Last week at Ao Luk and back in BKK

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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 I left the base in a songthaew to the junction and got a minvan to Krabi.

Pi Lek, the teacher who teaches English to the 5th and 6th graders, and whose classroom I had been using, had been away from the school with a bad back since before I'd started as a TA. She finally came in on Thursday and took me and Mike and Matt and also Pi Rai out to lunch at the National Park. It was a big lunch and after we thought it was over, the dishes just kept coming and coming. We all had classes due to start at one o'clock but neither of the teachers seemed to think it mattered and we all got back and started our classes about half an hour late.

On Thursday, after my classes for the day were finished, I went with Kirstie and Peny to the non-formal adult education centre. They both had to do evaluations of the students, one at a time, and my role was to provide English language type activities for the remaining students as they were tested. We played Bingo, which is always a favourite, and also g Pictionary. This game is where you have two teams and give a member of each team an English word or phrase and ask then to draw something so that the word may be guessed. The first team to guess the word gets the point.

Kirstie's evaluations were complete more or less on time, but we had to wait almost an hour for Tim and Karen to finish theirs,

On Friday there was a Base Clean, as for most Fridays, and then I went to school for my lessons, staying there for lunch. The teachers offered me a mystery fruit which was quite nice. All they could tell me was that it was Thai fruit.

After I got back to the Base it was soon time to start preparing for the party. Plates and cutlery had to be rinsed, tables and chairs set out etc. The party was due to start at 6pm and the first guests arrived on time. Most of the time I was sitting at a table next to a Thai army major who spoke English quite well. The way GVI has connected itself to the local community was quite clear. A local policeman turned up later and many other local dignitaries were present - both students and alumni of GVI courses as well as others.

Unfortunately a computer glitch meant that the karaoke was cancelled but I was able to join in singing Happy Birthday to See, a local girl whose birthday it was. She got a GVI t shirt as a present. These t shirts also served as prizes for a tombola competition.

The party was expected to finish at about ten but, largely because of an apparently indefatiguable Thai dancer who continued dancing by himself for several hours, it carried on till well after midnight. At one time he seemed to have finished but he just removed his top and then continued again, faster than ever. We had rarely seen a Thai sweating even in the hottest conditions but this chap was literally dripping with perspiration which flew off his body like a dog shaking water from itself as it comes from the water to the land. Finally he stopped and and walked unsteadily back to his applauding friends in one of the palopas, who drove him away as the third person sitting on one motorbike. Soon after that Jawar and Ai (her son) left and the party was at an end at about half past midnight.

We went to bed knowing that another base clean had to take place at seven the next morning so we could all be away by ten. I didn't particularly need to get away so soon as my plane wasn't due to take off from Krabi airport until 7 that evening, but Morag and Kirstie and Karen were staying at the Thai Hotel in Krabi and had said I could leave my bags in their rooms.

I woke up late at about five past seven. I thought I'd set the alarm on my iPhone but either I had forgotten to do so - the army major had been plying me with Thai brandy all evening and then I'd had to have some beers with other guests - or else I had set it and then turned it off when it went off and gone back to sleep. Anyway, I had a quick breakfast of coffee and toast and started cleaning. I had drawn the outside, so I started picking up the litter and then went onto moving tables back and wiping down surfaces etc. Everyone worked as a team and things were ship shape again fairly soon.

And then it was time to go.

Noi's songthaew pulled up just before ten and Tim, Shawn, Morag, Kirstie, Karen and me got on. With our bags we just about filled the capacious songthaw. We said goodbye to Emily and Jill and Penny and Kim and Kerry. Shawn and Kim are leaving now but Penny has delayed her departure for another two months - largely because so many people are booked on the upcoming expeditions. But the base will be closed for the next week.

At the junction we said goodbye to Noi and caught a minivan to Krabi. Somehow the drive managed to cram in another three passengers as well as the GVI contingent. At Krabi Tim went off to the airport - declining a ride there on a motorcycle taxi - and the rest of us went to the Thai Hotel. Shawn wanted to buy a present for a Thia friend who was picking him up in Bangkok, but there was nothing he considered suitable on sale in Krabi that day. We had lunch at Good Dream and then went back to the hotel where we watched Misery on the film channel till it was time to go.

Whilst I had been wandering around with Shaun in search of the elusive gift, I had been recognised by the tuk tuk driver (Krabi style - motorcycle with sidecar with large seat) who had taken me to Tesco Lotus and then back to Ao Luk the previous week. I'd arranged to meet him outside the hotel at 4 to take me to the airport.

The flight was unevetful and really lived up to the Thai Airlines Smooth as Silk advertising slogan. I got a taxi back to the Buddy Lodge.

Since I've been back here I have booked my flights to Siem Reap and onwards to Phnom Penh and back to Bangkok and also tried to see some tof the things I missed last time I was here. I've been to the Jatajak (or Chatachuk) weekend market and to Wat Po to see the reclining Buddha, which had not been accessable when last I was here. I have also been to some of the gigantic shopping malls that Bangkok is famous for and have managed to do a lot of walking despite the importunate taxi and tuk tuk drivers. I went to the Sea World aquarium deep in the maw of the Paragon Mall. I'd no idea it was there. I saw the sign Sea World and thought it was probably just somewhere that they were selling sea food etc. But I went to see it and was amazed. It is a large aqauarium, probably bigger than that on London's South Bank, and is arranged so as to make its denizens very easily visible. You can see sharks coming rigth at you. Aquatic mammals such as water rats and otters are also on display as well as penguins, snakes and spiders. From the shopping centre I caught a Sky Train which took me all the way to Chatachuk market. The elevated trains are certainly easier to use than traffic on the street, but the network is as yet not extensive.

Today, I walked from Kao San to Wat Po and then caught the ferry to Wat Arun which faces it across the river. On returning to the Bangkok side (Wat Arun, rededicated by King Taksin after his victory, is on the Thonburi side, whereas Wat Po was favoured by Rama I the founder of the present dynasty after the capital was moved across the river) I caught an express boat to Chinatown and then strolled through this area before walking to The Golden Mount, where I caught a taxi back to Kao San.

Now for Cambodia . .

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Photos

Tesco Lotus
I wanted a picture of the local Tesco. The one in Ao Luk is relatively small, but some - like the one outside Krabi - are really big

Thank You Teacher!
The whole school packed into the auditorium

Thank You Teacher
Presenting the offerings

Thank You Teraher
Floral arrangement shaped as a peacock

The School Staff
Matt and MIke are at the right

At the Non Formal Centre
Note the hole in the floorboards

Presentation of attendance certificate
By Penny and Kirstie

Jim Thompson's House
From outside

Candles for sale
These large candles are presumably for use in houselhold shrines

View of Wat roof
With naga and garuda