Ruth's Travel Blog

Photos: Vietnam

rutha90 — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 16:40:00 GMT

Sapa - a slip or a trip you'd slide all the way down

rutha90 — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 20:02:00 GMT

Having had a fairly unexciting few days in Hanoi (which, by the way is lovely... I just didn't do anything) I headed to Sapa in the far north with a few of the same group I was with in Cambodia.
We caught a sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, which is a border town on the Vietnam - China border. It was exciting getting a night train, as I am sick and fed up of bussing it!! There was four of us in one cabin and another two of us in another four bed a couple doors along.
Anyhooo, from Lao Cai we were taken to Sapa, which is about 1500m above sea level. Originally a French hill station but now a tourist centre for trekking and experiencing different minority groups up here in the clouds and the rice terraces. The rice terraces on the road that went up, up and up were fantastic.
We had breakfast and stuck out bags in storage, then off we headed. We walked for around three or four hours, mostly downhill to start with along firstly the road, and then on small paths between rice terraces.
It is SO beautiful up here... Stunning views in every directions. Literally every single INCH of the steep steep hillside is made into rice terraces, I have no idea how these crazy little village ladies even get up there to pick their rice or whatever.
We stopped every few minutes for a viewpoint/breather/ waiting for our group to recollect etc. one stop we were surrounded by about 15 girls -I'd say from the age of 5-12 - selling cotton bracelets. "You buy from meeeee, you buy from meeeeee, you buy from meeeeee" so many of them saying it in their little musical voices it was like a song!
We were so starving by lunch that we just ordered more and more food. It was included in our tour so we made the most of it. We were freezing as well so I drank a ton of tea. Ok, not freezing, but the lowest temperature I've felt since I got to Asia back in April maybe 22/23degrees... And it's about 13 here... At a push. You can see your breath, and I'm wearing LONG sleeves! SOCKS!! And... A scarf!! (Gunna freeze back in the uk...)
We walked all day, 12km in total. Aching like crazy. Up up up and down and up and down and through bamboo forests (where's the panda?) and over rice paddies and jumping over little rivers and gulleys. Eventually we arrived at our homestay for the night in a small village right up in the clouds, in the words of Dr. Seuss "a slip or a trip and you'd slide all the way down". We ate like kings and queens that night, and drank rice wine, which is disgusting. Bloody cold, but thick. Thick blankets so slept really well. We sat round the fire in the middle of the kitchen and got to know the owners of the home. Our homestay lady was so lovely and had some gorgeous little kids. I showed her some pictures of Scotland from a photobook that I carry with me. She had some absolutely gorgeous jewellery which I was admiring and asked her where I could buy it. She said the men in the village make it for the ladies in the village, that you can buy the bracelets in Sapa but why are bad quality and the metal changes colour really quickly. I asked where I could get good ones and she let me buy one of hers right off her!, it is beautiful and I am so happy with it. Even more special and will remind me of Pang (my homestay lady) forever.
In the morning we headed off and had the same type of walk as the day before, but a lot more up and down and less going along the hillside. It was only 5km, doesn't sound much but was harder and more tiring as we were aching from the day before.
I fell twice in a paddy field, taking town one of our little lady guides with me who had a baby on her back!! Poor lady, she landed on her knees though so baby wasn't hurt. I was covered toes to bum both sides in thick stinking mud! EVENTUALLY we made it to lunch. I have never been so happy to get to the top of a hill... It had been a long morning and a very long climb up to the top where we were having lunch! We got a lift back to Sapa town and had hot showers and lots of coffee and found a coffee shop for wifi and spent the afternoon there chilling out and keeping warm!
Bad news was that we had more trekking this morning! Two of my group have food poisoning, and the rest of us were exhausted. I did the downhill, to the village, the waterfall and the dancing show, but I took advantage of the annoying motorbike men and got a lift back up as I wasn't feeling great, and wanted to figure out my next move in Vietnam. Now, we are all sat in a cozy coffee shop. Okay it's not cozy, nowhere has heating so we have to drink coffee, tea, or hot chocolate ... whatever you want that's hot all day!! There are several different languages spoken within Sapa, I think around nine. There are lots of minority villages which are really interesting. All the ladies I have met have navy blue finger nails. I didn't understand why but all of their clothes are the same colour. They die all their clothes in big barrels of indigo... Explains it all!
Next move... Sleeper train tonight. Halong bay in a couple days time. Will upload pictures when able!!

I will survive...yet another typhoon

rutha90 — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:58:00 GMT

For those of you checking to see if there are any updates about the horrible typhoon that hit the Phillipines, then here you go!!

I arrived in Hanoi (Vietnam) last night. I was supposed to get here a few hours after the typhoon hit, but, it changed direction as I had wished for, and didn't hit Hanoi at all!

So, I'm here, I'm safe, I'm alive... all's good.

More soon... Just letting you know I'm still living!

Rivers: tubes, elephants and waterfalls.

rutha90 — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:47:00 GMT

From Vientiane, I travelled on an EXTREMELY packed full minivan up to Vang Vieng.

