I know it's been ages since I last wrote, and Koh Samui seems like such a long time ago now, but I'll do my best to try and remember all the nitty gritty details...

I left for Samui last thursday, all on my lonesome as a kind of trial run for later on in my travels. The boat was a little bit late and, being the panicker that I am, I was so scared I wasn't going to get a room before it got dark that I went for the first place I came across after stepping out of the taxi on Lamai beach (which was silly, as Utopia resort is mentioned in both lonely planet and rough guide as an ok option which meant if this place had beds, most other places were likely to!). The room itelf was ok, but the walls were so thin and everytime a car drove past it felt like it was in my room. Also, I'd left my passport in my room in Koh Phangan, but when I was checking in the woman on the desk wanted to make a note of my visa number. Cue another major panic from me, but I explained I was teaching on Phangan and she said 'ah, teacher, it's fine'. Haha, being a farang teacher gets you so far here, taxi discounts, gets rid of unwanted attention and is a good conversation starter!

Anyway, after sitting in my room 'reading the guidebook' (i.e. procrastinating because I was too much of a baby to go out by myself) I decided that enough was enough and I should go and get myself some dinner. After wondering up and down lamai for a while, trying to suss out my best option, I went for phad thai in the night market and managed to spot a couple of girls who I recognised from the boat on the way over so I sat and ate dinner with them and a french guy who joined us. After that, I decided to go and check out some of the bars in the area (although a lot of them were ladybars, which was a bit scary). I decided to stop off at the Samui Shamrock and get some apple crumble for dessert and to watch the band that were about to play. The band looked like they were going to be a bit of a joke but they were actually pretty good (and at this point I was relatively sober!). After a while of sitting by myself one of the waitresses came over to me and kept saying 'come and sit with my sister!' so I ended up spending the rest of the evening talking to the waitress and her sister whilst constantly being bought pitchers of cocktails to share with them. There was also another couple there on their honeymoon (there was a lot of couples on their honeymoon in Samui!) who the waitress had befriended earlier on in the week and who came a joined us also. By the end of the night we were dancing on stage with the band before being taken to a 'discoteque' by the 2 thai girls. It was a very fun night, but I did start to regret it the next morning when I had to be up bright and early for a trip that I'd booked around the island.

The tour took us to the major tourist sights of Samui and first stop was a temple called Wat Leam Suwanaram which is famous for having lots of huge fish in the ponds that surround it and you could buy fish food from the monks. There was some really wierd photographs near the entrance that we couldn't work out what they were for... most of them we off dead bodies, most at the scene of death and most of them looked quite violent (for example, there was a close up of a dead monk's face with blood coming from his head). It was all a bit gruesome and the closest thing we could suggest was a that it was perhaps showing various monks that had been killed for demonstrating, as a lot seemed to have the same date. Next stop was the Big Buddha, which was pretty much what it said on the tin, but there was also other models around the temple, that showed different parts of Buddhas life and showed things like men demons having their heads bitten off by crocs and wierd heamaphrodite beigns that live in the water. There were also little slot machines with glitzy lights where you could put 5 baht in and it would give you a number, which related to descriptions of your future stuck on the wall. It was very weird and tacky (obviously I did it). Next stop were the grandmother and grandfather rocks which were formations that looked like the respective genitals of each (samui is a classy place). Then we moved on to the monkey show, where there was a demonstration of how monkeys are used in the world of coconut business to gather the fruit from the trees (we have actually seen this happening just outside out bungalows in Phangan already). We all had our pictures taken with a vicious looking monkey (the woman in charge kept stressing 'DO NOT TOUCH THE MONKEY'. I was a bit scared about what it would actually do if touched!) and then went on to drink some coconut milk from the coconuts brought down by the monkey. Next on the list was the mummified monk at another temple. Very odd, it was basically a dead body in a glass box that was apparently, miraculously 'under-decomposed'. It looked pretty decomposed to me and it was all a bit grim. We then moved on to the waterfalls in Namuang Park, which was a much prettier sight. There was a guide at the bottom of the waterfalls who said he would take us to a pool where we could swim and that it wasn't far! It was bloody far and the walk was as steep as when we climbed Khao Ra, but this time I was in flip flops! Once we got there though, it was definately worth it, and the guide took pictures of us all swimming at the top of the waterfalls. The view was gorgeous. I pretty much had to run back to the tourbus though as I was nearly late. Last stop was Nathon, where there's a great big market place but at this point I just wanted to get some food! I think I managed to find the only resturantuer in Thailand who cannot cook rice though, the choices were 'boiled' or 'plain', so I went for boiled and it literrally came undrained, in the water it had been cooked in. I think something may have been lost in translation one way or the other!

After I got back to my little room, I decided to get ready and head out to Chaweng beach for the evening. I sat on the beach there, watching the sunset, with a pina colada looking at all the pretty fairylights that had been set up outside all the resturants. Then I went to find myself some tasty seafood for dinner, which was delicious. When I was walking back down the beach, a guy with a monkey and a camera started heading for me and I thought I was being clever when I decided I was just going to pretend I was scared of monkeys, and then he wouldn't try and sell me a photo with it. It didn't work, even though I was almost screaming at him he still put the monkey on my head and went 'photo?' and wouldn't take it off me even when I'd tipped my head so much the monkey was literally hanging onto my hair. In the end some german girl came and took the monkey off me. So, a little tip for you all, pretending to be scared doesn't keep the hawkers away! The main strip behind the beach was a jam packed street of bars, stalls, tacky shops, not quite so tacky shops, and western names like Boots, Maccys and Starbucks. After wandering around for a while, I was so tired from the night before and I had to catch the 7am boat in the morning so I decided to head home and try and sleep in the noisy room.

Back in Phangan, there was a film festival going on on the beach that evening, so a couple of us went along to that. It was something a bit different, to be sat on the beach watching a huge screen. A lot of it was preachy, american climate change malarky but there was a very funny short called 'Is there a pong?' which probably seemed all the funnier because of the cheesy, long hippy stuff that came before and after it.

On Monday, Mustansar's Thai friend Tharin came down to visit from Bangkok and came into the school to teach with us. It was really good having somebody who spoke Thai in the classroom and, at the end of the lesson with P.4 Tharin asked the class if they had anything they wanted to say to us or ask us. We had meant for them to ask anything about the lessons that they didn't like or understand, but they were much more interested in things like what our parents names were and whether I had a boyfriend or not. One of the kids asked if I had graduated from uni and then asked what grade I had got. When Tharin translated back to them, they all gave me a round of applause. Haha, I'm really going to miss teaching them!

Apart from that, it's mostly been scrimping and saving to try and get to the end of this placement without spending too much more money! I made sure I got a pancake on Tuesday (although there so much better when they're made at home!). Today, we were sent on a last minute snorkelling trip to Koh Tao, all paid for by pod. It was amazing, the water at Koh Tao (and on the little island off of Koh Tao called something like Koh Nuanyuan) is the clearest I have ever seen, ever. There were so many fish about, big long pike fish, schools and schools of little tiny stripy fish and big parrot fish. I can't wait to try scuba diving there. I don't think I'm going to do the full PADI open water course now, because of time and money (and also because I'm scared about equalising my ears!) but I'm definately going to go over to Koh Tao and do a day course next weekend. Then it's on to Krabi. I can't believe there's only days left of teaching now! It's very scary and sad but also really exciting!