Hours-old Turtles about to be released

Monkey and her babe

Proboscis Monkeys

Mummy Turtle laying eggs

Mummy orangutan and her baby

A few photo updates of Borneo

A Taste of Malaysia

So it’s been 4 days of travelling now and I’m settled into my first hostel of Borneo, excited about what I might get to do this week (nature is EVERYWHERE here) but I’ve got a spare evening so thought I’d give those of you still reading an update.

Firs thing to tell you is the adventure I had getting here – parents, be prepared to roll your eyes. Jik had convinced me to get hotel overnight before my flight, and she stayed as well to see me off at the airport. The next morning we got to Bangkok international 2 hours before takeoff as planned. I went up to the noticeboard, and couldn’t find my flight… Jik grabbed my flight plan and told me ‘We’re at the wrong airport!’ Now I know how Ross from Friends managed it.

Now the next part astounded both of us. We jumped into a taxi and raced across the tollways of Bangkok to arrive thirty minutes later at the other airport – 50km away! That taximan was a legend.

So I caught my flight and off to Kuala Lumpur (KL) – the capital of Malaysia – I went!

The city of Kuala Lumpur is everything Bangkok is not. It is blatantly multicultural, it looks amazing, there are living plants inside the city, and its transport works. I loved KL, and met up with a few of my friends there too, seeing Caroline and Lizzie (two teachers) for a morning breakfast, catching up with Alex (another teacher) and meeting up with Illa (a Malaysian friend from Aberystwyth Uni), who’s birthday is next week, which I’m going back for 😀

I had myself some amazing fish and chips with strongbow (I cannot tell you how good that felt after 6 months of Thai beer) as well as all sorts of other food, KL offers food from every corner of the world and it’s damn good at making it. The hostel-owner of where I stayed was lovely as well, and her little 4-year-old was a terror and a half, but so funny.

Now I’ve caught a plane over to Borneo and am hanging around. While I loved KL, there isn’t much to do there. I’ll leave you with a picture of the Petronas Twin Towers in central KL.

Lazy Laos and Cheery Chiang Mai

So part one of my travels are now over. I finished teaching just over 3 weeks ago now, and after a lot of controversy about other interns not receiving their last payment because of their schools finishing a month early (through no fault of their own), I was quite worried about my own payment as I was faced with either 3 weeks of boredom, going into school every day to do absolutely nothing. So after some to-and-fro on when I would have to leave, I eventually was able to talk to my vice director and get myself 2 weeks holiday so long as I came back to school for the last three days! Such a better prospect than waiting out my time watching American sitcoms.

So I caught the (surprisingly comfortable) overnight bus to Chiang Mai in North Thailand. I’d only heard good things about this place, but I was still sceptical – how good could a place be after all? Turns out pretty damn good.

I was only there for three days, but in that time I befriended a few monks, bumped into Helena (another intern from Surin who happened to be up there) and formed a geek trio with her and a Dutch guy called Guy. Together we saw a snake show, climbed to the highest point in Thailand (or so we were told) to look over Chiang Mai and – most amazingly – got to go to the Tiger Kingdom.

This place was amazing, in here we were able to go inside the cages with the tigers and touch, stroke, and even lay down on the bigger ones. This place was incredibly touristy, and there wasn’t much conservation going on here, it was basically a petting zoo with bloody big pets. However, the tigers here were not drugged, were not de-clawed or de-fanged and seemed to have a pretty good life all in all. The tourists were just a necessary part of the place, needed to fund the tiger’s upkeep as the government provided no funds. It’s not a place for everyone, but the opportunity to touch – and even cuddle – tigers was incentive enough for me.

The next day Helena and I went of kayaking (which I sucked at, turning my boat over three times and managing to tip over some over people in the process haha), and met a load of nice people doing this. I met a few people living in the same dormroom with me as well and all of us (the kayaking people, Helena, Guy and my dormmates) went to the local ‘Irish Pub’ and I got a cider! Yes it was only Magners and yes it was about £5.50 but it was cider – praise be! The only bas thing about my whole experience here was Wales deciding to be general arses and decide to have their first good game of rugby since the same time last year – but at least I got to watch it in an Irish pub.

