Practically famous

So this long weekend has been very long, but really hectic, and it's only Sunday night.

Thursday night was very bizarre as the director (basically the head teacher of the school) and three of his friends invited me out to dinner so I ended up getting wined and dined in a pretty cute restaurant where you sat in little bamboo huts with three men. The food was delicious but I can only imagine what the locals must've thought with four Thai guys taking an English girl out to dinner. I did receive some funny looks...

English classes at the temple for the religious festival

Being wined and dined

The next morning I was meant to be travelling with Pinky to Nakhon Si Tammarat district which is a five hour drive from Phuket. Orginally she told me we would be leaving before noon so imagine my horror when she rang me at midnight to say we would be leaving at 5.30am. (That is a time of day which makes me feel physically sick at the thought) None the less, 5 hours and two angry dogs later we finally arrived in her hometown. We were staying in Pinky's home which was nice and spacious but lacked things I'm used to such as wifi or a shower. Although her family were so lovely and did everything they could to make me feel at home, there were definitely times when I regretted the decision to not lie on a beach with a cosmopolitan for four days! On one hand, it was such a wonderful experience to live with a Thai family and they would have done anything for me (I'm pretty sure if I asked for Ryan Gosling on a silver platter they would have tried their hardest to sort it out) but I'm glad that I'm not spending the entire 9 weeks with a family. I'm not used to having so little independence.

One of the many temples I've been to recently

Initially, it was quite over whelming to be leaving in a small Thai town where, from the looks of things, they don't see many westerners. My first clue to this was people would shout "Barbie" at me in the street which, although flattering, is very very wrong. I don't think I've ever been called anything close to barbie in my life! Another sign was, at the local market, when I waved to a group of small children who were staring at me they ran away screaming. Which, not going to lie, is slightly damaging to your self esteem.

Buddhist monument at the bottom of the cave

What I also learned was that the weekend was essentially one big photo shoot. The family I was staying with had to have photos of me at all times in as many different angles as humanely possible. This got very tiring very quickly, admittedly. But it wasn't just members of the family who would take photos of me- literally anyone who owned a camera in the town seemed to find me over the 3 days and take a photo. I was sat
in the hairdressers (wash and blowdry for the equivalent of 60p loving it) for 3 different women to come in, take a photo with me and promptly leave. One woman desperately wanted me to be photographed with her son but he was so cute I didn't really mind! I felt pretty famous! Going back to England is going to be such an anticlimax when no one asks me for a photo in the street..

The weekend actually was quite fun despite all of this! We went to a waterfall, temples and shopping etc which was all very nice and was interesting to see another part of thailand which wasn't really touched much

What a sweet heart! #selfies

by tourists. On one of the days we went to a local temple which is beside some caves where there's over 200 steps to the top. Once at the top you can enter the cave where there is a Buddhist monument right at the bottom and, as it turns out, a Buddhist monk. With the help of Pinky to translate I ended up having a chat with the Buddhist monk who now slept in the cave "because his heart told him to one day". It was at this point in time, when I was chatting to a monk in a cave, where it became apparent how weird my life was now- I was used to spending my days watching Made in Chelsea reruns and eating tangfastics and now I was in Thailand talking to monks. What. I've nearly done 3 weeks here and still have a long way to go which is a bit daunting but hopefully the rest of my time here will be just as good!