Being on the bus by 7am seemed like a reasonable thing to do. I would be awake anyway at that time if I was going to school and I would be at jades much quicker. This was not to be the case. After arriving in Khon kaen pretty seemlessly at about 10am I went straight to the visa place to extent my visa. You will be glad to know I am now the owner of a whole years working visa for Thailand. That was the easy bit. The next part of the day went down hill fast. Thinking a bus to Bangkok would be my quickest option I got on the first one that arrived into the terminal. Non air conditioned but this no longer bothers me as I am starting to feel more asian every day. It appeared to stop a lot but I thought that this wouldnt be too bad and I. would be there earlier than if I was still in Chaiyaphum. Oh how wrong I could be 5 hours into the bus journey the bus started to slow down in the middle lane, trying to take the sabay sabay approach I looked around but no one else seemed concerned so I continued listening to my music, after about 20 minutes the bus pulled over and the driver pulled out tools from the door then got underneath the bus. Still no one seemed worried so I sat quitly. The bus driver then got back on the bus and we rolled along in the hard shoulder for about 30minutes. I thought if he planned on doing this the rest of the way it could take a very long time to get anywhere. Eventually the bus pulled into a rest stop and everyone got off, still everyone looked like this was the most normal thing in the world. After a while a bus stopped on the main road and everyone got on. Things returned to normal after that, well as normal as they ever get in Thailand with the couple next to me taking pictures of me and insisting on talking Thai to me the rest of the way, taking my number so they could call me at a later date and talk more thai to me which of course they did do the following morning. The bus then stopped to let a live chicken off the bus. Yes you read correctly, there was livestock on the bus. It had its very own stop all on its own underneath a bridge. Again I looked around expecting shocked outraged faces but no I was greeted with nothing but normalcy. I arrived into bangkok, later than I would if I had taken the bus from chaiyaphum after school and into the wrong bus stop too. I eventually arrived at jades about 15 hours after leaving my house.

Jade and I spent most of the weekend hibernating in her room. partly because she had just got out of hospital and partly because we were planning our escape. I can tell you now as it has all completly changed but if we had stuck to the original plan we would be in Australia as you read this. I was bored in Chaiyaphum and getting restless we had everything organised and if the website hadnt crashed when we went to book who knows where we would be now. But it did crash and we booked flights for the following month(which we have also changed now again).

The following week was just school followed by more school although I did end up with Thursday and Friday off school due to an English competition. I spend Thursday morning judging a brutal spelling bee (one wrong answer and your out) and I had to ask them to spell pharmaceutical (spell checked it). Friday was Thai dancing competition so watching kids dressed up as adults and then an extended lunch with my teacher. Apparently this lack of organisation and desire to have classes is a north easten Thai thing, friends of mine in the south never seem to miss classes but of course they are also in private schools. I also learnt to play badminton, after avoiding the gym all weekend Bing took me to play badminton with her friends, I ended up playing bare foot and finished the night with massive blood blisters but I did go out and buy a new pair of trainers the next day so I could play again. I think most of you reading will know just how competitive I can be so I was hooked.

The weekend was spent visiting Dog Kra Jeau (or something like that) which is basically a field full of flowers. My landlord took us and all we had to do was pay petrol. I have to admit it didnt live up to the hype more like a forest in England like bluebell woods but the flowers were different. Lung also took us to miracle hill. This is a hill that things actually roll up! It was a bit strange at first we stopped at the side of the road and lung got out with a bottle of water and it rolled up the hill, it picked up speed and he actually had to chase it like he was running down a hill. OK I thought that was good but really? Then he got back in the car pulled onto the road and switched the engine off. The car started to roll up the hill! Apparently there is no explanation this is just how it is and I cant even work out how they found out it did this. Sunday I chilled out and went to school to tutor some kids for a competition on monday. They are brilliant kids with amazing characters so I dont mind coming in on my day off to do that for them.

Monday morning- no school again. This time to a meeting at the government office. Turns out the government will pay the school money towards us so we had to sit in a Thai meeting for most of the day not understanding a word but I did get a free lunch out of it.

During the week, Jade and I decided to stay the full time, both of us enjoying things a bit more and not wanting to let down our schools, the agency or the people that we had met here. It also meant that I could travel and for a month after finishing and finally get to dive in Thailand.

Friday - no school. Thai day, they promote speaking thai and therefore would be rude to teach english so another day of watching Thai dancing followed by lunch at my new favourite vegetarian restaurant followed by swensons ice cream treat from my teacher. She knows me too well now :-) Friday night is of course the olympics opening ceremony so I decided it was a good idea to stay up all night and watch it. I had a full day of extra classes the next day but armed with 2 cans of iced coffee and m150 (toxic concentrated relentless ) I not only survived the day but partied into the night with my first night out in chaiyaphum.

Sunday was rot day, the bad thing about Thailand - no russi's or charcoal grill for hangover munchies. I couldnt even find any posh orange juice to make me better. Ended up with Thai red curry which although delcious is not hanging food!