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Published: August 29th 2008
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English Camp
140 kids at English camp, all wearing their yellow shirts today - the colour of the King. Here we're doing warmup exercises like the Roti Dance I'm now coming to the end of my time in Thailand, and I'm finally leaving Khao Lak. I've only been here 3 weeks but it already feels like a second home. All the places and people have become so familiar. But I've had a brilliant couple of weeks since my first entry - here are some of the things I got up to:
Tuesday & Wednesday of the 2nd week here I go to English Camp at Ban Thanung school which is about an hour's drive away. The students take 2 (or 3) days out of normal lessons to spend just doing English lessons, and as there's not enough room inside the school for all the activities we end up teaching al fresco under some trees next to a local temple. On the first morning the monks are actually in the temple chanting and it's quite mesmerising to watch.
After 2 days there teaching 6 lessons a day, I'm thoroughly knackered though. It's been really rewarding and some lessons have gone well while others have flopped a bit - especially as most of the students are teenagers and a bit too cool for school!
Wednesday night is the
Thai traditional dancing
Performed by the Home & Life girls last TVC party before it shuts down at the end of the month, and we all hire Thai traditional costume to dress up in for the occasion. It involves as much gold bling and jewels as you can imagine, and rich fabrics with gold weaved in. We have a big party at Everyday House bar, and the kids from the orphanage come to put on a show for us - first there is traditional Thai dancing, then a more modern dance, and finally a manora dance which is half man-half bird. After the orphans finished we had a treat - someone from the TVC had booked a ladyboy cabaret. The orphan kids were actually allowed to stay for the first couple of acts, which included some fairly skimpy showgirl outfits, but were ushered out when the outfits got smaller. There was even a 'clown' act - one of the troupe came on in a hideous outfit and wig with ridiculously over-the-top makeup and mimed incredibly melodramatically to 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor. Many buckets of Sangsom, coke and red bull were consumed and a good night was had by all...
On Thursday the girls from Leeds leave and
Thai?!?
Me, Kaew and Elaine in Thai traditional clothing. I'm wearing an outfit from the time of King Rama I, Kaew is wearing something a bit more modern from Rama III's reign and Elaine is representin' for the minority hill tribes of northern Thailand the rain starts. It pours all day on Thursday and then every afternoon since. It's usually baking hot in the morning and then tips it down at about 2pm so once classes finish, lazy afternoons by the pool are mostly ruled out.
At the weekend John takes me, two American girls Mary and Kristen, and a Canadian David, to Phang Nga Bay. We make a tour of some temples in the morning, including one with a reclining Buddha housed in a cave with monkeys living outside and one which is built inside a giant stone boat with its own moat around. We then go to Ban Sam Shon which is a Muslim fishing village on the bay, where we meet our guide Bao who has received English lessons from the TVC in the past. He greets John by name, as does everyone else in the village. He seems to be a minor celebrity in these parts.
Bao takes us out on his longtail boat into the bay, and shows us James Bond Island with its huge rock standing in the sea which was apparently the site of a missile silo in the Man With the Golden Gun. We
Ladyboy Cabaret
This one at the front scared me also go to the Naga cave - a Naga is a giant mythical snake usually with 5 or 7 heads - and one of the rocks in the cave is meant to resemble one of these coiled up. After a long afternoon being ferried around the bay we hop off back at the village to have dinner on a floating restaurant.
On Sunday, I finally get my tsunami orientation. We are first shown the tsunami museum and next door is the infamous police boat which is a 60,000 ton ship that was washed ashore 1.5km by the tsunami, killing many in its path. At the time of the wave it was in the sea off Bang Niang, the next village up from Khao Lak, guarding the princess and her son. The King's grandson was jetskiing and didn't survive, but the princess and all aboard the police boat were okay.
After this we go to Ban Nam Khem which was particularly badly hit, since it juts out into the sea in such a way that the wave hit it from two sides at once. A memorial there that forms a sort of tunnel represents the wave on one side
Monkey
At one of the temples and on the other are lists of names, both Thai and western, with tributes for the dead.
Our orientation is fraught with stories of places that were badly hit - since I arrived I have been told many tales of people who lost everything - family, uninsured businesses and homes, and yet there are stories of people who were incredibly lucky. Steve who runs a volunteer project here called Fun 4 Kids that builds playgrounds for Burmese refugee children, was staying with his wife and kids in one of the hotels set back some way from the shore. On a normal day they would have been down at the beach but on 26th December 2004 his wife was sunburnt and so they stayed in the hotel and because of that they survived the wave.
As for this week, it's been a busy one teaching going to and fro all week. We've been to all the local schools, the orphanage and even into the local shops to teach the shopkeepers. I've been working with three masseuses from a local thai massage parlour and so yesterday I went in for a very nice pedicure and I'm keen to try a
Thai massage before I leave tomorrow - I'm told it involves a lot of bones being cracked. Wish me luck!
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