Essay-writing avoidance

Hasn't facebook almost eradicated the need for these things? photos go up there, so do random thoughts. Maybe it is time to pack in the blog. However, I think a general picture of everything is elusive in facebook. Tidbits are thrown at you. the whole picture is never achieved...

Jordan so far...

It has been what feels like 5 million years, I know. Writing about Prague as I know it so well seems futile compared to the ramblings of BKK and life just got in the way.

So, as I know myself well enough to be fully aware that emails detailing what I am up to are a long way away from most of your inboxes (sorry, but at least I admit I am pants) I shall revive my blog so you can read at least about general goings on and maybe I will be spurred into contact as I will only have to write short private messages. Note the use of 'maybe' above...

Here goes,

Amman

Amman is higgledy-piggledy and sprawling. Not quite what I expected, maybe I should have googled some pics before coming but that spoils the surprise. It is built on many hills and clearly Jordanians are skillful at building houses deep into the hillside that look as if they are about to topple over. Another thing I didn't know about Amman is that it boasts the tallest flagpole in the world - how cool is that? Is quite pretty though is hard to get your bearings, have been doing so by using the minarets as point of reference. I live in between first and second circle if that is any help - it is a blooming roundabout - why circle? Whatever. road names are rarely used which means taxi rides can be interesting. Public transport is virtually non-existent. I have been on a bus but that experience shall be detailed later. Can get more things here than can get in Prague, something I have never understood, Bisto, Toffee Crisps, books and magazines all stuff that I ask people to bring me from UK and of course NOT bacon but hey it takes me about a month before I start hankering for some pig obviously less time before I start hankering for some alcohol. I arrived on Saturday by Monday I was on my balcony with a mallet and a knife hacking into a bottle of white I had brought with me - only took half an hour to get in and of course the effort made it taste all the better. Ironically, the next day I found the corner shop by work sells alcohol. Hmph.

My place

ahh, TB and I have a nice flat - woah haven't called him that in a while. Anyway, it is nice, big, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, very odd plumbing, massive living room all in all, nice. And more importantly a terrace which overlooks a valley and has quite a nice view. Ten minutes walk from work. Doesn't appear to have been lived in for about 10 years judging by the layer of dust when we arrived and I do question the Jordanian taste in interior decor when the living room does resemble the waiting room in a funeral home. We don't use that living room.

Classes

Now, having had experience of Bahrainis I wasn't expecting to be too shocked by my students. However, I wasn't expecting a bunch of over eager crazy teens. I was NEVER like that when I was 13 - I ask a question, their hands dart up like their lives depended on it, they are wriggling in their chairs desperate, desperate for me to call their name. They start hissing, teacher, teacher and waving in my direction. All very strange. Top marks is top priority. Last Thursday was the end of term 1 and of course I had to write reports. It was parents day, all a nightmare, I thought the parents were going to come and give me grief but generally they were ok if their kid didn't get excellent across the board and then there was a knock at the door and it was a student from the previous who had been hanging around 2 hours to discuss this with me:

Student: Teacher, please tell me the truth
Me: What's up?
S: Is Omar better than me?
M: What? (bemused look on my face)
S: You gave him all excellents and I got all excellent but one good for spelling
M: that is correct, you make mistakes in you spelling
S: But, so does Omar - is he really better than me? Because I want to be the best
M: What difference does it make? I am not going to answer that question
S: Why you give him all excellents and not me?
M: (random sappy last minute rationale) because you want to be the best but you need to improve your spelling, I know you want to work really hard and be the best and so I am pushing you to do so by not giving you all excellents. Maybe Omar has achieved all he can achieve and therefore I have recognised that. (Yeah, even I wasn't sure of that one but I had to get rid somehow!)
S: Ok, teacher, next term I will be the best.

What? I mean seriously, this teen was upset. Odd. Anyway, that gives a general idea of what I have to put up with. It also gets annoying. Finished, finished! Finished! Is all I hear. the minute they make it through an activity they scream finished at me - my response, What d'ya want? A chocolate biscuit? You have to wait for the others to finish and then we will check it together. I even handed out heart shaped stickers to my teenage boys to put on their work because they were so adamant about me marking every exercise and ticking it. They were excited and failed to see the irony! And homework? they beg for it - they even begged for an end of term test!!! With homework, they queue up as soon as they come into class and shove their books in front of me, shove books on top of each other's so I make them first, wave books in my faces, desperate for acknowledgement that they had completed their homework adequately. They now automatically get 0 if they shove anything in my face coz I can't cope with it to be honest. Unbelievable - and the 7-9 year olds? well, they show me every tiny little thing they have done for approval! I am sure that gives you an idea.

The dead sea

It was super cool. You have to pay to go to a hotel to get to the beach. It is an odd feeling that the other side of the dead sea is the West bank! You can see Jericho as you drive down there. Your ears pop because it is the lowest point in the world - 400M under sea level. You can't put your head under water because the salt stings your eyes. You realise how many cuts you have on your body as they all start stinging! I shan't tell you where I discovered some but it was a bit of a surprise - no, not there! You have to fight to get your feet on the ground because your legs automotically bob to the surface. It was cool. You dig underwater for the mud. We caked each other up, stood about in the blazing sun then washed it all off. I do have pics, they will go up later. Then we headed to bethany - supposedly where Jesus was baptised. I traipsed about in 50 degree heat in the blazing sun to see this, a hole with water in it. And the river of Jordan? mmmm more like the ditch of Jordan though it took a lot of me, knowing that Israel was a mere leap across the ditch to not throw myself across for the hell of it. But, military zone, mines etc. think TB saw the flash in my eyes and started tugging on my shirt to prevent me from doing a runner. Anyway, it was all very interesting.

Karak

That was last weekend. Karak is a medieval castle occupied a lot by Saladin and important during the crusades. More importantly, you can wander around freely it has lots of tunnels and secret passages you need a torch for. It is high up overlooking the valley where Sodom and Gomorrah are apparently. It was great. I was with boys so you can imagine the fun they had hiding round the corners 'surprising' me and what not. The prison area and dungeons were cool. It is still kind of being excavated in places and work is being done out front. The workers appear to use some of the crevices as toilets - not a pleasant surprise! We went by bus. Now, smoking in Jordan is everywhere - I was shocked to be in a shopping mall in Bata with a guy serving me whilst smoking behind the counter. Well, the buses are about 20 years old, have thick velvet curtains to block out the sun and soak up 20 years of sweat and smoke. People smoke on the buses and the bus doesn't go anywhere until full. Which means you could wait up to two hours before you go anywhere. It is basically like an overheated Czech pub on wheels minus the alcohol. Karak is two hours from Amman but felt like an eternity at points.

Right I will leave it there for now. Petra is happening soon. Pics up soon also.

does any of it work?

So, I travelled from Prague to Bahrain yesterday. Not by bus, of course, but by plane. it never ceases to amaze me how particularly annoying these kinds of journey can be. You'd think it was pretty straightforward. Being asked at the airport at check-in where my visa was when I didn't have one was not the greatest start to my day - thankfully she phoned someone and realised I could get it upon arrival. Phew.