Now, it's really only famous in the backpacker scene for one thing. Tubing. Along the river. Between bars. Actually, it used to be completely crazy with about 48 bars in the 4km route between drop off and town. There used to be rope swings and zip lines and all sorts of mushroom shakes and "herbal" pizzas etc and tens of people died each year. NOW is a different story... No drugs, no zip lines, no swings... And only three bars. I really enjoyed the floating along the river!! But I met loads of people in the bars which really great. Of course it wasn't as busy, but actually relaxing having a drink, then floating some more. And having more drinks, and then some more. Then floating some more. Fun fun, the bruises are still fading!

I spent another day there, recovering from the hangover and enjoying the scenery!
The landscape there is like something from some made up movie. HUGE limestone karts with blue rivers running between. I hired a bike and tried to cycle to "the blue lagoon" but it was hot, I was tired, and my bike was NOT suitable for the very bumpy track. I had a walk among some paddy fields and headed back.

The next morning I took the bus to Luang Prabang. It's only 100 and something kilometres, but it took six and half hours because of the road. Each bend was near on a u-turn... Up, up, up, up, down, down, down, down, and up again. And down again. The scenery was incredible. Unfortunately the man behind me kept vomiting... The first ever journey I haven't felt travel sick and I have the noise and scent of vomit around me!

I arrived at Luang Prabang and in the hostel I checked into was a mum and daughter pair from Inverness who I had first met in Vientiane. The daughter is my age and was booked to do a half day with the elephants the next day, so in the morning I booked on the same one.
It was magnificent. I genuinely don't have words for it. We walked with the elephants, on their backs for maybe forty minutes, and then... We rode them into the water and gave them a good scrub. My elephant LOVED it!!! She was sooking water up her trunk and scooshing it backwards over me! I don't think I stopped smiling the entire time... My face was aching by the time we left for the town!

I was going to go back for the two day mahout (elephant keeper) training the next day, but decided not to spoil the amazing memory that I already had, and save my money for Vietnam.

The next day a few of us from the hostel headed to Khuangsi Waterfall about an hour from Luang Prabang. I have seen hundreds of waterfalls on my travels, but I think this one takes the biscuit.
Picture, in your head. Turquoise water running over white rocks. The water and rocks are those colours, I think, because of silt or minerals in the water. Anyway I will get round to adding pictures one day for you! We had a good long swim, jumped in from the rope swing, walked up through the jungle and chilled on some rocks in the middle of a pool.
Yet another paradise that I've found!!

In the evening, I climbed the hill back in town, to Phu Si temple to watch the sunset. It was a bit of a disappointment having climbed up all that way, it was cloudy and there weren't many colours, it just got dark. We climbed down the hill and got food. I tried Laap. A traditional Lao dish of minced meat, mint, lime juice, chilli and coriander. I went for chicken. You eat it with sticky rice and pick the Laap up with the sticky rice with your hands. Delicious.
After our meal we found a herbal sauna, and spent the evening there. It was random. A shed in some backyard of a massage shop. Really good though. You get given this loop of cloth that you step into, and a cloth for wiping your face. It was very cheap at 12,000 kip each. Not quite £1. The next day I saw the same on offer in a touristy place for 130,000 kip. We did the right thing!!

I'm sure you have all heard about the typhoon causing disaster in the poor Philippines. It was heading north through Vietnam, and I was getting pretty worried that it would arrive in Hanoi the same time as I did.

I kept a close eye on BBC news and Hanoi weather stations for the last couple of days in Luang Prabang.

Photos: Cambodia

rutha90 — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:26:00 GMT

Temple ruins, remote islands and creepy national parks...

Hammocks on the Mekong, night busses, and COPE in the capital

rutha90 — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:44:00 GMT

From the border of Laos I travelled by minivan to a small riverside village on the Mekong River called Ban Makasang, which is the port to Si Phan Don, or 4000 islands. I took a small boat out to the nearest island, Don Det.
I stayed in a bungalow on stilts on the river, with a hammock on the porch, for about £2.50 a night.

I spent two days doing more or less nothing. One day I hired a bicycle and cycled round the island, but it took no more than an hour so I spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon reading and sleeping in my hammock drinking pineapple shakes!!

From Don Det, I went on to Pakse. I had high hopes for Pakse. It is the former indochinese capital. Well... Indochina must have been boring, because this place was about as delightful as Surin (where I was living in Thailand)... I had three nights pencilled in to stay there. I arrived in the afternoon, had a very boring wonder about and decided to book the night bus for the next day!
However, Pakse is not too far away from a very fertile area called Bolaven plateau! which I did a day tour of, before getting the night bus. This included visiting three waterfalls (including Laos Highest waterfall which is 120m), two villages and a school, and tea and coffee plantations. It was actually a very good day...

The night bus was an experience, which I think I will avoid in future (but I have bought some Valium just incase I have to go on one again!).
So, a sleeper bus is full of beds. That makes sense. However, the bed is the same size as two chairs on a normal bus, so basically, you are sharing a single bed with a complete stranger. No thank you. LUCKILY I didn't have a bed buddy, and after 10 bumpy hours I arrived slightly dishevelled in Vientiane, the capital city.

