"I love meth"

During an English seminar last month my American friend, Sarah, and I met some lovely Thai teachers who wanted to 'adopt' us; one of these ladies was called Pan and she offered to take us to The Thai Elephant Conservation Centre just outside of my hometown, Lampang. Thailand is unfortunately infamous for its mistreatment of elephants however The Conservation Centre is the only government-owned elephant camp, it's known for its pioneering conservation and science work plus it is home to HM King Bhumibol's own elephants so it seemed like somewhere I'd be comfortable visiting. We watched the elephants bathe with their mahouts, fed them bananas and corn, got hugs from baby elephants and saw them paint pictures with their trunks. One week later during the morning drive to school through countryside villages, in a completely different part of the province, I saw a huge flash of grey in my peripheral vision and suddenly the car swerved off the road and screeched to a halt because a baby elephant, bigger than the car, had just run across the road. You don't see that every day! 

The elephants loved their bath - some of the smaller ones would roll around squirting water in the air with their trunks.

Baby elephants!

This is Kru Pan getting up close and personal with the elephants - they weren't in cages or enclosures.

The centre has an on-site hospital and manages a free mobile clinic for needy elephants - this big guy was getting his foot seen to.

After the elephant camp Sarah and I found an actual club with a dance floor in Lampang! But...this is Thailand and so the dance floor was full of tiny tables that everyone kept tripping over!

On the same weekend J Muoy took me to 'Hug You' sheep farm which is basically a load of outdoor structures for people to pose for photos with (this is photo-obsessed Thailand after all!) as well as a few 'sheep' that looked suspiciously like goats.

Halfway through September I needed to visit Chiang Mai again to get my visa extended for another thirty days. I woke up at 3.30am and walked a mile and a half along a motorway in the dark to the bus station in the hope I'd get into the queue at the immigration office by 7.30am. To my utter frustration and dismay the bus broke down halfway there (T.I.A.!) and we were trapped inside the bus for over two hours whilst the rain raged outside; I couldn't figure out what was happening because of the language barrier and I was incredibly worried that I would be too late to extend my visa and possibly be kicked out of the country and lose my job but...what I was most concerned about at the time was the fact that I was starting to feel sick with hunger so I had to resort to eating someone's snack that they had left unopened on the bus...needs must! Later on that day I was walking in Chiang Mai city when I saw a cat on its back in the street with its legs in the air which is not an uncommon sight considering how many cats and dogs wander the streets of Thailand; on closer inspection I realised it was bloated, covered in flies and it was, in fact, very dead. Now, I have seen a lot of dead things in Asia (including humans!!) but never have I seen such a spooky case of rigour mortis as this cat with its scraggly paws frozen in a desperate clawing motion.

Luckily I was able to sort out my visa and force the memory of the cat out of my head so the rest of the weekend in Chiang Mai went very well; I spent the day at a swimming pool under a perfect blue sky once the rain had cleared and I bought a replacement camera and spent the day photographing the city.

My friend, Kiren, came to meet me in Chiang Mai. We found a kebab stand after craving them for a very long time and whilst we ate a drunk Thai man sang to us and showed us magic tricks with matches. 

Rachel, a teacher we'd met during an English seminar, came to visit Sarah and I in Lampang one weekendand the three of us squeezed on a moped and scooted round the city.

There was a Lanna, which is the name for the culture in the north of Thailand, and ASEAN concert in Lampang when Rachel came to visit.

After discovering that we can rent mopeds in Lampang, Sarah and I took turns at weekends to drive each other around the countryside.

We stopped at rice paddies - these little huts are where the farmers rest during their hard work on the fields.

I always have a lot of fun with my students at school because I organise a lot of games and activities for them plus, when I stand in front of the classes full of children every day, I feel like I am on stage and I find myself entertaining them like a clown which is especially enjoyable since Thai students are very happy kids. The students have been making me laugh a lot recently; I'd asked a class of my seventeen year-olds to write down questions I had written on the board and fill in their answers in English in preparation for a Q&A speaking activity and one boy decided to copy the answers from another student (rampant copying in school is a big issue in Thailand, in universities they've been known to make students wear paper helmets to prevent it) however he'd copied the words into the wrong spaces for example he'd written 'yesterday I ate Italy for lunch' and 'my telephone number is chicken' - the whole class and I were killing ourselves laughing about this, as did the boy in question after someone explained to him in Thai what he'd written. I have to try really hard not to laugh at some of the things the children say sometimes, especially since I find it off-putting when I get laughed at when I attempt to speak Thai. I am beginning to really appreciate just how difficult English spelling is to non-native speakers, especially those that have a completely different alphabet; I get a lot of 'I am fanny' (i.e. 'I am funny'), 'I feel wankerful' (i.e. 'I feel wonderful') and 'I love Meth' (i.e. 'I love Math'...well, hopefully that's what they meant)!!

My duties at school included designing and writing an English exam for each of the six high school years I teach. I asked them to spread their desks out to prevent cheating and it was the first time I've managed to get them to be silent all semester!

The school is very close to some large mountains and so the rain can get pretty violent during rainy season - often we'll travel ten minutes down the road only to discover it's been bone dry there all day.

Some of my younger students being silly.

Each year is split into two classes, higher and lower, and this is M6/1 so they are the oldest and brightest students in the school and I have to say they are definitely my favourites as they are so funny, polite and keen to learn.

Our 'Thai Mum', Pan, often takes Sarah and I to restaurants for dinner - once she cooked a big Thai spread for us at her house including a massaman curry which is a chicken dish with potatoes and coconut cream.

I have always been a 'dog person' but after suffering through endless sleepless nights because of the barking dogs next door I am starting to see cats in a different light, especially this fluffy one who likes to shop in my local 7/11!