Rain and food!

(Bear with me while I describe my gastronomic experiences, it has been a good week!) On sunday night we were invited round to another volunteers' house, Sunny and Andy, for some serious Thai cuisine. Sunny had gone all out and cooked enough to feed an army, including special chicken and cashewnuts for me, a coconut soup with prawns and chicken, beef soup, starters and to round it off we had shortbread (proper english stuff!) and so much fruit! And special mention must go to Andy for amazing dragon fruit and apple shakes. Monday night involved an all you can eat (yay!) bbq where we were just given the raw meat and a stove to cook it on, amazing! And tuesday I had a strop and demanded pizza, we searched high and wide for pizza that was under a fiver (considered extortionate here!) and finally found a place for three pounds, it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had! And I'll stop raving now (but when you've eaten nothing but rice for 3 weeks pizza takes on a new significance!).

Unfortunately the other overriding theme of the week has been rain rain and more rain. It involved a mad dash from the beach to the nearest restaurant on the motorbike yesterday; finishing the outside lesson early at the orphanage and racing to the truck as we saw the enormous black cloud getting closer and closer; getting rather wet in the back of the pick up truck (and laughing at everyone on their motorbikes) and comedy pantomime horse style running under a mat to try and stay dry!

Teaching has started to get really good which makes me sad to leave but maybe it is better this way. I had just started to get to know some of the kids at the orphanage and some of the locals during the 'Lazy classes': my favourite tour operator looked quite distressed when I said I was leaving (though maybe this is because I haven't bought a tour with her yet despite her offering me a 'special price')! Today and tomorrow we are doing an English Camp at a school about an hour and a half away, a full day of intensive english lessons for the kids with an emphasis on 'fun learning'...a nightmare, who knew fun could be so much hard work?! I am desperately trying to think of fun games you can play to do with the seasons...We have been treated like celebrities there though, food given to us every time we so much as move, all the kids wanting our autographs and peering through the windows at us!

I have my last day of teaching tomorrow and then I am off to do some serious beach hopping. Though if this rain malarky continues I won't be very amused, I need to get my tan going again!The next stop is Krabbi then Kho Phi Phi where 'The Beach' was filmed. Then I have decided to keep heading south through Malaysia for a couple of weeks. Burma was proving to be too much stress and hassle so I think I will save it for another time when they have transport that works and atms (anyone want to come with me?!)...

Sights, smells and sounds of Thailand

Having been in Thailand almost a month now I thought this would help you to imagine all the things I've been experiencing!

Sounds

The bloody rooster and dogs outside the bungalow waking us up at 5 in the morning! The loudest crickets. Forty kids shouting 'good mooorning teeeacher' at us. The little boy in one class whose sole English word is 'exactly' which he said with almost a perfect english accent. The trucks that drive past really slowly with advertisements blaring out of megaphones. The rain as it really starts pouring. Fantastic Thai pop music which they like playing at full blast on buses. Thai mobile ringtones, they all seem to be we wish you a merry christmas or jingle bells, why?!



Sights

All the smiles. Thais all look grumpy until you smile at them and then their faces light up. Driving in the back of the TVC truck looking out at the amazing jungle/hilly scenery (and feeling slightly sick as you drive around the bends) and overtaking whole families on motorbikes. The classic Khao Lak scene, a beautiful sunset with a speedo-clad pot bellied over bronzed German walking down the beach (or not to be sexist a saggy wrinkly over bronzed German lady with ill fitting bikini). Gorgeous little kids, I want to take them all home! Shoes outside all the houses/shops/schools. The sunsets and the beaches, wow, Bournemouth just doesn't quite live up to it!



Smells (mostly not very pleasant, unfortunately rather pungent!)

THAT sewer smell, I've almost got used to it now! Sweaty and smelly little children! Exhaust fumes from the back of the truck or from on the motorbike. Amazing coconut curry soup smell. The sweet smell of the flowers and incense that hang on all the spirit houses. The smell of rain as it hits hot tarmac (aah!)...

An intrepid adventure!

