Well it’s Monday evening and I’m sat here typing another blog after another wonderful weekend. This is the last Monday I will ever be sat here in my small, bug-infested room that has been my humble abode for the past nine weeks. I’m feeling rather sad as the end of the week draws nearer and nearer, which means my time teaching here will finally come to an end. This morning I woke up feeling very excited for some unusual reason; the sun was shining bright and I knew that this week would be a good one. I had an amazing day with my grade 3 kindergarten classes. Considering the pupils have exams all week and we were told we wouldn’t be teaching, I obviously didn’t prepare anything for classes. So when I turned up to my first class (to apparently invigilate) and the teacher told me to stand and teach, I really had no idea what to teach them. I’d decided that my last week would be fun and games focused, so the first thing that came into my head was to get them all in a circle and do the ‘Hokey Cokey’. Woww did this go down an absolute treat, they loved it! If anyone’s ever stuck with a group of children anywhere and they’re annoying the hell out of you or your jokes aren’t enough to keep them entertained, line them up in a circle pronto and introduce them to this cheeky number.

So I started today on a really big high, but as I write this now at 22:20 I am ending my day on a low. It’s sinking in that I only have three and a half more teaching days left. When I think back to my first day and how nervous I was-thrown in at the deep end, teaching literally whatever came into my head and wishing the 50 teaching minutes would hurry up and end- I realise that, in fact, not much has changed since then. Okay that’s a joke. In actuality I realise how far I’ve come since my first week. I have a lot more confidence speaking to large groups of people; a result which has not only come from teaching but having to stand in front of all the kindergarteners and teachers every Tuesday and Friday and perform a song/nursery rhyme for the children. Something, I may add, that still petrifies me every time I do it. It’s guaranteed that the mic will switch off mid-song like it usually does, and my frail voice will be wailing away tragically amongst a sea of puzzled faces. But before I came here, I never would have been comfortable being the main focus of a large crowd listening to me intently and watching my every move. I dread the thought of doing presentations in front of my small seminar class at uni: so this is a big deal. I also feel I have a lot more patience; something that anyone who works with children naturally acquires after strenuously trying to get them to listen to you all the time. I really do have so much respect for teachers. Here, I see the teachers in school till all hours in the night; they arrive in the mornings at the break of dawn, and they’re always here on weekends. It is a seriously demanding job, but then I guess that’s why it’s so rewarding. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learnt since being here is that hard work really does pay off. Life here is so different to back home that it was hard to imagine being here for nine whole weeks when I first arrived at my school. Yet here I am, alive as ever and over the moon that I’ve been able to overcome the many challenges that came with my role of being a teacher in Thailand.

 

This weekend we went to Kanchanaburi, a province about two and a half hours west of Bangkok. In this province lies one of the most famous and beautiful waterfalls in the whole of Thailand: Erawan Waterfalls. Located in a National Park, it has seven waterfalls, each one unique and full of fresh, clear-blue water. I had heard a lot about this from other ETAs, so I was beyond excited to finally see it in all its glory. And more to the point it was a proper waterfall, not the crappy trickles of water I’d wasted money to see a few weeks beforehand. However, be warned that this waterfall is in fact a huge hike up a mountain which requires blood, sweat and tears. Not something to be taken light heartedly. It started raining whilst we’d just passed tier three of the waterfall, and from then on the muddy climb became more and more slippery. If anyone plans to go there, I suggest taking hiking boots, a carabiner and rope, and waterproof socks to wear because the fish in the water bite at your feet! I initially thought I was getting stung by a jellyfish; I was petrified. I think a Thai woman might have told us to be thankful we were getting a free fish pedicure, but I couldn’t hear her over my screaming and scrambling over the rocks to get back to safety.