Not a single one of my flights actually took off on time, although knowing my history with flying that doesn't really come as a surprise. there is always something very interesting and quintessentially British while transferring at Heathrow airport. Upon arrival we had to sit on the plane for about half an hour just waiting to get off because someone had forgotten to put the chocks on the plane and the man with the stairs was refusing to put them by the plane until the chocks were there. Of course the captain was giving us a blow-by-blow account of what was going including a minute by minute schedule of when we were going to get out of the plane. due to this, I had no time in between my flights to stop off a smiths not even to get a whiff of heat or some crisps it was straight on to the next one. Why I rushed between terminals is beyond me.

there is always that sinking feeling when you go through a gate, expect to see the plane and are confronted with a bus. We were all herded on and off we went. We then sat outside the plane on the bus for half an hour. No one of course said anything. All of us were just sat in silence staring into space. that kind of boredom that sets in when people start reading the ingredients on the back of their water bottle. I also discovered that people acutally buy and read magazines about digital cameras. You start to examine everything around you, can see who went out last night, who didn't, who got up early this morning, who didn't, who is older than you actually thought at first glance. Yet, no one breathes a word and I just sit there wondering - does any form of transport in this country actually ever work?

keep on moving...

It has been ages I know. Guilt has forced me to start writing again. For those of you who aren't aware, I have left Thailand and have moved to Prague. It took us a while to find a flat but finally we got one we are happy with 0 it even ahs a heated bathroom floor and very strangely, it is in the exact same building I lived in when I first came to the Czech Republic in 2001.

Being back is quite nice, escaping from relentless heat is a massive bonus although it was freezing when we first arrived and of course I had no shoes even vaguely sutied to that kind of weather!

I had also forgotten how charming Czechs could be. I spent the frist two days looking for a charger for my phone as there were no adaptors available. Every mobile shop I went into, the conversation went like this (in Czech by the way)

Me: Hello, I bought this phone in Thailand (shows phone) and I need to get a charger for it to work here. Do you have one?
Salesperson: No.
Me: right, do you know where I can get one?
SP: Yes.
Me: Are you going to share that little pearl of wisdom with me or are you just going to keep it to yourself?

Honestly, it gets frustrating, eeking out info that would normally be readaily provided.

In a restaurant:

Me: Can I have the spinach pizza please?
waitress: OK.

25 minutes later...


Waitress: here is your mexican pizza (with beans and lard on it - bleugh!)
ME: I'm sorry. that isn't the one I ordered.

Waitress, huffs and takes it away and then returns with it and explains that the chef made a mistake therefore I have to eat it anyway and plonks it in front of me.

ahhh, the joys of Czech service.

Other than that things are fab. I have my DELTA interview tomorrow and an interview for summer school in Tunis on Thursday so it is all systems go.

will write more when I have more time...

When in Rome...

I wish I had one. I little camera on my shoulder so I could show you exactly what I see on a daily basis. It would be so much fun. My motorbiking accomplishments are enviable, the brushes with death, the loose helmet, aaah who needs roller coasters. The quickest way around BKK is by motorbike taxi. At the corner of my road, there are a bunch of motorbike taxi drivers in their little orange vests waiting for people. They know me quite well now, when they see me they raise their hand up to check that I indeed need them and come and get me. Nowadays, I don't even need to discuss price with them as they just charge me Thai prices from now on, but it took a while. What happened to me yesterday is a prime example:

I only needed to get a ride to the Train station from where I was so I could connect to the underground. I have taken this route many times and know it is 50 baht in a taxi but traffic was heavy so I knew it could take a long, long time. So, I asked them to take me and as soon as I asked how much a grin spread across his face and he tried not to answer. I used Thai of course which usually automatically gives me leveridge. Not this time. 150 baht he said. Not on your nelly, love what are you going on about. I did the whole Thai tsking and mock surprise and then told him I knew it was 50 in a taxi and a taxi has air con. This is my usual ploy and it usually works a dream. He dropped it to 100 and then tried to tell me that, that was a Thai price - my arse it is! A crowd started to gather to watch the farang argue in Thai. I got him down to 80 but h wouldn't budge and I wouldn't go over 60. His mate stepped in and showed me a coin and said ok then, it lands on the temple you get it for 60, heads, you pay 80. I couldn't believe I had to toss a coin to get the right price, honestly. It landed on my side - I know, I know I am fighting over like half a dollar or something, but it is the rip-off attitude just coz I look like a tourist that gets you down after a while.

Anyway, he eventually got me there in one piece after moaning lots about traffic not that that makes any difference to a motorbike as they weave in between it all. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you stuff like this really, half the time they don't give you a helmet and when they do you can't adjust the strap and it is falling off anyway. I have become quite good at riding side saddle. Most Thai women whether they are wearing a skirt or not ride that way. I didn't trust it at first and then one day I rode normally in a skirt and as I got off the bike I flashed my security guards who haven't been able to look at me the same way since. That was the moment I decided I needed to just do the whole side saddle thing. I can now ride side saddle, carrying shopping in one and hand and holding an umbrella over my head in the other. I caught a flash of myself whizzing past a shop window the other day, it is quite impressive.

I must say, I will miss my little motorbike taxis, although I don't recommend trying to double up on time saving and using the ride to blow dry your hair. Dear, oh dear, that idea of a mine was a complete disaster...

Dr Massage

Obviously, in my time in Thailand I have tried most kinds of massage; Thai, Japanese, Herbal, Swedish, Aromatherapy - all with varying degrees of success, Thai still being my favourite. Today I tried Ayuraveda massage. It started off with the woman asking me where I had pain. What she meant was: "where do you think you have pain so that I can put you through the most excruciating hell in that area?" Seriously, I was in shock. It involved her isolating the area and digging her thumb in as hard as she could followed by her elbow with all her weight on it. This went on for an hour with little respite, nothing relaxing about it at all. Surprisingly, now I have no pain in my shoulders however I don't really know if that is because the woman was indeed a well-trained massage Dr and magically cured me or that I could still be in pain but don't realise it because it is significantly less than when I was having my massage. Honestly, when she was doing my head I thought she was going to put her finger through my skull.
J is dealing with some thievery today. Some kid has been stealing his DVDs from his room. Ridiculous. He has had to bring in kids and search their bags to find them. And kids are not good at looking innocent it is laughable. Last Sunday I went outside to put up some questions around the corridor for a running dictation and as I turned the corner I spot two of my teens who hadn't showed up to class yet, sat together doing their homework. It took them about a minute to notice me and the look on their faces when they realised they'd been sprung was a picture it has to be said. Hilarious. I found it really hard to look angry at them - they were so mortified, poor things. At the end of class I only gave them homework for next week. One of the other students looks at me and goes "beautiful punishment teacher, beautiful". They are by far my favourite class. they knew we had a deal, if they do their homework and work hard in class I will give them less homework but if they dick around in class and don't their homework they will get more. It cracks me up when I mix up the pairs and some of the boys end up having to work with a girl because they just sit there shuffling their feet, the girl giggles and stares at the floor, it's so funny. Watching them conjures up so many horrifying memories, I am so SO glad I am not a teenager anymore!

Dissention

It has been a pretty interesting week or so since New Year. There was a strong rumour of a coup last Thursday, they were even talking about a self-coup. I can't even understand how that works. They storm themselves and hold themselves up in order to overturn themselves and put themselves in power? Weird. As you can see the air is thick with irony. A guy called the Nation newspaper and said that he supported Thaksin and was outraged that they suggested he could be behind the attacks therefore he was going to bomb them! I don't know enough about the situation, I read up as much as I can but clearly there are some things that are always going to be a mystery.
Things now lend themselves to a bit of panic. I am not sure how long it will take for things to stabilise but I am pretty sure that things will remain like this for a while at least. As I was told "the situation is fluid"...will see what happens.