After rather a stressful week of teaching I decided to skive the last couple of days and head to Khao Sok, a national park about an hour and a half away where we were in high hopes of seeing tigers, bears and being attacked by leeches! I went with the Canadian family and had fun times trying to find a guest house to sleep all 5 of them in 1 room. Eventually found somewhere and I had my own little hut to myself, rather cute (with no sink and a shower drain that was just a hole out to the ground below!). We had a great time elephant trekking through the jungle and then got to feed the elephants which was awesome! The drama all started when I attempted to go to bed that night..Just as I was about to fold in my mosquito net who should come crawling on the wall opposite but a not-so-friendly cockroach! My nice little hut became a hut of horror as I chased the little beast around the hut with a torch, discovering a pile of mouse droppings on the way, and the evil cockroach then proceeded to burrow in between the mattress and the bed! Even after spending about half an hour trying to get the mosquito net folded into the bed as tightly as possible I still had rather a sleepless night!

The next morning I had booked to go on to a tour of a massive lake about 60 km away. Met my new travel buddies for the trip, 2 rather good looking german boys (which brings my nice german count up to 5!) and jumped in the back of the pick up truck. The lake was amazing, it was so blue and had incredible limestone formations rising up out of the lake, thickly covered with trees and vegetation, like something out of a James Bond film. We even spotted some gibbons and a toucan! The afternoon involved a trek in the jungle and it was there I discovered maybe I'm not quite so intrepid as I would have myself believe! The jungle bit was fab but the last part of the walk involved going through some caves for about half an hour. Being slightly claustrophobic and not especially fond of bats, spiders and whatever else lived in these caves it wasn't really my cup of tea! We had to walk, crawl and eventually swim through the cave with flashlights in mouths, about a million bats above us and weird rock formations on either side. It was an experience! And it was only later when I finally reached the other side that I was told that 8 people had been killed there last year when the cave had flooded when it rained...eek. Think I'll stick to jungle hiking from now on!

Staying the night on the lake was fantastic, the water was so warm and there was only a group of about 10 houses so it was so quiet (apart from the german boys deciding to go midnight swimming). I went canoeing in the morning (slightly less extreme though did manage to almost get lost!), managed to find somewhere where all you could was deafening roar of the crickets, the calls of the gibbons and the water lapping against the shore, incredible.

So sadly no bears or tigers and it wasn't rainy enough for leeches but the bats were enough for me for the moment! I headed back to Khao Lak to find a beach and some R&R and it has rained all afternoon! Not very amused though I have got the coolest bike, it is brand new, orange and white and the acceleration is rather responsive! I strive to be cool enough to carry it off!

Teacher teacher...

The teaching here is rather chaotic and quite hilarious. We go in the pick up truck to around 6 different schools in the area and teach classes of 30 up to about 90 of all different ages. Unfortunately this week seems to have been the week of learning road signs so I am now intimately acquainted with the ways of the Thai roads and how to say 'no farm machinery' and 'do not turn left' in Thai, always useful! The kids are so gorgeous though with the most lovely smiles, we arrive and are interrogated with 'what is your name' and 'where you come from' being shouted at us as we stand in front of the class! Their level of English is quite variable and apparently my accent is harder to understand than the Germans talking English (grr don't get me started on the germans again!) so I have a bit of trouble trying to have a conversation. The Canadian kids are quite a hit in the school too; we were bombarded with stickers from the 11 year old girls today, I think 9 year old Zak quite enjoyed it though was a bit embarrassed! His first experience of being a hearthrob...

Other teaching that we do is quite appropriately called the 'Lazy class' (it takes place in the Lazy House Bar) where we have english conversation classes with the local hotel and bar staff, taxi drivers and tour operators. This is really good though as it is often 1 on 1 the poor things must feel interrogated! I had quite a hilarious conversation trying to explain the difference between guys/guides (as she was pronouncing them both the same) with a tour operator who actually laughed herself under the table when she understood why I was confused!

Tomorrow I have persuaded the 'head' teacher, a slightly crazy expat northerner called Ken, that we dispense with road signs and do something different instead, we're going for occupations, who knows what we might come up with! We will just have to go with the flow...

