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| One more from the 2nd year outing! |
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| Carmen buying always :) |
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| Beautiful Temple |
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| Curse the people that decide this is okay! |
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| Ultimate Thailand Picture |
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| Headed into the floating markets |
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| Enjoying our elephant ride |
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| Even elephants on the beer |
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| Happy New Year! |
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| Koh Tao, Thailand |
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| majestic... |
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| you had to be forever young to make it to the top of this viewpoint |
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| Loving our holiday |
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| Made it to the top! |
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| Back into Cambodia |
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| Our lovely "tour guides" and their English is PERFECT ;) |
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| So we had to crop this picture because a little boy wanted to be apart of it, only he had on no clothes |
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| Peer pressure of the cricket! |
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| Thinking about it |
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| Going for it... |
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| Ohhhh and after |
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| A little moto ride to see Rith |
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So I sincerely apologize for the time it has taken to for me to share a little bit of my recent adventures with you, but hey here I am, so get ready!
So first fun little story for ya, good job! So this week in class as usual we are going over something, grammar, no, wait... prepositions of time and I ask Mara, one of my girls to give me an example of how to use AT in a sentence. She as usual, she stands up and gives me a sentence where without meaning to, she used at twice, so excited I said GOOD JOB quickly, apparently i got a little lazy and didn't pronounce it all, and Mara got a really confused look on her face and started to slowly sit down, which is unusual, I have to tell them thank you for them to sit down usually and everyone in class is looking a little flustered, so finally I ask, "What's going on?" and they said "Why did you tell her to sit down?" Now I am confused, and trying to understand what is happening. So they asked again, "Teacher, what did you say?" So repeated Good Job slowly and very clearly and then everyone was like OHHHHHHHH, Tr. we thought you said sit down in Khmer! So apparently ggkoo jauh in Khmer means sit down, so after she answered and I quickly said good job, she thought I snapped at her to sit down! So needless to say everytime I walk into a room, all the girls start saying Good Job as a joke, oh so many languages!
Also another neat story, I talked about it on Facebook so many of you probably saw it already, but here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia right across the street from my school/home there was a car with a Four Stars Auto Ranch decoy Henrietta, Texas legit, looked just like those in Henrietta. I left the school kind of in a hurry had to go out and make some copies and wanted to grab a Pepsi, but I had to be back in about 20 minutes and it looked like it was about to rain. So I crossed the street, walking in front of the market and there was an SUV (teaching a, an and the in class, but why does it seem right to say an SUV instead of a SUV??....Riddle me that!) I walked past and caught part of the decal but didn't think anything of it, and then suddenly I stopped and walked and just starred in awe for several seconds, HENRIETTA, TEXAS population, ~3,000 and a car from there across the world in Cambodia, Phnom Penh and literally sitting across the street of my house. WILD! I told the Sisters the story and one of them said I think I know what that is supposed to mean...I think it means that you are supposed to make it home. I laughed and said but it already is. Then she told me, no you wouldn't have said I'm in Cambodia and saw something from home! So although this conversation was light hearted and the story is so much fun to tell, I think there is a bit of truth in it, not that I am going to make this my permanent home as in the rest of my life, but maybe bringing a glimpse of my worlds together or just a nice little of home, either way I will definately never forget going out to make copies that day!
(Sorry I didn't take a photo, didn't have my camera and by the time I got back it was gone. But I kind of like it like this, a little blur)
So April was a lot of fun, I had already told you about the trip to the sea with the 2nd years and then they all headed home, then Carmen and I stayed at school for Easter weekend and celebrated with the Sisters as well as watched 3 of our students get confirmed. Such a huge three days in our church and to experience it all in another culture and language was something beautiful to see. Carmen talked about how universal it truly portrays our Church, that mass and the people, the traditions are all here as well and something about not being able to understand every word makes you really think about the thought that is behind it, why we do what we do, very reaffirming in your faith.