Fireworks to the left, ambulances to the right...

Well, the new year has certainly started with a bang here in Bangkok. Nothing like the possibility of being blown up to put a dampner on festivities. Ironically, last new year I was on a plane that was about to blow up, so we had to do an emergency landing, this year on terra firma there are also explosions - hope this isn't a new trend appearing, maybe next year I'll shove myself under water for good measure.

Anyway, there was celebrating to be done regardless. Two of my mates were over and it was to be the last time I would see them as they were leaving Thailand soon so there was still cause to celebrate. Despite authorities cancelling the major festivities there were still fireworks to be seen from my balcony so all was not lost. We decided not to go out as we had planned to go to a major area and they seemed to be targets. Sure enough a bomb was found at our intended destination later that night. The now well-oiled system of get to the 7-11, stock up and party was underway. The fireworks were actually quite impressive and once we had seen them it really made it feel like New Year. (photos up later I'm afraid, am having severe problems getting my New Year pics out of my email and onto the blog right now, dunno y)

Other than that excitement I had a great time in the Philippines it is a beautiful country and the people are fabulous, however, it was a bit more dangerous than I anticipated. They search your bags before you get on the skytrain searching for bombs, indeed on our last day as we had just got off the skytrain and got to the hotel we switched on the news to find that a guy had just been caught there with dynamite in his bag, there is a security guard or two in every shop , they also search you before you go into a club. On the metro and skytrain women and men have seperate cars to ride in - never seen that before. More disturbingly was a guard post we drove past on a trip that was an "anti-hijacking checkpoint". Although, I am not really sure how that works or how effective it could possibly be:
guard: excuse me madam, I was just wondering if you had any plans to hijack someone today?
person: erm no, not at all.
guard: OK, carry on. Have a nice trip!

OR

Guard: excuse me, may I ask whether that ski mask you are wearing is purely a harmless accessory or are you planning to hijack someone?
person: Oh no, it is my latest facial accoutrement, it goes rather well with this massive gun I have, don't you think? It is part of my latest "war on terror" fashion phase, it's all the rage nowadays.

These were the main downsides and after a day or two you get used to it and it doesn't feel so weird. I am used to being harrassed in Asian countries. You have nowhere to hide, you are clearly a foreigner there is no escaping it so you are always a target. However, in the Philippines it was great that you could banter with people and if you just said no thank you politely 9 times out of 10 they would just say ok, Merry Christmas! which shocked me. It really left you with a good feeling.
We went to Manila, Tagaytay, Nasugbu and White beach on Mendora Island. We were in Manila on Christmas day so it was pretty quiet, the lady at the guest house we were staying at said she loved Manila at this time because it was empty, it wasn't till we returned 5 days later that we understood what she meant! We bimbled about getting a feel for the place. We went to Rizal park the theoretical 'lungs of Manila' and realised that everyone else in Mania also thought that the best place to spend Christmas afternoon was in the park. I have never seen so many people in a park. Huge families gathered around, sat on a plastic mat, kids clearly playing with their xmas presents, walkie talkies, badminton sets, remote control cars. It was a really cool atmosphere.
Not far from Rizal park is intramuros, the oldest part of the city. Unfortunately, a lot of it was bombed and few of the original, old buildings remain however it was still a pleasant walk. Pleasant if you managed to block out the sounds of fireworks going off. Filipinos seem to have a strange fascination with fireworks, they were going off everywhere. However, these were not pretty light-up-the-sky fireworks, these were make a big bang that sounds a lot like a gunshot and scares the hell out of you! This coupled with the odd street filled with bunches of kids hanging out, in full 'hip-hop' garb with crunk hits vol. 2 blasting out of every window gave it a certain ghetto quality. J and I wandered down one of these streets and I regretted it. Kids were blasting off these fireworks and throwing them down in front of us as we walked and even if you know the sound is coming it still makes you jump. There were a couple of nice churches to be found and clearly this was an area of Manila they had tried to clean up a bit, but still there were some areas that felt dodgy. I have just never seen so many people, even in Seoul. It took ten minutes to get out of the tube station because of the queue of people waiting to go through the turnstiles. It was crazy. Leaving Manila was tough, making it out of the sky train station and to the bus station was a horrendous ordeal messing about, dodging people, everything looked the same, people were everywhere, finding the bus station took ages and yet it was not far. We were certainly glad to get out of Manila. Just getting out and seeing trees and space made you just breathe out a long, appreciative sigh and then we saw Tagaytay which was absolutely amazing. Now, let me get this right, takes some thinking, it is a prehistoric volcanic crater, inside this crater is a lake, in this lake is an active volcanic crater and of course this whole thing is on an island. It is huge and the view is amazing. We got dumped off on the side of the road opposite a viewpoint and off we went to take a good look. The viewpoints are surrounded with restaurants so we managed to have lunch overlooking the lake. You can take a boat and climb up the volcano however it has been quite active recently and we had been warned it wasn't a good idea so we only got to look, no touching.


My photos simply don't do it justice. It is really hard to convey the scale of this thing. We went to Nasugbu after this, which is an hours journey most of it is spent going around the lake! Speaking of Nasugbu, it wasn't really our destination. We wanted to go to Batangas so we could get a boat over to Puerto Galera. We asked about a bit and several people told us we were indeed standing at the right bus stop to catch a bus passing through heading to Batangas. After about an hour at said bus stop and having observed what felt like trillions of buses going past to places we had never heard of we started to wonder. We spent quite a bit of time looking for the places the buses and jeepneys were headed to on our map however they weren't even on there! We decided that seeing as Nasugbu was on our map that the next bus either going to Nasugbu or Batangas we would just hop on. So, we ended up in Nasugbu. We arrived around sunset and got to eh beach. A beautiful, elongated, black sand beach, it was such a wonderful sight until you looked down. Piles of rubbish everywhere. You just didn't really fancy doing the sunset, casual walk hand-in-hand along the beach because you wouldn't be able to enjoy it you would just be watching where you put your feet.
This made us more determined to get to Batangas. In fact, I feel that the only way you can travel around is by being determined otherwise you wouldn't get anywhere. It takes ages to travel quite short distances and the modes of transport can be quite interesting. After a filling Filipino breakfast - Garlic rice, fried egg and chicken tocino (yum, yum) we headed back to the bus station. After asking the bus station security guard, who was nonchalantly dangling a gun, how to get to Batangas he bundled us into a tricycle and set us off to the mini bus station. You may think I am making this up but a tricycle is indeed a mode of transport. Kind of like a motorbike with a small, round side car. Now, J and I squeezing into this thing was quite a feat, but the most I saw on one was 7 people. Two parents, two kids in the side car, two people riding side saddle on the back of the motorbike and one kid sitting on the roof of the side car with a big grin on his face clearly feeling like the King of the world. We had to take one from White beach to Puerto Galera and back to get to the ATM when we finally got to the island and honestly, the island is also basically a volcano with beaches so the road was quite steep in places. It was the type of ride that you just laugh all the way through because it is so absurd. Seriously, at one point we were heading up such a steep hill that 5 metres from the top I swear we were about tot start rolling backwards. You know if you catch a pothole wrong just as you've gathered enough momentum to make it up the hill that you will never make it! Hilarious.
We made it to Bantangas and got hearded off the minibus to the port and onto a boat to take us to the island about an hour away. This was the kind of journey that really made you think. It was on outboard boat (not that I totally know what that is) but basically it means you have wooden stabilisers on the side to keep you afloat!. The first but was smooth however the middle part in open water was quite rough. People were puking all around me and the boat was plunging precariously high and low on the waves the front frequently getting covered in water. The kind of trip that makes you mentally plan stuffing your passport in your bra and your wallet down your trousers and mentally taking note of the location of the life jackets so you can make it to safety with all necessary documents to allow you to continue your trip after a disaster. Of course, nothing happened, but we were ready.
White beach was amazing. We quickly found somewhere to stay, I threw on my bikini and we hit the beach. White beach was really beautiful, not too many people, the sea was a fabulous colour and more importantly the beach was clean. We also got to try lots of Filipino food. Those are the boats we travelled on by the way!
Strangely, we couldn't really do that in Manila as all the restaurants we found were mainly fast food joints. The food is great, mainly meat and rice oriented but tends to be slow-cooked in a really nice sauce. Of course, I threw myself at the seafood. That pretty much covers it. Ah yes, one more thing, the very essence of our travels. The Jeepney, as I said travelling in the Philippines is taken to a new level and nothing shows it more than the Jeepney. The colours and writing all over it make it even more interesting and is testamant to the Filipino ingenuity and capacity to have a laugh no matter what. We never actually rode in one of these as they never seemed to be going anywhere we wanted and half the time by the time you realise where they are going they have sped past! Well, I am sure this gives you a good idea of our latest travels. you will probably be pleased to know that I shall not be heading anywhere exotic for a while now so you won't have to look at nauseating pics of the beach as you freeze your bums off. Happy New Year to you all and let me know what you got up to...

