Tiger Temple and Erwan

July 5, 2012

Last Thursday was the teachers meeting at our school, well to be exact it was like the administrators meeting. All the administrators from all around came to our school. They do this once a month at different places. Our school prepared for the whole week building new canopies, and basically turning the look around in a matter of days.

Thai culture is very concerned about saving face. They like to look good so they tend to parade us English teachers frequently. Therefore the principal invited us to the main event after the meeting. I told Dani and Jessica and we figured why not; anything is better than locking ourselves in our rooms. We head to the soccer field where there was a soccer match between the administrators of the different provinces. We sat with some other principals who kept trying to convince us to go teach at their schools.

The rest of the teachers were serving everyone and the three of us were sitting with the administrators drinking and eating away. I don’t think it sat very well with the other teachers. It was a very fun night, we drank ate, and even karaokeed.

The next day after school we took a bus to Bangkok. It was Mauricio’s birthday and he was going to celebrate it in the big city. We stayed at WE BKK, where we met everyone. After hours of trying to figure it all out we finally went out to go get Mexican food. It was a fun night but an early night for me.

Saturday we headed to Kanchanaburri, we got there and head straight to the Tiger Temple. This is a temple where the tigers grow up with the monks, they are a lot more docile. I got to pet a tiger! One of the most amazing experiences ever.

That night we stayed at a nice little guest house by the Kwai River. It was beautiful. We ate, hung out, and went out in town. What a fun town! This has been my favorite night life so far. I got to see a lot of the people I have met here and met even more awesome people. We went from bar to bar, dancing and drinking. There were live bands, and foreigners and Thais alike drinking and dancing the night away.

My favorite bar was this small little bar called Sugar something or something like that. It was all decorated with crazy sayings on the walls, there was a reggae band, a ton of cool locals, and a tattoo shop all in the spot. It was soooo much fun. I danced and laughed and had one of the best nights I have had in a very long time.

Hungover and tired I still woke up early and went to Erwan waterfall the next time. It was beautiful. Not as hard of a hike as the one we did previously but beautiful. It was clear water with huge waterfalls, and fish everywhere. There were monkeys hanging from the trees stealing food from the tourists and throwing trash at them.  It was hilarious. I did this hike on my own. Ventured from my roommates and spent some very much needed time by myself. On my way up I got stopped by a Thai person because there was a huge snake in my way. At this stop I ended up meeting two guys from Austria. They were so much fun and we went swimming and hiking together for a long part of the afternoon. What an adventure.

When we were traveling back, our bus never showed up. We waited for a couple hours until the bus station sent us a minibus to pick us up. This delayed us like crazy and everyone was very frustrated. It made me glad to have taken very good advice from my mom who told me to ALWAYS bring a book wherever I go, because this always go sideways in Thailand. Well thanks mom, while other people were frustrated I got to enjoy my afternoon with a nice book. It is true TIT (This is Thailand).