2 Feb, 2006

Hello!! Wow, it's been absolutely ages since I last wrote and told you the latest. So here goes.Actually, I didn't tell you what we did once I was back in Thailand after my time in England. Rob and I went down South and stayed in a national park - Khao Sok. It was great, quite wet due to the rainy season, but blissfully quiet; a lot of people think that the rainy season is the worst time to go to the rainforest, but that worked in our favour as there was hardly anyone there. We got some beautiful photos and really enjoyed the peace and quiet and the GREEN. It was quite humid there, and cloudy most of the time, but one day we went on a trip with our guide (who calls himself Rambo! - don't ask) and we got so sunburnt. There was not a chink in the clouds, but we were very red and sore. We did things like wading through mangrovey shallows, swimming in a reservoir that was apparently 40m deep (which I found quite disturbing!), eating lunch at a raft house, braving the torrents of a cave (rushing water up to your armpits) with torches, and walking through the jungle. There were 5 of us - 2 German women, a lass from England, Sian, who used to drink in the Bell sometimes, and us. I had a great time. though it wasn't quite intrepid enough for Rob, who wanted to eat grubs and sleep in a hammock and be adventurous. I can understand that - it WAS a little bit tame, though I personally did really enjoy it. Next time we go, we'll do a couple of days' trek with a night included. Not with Rambo, though! - he was the kind of guide who, when Rob asked him what that big bird was, replied "an eagle", and as for what type of eagle, he said it was "a big one". Har har..... And more recently........things are hotting up here, meteorologically and life-wise. Because we have new jobs, in a new town, for the next academic year. Yes, we're staying in Thailand for another year! It's a mixture of really liking it here and, well, having NO money to move on. And that's ok. Here's the story: Rob is a member of a website called "W.A.Y.N. - Where Are You Now?", a bit like Friends Reunited and so on. You can find people you used to go to school with, etc. - and Rob saw someone on there who said she was teaching in Thailand, so he read her profile. She'd written a message that there were teaching vacancies for the next year at her school, so Rob got in touch with her and asked what the deal was. She (Karla) is an Aussie girl, working with 2 other Aussies, Cassie and Krystal, at a Catholic primary school in the town of Prachinburi, about 2 hours from Bangkok. She and Cassie are leaving next month, which has meant there are 2 jobs up for grabs. So we kept in touch, and 3 weeks ago we went up to "Prachin" for the weekend to check the place out and see the school. We met Sister Yai, one of the 2 nuns who run the school, had a short chat with her, and left our CVs for her perusal. The school looks great - lovely classrooms full of all that brilliant stuff you get in primary classrooms, like pictures on the walls, little displays, etc. Lots of photos up of the children and teachers doing activities. So that was really nice. Prachin itself is quite small. It's the provincial capital, and has all the things we've got used to in Thai towns we've visited, such as a night market, a brilliant day market, too, with fresh produce, lots of grocery shops......also a peaceful river with a "fitness park" alongside it, and apparently there's a sports centre with a gym and swimming pool, and everything you would expect of a fairly large Thai town. There are some bars and places for a drink at night, and quite a good live music scene, though I fear I may go mad if all they play is Thai pop covers, as is the Thai way - copyright and performance rights seem to stand for nothing in Thailand, and EVERYONE plays the current pop chart hits! Which the Thais just lap up! So, that was a few weeks ago. Then last weekend we went back there to have a proper meeting with Sister Yai and see what was what. However, she was out of town, despite having arranged a definite meeting for Saturday. So we went to the office of the Head of English and met him instead. He was a sweet man, and took one look at us and said "So, you are the new teachers for next semester!" Err......yeah......er.......I think so...! Quite funny! We had a chat with him and he gave us a copy of the proposed contract to look over. It's a good contract, and Krystal can vouch for the fact that it's a nice school and that conditions are good. We would earn 25,000 Baht a month, and also get 2,500 a month each in housing allowance. Here we earn 30,000, but it just GOES in Bangkok. The Prachin girls, though, assure us that they do just 2 or 3 hours' extra teaching a week and just live off that money, and save all of their salary!! So we'd be in a great position to save for future travels. There's not much to spend your money on in Prachin, and also we'd be able to COOK, which has been totally lacking this year in Bangkok, as we have nothing but our little electric travel hob (which has, admittedly, been worth buying just for the opportunity to make scrambled eggs on a Saturday morning :0) !). The thing is, Karla and Krystal are living in a house at the moment, and when Karla leaves, Kris will move into a room at the school.....which leaves their house free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a major focus of excitement for me and Rob at the moment, as we actually stayed at the house when we went for that first weekend, and it is LOVELY! Really peaceful, down a little lane, looking out onto a field (a field!), 