                   

 

Afterwards we hopped back in our Songthaew (a type of shared taxi) and took an hour’s ride back to the main town and went to the infamous JEATH War Museum. It was hands down the creepiest museum I’ve ever been to. The buildings were old and dilapidated: like something out of a horror film. It was around 17:30 when we arrived and it was already dark inside, even though the museum was half outdoor, half indoor. Then it started to pour down with rain. And I mean really, really pour. We walked around for a while reading about the war prisoners and heroes from WWII. Then I went down some stairs to use the toilet, which was shrouded in darkness at the back of a sort of basement. Even if I wanted to walk in darkness over to it I couldn’t have gotten very far due to the amount of rainwater flooding the floor; so I went back upstairs to find the others. I couldn’t find a single soul anywhere-and considering the museum closed in thirty minutes, I knew there were hardly any visitors in the building-which worried me. My phone had died and I couldn’t call Rachel or Afope, so I went through a few rooms looking for them before deciding that the sheer quietness of the place was too much for me to handle. Not the sort of situation you want to be in after having spent the previous half hour reading up on the likes of Hitler and Mussolini and walking countlessly past their eerie wax statues. I remembered the plaque next to Hitler explaining that still to this day nobody has found his body; so naturally my mind started thinking that Hitler himself- or his ghost at least- could be in this very building. Which, if you’d seen the place, wasn’t actually as farfetched as it sounds. It was truly horrendous. I then thought it was a good idea to make my way in the pouring rain to the roof to see some of the statues and to get out of the darkness; and in doing so, I was confronted by a sign that read ‘WARNING: be careful, poisonous bees.’ I literally couldn’t take any more. Everywhere I turned there seemed to be some evil death threat holding me back. I was done. What should have been a satisfying trip to a historical museum turned out to be a horrifying scene from House of Wax.

 

                 

After this we got our taxi driver to recommend us a nice restaurant to eat at, so he took us to a floating restaurant on the Khwae Yai River. It was beautiful. We got there just as the sun was setting and the sky was that weird electric purple, greyish colour it goes when a storm is coming. We had a lovely meal, made exceptionally better by the view of the Death Railway in the background. The next day we got some mango, sticky rice and coconut milk (one of my favourite dishes here) and headed out to explore the Death Railway. Built during WWII by Allied POWs and Asian labourers under Japanese control, it is part of the railway that connected Thailand to Burma and is infamous for the amount of deaths that occurred; nearly half of the labourers died due to poor health conditions and maltreatment by the Japanese. After having learned enough history to depress us for the rest of our lives, we then headed to the bus station to get a minibus back to Bangkok.

 

We also applied online for our visas for Cambodia earlier today. It’s literally mindboggling to think that at the end of the week I will be in Cambodia. We’re getting there via government bus straight through to Siem Reap to visit the temples of Angkor Wat. I came to Thailand knowing that I wanted to go to Cambodia and Vietnam after I finished teaching. Now that it is becoming more real, I finally have a rough plan of where I will be going on my travels. The plan is to arrive in Cambodia on Saturday, spend four days there before moving onto Vietnam for around ten days and then head back to Thailand to travel the islands down South before catching my flight back from Bangkok on 21^st September. If I was going home straight after the programme finishes- which quite a lot of people seem to be doing-I would feel seriously depressed right now. Luckily, another ETA, Rebekah, has the same plan as me so we will be travelling together. Which is great news because when I told my mum there was a chance I might be travelling on my own she demanded me to come home and go on holiday in Europe instead. Which is the worst idea imaginable: why would I go allll the way back home to go on a mediocre week long holiday I could do any time of the year? That was just never an option. I have the fortunate opportunity to explore South East Asia, and it would be rude not to do so. Anyway, it works out that when Rebekah leaves for her flight home on 12^th, my brother will arrive in Vietnam around that time. He originally wanted to meet me out here but had second doubts as he wasn’t sure how much it would all cost. I’m pretty sure my mum has bribed him because last week he cancelled his flight from New York to London and is booking one to Hanoi instead. I literally couldn’t be more excited! The thought of travelling and exploring yet more beautiful countries is the only thing that makes finishing teaching that bit more bearable.

 

 

P.s, WiFi Update: My attempts at writing short, frequent blog posts has completely failed. WiFi has probably been at its worst these past few weeks at school, hence once again the loading of posts ages after they were written. And yes they are long, I’m sorry.

