Goodbye Na Kae - Hello Scotland!!

I am currently sitting in my bedroom in Scotland, and honestly cannot believe that a year has passed this quickly. It's strange - in some ways it seems like I haven't been away, but when I think of myself actually being in Na Kae it seems like ages ago. Then again, sometimes it seems like just yesterday that I was in Na Kae! It's a very confusing feeling coming home after so long away!
My last week in Ban Phon Sanuk was amazing - I loved being able to stay there for so long without having to go to school, and as I mentioned before it was lovely to spend so much time with all my friends in the village.

On the day I left Ban Phon Sanuk, the bus to Bangkok wasn't until the evening so in the morning and afternoon I had a leaving ceremony. I wasn't expecting to be getting anything like this, but I think that as I spent so long in the village during my last few weeks in Na Kae they wanted to give me a send off, which was really lovely of them. During the morning I witnessed a pig and two ducks being killed for a meal in the afternoon with everyone from the village - I couldn't believe that they were making such a huge deal of my leaving day, and I felt very honoured that they were doing so much for me. A blessing ceremony took place where everyone from the village blessed me by tieing thin strands of white rope around my wrists while they said a blessing, wishing me good luck, happiness, safe travel and wishing that I would return to Thailand (which of course I plan to do as soon as I can!). The meal was, as always, delicious - one thing I'm really going to miss about Thailand is the food! I will be attempting to recreate soe of my favourite Thai dishes in Scotland, but I can't help thinking that they probably won't be as delicious as the real thing. One dish that I can definitely say I won't miss is "lap" when it is mixed with uncooked blood...


I went outside to wait for the bus about an hour before it was due and sat in the mooching hut with Mei, Paw, P.Joe's Dad (Whiskey Man...) and the three kids who I wanted to take with me (Big Boss, Big Boom and Donut). Mei went to speak to Pippa on skype, then quickly came and told me that Pippa wanted to wish me good luck so I went back into the house for a few minutes to speak to her before having to go back out to get the bus. The journey to Bangkok was quite good and I was in Bangkok by about 6am.

The day before I left I had packed my rucksack and was quite happy with it - it wasn't too heavy and I could lift it, and it seemed to be a nice even shape. However, this changed when I was given seven Isaan pillows as leaving presents from people from the village (three of them are for Caitlin)! I absolutely love the pillows and genuinely appreciate them, but those (plus Caitlin's tea set which I forgot to pack until the last minute) turned my previously well-packed rucksack into a rushed, lumpy, heavy one...! Eventually, after finding a taxi and getting to Khao San Road then helping someone else to find their hotel, I managed to book myself in to a small room, but my rucksack was so heavy that even after getting someone to help me carry it my back was aching so much that I knew I had to find a way to take the weight down. The remainder of the day was spend un-packing and re-packing my rucksack and donating a huge bag of unwanted clothes and books to the reception of the guesthouse. Admittedly, the reason I found it so difficult to carry my rucksack through Bangkok may have been because even when it was packed "well", I hadn't really tried walking with it for any length of time so I suppose I can't really blame the pillows...

The last few days in Bangkok were great fun. The day after I arrived I met up with the other volunteers who were already in Bangkok in the evening and we went out on Khao San Road. Some of the vols. decided to go to a club called Lava, but for some reason men had to pay 100 Baht (about £2) to get in while girls got in free, plus it was a dancing club and wasn't really my idea of fun, so a group of us ended up just bumping from bar to bar without actually buying any drinks because no one could decide where to go. Before I met up with the volunteers I decided to visit Pippa's brother and sister who both live in Bangkok, so arranged to meet P.Non (Pippa's younger brother) so that he could take me to his sister's house. Soon after I entered his car he started talking about a dog, but I couldn't make sense of what he was saying as his English isn't very good. However, when he pointed to the backseat it became clear that he was saying he has bought a puppy. Further questioning informed me that he had in fact bought the puppy for me, as a leaving present... it took a while for me to explain that it was very cute, but that I couldn't take it on the aeroplane. Eventually he decided that he would keep it until I next came to Thailand, and I can take it back then... I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

After leaving P.Non's house (and the puppy) we drove to P.Neung's house. P. Neung is Pippa's younger sister, and she has a 1 year old son called Dono who is very cute. Caitlin and I visited them once before while we were in Bangkok months ago visiting Pippa, but we didn't get to meet P.Neung because she was at work, so it was great to get to meet her. She is lovely, though I must admit not quite as crazy as her older sister...