The next day I set off for the Laos border, with a cheeky stop in the ‘White Temple’ of Chiang Rai, which was very gothic and pretty cool as temples go. Inside was some Thai-style paintings involving things like angry birds, spiderman, the matrix, predator and a picture of the twin towers being demolished by a two-headed dragon. It was a nice change from the other Thai temples which are pretty boring now.

Once getting over the border to Laos I had a two day cruise down the Mekong, which while described as ‘amazing’ and ‘life-changing’ by other people, just seemed like a really slow way of getting around to me. It was alright, and some of the views were nice but damn it was long – 2 days of sitting on this boat with 200 other people while all the British backpackers my age were getting drunk in the back. Wasn’t exactly paradise, but the sunsets were nice.

Luang Prabang (the cultural capital of Laos) was pretty nice though. I met an Aussie guy there and hung out with him, but going on the cheap made me resort to staying in a hostel for two nights, and then falling in with the just-out-of-school drinkers. I sound like such an old man, but it really was not my scene. I went out to a bar with them, but ended up playing volleyball instead with some random guys for 2 hours. I spent three days there temple-hopping and seeing the sites, but on the third day I decided to hire a push-bike, one of the stereotypical French types with the high-rise seat, only missing the front basket. While cycling around I saw a sign to a waterfall that every taxi and tuk-tuk driver in town had been trying to get me to go to. Waterfall: 34km. Challenge Accepted.

What I forgot was that it was 11am, and that I was in the middle of the Laos countryside which is well known for being incredibly hilly. Nearly three hours of sweat, pain and sunburn later and I got to the waterfall and boy it did not disappoint – see pictures below.

After this I went off to the ‘Plain of Jars’ in East Laos which is kind of like their version of Stone Henge, lots of big, stone pots dotted around from around 2500 years ago and no one quite knows why they’re there. The two main theories I was told for why the pots existed was that either they were for putting the bodies of dead people in, or they were for alcohol used in the funeral-rituals of people. The field was pretty cool, but one of the more surprising things we saw there was the huge amounts of ditches there were. Laos is famous for being the most bombed country in the world, thanks to the Vietnam war, and apparently this region was the most heavily bombed region in Laos. Even this historic site was a target for the American bombers, and you could see bomb craters littered in-between the jars and trenches snaking around them from where the Laos army had tried to protect the site (with one memorial in a nearby information centre showing a man who shot down an American plane with 3 bullets! Lad!) The rest of the day involved going off around various bombed sites, a trek into a cave where 374 Laos civilians were killed by an American missile and taken to a village where the old bombs are stripped and made into fences, house-pillars and garden troughs.

We were also told about the sad history (and current events) of the region, with hundreds of people still dying from undiscovered bombs in fields and roadsides every year. Many of the children would use the smaller bombs as toys as well, with our guide telling us how he used to play catch with his friends whenever they found a bomb they thought wouldn’t work anymore. He also told us about how common it was for his class-mates to suddenly stop coming to school thanks to these ‘broken’ bombs. There is a cleanup underway, but sadly it seems vastly underfunded because of the remoteness of the location and the lack of tourism (most tourists in Laos go to Vang Vieng instead for the drink and drugs…).

The next two days I spent travelling to get back to Nang Rong again, dashing through the capital after being warned about not only how there was nothing to do there, but also about how unsafe it was there (looking at it as I went through, it was definitely a dump) and hopping over the border. So now I’ve done my first legitimately solo journey – and my only regret was trying to be organised about it! In the end I stayed at none of the hotels that I booked, either finding better ones or travelling late because of wanting to stay in a place longer than I planned. My travels start again next week with me going to Malaysia, Borneo, Brunei and Singapore – and meeting some more friends (Alex, Illa and Sylvia!!! Wahey!!).

Khao Yai – A Wild Time

So last weekend I finally did something I can write about! I’m sorry that this blog’s been dead for a while, but I don’t know how to write about my time in school, so I’m gonna save those stories for those of you I see.