 

 

 

Long weekend, birthday, Mother’s Day preparations…

I’ve had an eventful last two weekends here in Thailand, arguably the best since being here. We had a long weekend from 9^th-12^th August as it was Mother’s Day, which coincides with the Queen’s birthday. The preceding week of school was a lot of fun as the students had to prepare for a school performance put on especially for their mothers. Both teachers and children were working extra hard to complete and perfect everything for the big day.

Each year group did something different, ranging from simple songs and dances to elaborate Chinese choreography and traditional Thai dance routines. As the school I work at specialises in three languages, the three student hosts of the evening had to present the show in Thai, Chinese, and English. We worked vigorously with the student who was hosting in English to perfect her speech; we ensured she understood punctuation and when to pause, and repeatedly practised pronunciation of words, which seems to be the main problem Thais have with the English language.

 

                   

I’m actually really gutted I couldn’t attend the performance which was on the Monday, due to me being down South for the long weekend. I went to Ko Pha Ngan for the Full Moon Party. It was also my birthday on Friday 8^th which I was verrry excited about. Although my actual birthday was the worst birth ‘day’ I have ever had. I spent 7am-4pm at school, then took a painfully slow minibus to Bangkok in rush hour that took 3 hours instead of the usual hour and a half, then at 9pm hopped on board an 8 hour coach which took us down South, before catching a 4 hour ferry at 7am and finally arriving on Ko Pha Ngan. However, it was actually the BEST birthday weekend I’ve ever had, so it was pretty special I got to celebrate it at the most well known party on earth. The Full Moon Party itself was on the Sunday, so on the Saturday-which I took it upon myself to celebrate my birthday- we went to a jungle party on the island. It was so so amazing. Imagine thousands of people packed into a specific area of the jungle made to look like a scene out of some magical fairy-tale; there was a stream with a bridge you had to cross to get to the main area where the DJ stage was, which was glowing-white inside the head of an animal which looked like something out of Spirited Away. The surreal ambience of the place was enhanced with yet more glowing-white animals placed around the jungle, neon flowers, coloured flashing lights wrapped around trees, strobe lights, pyrotechnics and more.

     

 

 

The next day we decided to go to a waterfall in a different part of the island. I hadn’t seen a waterfall yet so we were really excited. But apparently, unless there is heavy rainfall the night before then the waterfall actually isn’t a waterfall, but a mere few trickles of water sliding down rocks; which is the scene we were greeted with upon arrival. This was not the ‘waterfall’ the internet had so enthusiastically described as ‘fresh pool springs big enough to swim in.’ We were pretty annoyed, so after a while of sitting with our feet in small puddles of water we got a taxi back and headed to Thongsala beach, which was practically empty and beautifully peaceful. I then got a taxi back to my hostel, which was about a 7 minute walk from Haad Rin beach (aka the Full Moon Party beach) and we all got ready for the night ahead. Around midnight we all headed down to the beach. The atmosphere was genuinely electric, with 40,000 people apparently in attendance. It was amazing to wander along the beach, weaving amongst different bars blasting various types of music and meeting new people. The best part of the night was watching the sun cutting against the dark clouds at sunrise, with the full moon still visible on the other side of the sky. I’m such a sucker for sunrises/sunsets/pretty skies (I practically like every sky photo on Instagram) and this was absolutely perfect to me. And as if my night hadn’t already been amazing enough, a group of us were in the sea when we were asked by a Thai man in a speedboat if we ‘wanted to go to Eden.’ I know what you’re thinking- that magical Biblical garden Adam and Eve lived a life of sheer bliss in? Well, not quite. But near enough. Without question we hopped on board and sped round to the other side of the island, where lo and behold, a golden beach awaited us. It lay before beautiful mountainous greenery, with a few wooden houses scattered on the hills. It really was a perfect, isolated beach tucked away from all the craziness of the Full Moon Party; and there wasn’t a single bit of commercialisation in sight. There was an entirely handmade and dangerous wooden walkway (various planks were missing and there were splatters of blood on wood and nails) that led to a huge hut at the end of the beach where the hard-core partygoers were still partying away. And soon too we joined them, dancing away to a mixture of chilled house and soul music. It was literally THE  perfect ending to the night when the DJ played Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ as the final song. At that very moment I got goose bumps. And to confirm how amazing the moment felt there were cheers of happiness and a huge round of applause from everyone. I got back to my hostel at 9am, absolutely exhausted, yet still reeling from the night’s events. Asides from my friends and family not being with me, I truly couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate my 21^st birthday.

