Okay it's been a while

Alright so it is now day 3 of Summer school here. I will make a short update of my travels these past two weeks while I was on break: brief synopsis:

1. I went to Cambodia by train and stayed the night in the Thai border town called Aranyaprathet and stayed in a very nice hotel, my favorite 200 baht spent on a hotel, that equals about 6 dollars. It had nice rooms, hot water, AND the best part: a resort style swimming pool: very big and had a slide and had plants surrounding it. I got off the hot long train ride and jumped in and swam for over an hour until I had to go eat some pad thai from the local market because I was starving. I then went first thing in the morning to the border to get my passport stamped and get my visa renewed- after 4 attempts at scamming me with visa stuff I made it across the border and got in a shared taxi with locals and went to the town called Battambang. I arrived in the afternoon and grabbed a hamburger (they have lots of beef in cambodia, which i miss. its still not the same as nebraskan beef though). then I hired a nice motorcycle driver who worked at the hotel to drive me around to some tourist spots of old Angkor temples and caves, and historical, infamous Khmer Rouge areas. I also saw the Bamboo trains that they use to get around on the rails when trains arent going by and we mingled with some friendly villagers and ate really good Khmer Food (all beef). It's like thai food only not as much chili, and beef instead of pork. it was a nice change. we were out all day on this tour i paid 10 dollars for, having my own driver i thought was worth it.

I then mingled with some foreigners at a small australian owned bar/restaurant and gave them tips on thailand (their next stop). i had a Cambodian style beer as well, called Angkor. it was pretty good. I shared a taxi to the border with some of these foreigners the next morning and then hopped on a train back to bangkok.

2. the next day I went on the trip to Ko Kret with the other teachers from my school. it was VERY nice. we stayed in a very nice resort-supposedly the best on the island. we ate TONS of good food- the owner of the school paid for everything. we swam, we rode on a boat around the whole island snorkeling in the cool areas and looking at the coral and the fish. we ate at a restaurant that was in the middle of the water held up by stilts- we had to get to the restaurant by a wooden boat on a zip line type device. we ate lots of fresh seafood.

it was a lot of fun to mingle with the teachers because we are normally so busy during the day and dont get to talk. it also forced me to use my thai since i was the only foreigner on the whole trip.

3. then i spent most of the week at thammasat university thai boxing every day and hanging out in the old area i used to live. it takes about 4 hours out of my day to go to thammasat by bus from my town, but it'd worth it for the thai boxing with friends at the school.

4. then i got really sick, i had an eye problem- went to the doctor and he said i had conjunctivitis- basically pink eye i think, so i had some medicine for that. at the same time i had a stomach problem going on and after a few un-fun days of staying inside my room really sick, i went to the doctor and he said i have a infection in my intestines so i had to take 5 different medicines he prescribed. then i got a cold after that.

5. once i finally got better i went to Hua Hin with one of my Thai friends and we stayed a night there and swam a lot in the sea. just relaxed.

6. then this last weekend i went with the rest of the Thammasat Thai Boxing Team to Ayutthaya where there was an International Thai Boxing Festival/Gathering/Conference deal. And there were tons of people there from all countries who were thai boxers. there were big fights on monday and tuesday but we only went for the first day which was sunday. we participated in traditional ceremonies that honored our coaches and the ancient sport of thai boxing. we also ate a LOT of traditional thai food- tasty. and saw exhibitions of traditional thai bamboo tattoos in the making, and how they made the swords, etc. we all had to dress in the same attire, thai boxing outfits, they are fun.

now it is summer school, which is more fun and more relaxed than normal school days, so that is nice. i have control over what i teach them and what we do in class, so we have fun and play games and do outdoor activities. its been raining a lot lately though. but i have a soccer club and we meet once a week. it is fun, but hard to keep their little attention spans occupied!