Trunking it...

Yep, I have finally fulfilled my dream of riding an elephant. Was it everything I hoped it would be? Was it the relaxing, exotic experience photos would have you believe? Hell no. When you ride a horse your bum hurts, when you ride something 5 times the size, I can't even begin to tell you what hurts! Let's face it, safety isn't exactly prime in Thailand and what you get to ride an elephant on is a perfect example. First, you have to stand on the elephant to get into the seat - bit of a weird feeling, the elephant didn't even flinch mind, and the seat is open. This is fine when you are thudding about on flat ground - the sway from side to side alone though is something, but when you start to go downhill, you have nothing to hold onto but the seat and there is nothing to hold you in. You are also pretty high up and I actually didn't enjoy it to begin with. Of course, we got the elephant who wasn't particularly in the mood to take us for a spin so he was hard to control and then once we got into the river he started eating and it took yonks to get him out of
there. Going through a river on an elephant is an experience that is for sure. There is this loud whooshing of water like two huge boats are being dragged through the water, thankfully the elephant didn't decide to spray us in any way, he was way too hungry. Eventually the elephant settled and it was a nice ride, some people were talking about having been swimming with elephants and we saw some other people doing that, but I'm not sure I'd go that far. Sitting on the back of an elephant whilst he plunges into the water with nothing to hold on to might be taking my elephant obsession a bit far and a bit dangerous, but who knows, it might still happen.
We actually stayed on the river this time. Yep, a raft room which was pretty cool. In order to get to go on an elephant ride we had to go on a guided day trip, with other people and everything. You can imagine profuse delight. Nothing makes me happier than being trundled around in a minivan with a bunch of tourists all day long. Ahh happy days. At 8am we were taken to the famous Erawan waterfalls. They are really beautiful but so much so that they almost look false. The river is a bright green colour, almost luminous and the stone is all shiny and smooth. There are seven waterfalls at various gradients up the hill and of varying heights. I felt hard going up to the top one because Mark was suffering from the heat and at the moment, I find it really cool, in fact almost cold at night. I was banned from skipping up the steps. One could say I was rubbing it in, but moi? surely not. You can swim in the river which was really nice. The fish kept biting my feet so it lost it's charm after a while.
After lunch, we rode the elephant, went on a bamboo raft down the river and then headed to the bridge over the river Kwai. The train had broken down so we couldn't go across it, obviously I was gutted, but no, they put us on a kiddy train and we went along the tracks for 5 minuits, then turned round and came right back, oh, I was rapturous with joy I couldn't contain myself. Really. Oh and this is a random picture I decided to stick in, Tuesday the 5th was the King's birthday so everyone, including myself, was out in their yellow King shirts. this is wahat it looked like on the boat we were on.
After a day like that I began to regret our previous afternoon languishing at the spa, we should have done it the other way round! Elephant riding makes you hurt in the strangest places. Last week, Mark and a couple of friends of mine went to Samet for the weekend which was fabulous and now he is down in Phi Phi due to return on Thurs for my weekend. I, however am already on holiday! Taught my last class last night, God it felt great to say "see you in 2007!" I was so unusually happy my students kept giving me funny looks. Jist thought I'd slip in a quick pic of the view from my balcony - isn't it great? On Sunday I head to Manila and can't wait! Am sure will have lots to tell. Happy Christmas to you all, hope you have a great time!

Tales from two cities (part 2)

So where was I? ah yes, water puppets. This is precisely how it sounds. Puppets in/on the water. This is supposed to be an ancient Northern Vietnamese cultural thing and a must-see. We booked tickets and off we went. It was in a small theatre with a pool of murky green water at the front with some scenery around it. It all started off with some plinky-plonky Vietnamese music and out came 'the narrator' of the story, a little wooden man with pigtails his arms sloshing about - it was all in Vietnamese I have no idea what he said. It looked weird and the puppet didn't do much and quite frankly I started to snigger. The dragon fight was cool though. The 'man playing the flute on a water buffalo' was scintillating stuff and has to be said the mating dances of the phoenix where they danced for a really long time then even produced an egg, followed by a chick was pure puppetry genius. These people stand in this murky water for hours doing this show. Apparently they are now forced to wear waders because they used to get all sorts of parasites and disease from standing in the water that long. It smells that water I can tell yo. Don't know why they don't put clear water in with food colouring rather than murky stuff from the lake, but whatever.
Vietnam was great though, and I'd go back again in a heartbeat. Upon returning from there and recovering from the shock of being back at work, I had the privilege of being invited to celebrate the Czech national day with the Czech ambassador and the 50 other Czech and Slovak people in Bangkok. I got excited by the prospect of Czech beer and indeed they had some. The woman wandering around with the drinks tray kept trying to give me red wine and looked at me funny when I insisted on having beer but I wasn't going to pass it up!
It was a very posh do, complete with Czech flag ice statues. The Ambassador and co. were all standing in a line at the entrance and you had to shake their hands and introduce yourself on the way in. Weird. There were lots of people there, many who weren't even Czech. We couldn't find the two people we knew would be there when we arrived so we thought we would try and mingle. We got some finger food and saw a guy standing on his own so we thought we would join him. He was Italian and really nice, we were having a fun conversation and eventually after about 20 minutes I decided to ask him what his job was and he replied "Oh, I am the Italian consul at the Embassy here in Bangkok" aarrgh! Should have been one of my first questions really before I started shooting the shit with him. Never mind, he was really nice and we soon found our friends and made our excuses.
Other than that the night went fairly smoothly, the Czech ambassador made a speech in which it was revealed that the current King of Cambodia actually speaks Czech as he studied ballet in Prague, as you do. After the speech we had the joyous entertainment of school children trying unsuccessfully to dance in sync to some horrendously inappropriate tune for their age. The highlight of the evening being the absolute treat that was the guy playing the Czech national anthem on wine glasses, followed of course by the Thai national anthem and then just in case you had just realised that you simply couldn't live without the whine of wine glasses we also got the King's favourite tune played to us. ahhh happy times. Hob-nobbing clearly has it's down sides! It was a nice night though. Have finally made a decision on what I will do for Christmas and I am going to the Philippines - yay! Volcanoes, natural spas, the smallest monkey in the world, mountains, beaches, can't wait. shall take lots of photos. My mate Mark arrives on Monday and I shall finally be off to fulfill my dream of riding an elephant with him so you have that to look forward to...

