last night in the Montien Hotel in Bangkok.  The Fulbright group held its wrap-up session at Hua Hin, the traditional beach resort of Thai royalty.  While foreign tourists favor the beaches of Phuket or Pattaya, Hua Hin is a place where the Thai people choose to vacation.  We stayed at a beautiful resort  - the Dusit Thani - where we held the post-mortem of the program, had the farewell dinner and speeches, and said our goodbyes. 

View from my window at Dusit Thani hotel

Hua Hin beach - where royalty used to go to get away from Bangkok

From Hua Hin beach facing west

Sunrise Hua Hin

Pool at Dusit Thani

      I had one full day of leisure on the beach at Hua Hin – swimming in the Gulf of Thailand, walking alongside some Thai women who were looking for clams and “helping” them, lounging in the gorgeous pool.  To top off a delightful day I ordered room service and ate one of my last meals in Thailand sitting on my balcony looking at the moon shimmering over the sea, and hearing the traditional Thai music being played at the poolside restaurant below me.  How lucky am I?  I’m someone with a severe case of wanderlust who has always been able to find a way to see the world – and through my travels I can show the world to my students and hopefully instill my love for other cultures and my desire to understand them to a new generation.  

Current king of Thailand, Rama IX

Queen of Thailand

      Though constantly being with the same people for the past month and being away from Jeff and the kids has been challenging for me, the experiences I’ve had and the understanding I’ve gained is something I will treasure always – and I can’t even begin to fathom how much more effective it will make me as a Social Studies teacher.  The book I’ve been reading off and on while in Thailand and Vietnam is called “A Fortune Teller Told Me” by Tiziano Terzani who spent a year traveling overland all through southeast Asia.  At the end of his travels someone asks him, “Travel only makes sense if you come back with an answer in your baggage.  Have you found it?”  Terzani’s response:  “Quite the reverse.  Along the way I lost even those two or three answers I used to think I possessed.”  I can honestly say I agree with him.  And that’s the way it should be.  A lifelong learner will never have all the answers. . . and the new questions that keep popping up in my head will keep me traveling.  I’m already planning where I’ll go next.

Skyline of Bangkok with statue of King Rama VI

Bye Bye Bangkok

 

      My last 24 hours in Bangkok was pretty much the best time I’ve had here.  I had my farewell massage at my little barebones Thai massage place.  I ate dinner with Carol and Ann, two Fulbrighters from Washington D.C.  I made my swan song appearance at the night market to buy Brianne a genuine(?) Jimmy Choo purse.  I even decided to put my money where my mouth was and finally go have the fish eat my feet!  I figured that if I get some horrible foot infection from this crazy activity at least I’ll be back in the U.S. soon to get treatment! 

      I didn’t want to do this alone so I peer-pressured Shannon from South Dakota to come with me and we slapped down 150 baht (about 3 or 4 bucks) down to let little fish nibble the dead skin off our feet.  I talked a big game, but when it came to actually putting my feet in the water it took a lot of guts to do it.  Shannon went in up to her knees but I just couldn’t do it so only let the fish feast on my feet and ankles.  It just felt a little tickly, but that didn’t stop Shannon from letting out a pretty good shriek, and we were both laughing so hard at first we couldn’t even process what was going on.  But after a while we had nothing to do but watch what was happening as the fish-feeding frenzy ensued.  The creepiest part of what was a very creepy experience was that the fish didn’t want the tough calloused part of the foot, they wanted the tender skin up top and they would actually crawl up my ankles out of the water in their search for fresh skin.  Ewww.  But it was fun and now I can say I did it – AND I slathered my feet with hand sanitizer when it was done. 

      The foot episode actually happened about half an hour before our bus headed out to the airport to fly home.  Prior to that I’d spent the day down by the Chao Phraya River having a fun, fascinating time all by myself.  First I went to the Wat Pho, the temple which houses the Reclining Buddha.  Jeff and I had visited this site in 1984 so at first I thought to pass on it for this trip, but I’m glad I went because this huge gold Buddha statue lying on its side is even more mammoth than I remembered.  I’d say roughly it’s the size of two double-decker busses bumper to bumper.  It’s crazy and I don’t think the photographs can give enough perspective to convey the sheer massiveness of this statue.  

It's hard to imagine how large this statue is without people in the photo to give it perspective

Playing with my camera settings

Buddha has big toes

      I spent some time wandering around the whole temple complex.  There were a lot of school groups there and evidently a common assignment given to Thai students is to interview tourists in English.  Since I had no schedule and nothing but time I ended up getting interviewed by about 5 different groups of Thai students.  They were cute and I enjoyed talking to them.

