Trips around Na Kae and Dancing!

As Caitlin and I only have a few weeks left in Na Kae (she has about three, I have between four and five) we've been trying to use the weekends to visit places around Na Kae that we haven't had a chance to properly see yet. So far over the past few weeks we've managed to visit Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom and Kalasin.

My favourite of these is Mukdahan, mainly because of the huge Vietnamese market! For some reason everything at the market was extremely cheap, even though Caitlin has told me that in Vietnam the same items are more expensive. I don't understand how this works, because surely transporting the good to Thailand would cost money, and so everything should be more expensive, but I'm not complainaing! It wouldn't surprise me if the reason that it's so cheap is because it is illegal in some way - some of the stalls (which I kept away from and didn't buy anything from) were selling elephant tusks. The result of me going to a large, cheap market is that I now have a 3 foot long fan, a small chest of drawers, a large mug with a painting of a lighthouse on it and a jewellery box to take home. It appears that my brain has decided to ignore the advice given to me of "buy things that are easy to pack". My plan of senidng some things home surface mail isn't going to work becasuse it is far too expensive. I sent hom two shoeboxes recently - one went airmail because it had birthday presents in it, and the other went surface mail. The surface mail parcel was more expensive! Both Caitlin and I have noticed that the price of sening things from Na Kae seems to change randomly, and as the weight limit of our luggage on the way back home is 30kg instead of 20kg, I've decided to just try and pack the remainder of my things. Hopefully I won't have to carry my rucksack too far! Aside from the market, I loved Mukdahan because it is right on the Lao border next to the Mekong, and is beautiful. I'd really like to visit Laos at some point. I doubt I'll get over there while I'm in Thailand this time, but it's definitely a place I'd like to see in the future.



Nakhon Phanom was also a lovely place. We've been there before, but only briefly to renew our visas, so it was nice to go there to have a good look around. Caitlin wanted to visit Prathat Nakhon, which is one of the seven Pagodas in Kakhon Phanom province and is meant to bring good luck to those born on a Saturday. We weren't sure where it was, but while on the song taw (bus) Caitlin saw a large gate with something written in Thai on it. She read the first part and it said "wat" which means temple, so, thinking we were right in front of where we wanted to be, we got off the bus. It was then that we read the rest of the sign. It did not, in fact, say "wat"; it said "jangwat" which means province. It was some sort of government complex. You'd think that we'd have realised it wasn't a temple by the fact that there wasn't actually a temple, but apparently not! We wandered around for a while before going to get some food, then took a tuktuk to the actual pagoda. It was nice, but not as big at the pagoda in That Phanom, and obviously not as famous becuase when we asked where it was at the restaurant we were in, it took them a while to remember! When we decided to go back we went to fing a song taw and got told that we had missed the last bus home. This presented two options: 1) phone Kru Nid and ask her if she could come and pick us up, which we know she wouldn't be particularly happy about as Nakhon Phanom is about 70km from where she lives, or 2) find somewhere to stay and get a bus back in the early hours of the morning to be back in time for school. This option also did not have us jumping for joy. Thankfully we didn't have to do either, because a kindly tuktuk driver managed to phone the driver of the last bus and gt them to wait where they were while he took us to it, which was lovely of him!



We had both been to Kalasin before during the Kalasin Festival, but we wanted to go again because there is a Jurassic Park and some dinosaur fossils and footprints. We had planned to see these things the first time we went, but got distracted by the festival and involved in helping out at a giant Toyota exhibit, so didn't manage to see them. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to see them this time either! We arrived in Kalasin in the afternoon on Saturday and decided that we'd spend the evening exploring and then find the dinosaurs the next day before heading back to Na Kae. Our hotel was right next to a really nice park with a large lake, so we had a walk around that. As we were walking it became apparent that there was a mutual agreement between the walkers/runners that you walk around the lake anti-clockwise. We were the only people walking clockwise round it, but by this point were already half way round and didn't want to have to backtrack all the way round again, so pretended to be oblivious to this rule! We found a nice place to eat, reccommended by a Welsh man that we met at the bus station, and then continued wandering around. As we'd been there before there wasn't a huge amount of new things to see, but there are some sculptures around the town that are really pretty. The next day we found out that the jurassic park which we thought was in the town was actually 26km away. We managed to find a song taw, but this was the end of our dinosaur journey because the driver was the most awkward, annoying and useless bus driver we've experienced! We needed to know if there were buses that could take us back to the town from th park, and he said that he could take us at 2pm. We told him that we needed to get a bus back to Sakhon Nakhon at 12.30pm and would there be anyway for us to get there, and he said yes, that he would take us at 2pm. We then explained again our need to get back for a bus at 12.30, and this time he seemed to understand. Another two woman came onto the bus and the driver said something to then in Thai. We asked him, to confirm, of we would definitely be able to get back for 12.30, and he told us that yes, he would take us. At 2pm. The next 20 minutes or so was filled with us desperately trying to explain that we don't care if it's him who takes us back to Kalasin, another bus driver or an elephant - we needed to know if there was ANY way to get back for 12.30pm. It didn't help that one of the other women on the bus was also extremely annoying and kept laughing at speaking Thai. Most of the time people will be surprised when you speak Thai because you're white, but usually it's just a sort of "Oh! They can speak Thai, that's cool" reaction. It's really infuriating when, occasionally, you get the "Haha, look at them! They're WHITE, and they're speaking THAI! Isn't that hilarious?!' people. Eventually it ecame obvious that if we went to the dinosaur park we probably wouldn't be getting back in time to get Sakhon before the last bus back to Na Kae, so we abandoned the plan and got something to eat instead. Just as well that we did because when we got to the bus station we found out that the bus was actually at 11.40am, not 12.30pm, so we'd have missed it anyway xD

Teaching has been quite good this week, but it's been overshadowed by the fact that our house seems to have a vendetta against us. Not only have the mice eaten one of our electric fans (breaking the fan but somehow surviving), stolen several photos from our Thailand wall (Pippa and Tomtom's sections are noticeably smaller than they were a few weeks ago...), nibbled holed in our mosquito nets, eaten the wiring of some of the lights and stolen countless slices of bread (one of which was found half-way up the stairs - how thet got it there we have no idea), but our water supply is now very temperamental. For most of last week we could use either the shower, the hose or the tap for about 30 seconds, or flush the toilet, before all the water in the house was reduced to a trickle. Luckily we stay at other people's houses a lot anyway so could use their showers, but it made washing up difficult, and meant that you could only use the toilet once every two hours or so. After Kru Nid phoning the water suppliers in That Phanom it seems better, but experience tells me that it may break again at any second. Also our drain is still blocked even after the handyman pouring fizzy, thick black stuff down it. And we have a family of huge spiders (biggest is abound hand-sized) living in our bathroom, and three or four large, blue tokay geckos living in our poorch. Thankfully I can see the funny side of all this, and we're only here for a few more weeks so I think I can live with it!

Teaching at St. Joseph Na Kae primary school this week has been brilliant. Kru Fon, the head of English there, asked us to sing a song for the kids at morning ceremony that they could dance to, so we chose Hannah Montana: Hoedown Throwdown and taught them all the dance. We then got asked to teach the dance of some of the classes, so had a great (and tiring!) time teaching them all the dance moves! I never thought I'd have the confidence to dance in front of anyone, let alone an entire school (and looking at the videos perhaps there's a reason for this...!) but it was so much fun! On Friday some of the kids were involved in a drama performance and singing contest in the morning so we got to watch that which was good. The students at NaKaePitt. Secondary School have also ben doing singing competitions for something called "Rock Isaan" so we've been watching that at lunchtime. Some of the kids are really good singers - even though the songs are in Thai and I don't understand most of what they are saying it's obvious that some of them are really talented. One of the boys in 6th year came 3rd in a singing contect in one of the nearby cities.

Later on today I am heading t oLoeng Nokta to take part in an English Camp for two ays with some of the other volunteers, so that should be fun. No idea what to expect as I've never done one before!

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, the month of June has come around which means that it's birthday month, with mine, my mum's, my dad's and my cousin's birthdays all in the space of a few days.

I've never been one for huge birthday parties, I like to keep it quiet and enjoy it with friends and family, so instead of organising anything in particular I just had a quiet drink with Caitlin, Joe (another foreign teacher we're good friends with) and his girlfriend, Lamai. Caitlin was lovely and bought me a cake, which was actually very nice! Birthday cakes in Thailand aren't the same as the ones in the UK - they are usually very, very soft with lots of very "creamy" icing (although it's not real cream). Mine had huge flowers, a dog, swans and two angels all made of icing on the top and looked very pretty. Usually, although they are nice, they aren't brilliant to eat, but this one was one of the best ones we've had!




When Kru Nid found out that it was my birthday she went out to rally up P.Noi and P.Jim (two other English teachers) and came back with cards and presents which was lovely! I got quite a large, fluffy Hello Kitty toy, a t-shirt and a skirt from them. I'm not entirely sire how I'm going to get the Hello Kitty home, I'm hoping she'll fit into my hand luggage so I can use her as a pillow. The teachers sang Happy Birthday to me too which was suitably embarassing, as all renditions of Happy Birthday should be! :P

The evening was spent watching films and eating party rings (thank you mum!) until Joe and his girlfriend came round, when we had some food from the market and a couple of drinks. The market in Na Kae is brilliant - every day different stalls are set up selling all sorts of food and is very cheap. One of my favourites is Lap, which is a spicy meat dish made of minced meat (best with duck), lime juice, several herbs, several chillis (or several hundred chillis...), garlic and I'm sure there's lots more in it! We keep meaning to ask Pippa's parents to teach us how to make it, and I definitely want to be confident in making it by the time I get home, so fingers crossed!

While I remember, there are a couple of interesting (well I think they're interesting) stories that I forgot to put in my last blog.

While we were cleaning our house, one of the nieghbors saw us outside rinsing out feet. Because it was hot we were wearing the bare minimum, and probably should have put on something a bit more respectable. However, we thought that as we were only outside for a second and we were still within the boundaries of our house, it would be okay. Unfortunately , the neighbour who saw us phoned Kru Nid, and the rumour is now that we both shower outside at the garage. We're unsire how us rinsing our feet mutated into us showering in public, but gossip is huge in Na Kae so any opportunity to create an interesting story to spread around will be taken, and unfortunetly us foreigners are often at the centre of such stories!

When we found out that Pippa was leaving for Germany, Caitlin and I both made her good luck cards. I spent a great deal of time over mine, trying to make it as pretty as I could, and spending hours making sure that all the Thai I had written made sense. One time while we were up at school, I decided to take our microwave back home (it was at the school for a while). I put my good luck to Pippa on top of it along with a packet of sparkly gel pens and a few sheets of paper, and started to lift it. I wasn't ready for how heavy it was, and it started to tip backwards. Terrified that I was going to drop the microwave out the window behind it I took my hand off the top and quickly supported the back, letting go of everything on top of it. Fortunately, the microwave didn't go out the window. Unfortunately, I steadied it just in time to watch everything on top of it float swiftly out the window and onto the roof of the building below. I needed to get my card, pens and paper back, so I did the only thing I could think of - climb out the window onto the roof, and with Caitlin's help, all was retrieved! Thankfully I don't think anyone saw this!

While we were staying at Pippa's before she went to Germany, we decided to watch a horror film we'd brought called "Orphan". Pippa loves horror films. It was bought in Bangkok so had both Thai and English audio and subtitle, so we watched it in Thai with English subtitles so that Pippa could understand it. We were a bit concerned at how she would react to some parts of the movie. However, the sex scene came about and she didn't bat an eyelid. The little girl swore and again, no reaction. A woman was beaten several times with a hammer, and not even a flinch. Then, the mother closed the dishwasher with her foot. Pippa jumped, gasped and squeaked all at the same time! In Thailand feet are considered the lowest and dirtiest part of the body, so to use your feet for something is a no-no here. Still, I found it quite funny that this would get a bigger reaction that other parts of the film!

End of the holidays and back to Na Kae!

Sorry it's been such a long time, I've been back in Na Kae for a couple of weeks now and it's been a little bit hectic! But for now, the rest of the holidays.

After my amazing trip to Sarnelli Orphanage and Nong Khai I headed to Chiang Mai to meet my project partner, Caitlin. She had been doing a temple meditation course there as her secondary project. I spent a few days in Chiang Mai going through all the markets - there are so many of them! Every evening from about 7pm there is amn enormous night bazaar that seems to go on forever, and on Saturdays there is a walking market on one side of the city, then on Sunday there is another one on the other side. If you're not careful you can end up buying lots... not that I'm talking from experience or anything! While we were there we decided to do a cookery course, something which I've been wanting to do for a while, so we booked ourselves onto the full day one. It was brilliant! The day started at about 9am when we were taken with four other tourists to the market by the man running the course. He was hilarious and spoke really good English so was able to keep craching jokes. For instance, while he was showing us various different types of the same vegetable he described them as 'same same, but different" which is a joke for ladyboys. A ladyboy is a boy who wants to be a girl, so the joke in Thailand is that they are the same as a girl, but different - hence "same same, but different". Unfortunately we didn't know that this phrase refers to the ladyboy culture of Thailand so when Jake, Caitlin's friend, came over he bought a t-shirt with this slogan printed in huge letters across the front and back! Possibly there was more than one reason why he kept getting whistled at in the street while he was here! At the market we got told how to pick out good vegetables and what each different vegetable was used for which was good. We were also shown how to pick out good eggs, but when Caitlin and I tried this back in Na Kae we ended up buying a bag of eggs that literally broke when you picked them up... possibly more practice is needed!
We were then taken to the man's house (I have unfortunately forgotten his name, so will refer to him was Ben) to begin the course! We got to make 3 dishes individually, 3 dishes together and were shown how to make several small things like sauces and curry pastes and helped make them together as a group. I chose to make Tom Yum (spicy and sour soup, usually with shrimp), Paneng Curry and a stir fried noodle dish on my own, and as a group we made Som Tham (which, being in Isaan I've already made countless times so this was definitely the easiest!), Sticky Rice with Mango and Spring Rolls. We also got shown how to make red and green curry paste - it takes a lot of mashing with a morter and pestel, but you can cheat and use a blender if you want to :P
The Tom Yum wen't really well, usually it's not my favourite dish - it's nice but can sometimes be a bit overpowering, but I really liked the taste of the one that Ben cooked with me. Hopefully I'll be able to re-create it without the help of a Thai cook! I chose to make Paneng curry because Caitlin wanted to do red curry and I know that my mum has recipes for red curry at home already, so thought it wouldbe good to try something different. It was nice, but I prefer the traditional red and green Thai curries. The paneng curry we made was with tofu but it can be made with meat too which I think would be nicer. Noodles aren't as big a food in Thailand as rice is, but noodle dishes are still around. They aren't in Na Kae much because so much rice is grown, so the only noodle dishes you'll find regularly around here are Pad Thai (fried noodles, Thailand's national dish) and noodle soup which has been brought over from Vietnam. You do get the occasional noodle dish though, often at shopping centres like the Big C in Sakhon Nakhon, and they are really nice. The dish I made went quite well, it was nice and simple which is good so I'm thinking it will possible be a good uni food to make!
As I've already mentioned, the Som Tham wasn't anything new to us because we've made it so many times with Pippa and her family, but we were disappointed that Ben decided to use a grater to shred the papaya instead of the traditional "attack with a knife until strips fall off" method that we use here. Admittedly it was a lot faster though!
Sticky Rice and Mango is one of my favourite Thai desserts. A lot of That Desserts are... strange. A lot of them are jelly lumps in condendes milk, and after trying them I must say that I'm not a huge fan. However sweet sticky rice is delicious, and the mangos in Thailand are also delicious, so putting the two together is genius!
