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Another apology... and other stuff....

... yep, I know... I haven't updated this in ages, haven't logged into facebook, haven't told friends in Bangkok where I am or when I plan on heading back there... I'm upcountry, a place where things are supposed to slow down but life has been scarily hectic...

Where to begin... a month in Naan. A 10k ride to school each morning, passing shops, houses and rice fields cloaked in mist... freezing cold, hard, but great fun. Another, warmer more relaxing one back home each afternoon, staring at the rice fields... dead rice stalks yellowing in the mid-afternoon sun...

School in the week. Mountains on weekends. I wasn't planning on keeping count but I think I visited one a week. I didn't expect to be busy in Naan. I wasn't particularly busy. I didn't do that much after school... went to the local coffee shop (hot bread - great place to go if you're ever in Naan) to the market, to the internet cafe or to friends of the teachers... One month went surprisingly quickly. I was fighting tears on my last day at school, and the other Friday morning, when it was time to leave.

I couldn't get too down though. My friend Tak's wedding, in Korat and Sisaket, has been written in my diary for months. I wasn't too keen on the 12 hour bus ride from Naan, and even less eager to carry 7 (yep - including my bike and my tent I had 7 bags/boxes - not quite the travelling lightweight backpacker I was planning to be...) boxes to the bus with me but the journey itself was pretty uneventful.

Korat was fun. Crashing at a friend of a friend's house, already chock full of Matayom 6 (A level aged) students, followed by the wedding party itself. It was great to see the teachers from Chokchai again, P' Kung, (my substitute mum during the month I lived there...) and the rest of the English department, and the wedding itself was a good laugh.

We left the party early - along with the bride and groom - as we had a wedding ceremony, a couple of hundred kms away to get to by the morning. 9 of us piled into the back of Tak's dad pick up (the front was already full), and it sped its way back to Korat (to drop a couple of people off) and then back across Issan. A couple more people juped out at Buriram. The rest of the journey is a drunken, an freezing cold blur.

Time for another apology.. I don;t have enough time on the net to finish writing this but I promise (promise, promise, promise...) that I will soon.. maybe Thurs. maybe after the weekend. And I promise that in future I'll be a bit less crappy when it comes to staying in touch...

Part II...

After Tak's wedding, and another night in Korat I took a bus heading east, towards Roi Et. I'm now in Kalasin province, teaching English at my friend's wife's dad's school. The school is in a village at the edge of the province, so i've not actually gotten round to visiting Kalasin yet. I wil, before I leave though.

So far its working out OK. The students are much poorer (and less interested in studying) than the students in Naan but they are very sweet. Most now like to shout good morning at me - though thats about as far as their English goes. Ask them how they are and the giggle inanely and even, in some cases run away.

I've been here for 2 weekends now. On the Saturday my friends family has taken me out somewhere, and, on the Sunday I've rode my bike. I'm probably going to be here another 3 weeks. The school say I can stay longer but, I'm really not sure I can... I promised my family that by April (May at the latest) I'd be back home.

I'm supposed to be thinking about plane tickets, shipping stuff home, and (since I didn't get accepted on the PGCE course) working out what on earth I plan to do when I get back there, but... the longer I spend upcountry the less a 'normal' life back in England appeals...

Create Date : 23 มกราคม 2551

Last Update : 24 มกราคม 2551 17:13:30 น.

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