Most people I have met haven't had anything good to say about Vientiane, and the rest of them have travelled straight past it. I decided I wanted make my own mind up.
People were right, it's not very exciting. Apart from yet more temples, loads of cafés and a night market, there isn't much there.

One thing, I did find however, is the most amazing charity called COPE.

During the Vietnam War, the Americans dropped something like 250million bombs on Laos... They didn't know who or what they were hitting, but there was no rule about dropping bombs here, as Laos wasn't part of the war. Out of that huge number, only 30% actually exploded.
There are over 80 million bombs lying across Laos and each year hundreds of people are seriously hurt or killed from them. Kids pick them up thinking its a toy/ fruit. Adults may light a fire and the bomb is in the ground under the fire wiki them knowing, the ground heats up and the bombs goes off. Another's story was he saw a bomb and thought if he picked it up and threw it into the lake it would kill the fish... The bomb went off as he picked it up.
This is a constant job for bomb disposal teams, but only 40km2 is cleared a year of the 87,000km2 affected (more then one third of Laos). It takes ten days for them to clear one hectare, or longer depending on the landscape.
Laos people can make a lot of money by selling the metal as scrap... Which causes many casualties. All over Laos you can buy bracelets, bottle openers and key rings made from recycled bombs metal, I thought this was really cool until I heard about the risk involved!

This is where COPE comes in. COPE stands for Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise. They make high tech prosthetics at a low cost for victims of the cluster bombs left from the Secret War. They provide occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and replace the prosthesis if it is too small, or needs changed in any way.
Not only do they help victims of the cluster bombs, but they help people effected from accidents or who have deformity from birth. They can treat babies and children with talipies (club foot) up to the age of thirteen and will even try and fix it after then by surgery.
This is one of the best charities I have come across and really opened my eyes to what country people in Laos have to deal with.

Please have a look at the website and tell people you know...

http://www.copelaos.org

Koh Rong, Kampot, and the long road north

rutha90 — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 02:16:00 GMT

I'm sorry I'm so awful at updating this thing...but I'm not sorry that I'm having too much fun and have no time to do it!!

Let's start where I left off.

I was heading to an island off the coast of Cambodia.

That island, Koh Rong, was spectacular.

I was super burnt when we got the boat, and even though it's the calmest sea I've ever seen I felt so sea sick because I had sunstroke. Idiot that I am. Since then I have worn SPF 50 everyday, which I should've done since the start.

The island was very bare and very basic. They only had the generators running from 6pm to 11pm at most resorts. The village was just along one beach, a few resorts of bungalows went onto the hill behind but most just were on the beach.
We stayed at the first place we found, but after two nights of waking up from a) rats scrabbling round our room b) having two of my bags chewed through by rats and c) being woken up by such a violent storm that our bungalow was shaking, the window was blown off its hinges and I feared my life!
So, the next day we moved to a bungalow along the beach... Same four of us girls sharing a bungalow. This was much nicer. Right on the beach, white sand, turquoise sea. Bliss.
NOT as paradise-ish as a beach on the other side of the island called long beach. You could hike over the hill, or you could get a boat round (which we did). I have never seen a beach like this. The water was like a bath, so warm, so clear. The beach was 7km long and pretty much empty apart from a guy selling coconuts.
We spent the afternoon there. Just lovely.
We returned to our new bungalow in the evening to find a resident bat in our room.
If we don't get the plague from the rat we will get rabies from a bat!!
I spent two nights longer on the island than I'd originally planned. It was really nice as I fell in with a group of people and travelled with them for a few days.

From Koh Rong, four of us continued on to Kampot, famous for its pepper plantation.
From here, we visited, with another group of four, Bokor National Park.
Not gunna lie. Definitely THE weirdest national park I've ever been to. Only this year the road has opened up to the top of the mountain. Up there, is an abandoned village from back in the Khmer Rouge days. The church and a couple houses are covered in amazing coloured lichens but the main hill station/casino where French used to go for long weekends has been stripped clean and is even more spooky. You can't tell if it's been half built and abandoned or if it was finished and that what is left!
Also up on the top of the mountain is... A MASSIVE RESORT and CASINO. What? You may ask... As did I, many times over!! Yup, a huge big resort with extortionate restaurants, casinos, a car park for thousands of cars... And a golf course in progress. But no customers. We had lunch at the "cheap" restaurant... There were about 10 staff for each of the 8 of us. Actually, maybe more.
The creepiest thing of all about Bokor mountain was by far the fog, and how it would suddenly appear from nowhere.
I was glad to get back to our hostel and enjoy the live music and some drinks in the evening.

That was my last day with that group of people. The next day I started the several day trip to the Laos border.

