Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
I’ve been having trouble with my blog recently hence the no new posts and I apologize.
There is quite a bit to catch up on and I’m not quite sure where to start. I guess the most recent.
This past Saturday I piled in a van at 6 in the morning along with my host mom, P Nu, Phet, Ploy and 5 of Ploy’s friends. We were off to Nakon Si Tammart for the day. All of Phet Ploy and all her friends were going to test for an English competition. A good part of the morning was spent driving then sitting around waiting for the test to begin and then more sitting while they tested. To take a break P Nu and I went off to a local temple. It was nice and a lot like those I had seen in the north but with the main part being shaped differently. We then went back to the school to pick up everyone else. Off to lunch and then back to the same temple again. This time because it was so hot I stayed and played with Phet in the car while they walked around and tamboned. Next the journey home. The car was much louder on the way back since no one was worrying about the test anymore and Ploy and her friends seemed to be having fun. Every now and then we would turn down a side road in search of the beach only to have it deemed “my souy” by my host mom. After about an hour or so of driving around we finally found a beautiful beach and it was very beautiful. Ploy and her friends played on the edges of the water and Phet wrote in the sand. I went in search of shells and sea glass. The waves were smashing in and it turned out to be the perfect place for my search. I ended up finding 16 pieces of sea glass and countless beautiful shells in only a short time. Too soon we were all getting called back to the car. I could have spent hours there. I’d forgotten how much I love beaches especially deserted ones. It was the perfect place to have some time for thinking.
The week before I had been away with my school so it was nice to have a day with most of my family.
The trip was a 6 day bus tour up to Chiang Mai, which is very far north and Surat Thani is pretty far south so a good deal of the 6 days was spent getting north and then south again. There were three buses once again. It was the same three classes M5/1 5/2 and 5/3 the math and science classes of my grade. Like I said a lot of the time was spent driving which meant there was much of the following 1 karaoke 2 movies 3 sleep 4 eating and in general a lot of messing around and bonding time. We stopped at the 7 Elevens along the way as is key in any Thai road trip lasting more than 45 minutes. The main stops on our journey were Lamphun, Lampang and Chiang Mai. We also stopped at numerous temples and OTOP shops where the teachers did most of the shopping and students continued to sleep. In Lamphun and Lampang we went to the two largest temples which were very beautiful and different than most of the temples I had seen. Then we continued on to Chiang Mai where we spent two nights. The first night I went out with a large group of my friends to the night market and to eat dinner. We ended up eating at Fuji which was very filling and well worth the little extra it cost. Then it was back out to the night market where I learned first hand just how badly farang can be ripped off. My friends would bargain things down to ¼ the price originally asked of me. Oh boy do I love my friends.
The next day we spent at the Royal Flora show put on in honor of the King and opened only the week before. It’s some ridiculous number of hecta acres and really is extremely large. There were three buildings/tents devoted entirely to orchids, gardens from around the world, one for the kind and another for the queen, house built to show the 4 regions of Thailand, farms recreated and tons more. We were there from 9 am when it opened until it closed with a light show at 7 pm and I still didn’t get to see it all. I walked around in the morning with my friends. Then in the afternoon we took one of the carts around the parts we hadn’t seen and stopped to play in some of the air conditioned buildings until the sun went down and it cooled off a little. In that one day I think I took some 400 or so photos. That night we were all extremely tired and most of my close friends stayed in and went to bed early for once. I went out with another group and ate a light dinner before heading back to sleep too. Most nights a big bunch of the girls would pile into one room and have a “meeting” They all spoke in Thai and normally too quickly for me to understand much but it felt good because they all wanted me there and every now and then some one would explain one of the more “important” things being discussed. One thing I learned is that not matter where girls love to talk and it’s pretty much all the same.
All for now!
There is quite a bit to catch up on and I’m not quite sure where to start. I guess the most recent.
This past Saturday I piled in a van at 6 in the morning along with my host mom, P Nu, Phet, Ploy and 5 of Ploy’s friends. We were off to Nakon Si Tammart for the day. All of Phet Ploy and all her friends were going to test for an English competition. A good part of the morning was spent driving then sitting around waiting for the test to begin and then more sitting while they tested. To take a break P Nu and I went off to a local temple. It was nice and a lot like those I had seen in the north but with the main part being shaped differently. We then went back to the school to pick up everyone else. Off to lunch and then back to the same temple again. This time because it was so hot I stayed and played with Phet in the car while they walked around and tamboned. Next the journey home. The car was much louder on the way back since no one was worrying about the test anymore and Ploy and her friends seemed to be having fun. Every now and then we would turn down a side road in search of the beach only to have it deemed “my souy” by my host mom. After about an hour or so of driving around we finally found a beautiful beach and it was very beautiful. Ploy and her friends played on the edges of the water and Phet wrote in the sand. I went in search of shells and sea glass. The waves were smashing in and it turned out to be the perfect place for my search. I ended up finding 16 pieces of sea glass and countless beautiful shells in only a short time. Too soon we were all getting called back to the car. I could have spent hours there. I’d forgotten how much I love beaches especially deserted ones. It was the perfect place to have some time for thinking.
The week before I had been away with my school so it was nice to have a day with most of my family.
The trip was a 6 day bus tour up to Chiang Mai, which is very far north and Surat Thani is pretty far south so a good deal of the 6 days was spent getting north and then south again. There were three buses once again. It was the same three classes M5/1 5/2 and 5/3 the math and science classes of my grade. Like I said a lot of the time was spent driving which meant there was much of the following 1 karaoke 2 movies 3 sleep 4 eating and in general a lot of messing around and bonding time. We stopped at the 7 Elevens along the way as is key in any Thai road trip lasting more than 45 minutes. The main stops on our journey were Lamphun, Lampang and Chiang Mai. We also stopped at numerous temples and OTOP shops where the teachers did most of the shopping and students continued to sleep. In Lamphun and Lampang we went to the two largest temples which were very beautiful and different than most of the temples I had seen. Then we continued on to Chiang Mai where we spent two nights. The first night I went out with a large group of my friends to the night market and to eat dinner. We ended up eating at Fuji which was very filling and well worth the little extra it cost. Then it was back out to the night market where I learned first hand just how badly farang can be ripped off. My friends would bargain things down to ¼ the price originally asked of me. Oh boy do I love my friends.
The next day we spent at the Royal Flora show put on in honor of the King and opened only the week before. It’s some ridiculous number of hecta acres and really is extremely large. There were three buildings/tents devoted entirely to orchids, gardens from around the world, one for the kind and another for the queen, house built to show the 4 regions of Thailand, farms recreated and tons more. We were there from 9 am when it opened until it closed with a light show at 7 pm and I still didn’t get to see it all. I walked around in the morning with my friends. Then in the afternoon we took one of the carts around the parts we hadn’t seen and stopped to play in some of the air conditioned buildings until the sun went down and it cooled off a little. In that one day I think I took some 400 or so photos. That night we were all extremely tired and most of my close friends stayed in and went to bed early for once. I went out with another group and ate a light dinner before heading back to sleep too. Most nights a big bunch of the girls would pile into one room and have a “meeting” They all spoke in Thai and normally too quickly for me to understand much but it felt good because they all wanted me there and every now and then some one would explain one of the more “important” things being discussed. One thing I learned is that not matter where girls love to talk and it’s pretty much all the same.
All for now!
