Yay, I went on vacation, finally!

Sometimes I do want to write, but there isn’t that much emotional room for me to do it in.

In May… I don’t quite what remember happened in May.

In June, I drove in Canada along winding mountain roads, perhaps rather too dangerously and badly. The destination was Tofino, British Columbia, a 20-minute seaplane-ride+3-hour drive away from Vancouver.

In July, my cousin met with a car accident (she was a pedestrian) and passed away. She was 21. She was loved by my grandmother and aunts, and a pillar of support for her direct family. What happened still does not feel real: it all took place and ended within a week.

My cousin had an active and fulfilling life even within the short span of 21 years.

In a strange way her death made me re-affirm my commitment to education. She had blossomed in the various schools she attended, and gave back also through school (not just one, but many). She was a resilient, practical, selfless girl who was guided by the right principles. Because of these qualities she could rise above the fray, and remain a positive influence in many people’s lives.

The only way I know how to do this is through teaching; hence my life purpose.

Sometimes I think back on the ziplining we did in Northern Laos for the Gibbon Experience, and yearn for that instance of absolute, terrifying freedom, when we were tethered to reality only with a slim cable.

There were six of us, all chattering at and across the table to, each other simultaneously. We discussed the ever-present problem of hyperactive teenagers, the creaky mechanics of promotion, the importance of good grammar (though only two of us were English teachers), and the need for more fries at our table. We reminisced about ex-bosses, wearing slippers to the office, and long lunch breaks.

These people had been my colleagues during my time in the Ministry – my one and only ‘office’ job thus far. I remember that period of time with great fondness, though it had not begun smoothly. It was a marvellous hiatus: a time of 7am 20-minute walks to the MRT station; 30-minute reading periods on the crowded train on the way to work; 5.30am 15K runs in preparation for the marathon I had the mental space to sign up for; conversations with quick-witted co-workers; laughable, unexpected phonecalls; long, exhausting yet mentally stimulating meetings; frequent worktrips to locales that served cheese for breakfast.

Most of all, though, I think I miss the people. In 2008, things seemed to click into place: the frequency with which people came and left brought about a happy confluence of factors that involved a conducive cubicle layout, proximity to many options for good food, and sharp, charismatic bosses.

Conversation #1

“How do you spell initiative, Student A?”

(Student A had spelled the word with a ‘c’ instead of a ‘t’ the day before, and had been told he would be tested again.)

“Um, i-n-i-t-i-a-t-i-v-e.”

Outcries from friends around Student A:
“Are you sure it’s not spelled with a ‘c’?”
“You’re so forgetful!”
“You can’t spell!”

Talk about ‘frenemies’…

Conversation #2

“Do we get a prize for playing this?”

Student B, who received Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as a ‘reward’ last year, turns around and deadpans to the question-asker: “You’ll get ‘Pride and Prejudice’.”

Choruses of ‘nooooo’ ensue.

Conversation #3

Student C asks a question purely in a bid to be funny. I answer him without irony.

Student D pipes up helpfully, “Ms T, he was trying to be funny.”

“Do you know how you should treat people who try to be funny?”

Shaking of heads.

“Seriously.”

We picked Dodgeball, which neither of us had seen before. Complete with corny and some unbelievably gross jokes, it kept us laughing for a good hour and a half before the ‘cinema’ closed at 9pm. Then, we staggered hilariously across the bridge in the dark, probably talking just a tad too loudly (but with no residents around to hear us, thankfully) and hugging ourselves to keep out the cold.

We thought it was an early night we had – bedtime at about 10pm – but the following night in the same village brought the same pleasant dilemma. We chatted aimlessly (and this time, definitely too loudly, ouch) in the Nong Kiau Riverside Restaurant over dinner, which we stretched as close to 8pm as possible (pretty good considering we started at about 6?). However, we found ourselves back in our room just a little past 8, with no television, a book whose pages I had to ration (again, I underestimated my reading speed/ the time I had for reading while travelling), and pure darkness beyond the balcony. Tired out by our trek in the day and the full meal we had, we lay down under the smooth and cosy blankets and soon found ourselves alternately talking and dozing off.

No epiphanies were had, but I daresay some soul-searching went on before we finally turned the lights off at 10pm.

Then there was the day/night in Baan Donchai, the little village of about 100+ inhabitants, where we had stopped in order to be picked up by Gibbon Experience the next day, so as to save time doubling back from Huay Xai.

Incredulous that we had asked to stop at Baan Donchai, the bus driver had asked in perfect English, “What are you going to do there??”

Indeed, there was little to do except stroll around the village in about half an hour flat, read our books on the porch of the little shed where our room was located (an extension of a villager’s house/provision shop), play with the dogs of the house (Mama and Son – Papa came home from Huay Xai along with the parents of the house only in the evening), wade in the amazingly shallow Nam Nga river, and watch ducks debate about whether to swim in circular fashion or quit the icy waters and get back on the (dirt) road.

The electricity generator was turned on at 6pm, when daylight started fading. At about 8pm, the lights started going out one by one till finally, abruptly, the last light went out at 9pm, when we were still reading in the porch (because our bedroom light had long since expired). Torches came in handy then, and fortunately, we had already brushed our teeth primary-school-style by then, by squatting by the grass patch and gargling from a water bottle.

We talked for a while but were conscious of the proximity of the sleeping household, and soon dropped off to sleep ourselves.

We woke to the crowing of roosters, the agonised mooing of an invisible cow, the barking of excitable dogs, and the chopping of wood right under our window.

It was 11 a.m.

We perused the colourful menu of Tate Café carefully and hailed the friendly waitress to our table.

“Could we have a café latte…” Cindy began.

“… and a macchiato…” I continued.

“… as well as a plate of fried chicken with pandan leaves—”

“Huh? What?” The waitress covered her mouth demurely in order to giggle at us. “Coffee and chicken?”

I observed the customers eating croissants and drinking coffee around us, or picking at fries in accompaniment with their soft drinks. “Clearly, we need to order the young coconut and vanilla pannacotta later, in order to avoid upsetting our waitress’s sensibilities further,” I hissed (less coherently at that time) to Cindy.

The plate of chicken was very good, and later, we decided to forgo coconut in favour of just the vanilla pannacotta and a strawberry confection of some sort.

Later, we popped by the “Miracle” Food Village to grab an additional deepfried chicken drumstick each (20baht per person) and then, stopped by a Japanese fast food restaurant whose name we forget, in order to procure strangely coloured burgers.

These came in useful when Jetstar failed me as usual and sat on the runway for 30mins before taking off, despite hustling the passengers to board 30mins before the scheduled departure time. (I would not have flown this airline if not for the fact that our schedules and budgets were a little constrained.) I spitefully ate the food on-board, hoping that the airline personnel would try to dissuade me from doing so, so that I could snarl at them.

The people were wonderfully friendly, from the family in the nasi padang restaurant (best chicken wings ever) who told us that their relatives had set up shop in Singapore to the ‘uncle’ who posed behind his ancient cash register for us while we took up space chomping on gado gado salad in his odds-and-ends shop.

A week or so after Lorraine and I left, they experienced an earthquake. The tourguide who had brought us around for a day told us via e-mail that his camera had fallen off the shelf and was broken. His tone was more matter-of-fact than alarmed though – we had been told several times that this city sat on a precarious faultline.

Two years later, I wonder whether these people are okay, whether the fishing villages we saw by the edge of the beach, and the houses I saw perched by the hillside on my drive past Padang en route to Cubadak, survived.

If you are so inclined, please give something. The link for international visitors is here.

…. then, you get to sink your teeth into this: