10 MONTHS...nearly

Teaching is excellent at the moment, all of my classes are a lot of fun and it really is a pleasure to teach them. It is difficult to comprehend that I only have 6 weeks of teaching left, so only 6 lessons for each class. I am tutoring one of the teachers niece's on a Saturday to earn a bit extra money, it isn't much, but it pays for the odd night out and still allows me to save some money!

I am excited to go home because I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, but I am also reluctant as it is so amazing here it will be very difficult to leave. The life here is so easy going and relaxed, it will be such a shock to get thrown into university and the busyness of everyone's lives.

Hearing about the weather at home is rather entertaining, the lowest temperature I have experienced since arriving in Thailand in about 26 degrees, and that was in the powerful air conditioning of a 7/11! I can picture arriving home wearing jumpers and long pants, whilst everybody else will be making the most of the minimal sun of a British summer by walking around in skimpy items of clothing. Most of you may expect me to have a tan since I have spent the last 10 months in blazing sunshine, but you would be wrong. It is simply too hot and uncomfortable to be anywhere near the sun, 5 minutes of exposure would turn anyone into a sweaty mess. Therefore, all of my time is spent undercover, either at school or at home, sitting next to a fan or Air-con. The only time I had a noticeable tan was during the holidays when most of my time was spent with my top off sitting on a beach or in the sea.

I am very giddy at the moment as I have made plans to meet up with Rob Kingston, Ben Wardell, Tom Vaughan-Jones and Sam Martin from school, and the six guys I met during the holidays. I have booked bus tickets and Waddle has booked accommodation, so I will see them next weekend! Seeing them will be phenomenal up until the point I leave when I expect I will become rather homesick and spend a couple of days moping around the house.

I have been scrimping and saving as much as I can so that I can see my friends, but I am also trying to save until the end of the year. We finish teaching at the end of July, and our flight is on the 15th August, so a few of us have planned to go to Koh Chang for a week, like we did for the New Year. This will be fun and a good way to say goodbye to everyone as some people are not going to debriefing!

TTFN x

I'M BACK!

I still have more to write about my holidays, but I will get back to that. I have been back teaching for 3 days, it is really nice to be settled back at home and into the routine of teaching. I do miss travelling, but by the end, I just wanted to come back to the house and not have to worry about where we were staying or about how expensive the meals are.

The teaching has started excellently, I have all new classes now and it is great to meet my new students. However, I do miss some of my old classes, which Dave now has the pleasure of teaching.

There is a huge storm going on at the moment and the thunder is astonishingly loud, with lightning slicing up the nights sky with long streaks of blinding light. The rain is like nothing I have ever seen before. it makes normal rain seem like a light spray. The power keeps cutting out in our house, every time the lightning strikes close by.

I stood out in the rain and felt a sudden urge to be a part of it, so I put on my trainers and ran. I didn't run for long, just a few quick laps around the school. It was incredible, the huge raindrops crashing into my skin making it fell like running through a tennis training centre, with a hundred people aiming at me. The crashes of thunder sent shudders down my spine and made my heart race, so I ran faster, and continued until I was almost sprinting, my eyes sore from squinting and my chest tight. I stopped to take it all in, the BANG a huge fork of lightning crashed to the ground about 100 metres in front of me. There was so much to take in at once, it was overwhelming, the sound of thunder, the rain colliding with the metal roofing of the shelters around the school an even toads complaining about the weather. I stood there in awe of the world, at how everything can change so quickly. Not long before it had been swelteringly hot, to the point you wouldn't want to move, or couldn't due to being stuck to the chair by sweat. Mmmmm, lovely.

Now, the storm is moving away and my heartbeat has returned to its normal pace. Bring on the next 3 months.

I'm ready!

Koh Samui

After the craziness of the party island, we headed to Koh Samui to relax for a few days. Even though it is more commercialised than the other islands, it had a much nicer feel than Koh Phangan. We were all so tired, the first night was pretty uneventful, with an early night in a sweltering room.

The next day took was not so great, I woke up feeling great, but as soon as I went down for breakfast, I became dizzy and delirious, I couldn't talk properly, or even stand up straight. It was the beginning of a long and horrible day. I won't go into details, but I spent the rest of the day in bed, or curled around the toilet with the shower running over my head.

My migraine eased off at night and I managed to keep down some food, and then started to feel much better, but still I had an early night, hoping that the next day would be an improvement.

It was much better when I woke, we all went to the beach and relaxed in the sea. Jane and I rented a jet ski for half an hour and it was incredible! It was so powerful and the sea was a little choppy, so we were just bouncing across the waves, Jane was holding on so tight she had bruises. It was quite expensive, but was well worth it. One of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, it came close to bungy jumping. I would recommend it to anyone.

This was Boput Beach on Koh Samui

We returned to our accommodation and after about an hour, Tom seemed to have turned into quite a deep shade of red, which was entertaining for everyone else but him.