A night in Phnom Penh, then a seven am bus that was to take ten hours and arrive at 2pm (that's what I was told) to Stung Treng, and hour from the Laos border... I arrived there about 8pm...
The next morning I crossed over into Laos, no thanks to the completely rude and unhelpful man on the bus who's soul purpose of working there was to help us with the crossing!!

I'm going to make some other posts... Maybe one about each week sounds a bit better (and maybe makes me look like I'm more organised rather than doing a month at a time)

Also, I have found a much better blog site, so my next trip I'll be using that one... I don't like it here!

Check the next few, coming soon!!

Leaving Surin and the start of my travels.

rutha90 — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:23:00 GMT

Quick update since it's been so long since I wrote in here!!

My days of teaching have come to an end... It was sad saying goodbye to the kids, and the other teachers I'd been working with. But, I was glad to be out of Surin!

I crossed into Cambodia (an hour drive from Surin) on October twelfth, with two other girls I'd been teaching with. It was easy enough it just took ages waiting, then getting stamped, then our visas. Eventually we got over and caught a taxi to Siem Reap, about four hours from the border.

We were so excited and had a real holiday feel. I don't know if it's because we just left Surin or what but I really loved Siem Reap. Amazing night markets... So big you get lost in :)
Siem Reap is a backpacker heaven and tourist central because of Angkor Wat.
We spent a day exploring the temples at Angkor. It's one of, if not the most fascinating place I've been to.

It was one of the hottest days I've ever experienced. Like, I don't think it went below 35oC while we were there. Even the monkeys were throwing themselves into flood waters for a swim!

We had hired a tuktuk and a driver for the day. I'm so glad we decided against cycling. We didn't even do the whole route the driver had planned for us. We went to maybe three others after Angkor Wat, then headed back, we were so hot and tired.

The next day we visited an orphanage in the afternoon. The kids we met there were so strong and seemed relatively happy. Some had parents who couldn't afford education or food for them. Some others didn't have parents. There were 30 kids at the orphanage in total, but we didn't meet them all.

That evening we explored the night markets again. I had a fish spa ( when you put your feet in a pool of fish and they eat off the dead skin from your feet). It took a while to get used to it. I did a lot of screaming and shouting when I first dipped my feet in. Maybe after ten minutes I got used to it! Then, for dinner, I ate stir fired frog. Weird.

NEXT STOP: Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.

Here I visited the Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum, The Killing Fields and the royal palace. Needless to say the first two of there were horrendous. I don't know how Cambodia has coped so well. A quarter of its population was brutally murdered not even forty years ago for simple things such as wearing glasses, speaking another language or being remotely clever incase they thought of a way to overthrown Pol pot and his horrendous regime.
The worst part of all of it, was one particular tree at killing fields. The killing tree. Where they killed babies and children. The Khmer Cadres would hold their feet and hit them against the tree until they were dead, or as good as. Sometimes they weren't fully dead when they were buried.

I just feel sick thinking about this.

Also while in Phnom Penh, I caught up with my cousin who is a voluntary Speech and language therapist at an orphanage for special needs children.
And, I did a half day Khmer cooking course. First,we went to the mallets and bought all our ingredients. Then we headed to the cookery school. I made spring rolls stuffed with taro peanut and carrot, with and sweet and sour dipping sauce. The sauce was delicious!!
For main course I made Amok Fish. This is a traditional Khmer dish of coconut milk, ginger, turmeric, galangal, kafir lime, lemongrass and chilli, steamed, of course with fish, in a banana leaf.
Mine looked awful but tasted good!!

I stayed one extra day in Phnom Penh than planned. This day I visited the Russian markets in the morning, and went to riverside and the night market too.

Now, I'm in Sihanoukville on the south coast of Cambodia. I booked a cheapy hostel online but when I turned up it was a heavy metal/rock bar. I reluctantly checked in then decided I didn't feel happy and I should go somewhere else. I found somewhere online, made an excuse to the guy at reception my friends were at another hostel, a got a tuktuk to where I am now. Actually, there are people here who I met at my last hostel in Phnom Penh so it wasn't completely a lie... Though I didn't know it at the time!!

Its heaven here. I'm about 50metres from the beach. Blue sea. Silver sand. Thatched buildings. Even though I am run down with a dodgy stomach... I'm so glad i moved from that other place!!

Off to an island tomorrow.

More soon xx

Photos: TEFLing in Thailand!

rutha90 — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:44:00 GMT

Teaching in Anubarn Surin

Photos: Koh Phi Phi :)

rutha90 — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:55:00 GMT

Turquoise lagoons, white sand and THE Beach

Koh Phi Phi and The Beach

rutha90 — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:50:00 GMT

Well since I last wrote, my closest friend out here (Julia) has left, which has been pretty tough. She travelled to Bangkok with Kat and I, when I went to meet Sophie, and we had a night out in Bangkok. The next morning (after only about a forty minute sleep!!) we said our emotional goodbyes, and Kat headed to the airport to fly back to the UK, and Sophie and I got a bus to Phuket, which took near on 13 hours. Sophie wasn't well, and I was hungover. So it probably wasn't a great combo for a long journey! I can sleep easily on buses, and I reckon of those 13 hours I slept 10 of them. We got to our hostel, went for food and had an early night.

