The next Victoria Pendleton

It feels like I've just had the most hectic weekend but I have no idea why!

Nai Thon's pretty nice!

Friday's lessons actually went really well. Normally I hate Fridays because the lessons are long, I don't feel like I'm making a difference in my Maths for Architects class as everything I say is just translated directly into

Batman made it to the mall

Thai, and I only had one lesson with the Hospitality 3rd years which was an absolute disaster. So much so that last week apparrently they told the teacher who taught them before I was due to that they had no more lessons so they could get permission to leave the school early. And proceeded to not show up to my lesson. I don't thin I hit it off very well, considering they spoke no english and I had no Thai teacher to translate. However, this lesson went reasonably well and they all seemed to enjoy it which really boosted my confidence! (I'm going to ignore the fact that I was told I would be teaching the next lesson without a Thai teacher as I don't want to think about how horrendous that will be)

So, in a good mood and feeling confident I started the afternoon in high spirits about how the first play rehearsal was going to go.

Cute and asian- like a panda

I mean, it's hardly Shakespeare but it is funny to see the kids act out their little roles. Unfortunately, Teacher Glenn, the American teacher who taught English had been having ongoing problems with obtaining a work permit to continue teaching. Something had aparrently kicked off between him and the director that afternoon (as to what exactly we are still unsure- we seem to be kept out of the loop a bit in Thailand!) which resulted in him dramatically entering the classroom where we were working with EP2 and our mentor for him to say that he hoped that the students had a nice life and wished them the best of luck for the future! Long story short, me and Flo spent the majority of the afternoon confused as students started crying and screaming and lots of Thai teachers seemed to be consoling. To this day we're not entirely sure what kicked off.

The weekend was comparatively really relaxed. Saturday we managed to successfully catch the airport bus to Central shopping mall in Phuket- a large westernised mall

SOMETHING THAT'S NOT RICE!! <3

where you can buy absolutely anything British (for an extortionate price). It was nice to just be able to shop though like in England and, believe me, seeing "Belvoir fruit farm" juice being sold 6000 miles from home is THE most exciting thing! (convincing Flo that it's pronounced "Beaver" rather than "Bell-voir" was the hardest part of this situation) I'm also impressed that we successfully managed to catch a time tabled bus here- Thais are often very lax in their timings and I've heard horror stories about their bus system but we did it! It also means we have another way of getting around. It's very frustrating that public transport here is terrible and none of the teachers who are in any way responsible for us have a car. It sometimes feels as though we are very limited in what we can do with our time here as there is literally no way for us to get very far at all. For example, next weekend (after payday!) I am absolutely dying to go on an Elephant trek in the elephant reserve on the island. However, I have no idea how we can get there when taxis are extortionate, no buses run to Chalong, it's too far to cycle, and none of the teachers who are responsible for us have a car. It's so so frustrating at times and we're not

Biking up that hill was a nightmare

entirely sure what to do.

Sunday was spent cycling the 8/9km to the next beach Nai Thon just to check out some different surroundings on the island. What we weren't banking on was the absolute trek of a mountain road we were supposed to cycle up before we got there- I swear, as someone who counts walking to the fridge as exercise I have never been in that much pain. Eventually we made it to Nai Thon beach which was a lot smaller but more beautiful

It's not too bad here

than Nai Yang and had less shops and restaurants. The biggest difference was that there seemed to be a massive Russian population in Nai Thon- all the restaurant menus and signs were in Russian, Thai and English. Apparently, there is a problem with the Russian Mafia in Phuket who knew! It was a really nice day though with such beaut weather and once again teaching in Thailand with beaches like these on your doorstep really isn't that bad of a deal!