Spring Rolls were fun to make, you fry soaked glass noodles and pretty much any sort of shredded vegetable that you like with whatever meat you feel like eating, and then roll it up in a spring roll case. Ben said that usually to seal them egg white is used, but he made a really cool gluestick out of a banana! Much more fun!
All in all I think I did quite well - everything turned out quite well, and unlike Caitlin I didn't manage to mash the chillis in the morter so hard that they bounced back out and went everywhere. I was also able to flip my noodles in the pan without them going everywhere which I was quite proud of. At one point Ben showed us that by adding water to hot oil you make the wok catch fire for a few seconds. After this we prepared out woks for the next dish which I think it was the noodle dish. I obviously wasn't paying attention because I failed to notice that what he was making us do was exactly what he had just done to make the wok catch fire. Everyone else was ready and expecting their wok to erupt in flames. I, however, was not, so I screamed and nearly dropped it, much to everyone else's amusement! Note to self: Pay more attention!
When the course was over we got to eat everything we'd made, and we got a recipe book which had the recipes to every dish in it and lots of information about the ingredients. We got a certificate, too. It was a really enjoyable day and I'm so glad I did it - the whole thing only cost us 900B each which is about 18 pounds! It was meant to a bit more but we had the old leaflet in which the price hadn't been changed, so Ben said that we only needed to pay 900B instead of the new amount, which I think was about 1,300B.

After our few days in Chiang Mai it was time to head back to Na Kae for the start of term. Now, we'd previously been told that the kids started school again on the 6th, but that we didn't need to start until the 15th. We then saw that the 15th is a Sunday, so actually we start on the 16th. We were then told that in fact the 17th is a Buddhist holiday anyway, so we don't need to start teaching until the 18th. After arriving in Na Kae we were then told that actually, we weren't needed until the following week because all the kids were doing questionairs at Na Kae Pitt., and the primary school kids were too busy with start of term activities and classes. So we decided to clean the house, which proved to be rather an epic task.

When we arrived at the house we were faced with a note on the door telling us that at 9pm every night until 6am the following morning a dog, names Pui, would be "released" because of burglars. The note said that she can be aggressive to people she doesn't know, so the best course of action if we meet her just back away slowly saying her name in a calming voice. It then said that an even better course of action is to avoid facing her. Brilliant, another dog to avoid! Once we entered the house we soon discovered that much bigger problems were lurking. Piles on plaster on the floor below freshly nibbled holes in the ceiling told us that the mice who we had lived quite happilly with before this had either multiplied or decided that the house belonged to them. Our nibbled mosquito nests enforced this. We then found a dead mouse on the living room floor and quickly removed him. In the kitchen however, Caitlin had the delight of discovering a huge, dead rat. Again this was quickly removed. We phoned our host to ask for her advice, and got none, so phoned Lucie, our rep, who said that the rodents would probably move out once we moved in, and siggested that in the meantime we "borrow a cat". It took us the best part of three or four days to completely clean the house - this included mopping every floor at least three times, washing everything we owned because the mice/rats had decided that the best place to use as a toiler would be our wardrobe, sweeping everywhere, washing our bedclothes, and finally trying to unblock the shower plug. We couldn't unblock it on our own, and we couldn't clean the bathroom until it was unblocked (in Thailand showers don't have cubicles, the water just goes onto the floor then into a hole), and we didn't want to to buy the scarilly strong looking drain cleaner from Tescos because it had several "toxic" and "danger" labels on it, and the instrustions were entirely in Thai. We asked the woman who has taken on the job of being our main host several times, and she said that she would phone the owner of the house. This went on for a few days until we got tired of having to shower at our neighbors house, so eventually found someone else to help. After having black drain cleaner which fizzed poured down it by the handyman, it seems to be better, and much cleaner which is good. So, the house was finally finished!

