Ferang Friendsssss

---

Ferang: A generic Thai word for someone of European ancestry, no matter where they may come from. i.e. a white person/foreigner.




Quite literally living for the weekends right now and our first one in Mukdahan was pretty good.

After lots of rice, karaoke and beer with our director and a wild Friday night of been in bed by 11pm we were ready and raring to go on Saturday morning.

We headed to the pool to meet our new friends and fellow ‘ferangs’. We spent the day chilling around the pool and trying to kick start the tanning, we were the only people there as no-one in Thailand wants a tan and try to stay as pale as possible. (We are talking factor 70 sunblock everywhere, literally every moisturiser and deodorant having whitening in it and everyone been covered up and staying out of the sun). Its quite surreal and we must have looked quite odd, 10 ferangs around the pool in their bikinis trying to get tanned, we did get quite a few lingering stares out of the windows of the hotel.

We spent all day at the pool enjoying the sun, drinking beer and trying weird new flavours of crisps (Spicy crab & seaweed flavour anyone?).

We then went for dinner at a nice riverside restaurant on the River Mekong (borders with Laos and apparently is really famous?!). We tried the Thai tradition of ordering like 100 different dishes and sharing it between everyone which was good because I have now discovered that I like more than just crispy chicken, rice and egg.

We nearly got bit to pieces by the river so we headed home and got ready for our first proper Mukdahan night out. We found a nice lively bar and even bumped into another ferang (another celebrity around town) and had a great night, ordering whiskey by the bottle (nowhere sells spirits by the glass, you literally have to buy the whole bottle.. Well if you insist!!). And big pitchers of neon cocktails which were surprisingly tasty. There was a big screen which was showing all of the days football highlights and had the whole Man-U game on which was good as I wont have to miss all my football.. Thank god.

We rounded our Saturday night off in traditional British style.. In search of greasy food! Unfortunately this is a small town in Thailand and there wasn’t a kebab or cheesy chips in sight so we all settled for a ham and cheese toastie from the 7/11.. Needs must.



Sunday morning was funpacked.. Doing all our washing and lesson plans.. And people think im out here ‘living the dream’.

But it did improve with an afternoon around the pool (alcohol free.. We are responsible teachers after all). After a few hours of catching the rays and feeling disappointedly pale we headed off to Big C (literally our life saver… a big supermarket with clothes shops, a kfc and dairy queen) to buy gym clothes and trainers to start our new healthy life plan for the next week, ha. And then got an obligatory dairy queen (literally like the best ice creams ever!!).

Sunday night was spent skyping all my loved ones at home.. Aww J

---