Bright and early before the sun was even close to rising we were up, dressed and ready to go. In the pitch black morning we shoved our faces with granola bars and bananas to prepare ourselves for our race. We weren’t the only early birds, there were a handful of other folks dressed to impress.Several of them were friends we had made the following day: Arlene, a lovely Irish gal running the half marathon and three Americans working with Pricenton in Asia who were running the 10k. Piling into two tuk tuks we headed out to Angkor Wat. I have to say for my first race ever I couldn’t have picked a cooler location. Tuk tuks were swarming the area, hundreds of them bringing their racers into the area. We chose to get there early so ... read more

For too brief a time I was heading back to America to visit my family. I never thought while I was here I was going to venture back home, but when my mom, aunt and brother could visit Thailand leaving behind my dad and other brother I was willing to make my own trek home to see them.Ok I wasn’t just willing I was uber excited. I had decided to head home in October for a number of reasons but the two biggest being Michael, my youngest brother, was turning 21 and my all time favorite holiday ever, Halloween, lured me home. True the fall weather was a bit horrifying, but I was slightly excited to wear a sweater again so it wasn’t to much of a set back to know I would be home when ... read more

Although I was suppose to go with my friend Apple the year before to her hometown in Ubon, I flaked out to spend time with friends. This year around I decided to join her in on a trip to her families house as well as for the Candle Parade. I didn’t know much about the Candle Parade, ok to be honest I didn’t even know I was going to the Candle Parade, all I knew was that I was going to her families house. So bright and early (ok not that early because Apple hates waking up early) she came to pick me up and we headed into town. Here we hopped on a song taew that took us to Yasaton and then hopped on a bus to take us to Ubon. Once in Ubon we ... read more

Although I was there for a very specific purpose, an English Camp, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the island. We were stationed at the National Park found outside of the “city” and it was simply beautiful. The beach was charming and the rooms set back in the woods, everywhere you turned a new critter was scurrying past you. A group of us were teaching over 100 kids English as well as a respect for the enviornment with programs like a beach clean up and ID this object which could be anything from a shell to a leaf to a seed pod of some sort. It was a really great way to mix the two and for myself it was probably the best English Camp I could be apart of. When we had a bit of ... read more

When camp was over most of us volunteers decided to spend the weekend at one more beach, Dton Sai. We left Koh Lanta by ferry, drove through the main land and then hopped aboard a longboat which took us out to Dton Sai beach. Here we grabbed extremely cheap bungalows and took to exploring. We were just spending the evening here and wanted to check the place out. Where as Koh Phi Phi was filled with partying farangs and Koh Lanta was a natural park with just Thai’s and us volunteers, Dton Sai was somewhere in the middle. True most of the people that scattered the island were also farangs, but they weren’t the ones to party all night long or at least not in the let’s get wasted way that Koh Phi Phi exudes. This ... read more