 

            

 

This weekend was another amazing, fun-filled two days I’ll never forget. It’s weird because at home Saturday and Sunday seem like such a short amount of time to do anything remotely great or adventurous because (a) it’s time consuming to get anywhere worthwhile and (b) it costs a fortune to get anywhere worthwhile. But on Saturday morning here I woke up and travelled to Bangkok on my own and met up with anther ETA Rachel, where we’d planned to have a cultural and touristy day exploring Bangkok. We first went to the National Museum, where we wandered round soaking up the history of Thailand. It was interesting learning about the different dynasties, reigning Kings and colonisation of Thailand. I also learned that Siam is the old name of Thailand, which it was called before the Burmese invasion in 1767. So I learned that Siamese is in fact Thai, which got me really excited because it made me recall perhaps the only nice memory I have of cats: the twin ones in Lady and the Tramp who sing ‘We are Siamese if we pleaseee’. And although those Siamese cats used to give me nightmares (and still do), I felt like I’d gone full-circle back to my childhood and learnt something new about those horrible cats. So anyway, it was a really enjoyable history lesson walking round the different rooms and buildings, looking at old war weapons, machinery, sculptures, models, statues and paintings that depicted the life and origins of Thailand. We then decided to go to the Queen’s Gallery: an art gallery only a tuk tuk’s ride away. It was really refreshing to see the artwork showcasing an entirely different concept to that I’d seen before: Buddhist art. I’d only ever seen religious art that focused on Christianity in the European tradition. Here however, all the different pieces represented spirituality, enlightenment, the balance between good and evil, and traditional vs modern representations of Thai culture and Buddhism, which were noted in some way or another by the artist next to their artwork.

 

(N.B. Yes, I do realise how pretentious that whole paragraph sounds.)

 

 

                     

 

 

Afterwards we walked to Khao San road where we went to an Italian/Thai restaurant and got some noodles. Here I made plans for the night ahead, after Dave had informed me there was a spare ticket going that night to see 2manydjs (aka Soulwax). I originally wanted to go to this, but I’ve been spending so much money I wasn’t sure if I could afford it, especially as it was a ‘posh event’. But I thought I might as well since the opportunity had arisen, YOLO and all that. I checked myself into a hostel just off Khao San road that cost only 252 baht for the night: the equivalent of £5. Although I’m not joking when I say it was the size of a box, looked filthy and was the worst bed I’ve ever slept in. Worse than the wooden/cardboard bed I sleep on here at my school. Sophie was already staying at the hostel, and when I showed her my room she said she was originally placed here before asking to be moved. That’s how bad it was.

As usual, I was running late and I was supposed to be meeting other ETAs in central Bangkok for 21:00. By the time I got ready and got a taxi to Siam Square it was about 21:40. I met up with the others at the huge office building the event was being held at and went through an elaborate security process before taking the elevator up to the 32^nd floor. The room was a posh joint, with fancy décor and glass windows that led to a balcony overlooking the city. The view was breath taking. The night was made extra good because there was the right balance between Thai and Western people; as opposed to the mainly European people I’d met on Khao San road and Ko Pha Ngan. As for the music itself, 2manydjs were amazing, and I had another absolutely unreallll night in Bangkok.