But last weekend I went to Khao Yai national park – a park so beautiful and well preserved that it was granted recognition as a world heritage site. The park boasts wild elephants, tigers, bears, wild dogs, giant toucan-like birds, porcupines, monkeys, gibbons and some of the most breath-taking waterfalls and jungles. I left school at about midday with Jik and we met up with A and Gong, two teachers from a nearby school who were friends with Jik (and the same place I had my English camp).

We got to Khao Yai and settled quickly into our accommodation (400 baht, or £8, for two nights!) and went out to get some food and load up the truck with the essentials for the weekend, which naturally included two bottles of whiskey. On the way back it was already dark and we ended up stuck behind a slow-moving tourist-van with spotlight out looking for animals, and just as we tried passing we spotted a raccoon-like animal (but whiter) bounding away from the tourists. We then turned the corner to our apartment and spotted three eyes light up in the distance. We reversed the car, put on the full-beams and saw three porcupines waddling along in a perfect line! That night we also met a lovely French couple in the room next to ours and Gong persuaded them to come for drinks with us (which is pretty impressive seeing as he speaks no English, he’s just that friendly!). I got to talk about rugby with Julian, and Vanessa was a lovely girl. They’d both come from Shanghai to escape the snow and the crowds for Chinese New Year, very successfully so it seemed.

The next day we got up relatively late and went off in search of waterfalls – most animals are apparently quite rare in the daytime at the park. The first one we went to was slightly disappointing, especially after an hour long trek to see it, though the river we were following was nice and we saw a lot of plants along the way. Coming out of the jungle though we ran into Julian and Vanessa again! After persuading them not to go and see the waterfall we just saw Gong and A offered to bring them along with us in the truck (so far they’d been hitchhiking around), so they jumped in and off we set for the next waterfall.

If any of you reading this have seen the movie ‘The Beach’ with Leonardo DiCaprio, you will recognise the next waterfall. This one was a stunner, and only slightly ruined by the ‘no swimming’ signs dotted around (gutted!).  After a few photos we cruised off to the next waterfall, and this one was a hell of a challenge.After climbing down what felt like the steps into Mordor we were presented with the absolutely amazing sight of a water crashing down a hundred metre drop into an isolated pool, untouched thanks to the rock faces around it (and again the no swimming signs).

Now Grandparents may want to look away here.

Julian and I had been saying about how disappointed we were that we couldn’t swim around the waterfalls, so Julian decided that this time, we would give it a go. As he climbed down I thought what the hell, it’s a once in a lifetime chance, so went on down with him through the 50m of rocks to the lake, and in we both went. I’m not the strongest swimmer, and the lake was completely brown thanks to the mud churned up by the waterfall so you couldn’t see even a metre down, but we both swam into the middle (and Julian to the waterfall itself) and back to the rocks and weren’t eaten!

Grandparents, you can look again.

Up to Mordor we went again and back into the car, casually passing a wedding photoshoot on the way, and planning to go back and grab some food. Julian and I were in the back of the truck talking when suddenly we heard this smacking on the car window and Jik and Vanessa pointing forward. In front of the car, about 100m away were four wild elephants, one of which that couldn’t have been a year or two old. You guys have heard about me seeing elephants in Thailand in my other posts, but these ones didn’t have the horrible scars inflicted on them during training from the pickaxes. These were happy, wild elephants. They jogged past the car (maybe 10 metres from Julian and me!) and went off into the jungle. A few more metres along, we saw another elephant, and then a male as well messing around in the mud. That was an amazing spectacle for all of us who’d given up hope of seeing them and were ready to go back to our rooms.

The evening was spent going on a night-safari, but all we managed to see on this was a few dear thanks to the legions of kids screaming on the other buses, thanks guys…

The next day Gong and A decided to stick to driving as their legs were aching after all that walking, so myself and Jik went on a guided tour that Julian and Vanessa recommended us the previous day. By luck we managed to get the same guide as them too, a 71 year old man who had been giving tours around the jungle since he was 18 years old. The most experienced man in the park by far, our luck was very good this weekend. He took us through the jungle and pointed out different kinds of trees, the marks and signs of recently passed animals, flowers and we saw a few animals as well, mainly monkeys but a couple of giant squirrel-like animals as well, and we missed some elephants marching through by only a few minutes. The tour was uneventful, but still very good and the scenery was gorgeous, it definitely helped having Jik to translate for me as well, so I could actually understand what the guide was telling us.

