The bus...

This morning I took my first public bus ride to get to school. I will admit I was a bit skeptical at first about taking a public bus, but you will be happy to know that even the buses here are equiped with flat screens.




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Thai Islands

While Colie was in Laos I went to the islands, one of the places I went was Ton Sai Bay, it was amazing! The guy in the middle lives there, he was very hospitable :) My friend and I stayed in a bungalow in the jungle and during the day there is no electricity so you must go to the beach. The walk down to the beach was about 5 minutes. It was a very very cool place, Nichole has been too in September. We loved it and plan on going back, its a small hippie, international spot but not a spot that a whole lot of people know about so it makes it unique and you get the chance to know the locals, which I really enjoyed. We kayaked around the surrounding areas and found many amazing small beaches that you could have all to yourself!
 

The pictures on the bottom are from Ko Phi Phi at Maya Bay, the location where the filmed the movie The Beach and it was literally the most BEAUTIFUL place I've ever been to on the planet. I am a beach person, but this beach was just absolutely spectacular!! There are no buildings on this beach, its a national park and you can go there during the day or camp out if you wish. It was pristine, the bluest water ever and the whitest sand with the most gorgeous rock formations surrounding the bay. It was amazing!

We also stayed in Ko Phi Phi's main island, which is very very beautiful too, but it is different because people can stay on that island, but it is still very small, clean, and pristine. On all the islands at night they have fire shows on the beach where the Thai's and the people at the party can jump fire ropes, fire limbo, etc. so it gets very interesting! Besides Ton Sai and Ko Phi Phi we also went to Phuket, Thailand's largest island. We went for one night and found it quite interesting. Its such a huge island compared to the other locations that we went to and feels more similar to Bangkok but on the beach. We did rent a motorcycle and ride along the coast line, its a bit like the PCH, so its very beautiful and on our last night we ate at a restaurant on a cliff overlooking the sunset, it was quite awesome! One of my personal favorite things, besides the unreal natural beauty was the Thai banana pancakes that are sold at stands throughout all of the islands, they are similar to a crepe but with more of a pancake flavor and filled with warm sliced bananas and drizzled with chocolate and honey, AMAZING!! 

I got back late Saturday night and began back at work Monday. It was a great vacation and only 6 1/2 weeks until my three week escapade! Nichole and I have both agreed that we feel as if we are living in an endless summer! It is still very hot in Bangkok, but I've heard it will get cooler quite soon, yay! Its a busy week at school and on Friday, we have a halloween parade, trick-or-treating, and games in the afternoon, should be a fun filled but exhausting day! Below are some pictures of my little darlings...haha :) The job is going well and the vacation was definitely refreshing. I will post again soon and Nichole and I will share about Halloween in Bangkok, should be interesting! 

Jenny

Loving Lao :)

Last week I went up to Lao for about 5 days with my new friends Amy and Scott from the camps. Lao borders Thailand’s northeast side so we decided to travel by land. We began our adventure by taking a 9-hour night bus to the Thailand Lao border. Surprisingly the night bus we took was nicer than some of the buses I have taken in the US. Once we crossed the border we explored the capital city of Vientiane. The capital is a very sleepy city with not much to do except visit their most famous wat in the country, Pha That Luang.

After our visit to the wat we took a 3-hour extremely bumpy and windy bus ride on a non-aircon bus to the city of Vang Vieng. This city is commonly known in the backpackers’ world as a tubing city. They have bars that line the Mekong River with zip lines, rope swings, and crazy slides. The people at the bars throw water bottles tied to rope at you so they can pull you into their bars. So naturally we had to go tubing Day 1!

Scott turned out to be a great person to go to Lao with because he lived there the previous year for a couple of months. He took us on this amazing hike to this hut on top of a mountain with this spectacular view.

After the hike we went to visit this family he had met the previous year in a village. The family not only remembered him, but had his picture framed with their other family photos. The family was very friendly. They invited us in and even invited us to stay the night, but we politely declined the offer.

