Hello all,

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments it's so so nice hearing from you all :)

The rest of my week in Bangkok flew by, sorry I haven't been keeping you all posted. The teacher training course wasn't half as intense as I thought it was going to be. Most of it was spent playing children's games and taking breaks to go and eat crepes. I think they were using the 'keep things varied and fast paced as children have short attention spans' technique on us! I did feel very settled in Bangkok very quickly though and tuk tuk almost seemed a normal way to travel (although it still got the heartrate going when they decided to speand most of the journey speeding down the wrong side of the road).

On the Thursday night we ended up going to the cinema, which was quite an experience. All the cinemas in Bagnkok are 'VIP' cinemas which means you get recliner chairs, blankets and your popcorn served to you at your seats. It was absolutely freezing in there though and the popcorn had a slightly fishy taste to it. Also, I had heard that they played the national anthem at the start of the film but we had arrived late so we didn't have to stand. We had been walking round ealier on in the day though and it came on over the speakers and everybody stopped dead in their tracks. It's very wierd in a city as bustle-y as Bangkok to see everybody suddenly stand still. Julie, in answer to your question, when we were at the station waiting to get the overnight train, they played the national anthem on the hour, every hour but a couple of us were in the toilet at the time and didn't hear it get played. I think it must be disrespectful to play the national anthem in the loo so, no, you don't have to stand.

Our last training day was saturday and we went to catch the overnight train that evening. It was surprisingly comfortable, as they folded out beds for you and everything and, apart from waking up each time they announced the next station over the tannoy, it was a pretty good nights sleep. We arrived at Suritani and had our usual breakfast of scrambled egg on toast (it's always amazing here, who would have guessed that Thailand was the best place to go for scrambled eggs?) before getting on a coach and catching the ferry. We sat on the top deck of the ferry and it was pretty cloudy but we got to see some lovely views of the islands. Every now and then they'd be a massive spray of water from the waves and we'd all get drenched. Getting my luggage on and off the boat was a bit of a task as well since I'd managed to break the straps of my backpack. And I also didn't notice myself catching the sun on my nose and arms so I'm a little bit pink now. But I did actually enjoy sitting ouy on the deck sipping a Spy (which is a wine spritzer type drink that I think we have in England but it's called Subai or something like that). Once we got to the island we got loaded onto our pick-up truck and driven to our accomodation, a place called Phangan Tropicana which was a few minutes away, near Thong Sala. It is amazing. I can't really describe how gorgeous they are but I'll load up some pictures soon. I couldn't get into my bungalow for a while though because the previous occupier had been to the Full Moon Party the night before (yep, we missed the big monthly full moon party by one night) and was still asleep in the hammock. Once I could get in, we all went for a swim in the sea. It was lovely, althought there's lots of coral about so you have to be careful not to cut your feet to pieces. After having a bit of an explore and settling in, we decided to head up to Haad Rin, the big town where most of the partying takes place! We had a lovely carbonara (I have been eating Asian food most of the time, believe it or not) before heading down to the sea front for getting some buckets to drink. There was loads of stalls selling drink along the front, and lots of people playing with fire (they looked like they knew what they were doing, but I wasn't tempted to join in the fire limbo). We also decided to try a sheesha (I have no idea if that is spelt right. And don't worry mum, it's not drugs, it's just apple tasting stuff.) It was a bit pants to be honest because it didnn't work very well. But I had a really really good night dancing around the beach to all the music blaring out from the bars and I'm really looking forward to the next full moon party.

We've got an island tour tomorrow and we get to find out what schools we're teaching at and with who. The teaching itself doesn't start until Friday or perhaps next week. I'm quite nervous about it but also looking forward to it as well.