Before heading over to Phi Phi island on Sat, we went out for a meal with our host family on Friday night! It was so cute, there was 8 of us altogether and they had arranged for taxi's (moterbikes) to be at the pier ready to take us into town. As it was a Friday night, the town was a lot busier then usual and there was a traditional thai market with lots of little stalls selling things like jewellery, bags and clothes. There were also lots of stalls which were selling thai food, so once we had found somewhere to sit, we all went off and brought whatever we wanted for dinner. Amie and I both had noodles with beansprouts, it was quite nice although we had to keep fishing out ants! lol. After dinner, we wondered around the market for a while before heading back home as we were really tired from school and needed an early night.
Phi Phi Island .....
The next morning we woke up really early as a car was coming to collect us over on the other side of the pier at 8. We made sure that we were there on time, however, a car did not arrive! We phoned the office where we had booked the trip and they kept saying that it was on its way and it wasnt until gone half past 8 that we realised the ferry to get on to the island would be leaving shortly and we weren't being picked up! We ended up having to get to the office in A0-Nang where the lady booked us on the 1:30 ferry and said that the car would collect us from there rather than heading all way home again....anyway after a bit of confusion and waiting around we had mananged to get on the ferry. The weather was probably the best it had been all week as it was completly blue sky! The whole way there we just sunbathed on the top of the boat :) As we arrived, we circled round most of the island which looked AMAZING! everything looked really pretty and the water was crystal clear! Once we had got off of the boat, there were lots of Thai people stood on the pier holding signs for different hotels, we found ours staight away and he helped us to carry our bags to the hotel. The island is so small that they dont even have cars, everyone can jus walk around it.
The hotel is lovely, much nicer than most hotels on the island..our room is even air-conditioned!After wondering around the town, we heading back to our room for a shower and to get ready to go for dinner. We have found some lovely restaurants over the last couple of nights and it seems to be really English everywhere we go. Last night (Sunday) we watched the Engand game on the beach! ha. Today we woke up to heavy rain, which was a relief actually because i think we have both had a bit too much sun over the last couple of days. :S
We are now just looking forward to spending our last night on phi phi before heading back to Krabi tomorrow afternoon :)
Amie and Charlotte xxxxxxxxxx
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Friday, 25 June 2010
A is for Tuna?
Sawatdee kah!
We have spent another two enjoyable days at school since Charlottes mammoth post! I'll try to be as detailed as she was!
Thursday we were welcomed by lots of smiley children all bowing to us (a wai) which was lovely. We have to exercise with them at 8am following a DVD exercise program, then we teach! As they are so young we only sit them down for about an hour before they start to get restless. Today we taught ABC's again...the teacher asks us to teach them this every day because they have trouble reading them the words...the words that come up on their DVD for A are apple, ant and tuna (?) We avoid that one. They seem to do most of their learning in front of the TV, it's always on. In England TV at school is a treat!
After school we were taken to the guesthouse where the conservation volunteers live and had a meeting before heading to Ao Nang to arrange our weekend. We managed to get a great price for 3 nights on Phi Phi Island. We are staying in a hotel on the beach including breakfast and it cost us 6900BHT including boats there and back...that's 70GBP each. We are chuffed with our bargain and hopefully will come home with more money than we expected to! On the bus home from Ao Nang (buses here are pick up trucks with benches in the back!) we saw an elephant being led along the road, it was so surreal!
Today (Friday) at school we did the usual teaching English and exercising...we get so hot its ridiculous jumping around in the 35+ heat with trousers and t-shirts on! The teachers asked us if we wanted to stay later and have some papaya salad. We said yes and arranged to be picked up late thinking it would be a nice refreshing fruit salad. When she got the ingredients out there was papaya and limes (fine) then...dried shrimp, whole crabs and chillies. We declined on the crab and chillies but felt bad saying no to everything so had to have the shriveled shrimp. I would have loved to have tried the whole lot but we have both lost our appetites due to the heat. And I didn't fancy whole crushed crab (shell included) in a fruit salad. Considering Charlotte doesn't like seafood, I'm proud to say we both ate it. It also had a kind of caramel paste, sugar, green beans and tomatoes in it...won't be having papaya salad in the near future! All of the drinks here are so sweet, we had hot chocolate for breakfast yesterday (which was given to us in a bag) and drinks at school, including iced tea, all seem to have tonnes of sugar in...great if you have a sweet tooth like we do.