This was the final portion of our journey, after this we headed home. Now I’m not sure I’m going to be writing another blog post. I have 2 weeks left of teaching, a couple of weeks of sitting around school and then it’s off travelling for a month around Asia. My plans consist of Laos, Malaysia, Borneo, Brunei and Singapore so far, but these are not by any means fixed (except for the flight to Kuala Lumpa, Malaysia on the 3^rd of April and the flight home from Singapore on the 23^rd of April), so I doubt I’m gonna have much time to blog. I’ll try and contact people on facebook and skype, but I do believe that this is me signing off. Thanks for reading guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed a taste of my time in Thailand.

A Pol Party in Cambodia

So here is the next blog as promised (on time for once)! Turns out the exams have been postponed until next week and two of my yeargroups are having private tutoring for the next month, so I have 1/3 of my lessons off for the next 4 weeks!

The trip to Cambodia began with a 5.30 rise, and the typical 30 minute wait for the late bus driver. I was fortunate enough that the driver had agreed to pick me up from my hostel however, so I’ll take the blessings where I can. The bus was filled with older Thai ladies who were very excited to see a farang coming onto their bus! They made a fuss about me, and one even spoke some English, but they were lovely and it turns out they were a part of the tour group I was on too. We went to Prakhon Chai to pick up P Jik and her family, and then on we went to Cambodia!

 

After a couple of hours sleeping we arrived at the border, met up with P Kay (another teacher at my school) and her family, along with a couple of Buddhist monks who were on the tour, and off we set into Cambodia on another tour bus. The tour guide was great, he was always speaking (though in Thai) and had facts about everywhere we went, and he tried his best to say what he could in English to me when he had the time. By coincidence, one of the helpers happened to be a teacher from Lahansai School, where I’d had the English camp a couple of weeks before, and he recognised me straight away!

I had no idea where this tour was taking us, as P Jik had booked this without really checking what the itinerary was (Thai style! Haha), but it did not disappoint whatsoever. All I knew for certain is that I was visiting Angkor Wat, and that I was paying £120 for the three day trip. So when we rocked up at the biggest lake in Cambodia – Tonle Sap Lake, which takes up half of the centre of the country – I knew I was in for a treat. We went down to the lake to find dozens of huge barges jostling for position at the foot of the dock, literally pushing eachother out of the way to get passengers onto their deck. We picked one lucky boat and crowded on, and as the boatman pushed his way out of the swarm we were assaulted by two children who began massaging everyone and demanding money. The massage was pretty bad, but the kid was cute so I handed over twenty baht (they accept baht apparently in Cambodia!) which seemed to make him happy.

As we headed down the river the houses changed from being up on 10m stilts (to avoid the flooding season presumably), to being entirely buoyant! There was a floating basketball court, floating temples and churches, floating food markets and plenty of floating houses. Then there was the real floating market – miles better than the one in Bangkok where you went for a cruise until you came to the market. We had several smaller boats with kids and women come up trying to sell everything from pepsi to pictures of you holding a snake. We docked at a particularly big floating marketstall for tourists, and went on up to have a look around. The lake is massive, if you look at a map it takes up a fair chunk of Cambodia, and this was during the dry season! It looked as though the lake extended miles further inland during the wet season. On the marketboat there was a little plinth cordoned off to allow crocodiles to come and rest, and be fed food to entertain the crowds. There must have been 20 crocs down there, and right on the other side of the wall separating them from the water was a kid floating about in what looked like an oversized cooking pot! Across the other side of the water we could also see some kids playing naked in the mud; I think Cambodian parents don’t like their kids with all their limbs.

‘Go play with the crocodiles darling’

I’m on a Boat!

We then went temple hunting, and while the temples were cool they were very similar to temples everywhere in Thailand. The most haunting point was at one temple where after exploring around a bit, I came across a glass box filled with human skulls and bones. This was, of course, in memory to the Pol Pot regime and the massacre of 1/3 of Cambodia’s population in the 1970’s (around 2 million people). I had read about this at university, and thought I had learnt to desensitise myself during my time studying International Politics, having read about what the worst humanity has to offer was. But until then I’d never realised that I had not actually seen some of the devastation first hand. I’ve seen war graves in France, but they were peaceful places, and more often than not were dedicated to soldiers. To see the skulls of innocent civilians piled upon eachother… The guides did their best to explain what they could to me, but seeing the reality of something I’d only read about before hit me hard. I’m glad my degree is over because I’d struggle now to write an objective essay on genocide.