Then Tuesday we headed for Thailand, the plans evolved through many things, but our final trip was really eventful and so much fun. We left Tuesday afternoon, so all day Tuesday I was giddy as can be, we had a flight late afternoon (which was a decision in itself, we didn't plan on flying...a bus to the border cost approximately 9 dollars maybe and then a train from the border to Bangkok was around 50cents, but the more we looked into it and saw a flight on sale we went against it, we never got a solid answer as to how long the bus ride to the border was and if we would leave in the morning we figured we would get to the border after it closed or could take on over night bus which we weren't very keen on although later in the trip we spent one night on a train and another on a boat) to Bangkok stayed for a couple days and then took an over night train to Chumphon (coast town), then a ferry to Koh Tao where we stayed for about 5 days and then took a night ferry back to the coast. The night ferry was basically a small, small cargo ship and on the top were mattress laid out with number on the walls, such a funny feeling I woke up in the morning with a little girl on one side of me which the night before her dad had said she wasn't feel good, great right sleeping next to hte sick kid :) but when I woke up the next morning we were face to face and she just looked at me stuck her tongue out and then proceded to roll over, who knows what I did to her. This began almost a full 24 hours of traveling, and on the ferry I slept like a baby, Carmen on other hand not so much. After the got off the ferry which consisted of a plank, from the ship to the dock, it was so early in the morning we didnt think much of it at the time, but got a good laugh out of it later on. Then we were bussed to this cafe where we were told that the bus to Bangkok would pick us up at 7. I slept some more, sitting up in my car, Carmen managed to get a picture and then the bus arrived and we were amazed, considered we booked the night ferry and the bus together we were a little nervous what the bus would look like after the "ferry" but air conditioning, reclining chairs, a TV where I continued to sleep on and off the entire way, Carmen still hardly nothing, I'm sure she was cursing me inside! We got off that bus on the outskirts of Bangkok, knowing the town we wanted to get to and that we were supposed to go to the Eastern Bus Terminal...we quickly learned we were not at the eastern bus terminal so we tried to start asking questions where we learned we needed to get on a city bus 505 that stopped near the eastern bus terminal, but trying to find bus 505 was an adventure in itself, luckily we turned in the right direction where we played our 30 baht to go clear across the city, we arrived at the Eastern Bus Terminal bought a ticket to Chanthaburi a somewhat coastal town about an hour from the Cambodian border which left in about 15 minutes, go we went back out of the terminal so Carmen could get her last fix of 7 Eleven, that she had been dutifully going to every day in Koh Tao, I soon learned why, Ham and Cheese Croissant...heated. We were two of I think 7 people on this bus and within 3 minutes of leaving the terminal this lady in front of Carmen starting snoring non-stop until we got there. I, of course, slept about the entire trip and Carmen finally got some sleep. They dumped us at that bus stop around 9 pm at night, and we really hadn't planned anything in the way of where to sleep. We looked at a map of the area, and saw that there were several hotels with about a mile, so we got a quick ride to the nearest, that looked a little too fancy for us, but hey we were tired so we went in and luckily got our best room for the cheapest price of the entire trip!
We then the next morning ran into a Thai woman in the hotel and by the blonde hair, got the where are you from? and she asked if I wanted to teach English in Thailand, and in the process of explaining that I was actually serving Cambodia, she insisted that I go and have breakfast with her. So I went to the cafe in the hotel and she explained that she does mission type work in the United States and Thailand and that she lives in Texas for 3 months, Cali for 3 months and Alaska and then returns home for 3 months, trying to raise awareness and to get contributors for her work in Thailand. Very interesting lady, anyways we explained that we were trying to cross the border back into Cambodia later that day and she immediately says OH I have a friend that goes daily to the border, Ill give him a call and see if he can pick you up here. A bit skeptic Carmen and I were asked a few questions and it sounded like the same thing we would of had to do anyways but now we were getting a hotel pickup. 45 minutes our new friend was still waiting with us and he arrived with a large van and 2 others already inside, yes getting in that van, I had to take a couple of deep breaths but they were wonderful and that hour trip to the border contains some of our most humorous adventures of the entire trip including them dropping up off at the border to get our visas re-established and us standing outside waving goodbye, I'm sure such a funny image for anyone around that day! Once into Cambodia many drivers were waiting around and we hired a driver to take up the 2 hour trip to Battambang where we were staying with some of the Sisters there! We didn't have the address and had lost of phone and just continued saying Don Bosco, a well established name within many parts of Cambodia, and first we were taken to an elementary school where the teachers explained to our driver where the Sisters lived.
Bangkok was soooo fast within an hour of touching down, we were pushed through immigration, whisked through town in a taxi, led to our room, and into a movie....we wanted to see the Hunger Games right, so we splurged for the fancy theater. If you ever go, you have to try the tuktuks there, they are sooo fast and colorful, definatley an interesting way to see the city and we also took a long boat ride around and rode an elephant :) although it wasn't the ideal circumstances it was enjoyable and we talk with our guide learned our elephant name, Namy, i think and took a trip within the floating markets.
Koh Tao was BEAUTIFUL and so relaxing. I did a lot of hte research and particularly because I wanted to dive a bit while there, so we stayed on the edge of one of hte popular beaches I went out on the water every morning at 6 am where the water was like glass, gorgeous. Enjoyed some beautiful scenery, but those stubborn gentle giants (whale sharks) weren't quite ready to meet me. The day we left I saw on their page they saw TWO, one at one of the sites i dove twice and the other inbetween sites that we had swam between the day BEFORE. I was heartbroken to learn after getting back, but I feel like my time to meet these guys is coming soon, or man do i hope so!
Battambang, I believe will always hold a piece of my heart, a more rural town surrounding in every direction by rice fields. We were welcomed at the Sisters and some of our students showed us around through their home, showing us their favorite parts as well as meeting their families and visiting their homes. I was peer pressured into eating a cricket, the girls that it was so funny and the pictures back that up!
- Be at peace with your soul, and then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. --Reflect on that a bit, I quite like it!
