Hello everyone.

These last few weeks I have been travelling all around the south of Thailand. Spending a few days on the islands. I have now been on 6 islands doing lots of different things!

On koh phi phi I trekked 2,000 metres to the viewpoint of the island. On the way down I saw monkeys and snakes. The monkeys saw us and threw coconuts down from the trees - very cheeky monkeys! We then went on a boat trip on phi phi and went to monkey island! It's a tiny beach full of monkeys. I was able to feed them nuts and bananas. I also had a bottle of coke and the local man said that they loved coke so I gave one my bottle, he climbed to the top of the tree and drank it!! As well as monkeys I have also fed elephants!!!

Christmas was very different over here. The local people do not celebrate Christmas - do any of you know why? There were no Christmas trees, decorations or presents to be seen. Some of the local people tried making us feel christmassy by wearing Christmas hats. We didn't even have roast for our dinner!

Another strange thing was that they do not celebrate new year the same time as us. Instead they celebrate it in April. They have a festival called songkran, which is basically a giant water fight. No one stays dry, there could be people going to work in suits, young children on the way back from school, it doesn't matter you're going to get wet. Even people riding motorbikes on the road will get soaked. The still have celebrations for us tourist. I spent my new year in a beach with 30,000 people, watching fire shows and an amazing fire work display. When iwas in 2016 it was 5 o clock in the afternoon in England still in 2015!

I have also learnt a little bit about schools over here. As they didn't celebrate Christmas they didn't have holidays like you did at home. Everyone has to pay for school over here so the children feel very lucky to have school. They get taught in Thai and English. English is a very important language for them to learn to get jobs when they are older. So by the age of 7 most children can speak 2 languages. However, they get taught Bangkok Thai which is a bit different to the Thai they speak on the islands. A bit like people from Cornwall use some different words to people from other parts of England like Newcastle for example.

We have been eating a lot of Street food here. People with a pan on the side of the road cook your meals. They are so cheap and you can eat for less than a pound. You can get all sorts of food and there are streets dedicated just for these Street vendors!

I have a couple of days left I'm Thailand and then I'm going to Cambodia. Cambodia is now rising as a tourist country after terrible things happened there about 40 years ago. I am going to a memorial place when I get there in the capital phnom Penh and I will tell you more about it then!

I hope you are all looking forward to learning this term and make sure you're good for Mr. Bradley and Miss Small