Tales from two cities (part 1)

I started this entry last week but it is getting so huge that I am going to have to split it.
Well aware that I'm slacking on my posts but things have been a bit busy recently. End of term always brings the deluge of tedious report writing - who is this kid I am writing about? and testing "no, I said NO cheating" and far too much paper-pushing - now where did I put that form? oh, I pushed it into the bin, must get another one. And then come the holidays - yay!
We decided to go to Vietnam this time. My grandfather was born in Hanoi so I wanted
to check the place out. I only had 5 days off work so there wasn't much time to travel but we still got a good idea of the place. Coincidentally a couple of our mates were heading out there so we met up in a Hanoi for a few days. Hanoi was everything I expected it to be and more. It is one of the best places I have been to in a long time. One major bonus was that it was a lot cooler than BKK and so it was a lot more pleasant to wander round during the day. It also actually has pavements, which makes exploring all the easier.

As you can see Hanoi is made up of higgledy piggledy houses that are really thin but really tall. They look really cool. It was nice to be in a city that had a European feel to it for a change. Of course, the French food and cakes were a great bonus!







The first day we were there we went in search of the golden tortoise. Legend has it he resides in the lake protecting some sort of sword. What did we find? A bloated, floating dead rat. At least they have a real giant, golden tortoise on display just so you know what you are looking for!



After our fruitless expedition, a sorrow healing creme caramel, off we set for my favourite conversation of the trip. We walked round the lake and on the way we happened upon a city map we thought we'd check out and see what was in the area. Soon enough along came a very happy looking guy in a light orange unifrom:

EP (excited policeman): Hello, I'm a policeman, may I help you?
Me: No, it's ok thanks we're just looking
EP: Oh, please let me help you (grin)
Me: Ok then, what is this big thing on the map, just down the road? we can't find it on the legend.
EP: Ah yes, go 300M and turn left.
Me: yes, I can see that, but WHAT is it?
EP: Yes, go straight, cross road, round corner and turn left.
Me: fabulous. What...is...it?
EP: or 300m straight and second left.
Me: excellent! Thank you so much for telling me what I had deduced from staring at the map myself, I shall now just walk 300m and turn left and answer my own question.

We found, this:

A whopping great cathedral. Haven't seen one of them in a while. Let's go in! Walk in and think to myself, hmm, nice church, erm, why is the priest holding a microphone? and what are those two people doing standing rather stoically at the top of the aisle? uh-oh. It's their wedding -out! out! out! Joy. Oh well, noone seemed too bothered and I swear the couple sitting in the front pew wearing bermuda shorts and sunhats were not part of the invited congregation. Noone stopped us from going in is all I have to say. We spent the rest of the afternoon bimbling and drinking incredibly good Vietnamese coffee - one sip will get you charged for at least 8 hours. Great stuff.

However, bimbling can sometimes be tough when you try and cross the road and are met with things like this:


this:





and this:



It's certainly interesting crossing the road and looking out onto it! But really, it doesn't feel that dangerous because as long as you walk slowly and with purpose they go round you so actually it is quite fun, though to be fair, I may have been the only person in our group that found it fun.

Was very excited to try the beer as had read in the guide book that the brewing process was introduced to them by the Czechs. Bia Hoi is a beer that you can drink on the street on little stools (they are quite fond of little stools it is like being in Kindergarten again) and it is the grand sum of 5p/10cents a pint so who wouldn't be excited to try it? It didn't quite live up to my expectations and it was bordering on a surreal experience sitting so low to the ground at a little table with what felt like giant waiters serving me. All other Vietnamese beer though was really good. At midnight the fun police come out and drive around in a van with speakers and chase people back into theirs homes before we all turn into pumpkins. People scatter about like rats and cyclo and taxi drivers scoot off only to return as soon as the police have turned their attention onto other party people around the corner.

We went to check out the Hanoi hilton. Found the sign outside quite interesting.

Well aware tha

After trying our hardest to refrain from frolicking in the prison we set off to see Uncle Ho. Unfortunately, he was on his yearly restoratative holiday in Russia so he wasn't in. We got to look at the mausoleum (I was disappointed, it has to be said, we missed him by 8 days) and also his residence. I spent a lot of time taking pictures of official looking buildings which could have been customs houses where my great-grandfather worked. I think I found it. I tried to get into the National archives but they threw me out, in fact I didn't make it far past the gate let alone get a sniff at the front door.

Halong Bay was on the list of must-see sites so we went on a day trip there. This is where a dragon carved a path through rocks in the sea. There are caves and stuff to see also. This is the place that a lot of people think of when Vietnam is mentioned. I was excited to see the boats with funny sails but they didn't have them up that day. It was super misty too so we couldn't see that much. I always get excited about these things and then spend my time grumbling. First off, I don't know if any of you have noticed but every cave looks the same! Every time, I'm like ooh cave yay! and then it's like wait a minute it looks a lot like the last one I went to. Of course, when on an organised day trip you don't get to choose who you end up with which is clearly the biggest disadvantage for me. And boy, did we meet an absolute gem of a lady.

Took us quite a while to get to the bay on a packed bus, I was starting to get a little submarine syndrome by the time we arrived. The guides seemed to be having problems locating our boat and so by the time we finally got on there and lunch was about to be served I was looking forward to a nice, quiet little boat trip and a spot of lunch with my friends.

For some reason, the boat people were insistent on having 6 people per table and so we were joined by two ladies. One from San Fran and one from Russia although she Russian claimed she was from San Fran. Russian girl asks if we are a family travelling together?!? erm, I'm with J and a gay couple - what kind of messed up family could we possibly be? Plus, she's already asked where we came from, two Americans a Welsh girl and a Czech. She then proceeded to bang on about her travels - I am really beginning to get annoyed by these people who travel for 8 months and think they know everything about the world better than you do. Not all of them are like this of course, but some really need to face facts that just whizzing through a country a week doesn't mean you know it or your observations are accurate neither does it instantly make you more worldly. When food arrived she was the only one with chopsitcks so I asked how she got them and she replied that they were for the culturally aware only. This obviously was the record scratching moment where all who know me fell deadly silent and just waited for the carnage to ensue. I mean, the gall of the woman, I've been in Asia for 3 years one of which was in Korea, admittedly I was pants at using chopsticks when I first arrived but now I am proficient. She's lucky I didn't carve a pretty little picture in her face with my chopsticks. Smoke was literally coming out of my ears but I controlled myself.