           

 

The next day I woke up to my alarm ringing at 07:00 am. I felt absolutely awful, not just tired but still half drunk after only three hours sleep. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to shower, pack, and go downstairs to meet Sophie and Rachel for breakfast. Rachel and myself then set off in a taxi to Ayutthaya: the old capital of Siam. We went first to Wat Mahathat, the temple perhaps best known for the infamous Buddha head wrapped in the roots of a Bodhi tree. We then hired bicycles, so we rode round exploring the huge park filled with the ruined temples from the Buddhist invasion of the city. The sun was beating down from the sky and the scenery looked amazing; we rode amongst green fields, dark green lakes, bridges, monuments, statues and temples, feeling very privileged to be able to experience the old, enchanting culture of Siam. We grabbed some lunch by the canal and then once again rode off on our bikes to feast our eyes upon some more temples. Our aim of the day was to get a photo with a monk; a challenge we thought would be very difficult as we weren’t sure if people were allowed to approach monks, let alone get near enough for a civilised photo (or selfie). However, to our great surprise as soon as we’d stepped into the first temple we saw two monks with a camera phone looking at us from under a tree. They then came up to us and asked for a photo. I didn’t even know monks had mobile phones! Then as we walked around, more and more monks were wandering around with phones taking photos with foreigners. Considering monks have to undergo long periods of asceticism and abstaining from interaction with the world, this came as a huge shock to us. You can imagine how amazed we were when after having taken photos they asked for our email addresses and if we had Facebook. You should have seen my face: shocked really isn’t the word. Although I’m a bit annoyed because I still haven’t had a friend request on Facebook from a monk yet… And checking my friend requests every hour really isn’t helping the situation.

 

         

We had to take our bikes back at 18:00, so afterwards we went to the bus station and got a minibus back to Bangkok. I then had to get a minibus back to my province. When I arrived around 21:00 there were no taxis in sight, so I went to a woman cooking at a food stall and tried to tell her I needed to get back to my school. After around 10 minutes of trying to understand what I was saying- and a further 10 minutes of trying to pronounce my school name to a crowd of people that had gathered- a girl around my age said she knew where it was and she kindly dropped me back to my school safe and sound.

So, after this detailed analysis of how wonderful my last two weekends were, I’ll end on a sad note and say that I cant believe I have less than two weeks left at school. Its finally starting to sink in that next Friday I will leave this school and all my lovely children behind. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it will be very weird not waking up to the sound of children’s voices laughing and shouting in the mornings. I hate being woken up, but if there could be an alarm I’d choose to wake up to every day of my life, it would be that.

 

Booo, I’m really going to miss Thailand.

Wi-Fi, islands and more teaching

So here goes my second blog post, which again is way overdue as a result of the awful Wi-Fi at the school I live at, or lack thereof. I’ll be honest and admit that I have turned into SUCH a Wi-Fi obsessive; firstly, because I never know when I’ll next get Wi-Fi on my laptop/phone, and secondly, when I do get it, I never know when it’s going to cut off completely. I’d love to say I enjoy being cut off from the internet/social media/England/WORLD- however you want to look at it- but the truth is, there’s not much to do on weekdays when school finishes, so surfing the internet is the only credible thing to do really. But anyway, while Wi-Fi’s here for the time being, blog post two is coming right at cha.

I’ll start on a recreational note and state that I’m freshly back from my weekend travels to a beautiful island called Ko Samet. A three-hour bus ride and a 40-minute ferry from Bangkok, it was annoying that we had to leave so early this morning to get back to our different provinces for school tomorrow. But I had the most chilled out weekend I’ve had since being here, as the last few weekends we have spent swarming in the madness that is Bangkok. This weekend also celebrated our half way mark in teaching English. The island was nothing short of perfect. Clear blue sea, fluffy white sand and the sun sizzling high in the sky not only served the island’s beauty, but the private beach we managed to discover also. All of this, plus the addition of the iconic wooden pier with a hut that you’d see on a ‘Welcome to Thailand’ brochure, accumulated this postcard picturesque backdrop. And in the midst of this backdrop, picture me lying on the beach (please don’t), coconut in one hand, book in the other, basking in the sun, leisurely tasting the elixir of life. I’ll mention here that the book I was reading was The Beach, by Alex Garland. Now if you’ve seen the film, which I presume everyone reading this has- otherwise I’m not too sure why we’re Facebook friends- you’ll know that the film is amazing! And Leonardo DiCaprio is arguably at his best: beach blonde hair and sun kissed skin. It’s set in Thailand; so essentially, the book was top of my reading list out here. And, as usually is the case, it far surpasses the film: as impossible as even that may seem. I finished the book on the coach journey back to Bangkok earlier, and it took me a while to overcome the events of the book that were much darker than the film depicts. We’re taking Lord of the Flies dark, which is pretty damn dark.

