I have now arrived in Varanasi (what used to be Benares), one of the holiest cities in India. Many people come here to die because it sems that Lord Shiva promised that anyone who dies here (within a certain radius) will go to heaven. The place is sacred to Shiva ( the destroyer / creator) of the Hindu trinity. In addition just outside the town is the place where the Buddha preached his first two sermons after having achieved enlightenment, so that place is sacred to the Buddhists (and aslo, coincidentally, to the Jains, because three of their 24 tirthankaras were [View Full Entry]

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My journey from Cambodia to Delhi was fairly uneventful. My backpack fell off the tuk tuk as we drove over a large pot hole on the way to the airport but apart from that everything went fine. I even got what I think must have been a first class seat for the flight from Bangkok to Delhi - I had loads of legroom and proper china and cutlery and a full manu with a choice of Thai and Indian meals and drinks including champagne. I had Thai Red Curry with Chicken and a pineapple juice and Earl Grey Tea. I also [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I went to see the Russian Market. This was certainly the best market I've seen in Phnom Penh and there were many things that I would have liked to have bought there. It had a great many types of food and drink on display, including some things I think were eels. These were black and snakelike with cylindrical bodies and lay flat on a sort of plate. Then, as I was looking idly at them, one twitched convulsively and seemed almost to jump out of the tray. The others also moved but it seemd that they were moved by the [View Full Entry]

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Phnom Penh is nowhere near as nice a holiday spot as is Siem Reap. Instead of the Lost City of Angkor Thom (for it is really a city and not just a temple complex) and the great Angkor Wat, continuously used for worship - both Hindu and Buddhist - since its construction, it has the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek - not nearly so uplifting a venue. There are many more beggars here too, very persistent, and not only are the tuk tuk drivers more insistent then their like in Siem Reap, they charge a lot more too. Phnom Penh is [View Full Entry]

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On Wednesday I had a bit of a lie in and went down to breakfast at half past nine. Then I wandered around the town a little and had an early lunch before hiring a tuk tuk to take me to Ta Phrom. This meant, of course, that I'd hired the driver for everywhere I wanted to go that day! Ta Phrom is the location that was used in the Lara Croft film "Tomb Raider". That has to be two words - if you spell it as one - as I did just now - it looks like Tom Braider. The [View Full Entry]

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I have seen the temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and they are as amazing as everyone says! In Thailand the temples were (and are) mostly built of wood - teak is the best, apparently - so when they fall into ruin little is left apart from the stupas rising above the ashes of those buried there. The viharns and the bots, all the rooms used for living and worship, are gone. But in this part of Cambodia, at any rate, these were built out of carved sandstone and have survived - though lost for a while when buried under [View Full Entry]

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The last week went very quickly. Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal but then everyone realised how close it was to the end. Then on Thursday it was the time to award attendance certificates to the TEFL students and decide if they could advance to the next level - while at the primary school national Thank You Teacher Day was being celebrated and the TAs were present for the celebrations. After that,on Friday, we held a big party and had to wake up early on Saturday to do the cleaning up - and then it was all over. At ten o'clock [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday I visited Wat Tham Sua with Kim. This temple is just outside Krabi and is set into one of the many incredible kardst formations that abound around here. It is often known as Tiger Temple, but this causes a lot of confusion with the place I visited near Kanchanaburi where the monks look after orphaned tigers, so it's probably best to use its full name. The temple was founded in 1975 by Ajahn Jumnien Silsetso who is a charismatic Buddhist monk known as Thailand's Good Luck Monk. A nun whom we met in the Viharn of the temple told [View Full Entry]

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Before I came back to Ao Luk last weekend, I first took the opportunity of going to Ao Nang and seeing the beach and mall there. They have a nice promenade all along the beach with several shops and restaurants. They also boast a Burger King and a Starbucks! When I got back I met Matt and Mike who had arrived on the Saturday. They were friends from University and both about 21 or so. They are also teaching at the Primary school with me this week. They are both very nice and friendly people and we got on well. It [View Full Entry]

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The TEFL course has certainly been tough going! Now that I have passed and have a weekend off, I can try to describe it. Every day we started with input, near where we'd just had breakfast. This was a one and a half hour lesson about some aspect of teaching - Classroom Management, Teaching Vocabulary, Using Phonemics etc. This was always very interesting and was taken by Kerry, Penny or Shaun. After that, on days when one of us had taught the previous day we would have feedback. First we would have to say some good things about how we'd done [View Full Entry]

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