Vacation in Thailand - part 1

At the end of July I went to Thailand for my summer vacation with my friend and co-teacher Manda. We were so excited for the trip, I really needed a vacation!!

We left Seoul on Friday night and arrived in Bangkok very early Saturday morning. We checked into a guest house and had a good 6 hours sleep. Manda's friend Barb from Australia happened to be in Bangkok at the same time and we stayed at the same place, so we met up with her on Saturday morning and then headed out to see some sights. The first thing we did was go out and buy some fruit from the vendors on the street. It was great; fresh mango, pineapple, guava and cantaloupe for about 30 cents each! We spent the day browsing the markets and wandering around. Bangkok is a very colourful city and busy any time of the day.

On Sunday we had another early start because we were going to see the floating markets outside of Bangkok. We were up at 5 and on our way at 6:30 am. It was quite a drive to the market so we were able to get some sleep on the way. Once there we took a speedboat to the actual market, it was beautiful, but a little overwhelming - so many people and so much to see and do. We wandered around for a while and bought some souvenirs and food and were on our way back to Bangkok by noon. Our plan for the afternoon was to go to the Grand Palace, but it got derailed after we got taken in by a classic Thai scam - the tuktuk ride for 20 baht (about 75 cents). It sounded too good to be true and it was, if we hadn't been so tired and hungry we probably wouldn't have agreed to it!! The driver ended up taking us to an out of the way restaurant - which he likely got comission for. But we ended up having a great meal - and it's all part of the experience... right? Live and learn!! But anyway, by the time we got back to the palace it was closing in 45 minutes so we didn't have enought time to go in. We ended up wandering around the area and seeing the National Art Gallery and other sights. That night the 3 of us went for dinner and a Thai massage, I'd never had one before and I was in desperate need of a massage. It was great, so relaxing and cheap! I ended up going for 4 massages during the entire week!

On Monday morning it was another early day because we were catching a flight to Trat on our way to Koh Chang island. The Trat airport was like no other airport I'd seen before. It was entirely outdoors, the check-in desk, security, boarding, etc... all outside! We then took a ferry to the island and arrived at the beach at about 1 pm. The area of the island we were staying at is called Lonely Beach and it was definitely lonely! It was low season and because Lonely Beach is towards the southern end of the island there were hardly any people there. But it was great for a couple nights to get away from everything. We had decided to spend the first few nights in a traditional hut at a resort that was recommended to us by Barb. It was quite a climb up to the hut and when we saw the inside we realized we were really roughing it! But the view was amazing so we decided it wouldn't be too bad for a night or 2. The first afternoon was spent napping, laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean. That night a huge storm hit the island, but it was really cool to hear the storm mixed with the sounds of the ocean while sleeping.

The next morning after a feezing cold shower we decided that we'd had enough roughing it, at least we gave it a shot! So we decided to move down to one of the hotel rooms on the beach. We had to pack up a few things in the hut and when Manda opened her backpack to put her towel in she found a scorpion sitting there!! We remained pretty calm considering this; Manda told the guy that had come up to help us down with our bags and he then found something to get it off the bag and killed it. After that we were happy to leave the hut behind and knew we had made the right decision to move!

to be continued...

Chocolate Cheese Update

I thought you might be interested to hear how the choco cheese went over with the kids at school. The day before summer vacation I took the cheese to my homeroom for their morning snack. The kids were so excited, they were all saying "Yay, choco cheese!" So I passed it out and they all eagerly unwrapped to cheese. Moments later the classroom was filled with sounds of disgust, something like this - "Ewwww, Carrie Teacher, choco cheese very, very yucky" All 12 kids were not happy, after they took one bite they threw it in the garbage! It was very funny. So now I don't have to try it; these kids will eat almost anything, so if they didn't like it I'm pretty sure I won't either!

I'll have a post on here soon about my trip to Thailand, I had a great time and need to write about it before I forget everything. Miss you all!