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitcheny bit, a covered little area out the front where we could put a table and chairs and cook on a gas hob.......it's just great, and we can't wait to be in a house again. And out of Bangkok, away from the pollution and traffic, near to loads of interesting towns and also near enough to Bangkok to pop back for the odd weekend and see our friends. Prachinburi province is a fruit-growing area, too, and the mango season is coming up, which makes me very happy because I have taken to eating 3 of them at once - they're HUGE, as big as the palm of your hand, and sooooo juicy and sweet and yellow. I just peel them, chop them up, and scoff away. It's such a pleasure! So a mango SEASON is very exciting! So, the man we met asked us if the contacts were ok, to which we said yes, and he emphatically asked us not to change our minds, and to go back there and teach in April! I had to let him know that my Mum and Dad and our family friend Sue are coming over here from April 3rd to 18th, so I wouldn't be able to start till after that. I'd been a bit concerned that it would be a problem.....but no, the man just said "Ok, so you can come for the last week of April, then." No problem! All sorted, then! We do have some other offers of interviews in a different province, Chonburi province, which we definitely want to check out, as we'd LOVE to live there, near the sea and within easy reach of some islands. We'll be going down there in a couple of weeks' time to meet some more school people and have some more chats. But if nothing happens, we still have jobs in Prachinburi, a done deal, so we have no stress about finding new work! It's amazing - things have a habit of working out beautifully for us - once again we are being told, "Well, here are 2 jobs and somewhere to live - you want it?", just like when we got our jobs here. Ahhhhhhhh.What else?I did a Thai cookery class the other week. It was a vegetarian one, at my favourite restaurant in BKK, May Kaidee's - all vege food and all heavenly. We cooked 10 dishes and got to try al of them as we went along. there were 4 of us: Jeanette and her dad, Gordon, from Manchester; Shannon, a Kiwi woman who lives in Sydney, and me. We went to the market and supermarket with May first, and she showed us the ingredients we'd be using, and then the 5 of us all piled into a tuk-tuk (which was about big enough for 3!!) back to the restaurant. We had a list of the 10 recipes, and took it in turns to cook a dish and then serve it to our fellow students. I cooked a Muslim curry and stir-fried veg with cashew nuts, both of which were lovely. I go to that restaurant a LOT for a dose of good vege food, and I was really thrilled that all the dishes we all cooked, tasted exactly as delicious as they do at the restaurant! So now I am super-inspired, but as I said, we have no way of really cooking at our flat. BUT we've just struck a deal with Sam and Dan, 2 Indian guys that Rob works with, that we're going to their house tomorrow night to cook! And Dan also cooks fabulous Indian food, so I'm told, and he's going to teach us how. What a deal!My school year finishes on the last day of Feb, and wow, am I going to miss that school. I love it there, I wish I didn't have to leave, but Rob and I HAVE to get out of this bloody city. It's such a drain on time, money, health, energy...! We will miss it, but, like I said, we can easily get back here from either of the places we may end up working. After I finish at Wat Noi Nai, I hopefully have a month's work with some primary 5 kids, teaching them conversational English, 10a.m.-12 and 1-3 p.m., Monday-Thursday, for about the same money I get paid now! All because Dave, an American guy that Rob works with should be doing it but wants to travel in March, so needs someone to cover for him for that month! How perfect is that? So that brings you a bit more up to date with goings-on in Bangkok. Oh! Also, creative news! Recently it was our friend Charlee's 60th birthday, and he had a party in his little "soi" (lane) outside his house. (Charlee owns the guest house we were staying in on the fateful weekend last year that Rob lot the camera and we got our jobs in BKK as a result.) There was a Dutch fella there, Foy, and we eventually found out that he was a guitarist. Rob went on to tell him that I love singing, so he ran off and brought back a folder full of songwords and guitar chords, and asked me if there was anything in there that I'd like to sing. so i picked out 5 songs, sort of jazz ones, and we performed them at the party - Foy on guitar and me singing! It was fun, hampered by a few technical hitches like the microphone giving out and having to do the whole thing with no amplification!! But it went ok and everyone seemed to, er, dig it. At the end of the night, Foy and I exchanged numbers, and 3 weeks later he was back in BKK so we met up to work out a few songs, with a view to performing them at that little blues bar where I went on my birthday. Wow! He knows the people there, and usually plays bass there every night when he's in town. It was never to be, though, as he had to peg it back to Koh Chang, the island where he's just opened a music school to train islanders so they can make a living from their music. But Rob and I are invited over there any time and I'm officially welcome to sing there - do a gig! Ohhh! Wow! So that's pretty darn exciting, eh?!! I've also bought a guitar, which is brilliant. Any guitarists out there, budding or otherwise, look at www.chordie.com and www.e-chords.com - you can get chords/tab for thousands of songs!