Cocktails here are £1.50. Bitchin.

Yesterday marked the first day that I truly experienced Thai rain in all it's glory. I definitely think I underestimated the rainy season.

 The morning started off slow- I even managed to have a lie in which is something I don't think Thais

Strawberry daquiri don't mind if I do

experience in their culture from what I've gathered. They all seem to wake up as soon as it's sunrise and they are all still so HAPPY! What. If I woke up at 6am every day I would probably be in prison by now. Managed to catch up on a bit of English TV and then Mr Smith took me and Flo for lunch. Bless him he's such a sweetie. He was telling us how sad he was that he had to teach that afternoon bearing in mind it was late on a Sunday. Teachers out here do seem to get a fairly rough deal compared to England. The hours are long (8am to 4pm), they have to teach on either a Saturday or a Sunday and their pay is minimal compared to England. The average teacher here earns 30,000 Baht a month which is the equivalent of around £600 and apparently the rate hasn't changed at all in 20 years. None the less, the teachers seem to really enjoy their jobs and they seem to really care about the kids' welfare which is nice!

Me and Flo then decided to bike down to the beach again and check it out. The weekend coming up is a long weekend so no

Love it here!

school from Thursday to Tuesday so I was thinking of booking out a place along the beach and seeing the resort by night instead of in the day. Where I'm placed is so beautiful and I have had little chance to explore it doesn't make sense to travel just for the sake of it. (Also Smith said he'd take me to watch Thai boxing on Friday night so I'm really hoping he does!)

The afternoon was so nice and we ended up having dinner and cocktails along the beach front before going home. Everything was lovely and we were just watching the sun set when a monsoon started. This was rain like I have never seen rain before and as we had to bike back before it got dark waiting was not an option. Cycling through Phuket in

"Lifeguard information- for single ladys" Lifeguard lads!

the pouring rain was certainly an experience and while I'm not keen to repeat it it was actually sort of fun. (Getting my clothes to dry in this humidity was somewhat less so)

Today was fine if a little dull. Mondays are definitely my favourite day of the week as I have no timetabled lessons apart from helping some second years with English vocab in the afternoon. However, next Tuesday some official people from the Thai ministry of education are coming and although I've not really been told much about it the English teachers are getting VERY stressed very quickly so I am assuming this means a lot for the

Pre-monsoon dinner view

school. We've been told to make flash cards and displays of English words all morning and I have a distinct feeling that the school are going to make me and Flo do some kind of presentation to welcome them and basically show off the fact they have two teachers from England here. So, I'm hoping that tomorrow won't be TOO busy...