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Published: July 13th 2011
Our first two days have been very self esteem boosting, as we've spent two wonderful days teaching English in a college called Seven Fountains. On the first day of teaching we woke up quite early, (half eight, but we've been having lie ins!) we then met the students. The first morning we taught six of them; the teaching involved telling them about ourselves, England and our travels. Although the students vary in level, we felt that we got through and helped them progress with their English.
After a free lunch at the college (which was unexpected but a great bonus as it means more money for other things) we taught the students how to play hangman... at first they were a bit confused and just told the others the word without them guessing letters eventually they got the hang of it and we had a nice group session. After teaching we took Nid up on her offer to take us to see a temple- there was an impressive monument and some little tunnels- on emerging we realised one of the stray dogs had run off with Jess' sandle, luckily we got it back without hassle though!
After taking lots of photos, Nid took us to her favourite restaurant. A few things happened here; after finding a beautiful location next to the lake, it started to pour down with rain and we had to move inside. The rain was so heavy, perhaps the heaviest rain we might get in England, but in Thailand, apparantly it was quite light! Hollie then ordered what seemed like a mild dish, however, it was so spicy that tears were produced and she had to down a bottle of orange juice!
Jess' dish however didn't turn up at all... first the wrong thing came to the table and then when that had been returned, and after waiting another ten minutes or so the waitress said that the dish that she had ordered was not available, so Nid reordered for her. Even though it was annoying to wait when the meal actually arrived it was lovely, slices of fresh coconut in a delicious sauce with prawns, possibly one of the nicest dishes she has had in Thailand, she was a little glad the original dish was out of stock.
Nid kindly dropped us home and then we decided to go for a fish pedicure. And what an experience! The fish were bigger than expected; Jess was brave, but Hollie sat contemplating for a while, but thinking of the saying 'you only live once', in dived the feet. The sensation was so strange, a bit tickly at first, but then it felt relaxing and like the jet of a swimming pool on your feet! We're not sure how much it worked, but at least we can say we've done it!
After this we decided to explore a little and we wandered down a street lined with bars, we saw loads of massage places and a scary amount of old british men with young thai girls surrounding them... When we'd passed down this street however we encountered the night market- although we had been told about it we didnt realise how close it was to our guesthouse! It seemed never ending with street after street of stalls, we purchased one or two gifts and after getting our bearings managed to work out the way to get back, coming across a thai boxing match as we went!
Our second day of teaching was much more structured. We felt we should prepare some exercises they could do. Thinking back to our German and French lessons, we came up with the idea of roleplay and making them answer questions on what we had said. They wanted to learn English grammar, but there were limited things we could show them, as analysing English grammar is actually quite tricky! We settled on writing the present tense on the board and then they would write it in the past and future tense.
After hearing from both Candy and Nid that "if you don't see the 'Doi Sutep' it's as if you didn't arrive at Chiang Mai" we decided this was something we had to squeeze in before all the other activities we had lined up. So after asking father david in the morning how we could get there we set off after teaching to get a tuk tuk to the top of the mountain. It worked out so cheaply- 200 baht each- thats four gbp to get to the top, have the driver wait for us for an hour and get back- this was with no other passengers, our own personal tuk tuk as opposed to feeling like a sardine like they usually are!
The Doi Sutep was incredibly beautiful; pretty much everything was made out of gold! We have lots of pictures to show from here. After returning from the mountain, we tried to find an internet cafe, so of course, we could tell our beloved readers of our experiences so far! After walking a little while (and being beeped at by tuk tuks a lot!) we ran into one of the students from our class, Peck, who offered us a lift to an internet cafe, however, first he took us to the only shopping centre in Chiang Mai. We had an Indian, (nothing like home and made us miss curry nights at Adele's!) and we also had ice cream for dessert from our favourite shop 'Dairy Queen' - it's mind blowing, and once again, so cheap!
We both now want motorbikes, it felt great riding through the city with Peck, three on a bike is nothing unusual for thailand! After a wander through the shopping centre Peck dropped us at the internet cafe next to our guest house which is where we are now. Possibly our longest blog? We are now going to head back to the night market and possibly buy some breakfast for tomorrow as we have an early start with our elephant trek etc, we will have a lot to tell tomorrow evening, it's going to be an AMAZING day!!!!!!
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Bernie
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Wow!! Sounds like you are having an amazing time. Is teaching perhaps a career you could do in the future?? Can't wait to hear about the elephant trek and thanks ever so much for taking the time to keep us so well informed of your wonderful adventures. Take care x