So I have had a nice few days. Thursday I went on a school trip with the older children joining 15 other schools. Where I met two other Thai english teachers whose english skills are to prefection! Wairin managed to translate everything for me throughout the day, she is so lovely. I went to Kampheng Phet the capital of the Province I am staying in, it was still a 2 hour journey to get there. We visited 700 year old temple ruins, which were all very interesting to see as I have never seen anything quite like it. Of many ruins there was one temple surrounded by 300 stone carved elephants as they were seen as the holy animal which would protect them from evil. I also visited some museams discovering there are 6 different kind of budhas from different areas of Thailand. I was able to visit a beautiful rich Thai house, which was immaculatley decorated and carved. I experienced prayer from a monk in a temple and saw a stunning budha shrine.

At the weekend with the Thai teachers, I visited a monkey mountain where many photos were taken of my first occurance with wild monkeys. We climbed the small mountain with sticks in our hands to scare away any viscious monkeys and prod any snakes we may have come across! When we got to the top there were breath taking views over looking the rice paddies and stunning sheer mountains apparently home to thousands of bats. Following that visit we went to some national parks filled with high trees and gorgeous waterfalls. The waterfalls were a wonderful refreshing break in the hot humid weather. I dipped in the waterfalls and went down some small rapids which looking back at it wasn't a wise idea after discovering a few scratches! I had a laughable conversation with some young thai adults, they just wanted to compare their skin to mine. The picnic at the waterfall was like no other with chicken feet sat on a plate infront of me. The scenery on the trip was amazing, just wish I was within a bike ride away from the waterfalls.

On Sunday I cycled with the American Volunteer to Warin's house, an english teacher from a nearby school. She cooked some lovely thai food for us and showed us her back garden, where she had pet pigs (Mum not sure you really want pet pigs they take up huge part of the garden and they smell!). She also had a rather big pond (Dad your's look's pretty pathetic to hers but cleaner!). She had a very impressive shelter by the pond which was hand built in 4 days, I thought you'd be impressed by the craftmanship Phil so took a few pics of it. They only used local natural resources. We visited her school in a very scenic spot by the foot of a mountain. The school were growing their own produce; mushrooms, veg, pigs and even toads that they cook for their lunch! We visited a local river where the fishermen had their own ways of catching fish and followed on to visit the near by jungle, where I got bitten alive, yet again!

I have been told I have seen everything in the surrounding area now, but I am hoping to go to the ancient city of Thailand (Sukothai) with Warin on Saturday. I am enjoying teaching and funnily enough enjoy teaching the older children as they understand me more and they are picking up the language with ease. I may even teach in a secondary school after interest from an english teacher rather scary but will be an experience. My host is being very nice buying me my food and cooking delicious food, although I had to sincerely apologise after screwing up my face from eating a special desert of there's. She just laughed and pointed to the bin!

I hope you are all well and work isn't too much of a bore or stressful.

Happy Birthday to Grannie too, sorry I got cut off my credit ran out.

Love you all lots, thanks for all your messages x