After this we popped off to the hotel in Siem Reap to drop off our bags – and wow. Just wow. The place was a palace! I had a double room all to myself, and it was probably the best hotel I’ve ever been in – bit of a change from Koh Chang’s mud-huts last week! I even had a bath… a bath! That was probably the most relaxed I’ve been off of a Thai massage bed since coming to East Asia. We didn’t have long to appreciate the rooms that night though as we headed off to firstly get our tickets to see the Angkor buildings (there are a lot apparently!) and then to Phnom Bakheng – an ancient Khmer castle to see the sun set. However, it turns out that every other tourist in Siem Reap had the same idea – the place was lined with Chinese, Japanese, Thai, European and Middle Eastern tourists! Never had I seen so many foreigners before, and it was the same in Siem Reap. I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing a foreigner on a bicycle somewhere (which I think was pretty brave as Cambodian drivers are mental, much worse than Thailand). Going back to the castle however, the sunset was marvellous, and the castle was pretty cool as well. On here I started talking to one of the Buddhist monks who it turned out had pretty good English, and was a really nice guy. He had a good sense of humour, and was very intelligent, with some poetic ways of phrasing what he said. At one time I asked him why he couldn’t touch women as a monk (he often had to flinch away from female tourists wanting a photo with him), and he explained it by saying ‘to us men are like oil, women are like fire’. He would have made a fortune that day if he’d agreed to start charging for photos, but kudos to him, he agreed to have a photo with everyone and joked with all those that did too. There was another monk with him who was very friendly as well, and had lots of pictures with people, but his English was very bad so it was very hard to talk with him.

Cambodian Castle

After the castle we headed out for food (buffet was the theme of the week) and back to the hotel to have some well earnt chill time so that we could be ready to leave at 7.30 the next morning… ergh… At least I got to have my bath.

The next day we set off for Angkor Thom, the 1000 year old abandoned city in which Angkor Wat is merely one temple outside of its walls. The entire city is about 3km each way, and is mostly overgrown by trees now, but a lot of the stone structures have still managed to survive the test of time. The city is surrounded by a wall and around that an 80m moat, though I think a lot of that has dried up now. The centre point of Angkor Thom is a massive stone temple, though I have no idea if it was religious, military or royal purposes as the guide couldn’t translate! This thing was huge, and had massive stone faces jigsawed in around its many sides, though they looked a little drunk. We spent a good hour going through this ruin, taking photos and being a general tourist until we moved onto the next place.

The next one was called Banteay Kdei, and if you’ve ever seen the tomb raider with the ruins engulfed by massive trees, you’ll recognise this place. The way that the trees seemed to be taking over the buildings was awesome here, and the architecture was pretty cool as well. This place again, had a moat, so I think it might have been a noble’s house but again, the guide could not tell me, and the information written around tended to just boast about which country was preserving the site rather than what the site actually was.

The next site was about 30km away (far enough away for another nap on the bus) and this one was okay, but I found it a bit boring. There wasn’t much new at this temple other than a few carvings, and the story behind it was that it was a successful general’s holiday home, so it didn’t have that impressive a history either. Still, made for a good couple of photos.

Finally we got to the big one – Angkor Wat. One of the man-made wonders of the world. The place did not disappoint, with a huge moat surrounding it, a long causeway leading up to the main entrance and then another to the primary building, with two libraries in-between. The temple was so well preserved (disregarding the green netting which covered up the rebuilding project on its front), and so much of the internal writing and decorations have survived to this day. We even got to go inside of the temple, up into the main central building, and the view from there wasn’t something to sniff at either. I had wandered off with my monk mate, and as he was climbing the staircase (VERY steep steps) he was saying how ‘my heart is dancing’. We also met a New Zealand/Chinese girl who was very friendly, and had been travelling, and the monk could not get over how she looked Chinese, but sounded ‘American’. Anyway, Angkor Wat was astounding and I would recommend anyone to go and see it.