So, besides the pretty views (and the not-so-pretty novels) my highlight has to be being reunited with Sophie and Dave, the ETAs I flew out here with, and catching up after 4 weeks of not seeing each other. We also got planning the next long weekend we have off, which coincidentally falls on my birthday- something I never usually get excited about. However, I’ll make an exception just this once. If you were to tell me several months ago that I would be celebrating my 21^st in Thailand at the full moon party, I probably would have slapped your face a few times and told you to wake up. But instead, that dream-like scenario has become my reality and I seriouslyyy could not be more excited to turn 21 in less than two weeks time!

 

Teaching

 

Well, four weeks of teaching are done and dusted! Time is flying by, and although the weekdays seem to drag, I can’t believe how fast the weeks are going. Soon it will be time to board that mundane plane home to England to all the mundane things that come with it- mainly myself being a poor, uncertain third year student and my mum nagging at me to get a job. But let’s not get into all that unnecessary worry right now. I’ll focus on my current employment while it lasts: teaching the cutest, funniest and most lovely children I could possibly imagine.

 

                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no better feeling after teaching a class and genuinely knowing they have learnt something new, or have taken away from it a better understanding than they had before. So far I have covered the very basics: body parts, animals, colours and family. Due to the teaching of these topics to children over a wide age gap- kindergartens and grades 1 and 2 (roughly 3-8 year olds)- it can be challenging. For kindergartens I have stuck to basic repetition and videos/nursery rhymes to keep them entertained, whereas with the older children in advanced classes I tend to add more words for them to learn and try to focus more on verbal pronunciation. However, as entertained as I try to keep the children, there’s always a handful in each class who frustratingly don’t listen. I’m probably the worst teacher in the world because instead of being annoyed and retaining some authority in the classroom, I stand there and laugh at the cheeky faces they pull and at their uniquely funny personalities. Of course, the funniest ones are my favourite. The ironic thing is, I now know how annoying it is when a child just cannot be bothered to learn and a teacher wonders why they even bother trying to teach them at all. Although none of the children I have are ridiculously naughty, they aren’t exactly the best listeners half the time. I guess it doesn’t help that the assistant Thai teachers can’t speak English, and the children probably get bored of listening to my monotonous voice anyhow. But anyway, the irony lies in the fact that only three years ago when I was studying for my A Levels, I was one of the people who didn’t really listen or put any effort in- and I was actually at school to learn through my OWN choice, and old enough to know better. Moral of the story: if any of you kids who have added me on Facebook are reading this (and can understand it… which I hope you can’t…)- BE GOOD AND LISTEN AT SCHOOL!

And finally to conclude on the topic of school, here I currently sit once again on a Sunday night, not knowing what I’m going to teach to my kindergartners tomorrow morning. Or for all the other classes I have this week for that matter. If you haven’t realised by now that I leave absolutely everything till the last minute, you’ll be even more surprised by the fact that the Wi-Fi here has just cut off (shock!) as it does every Sunday for the whole night, which means I have no online resources to plan my lessons for the coming week. Luckily, Afope and myself are equally as unreliable, laidback and last-minute as each other, so I find comfort that I’m not alone in this. Just picture us tomorrow morning at half 7, willing for a stronger Wi-Fi connection in the staffroom, trying to plan our week of lessons which are only an hour away. Yep, the struggle is real…

 

First two weeks in Thailand…

 

 

Flight

 