My mates don't eat fish, they just don't like it and being at sea lunch was pretty fish centric and she just spent the time going on at them about how amazing it could be that they don't like fish - erm Cz is a landlocked country and when the only fish you get is xmas carp, it can put you off. Then she further dug her grave by banging on at J about how truly amazing it was that he was from Alabama and has made it out of there, he must be the only guy from Alabama who has ever left the state, how could it be possible? Really, thinking back, I now can go 12 rounds in the ring, my trainer has recently unleashed me and I'm allowed to really hit people so it truly is a miracle she didn't at least get a slap. We all just tried not to engage in conversation, and at on point she turned round and asked "what is wrong? you all look depressed, you are on holiday you should be happy". The problem of course, was her.

anyway, this concludes the stories for this entry. In Part 2 you can look forward to water puppets, Czech embassy dinners and much, much, more.

Coo Coo

I am now beginning to ponder the disturbing correlation here. I got to Ecuador, there is an economic crisis, riots and a volcanic eruption, I go to the Czech Republic, Prague is flooded, I go to Korea, they impeach the presidet, am now in Thailand - military coup. Joy. I shall not be surprised if I am flagged next time I try and enter the country.
So it all started late Tuesday night. At midnight, I was tucking myself in when one of my mates calls and states that he was out and they closed the bar, sent them home and said we were under curfew as the military had taken over. After a bunch of expletives, I jumped to the window expecting to see chaos, tanks, murder and I saw zip. Nada. Bangkok was eerily quiet.
I turned the TV on to see a blue screen with familiar squiggly Thai writing crawling along the bottom, on other channels there were images of the King. The King visiting the poor, the King getting married, the King wiping his royal brow in the heat, the King canoeing in the jungle, you get the picture. Could you get any useful information anywhere? No. CNN and BBC were taken off the air. Even now, it is back on but they blank out anything about Thailand. How can it be that people everywhere else in the world are more informed than us?
Thankfully, they have not targeted the internet. But of course, not everyone has it at home. Bit of a confusing time really. The harsh heat and light of day offered no more information. The streets as deserted as they were at midnight the previous evening. But hey, we get the day off! Time to go to the supermarket and stock up, just as I did when the floods hit Prague, oh and have some friends over to party a little, hmmm just as I did in Prague. Getting good at this.
I am sure that as far as military coups go it is the most peaceful ever. Will see what happens.
Watch this space...

The magic 3

Bad things always happen in threes. It never rains but it pours, I am sure you are beginning to see where I am going with this.

Last week, was qutie frankly one of the most disastrous in a while. On Tuesday I took one of my classes into the computer. We have been working on their powerpoint presentations for a while and they all showed up with their flashdrives as requested to put the finishing touches on everything so that they can do their presentation next week. Get in there and the computers can't read the flashdrives, only a couple faff about for the whole time in there struggling to get anybody doing anything constructive. So frustrating and looked like a fool. Complete waste of time.
Wednesday morning, get to my favourite class and during the coffee break I got to pour hot water out of one of those electric boiler keeps-it-hot-all-the-time things and I push the button in and when I take my finger off it keeps going! I got boiling water all over the table, all over the floor. Nightmare. Thankfully my students took int heir stride, however yesterday I felt like a little school kid who isn't allowed to play with her toys anymore because she borke one already. When coffee break came they didn't let me go and make my own, virtually barred the exit and heavily insisted that they would make me coffee! I just mumbled, shuffled my feet and stared at the floor.
Following flooding a corridor with boiling water I bimbled into work to teach my Wednesday afternoon kids class. My last class of the week. Everything goes fine and 60 seconds before the end of class I am getting them to line up ready to leave and checking they have cleaned up all the sweet wrappers they think they have managed to conceal under the table and I suddenly hear cries of "teacher! Teacher!" and I turn around to see one of my kids has managed to puke all over herself and the classroom. She couldn't wait 60 seconds? Oh joy. Dragged her to the bathroom, cleaned her up. Warned the person teaching in there next that they might want find an alternate classroom. Other than all that my week was just fabulous...

The Beautiful Forehead

Apparently this is what I have. A beautiful forehead. It denotes that I couldn't possibly be over 22 according to some Thais I met last night. What are they on about? It has to be said, compliments are weird here. My students just don't seem to be able to get it quite right, things like "Oh teacher today you look beautiful" What do you mean today?
Bimble into Starbucks "Ah Miss G, you are good-looking today" what is with all this today stuff?

One of my kids comes to me at the beginning of every lesson:
"Teacher, I am beautiful, but you are more beautiful. See, an eight-year-old can get it right.

Yesterday I started a new course off-site. During the coffee break as I was fumbling around with this rather daft 'special' (this is just for you teacher) lotus-shaped porcelain weirdo tray thing capable of carrying both my coffee AND glass of water (whoever invented this incredibly useless dual-purpose wobbly thing should be shot) the students felt it necessary to come and tell me what they thought of me.
"teacher, my first impression is that you are very kindly",
"oh, thank you" wobble, wobble, please leave me alone to struggle with this contraption in peace! And of course, let's face it, I doubt "kindly" is the first word that springs to mind when people meet me. You only get that one after years of hard graft of knowing and putting up with me.

At least, noone has called me fat in a long time, I suppose I should be thankful for that one.

In other news, on Sunday I shall start learning street-fighting, and I just can't wait.

I'm off to powder my forehead...

Hols

she's on holiday again, I hear you cry! Yes I am and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I have had a week or so off because it is the end of term. J and I had our first weekend together in about 3 months and it was great. I set off for Kanchanaburi a day ahead of J and spent all of it in a spa - check it out http://www.suan-nanachaat.com - fabulous place!







These are some random ants we found outside our bungalow building a complicated dn in the tree.


Kanchanaburi is about 2 hours outside Bangkok and is where you will find the bridge over the river Kwai. It is a nice place to get out of the traffic and noise of Bangkok and chill for a bit. We didn't do much just stared at the river and relaxed it was great. Went to the bridge of course and to the museums. Looked at all the different things we can do there, going back for the Queen's brithday later in the month to do some kayaking and elephant riding. J not too pleased about the latter but I simply refuse to have lived in this country for two years and not have ridden one.

this is the view from our bungalow. We were overlooking the river and it was great until a humungous party raft disco went thumping by!















J went back to work on Monday and I swanned off to my favourite island - Samet, with a couple of the girls. Thankfully no vortexes of fire were involved this time. It was great to lounge around and eat barbecue. It was super quiet because it isn't a national holiday so there were no Thais on the island.




This is the view we had at dinner and I am sure you can see why it is my favourite island. Of course any island is good but I like Samet because it is quiet and less developed and favoured by the Thais. Not too many fat old men in speedos, although there is never total escape!












This is a cool little Buddhist shrine by the beach. You tend to find shrines and offerings all over the place. Trees are popular. I have also noticed that Buddha appears to be partial to cigars - not sure what that is all about!






This is the bridge over the river Kwai complete with train crossing it, the red dots are tourists. In thailand it is common to have a day out together and all wear the same colour t-shirt. I had to do it once, 200 of us in bright pink shirts - whale of a time. Well, that's it for now. You'll be pleased to know I start back at work on Sat and have loads of overtime as we are short staffed at the mo!

Punch me in the face!

oh, OK then. this is what my boxing instructor shouts at me regularly. Yep, you read right, I am learning to box. I know this is a scary thought for those of you who know me and get this (oh if you could only see the crazed look in my eyes) I am also going to learn Muay Thai! Isn't that just the best news you've heard all day?