Tonight we are heading to Krabi town with our family as they are treating us to a meal, and will get up early for the boat to Phi Phi in the morning.
Anyway got to go...we have lesson planning and packing to do!
Amie & Charlotte xxx
We have spent another two enjoyable days at school since Charlottes mammoth post! I'll try to be as detailed as she was!
Thursday we were welcomed by lots of smiley children all bowing to us (a wai) which was lovely. We have to exercise with them at 8am following a DVD exercise program, then we teach! As they are so young we only sit them down for about an hour before they start to get restless. Today we taught ABC's again...the teacher asks us to teach them this every day because they have trouble reading them the words...the words that come up on their DVD for A are apple, ant and tuna (?) We avoid that one. They seem to do most of their learning in front of the TV, it's always on. In England TV at school is a treat!
After school we were taken to the guesthouse where the conservation volunteers live and had a meeting before heading to Ao Nang to arrange our weekend. We managed to get a great price for 3 nights on Phi Phi Island. We are staying in a hotel on the beach including breakfast and it cost us 6900BHT including boats there and back...that's 70GBP each. We are chuffed with our bargain and hopefully will come home with more money than we expected to! On the bus home from Ao Nang (buses here are pick up trucks with benches in the back!) we saw an elephant being led along the road, it was so surreal!
Today (Friday) at school we did the usual teaching English and exercising...we get so hot its ridiculous jumping around in the 35+ heat with trousers and t-shirts on! The teachers asked us if we wanted to stay later and have some papaya salad. We said yes and arranged to be picked up late thinking it would be a nice refreshing fruit salad. When she got the ingredients out there was papaya and limes (fine) then...dried shrimp, whole crabs and chillies. We declined on the crab and chillies but felt bad saying no to everything so had to have the shriveled shrimp. I would have loved to have tried the whole lot but we have both lost our appetites due to the heat. And I didn't fancy whole crushed crab (shell included) in a fruit salad. Considering Charlotte doesn't like seafood, I'm proud to say we both ate it. It also had a kind of caramel paste, sugar, green beans and tomatoes in it...won't be having papaya salad in the near future! All of the drinks here are so sweet, we had hot chocolate for breakfast yesterday (which was given to us in a bag) and drinks at school, including iced tea, all seem to have tonnes of sugar in...great if you have a sweet tooth like we do.
Tonight we are heading to Krabi town with our family as they are treating us to a meal, and will get up early for the boat to Phi Phi in the morning.
Anyway got to go...we have lesson planning and packing to do!
Amie & Charlotte xxx
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Our first few days......
Hey!
We finally arrived in Krabi on Monday evening, we met our director (Dear) at the airport who took us on a shuttle bus to our host family's house. We are living on a small island, so we had to get on a long tail boat across the river..with all of our bags!! Once we reached the other side, we had to get a motorbike (which they call taxi's) to our house. Our family are lovely! there is Mum and Dad, a little girl called soryda..she's soo cute! and another girl but we still arent sure of her name. Once we had been introduced, we had something to eat and went straight to bed because we hadnt actually slept properly for 2 days!. The house is completely different from anything we have seen in England, only the main part of the house is built from bricks, the rest is mainly wood. However, our room is imacculate and we have out own bathroom with a shower and toilet (no flush!) so we have to flush it with water from a bucket! lol... there isnt a sink either but we are slowly getting used to it!
On our first day, we met back up with Dear who took us into Krabi town, she helped us get thai cards for our phones becuase it is soo much cheaper, that way. The currency out here is Baht, the sim card was 50 baht, which in English money would only be 1 pound!! We then went into a little coffee shop and Dear went through everything with us, from what we had to wear at placement, information for when we are living with our family and any other general information.
