NOODLE NONSENSE: Sawadee Ka Noodle Nonsense (and March 2012)

Well….I’m back! It’s clearly been a long time since I blogged last… One year and three months! I’m currently up at my beach house in Maine right now and I randomly decided to read my Thailand blog for the first time in over a year and realized how I should have kept writing it!! Not just to blog but to help me remember things, people and places. My adventure in Thailand is over (SO SAD) and I’ve decided to write a wrap up, mostly just for my own records and memories before I start my next adventure…

My year in Thailand was the most incredible year of my life! I never expected to have the journey that I had and I am so thankful that I stayed past the planned six months and wish I stayed longer than the year I did. I lived an extremely happy life, somehow became a teacher (whatttt), made amazing friends from all around the world that I love dearly, and traveled to places that I never imagined. However, every journey must come to an end and I left Thailand to pursue my goal of a career in International Relations. After arriving home at Thanksgiving, I sank into deep culture shock, tore my hair out trying to figure out what to do next, applied to a hundred different types of jobs, almost booked a flight back to Thailand on about ten separate occasions and finally may have found what I was looking for. Instead of pursuing a masters in International Relations, I found some great grad school programs with a masters in International Education Policy, which will be perfect for me IF I can get in next year. Since it took me a few months to figure this out and I missed the application and financial aid deadlines, I’ll be applying next year for a Fall 2014 start. So until then………..I’ve decided, why not go abroad again and have another adventure?!?! We all know that I’m not meant for life in America just yet and am dying to get away and travel again. I’m going to finish the school year up here as I’ve been working as a Special Education Behavior Assistant and then get out of here!!!

BUT before I start talking about the next journey, let me try to do a recap of the major highlights from nine months that I neglected to blog about in Thailand…Writing about everything would be the longest blog post ever and there are just so many great things that I did that I just can’t write about the all so I’ve picked my favorite two events from each month that came to memory first and will post consecutively about them …. My last post was in February 2012 so let’s start with March 2012….

MARCH 2012 :

Ziplinning in Thalang … Not sure whose idea this was but it was a great one. I think we had a day off from school for some reason so Amy, Jamie and I drove up to the North-western side of Phuket, literally into the jungle. This part of the island is very undeveloped with lots of rubber tree farms and old rice patties and I honestly had no idea it even existed. We arrived at “Cable Jungle,” a ziplinning haven in the middle of nowhere and I was extremely excited because I had never been ziplinning but had always wanted to. Once they found out we were teachers, we got a discount and lots of special attention so that was nice. We started on the practice zip where I missed holding the break and immediately crashed into a tree on my first run. I was thinking, “Oh great, this is going to be a disaster” but nevertheless, I got the hang of it. I forget how many zips we went on but I think it was something like 17 and we screamed our way through all of them. It was so fun and SO HOT. I swear I have never sweat like that in my life. Lucky for us, the guides were very experienced with cameras and I have some great pics and funny videos. I even figured out how to post a video below...We ended up at Bake in Cherntalay for a late lunch where I had the best sandwich (good sandwiches in Phuket were very few and far between) and then jumped in the ocean. Pretty sweet day off from school if you ask me.

Me - Amy - Jamie

Amy zipping

We survived!

Chang Mai – Spent a long weekend in March in the lovely city of Chang Mai up in Northern Thailand. Nancy, Courtney, Amy and I had a packed weekend and I wish I had had time to make another trip up there to see Chang Rai and Pi as well. Highlights include: elephant trekking, hiking in a rainforest, swimming in a freezing cold waterfall, hanging out in tiger’s cages at Tiger Kingdom, taking an authentic cooking class, celebrating St. Paddy’s day dancing in the streets of the Old City, seeing the stunning Doi Suthep temple and exploring the massive Sunday night street markets. Started my Christmas shopping seriously early this year. There were some tears at the end of this trip as we unfortunately had to say our goodbyes to Amy as she headed back to South Africa. I miss you Ams!