I'm alone after all...

at school, because Ashley (the unfriendly volunteer from LA) left again after a couple of days of entirely not taking her lessons. Not sure why. I've heard rumours that she was out drinking every night, but don't know if she was only doing this to face going back to the hovel of a room she was given here at the school or for her other reasons.

Anyways she's gone, so I'm pretty busy now after all. At least I would be if any of the classes actually happened when they were supposed to...

On Valentine's day we ended up going to a free barbecue at this little bar we frequent called Umbrella Pub. It was really tasty - which is a good thing since the food at the house I'm staying at is patchy and often uninspired. It was a really great evening and my pool playing was slightly above completely shit - I even potted 2 balls (in a row) which made me ludicrously happy.

Umbrella Pub is in a row of bars in what probably counts as the red light district of Ao Nang. Being as Ao Nang is so small there are only actually 2 roads there, it's not so much a district as a sort of cul-de-sac. Going to bars round here can be a slightly distasteful experience, because it's so touristy that there are always a bunch of middle aged European men with sunburn letching over the Thai women and not-quite-women who stand around with not so many clothes on. It's a real shame that so many Thai people get only that impression of Westerners - no wonder that they're always trying to make a fast buck out of us.

Aside from free barbecue I've had some other good/interesting experiences this week. Yesterday we got yet another day off, only it was a national holiday because of a Buddhist ritual (the name of which I forget, sorry). So in the morning we went elephant trekking which was amazing. It was a little nervewracking at first because as the elephant steps from side to side, the seat leans rather making you feel you're going to fall out. We trekked through the forest and saw some monkeys in the distance (less friendly ones than at Tiger Temple) and then the guides (who were sitting on the heads/necks of the elephants) got off and encouraged us to move forward and sit where they had been. I've got lots of photos so I promise to put them up soon. I was a little nervous so Lucie (another teaching volunteer who was on my elephant with me) went first and then me. It was a wonderful experience to sit there, with the elephant's ears flapping against your legs. Lucie and I had the only male elephant of the herd, and he was a little unruly and so kept wandering off when he wasn't being told what to do by his keeper.

I recommend it - Mum and Lucy we must definitely do this again when we're on Ko Chang (which for those of you that don't know means "Elephant Island").

Then in the evening we went to a Buddhist temple and took part in the ritual. This was commemorating the day that Buddha met a huge number of followers and laid down some of his teachings. (Sorry for my rather sketchy idea - it wasn't very well explained to us). We all gave a small donation and then took some incense, flowers and a candle. We then went and sat down inside the temple and watched the head monk giving a speech, which felt a little intrusive really. I wish we'd stayed outside instead. Also, it was very difficult to sit still and pretend that we could understand a word he said because thousands upon thousands of flying ants had decided this was the perfect moment to swarm through the air and the temple and fall all over us. So there we were, already in trouble for sitting too close to the monks/on their mat, covered in bits of ant and ant wings, trying to stop our legs from falling asleep. We managed to stay reasonably unobtrusive after we'd all sat down, except that one ant managed to fall down my bra which made it a little challenging to remove while maintaining decorum. My friend Emily, also had a gecko crawling over her foot, but she handled this rather well I thought - at least she didn't scream and leap into the air.

Thankfully after about 20 minutes, we all took our bundle of candle, flowers and incense outside and lit them (apart from the flowers of course) and then followed the monks around the temple clockwise three times. This was a little challenging as the candles kept blowing out, and the red paint on the bottom of the incense dyed all of our hands so we looked like we'd been trying to steal something from a shop. After that we had icecream in Krabi (the main town in Krabi province, which is much cheaper and less touristy than Ao Nang, but which is also further away and therefore harder/more expensive for us to get to).

So that was my week - the next update should be good. We've got our monthly barbecue at the house today and probably on Sunday we're going to hire a couple of longtails (boats) and go island hopping, which should be amazing.

Can't believe I only have 3 more weeks left here.
Love to you all especially Lia, Sasha and Vikki for writing me comments.