Got the job in Canada! After a 30 min phone interview with the super nice camp director David, he said he would love to offer me the job and is going to send the contract out to me. Just checked my email to find one from him saying what a pleasure it was to talk to me, how thrilled he was to have me aboard, and welcomed me to the Manitou family (the camp is called camp manitou) what a nice guy!

Thrilled to have got the job - free accommodation and food for 8 weeks in Canada and they're paying me on top of that - fantastic for uni!

So starting from where I left off: woke up the morning after my interview, and having only told 3 people, everyone came and asked me how it went, and if I got the job. It was really nice how much everyone cares, cant believe how nice everyone is!

Had a quick brief over breakfast, we were temple touring that day, so all the girls had to cover up their knees and shoulders, and as our Thai guide said - "don't sexy dress!" the rules are quite strict - while at the temples all the girls can't make eye contact with a monk, and cannot touch them. Otherwise they can't be a monk anymore. It goes to the extent where if they want to pass something to a monk they have to give it to a man to pass along, or use a cloth.

So we all set out for a day on our cool taxi/trucks. Some really beautiful temples, but lots of stairs. The 1st was beautifully set in a cave, and we learnt how to make offerings to the buddha, and how to enter and leave a temple properly. (sounds easy but it's actually a lot of bowing and kneeling)

On the way out we climbed out of the cave and up some very hot metal and stone steps to a special shrine on top of the mountain. Amazing views from here.

Climbing back down to where we left our shoes (you can't wear them in the temple) we walked by a monk, I said hello to him (in Thai) and he wished me good luck! Walked back to the taxis feeling very special with my awesome monk luck.

Onto the next temple, which had a huge gold buddha and some amazing towers. We climbed up 8 huge flights of stairs to see a huge gold shrine at the top.

Then onto the last temple where we would have our meditation lesson. Every boy in Thailand has to do at least a certain number of weeks of being a monk (I forget how many, most do it over a summer holiday.) so the temple was full of mini-monks! Before the lesson they insisted on making us lunch - more amazing Thai food, with some weird sweet beans for dessert we hadn't had before.

Had a very fun meditation lesson, with some background info on Buddhism. Then taught all the boys learning to be monks some easy English.

Then drove to the mall for some shopping. Had a huge Oreo ice cream and then bought water guns for the upcoming songkran festival - Thai new year where everyone throws water at each other.

Few hours chilling at the pool back at the hostel before going out for dinner, had some very nice kao klong. (rice and shrimp paste with mangos, chilli and onions) then on to the night market. Loads of different things, was after buying some tshirts (I only came out with 3) but didn't find any I liked.

Back to the hotel for a late night pool party, tried setting up the sun loungers for a game of water polo, but the ball kept flying off and we didn't want to lose it to the river Kwai.

Today we got up and had breakfast as usual, then armed up with water guns, and put electronics in waterproof bags. All day long when we were driving we would get soaked by random bunches of children with massive buckets of water. It felt good to be at least partially able to retaliate. And we did our fair share of drive bys.

Today was spend in another part of the erawan national park, they're was a large waterfall which most of the group stayed at, apart from a few of us who trekked 2 miles past the waterfall into the forest to a cave.

Had to squeeze through a tight tunnel before it opened out into a massive cave. Really amazing stalagmites and stalactites, and not so amazing bats and huge cave spiders. Quick trek back to the waterfall before getting the taxi to the train station. Got the train along the 'death railway' (built in ww2 by allied prisoners of war and Thai slaves, the death part is because so many of them died)
More great views along here, but most of the fun was shooting people at the train stations with water!

Quick stop off at the market (still no tshirts!) before heading back to the hotel. Since then we had a massive water fight, it's great being on the top floor with bottles of water!

Just writing this before heading out for dinner, still fully armed with water. Expecting a wet messy night!

Hope you all enjoy the blog!

Got to go as I'm getting sprayed and don't want to get my phone wet!

Josh xx

Photo is my weapon for the week! :P