That night we met up with Charlie and his friends for a few drinks. It ended up being a nice night, nobody got particularly drunk and we just had a laugh. This was pretty much the end of our time on Koh Samui, so the next morning, we packed up and headed up to Bangkok to meet David's family.

Full Moon Party!

We stayed on Koh Phangan for only 3 nights, but two of them were two of the craziest nights of my life! The first night, there was the jungle party, which was a warm up party for the full moon party. It was a lovely venue, hidden away in the trees, with nice stages and a variety of music. I met up with Charlie an some of his mates from home; Sleeve, Alex and Raf. They were nice guys and we had a really good time. Me, Charlie and Vicky even managed to get into the VIP area, I am not quite sure how, but I think Vicky was pretending to be really upset that we were not allowed in, then the bouncer let us in.
It was an amazing party, and I took it a bit easier than I might have done otherwise, if it wasn't for the Full Moon Party the next day.

I woke up mid afternoon the next day and got some food, I was so tired and could not comprehend going out again. I had to man up and do it, how could I not go to one of the worlds biggest parties?

I went for a swim in the pool, and felt much better. The sea was not so pleasant, it was a bit to warm and felt a bit slimy. I think I would have preferred to swim in Morecambe bay than in that sea.

We started drinking at about 9pm, with a taxi booked at 12.30. We didn't want to drink to much beforehand as most of us were eager to make it till at least sunrise. We had forgotten to buy some UV paint, so we had to go round asking people for some. We ended up just borrowing a few different colours from the guy next door. I had seen a few people had bought full moon party vests, but I went one step further and made my own and cut the words into my vest.

Getting ready to party!

 After putting all of our paints on and drinking quite a bit, we hopped into the taxi and made our way to the beach, singing at the top of our voices all the way.

We got to the beach and it was phenomenal, 2km of beach, 30, 000 people and a lot of different bars, as well as many stands selling alcohol. I found Charlie and his friends and we went off, going to different bars, drinking and dancing all night long. There were a few times when we lost someone and spent a while looking for them. David was hilarious, I only saw him a couple of times, but when I did, he was totally off his head.

It was a lot of fun and a few of us made it till about 9 o'clock, sunrise was nice, as we were all still rather drunk, just sat on the sand looking out over the horizon. However, the sun revealed the damage that had been done to the beach, and the people occupying it, it looked as if a bomb had gone off in a flip flop factory. There were hundreds of flip flops, and that was just in the area we were in, and there were a fair few people passed out in the sand. There were a couple of us and we were a little bored, so we started by burying the unconscious, not deeply, just enough to keep them warm. And when they had all arisen, we played flip flop frisbee, which ended up into a flip flop fight, where we were just throwing flip flops a each other. There were quite a few people who joined in, so when you threw one, you would ge

t another in the back of the head. When we finished, we helped a bit by putting a load of singular flip flops in the large pile surrounding the bin.

And that was the end of it, we finished by getting a bus back to Charlie's accommodation and going for a nice swim to sober up, before returning to my accommodation to sleep off the hangover.

Koh Tao

We started our holidays on Koh Tao, a lovely little island in the gulf of Thailand. Most of the volunteers were there as a lot of them wanted to do a diving course during their stay. I didn't fancy the diving, so I just stuck to sunbathing and snorkelling.

One of last years volunteers is now working at Bans Diving on the island, it was nice to talk to her and find out about her experience of Thailand.

We all had a lovely week relaxing in the sun and working on our tans, the only downside was that it was rather expensive, meals were 3 times the price than what we would usually pay in our projects, so we had to budget very carefully as this was only the first week. There were a few good nights out, one of the most entertaining was when we went to see the cabaret show, which ended up with David and I on the stage, with a few other reluctant men, dressed in boxers, a bikini top and a big wig!

It was so hot, all of the time, I needed to shower about 3 times a day. The worst part of the heat came when we went kayaking. We rented kayaks between us for a couple of hours and just went out into the sea armed with snorkels. After about 10 minutes of hard paddling, anyone would have assumed that I had just been for a dip, but no, I was just ripping in sweat and the sun was still beating down. This was about 4.30 pm, so it was not as hot as it had been earlier, but it was still roasting.

Kayaking 

This was our view, every day we were there.

After Koh Tao, our plan was to travel to Koh Phangan and go wild at the full moon party!

A whole lot of orange.

Last week, Me, Dave and 12 other volunteers joined the girls in Nakhon Sawan to do an English camp at one of the temples. It was very successful, and a lot of fun. There were about 120 novice monks, most of which were very good. Throughout the day, we did a lot of different games and activities, one of which was a scavenger hunt, and I was a Panda. I had to dress up and hide somewhere around the monastery and wait until I was found by a monk. It was really hot and I was sweating buckets, until finally I was approached by a monk, asking what size my shoes were. (Another item was a pair of size 36 shoes) After explaing to him that my feet were far too big, he realised that my strange black and white outfit resembled a panda, I was then escorted to the main hall where we were welcomed with a round of applause as the monk who managed to find me paraded me into the room.