The next morning we got the boat out to Koh Phi Phi. It took about two hours.

The island is amazing, lots of huge limestone cliffs and lagoons filled with turquoise clear waters. Sadly, everything on the island is pretty much new. Almost everything was destroyed in the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. It is overrun by tourists, and even many of the shops are run by westerners. Nothing there is cheap, there aren't even street food stands so we ate restaurants when we felt up for it. Whatever sickness Sophie had at the start I caught soon after.

The first day there, after we has found our hostel which was directly on the beach, we headed back into town to find a place to book a boat trip. A lady in a travel agent told us today were the last boats until after the Muslim holiday (which turned out to be absolute nonsense) so we had twenty minutes to get back to the hostel, get swimwear, and cameras, and meet back at the travel agents. We travelled in a long tail boat... The kind you see on postcards and travel guides to Thailand. It was ram packed full and got thrown about a lot in the choppy waters. The first stop was monkey beach. Need I say more. It was a beach with monkeys on it! We went past Viking caves which is where there is a booming "bird's nest" industry, for Bird's Nest Soup. I don't think I'll be trying that one!!

The colour of the water was incredible and I took hundreds of pictures. It was like some super edited postcard or something from a magazine. We went into a lagoon on the boat, then we were told that we had to walk to Maya Bay (the beach from The Beach) over the top of the cliffs as the tide was too low in the bay for boats to get it. First, we had to jump out of the boat. Second, we had to scramble across some horrible jagged rocks to the cliff edge, while being knocked over by waves every thirty seconds. Not easy!! Finally, when you get to the cliffs edge in the water, you hold a rope and have to walk along, and then up a wooden ladder/steep staircase. Once you are over that its easy, you just need to walk through the palm trees to the other side, and out you come onto the beach. I actually couldn't stop taking pictures (the boat driver carried cameras across in a sea proof bag that divers use). It was unbelievably beautiful. The sand was SO white, and almost like a clay type of texture. It cracked on your feet as it dried. The water was so clear that it had no colour at all until quite far out, and out there it was the brightest kind of turquoise!!

It was very hot. So many tourists were there, just sitting in the sea, taking cheesy pictures of them jumping or whatever.

We did a bit of all of that, Sophie and I. The water was so warm, like a bath. I could have say in there all day!

We had about an hour there, before heading back through the trees to the awful rocks!! I got stuck on the rocks, didn't know which way to go to get back not the water. I sliced my hand open which put me off the next stop which was snorkelling. I didn't want to get any more corally or oceany bits of anything in it. I've seen an infected wound from Thailand coral before, and the girl nearly lost her leg... And I'd rather keep my hand, thank you!

The boat back was pretty choppy, and by that point we were cooling off, so I was glad we were heading back!

Other days on Phi Phi we just relaxed, went for a walk around markets, and wondered out on the sand in front of our hostel when the tide was all the way out. We had three nights there in total, and two full days and two half days. A good amount of time to rest, (other than the fact we had both spent a fair amount of time in the bathroom!!)

We went straight to Phuket bus station when we got back to the mainland. We caught an overnight bus back to Bangkok. Neither of us were well for that journey, but at least we saved money on a hostel for that night, poor Sophie didn't manage any sleep at all though... And as usual I got a big sleep.

We managed to get to our Bangkok hostel on Kao San Road, and Sophie just wanted to sleep, understandable really, but as I've not seen much of Bangkok either of the times before I was desperate to see some more! I just kept close to Kao San and ate a little but still wasn't feeling up for much.

The next morning we got an early bus back to Surin, as early as possible as it was Mother's Day, which, in Thailand, is a really big deal as its also the Queen's Birthday, and there were due to be parades all round Bangkok... Ad I didn't know what other cities would be like for travelling through. Yet again, I slept most of the way back to Surin, while Sophie made friends with some wee boys on the bus and let them listen to David Bowie on her iPod.

It was strange being back in Surin. Glad the travelling was over but not too pleased to be back there!! And sad that I was back without Julia.

Sophie stayed here a week, then headed up to Chiang Mai to volunteer with elephants. She changed her flights home to be earlier, and cut her trip ten days short. This was after while in Surin, she ate some chocolate with peanut in (unaware of the peanuts of course). Being allergic to peanuts, it didn't go well... And within two minutes her lips swole right up. We left immediately for the hospital, and as soon as we were there it got a lot worse. She went into anaphylactic shock which was extremely scary for her, of course, and for me to watch. I'm glad we left for the hospital when we did though. She spent a night in hospital, and I left school at lunch the next day to take her home for rest.

It was great having her here though, and it was sad saying goodbye to her as she got the tuktuk out to the bus station.

She has loved the volunteering with elephants up in Chiang Mai... She got some amazing pics of a newly born ele too!