She also gave us little cards with different places that we might need to ask for in Thai.. eg..She would write hospital at the top and underneath..write it in Thai so we could just show the card to someone Thai and they would understand! (if that makes sense) We were also given a projects abroad T-shirt :)
Once we had been through everything, we got on another shuttle bus, which took us into A0-Nang, which is about a 40 minute drive, Dear got dropped off on the way as she had to meet other volunteers later in the day. We were dropped off at the beach, which is AMAZING! The sea is soo clear and we can see all the different islands in the distance, which we are hoping to visit at the weekends :) We decided to have some lunch and spend the rest of the day on the beach, which was really nice..it was soo hot! However, it got to about 3 o'clock and we could see a huge black clould coming in our direction...therefore we decided to get off the beach!! It got really windy and all the little shops were being closed down before everything for swept away. We managed to get on a shuttle bus literally about 2 mins before it chucked it down with rain! I have never seen so much rain in my life!! Once we arrived back in Krabi, we got another bus back to the Thara beach port where we got a longtail boat across to the island we were staying. That evening we had a nice meal with out family and little Soryda was showing us what she had learnt at school.
Today.. Wednesday, we went to the school for the first time, we had to leave out house at half 7 and Dear was waiting with us on the other side of the port ready to take us in a small mini bus.
When we first arrived, all the children noticed us as soon as we got out of the bus and their litte faces were soo cute!
We are going to be working in the nursery with the 3-4 year olds! There are about 40 of them and only 2 teachers, the class is divided into 2..one group wear purple t-shirts and the others wear orange (these are the slightly younger ones). As soon as we had been introduced, we were asked to sing a song with them. At first we had no idea that we were going to be asked to do this, but we just did it. The first song we thought of was head shoulders, knees and toes and they we all really good and copied everything we did. Then the teacher gave us a CD with songs on that we had to use to warm the children up for some morning exercise! The teachers, just let us do whatever we wanted, they just stood behind and watched.
Once we had finished, we were asked to teach them thier ABC's and 123's, so we gathered them infront of the whiteboard and tried our best! The 2 classes were then divided into 2 groups, Amie went with the orange group and i stayed with the purple. My group were practicing writing English letters in a handwriting book, so i helped some of them who found it tricky, I also said the letters out loud to them, because although the Thai teachers can write the letters, they cant pronounce them.
Then it was time for lunch, nobody is allowed to wear shoes indoors, so the first thing was to put thier trainers on at the door, then they went to wash their hands ready to sit at the table. The orange group have their luch first as they are slightly longer, Amie and I both helped give the children their plates and cups and were then allowed to eat ours at another table.
Straight from lunch the childern are free to play in the field for about 20mins and then they have to come inside for an afternoon nap! it was soo cute, the each had thier own little blanket and billow and led on the floor. The teacher played some music for them to listen to, to calm them down. Whilst the children are sleeping, we were told to use the time to plan and prepare lessons.
We absolutly loved it at the school and cant wait to go back, we were just a little bit suprised at how much the teachers exept of us..we get the impression that we will be teaching for the whole time and they will be watching! We will get used to it and i really can't wait to go back tomorrow :D
Anyway.... sorry for the essay! This has been the first opportunity for us to use the internet so we thought we would let you know what we've been up to since we got here!
Love Charlotte and Amie :) xxxxxxxx
We finally arrived in Krabi on Monday evening, we met our director (Dear) at the airport who took us on a shuttle bus to our host family's house. We are living on a small island, so we had to get on a long tail boat across the river..with all of our bags!! Once we reached the other side, we had to get a motorbike (which they call taxi's) to our house. Our family are lovely! there is Mum and Dad, a little girl called soryda..she's soo cute! and another girl but we still arent sure of her name. Once we had been introduced, we had something to eat and went straight to bed because we hadnt actually slept properly for 2 days!. The house is completely different from anything we have seen in England, only the main part of the house is built from bricks, the rest is mainly wood. However, our room is imacculate and we have out own bathroom with a shower and toilet (no flush!) so we have to flush it with water from a bucket! lol... there isnt a sink either but we are slowly getting used to it!