Me and Dave ran one of 6 different rotations, ours was to do with food tasting. We had 5 different tastes, coffee for bitter, fruit mentos for sweet, chilli powder for spicy, lemon juice for sour and crisps for salty. We then had to blindfold 5 monks at a time and get them to taste different things. The monks had a lot of fun, and so did we. It was rather entertaining watching the unlucky ones who got spicy, however, one little monk ate a half teaspoon of chilli powder without complaint. There was a point when one boy was almost in tears after tasting the chilli powder. Dave managed to get chilli in his eye after a monk had coughed after his taste and blew it into his face.

Nakhon Sawan is a beautiful city and we were there for Chinese New Year. Following the parades was amazing, the streets were painted with colour, and as the nights drew in, the streets were lit up with floats and echoed with the sounds of fireworks. There was one pout where we were watching some floats pass buy and we hadn't realised that a long string of firecrackers had been lit behind us. t was terrifying when they started and we were being showered by bits of paper. We quickly ran off, but my ears were ringing for at least half an hour after.

It has been our last week of teaching this week and has been rather emotional, as we will be teaching different classes when we return from our holidays.  I have been saying goodbye to my favourite classes, and telling them to come and talk to me whenever they see me.

Today was rather scary though, I was sat in the office when I saw a large cloud of smoke coming from near our house, so I ran to our house to find that our neighbours house was surrounded in fire and the fields were ablaze. The fire was started by the farmers of the rice fields adjacent to our house. This get the field ready for a new crop when the we season begins in June. However, it has been very windy today, and because it has not rained for months, all of the grass and surrounding land is very dry. Dave was already putting out fires when I arrived. I joined in and we spent about an hour traipsing round the paddy fields with buckets and jugs putting out fires. After the majority had been dealt with, we returned home and I now have cuts and burns on my feet and legs, nothing serious.

It has all been rather exciting, and now we are not teaching until may, so we are going to kick it off with a bang, David is buying us a crate of beer for tonight and in the next couple of weeks, we are going to travel around isaan visiting volunteers in the North East, before my parents hopefully come and we all meet up on the island of Koh Tao


Summer is going to be good.

Love and kisses

Ben xxx

Life...and Project Trust Staff Visit

Kate, our desk officer, and Heloise from Project Trust visited us at our project on Friday. They saw us teach and we showed them around our house. They were pleasantly surprised when we cooked them tea, we cooked a lovely Panang Gai (red curry, with chicken and coconut milk). It was nice to see them and talk about our project, and they were asking if we had any problems with anything. The only thing that came up was about money. Pying, one of our friends and teacher at the school was saying that she thought we were not getting paid enough. When Kate was volunteering, she was paid the same amount, but 6 years ago, and the cost of living has increased since then. 

I was talking to them about my blog and everything and they were surprised at how many posts I had made. I thought I wasn't doing too well, as as soon as I haven't posted for a while I find a message from my Mum questioning me on my lack of post. I appreciate it though as it makes me realise that you want to know what I am up to and are supporting me. However, from my perspective, I have been here for over 5 month now. And not much happens that differs from what I now perceive as normal life. I blogged a lot more at the start because everything was new and exciting. But now, blogging about everything would be like you blogging about every little thing you do in your daily routine. 

This morning, I woke up at 7.15, but it was a bit chilly, so I wrapped myself in my blanket and listened to a bit of music. I then rose out of bed at 7.30. I went downstairs to have a shower and a shave, yes, I actually needed a shave. We then heard a knock at our door to find Brayung, out host, waiting with a new fridge. Well, new to us, it was an old one from her house. Our last one has been broken fro a while, we opened it yesterday and were welcomed by an awful stench and an assortments of mould, lovely. 

After replacing the fridge, I cut up some watermelon and poured myself a cup of coffee. We really need to go shopping as we have no food in the fridge. I still have Nesquick from home which I got for Christmas. We then brushed our teeth, fixed our hair and proceeded to lock up and leave for assembly. After signing in, I sat myself in the office, logged onto the internet and started to write this blog... this is my day so far. 

Later I will most likely teach a few lessons, my first one at 11.15, then 2 in the afternoon. I am not sure what we are having for lunch yet, that is the exciting part, it is a surprise. 

The weather has been much cooler this month which has been nice. I am not looking forward to the hot season when the temperatures will be dancing around 40 degrees. 

That's a thing, my Christmas present, IT ARRIVED! It was an amazing day, I was so excited. I didn't even let Dave wrap them. I just dove in to the parcel to see what I got. It was so good. I got a few present that made me laugh, like a Rodney mask and some stick on monsters. A transfer tattoo that goes onto your hand between your thumb and index finger, so that you can have a talking monster. 

There were plenty of sweets and biscuits as well that were polished off not long after the package was opened, I now wish I has savoured some. 

I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who sent me a present or card. It was very kind of you! I had a lovely Christmas morning opening presents with David, then a great second Christmas opening my package from my parents.

I didn't think I had that much to say, but I started writing and then couldn't seem to stop, until now. 

Stay classy...world.

Ben 

x