School is a huge amount better. We got a slight pay rise, the three of us in EP. Whether it was that the made the difference or that I just have a more positive frame of mind for school I don't know, but I'm determined to enjoy the last few weeks... 6 and counting!! Sports day was a strange affair, primary aged kids dressed as hookers and pimps doing dance off depending on their team. Still every day there is something about Thailand that shocks me! And it was the hottest day I have ever felt in my life...

Plans for travelling are still up in the air for after teaching... No decision as yet!

Photos: Koh Chang

rutha90 — Thu, 1 Aug 2013 10:43:00 GMT

Oops!! Been a while...

rutha90 — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:08:00 GMT

It's been a while since I have written on this thing!!

But really not a huge amount to talk about.

One Sunday a few weeks ago we travelled in the back of a pickup truck to Surin Elephant Study Centre, where we volunteered for the day for a pretty good price.

We got there late morning, had a quick lunch then started planting grass for the elephants. Not how I'd imagined though. There were pre-dug furrows ready for us to put down old cane type things which the grass grows from, then once they were all laid we covered them up with the soil.

Then we went and cut sugar cane to feed the elephants with. We had an elephant each. Mine was called Peum Sap (meaning more money), she was 19 years old I was told. They can live as long as 150 years apparently, and pregnancy is 2 years long. We rode the elephants to a lake where they bathed. My elephant was boring and didn't want to lye in the water so it just stood there. Another elephant was cheeky and kept sooking water up it's trunk then spraying all of us! On the way back my mahout (elephant herder) asked me to swap places with him so I was sat on the nape of the elephant's neck. I didn't really like that... Didn't feel safe! like I was going to fall off forwards if the elephant put its head down.

We moseyed around the centre afterward. There was a small museum, an elephant show area where they were doing tricks (not fair for them) and a market. There there was a man who was painting. I bought from him a beautiful picture of an elephant and it's baby for next to nothing UK price.

School has been up and down hugely. From the point. Of "that was the best day so far!" To the other extreme of going in after the long weekend to quit, but had a good day, and ten days later I still seem to be here... Going to stick it out though as I'm well past the half way point.

I went away for a long weekend, to one of the islands. It's the closest one from here but it's still 9hours drive to the ferry. It was absolute heaven and just highlighted how horrible Surin really is!! It wasn't great weather, but not as bad as forecast. Not sunny, but a nice temperature with a gorgeous breeze :) we did absolutely nothing... Ate and drank far too much and swam in the sea(well jumped the waves... They were pretty big). 12 of us went in total but it was nice as it broke into smaller groups which worked well as the others wanted to do things where was we just wanted to recuperate.

The driver that took us there and back in a minibus was a TERRIBLE driver. On the way, we travelled over night on the Friday after school, to get the first boat in the morning. Well he fell asleep at the wheel and if my friend hasn't been awake to clap her hands and wake him up then who knows what would have happened.

On the way back we travelled in the day... I have never seen flooding like it. Actually scary to travel through but he would still be driving a 100km per hour even when the fastest setting on the windscreen wipers wasn't fast enough. We saw people wading, waist deep, and we saw several abandoned vehicles. We even saw a mini bus the same as ours nose down in a ditch completed flooded out. There was a man in the middle of the road directing traffic wearing a life jacket. At home if it was that bad it would be on the news AND even more importantly the roads would all be closed. The driver was overtaking on blind bends and blind summits. Not the best drive of my life!!

I have a friend from home (Kat) arriving on Friday. She's been travelling round Thailand a bit, and Surin is her last stop. I will be happy to see a face from home as I've been feeling pretty low and not much has been helping!!

We are leaving for Bangkok on Monday, along with one of my closest friends here, who has had enough and is flying home. In Bangkok we are meeting another friend from home (Sophie), and when Kat flys out Sophie and I are travelling down the peninsula to Koh Phi Phi which is an island off Phuket. It's famous for the beach in the movie "The Beach"... I can't wait to get away again, need some space and some home faces!!

Khao Yai And Phi Mai. And Leo's ACTUAL waterfall :)

rutha90 — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Last weekend a bunch of us travelled by minivan to a province called Nakhon Ratchasima where there is a famous world heritage sight called Khao Yai National Park, which is meant to have elephants, leopards, tigers, bears, monkeys, gibbons, hornbills etc etc dot dot dot.It was meant to take us 4 hours at the very maximum to get there but it actually took well over seven meaning by the time we arrived at the national park we had only two or three hours before dark. The trek to the waterfall that we all wanted to see (because it was the waterfall in the move "The Beach") was 8km through thick jungle, so probably about two hours, so we started it from behind the visitors centre (where it said the trek started) and we walked for maybe fifteen minutes, then realised we had gone in a circle, we had leeches on our legs, and we had no idea how to get to this waterfall except by the van, so we asked the drivers to take us but they said the waterfall closed at 5pm, at that moment in time we had five minutes till then. Eventually we persuaded them to take us as far as they could by road (the lonely planet book said the road goes as far as the waterfall... So we did) we drove for maybe 15 minutes and then came to a barrier, where the road was closed off. We walked past the barrier (it wasn't locked or chained or anything) and walked along the closed road up and down very steep hills through the rainforest for maybe half an hour until we came to the waterfall... FINALLY!!! We'd left Surin at 845am and arrived at the waterfall at about 6pm, a long haul for a waterfall!! It was SO worth it though. It was fantastic. It was a bit of a struggle to get onto the rocks in the middle to look down over it, but the bottom of the river wasn't TOO slippery though quite deep and a strong flow over the edge. It was amazing to think what had been going on at the waterfall, all the stunt work etc and the filming in such a remote location. We didn't see any of the animals, well, some people saw a couple of monkeys, I missed that but I did see some weird spider/crab thing and a millipede that can't have been less than a foot long and an inch thick. YUCK!

