A dessert a day keeps the sadness away

Typical Thailand... But I agree! This was written on the wall of my new favorite ice cream and coffee shop called Tonruk! YUM!

So boy oh boy was it a busy week! So last weekend I went to Koh Tarutao (be sure to check out my last post!) and then on Tuesday and Wednesday, teachers and a group of 150 students headed to La Ngu for English Camp!

English Camp was super fun, and if I could only do those instead of teaching, I 100% would! It was so much better than teaching and everyone had such a blast! The students were engaged, listening and participating in all of the activities and workshops. And I'll bet you they actually learned something! (Totally different than my classes where they refuse to pay attention, resulting in me only teaching like five students, and who knows what they actually remember...)

(White Sharks for the win!)

I did a workshop where we made clocks. It was super simple, but I've noticed that telling time in English is an hard thing for my students, so I wanted to practice that skill a bit more. It was really fun and the kids made some pretty great clocks!

(They know the way to my heart!)

My awesome group of kids was the White Sharks Team and we rocked! One of my girls, Chumpoo, won Miss English Camp after a great presentation of her English skills and a fun little dance. I'm so proud of her because when we were practicing, she kept mixing things up and was so nervous! But she did great once she got up on the stage! We also won the talent show with a wonderful rendition of the Hokey Pokey and my Shark song (Thank you LaForet Camp songs!)!

I'm not bragging or anything but, you could say we were the overall winners of English Camp!

Thursday and Friday went by fast and then it was the weekend! Saturday, eh. Sunday however... Woo!

On Sunday, I went to a place called the Dragon's Spine with 6 other friends. We took a Longtail boat from the Hat sai yao pier and about 30 minutes later arrived at a sandbar that connects a few islands. The sand bar is only visible during low tide and so boats can only get there during this time. So, we met up at 7:30 am and headed off to find this natural phenomenon!

(The Dragon's Spine)

It was so cool! We walked along the sandbar, which is made up of broken down shells and coral for quite some time and then walked through water up to our calves to get to a separate sandbar. On the way back, the water was mid-thigh height, proving how fast the tide comes in! It was a race against time to get back to the boat! It was really cool to experience!

Supposedly one of the islands have a staircase you can walk up and get a better view of the surrounding area, but sadly by the time we got back to the boat, we couldn't get to that island anymore! Oh well. But it was well worth the trip!

These next two weeks will also be big ones with the Red Cross Fair all this week, the Satun International Kite Festival this weekend, and my family's arrival in Thailand the next weekend! Stay tuned for all the fun stories to come!

(Beautiful Panorama of the fishing village island!

Photo Credit: Isaac Haro)

Pancakes, plankton, and pirates

This past weekend I went to the mysterious and often overlooked island of Koh Tarutao. Boy was it an adventure!

My adventure started a week earlier when I booked a room on Koh Lipe instead. For some reason my booking didn't go through and I decided to do something else. Well I thought about going to Krabi for about two days then botched that plan because I didn't want to travel that far. And finally I thought about going to Koh Tarutao. I tossed around this idea for about a day. Was decided to stay home and be bored in Satun, but then at about 9pm Friday night, I changed my mind and went home to pack for my island adventure!

(In front of the entrance to Tarutao National Park)

I left early in the morning to catch the hour long ride to Pakbara Pier, booked a boat ride over and what ensued was a terrifying longtail boat ride through open water with waves as big as the boat. The reason I was on a longtail was because 7 others and myself arrived to the travel agency at about the same time and wanted the make an 11:00 speedboat. Well apparently there was no speedboat, or it was full, or something, but anyways our agent found us a longtail boat leaving within 30 minutes. Rather than wait for a speedboat, we hopped on and took a terrifying 2 hour ride.

Anyways, we made it to the island, paid our entrance fee and booked some bungalows. The group I met were so nice and I even shared a bungalow with one of them and did most other things with them too! So we got settled and hot the beach! There were about 20 bungalows at Ao Moe Lae and all of them were filled. But, despite there being between 30-40 people on our beach, it was so quiet and seemed like no one was there! The beaches had maybe 5 people on them and just around the corner were more beaches uninhabited and littered with, well litter, and shells!