Fitting in with the locals

Having been in Khao Lak for a week I am now fully scornful of all the sunburnt German tourists and am determined to try and become a local, apart from the obvious problem of not really looking Thai! I now remove my shoes before going into shops, restaurants and schools; I bow to most Thais that I meet and mumble something in the hope they will recognise my faltering attempts at their language; I have bought a fantastic pair of 'fisherman's pants' which are enormous trousers that you fold over, very cool; I only eat Thai food though I can't quite manage their spicy curries yet, and I have decided the only way to travel is either in the back of a pick up truck or by motorcycle! Yes, I managed a whole day on what was actually a moped without falling off and absolutely loved it, even if I didn't go any faster than 40 kmph. Unfortunately I've rather spoiled the rest of the attempt by getting quite sunburnt over the weekend but I'm hoping it will fade!

The weekend was absolutely fabulous: not content with the gorgeous beach in Khao Lak where I spend most evenings watching the sunset I spent the weekend beach hopping. First a day trip to the Similan Islands which are about an hour away by speedboat, white sand and turquoise waters and some of the most amazing fish I've ever seen (no Nemos though, I was devastated). Sadly I had to share this with more sunburnt Germans (see a theme here?!) so the view was rather marred. I was befriended by an Austrian couple who moaned from the minute we got on the boat to the minute they left it. But they made sure I didn't get left behind when we were snorkelling so I guess they had their uses!

On sunday I met my NBF Carolyn (a new volunteer from Bradford) and have now moved in with her in her nice bungalow in amongst the banana trees, sadly 10 minutes further away from the beach but made up for by the halving of price from the guesthouse I was staying in. Back to cold showers though! We hired motorbikes and set off to find Poseidon beach, in a secluded bay and nestled among rocks. Unfortunately we were greeted by...guess what...more sunburnt and topless Germans but managed to find a spot where the view wasn't impaired too much! We then 'zoomed' up a hill to find a waterfall, watched sunset from another beach and spent the evening eating curry with the Canadian family. Bliss...

N.B. As you have probably realised, the Germans are not high on my list of favourite people at the moment having been kept awake for most of the night by them partying in the bungalow next door! So if this post seems rather anti-German I do apologise and blame it on my lack of sleep, I'm sure I will be more complimentary tomorrow!

Paradise Lost

So, after a pretty nightmarish journey south (involving far too many buses with no air conditioning and an added 8 hours to the journey time, but it just wouldn't be travelling without these little challenges would it?!) I arrived on Sunday in Khao Lak, a little town about 2 hours north of Phuket. 3 years ago it was just starting to pick up as a tourist destination when the tsunami hit. The waves were over 9 m high here and killed over 5 000 people. It's hard to even imagine what that must have been like. As I walked along the beach it looked so peaceful (though rather a lot of red sunburnt Germans, do they not know about suncream yet?!), an idyllic spot with palm trees, thai massage on the beach and fruit stalls everywhere. The people are all so friendly (at breakfast this morning I got shown all the family photos from one lady) but the town still feels like it's recovering, there are new smart resorts springing up all along the beach but the tourists are only slowly trickling back.

My first day as a volunteer involved going on a 'post-tsunami experience', seeing some of the effects of the tsunami and the projects now going on to help people rebuild their lives. We saw massive boats in the middle of fields and villages (at least 1 km away from the sea) that had been swept there by the waves, a new housing project with houses designed by a German engineer which were apparently meant to be tsunami proof and a craft centre set up by a Japanese monk for women who had lost their husbands during the tsunami and therefore had no way of making money. The most affecting part of the day was visiting a beach that had once been clear waters and white sand; the impact of the waves had caused the beach to be cluttered with coral from the nearby reef and massive volcanic rocks from the floor of the ocean to be deposited in the shallow water. 3 years later most of the construction work is now done and the volunteering mainly centres on teaching English to the hotel owners, taxi drivers and children in the region, as over 70 % of the English speakers were killed. Not really knowing what to expect with the volunteer centre (www.tsunamivolunteer.net), I was surprised at how small it is; there are only around 10-12 other volunteers apart from me including a Canadian family with 3 kids who I think will be great with playing with the children in the schools. But everyone is friendly and willing to pitch in and it's good to have people to chat to again.