We got a call from someone in Surin who we'd arranged the minivan through really worried about us because the reason they closed the waterfall was because they let off bombs there to scare away the wild animals from the camping areas. Like, actually RIGHT there, at the top of the waterfall. Right where we were sitting taking in the remoteness of the rainforest and having water-fights. She said we had to get ourselves back to the van quick sharp. We slowly headed back in the quickly getting dark jungle. There were lots of fireflies which was cool!! I don't like the dark too much and it was pretty creepy when all you could see were the fireflies. The thought of a snake or anything else being close by was scaring me a fair bit!

Once we got back to the van we heard out of the national park, which was probably about a half hour/forty minute drive just to the entrance gate from where we were. The national park is massive, covering 2168 square kilometres apparently. Once we were properly on the road we all realised how hungry we were, we saw a food place at the side of the road which was an Italian. PERFECT!!! I had pizza which I have been dying on since, well, I always want pizza. I was still soaking wet. The pizza was amazing :) we rang our hotel in Nakhon Ratchasima town to let the, know we were going to be quite late which was when they informed us that there was no booking for us and that there were no beds for us either, just great. Luckily the drivers were fairly easily persuaded by one of the waitresses to take us a bit further afield to the place we were going the next day, and we found a hotel there which had space for all of us. So off we headed...

We arrived at the hotel in the early hours, it was gone 2am. We had a few hours sleep then in the morning we went to Phimai Historical Park which was on the ancient road to Ankor Wat in Cambodia. It was another temple ruin site similar to Prasat Muang Tam and Phanom Rung where we visited when we went to Burirum. It was brilliant though, and a really nice day.

We were on the road back to Surin by lunchtime, and got back about half three which was early enough for an early night :)

Teaching is going well still. My class can be spoilt little brats on most days, and the school don't make our life easy, especially in EP (English Program) where there is a massive pressure for the kids to be amazing because the parents pay extortionate fees (for Thailand) for their kids to study on this program. There are many days I want to walk out and get another TEFL job that is not part of the agency or that school. My co-teacher Ni, and my Thai Teacher Laead, are great though. If they weren't I seriously don't think I'd still be at Anubarn Surin School. I think in future I would work with older kids, like primary rather than kindergarten, it's too young to be learning English, and FAR too young for some of the kids to be having tutoring 4 nights a week. I tutor on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday and Wednesday are fine but the kid I tutor on Tuesday is a complete nightmare and if it wasn't for the 300Baht I wouldn't be doing it.

People are still quitting the internship. Two left yesterday morning to TEFL in South Korea. as gutted to see them go, and also a bit jealous. There were 60 altogether on the internship all around Thailand at the start, I think there is only about 40 left. I look at jobs regularly. I could be doing exactly the same job somewhere else for 3 times the money.... So tempting.

Photos: Khao Yai, Leo's Waterfall, and Phi Mai Ruins

rutha90 — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Weekend escape to Nakhon Ratchasima

Photos: Long weekend in Buriram

rutha90 — Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:24:00 GMT

Long weekend in Buriram

rutha90 — Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:20:00 GMT

Since I last wrote on here we had a long weekend, so 12 of us from Surin and surrounding area decided to escape to Buriram, the next province to the west of Surin. A load of others from Surin, and also interns from all round Thailand met up in Bangkok for a big drinking weekend but at threat point it was only two weeks since we left Bangkok, and we can get drunk anywhere if we want to!!

We took the train to Buriram which took about 45 minutes from Surin station (about 15/20 minutes walk from our apartments which are now known by all the interns as the Ritz, in comparison to everywhere else!) It was great going on the train, much more fun and exciting than a stinky bus which you are never guaranteed a seat on anyway. We went second class, which was still less than £1 for the journey! The seats were comfy and although all faced one direction you could spin them around so you could face each other which was nice.

Arriving at Burirum we checked into our hotel which was right beside the station with a nice pool. 12 of us squeezed into 5 double rooms to save a bit of cash but there was plenty of space to go round. The hotel was really nice and I'm sure I'll be back there.