Blitz Rugby takes Angkor Wat

The final leg in the journey was supposed to be the hotel, but a few of us broke off to go and see the night market in Siem Reap. The night for tourists was pretty cool, and far better than what we saw in Bangkok. Rows of lights, pubs, bars, massage parlours, jewellery shops and gift shops lined the streets, with a lit up bridge and lights along the river separating it all from the more Asian nightlife. It was a site to see, though not one that I liked so much, but I’m glad I got to see it.

And that is the two days I spent in Cambodia! There was one more but we only did some shopping and went home so there wasn’t much to talk about (save for me being ripped off thanks to my skin colour yet again!). Those two days were worth far more than the money I spent for them and I can happily say that I’ve seen what I wanted to see in Cambodia now.

Kop kun krap for reading and hope you enjoy! Pictures don’t seem to be working today I’m afraid, but I’ll hopefully fix that soon.

Sa wa dee krap!

‘It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while since my last blog post, and I must admit it took me some time to find the inspiration for this one. While I enjoy teaching, I don’t feel the need to write about it to everyone, but when I started going off and getting involved in a lot of different things, suddenly I didn’t have a moments rest. I think today is the first lazy day I’ve had in three weeks! So here’s hoping I can remember how to write these things!

English Camp at Lahansai School
A couple of weeks ago myself, Louise and Angus were invited by Nikki, Zoe and Kirsty to their school to take part in a weekend of English Camp. This camp had the children stay at their school for the weekend, but us teachers got taken back home for the evening. All I’d been told was that each of us would be manning a different station around the school, so I had to think up something to teach these kids, or a game to play with them. There were activities like Pictionary, dancing and singing, a mock Olympics…

So for the first time in Thailand, I got to play rugby!

Some of these kids were pretty awesome, most understood the idea of passing backwards pretty quickly, and even introduced most to the idea of touch tackling! One girl dived on the ball every time it was dropped without any prompting from me, and several times I had to stop the game so that she could be let back up mid the swarm of children ontop of her. Another boy who knew American Football ran through everybody, handing them off and pushing them out the way to score. The kids had great fun, and a couple of groups had to actually stop and lie down thanks to the heat. We did have to use footballs instead of rugby balls, but it worked nearly as well!

This girl has rugby tekkers

The other highlight of the camp was the ladyboy in charge of the group activities. She did so many different songs and games such as the classic:

‘Hello Hello Hello!

Hello how do you do?

I’m glad to be with you!

And you and you and you!

La la la, la la la, la la la, la la la’

And who can forget her song about her ‘milk and eggs’… we were in fits when we realised she was actually talking about herself.

We also got to teach the kids the Okie Pokie! That was a great laugh all round. All this and I got paid 1000 baht at the end (without realising I was going to be paid!). A great weekend in all!

Christmas in Singha School

Christmas day was a lonely one, but at school I didn’t have much time to think about it thankfully. The school put on a Christmas show in the afternoon which had dancing, singing, Christmas carols (the amount of times I’ve heard ‘Jingle Bell’…) and had some of the trainees dancing Mean Girls style to the Jingle Bell rock. I had the honour of being Father Christmas, riding in on my moped and throwing out sweet and toys to the kids from my sack! The suit did not quite fit me though, and I may have had my pillow pop out once or twice and my trousers slip… I don’t think the kids noticed though, they were too busy fighting for sweets!

Also I have to thank Grandma and Mum again for the Christmas goodies to give to the kids (many a paper chain and snowflake was made), and also a big thank you to everyone who sent christmas cards and presents! It was all much appreciated for keeping up the morale and Grandpa – I read that book in two days 🙂

Scout Camp at Nakhon Ratchasima

This camp I did stay over at, but it was less camping and more glamping. We had a house that about 20 of us teachers stayed in, with mattresses decking every corner. This weekend didn’t have anything notable happen (save for my first McDonalds of Thailand!) but was an amazing weekend with the teachers. We had BBQ, drank whiskey together and I got taught how to play Thai Poker (winning 500 baht in the process!). Pom chokdeee ma! (I’m very lucky)

The kids meanwhile got to go walking (a whole 9km… poor things), make fires, sing songs, dance, act and go through an assault course together. I didn’t get to see any of this though, but the time with the teachers was still well enjoyed.