Well it’s taken me a while to get round to writing this, but I finally have some free time to get this blog underway. So, I guess I’ll start with a brief introduction. This summer I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of the Teaching English in Thailand programme, ran by the British Council. The placement runs for 9 weeks from 26th June- 29th August, where I will be teaching primary school children in Thai schools English (don’t laugh), after which I will be travelling around South East Asia. Due to my bad habit of leaving everything till the last minute, I am starting this blog nearly two weeks into my Thailand adventure. So last Sunday 23rd June, I boarded the plane from Heathrow (huge thanks to the best friends ever for taking a road trip with me and waving me off with cards and pressies) took a 6 hour flight to Abu Dhabi, then another 6 hour flight to Bangkok. It was the longest flight I’d ever been on, but a selection of good films- The Grand Budapest Hotel, Chinatown– and two episodes of True Detective soon made everything okay. And besides, my bad habit of not being able to sleep came in handy for once as I was fortunate enough to catch the sun rising over the clouds. Magical.

 

   

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Bangkok

After arriving in Bangkok on the Monday, myself and the ETAs I flew with got a cab straight to Khao San road- the place where dreams are made! Stepping onto the strip at 8pm was mental. It was night time and the heat was incredible. The road was jam packed with Thai people selling things; there were a variety of food aromas, booming chart music, huge advertisements, flashing lights, and a lot of noisy, sweaty tourists. The first night consisted of a few drinks and some tasty street food. We had to try the classic Pad Thai dish, which was amazingly good. The next day we explored the streets, taking a boat trip around the canals of Bangkok, where we saw- amongst other things- the Reclining Buddha. Then by night time, most of the ETAs had arrived on Khao San road. We decided to all meet on the strip, amidst all the melee and confusion, where buckets of cocktails were a mere £3, and to our surprise- Thailand, being well known for its rigid and uncompromising alcohol law  – we didn’t even need I.D to buy them.

 

     

 

I should probably mention that this night ended in ‘The Club’. For anyone that has been to Thailand before, you will know that ‘The Club’ is probably the best/worst place in the world. At the time it seems like the greatest idea in the world, then after three hours of  dancing to the same continuous, hard-hitting Euro dance/house beat, you realise only too late that you’ve ended the night revisiting your 18 year old self on the strip of Malia, with not a care in the world and without a leg to stand on. Trust me, any mention of ‘The Club’ should never be used lightly. The next day was spent hungover, and after wasting half the day in bed, I decided to do something fun. So I went to the MKB shopping mall with a group of ETAs to watch free Thai boxing matches, which happen every Wednesday 6pm-8pm. I had a lot of fun, despite my horror at watching multiple women fighting, and watching a man get knocked out clean. It was intense to watch and the atmosphere was electric, although I’m not sure if that was due to the overwhelming humidity building to make way for a monsoon. When I got back to the D&D later that evening, we decided on just a few drinks around the pool bar. I have no idea why I constantly fool myself when I say I’ll have a ‘few’ drinks, because once again I found myself in ‘The Club’ at the end of the night. DON’T ASK. I’d like to add this was not my fault. I did actually try to go home, but got physically dragged in by these lot below. I had an absolutely great time though, and truth be told I felt like I was living it up in Las Vegas at EDM or something. Crazy what can happen when you put a Thai behind a DJ booth.

P.S, I would also like to say I plucked up the courage to eat a fried scorpion. It was actually alright, till I got to the body and half its legs landed in my lap. One word: meaty. I definitely wont be doing that again any time soon.

 

          

 

 

Okay, so I realise this post is longer than intended. But I had an eventful first five days in Bangkok, meeting so many wonderful people and exploring the city’s vast array of features and cultural landmarks. One of which, the Grand Palace, we set out to seek on Thursday. Due to moving to our new hotel, The Ambassador, where all the ETAs were expected to stay for the Thursday night ready for the orientation the next day, we ended up arriving at the Grand Palace later than expected. This problem, may I add, was because the Ambassador decided to put FOUR! of us in a room, with only a double bed. Very funny scenes. But after getting that sorted out, a few others and myself took a Tuk Tuk ride through the city, and had a great time discovering the ancient and authentic history that makes Thailand so great. The Grand Palace and The Golden Mountain, as expected, were nothing short of amazing.