Loyal Buddhists will buy pieces of gold leaf to stick onto statues of Buddha

Scenes around the Wat Pho temple

Playing with my new camera settings

A school group who practiced their English by interviewing me

Another student interview

      The Wat Pho is near the river, so I wandered that way, down little alleys where Thai workers were loading and unloading merchandise, produce, and a host of other things off of the humungous barges that plod their way up and down the river.  A few times I’d follow what looked to be a street leading to the river’s banks, only to find myself in a warehouse with a bunch of people sleeping, working, eating noodles, or just looking at me wondering what the heck I was doing there.  But finally I saw a table set up with a sign proclaiming “River Boat Rides” and I talked to a friendly college-aged kid who spoke good English and set me up with a private boat tour of the canals around the Chao Phraya.  Actually, I would have preferred to have my ride not so private as the cost is for the ride (not per person) so I tried for a few minutes (unsuccessfully) to see if some other tourist type person would come walking by who wanted to share the trip cost with me, but no dice.  Well, I don’t mind admitting that it was kinda cool to have my own private boat guy taking me around in his long-tail, across the broad and choppy river into little backwater canals which teemed with everyday Thai life.

My quest for a boat ride took me down what I thought was a street to the river but ended up in a riverside warehouse!

Huge barges on the river

Friendly boat guy drove me in his "longtail"

Solo boat ride!

Another longtail on the river

      Even though my boat guy didn’t speak English he did a good job of pointing out sights of interest along the way – such as several monitor lizards slithering along the banks in the sun, or a temple here and there.  But the best part was just seeing the houses that teeter on stilts above the water – the man having his bath in the dirty water with a 5-foot monitor lizard not far away, the boys fishing, the old woman in her flatboat, hawking some satay she was grilling right inside the boat.  Houses along the canals ranged from mansions with tall security walls to shacks which looked like they might crumble into the waterway at any moment.  Each house had its own spirit house – some ornate, some humble to match the abode which the spirit was meant to guard.

Typical house along the Bangkok canal system

Giant monitor lizard (about 5 feet long) sunning himself along the canal

Monitor lizard #2

Vendor cooking snacks to sell to homes along the canal

Spirit houses out on the dock

Bangkok from the Chao Phraya River

      Anyway, my boat ride lasted an hour and was punctuated with women in smaller boats floating up and trying to sell me food, drink, and wood carvings.   Another highlight was when my boat guy showed me his special fishing hole.  We didn’t fish but we threw in chunks of bread and these GIANT fish (maybe catfish?... I’m not sure) came surging out of the water fighting each other for the bread.  I’ve never seen such huge fish churning in the water (sometimes coming right out of the water on top of one of their buddies) as they vied to be the one to gobble up the bread.  

Canal life - I can't believe this guy was swimming so close to those giant monitor lizards

Rich Thai house

Fish feeding frenzy

      I ate lunch at a little café on the banks of the river and then started on the daunting task of finding a taxi to take me back to the hotel.  People had lectured us so much about unscrupulous taxi drivers that it’s a little nerve wracking to try to find one that seems to be trustworthy but I found a nice, honest, friendly one who delivered me back to the Montien safely.  A great last day in Thailand.

Vietnamese Proverb

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” - Thich Naht Hanh, Vietnamese monk


      Though the Vietnamese are not as overtly and as devoutly religious as Thai people are, and Vietnam is a much more religiously diverse society than Buddhist Thailand is, it is interesting to note how spirituality is still a big part of Vietnamese life.  Turtles and turtle imagery are everywhere, being seen as omens of good luck.  I also read that frogs are good luck, because they are so ugly that if you are kind enough to take one in or wear an image of one they will be so grateful that they will bring you good fortune.  Feeding fish is good luck, setting captured animals free is good luck (though I’m 99% sure that the people who sell you the captured birds, turtles or whatever to set free turn around and recapture them to resell to another dupe later on).

      This was never so apparent as when we visited the Jade Emperor pagoda in Saigon.  It had been touted by the guidebooks as a “must see” so I was expecting something architecturally beautiful – and I guess if you could look beyond all the trash, dogs, sleeping people and debris laying around that there were spots of beauty.  But the big attraction there is the opportunity to buy turtles or fish to put into the pond.  Inside this Taoist temple there are about a dozen different altars, each dedicated to a special purpose such as fertility.  There were a lot of the faithful there, lighting incense and bowing devoutly, ringing bells and chanting.  One particular altar had some carved wooden horse statues and the people praying there would wipe their hands on the horses and then wipe their hands all over themselves.

The Taoist Jade Emperor Pagoda

Frankly, this place seemed like something out of a "B" movie horror flick

Devout Vietnamese lighting incense and making offerings at one of the many altars

Temple-goers would rub their hands on these carved wooden horses and then rub their bodies - I guess the good luck would rub off onto them

      I also learned that in Vietnam it is unlucky to see a walk or drive past a wedding but it is considered lucky to go past a funeral (this doesn’t count for guests at the wedding or funeral, just for passersby).  The thinking is that if you pass a wedding the wedding couple is taking all the happiness and all the joy will be swept with them and away from you.  Of course the reverse of that is that if you pass a funeral they are sucking all the sadness with them and away from you, so it’s lucky.  Interesting.  The girl who told me this also said that in Vietnam if someone dies from old age everyone has a big celebration and is happy, but if someone dies young because of illness or an accident everyone is sad and wears white to mourn.

From the top of the pagoda

Incense furnace

Good luck turtle pond

Anyway, the visit to the Taoist temple was my last bit of sightseeing in Vietnam.  Back to Bangkok tomorrow for the last few days of my adventure.