Now, back to Pui. After reading the note about this dog which would be on patrol every night, Caitlin and I were expecting some sort of "Hound of the Baskervilles"-esk creature. A doberman or such like. What we were not expecting, and what we got, was a rather small, orange and white collie/spaniel cross. She is quite flightly, and if you make any sudden movements instead of charging at you like the note would suggest, she flees. One time I thought I was in trouble because she came right up to me and started nudging against my leg with her mouth part open. Scared that I was going to get bitten I started to back away, only to have her roll onto her back and grin a doggy grin at me. She does have an annoying habbit of circling your legs making it difficult to walk though. I am very glad that she isn't a giant doberman who wants to eat me, but I must admit the note on the door was slightly over the top!

We are both teaching again now, and I'm actually really enjoying it. I was concerned that after the holidays, and because this term we are teaching more lessons, I would find it much harder but in fact I think the opposite has happened. I've really enjoyed seeing my classes again, and the new year ones are lovely. Some of them have come from the rural primary schools so know very little English, if any, so it's a challenge to teach them as I also have some who have come from the private primary school and so know a fair amount of English.

I can't believe that this year is passing so quickly - I only have about 6 more weeks left in Na Kae before I go travelling for another month, and I've had and am having so many amazing experiences.

Massive good luck wishes to Pippa who landed in Germany yesterday to spend 3 months there. I don't know if Germany know's what's hit it... Unfortunately she'll not be back by the time that we leave, but hopefully we'll get to see her again sometime, either in Thailand or in Germany. Good Luck!

Sarnelli House Orphanage

Due to the summer holidays in Thailand being so long (over two months in my case), we are meant to do a secondary project of some kind for a week or so during this time. There are lots of different things to choose from in Thailand such as doing a temple meditation course, volunteering at an Elephant or Orangutan sanctuary or volunteering at an Orphanage. As I had the opportunity to learn a lot about HIV and AIDS at school by doing a peer education course with Christian Aid, I decided to volunteer for a week at Sarnelli House Orphanage in Nong Khai - a home for children who have HIV or have been abandoned. I arrived on Tuesday 26th April, and left on Tuesday 3rd May and the time flew by!
The orphanage is run by Father Mike who I met on my second or third day there, and he is brilliant - he is the perfect mix of 'loving' and 'slightly scary' which means that the kids respect him and know that he is always looking out for them. He is extremely realistic too and knows exactly what the orphanage and the kids need all the time. As well as him there is one other full time foreigner, Kate, who helps with looking after the children and day to day running of the orphanage. Then there are the House Mums who are all stars - most of them are from the same family, and are all Thais, who spend their lives looking after the children and making them feel as safe and at home as possible. There are several Houses that make up the orphanage, each for children of different ages as well as two Houses for children without HIV. Each House has several house mothers who cook for the children, look after them when they are sick, play with them and generally love them and give them someone to look up to as their mother. My role was to help the House Mothers in looking after and amusing the children. As soon as I arrived I was greeted and shown around by Marloes, a Dutch volunteer on her fourth visit to the Orphanage, and it wasn't long before I literally had one child on each arm talking so fast I'm surprised a Thai speaker could understand them! I also met Jim who is a frequent volunteer to the Orphanage
The bulk of each day was filled with bringing games or activities to the children, taking them swimming, and generally keeping them occupied and out of trouble! On the Friday some of the kids went to Udon Thani, about an hour away, for a check up with the Doctor and then to the Big C for lunch. They each got some money to spend in Big C (a shopping centre) as a treat after visiting the doctor which they all loved. Some of the girls were also treated to new swimming costumes as they had grown out of their old ones.
The next day there was a trip for some of the kids to the zoo near Kon Kaen. Most of what I've heard about zoos in Thailand hasn't been great, and my experience of the Crocodile Farm in Pattaya was awful so I was a bit wary about what it was going to be like. Thankfully however, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. There were no lions or tigers in tiny cages, mainly just deer and a large enclosure which had a few zebras and giraffes in it. There was a sign pointing to "elephants", but no one could find them... I helped lead around an 18 year old blind girl called TaDum who is absolutely brilliant - we had so much fun wandering around, and the other Thai kids were able to tell her what animal it was that they were looking at. Unfortunately, on the way back to the orphanage we had to stop in Nong Khai to take a boy to hospital as he was having a bad reaction to some medication he had been given a few days earlier. Kate stayed with him for a while and talked to the doctors, and thankfully the next day he was getting better.
One thing that I found the kids loved to do was colouring in, and so I now have a handful of Tom and Jerry and Disney Princess colouring in sheets that the kids gave to me. They are very sweet, some of them have even written "love chompoo" at the top! (Chompoo is my Thai name). They also all LOVE to go swimming, and one time when Jim, Marloes, Kate and I took a group of kids swimming, we took Nut, who is blind, and Soi who had difficulty walking. Both of them were extremely shy at first, I think it was their first time trying to swim. After trying to talk to Soi, who was too shy to say anything, I went away for a while and played with some of the other kids. When I returned to Soi, I managed to get her to take my hand and walk to the end of the shallow end using the edge of the pool as support. She loved it, and after walking up and down the shallow end a few times she got onto my back and I took her the whole length of the pool. By this point she was coming more and more out of her shell, and was making me chase Jim around so she could splash him with water! When she was back in the shallow end she was brave enough to walk across the pool without using the side to support her, then even tried swimming on her front. It was brilliant to see her go from being too shy to speak to actually trying to swim on her own and chatting to me. The same pattern was mirrored with Nut, the blind girl, who went around the pool on Kate's back.
As well as me amusing the children they definitely managed to keep me busy. I have learned how to make paper cranes, how to play "Zombie" on the guitar, and how to get a stubborn 4 year old out of a tree. One boy decided it would be a brilliant idea to swap shoes, so I had to find him and convince him that my shoes were rubbish and he really, REALLY wanted his own ones back. Eventually he decided that an even better idea would be for us each to have one of my shoes and one of his shoes. Halfway there. Finally I managed to get my shoe back and safe, but it took a while!
The orphanage is a few km out of Nong Khai town itself, and is in a very rural area. There is Sarnelli House and Nazareth House which are close to the house that volunteers stay in, then there is House of Hope, Jan and Oscar House and St.Patrick's Boys House about two km away. This is where the swimming pool is. Our Lady Of Refuge House for Girls is in Viengkhuk which is about 10km away so I only got to go there once, but all the houses are equally as cared for and looked after. It was brilliant spending time with all the kids and seeing them enjoying themselves - as soon as they see a volunteer approaching it's like they set off some sort of signal and the whole troop comes running to see what game you've brought or just to spend time with you.
Charlene House is where the volunteers stay, and P.Daa works there cooking and cleaning and generally keeping the place in order. She is lovely, and believes that Charlene House is haunted. After a few nights there, I must admit that I believe it is too!
I definitely plan on coming back to Sarnelli for a couple of weeks or so when I come back to Thailand.