On our first day, we met back up with Dear who took us into Krabi town, she helped us get thai cards for our phones becuase it is soo much cheaper, that way. The currency out here is Baht, the sim card was 50 baht, which in English money would only be 1 pound!! We then went into a little coffee shop and Dear went through everything with us, from what we had to wear at placement, information for when we are living with our family and any other general information.
She also gave us little cards with different places that we might need to ask for in Thai.. eg..She would write hospital at the top and underneath..write it in Thai so we could just show the card to someone Thai and they would understand! (if that makes sense) We were also given a projects abroad T-shirt :)
Once we had been through everything, we got on another shuttle bus, which took us into A0-Nang, which is about a 40 minute drive, Dear got dropped off on the way as she had to meet other volunteers later in the day. We were dropped off at the beach, which is AMAZING! The sea is soo clear and we can see all the different islands in the distance, which we are hoping to visit at the weekends :) We decided to have some lunch and spend the rest of the day on the beach, which was really nice..it was soo hot! However, it got to about 3 o'clock and we could see a huge black clould coming in our direction...therefore we decided to get off the beach!! It got really windy and all the little shops were being closed down before everything for swept away. We managed to get on a shuttle bus literally about 2 mins before it chucked it down with rain! I have never seen so much rain in my life!! Once we arrived back in Krabi, we got another bus back to the Thara beach port where we got a longtail boat across to the island we were staying. That evening we had a nice meal with out family and little Soryda was showing us what she had learnt at school.
Today.. Wednesday, we went to the school for the first time, we had to leave out house at half 7 and Dear was waiting with us on the other side of the port ready to take us in a small mini bus.
When we first arrived, all the children noticed us as soon as we got out of the bus and their litte faces were soo cute!
We are going to be working in the nursery with the 3-4 year olds! There are about 40 of them and only 2 teachers, the class is divided into 2..one group wear purple t-shirts and the others wear orange (these are the slightly younger ones). As soon as we had been introduced, we were asked to sing a song with them. At first we had no idea that we were going to be asked to do this, but we just did it. The first song we thought of was head shoulders, knees and toes and they we all really good and copied everything we did. Then the teacher gave us a CD with songs on that we had to use to warm the children up for some morning exercise! The teachers, just let us do whatever we wanted, they just stood behind and watched.
Once we had finished, we were asked to teach them thier ABC's and 123's, so we gathered them infront of the whiteboard and tried our best! The 2 classes were then divided into 2 groups, Amie went with the orange group and i stayed with the purple. My group were practicing writing English letters in a handwriting book, so i helped some of them who found it tricky, I also said the letters out loud to them, because although the Thai teachers can write the letters, they cant pronounce them.
Then it was time for lunch, nobody is allowed to wear shoes indoors, so the first thing was to put thier trainers on at the door, then they went to wash their hands ready to sit at the table. The orange group have their luch first as they are slightly longer, Amie and I both helped give the children their plates and cups and were then allowed to eat ours at another table.
Straight from lunch the childern are free to play in the field for about 20mins and then they have to come inside for an afternoon nap! it was soo cute, the each had thier own little blanket and billow and led on the floor. The teacher played some music for them to listen to, to calm them down. Whilst the children are sleeping, we were told to use the time to plan and prepare lessons.
We absolutly loved it at the school and cant wait to go back, we were just a little bit suprised at how much the teachers exept of us..we get the impression that we will be teaching for the whole time and they will be watching! We will get used to it and i really can't wait to go back tomorrow :D
Anyway.... sorry for the essay! This has been the first opportunity for us to use the internet so we thought we would let you know what we've been up to since we got here!
Love Charlotte and Amie :) xxxxxxxx
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Not long to go...
So I have two days left at work, I have my new rucksack, my needles and my suncream...I'm all set :) I don't think it has quite hit me yet! Charlotte and I are so excited, we can't wait to get out there to meet our host family and get into the Thai way of life...we can't forget to "wai" people as we arrive (when you put your palms together and bow) I was reading that doing this will get us respect when we arrive. There's so much to remember...
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