Week without Walls

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So today we embark on an epic adventure to try to teach 15 students the true meaning of Thai culture. Who better to lead them on said adventure than yours truly (along with 2 other Thai teachers).

I've been given very little information before we began. I had an itinerary that had been translated for me and a note that said to be at the school by 9am on Saturday morning. I motorbiked in right at 9 to find half of my group already assembled. We waited for a few stragglers to catch up, but we eventually took off 5 students short of our roster. I started to ask questions, but then I remembered I was in Thailand and figured I'd be better served to sit back and just let it all unfold.

As it turns out, that was the right choice as we ended up getting to the airport 5 hours early. I'm sorry, you didn't misread that 5 HOURS EARLY. Which gave the "late" kids ample time to catch up.

We finally made it through security and were ready to board the plan when there was an announcement in Thai which led to all of the students booing loudly. I asked the kid next to me what was going on and she said there was an hour delay. I later found out the delay was due to the fact it was "Children's Day" and the airport (obviously) had to close down the runway for an hour for "song and dance". Don't ever change Thailand.

Eventually we did make it to Bangkok and into our vans which would shuttle us the rest of the way.

We stopped off in Ayutthaya to visit a floating market. Due to the hour delay, we didn't have a lot of time...but we did have enough time for me to try a new desert, roti something, which was basically cotton candy in a sugar tortilla. Diabetes aside, it was actually really good.

When we eventually made it to Chai Nat, we had dinner in an open air pavilion (obviously took the "without walls" part of our project name literally) and headed off to our home stay. Turns out home stay is what you call it when you literally stay on the floor of someone's house. They pulled out a few bamboo mats and blankets and then all the kids lined up on the floor. I almost died when one of the kids turned to look at me and said "I don't like sleeping in a room with other people, do you think I can just get a hotel room." Child please, we are 45 minutes away from the nearest "hotel" plus you are 13...get on the floor and enjoy a good ol' fashion sleep over.

There was a bed that I shared with one of the other teachers, which was good because for a solid 20 minutes I thought I was bunking up with the kids.

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