On my final day in Bangkok I went to Cha Tu Chak Market, which is an enormous market selling everything you could possibly imagine, with Rosie. I managed to get the remainder of my present buying done here which was good, then we headed to Billie and Rosie's guesthouse to find out what was happening about meeting the other volunteers for a meal. After meeting everyone else at "the big white castle" (which is a large white building resembling a castle which none of us know the real name of) we found a nice restaurant and had our last Thai meal! I had Tom Yum with chicken which was delicious. I didn't used to like Ton Yum particularly, but now it's one of my favourite dishes.

The next day was time to fly! Our flight wasn't until 8.45pm, but as we had to be at the airport for check in three hours earlier and didn't want to get stuck in rush hour traffic, we all arrived at the airport at about 4pm and met Hannah Jelley and Francis, the last volunteers to arrive in Bangkok. They came with a huge leaving party as their project was only two hours from Bangkok, so we all got photos taken as a group which was nice. The return flight was fairly uneventful - I spent most of the time watching films and listening to music. It wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be, and it came into Heathrow early. It still took us over an hour to get everyone through and find our bags, as we wanted to go to meet our parents as a group. Seeing my mum and dad after so long was a very strange feeling - I knew that I hadn't seen them in almost a year, but it still felt like I hadn't ever left. It was brilliant to see them, and after another 6 hours of travelling by train to Edinburgh I met my sister which was also brilliant. Although I stopped feeling homesick after a few months I still missed them all throughout the year.


All in all it took over 31 hours for me to travel from Thailand to my house in Scotland, and although it is great to be back I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss Thailand! I'll be going back to Thailand as soon as I can, and will be keeping in contact with all the friends I made over there. Hopefully I'll be able to find someone who speaks Thai nearby who I can practise with as I really don't want to forgot the Thai I've learned over the past year.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past year and during the months leading up to my leaving for Thailand. If it wasn't for all of you then I wouldn't have been able to do it, and I'm so happy that I did it!

Getting Ready For Goodbye

So, I have now finished teaching in Thailand. My last week of lessons was brilliant fun, I played games like "Bang" and "Hand Slap" (where students sit down and cross arms with each other, and have to slap the ground with their hands in the right order without getting mixed up) and got all of my classes to sign my friendship book. Having such a fun last week made me realise that I should have played more fun games with my classes before now, as even though they're not English based the kids can still chat to you in English. I found that it was actually a lot easier to control the class when they were all up playing games like that, because the trouble-makers are pre-occupied with the games! I know that I shouldn't have favourites, but I do have two favourite classes, both on a Wednesday. One of them is class 2/4 and the other is class 3/1. Class 3/1 is just... crazy. Absolutely crazy. It's like someone took all the most outgoing, talkative, cheeky, loud girls, put them on a caffeine drip, then put them in a classroom. Their English is very good and teaching them has always been brilliant, although it's sometimes been hard to come up with lessons for them because their English really is better than any of my other classes. During my last lesson with them, we decided that it would be a great idea to, instead of giving sweets to the WINNER, punish the loser by covering them in talcum powder. And I mean, COVER them in talcum powder! By the end of the lesson everyone was white with their clothes layered with white dust! Class 2/4 is, in general, quite a quiet class, but there is a girl in it who is the sweetest student I teach. She has always been quite shy and sits at the back of her class with her friend, but recently she's been coming up to me before and after class to chat and has spoken to me a few times around the school. When my last lesson with her was over she came back into the classroom on her own and asked for a hug, and looked like she was crying. Very rarely in Thailand will a Thai person initiate a hug, and if they do then it is usually only when you know each other very well. In almost a year, she is only the third Thai person to initiate a hug that I've met (the other two being a maths teacher from NaKaePit. when Caitlin and I left for the holidays, and Pippa).My classes at St. Joseph were equally as fun, playing alphabet races and taking lots of photos. On the Friday there were no classes because it was the anniversary of the last Princess' death (the current King's cousin) and this coincided with a "Thai Day" the school was having with lots of activities, so classes were cancelled to make way for lots of group activities! I stayed for half the day, and saw puppet shows, colouring in , karaoke and a race involving a balloon, chopsticks, a riddle, a ping-pong ball and a bottle... after this I went to Joe's house (where all my things were being kept after the mice drove me out of my own house) to pack. Thankfully I was done in just a few hours.

