Kanchanaburi- Take 2

I mentioned in my last post that I only have four weeks left of school and that time really feels like it is flying.  While that’s true, I am pretty ready to be finished with the teaching portion of my trip.  It gets old spending so much time traveling to and from your weekend destinations, and when Saturday is the only full day you have to relax, the weekends seem like a huge blur.  School itself is starting to drive me kind of crazy too.  Though I know that all of us teachers here have had to deal with students who couldn’t care less that you are standing in front of them, my issues recently have been more administrative.  Don’t get me wrong; I really like my school and they treat me very well.  The staff couldn't be nicer, I've found a great friend in my Filipino colleague (the other English teacher), and the students, though challenging, are overall good kids.  It’s just that things are run differently over here (to be expected) and at times it can be frustrating.  I’ll leave it at that for now; if you are curious and want more details, feel free to ask me the next time you see me in person.

Whenever I travel, there are always a few songs that stick with me as the songs of the trip, usually because I hear them everywhere.  Here's another one that I hear almost every weekend; is this song popular in the US?  Definitely a party song here in Thailand!

Last weekend, I headed back to Kanchanaburi with Audrey, Shari, and Brittany.  Though Laura and Kelli were away for the weekend, our South African friend Eva was around, and she had four friends visiting her for the weekend.  We all made a plan to head to Erawan National Park, which is a 7-tiered waterfall park and easily one of the biggest attractions around Kanchanaburi.  We only ended up spending a short amount of time with Eva and her friends because our group left earlier in the morning, but we all had a really fun day at this beautiful park.

I was the only one who wore a bathing suit; there are fish in the waterfalls and they peck at you, which freaked some of the girls out a little bit.  It's kind of like a fish pedicure for your whole body!  It was so hot and humid; I was glad I could go swimming.

People were sliding down the big rock into the water

The water was such a pretty color of blue-green; hard to get a true sense of it from the pictures.

We hit the town on Saturday night, and on Sunday, we had planned to go to an open safari, where animals literally come right up to your tram and you can pet/feed/take pictures with them.  Unfortunately, due to some wrong information, we missed the safari start time (grrrr), so we went to the local market instead.  I guess I was destined to play with animals that day, as this little leopard cub from the safari was on display.  So cute!

Priceless!

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks at school working on Project Day (everything from science projects to skits and dances), grading final quizzes, and preparing final exams.  There are a few remaining places (that are close to me) that I'd like to get to before I finish up on March 2nd, but afterward, I plan on traveling around Southern Thailand before flying to Hong Kong on March 21st to meet up with my friends from home (SO excited).  Lots to look forward to...just have to get through the next couple of weeks!  Until next time....Sawatdee kah!