Monkeys and Sunflowers

I cant believe that I was just starting my traveling just about a month ago and I still haven’t blogged about it! This week, I have been bogged down with Parent Teacher Conferences and writing an almost essay on my 24 students and analyzing their fine and gross motor skills, problem solving ability, cognitive development, attitude, and social skills and discussing these areas with the parents. Meeting with the parents is a little nerve –racking especially since nearly all of them speak English, some better than others, but I guess many of them liked me since I got three tutoring jobs from the process! Other than that, nothing too new going on here! We did have a teacher party which I’ll talk about once I’m caught up with my travels. Also, I will be the princess for the end of the year show in March. I might have already mentioned that but I’ll get into that later.

Waiting for the train

So after Ayutthaya, we woke up early the next morning to get to the train station to take the train to Lopburi. Lopburi is just threeish hours outside of Bangkok and is most well-known for being overrun by wild monkeys! Jenna and I didn’t choose this destination particularly for the monkeys though.. we decided to go here because on the outskirts of Lopburi are beautiful sunflower fields. Jenna and I thought trains left for Lopburi about every hour and we got to the station just as one was slowly pulling away. When the attendants realized that was the train we wanted, they were shouting for it to stop so we could hop on, and it actually did stop! However, there were three different people telling us to go different directions. I think it went something like “HURRY JUMP ON THE TRAIN!” “No, you need a ticket!” “Hurry, get the ticket and jump on the train!” (but in Thai). We rushed and threw money at the ticket booth and ran to get the train and we literally missed it by seven seconds, if we didn’t have our backpacks we probably could have lunged on but we didn’t want to risk it. Oh well, we ended up having to wait two hours for the next one, but it was really reassuring to have people trying to help us in our voyage. The train was only 13 baht (less than 50 cents) and was about a two hour ride. I wasn’t too sure what to expect for Thai trains, but for some reason I honestly pictured something like the California Amtrak train like the one I’ve taken to and from Santa Barbara. Well, let me tell ya, that wasn’t it. It was extremely crowded, no open seats, hot, and because the windows were down and trash is often burned here, we zoomed by piles of burning trash and the ash flew into the train getting in my eyes and mouth. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. But the most annoying part of the ride was that there were people who would walk up and down the isles every 30 seconds trying to sell different food and refreshments. Because Jenna and I were standing in the isle since there were no seats, they were constantly squeezing by us which was a little uncomfortable.. But we did make it!

We arrived in Lopburi and went to a hostel that we had heard of from a friend. This hostel was run buy the cutest little Thai couple who had the most adorable baby. They were so nice and helpful and gave us his cell phone number just in case we got lost going to the sunflower fields. At first, I didn’t notice any monkeys around the city and when we checked in, I asked where they were and they replyed “they are everywhere!” When Jenna and I were walking to the bus station to go to the sunflower fields I finally saw them and it was true, they were EVERYWHERE! Hanging from the wires, running free in the streets, hanging off buildings, snatching food.. Everywhere! Jenna and I hopped on the city bus to get to the fields. The bus dropped us off on the main road and we needed to walk a short distance to the fields. Boy, were they beautiful! Thousands and thousands of sunflowers on an extremely beautiful and sunny day. We took lots of pictures and checked out some stalls near the field. We picked up a three little bag of sunflower seeds of three different flavors, chocolate, strawberry, and honey, for a snack for later. One of the women at the stall offered to give us a ride back to the main road on her motorbike, and we gladly accept! Once we got to the main road though, it was about 4pm and we were a little unsure of how to get back to the city. The owner of our hostel encouraged us to hitchhike but we were a little unsure about that one. We stood there for a while someone would stop and offer us a ride or that the bus would drive by, but no luck. About 20 minutes later, we finally stuck our thumbs out (only to non sketchy cars) in hopes of hitching a ride, but luckily after only a few minutes of doing that, a big bus stopped and drove us back into town.

That night, we grabbed some street food and called it a night. We had a long adventure ahead of us the next day, our trek to the islands! In the morning, we woke up to little monkeys right outside the screen of our window and running around the common area in our hostel. I was caught very off guard to be greeting by monkeys on the way to the shower and I bolted back to my room. A few seconds later, I heard the owner shooting at the monkeys with her BB gun an they quickly jumped back out the window. We decided to give the train another shot and took one to Bangkok. Trains are a lot cheaper than buses and we are on a Thai teacher budget! We were able to snag seats this time and made the easy three hour ride to Bangkok.

Next up, the good stuff!! Check back to hear about my ten days in a tropical paradise.