I had planned to go to Ban Phon Sanuk the day day (Saturday), but the person who was meant to be giving me a lift there decided to disappear and get drunk in stead, so I went on Sunday with Kru Nid, planning to leave for Bangkok on Tuesday and do a couple of weeks of travelling. However, Pippa's mother and father wanted me to stay with them until I had to leave to get my flight, so I am staying in Ban Phon Sanuk until the 11th August. It was actually Pippa, who is still in Germany, who made it clear to me that it was okay for me to stay at her house and that her parents loved me being here, because although her parents have told me this several times, Kru Nid has always been insistent that if I stay too long I will be a burden for her parents and trouble them. After a really nice conversation with Pippa it was made very clear that this wasn't true and that I shouldn't listen to Kru Nid, so I am staying! I figured that I can go travelling anytime, and I wouldn't have been going anywhere that I hadn't been before anyway because of time restraints, but staying with Pippa's family in the village that's been my home for the last year is something very special, and it lets me spend time with everyone and properly say goodbye to everyone.

I have been in Ban Phon Sanuk now for a week, and I will be here for another 4 days before heading to Bangkok. I wish I could stay longer, I absolutely love being here with everyone. A few days ago my host mother invited me to spend the day with her at her workplace, and I ended up writing out some sort of database from a folder onto the computer. Doesn't seem like too hard a task, but one of the columns was people's names. In Thai. Now, my Thai is good enough so be able to copy out names, IF (a very big if, a very very big if) they are written very clearly. Unfortunately, these names were not, resulting in me having to ask, several times per name, "What letter is this?". Oh, and also, my host mother failed to tell me that when I was typing them out, I had to swap columns 15 and 19, and in column 20 I was to use the figures at the side... eventually, after much confusion, I understood and managed to change them, but apparently the fact that I don't understand things about the fiscal year in Thai means that I don't speak Thai at all, and so for the rest of the day people were talking to me like someone who doesn't speak a word of it! I wouldn't even have understood fiscal year jargon in English, let alone in Thai :P

I also got taken to Dong Luong, a village higher up in the mountains, with P.Dom who lives in Ban Phon Sanuk. She works in a restaurant in Dong Luong, so took me up on her motorbike (a really beautiful journey) to spend the day with her there. I was very proud of my self as I managed to shred 8 huge papayas for making som tham, and none of them collapsed (which can sometimes happen if you get too excited while hitting it with your knife), and my strips were nice and thin like they're supposed to be. My wrist, however, is still slightly sore! I also met a little boy, called Boat, who lives next to the restaurant and "helped" him with his homework (really what I did was watch him as he tormented his dad by repeatedly, and deliberately, drawing the number "6" upside down).

On the days that I spend in Ban Phon Sanuk I help Mei with the cooking and washing up, play with Big Boom and Big Boss next door (both of whom I want to take home with me), visit the rice fields and chat to people. It's so nice and relaxed, and I really am loving spending time with everyone. I think the locals are having a good time with me being here, mainly because of all the laughs I give them! For instance, Mei has been having great fun telling everyone we meet that I dropped a huge lizard in the washing machine... ACTUALLY what happened was, I was doing my washing, and was putting Mei and Paw's washing in with it for them, and as I picked up one of Mei's tops I thought I felt it wriggling. Thinking that I must just have felt the fabric move underneath it or something I dropped it into the machine with some other clothes. A second later I saw something move, and quickly (but carefully) took out all the clothes until all that was left in it was a rather large, very fast black lizard who couldn't get out. I tried to catch it in a big bowl but it was too fast, and I didn't want to try to grab it incase it bit me, so I went to get Mei to help me. Being unable to explain in Thai that I had trapped a lizard in the washing machine, I just asked her to come and see, then watched as s he grabbed it with her hand, got it out and dropped it on the floor where it scuttled off. Of course she was laughing the whole time, and this story has now spread across the village.

Over the past week or so there has been a huge amount of rain. It is the wet season so there is always a lot, but there has been much more than usual as it's been falling for several days almost non-stop. Usually there will be heavy rain for an hour or so which will then dry up quickly, but when it's this constant there is no time for it to dry up. Several of the rice fields have been flooded which means that the rice will have difficulty growing. When we went to check a few days ago it was like a lake with only a few tufts of rice poking up, and today, although there was less water on the actual fields, it was impossible to go and see Mei's rice fields because of the torrent of water flowing between them and the road.

Tomorrow I am going into Na Kae again to see some of the kids at St. Joseph - one of them has been waiting to give me a present for over a week, then I'm back in Ban Phon Sanuk until until Thursday evening when I travel to Bangkok. I'm not sure what I'll be doing in Bangkok until I leave, or if I'll go somewhere else close-by for a couple of days. I can't stay in Ban Phon Sanuk any longer than Thursday because Mei and Paw are travelling down near Bangkok for the wedding of the son of one of their friends on the 12th, and they want me to leave the day before so they can send me off on the bus :)