Song Kran!!

Have you ever felt like you love something so much you couldn't possibly love it any more? That's what I felt about the phenominal place of Ban Phon Sanuk until Song Kran happened, and I realised that my love has no limits!! I stayed with Pippa and her family over the festival, and had an immense amount of fun. Song Kran in Nakhon Phanom is celebrated from the 12th to the 15th of April. Before the celebrations began on the 12th I spent the day helping Pippa's parents on the farm by taking black seeds out of fluffy stuff. I did get told the name of it, but it escapes me I'm afraid. The fliffy stuff is white and comes out of quite large, green pods and Pippa's mother uses it to stuff pillows with. Not quite sure what she does with the pillows, there is a huge cupboard full of them in their living room. When we were done and Pippa was out of bed, we headed to another small village a few kilometers away called Ban Phiman. The journey here is absolutely stunning - through all the rice fields and farms and it looks so naturally beautiful. In Ban Phiman there was a festival procession with floats covered in flowers and people dancing going through all the little roads, and ending in a large field where much dancing, soaking and fun was going on. As soon as I arrived I was surrounded by dancing people and had talcum powder smeared all over my face - it seems to be a Thai way of saying "welcome to the party!"! We went to a large tent and watched part of a beauty pageant that was going on, and there I found Nong Print, who is the most adorable little girl in the world. We have met her a few times and she seems to get cuter every time! Of course I got soaked by her. We headed back to Ban Phon Sanuk in the evening, and I got told that the next day the Song Kran party would move to Ban Phon Sanuk, and believe me, it did! The next day we all got up at the lovely time of 5.30am and headed to the temple next to the lake in Ban Phon Sanuk to pray and make merit. Before coming to Thailand the thought of this would have scared me to say the least, but I have to admit I actually really enjoy the merit making ceremonies. The whole village came together and prayed, then gave food to the monks. Outside the temple after this the waterfights began. It was at this point that I realied how happy I was to not be in Chiang Mai - it was the most amazing thing to see everyone in the village having fun together. I can't help thinking that if this sort of festival happened in the UK there would be groups of people who were friends ganging up on th un-popular kids, and it would end up being very clique-y. Here, there wasn't a sniff of that. All the kids in the village were soaking each other and even older people who are very respected, like Pippa's father who is one of the most respected men in the village, were getting attacked by kids and water guns. One of the highlights of this part of the day has got to be one of my students pouring a HUGE bucket of water all over Pippa :P. Because we are in a more rural part of the country where Buddhism plays a larger part of everyday lives, there was as aspect of paying respect to the Buddha in the waterfights, in that people were blessing each other with (very cold) holy water. There was a small ceremony where people poured holy water over a wooden Buddha's head and then into the hands of respected and older people in the village, and from that people were blessing each other. I'd like to pay a special mention to the "coyotes" - three older woman dressed in crazy outfits dancing crazilly pretty much all day! After following a truck with a band in the back through the back roads of the village, we arrived back in Ban Phon Sanuk to begin the car soaking. Two large buckets of water were set up at the side of the road, as was a decking to stand/dance on. Music was blaring loudly, and the rule was if a pickup goes past and the back is full of people, soak them. It was brilliant - pickups were going past constantly, so full of people that the sides were down and people were literally hanging off the edge, and when they saw that we were ready for a waterfight they would jump down fromthe pickup and soak us all or cover us in talcum powder. Again it showed here how considerate people are in this part of Thailand. I've heard a lot about the festival in Chiang Mai and apparently people are knocked off motorbikes and if you go outside, you will get wet. Here if someone went past on a motorbike and didn't want to be soaked for whatever reason, they weren't. By the end of the night Pippa and I were both completely drenched and covered in talcum powder. The next day I got to experience actually being in the back of one of the pickups! Lots of the people from the village were going on a Song Kran Soaking Spree to That Phanom and then to Renu Nakhon, with the pickup so full that 4 people were sitting on the edge hanging their legs off. Despite it being so hot, with the water and the breeze from travelling it was actually quite cold! It was brilliant fun, we were stopping every few minutes to be doused in water and talcum powdered up! When we got back to the village it was the same deal as the night before, but this time with more dancing because Pee Ying came who is absolutely crazy! Every now and then I went to sit and have a drink, but was soon back to throwing waterand dancing! Big thank you to Pippa who took on the job of taking lots of photos as she was deliberately not getting wet - camera wwas definitely much safer with her! Day three of Song Kran saw another early morning as Pippa and I were heading to Bangkok inthe evening and I had to go to Na Kae to get some stuff from the house and she had to pack up everything for another two months of learning German. By 8am I had been to Na Kae, packed up all my stuff and got back! I spent the morning helping (watching) Pippa pack before the watering began. I tried to not get too wet as I had to take my clothes to Bangkok, but despite trying to stay at the side, drink and chat, I still got soaking wet, mainly because I couldn't resist the waterfights once they started! After a few hours of soaking and being soaked I got changed and packed up my wet clothes into a plastic bag to head to Bangkok. Back to Na Kae full time in a month - I can't believe that it's only 4 months until I go home!!

Trapped on Koh Tao!

When Caitlin's friend, Jake, arrived to visit on Thursday we thought that it would be brilliant to head south and see some of the islands. This plan would have been flawless if Thailand hadn't decided that it would bring freak monsoons! We arrived on Koh Tao on Saturday I think, and planned to spend a few days here snorkelling. It started to rain as soon as we arrived, and literally has not stopped since. After about 48 hours of constant rain, all boats to and from the island were cancelled, and floods were causing havoc all over the south. Soon, almost every road on the island was a river and every building we passed had some sort of damage - knee deep water on the floor, roofs caved in, tables and chairs broken and floating... it really was crazy. It was so bad in the south of the island that an entire resort literally floated away - building and all! Some parts look like a tsunami has hit with trees uprooted and roads and rivers blocked with sand washed in from the sea level rising. It continued to rain until yesterday when it held off for just enough time for people to start getting things back in order, but then today more rain came and the forecast is for even more. When it became clear that boats would be cancelled for a good few days, a navy ship was sent to take tourists off the island. However, due to Thai disorganisation, this didn't go to plan and most tourists were left here, including two friends of ours who have now missed flights! So Caitlin, Jake and I are still stuck here. We are booked on a boat that leaves tomorrow morning, and hopefully that should leave, but if it continues raining I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. I must give credit to the Thai people on the island and everywhere in the south - this sort of situation should that Thais are survivors. Everyone is just getting on with it - their house is flooded, so they do whatever they need to do to sort it and deal with it as fast as possible to get back to normal. When floods happened in the UK the chaos was incredible and it went on for weeks, but people here who have literally had enire streets washed away in places like Surathani, are just getting on with doing whatever they have to do. I can't explain how crazy the weather is - I can understand that from the UK it might just seem like a lot of rain, but even in the wet season it never, ever rains like this. In the wet season there is maybe an hour or so a day of torrential rain, then it disappears. This is constant torrential rain, in the hot season! We spoke to a teacher in Na Kae earlier today who said that the temperature there has been between 7 and 11 celcius - it should be nearing 40 by now! Hopefully things will get back to normal soon, but for now the south of Thailand has to just keep surviving.

Still in the South!

