Today was very quiet! We arrived at school at normal time 8am.. and there were no other teachers there yet. A big night at the wedding could be the explanation. The day started off normally, with a whole school sweeping slash clean up session, followed by the school song and prayers. They also do this crazy sawaa deee ka (hello) thing where they pass the phrase from one side of the school to the next line.. saying hello to the people next to them. Today was fun as we did more how are you phrases and had a beautiful lunch in Bingarn. We then followed Pee Hong and Pee Pok aroundt he markets, trying different fruits and rice and other kinds of fods. Back to school we went for an afternoon teaching session. We played follow the leader, under over and Simon says.. Good times! Hoorar for Friday afternoon finally.. time to have a few sneaky beers and relax.. or maybe not! Instead we bought an ice cream and sat on the river.. We headed home and were advised that Pee Hong and the kids were coming around at 8 for an english lesson, which kind of destroyed the idea of any alcoholic beverages. We had a quiet dinner and then practiced english and reading with the kids. We were so damn tired at 10 when they finally left, we felll asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Saturday morning! Hoorar! A day to relax, sleep in and do nothing.. or so we thought. We were woken at 7 in the morning by loud voices in the living room. We got out to go to the toilet only to be confronted by swarms of relatives sitting cross legged in the living room having breakfast.. all interested in where we were from and how old we are.. Pretty sure we both escaped back to our english humble abode (our bedroom) where we can speak english fast, and have a conversation without playing chriades! WAHOOO! When we finally heard silence out side we decided to rise and have breakfast and begin the day.. Try and guess how many different forms of rice one individual can consume in one single day..? It started with breakfast.. Sticky rice #1 and coffeee! Yummy.. Our host mum and dad had gone to a neighbouring village for the day to further their studies.. We played with the kids, Skipping and drawing for part of the morning and then decided to go for a bicycle ride to A hong temple (3km each way). The ride was great and on the way we bought rice crackers (similar to rice bubbles #2, we also bought this sticky sweet rice with sweet potatoe in the middle #3 wrapped in a single banana leaf which was also really yummy. We lazed around in the sun at the temple for a good hour where we met quite possibly the only other farangs in the entire village and neighbouring villages! Two Germans that were also quite glad to meet some english speaking tourists! We rode back home and went out for lunch which proved to be quite the mission.. Apparently only certain food stands are open on certain days, that sell only certain things.. We ended up at a little table and chairs eating kaoew paad (freid rice #4) Yummy yummy! We then had an afternoon nap and got up just in time for dinner, which consisted of yes.. steamed rice #5, chicken, vegetables, curry and sweet sticky young rice #6 (it was green and soo soo good). Aftr eating all that rice, six different kinds, we decided it was time to call it a night and went to bed at 8.

xx

Rikki and Prue