We had our first afternoon teaching today, slightly chaotic but great fun, the children are gorgeous with a great sense of humour. We attempted to do road signs with them, there are some bizarre ones in Thailand such as 'no bicycles, samlaws and motorcycles' and 'no parking on odd days'. I think the kids were slightly baffled by this! The teaching seems quite laid back and the volunteers and people that run the centre are very friendly so I'm pretty happy at the moment! Added to the fact I am 7 minutes walk from the beach and the sea is warmer than my shower...it's a hard life!

New Friends?

Is one advantage of travelling on your own is to meet new people that you would never have spoken to otherwise? This is definitely proving to be the case so far! The big advantage I can see is that you can leave them knowing you never have to see them again!

First off the 6 Turkish men from Marmaris I met on the plane from Bahrain. They took me under their wing determined to look after me once they knew I was on my own. This unfortunately involved a lot of poking while I was asleep so that I didn't miss the food/menus/headphones etc. At the airport I was 'picked up' by 3 male nurses from Saudi Arabia, 1 kiwi, 1 canadian and 1 american called Bob. Not bad going for being in the country approximately half an hour. I managed to blag my way into a taxi with them (which they then consequently paid for!) but started to regret this as Bob started swearing at the taxi driver for not speaking english properly (hello, we're in Thailand?!). George the Canadian started taking pictures and making comments about hot girls we were driving past while Bob (who I will point out was short and bald and wearing an armani scarf. Enough said) pressed up against me in the back. Quite amusing really! But a free taxi ride is a free taxi ride and it left me feeling hopeful that I could meet some vaguely normal people.

Not so. A trip to the old capital Ayuthaya (a lot of old rocks and Buddhas with heads cut off by the Burmese) for the day had me stuck with a hippy natural nutritionist who before we had even got there had told me her life story (involving her son being in prison and mentally disturbed) and tried to get me into meditation. She felt the atmospheres in the places pretty keenly and would run off taking photos left right and centre of old rocks. I was almost sorry to see her go though, we had bonded over her life story and the fact she lives in Bournemouth.

Today I have kept myself to myself for the most part (trying not to get involved with hippies again!) except for a charming German at breakfast and some very nice Irish people who gave me directions and tips. I negotiated the Thai buses to go to Chatuchak market which was immense, found some incredible shoes and tried not to buy too much. Braved a food stall for lunch and I am now killing time until my 'VIP' bus down south this evening, apparently there is air conditioning, blankets and reclining seats!

Although I have only been here only 2 days I feel like an old hat at Khao San Road. The crazy hippies and dredlocks everywhere, the shakes for sale at every corner as well as clothes and tat galore. And just for the record, it is HOT! Though I arrived on thursday to torrential rain which left the whole of Khao San Road flooded and most people wading through the road in bare feet. I sat there with my pineapple shake and watched the world get drenched around me and thought, this is the life hey!

Nearly off! The grand plan

Well it's now only 5 days till I'm off halfway across the world to 40 degree heat, curry and hopefully not too many lady-boys. Typically I am not organised at all and am hoping everything will sort itself out at the last minute..visas, hostels, packing, transport etc!

I'm flying into Bangkok on thursday and then heading down south to the Tsunami volunteer centre in Khao Lak for 3 weeks. Then who knows where I might head but Burma is pretty appealing (much to my parents' dismay) or to see orangutans in Borneo. Or just be a beach bum on Thailand's beaches. Andrea, my favourite Yankee friend from my first gap year in Uganda, is coming to meet me at the end of March and we plan to go to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia before I fly home at the end of April.

Will it all fall into place or will I be arrested for lack of visas/taking accidental pictures of the military in Burma/forgetting to buy a bus ticket? Will I make it back without being tempted by a tattoo?! And will I stick to my motto: 'Do one thing every day that scares you..' Watch this space!