School Trip

We had a weekend trip to Ubon which is probably the nearest big city. It was just the three of us, me, Fleur and Clara. It was a mostly uneventful weekend. Wee walked around a bit, had lunch at pizza company and went to the cinema. We went to see a Thai film called Looser Lover which was actually quite good and very funny. I feel proud to say that I've seen a thai film in a thai cinema. While we were waiting for the film to start we played in the arcade on the racing things which was brilliant fun and passed away the time quite nicely.

Anyway, on Tuesday we went on a school trip with the secondary school. We were away for three days and three day. We left on Tuesday night on a hired bus and drove all the way to Bangkok. The trip started with an ominous 3 hours of painfully loud karaoke. When we first arrived in Bangkok we went to the school that we were going to sleep in. All the students, (girls and boys) slept in one room and the teachers got another. Since it was 7 in the morning, everyone got changed and breakfasted and we got back in the bus to go to the airport. We got a little tour of the airport which for me and Fleur wasn't all that interesting but for some of the students who had probably never seen an airport before, it was quite exciting and they all got lots of photos.

After that, we got back on the bus and headed to a beach nearby. It was quite surreal to go on trip to the beach for an afternoon in the middle of January and not be freezing cold. We wondered around there for a while. There were banana boats and mattresses being towed along by speed boats in the sea. Although, for a beach, there weren't very many farang and most people were thai.

Then we went back to the school for some sleep. Although not very much because we had to get up at 5.30 the next morning which proved completely pointless because the bus was broken and we didn't actually leave until 8.30. however when we finally did we headed to a show of some kind. It was a building a little like......i don't know, and there was a big show room. Then dotted around we stalls and stages that were showing music, and thai dancing etc. It was kind of like the highland show but indoors.

Then, we got lunch on the bus and continued our drive to Ayutaya, which is a nearby city with lots of historic temples. This time we went straight to the old palace. All the students got a tour and went around filling in sheets, while us teachers got a golf buggy and drove around. I even got to drive it for a while, it was brilliant fun! We did this for a while, fed some giant turtles in the river and got plenty of group pictures. Thai people are just crazy about getting photos.

After this we got a baot trip around Ayutaya. Ayutaya is basically an island because there is a river that runs around the entire city. We took the boat trip all the way round and it was remarkable. There we loads of houses along the edge ranging from wooden shanty houses to proper concrete ones that looked as if they might even have air conditioning. Most of them had some form of balcony that went out over the river. We went all the way round and by the time we had nearly finished the sun was setting and sky was a wonderful red. Truly lovely J

then we made our way to the second school we would sleep in. it was a really pretty school but there was only one room for all the students and teachers so as you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep. And this time it was an even earlier morning and although we were told we didn't have to get up till 7, everybody woke up at 4.30!! I was so angry. Anyway, we got up, had breakfast at this little restaurant and took a "basket" to a temple across the water. It was basically a wooden cable cart that could just about fit 8 people to go across. A really nice day. Then we went to the floating market and did a little bit of shopping. And then a few more temples before finishing our 11 hour bus journey back to good old Lerng Nokta.

So just had an amazing weekend. We were invited to go to Nakhon Sawan for an English campand 16 of the volunteers ended up going. We spent the first night in another project in Uthai Thani and had a big bbq together which was nice. The next mornigh we literally had to sprint for the bus so we didn't miss it and made the hour journey to Nakhon Sawan. From the bus station we went straight to the camp. We were to be teaching novice monks. Each pair had a half hour lesson, (I did numbers with clara) and repeated the lesson 7 times with all the different groups. The boys were not what I expected. They ranged in age from about 12 to 18, and a surprising amount of them were actually lady boys wearing make up and coloured contact lenses and all. they all had ohones and cameras, some even had laptops even though monks aren't supposed to have any material possessions. One boy had a prosthetic leg and another had only 3 toes. But they all got very into the games and we had quite a lot of fun.

Later that day, we got tour guides from the school who showed us around the Chinese new year festival. 40% of the population in Nakhon Sawan are Chinese or of Chinese descent so its quite a big deal. There is a huge parade that goes through town. There are loads of floats with dragons or girls doing Chinese dancing and weird little daemon things. It was amazing. Then down at the river there was so much more. There were of course Chinese lanterns just about everywhere. Also had huge paper statue type things, one for each sign of the Chinese zodiac. Then there were some seats where you could watch a show for an hour. it was manic. I have never seen streets so busy. You literally had to squeeze your way through people, but it was amazing.

The whole thing was organised by an ex volunteer who had come back to teach in Nakhon Sawan after university with her boyfriend. So we all went back to her house after the parade and sat up chatting and having well needed showers well into the early hours of the morning. As expected, there was slight lack of bedding so I slept on 3 towels on the floor which surprisingly wasn't too bad.

So at 12 oclock the next day we began our 15 hour journey back to Lerng Nokta and arrived at 6.30 am and went straight back to sleep in my own bed. It was another amazing weekend.