Well our plan was to be further North than this at this point, but we sort of got stuck in Krabi! Intentionally because it was such a lovely place. We ended up visiting both Railay Beach and Ao Nang (Nang Beach), which were both lovely. I preferred Railay because there was much more to do though, such as embarking on a seemingly innocent climb to "The Lagoon". It was not innocent. After climbing/scrambling up quite a steep cliff/gully, with the aid of ropes, to a nice little forest walk. This walk stayed "nice' for about 3 minutes, until we found the next part of the journey. Again with the aid of ropes, we had to go down a cliff. Then another cliff. Then another. I found it extremely difficult as I am not a climber, and at first decided to wait at the Top while Caitiln went down. I sat at the top with another girl who didn't want to go down, but eventually we managed to persuade each other to give it another go and we both made it down! When we got to the Lagoon it was quite pretty, but very muddy with quite spiky rocks to swimming wasn't really an option. There was, however, a very nice shelf with lots of sculptures that people had made out of the mud on it!

We intended to go home the next day, but met up with some Americans called Joe, Tony and Sarah and decided to stay a couple of extra days to do some more exploring. We went to Ao Nang, which was really just a long beach, and Caitlin ventured up the 1237 steps to the "Tiger Temple". No tigers, just a lot of steps!

When we finally decided to leave, we had the dilemma of where to go. We decided to try and get to a small village called Ban DanSingkhon where there is a Burmese Orchid Market every Saturday. We thought that this would be a quite an easy journey - we would go to a town called Surat Thani, from there get another bus to Prachoet Khirikhan and then get a song tao to the village. Unfortunetly, it was not this simple. From Krabi we got a bus to a small place called Ban Na Saan (simple because at this point we weren't 100% sure where we wanted to go, and it was one of the few places that we could find both on the map in Lonely Planet and on the ticket...). Not much here but a train station, so the next morning we decided 100% to make our way to Surat Thani. Note to self: Never go there. Never, ever go there. We arrived and tried to get a bus to Prachoet Khirikhan, but the ticket seller was so obviously trying to scam us it was ridiculus. We managed to get the price down from 450B each to 350B each, but that took a very long time and a lot of bantering backwards and forwards. Usually the banter-haggling is quite fun and can be a laugh, but the man selling the tickets was convinced that because we were "farang" we were rich. He got quite heated and shouted at me that "Thai people pay less because they don't have money, white people are all rich so must pay more". I tried to explain to him that I actually live in Thailand and am a volunteer, but he was having none of it. After finally paying for the ticket I had to make quite a fuss to get my 300B change! The bus was supposedly at 6.10pm, so we wandered around the town for a while. At 6.10pm we headed back to where we'd been todl the bus was, only to be taken in a small song tao to another place. Here we waited until 8pm before out bus finally came!! We tried to find out from the driver what time we would be in Prachoet because the bus went all the way to Bangkok, and he glared at us then waves his hand at us to shoo us away! For the first few hours of the journey the bus kept stopping randomly, and finally we pulled over at the side of the road while one of the drivers fiddled with the engine in the back. I went down and politely asked what was wrong, and again the man glared at me then went out and slammed the door! Thankfully when the other driver came back in he was much nicer and said that it was fixed, and off we went. At about 2am we arrived in Prachoet. Or, actually, we didn't... we were dropped off 2km outside the town, despite the driver asking us where we wanted to be dropped off and agreeing to take us to where ther ewere hotels! Finally after about a 1km walk lined with stray dogs we found a hotel and managed to geta few hours sleep before being up at 7.30am to find a way to the Orchid Market.

The Market was actually lovely, and Caitlin and I both bought Pitcher Plants to see if we can keep them alive. If we start to fail we're going to try and give them to Pippa - she likes plants! After the market and a nap at the hotel, I decided to make my way up to a temple on a hill, with 336 steps leading up to it! I managed it and am very proud that I did, and I saw lots of monkeys on the way! On the way back down, I got a bit trapped by the monkeys though... someone had left a bag of food for them and they were swarming onf of the little shelters on the way up the steps, fighting over the food. I decided to wait it out until they had calmed down instead of risking rabies!

One thing I've noticed pretty much immediately is that there is a huge contrast between the South of Thailand and the Northeast, where I am in Na Kae. The feeling that I got in Surathani was that the locals were almost resentful towards farang. I think that this is probably because being near such a tourist filled area they have quite likely had bad experiences with typical farang party goers, but there seems to be a lack of the community spirit which is obvious in Isaan. I haven't yet seen anyone eating outside and having the whole street join them as can often happn in the villaged around Na Kae. As I have now travelled around Isaan a bit, I can say that it's not just in Na Kae that there is a strong sense of community - it really is all over, and the locals wherever we've been in Isaan have been extremely welcoming and impressed that we both speak Thai, even if they haven't met us previously. It's a shame that this has been lost in more southern parts of the country.