I only started a couple of weeks ago but am already at the sparring stage. The first lesson I had to grab my instructor by the hair and knee him in the face! Excellent fun. If only I did it on a Friday night before I teach my teenagers rather than a Sunday night after I have spent all weekend dealing with them. Maybe that is why I punch so hard.

The entire hour and a half is peppered with things like "come on! Hit me in the face! Punch my chin! More power, good, good" and then on Sunday he randomly just threw a punch at me with no warning - hmm testing me see. Unfortunately we are not doing well (this will surprise you) at the looking mean part, we are too busy laughing. There are 5 of us girls from work and it is great. Although, Jenny was offended when he told her she hits like a girl!

Clearly, he is small and stocky, not an inch of fat on him and the energy of a bull that's just stumbled upon an electric fence. He's mean too, now we aren't allowed to stand around gossiping while others spar in the ring we have to do sit ups while we wait! Nightmare. the gloves ming though, oh my word, hours of sweaty hands in there, woah it is dreadful.

I finally have a whole 9 days holiday starting on Thursday woo hoo! But I love my boxing so much I am going to split my trips so that I can be back in BKK on Sunday to go to my lesson. Sleep easy...

Emergency rush

So, another addition quicker than last time, I am getting better. Things have been a little hectic. It was J's B'day last week so copious amounts of my time was spent deciding what to get him, I had plumped for a new mobile but spent hours in the Nokia shop wondering whether the ones I liked were a little too girly, after consulting with men, I discovered that clearly if it looks cute and is available in pink it isn't very manly. Thanks for your help guys by the way, I went for the 6230i - which meant absoutely nothing to me two weeks ago but now I feel qualified as a new consultant for Which? phone magazine.

Anyway, I took him to a Brasilian Churrascaria for dinner which was fun and meaty and on Friday we went out with various friends to a German brewhouse which is huge, sells "german beer"-as dmonstrated by Monika and "German food" has a show and the entire building is shaped like a massive keg of beer... only in Thailand...


Sorry, I almost forgot to point out that this is Maria and Hannah, simply doing what they always do...


I am currently laid up at home and climbing the walls a bit. I have an intestinal infection according to the doc, and much as I'd love to sicken you with my famous imagery, I fear you already get the picture. Going to the hospital here was a bit strange. People arrive in taxis and I can assure you that I was the only one in the emergency waiting room who looked even vaguely ill. There were only about 4 of us in there! Urgence was not a key factor that's for sure. Women were strutting around with their LV bags, the hospital had escalators and a green area -what is that all about, not to mention a shop a bakery and coffee shop and in some there are even Macdonald's! Last time I was in an emergency room in the UK there was a guy next to me trying to hold is eye in it's socket coz some nutter had hit him over the head with a baseball bat all coz the offender had thrown his fag out the window and had hit the probably by now one-eyed pedestrian in the head and he had shouted that he should be more careful. Needless to say, people around me had clearly broken stuff and/or were bleeding. There was a woman in front of me using two mobiles at the same time, one on each ear! I have GOT to get a mobile with a camera. honestly, the stuff I could take pics of on a daily basis, would shock you all.
As an aside, I can't wait till the world cup is over. I am so bored of the convoluted conversations I have with Taxi drivers, you know the Where are you from? Oh UK! England 2 Portugal 0! It wasn't till I was like oh really? that the taxi driver realised that cearly I had no idea that he was predicting and they hadn't even played yet. I took my time explaining to him in thai that I was Welsh (oooh Ryan giggs!) and therefore I don't care about the World Cup. I was rather shocked that not only did he know Ryan Giggs but he also said Millenium Stadium and Cardiff! Last time I told a taxi driver that I was Welsh he asked me if I was muslim...nuff said.

Mellow Yellow

It's the King's Jubilee - 60 years on the throne, longest standing (or should that be sitting?) monarch in the world. Personal benefits of this jubilee are a 5 day weekend. Course, most of the roads are closed in and around Bangkok so travel wasn't really an option oh and I had to work on Saturday and Sunday but I can't complain. Monday and Tuesday are official days off, J had friday off due to traffic (??!!) and about 80 percent of Thai people are wearing yellow T-shirts in the colour of the King's flag with his emblem conveniently across your heart and most have "I love the King" in big letters over it. Nice and tasteful.

It is a weird concept to see people get so into their monarchy. I usually just see them as a figurehead, but here in Thailand they really do stuff and are attributed with the majority of the success of the Kingdom. It is an offence which could carry a jail sentence to criticise the King.

Now that I am teaching adults I am finding out all sorts of things. Here are some interesting tidbits:

My teenagers have no idea who Madonna is! Seriously, they make me feel old, the other day, I was teaching them about pop groups and stuff and they had to design their own group and CD cover etc. As an intro I had the pussycat dolls on the screen and elicited what they knew about them. One Q I had was what songs do they sing? I expected them to reply Don'cha and that was that. They came out with some huge list, Stickwitu, Beep, Sway, I was quite shocked. Never heard of these songs. And no offence to the pussycat dolls but I assumed they were a one-hit wonder, let alone get as far as making a whole album!

Honestly, teaching teens is like being back at school again. I don't remember being so rude to my teachers or surly. I feel like I have to earn favour with the 'cool' group and stuff and quite frankly I just can't cope with the smug look on their faces and that fake passifying grin that makes me want to do some serious damage and make it toothless. It's not a mexican wave I get when I ask them to do the unbelievably horrifying task of picking up their pens and actually writing something, shit, it's not like their supposed to be studying or anything, it's a mexican eye-roll. No to mention the fuss when the dreaded word homework comes up. The more they complain, the more they get! They'll soon realise they aren't going to win. 2 weeks ago a group of girls thought that they could stretch a 15 minute break to 40 and looked at me like I was in the wrong and insane when they returned to find the classroom door locked. Strangely enough, they haven't been late since.

Not only am I finding out about teenage behaviour, but I am finding out some weird superstitions. You can't get your hair cut on a Wednesday, Sunday will bring you long life, Monday - happiness, Thursday - guardian angels will protect you, Friday - you'll never go in want, Saturday - you'll gain admiration. Think about that next time you make an appointment.

Bizarre.

Well, that concludes my Thai tales for now...

Into the fire...

Well, it has been a while. Time is really flying by at the moment. settling in to new job fine but seems to have taken up a bit of time. So much to learn, taking it all in baby steps etc. Moving on to the more meaty stuff...

Last weekend, was my final 'real weekend' for the next year. I started work on Saturday and my weekend becomes Thursday and Friday. The timetable God has been smiling upon me and I only work from 9-12 on Sat/Sun and only have one late evening finish so I can't complain.

Back to last weekend, I went to Koh Samet. Maria and I were so excited at 4pm at the end of class we were running around the office like a couple of schoolgirls, changing and dashing out of the door, someone even told me that I simply wasn't allowed to have fun in the office, hmmm chortle, chortle, whatever.

Fun was most certainly the name of the day. Along with Maria, I was joined by my recently acquired German friend, well, you know, I really like one, thought I'd branch out a little. The rest of the 'Bell crew' were already on the island eagerly awaiting our arrival as they had Fri off and were also ahead on the general imbibing so speed was of importance and we splashed out so to speak on a speed boat to get us over to the beach upon which friends, a bungalow and a tent were waiting.