 

      

After arriving back at The Ambassador- which was on a much classier version of Khao San road- we had dinner, then made our way to the nearest bar. We settled on the classic Irish bar, where the World Cup was showing, and cocktails were plentiful. It was nice to meet yet more new people and sit there getting to know one another. Finally, I ended the night around 1am with a 7 Eleven ham and cheese toastie. Previous ETAs from last year had told us how good these were, and daymnn they weren’t wrong! The cheese is sheer mouth watering, tangy, creamy bliss. And only 25 baht; the equivalent of 50p. I should probably note I’ve had five more since. (Seriously addicted.)

 

Orientation

The next day I woke up at 8am, ready for a day of sitting through conferences and briefings. It was very exciting hearing about the benefits of this trip: how we will strengthen the relationship between the UK and Thailand and make better connections, helping to decrease the language barrier and brighten the future for Thai children. I felt very proud to be participating in the project, knowing that this will also benefit myself immeasurably in a number of ways. However, I’ll skip the boring parts and go straight to the evening’s entertainment- which consisted of a Thai band of children using their instruments, and performing pop songs. We also had a buffet style dinner, and drinks being carried round by waiters. It was all a bit posh, but what can you expect when you’re at the Ambassador Hotel.

 

   

 

Later that night, we headed out again to a few bars, hoping to find a rooftop bar. In the end we decided to drink on the side of the road in a camper van bar, where more ETAs were. Probably about 100 ETAs were all lined on the street, drinking and getting excited about the prospect of going to school the next day. Not to mention, the programme leaders were all out having a few beers also, so I took the opportunity to get a photo with the main man himself, David Mathias!

 

    

 

First Week of Teaching

On the Saturday we all travelled via car, minibus and plane to our respected provinces of Thailand to teach. This was both exciting and sad; we’d all become such good friends in the few days beforehand, and we were departing each other so soon, not knowing when we’d next meet up. However, myself and my fellow ETA, Afope, hopped into our mentor’s car and took an hour’s ride out of Bangkok to our province of Samut Sakhon. Before we went to our school, our mentor first took us to a celebration: her nephew had just become a monk. It was a Chinese style celebration, with nine different courses of meals, and musical performances from famous people (or so they said). I had so much fun joining in with the Thai community, meeting my mentor’s family and experiencing first hand a long-standing cultural tradition. We then travelled a short distance to our school and got settled into our rooms. That night I became very nervous about the prospect of teaching. It suddenly hit me: HOW THE HELL WAS I GOING TO TEACH WITHOUT ANY PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PLANNING! The past week had seemed like a holiday abroad with a huge load of friends; but now, shit suddenly got real.

However, here I am typing this a week later, still alive and fresh from my first full week of teaching. And I have to say, it’s so much fun! The pupils are all so lovely, and they and the teachers welcomed us with open arms. Most of them have never seen an English person before, so the sight of us on the first day (and all the days since, and probably forever) got them SO excited! It really is such a pleasure getting to teach such lively and exciting kids who genuinely try their best to learn English. When I think back to myself learning Spanish in school, I cry inside at wasting such a good opportunity to learn another language. However, I’m gonna blame my whole year group for that. For the Newmaners reading this, two words: Mr McGowan. Actually, another two words: Fatima Whitbread… Need I say more?

To be fair, I have slightly redeemed myself by learning Beginner’s French this year at Uni- and with around ten Chinese teachers in my school, I plan to learn some Mandarin, as well as picking up some Thai. So yes, FINALLY the end of my first blog post is nigh and I’ve realised that I want to be fluent in a zillion different languages. My first week was amazing, and my second week involved a whole new level of cultural and occupational changes, of which I’m excited to continue for another 8 weeks. After all, teaching kindergartens songs such as ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ and genuinely getting excited myself cant really get boring, can it?