A weekend to remember...

This weekend has been a bit like a roller coaster, so many ups and downs I feel dizzy! We left the house at 6.30 am Saturday morning to go to Pha Dem. Which is on the boarder with Laos. We started at the waterfalls, which were spectacular. In England, if you went to see a big waterfall, you would probably have to appreciate the aesthetics from a platform with 10 foot high fencing, for health and safety reasons. However, we got to climb all of the rocks and explore all of the pools and waterfalls first hand. After getting sweaty climbing up as high as I could, I decided to go for a swim, so stripped off and jumped into one of the various pools. It was so lovely and refreshing as was made even better than the small waterfall that flowed into pool gave a great massage! I then persuaded David, Robyn and Claire to join me. The girls were apprehensive at first, but could not help themselves after seeing me and David getting so excited. After a couple of hours and putting my head in many different potholes and getting pummelled by the cascades of water, we left to get some lunch.

We had lunch on the river than separated Thailand from Laos and was lovely, until the bus driver began to egg me on to eat some very spicy food. Of course I rose to the challenge, which I soon regretted as I was in pain for the next half an hour.

We then visited the painted cliffs and mushroom rocks which were both spectacular in their own way, not as entertaining as the waterfalls though! One thing that surprised me on our day of tourism was the comparison to England. There was virtually no health and safety measures in place, we were allowed to climb everything, even the mushroom rocks and stood on the top of the painted cliffs, which was quite scary. One thing we didn't account for was a 5km walk to got and see the actual paintings on the cliffs, which were at the bottom. This doesn't seem like much, but is rather difficult when it is 35 degrees and very humid.

We got back to Ubon just after 6, which gave us time to get ready before going out at 8. We started at a bar for a couple of drinks and some food, then moved to U-bar. One of Ubon's hotspots. I was just having a nice time being introduced to Doni's friends and getting free drinks. David on the other hand was on a mission, what this mission was I will never know, but it lead to him becoming very drunk, being rejected by numerous girls and then 'accidentally' flirting with a ladyboy.

We were all laughing at him when we left at 4 in the morning, but one of my highlights was when he made a move on an American girl by pretending to be French, she saw through it straight away everything got a bit awkward as he thought she was loving it. 'Oh dad' was used often by both me and
Robyn.

After an amazing Saturday, Sunday was not so fun. I woke up feeling a bit rough, as expected, but I wasn't as bad as David. At first I thought he might have been dead, but a huge fart, which he woke himself up with proved otherwise. He then progressively got worse throughout the day and ended up in hospital. He had gone for a late night snack and turned out to be some rather uncooked chicken. I felt quite bad for him as he was firing from both ends. He still managed to cheer me up as he asked for a towel, I asked if everything was ok and he replied in a very weak voice. 'I didn't make it to the toilet'. However unfortunate this was for him, it had me in stitches till I had tears in my eyes. I think I paid for it though as I was made to clear up his sick a couple of hours later.

I spent most of my day sat watching Touch, which was rather nice as it has been a while since I have watched TV.

He is feeling much better now, which is good and we have just had our last day of teaching for a month. There are exams for the students this week, so we don't have to teach, and then we leave for Chaing Mai on Saturday.

I almost forgot, something rather peculiar happened on Friday night. We went to the market as usual and went to our favourite stand. I was given a note by the women who works at that stand and it was her number and name, she is called max. She told me to ring her, but I have not as I am a bit scared and since she speaks very little English, I doubt we would be able to have a meaningful conversation.

Tata from Thailand

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