Pancakes. Oh my lanta were these the mother of all pancakes! They were huge and fluffy and super yummy! Add some pineapple and wowza talk about a filling breakfast!

(Ao Thalo Wao pier)

On Sunday, I took a solo adventure and took the 12 kilometer bike ride to Ao Thalo Wao. This is the original pier for the island and the National Park headquarters. It was a tough ride and I had to walk about 3 km worth up and down hills. The bike's brakes sucked so bad that biking down the extremely STEEP decline was the safest way to get down without going into light speed! The pier alone was worth the ride, but the Historical Trail that was near the pier was very informational and cool!

Pirates. So Tarutao was originally an island full of criminals. Thailand sent criminals to Tarutao because there was no hope of escape, between the sheer cliffs and shark infested waters, escape was a far off dream. At one point there were 3,000 criminals on the island, but between the years 1941-45, half of the population died due to malaria and other diseases. After WWII prisoners were no longer sent to the island and everyone all but forgot about this southern rock. The prisoners and guards teamed up and turned to piracy to get supplies. They raided ships traveling between Thailand and Malaysia and hid their goodies on neighboring islands.

(I should mention that I rode a bike a total of 25 kilometers and walked a total of 6 because of the hills and another 2 because I got a flat tire on the way home. Thankfully it was so close to the bungalows! Lucky break!)

Over the years, everyone died or left and the island became a National Park for its natural beauty and pristine waters. Now, there is one main taxi that is more of a tank on wheels in order to get over the mountains and only a few of the local staff have motorbikes. Walking and biking are the main methods of transportation here! The island is only open during the high season and closes for the rest of the year. There is a lot of history on this island and is practically unknown to most travelers.

(My neon bike. Worst brakes ever, hardest seat ever, coolest bike ride!)

Plankton. On the last night on the island once it got dark, a quick dip in the ocean proved that there is luminescent plankton that glow when moved! Walking in the dark before the moon rose fully, we were able to play with the plankton and experience this phenomenon. Even though it wasn't like the pictures where there are like fields of glowing water, and it was more like little lightning bugs in the water, it was pretty cool!

This was such a quiet and relaxing weekend and I am SO glad I went to Koh Tarutao!

(More photos will be on Facebook, so look there to see what else this trip was like!)

Its been a while...

Hello my friends! I'm sure you have been eagerly awaiting my next blog post (I mean it has been over a month since I last posted! Where does the time go?!) But really, January was such a slow and dull month and not a whole lot happened worthy of recognition!

Well here's the gist. I worked out a lot, then stopped, then started back up. I ate way to much mango sticky rice, tried participating in "dry January", I visited friends in Hat Yai two weekends in a row and saw Star War: The Force Awakens yet again! I drank a lot of coffee and ate a lot of roti, and hit the beach (well what passes as a beach in Satun) a few times.

(Pak Bara "beach")

So there ya go, my new year really started with a bang huh?!

Last weekend, we had Monday off, so a group of friends and myself went to another cave! This one is called the Jed Chot Cave but every sign we saw had the name spelled a different way so I don't really know if that's right! But anyways, this cave is only accessible by river, so we had to rent some kayaks and paddle down the river to get to the cave. It wasn't the third largest cave in the world or anything, but it was really spectacular! Kayaking through a dark cave is so serene and it was tons of fun! The were so many bats along the roof of the cave chattering away when our lights hit them. There were some beautiful skylights and rock formations, and even though it wasn't huge, it was worth the trip!

Upon exiting the cave, we posed for a picture on a little beach and then hopped back in the kayaks with our tour guide. We were then attacked by naked children splashing and laughing and trying to hop in the boats with us! That was fun!

(The gang in a cave)

Besides the fun excursions and mini trips, school has been a drag. As January wore on I became more anxious to be done. My family is visiting in March and then I get to do some travel solo and with friends in April, and I cannot wait! I love the kids, but I hate teaching and feel slightly bad about not renewing my contract because of the kids and the friends I've made here, but I know I will be much happier back home in the states. And anyways, my next adventure starts in August!

So there you have it, until next time!

(Can't beat those Thai sunsets)