The last couple of days we just went tubing again and I went rock climbing. After Ton Sai I have really been itching to go rock-climbing again! I think it just might be my new favorite hobby! The rock-climbing itself wasn’t hard, but the actual hike to get to the routes was extremely difficult in flip-flops. I ended up slipping on the way down and scratching my arm pretty bad. Thankfully the Lao guides were prepared with tiger balm. One of them even picked and chewed up a local plant to turn it into medicine to clean my cut. He didn’t speak any English so he just walked up to me and started rubbing this green stuff on my cut. It was defiantly an experience in itself.

I had my first two days of work already. So far so good! I promise to write more details later!

Xoxo,

Nichole

Animal Lovers!

Jenny and I have had our fair share of animal encounters in Thailand. More recently we went on an elephant ride outside of Chiang Mai, and a couple of weeks ago we went to the Tiger Temple outside of Kanchanaburi. Below are a couple of pictures from the adventures!

Jenny and Tony left last night for the islands and beaches down south, and I am leaving today for Laos! I am so excited for tubing in Vang Vieng and hopefully some really awesome hikes in Luang Prabang!

xoxo,

Nichole

Black Light Talent Show

At every camp we have a talent show, but the children at the Chiang Mai Camp blew me away with their creativity! Below is the video from their Black Light show. You have to check it out!!

Chokchia Farm

I am currently at my 6th and final camp! This camp is by far the largest camp I've worked. There are about 300 students between the ages of 8 and 9 at the camp. Since this camp is so large I do not get to be the MC, but instead I have my own group of students. Yesterday we went back to Chokchai Farm. Below are a few pics of the Thai cowboys/ cowgirls and the petting zoo.





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Jenny's first post...

Hello All! Well, its taken me a long time to do this but I promised Nichole that I would do one this week, so here we go... Most recently I spent the day with 4 and 5 year olds who are just as ready for next weeks vacation as I am!! My friend from Cali is coming to visit tonight and we're going to the islands all next week, 1 of the same that Colie went to (Ton Sai) I am very excited to finally get down there and RELAX!! This is an overstimulating, non-stop, never sleeping city, needless to say I am exhausted because there is just always so much to do! For example instead of doing lesson planning last night, Nichole and I discovered that there is a GREAT market about um less than a 5 minute walk from our front door, I bought a dress that would've cost about $60 at Anthropology for $7.50... its GREAT Colie found some cute stuff too :)! The shopping here is amazing and you can bargain at many many places. I'm on a shopping mission to find the most perfect fake bag I can find that looks not fake at all, I found one at the night market in Bangkok but I went back on Monday and it was no where to be found... there must be a better one waiting :) 

As Nichole's mentioned I have been to near as many places around Thailand as she's been with her English camp jobs, but I have been to a lot of places in Bangkok. There is an amazing Mall here called Siam Paragon that I went to with a friend, its HUGE, about 5 normal US malls put together. There is a huge aquarium at the bottom of the mall. I swear, with the food vendors included, there are about 1000 different options for food and the best part of the mall is that its a beautiful, clean, and classy place. I've also done some exploring in the red light like district Pat-Pong,  with some friends and it is well, probably everything you've ever heard about and then some... very very interesting, but interesting isn't quite the right word... The people here have been extremely nice and the women I work with are so sweet, always saying oh miss jenny you so pretty everyday, its funny, I think they just like blond hair :) 

So needless to say I've done lots and lots of shopping at many markets and street markets, the shopping is definitely one of the most amazing things about Bangkok and  how much you can get (and how cute it is) for hardly anything!! Also the massages are incredible, I'm headed there right after I finish this actually, there is a massage place in a market about 2 minutes walking from our condos. She charges me 130 baht for 1 1/2 hours, which is not even $4. So all in all Nichole and I have agreed that we are very happy here and we've both been having an amazing time!!!

Chiang Mai Camp

At this camp there are a total of 85 children, 80 girls and 5 guys, but out of those five guys only one of them is straight! I can't imagine what it must be like to be the only straight guy with 80 10th and 11th grade girls.


We are staying at this awesome resort in the mountains about 40 mins outside of Chiang Mai. The resort is really close to the San Kamphang Hot Springs so the pool and showers at the resort use the water from the springs. We went to the hot springs this morning. The water in some areas was so hot that the kids boiled eggs.