New Year in Koh Chang

My return to the island of Koh Chang (along with about 39 other interns) was well appreciated. The journey down was longer than before (by about 3 hours) but once we got onto the island the fun could begin. The hostel was like last time, a bed in a shed and couldn’t have been much worse accommodation, but I wasn’t on the island to sleep. The first day was okay, spending with all the other interns at the beach, swimming in the sea, shoulder wars and volleyball (which we are so bad at). The evening was spent drinking though, which I wasn’t really up for and spent most of the time out hoping I’d start to enjoy it. In the end a few of us went off to the beach, but then out came the weed. I went to bed, not being arsed with being around the others when they were stoned and drunk, but an hour later they came into my room and carried on smoking… Louise came to my rescue and I stayed in her bed for the night, which ended up being my room for the next few nights as she was thinking the same as me, not wanting to drink or smoke.

In the morning we took part in a high ropes course which was great, climbing up ladders, zip-lining and swinging around. There was a skateboard zipline and a bicycle zipline as well, which were amazing, but the one which stopped me was the Tarzan swing to nowhere. I’m not great with heights, but that one nearly forced me back, it was only after the instructor talked me through it that I finally jumped off, dangling in the air while he was laughing at my nerves.

After this Louise and I went off on our own down to the south of the island and discovered that not only did Lonely Beach suck in comparison, but that it was almost like a different island! Lonely beach is a hippy’s retreat, the southern beach was the local and family retreat, with whiter sands and a huge market-pier with some pretty decent stuff going. On the beach we met up with four girls (Amy, Sophie, Helena and Vicky) who had been lucky enough to choose this beach over the one everyone else was staying at, and then sponged. The beach was gorgeous, we could sit on the deck-chairs free of charge and the bar-staff came up to us to serve food and cocktails. When I ran out of money one of the bar staff even drove me to the nearest cash point (though turns out my card was broken… uh-oh).

That night ended up resulting in having to take out the start of a hornets nest in our room (kudos to Lou for stepping up there) and then us two heading off to sit by the sea and sing Disney songs – as you do! As we were talking nuts and leaves were falling from the trees, one fell on Louise and as she looked up – SPLAT. A bat poo dropped on her head. I could not stop laughing, the best start to New Years Eve ever.

The next day I took out a moped (after looking for an hour, and eventually one kind Thai man rented me his own moped) and me and Lou went off again to explore the island some more. We headed north so that I could use my emergency travel cheque at a bank, and on the way back stopped at a beautiful river and a stunning viewpoint for some pictures. We ended up back on the southern beach again eventually, and went for a cheeky kayak (which considering I’d never kayaked before I was pretty proud of how good I was!)

It was sunnier than this! But I left my camera at home when it was haha

To herald in the New Year we headed back to Lonely Beach and met with the others again after a meal with the southern beach girls. The New Year was a drunken one with a disco on the beach, fire skipping and fireworks all along the beach, but it didn’t take long for me to be absolutely shattered thanks to having had about 5 hours sleep every night for the past week. As I was heading home though I bumped into Sam again (the lad from Aberystwyth who I’d met in Surin)! We both had planned to meet on the island at the party, but couldn’t actually find eachother until that point. Turns out his company is just as bad as ours, though whilst he gets paid more (about twice as much) we get a better location (we live in a small town as opposed to his factory district).

After that we headed back off to Nang Rong where I got in one day of teaching before my next adventure…

Cambodia – Angkor Thom, Tonle Sap Lake and Angkor Wat

This was the icing on the cake for the past month. P Jik – my head of department – had invited me on this trip a while ago and I’d said yes and thankfully Nang had been able to help sort out my passport so that I could go there and come back. I think though that this blog has gone on for too long and I shall leave Cambodia for my next instalment (posted as soon as I get my exams for the kids written up with any luck).

Blitz Rugby takes Angkor Wat

To everyone who reads this (and especially my family), I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sa wa dee krap!