Thailand Firsts

A lot of firsts were had in Thailand, here are the top 12!

1.) Was thrown into the water by an elephant.
















2.)Was lifted by an elephant trunk

3.) Held a python snake

4.) Jumped through a hoop of fire

 


 5.) Saw a huge scorpion on my front porch

6.) Ate real Thai food

 

7.) Won an all teacher volleyball match

 

 8.) Sang karaoke on a bus

9.) Saw the Prime Minister of Thailand (This is the first leader of a country I have seen in person)

10.) Went to a floating market

 








11.) Drove a motorcycle 

 

12.) Set off a flaming lantern into the sky

New Year's on Koh Chang Island

Happy New Year- Sawadee Be Mai ( สวัสดีปีใหม่ )
New Year's on the biggest island in Thailand, Koh Chang.

Leaping at sunset

Sunset at the lookout point

For New Year's this year I went to Koh Chang Island, the largest island in Thailand.  It is extremely mountainous with lots of vegetation.  The island is famous for its waterfalls, coral reefs and rainforests.  Most of the foreign teachers at my school went.  We were scattered around at different parts of the island but periodically ran into each other.  

Lookout point in daylight

The trip there should have taken about 15 hours but took 22 hours due to some very slow buses stopping way too often.  I slept through most of the journey, as I am famous amongst my friends for so easily being able to sleep in anyplace.  We left on Friday at 8:15pm.  Though our bus did not actually leave Surin until 10:00pm.  We arrived in beautiful Koh Chang on Saturday night just as the sun was setting around 6:30pm.

Sunset in the flowers

Sunset at the beach

We spent Sunday relaxing on the beach and taking lots of photos in the water with my new waterproof camera.  On Monday Kira and I went scuba diving.  It was really great we saw a barracuda, trigger fish, and a scorpion fish.  We saw hundreds of thousands of fish swimming in schools and it was just beautiful.  The diving in Koh Phi Phi was better but Koh Chang is worth a dive.  

The crew of teachers in New Year's Eve

Jumping threw fire

                                                                                      Monday night we celebrated new year's eve on the beach at a huge beach party.  It was really fun and most of the foreign teachers from my school were there (about 20 teachers).  As is usual on Thai beaches there were fire twirlers and flaming hoops to jump through.  

mmmmm.... steak!

We also enjoyed lots of delicious western food.  I ate steak twice.  We also had Mexican at a restaurant run by a Spanish couple.  It's good to get a break from Thai food sometimes even though Thai food is amazing.

Monkey on the side of the road

The waterfall

On Tuesday we hiked to the famous waterfall on the island called Khlong Phlu.  It's a short 500 meter hike through the forest.  The water is really deep so you can jump into it from the rocks.  Its also really really cold and feels amazing on a hot Thailand day.  Since its dry season you could also swim under the waterfall.  We also saw some monkey's on the side of the road.

"under" the waterfall

We left on Wednesday mid-morning as we had to get back to Surin to teach on Thursday.  Our trip home took about 16 hours and was much more relaxed than the ride there.  We arrived back at 6:00am on Thursday ready to start work at 7:30!

Last year I was in Zanzibar for New Year's.   Click here to read about it.  http://www.sonyapeacecorps.blogspot.com/2012/02/28-day-holiday-backpacking-through.html