The second stop of the day was the Chiang Mai zoo. The weirdest thing about the zoo, besides the random elephant we saw wondering the streets, was the fact that they let cars in so you can just drive up to the different exhibits. It was pretty spreadout, but still no need for personal cars. We took the zoo tram to see the panda and the snow simulated dome. The snow dome was neat, but it really just made me even more thankful I am spending the DC winter in Thailand!!

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Yesterday Jenny, Scott, and I went to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep just outside of Chiang Mai. This Wat is one of the holiest sites in the Lanna Kingdom and is over 600 years old. It is said to house a shoulder bone from Buddha himself. This relic has reportedly performed mircles so in order to honor it the priest who found it decided to build a pagoda for it. In order to determine the location for the pagoda he released a white elephant with the relic on his back into the wild. The spot where the elephant decided to rest is the current location of the temple on a very beautiful mountaintop that over looks the city of Chiang Mai.



Hahaha. Mom?!? We decided the picture below is what angry mothers look like :)


Only kidding...we think angry Moms are scarier! Love you!

Xoxo,
Nichole and Jenny

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Toilet

So yeah that bowl in the water is what you use to flush the toilet.... And the sprayer to the left of the toilet is what the Thais use to "wipe".


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Chiangmai

Jenny, Scott, and I are loving Chiang Mai! We went for an elephant ride through the jungle and a bamboo ride down the river today. We also went to this village where we bought hand made scarves. Apparently the scarves take three days to make and we bought them for 5 American dollars...crazyness! Tomorrow we are headed to a wat that over looks the city and plan on renting bikes in the afternoon to explore. Jenny is headed back to BKK tomorrow night, and Scott and I have a camp here in Chiang Mai starting Monday. Jenny promises to post her first blog this week!!!

Xoxo,
Nichole


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Thai kids and their English shirts...

I really hope this kid doesn't know what his shirt says, but I couldn't believe he was wearing this at the summer camp! The kids here love to wear shirts that have English words on them, but most of the shirts just have random sayings or words. Some of the shirts make sense and some don't, but this one was the worst one I've seen!!

Wild Wild East

In Isan we went to Farm Chokchai, which is the largest dairy farm in Southeast Asia (http://www.farmchokchai.com/en/agri_bis/farm_livestock.asp). At the farm we went on a 2 ½ hour tour complete with a cow milking demonstration, a Wild Wild West show, an animal show, and a petting zoo. At the petting zoo we feed calves milk and camels vegetables. The best part was seeing the entire Thai staff at the farm dressed up in cowboy/girl outfits. I guess the guy who owns the farm studied in America and then moved back to Thailand in the 1950s to start the farm.

Summer Camps

I just want to say sorry for not updating the blog more frequently. I finally figured out how to update it from my iPhone so now I can update it wherever there is WiFi!! Anyways, I have been keeping super busy with these camps. I have done 3 camps so far and I have three more coming up. I am going to Cha-am (the beach) tomorrow for the 4^th camp, and I just got back from Isan (northeast Thailand) yesterday. The camps are actually a lot of fun. It’s a great way for me to see a lot of the country and meet new people before I start work. It doesn't hurt that all of the camps are at really nice hotels/resorts that I probably wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. The children at the camps are all from very well off families. I think at the last camp every single kid either had a PSP or a laptop for the bus ride. They are also some of the largest Thai students I have seen! Some of these kids looked like they had never missed a meal in their life!!

This weekend Jenn and I are headed to Chiang Mai!! I am so excited to see the mountains. I have a camp there on Monday and The Sandbox has agreed to fly me up early so I can spend the weekend exploring! Overall life is great here in Thailand! Jenn has been doing a lot of exploring in Bangkok with our friend Pom and a couple of her coworkers. I have a feeling she will know the city inside and out before I settle down and start work.

Xoxo,

Nichole

Something you'd never see in America...

Whitening lotion. You might already know this, but people here are really obsessed with being light skinned. They wear long sleeves and pants in like 100 degree weather because they don't want to be tanner than they already are. They prefer to go swimming in the rain or at night because the sun isnt out. They think we are crazy for sunbathing. So needless to say bronzer lotion or powder is going to be very difficult to find since advertisements like the picture below are all over the place.


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