The first day in Burirum some if us headed to Khao-Kradong Volcano where there were 300 steps going up to the edge of the crater where there is a HUGE golden Buddha. The walk up the steps wasn't much fun at all in the heat, PLUS I had seriously stubbed my toe on the way to the bus station, and it looked like my toenail was going to come off (nice!!) We wondered around the volcano following paths, rickety bridges and the road trying to find out way off before it got too late. We were going downhill but we had no idea to where when we heard loud music coming through the trees. We crouched down and saw an amazing temple. We felt annoyed at ourselves as we only had shorts and T-shirts on, and our shoulders and knees weren't covered (which they like them to be for visiting temples). A monk beckoned us into the area saying welcome welcome. So we walked toward to the temple and around it taking some pictures when another monk came with a key. We took our shoes off and followed him inside. He asked us to wai and then kneel down in front of the shrine, then he wanted a 100baht offering, after which he did a blessing type thing on us. It was brilliant. He then managed to somehow explain to us with his no English and our no Thai that the wall murals were of Khao-Kradong.

The next day we hired a mini van which came to a small fee between the 12 of us and we went to two different ruined Khmer castles, Prasat Muang Tam and Phnom Rung, both were beautiful and fantastic. Four of us experienced some type of seance, or something we don't know how to explain it, but on the way back down to the bus, we came across a circle of people all with their hands on a stone in the middle. One man was saying a prayer/chant type of thing. The people in the circle seemed to be having some weird out of body experience. Some were screaming, some were deep coughing, some were even hysterically laughing. One man had his fist in the air and was tensed up so much that his fist was shaking.

Otherwise, school has been good. I'm getting used to it now and might EVEN go as far to say as I enjoy it. I have taken on four students for private tutoring in the evenings. One on Monday, another on Tuesday, and two together on Wednesday. Good for me as I will make 1200baht a week :)

Have a look at my pictures to see the temples and some photos from school.

Till next time xxx

Sweaty and stormy!!

rutha90 — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:04:00 GMT

Sorry it's been ages since I last wrote on here. My new life seems to not let me write either on here or in my travel journal. Been really busy with lesson plans, teaching the wee kiddies, who are absolutely gorgeous, and in my few hours of spare time drinking Chang, a strong Thai beer which gives you hellish hangovers (Only at weekends of course!)

Teaching is going well. Going to take some time to adjust, it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but a challenge never hurt anyone. The school is the top school in the province, with more than 3,500 in kindergarten and primary. I got some good pictures of school and classes this week but my memory card has given up on life so this week no pictures to show. Thai schools have a very, what I think is communist, style of flag ceremony in the morning, where they stand to attention and sing the national anthem. Even the tiniest kids in my kindergarten class know the whole anthem off by heart. Cute, but wierd. The Thai's are also really obsessed by their king. Every house, shop, school, EVERYWHERE has a framed picture of him and if you say anything against the royal family you can get a minimum of 7 years in jail. So, just for the record, they are amazing!!

The heat isnt getting any easier. My skin seems to hate it, coming out in all sorts of weird reactions to something or other!! The air is really wet constantly, we have some pretty scary storms, unbelievable lightening, sometimes the thunder immediately after/ same time as the flash. Really loud, shaking all the lights in the room.

The feet are loads better, the rash is gone as is most of the swelling. Never really found out what it was, but the pills I got from the hospital seemed to help, I think! Though it did get worse before it got better, so I don't think anyone really knows.

Been planning some travels for after the contract ends in October. Not booking anything yet, just looking and trying to decide whether or not to get another teaching job to fund the travels, though most likely it would be a year contract and I wasn't planning to be away for more than a year. If the job was a year, then by the time I got home it would be two years from now, so maybe not the best plan.

Children and chest X-rays

rutha90 — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:02:00 GMT

We had a tour of the school on Thursday. It's huge! The primary school I went to at broughton was about 90 pupils. This one is 3,500. Is the most famous school in Surin Province. They run an English Program (EP) where the children learn mainly in English. It costs a huge amount of money for the parents to send their children to it. It's almost like a school within a school. Out of the 25 of us interns that are at the school only four of us are in the EP. Apparently picked by the school. It's ridiculous the amount of pressure we are being put under, lesson planning, structure etc. At least the others can go to the staff room, we have to stay in our class all day even at lunch. There are four teachers in the EP class, (I'm in K1), there's a nanny, a Thai teacher, a co-teacher and the white English teacher, which is what the parents are really paying for though we see little of the money as about 80% of our wage goes to our agency. The "tour" of the school ended with us EP teachers having to teach their new class which was completely unexpected and not fair at all with no warning.

I was meant to be in school yesterday too, teaching again, thou we aren't meant to start until Tuesday. But my ankles have swollen up really badly so I could hardly walk and have a horrible red blistery rash on them. I spent 4 hours waiting in a and e, had bloods taken, blood pressure taken, urine test, chest X-ray done but nothing showed up. I could have still had an ultrasound but I had been there since half 11 and it was by that point half 4 I hadn't eaten or drank anything so I got a drop in appointment for Tuesday if they aren't better to go back. I got some steroid tablets and steroid cream for the rash. They actually look a fair bit better thank god. Having done nursing I was pretty judgemental about the hospital, though it could have been a lot worse I'm sure.

Photos: Surin - My home for the next six months

rutha90 — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:43:00 GMT