This is the moment when someone on a loud speaker booms "let the games begin".

We trudged over a hill to arrive at the bungalow and dump our stuff and returned to join the others. All was going quite well, after a couple we made our usual trip to Silver Sands resort which has a disco and hooked up with other friends of ours. The buckets (literally buckets) of cocktails were flowing and all were having fun. A while later, I was chatting to a mate and spotted M crawling across the sand towards the sea and thought I ought to check out what was going on. She wasn't feeling too good so I sat with her and fed her some water etc. Upon getting her to return to join the group Joe joined me and said that Meine 'friend' was having a bit of an episode and claimed to have tried to throw himself into a fire!

I turned round to see him bawling with Hannah attempting to comfort him. Everybody got their turn but there was nothing doing. Jo tried the hard approach "noone cares you tried to throw yourslef into a fire, get over it", I tried to be understanding "it's ok, you didn't burn yourself everthing is fine" but nothing was doing. Meanwhile, Maria had decided that the only thing that would make her feel better was to head home. I caught her about ten metres up the beach wobbling along. We heaved everyone into a Song Taew (kind of truck transport thing), M was sat there shouting "if this thing doesn't move now I am going to puke" and D was still bawling. Turns out the truck wasn't going anywhere and we had to get out and get onto another one! Anyway, we finally fond oen that was going where we wanted and as we were buping along Tara said I should swap places with D on the edge because we were concerned he might try and lob himself off. As I got up there was an almighty pothole and I went flying into a bunch of legs and spent the rest of the trip trying tofind my flip-flops.

Just to be clear, at this point we had no idea whether we were dealing with a metaphorical fire, a bonfire or what quite frankly. It was hard to get to the bottom of the story.

By the time we got off the Song Taew and walked over the hill D seemed to be in a much better mood - if somewhat embarrassed and worried he had humiliated me - moi? so I thought we were on the home run. I left him to his tent and went for a walk along the pier with Jo and Jme.

Upon our return I heard some rather loud droning sounds and discovered it was D leaning out of the tent making these noises. There was a bunch of Thai revellers a little further down the beach from him trying to party and were looking at him a lot. Then came the blood-curdling screams across the bay. J, J and I looked at each other and clearly had decided he was best left alone! After about ten minutes the Thais had had enough and just went up to him and said "what are you doing?" seeming a little bemused.

We all went to bed and thought things would look better in the morning. At breakfast d joined us looking rather worse for wear. Let's face it a tent in this heat isn't comfortable and you get woken up at sunrise. Nothing much was said. The girls and I went for a swim, Monika and I went for a much needed massage afterwards and most of us convened for a hike to the next beach for a spot of lunch. D spent most of his time recovering. There was still the mystery about the fire.

Upon our return Hannah had been talking to him and had solved the mystery. It was not a metaphorical fire nor was it a bonfire, it was in fact, and I'm not sure how you call it, one of those fire dancer people. You know those people that have strings alight and twiddle them round a lot? One of them. clearly, the poor guy had a bit of a schock to be bulldozed mid-performance.

It appears we have photographic evidence. Monika remembered being about to take a photo of the guy when suddnely he stopped performing and put the flames out. Indeed she had pressed the button but it is all bit dark. We are working on it.

Anyway, strange things will happen. It certainly added a little spice to our weekend, although really there is quite enough in the food here. There are still patchy explanations as to why this happened, Jo is under the impression that he was trying to throw himself into a vortex to get to the other side, but that's Jo.

The question is, how on earth do you ever top that?

The green, green grass of home

For those of you who often wonder if when I say I grew up in the middle of nowhere I really did, then take a look. Here is what the area I come from looks like. I say this because J always used to say "hmmm yes I too live in the middle of nowhere" then he came to visit and said "Oh My God, you really do live in the middle of nowhere". I presume middle of nowhere in America means more than 10 mins drive from a Burger King.

Other visitors have commented on the lack of streetlights to light your path when driving own the roads (you know who you are I'm not mentioning any names) - that's what those big lights on the front of your car are for! Others merely gaze in stunned silence at the sheer ability of grass to cover things which they have never noticed before.

Tis lambing season back home and the soft bleating echoes through the valleys. Em, this is what a lamb looks like by the way - remember our conversation in the cafe. I took this pic for you - these are the kind of rewards people get when they are an avid reader.

I shall put up pics and goss of my recent trips home and to London and Prague at a later date. Was nice to catch up with everyone. Is always good for me to double check everybody really is ok and happy and stuff, sometimes things change, others don't, seeing for myself that everyone is doing ok always makes me sleep better at night. And that is about as soft and squidgy as I will get. Those of you whom I didn't get to see I shall shove on top of the pile as a priority for first visit next time I come home, which in no way suggests that you were at the bottom this time round;) if everyone could just all live within a ten mile radius of Heathrow life would be dandy.

Moving on... so I arrived back in Bangkok last Wednesday just in time for SongKran. SongKran is Buddhist New Year and is celebrated by four days of water fights. This all sounds well and good and indeed is fun for a day but the novelty wears off quickly. Apparently, this year "sexy clothes" for women were banned and there was a brief ban on water guns. Water guns are not the problem. Buckets full of ice-cold water and talc are the things that are annoying.

When I say talc this is what I mean. You are plastered and it is hard to get off. Expecially when it dries and your face cracks. Does my head in.












The most popular activity aside fron soaking foreigners is driving around in the back of a truck and throwing water at people you drive past. It is insane.














Even the policemen can't escape!














In an effort to avoid maximum soaking I spent a lot of time in taxis. I wanted to take lots of photos but even the taxis get plastered with talc so you can't see through the window. Big talcy handprints all down the window and stuff it is really funny. the security guard got me though with a water gun and a big grin on his face. Nowhere, not even your own home is safe. I realy don't mind the guns because the water dries fast but there is nothing that will make you more miserable than a squelchy backside or "ooh my shorts are nearly dry" SPLASH - cue lots of cursing. Even in taxi I took clearly other soaked people had been in before me and I would get out wondering why my bum was damp! We ordered deliver pizza and I felt so sorry for the guy. His little cap was all white and he was soaking wet, mumbling at me while he dug out the change from several ziplock food bags he had to keep it in to keep it dry! I hope he was on double time is all I can say.

We did finally go and buy a telly. Shopping centres are the only safe haven for those needing a little rest from the onslaught. The one the landlord gave us had a habi of beding the image and then swtincing itself off ramdomly ever ten minutes fro no apparent reason. the landlord wouldn't believe us that it was borken because when he switche it on it came on so he couldn't see the problem! Anyway, they are cheap here and we splashed out (pardon the pun) on a 27 incher - let's face it, who would bother with anything less? When it was delivered J was busy playing with it (the TV of course) and turned round to catch me with one leg in the box.

"you're not seriously going to get into the box are you?" he asked incedulously.

"Course I am it's huge, can't resist" I replied indignantly.

What can I say, Men play with technological stuff, women climb into boxes.




But look, it's huge! of course, if I were taller than 5ft2 then this would be a specatular photo, however, in my expert opinion you can fit in a 7ft basketball player, a couple of kittens and a fallabella pony in that box and still have room for a six-pack and a sandwich. What do you reckon? Maybe we should play that game - guess how many marbles you can fit into the box or something? hmmmm I must try that out...