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.
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| Me - Amy - Jamie |
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| Amy zipping |
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| 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!
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| Tiger Kingdom - Meme and Me |
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| Tiger Kingdom |
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| Thai Cooking Class |
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| Spring Roll Cook Off |
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| Riding Ellies is not as fun as you might think... |
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| Jungle Trek |
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| Wat Phra That Doi Suthep วัดพระธาตุดอยสุเทพ |
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| Sunday night street markets, Chang Mai |
