New Year celebrations in style

Last blog entry from James in Thailand



To celebrate New Year's, a couple of volunteers I'm working with decided to head down to Bangkok for a few days. It was a lot cheaper to get there by bus rather than plane, so we caught a 12 hour bus to Bangkok. The bus ride was an experience to say the least; 12 hours in a bus with no air con or toilet and being told by the male bus attendant that I was very beautiful made it an experience I won't forget for a long time! We got into Bangkok around 5:30am after a night of no sleep, but we still had fun. We went exploring around the city to numerous temples and on the way got stalked and intimidated by a pack of stray dogs. We even saw the same pack of dogs chasing a man down the street - we decided that it was the last time we take a short cut!
We also decided to brave the crowds and watch the fireworks in the main square at Bangkok. After waiting around for two and a half hours in a massive crowd and not being able to move, the fireworks began at 12:00am and lasted for a grand spanking two minutes! The crowd went absolutely crazy for them but we were a bit annoyed - all that time for two minutes of fireworks! Especially after not having sleep for almost 48 hours, being extremely tired and in a massive crowd I wasn't a happy chappy!
The next day was a lot better - we got up after a good sleep to explore more temple complexes. They are amazing here, and it's amazing how calm you feel when you step into a temple. We went to one temple (being the typical tourist, I can't remember the name!) and it was insanely hard work getting around. It consisted of two layers, and to get up to each level, you had to walk up these extremely steep and unsafe steps that would not pass any OHS test in Australia. It was a great experience and the view was amazing, but coming down these stairs was a bit scary especially when someone (read: myself) tripped. After a brief cardiac arrest, I was fine and grabbed the rail - the only safety precaution! That afternoon we went to the Grand Palace to see the Buddha made out of emerald. Considering that it was a public holiday, half of Bangkok decided to go as well and the crowds (and heat!) were pretty unbearable. As we were going into the palace, I got stopped and was told I couldn't go in because I was wearing shorts. I was pretty annoyed because there was a group of girls who got in before me with mini shorts and tank tops - the guards must have turned a blind eye! How convenient! 
On our last day in Bangkok, we went to explore the floating markets about an hour out of Bangkok. We loved it - we would travel in this canoe in this little town (think of an asian version of Venice) and would be pulled in to buy all sorts of goods and food. We then went on to see the Bridge over the River Kwai (think of the movie with Alec Guiness) which was constructed by POW's in WWII. After that we drove on for about another half an hour to go to the tiger temple, which is a sanctuary for tigers and many other animals and is run by monks. It was a surreal experience lying down next to a sleeping tiger - I had never been so close to one before and it was a bit nerve racking at first, but they were so beautiful. After we finished playing with the big kitty's, we caught our bus back home to Chiang Rai and were back home before we knew it!
The last few days I've been teaching a fair bit which has kept me busy and out of trouble. Out of my last two weeks here, I've done a lot of work at the local child care centre's looking after 4 - 6 year olds. They are incredibly cute and full of life, and despite the language barrier they are amazing children. I've also been playing with some of the children at the local hospital one afternoon a week, and I had my first chance to teach monks last week. Teaching them has been the highlight of my trip so far. They were absolutely hilarious and so interesting to talk to. We taught them all about emotions and then asked them to come out and act each of the emotions in front of the class, and they would just sit there and mock each other and make fun of everyone! They were hilarious and I spent about half an hour talking to one monk about whose better: Manchester United or Liverpool. One of the monks also told me I had to do his homework for him; I playfully told him that cheating is very bad and he got very embarrassed but we spent a long time doing it together, and it was a great experience to help them. They were great fun and I even got one of the monk's email addresses to keep in contact with him - apparently whenever I come back to Thailand I have to stay in his room with him and he'll show me around Thailand (monk style!).
On the 9th January, we celebrated the national holiday - Children's Day. We had a staggering 2,100 children come to celebrate. We had stalls, shows, a live band, rides - it was a HUGE day and there was a lot of preparation involved. We spent hours the night before making sticky rice parcels and then woke up early the next morning to help prepare more food! It was a very busy day and having 2,100 children come to our stall to play a game of throwing a ball in a hoop was pretty exhausting! Extremely fun but extremely tiring!
I did have a challenging day recently - myself and three other volunteers spent a very long day at a school for special children. We were teaching a class of about 10 - 15 children who were full of life and were extremely funny. After about two hours, we had taught them everything that we had planned, so we spent the rest of the day playing games with them. One game consisted of getting a bottle of baby powder and singing a song, then when the music stops the person with the baby powder gets to put the powder in their hand and smother it over someone else's face. The kids absolutely loved it and everyone in the room had a a thick layer of baby powder all over their face. I found it quite challenging at the school though because the students (about 200) and teachers live there 24/7. I have enormous respect for those teachers who live there to teach, feed and care for these students all the time. 
So I finish up this coming Sunday and then I'm off to spend some time travelling around Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Thailand for another three weeks. I've had a great time here and I'm actually a lot sadder than I thought I would be to leave.   It's been such a rewarding experience and I cannot even put into words what I've got out of the last six weeks.