Thailand, More Monkeys and a Movie

Wow, it's literally been ages since I wrote a blog post, and I honestly have no excuses of of being busy or whatever - I have been remarkably inactive for a month and a half of the two months since I last wrote. Honestly, I have just been lazy. Sorry. Anyway, here's a summary of how I've spent my time.

At the end of January Jo and I went on holiday to Thailand, although we almost didn't, we were flying from Singapore to Phuket in the early morning, and so we had to take the ferry to Singapore the night before, usually that isn't a problem, because there are regular ferries, but when we turned up at the ferry port we were told that all the ferries for that night were fully booked. Then followed a lot of pleading from us, until the woman at the counter finally found us places on the last ferry of the evening - phew!

So, with not too many more problems, and after getting a long-awaited Burger King (it's strange what things you miss when you don't have access to them), we caught our flight and arrived in Phuket.

We were planning on meeting two of Jo's friends from Poland, Agata and Olga, and getting a ferry to a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, but we had almost the whole day until they arrived, so we decided to explore Phuket a little, and found a bus that would take us from the airport to the town centre. Unfortunately the bus took forever (a precise measurement of the time wasn't possible due to sleep deprivation), driving the scenic route, and then when we arrived in Phuket Town we realised there wasn't really much there, and decided to get a bus to go to a popular beach called Patong.

We arrived there and it was a modern tourist town, with big hotels, bars, some shopping malls and lots of people. The first thing we did was stop at another Burger King, where I ate a triple whopper;

Then we did a bit of shopping and headed down to the beach, which was very beautiful, but a little crowded;

And Jo even managed to capture a couple of crabs;

After some relaxing beach time, we went back into the streets, as we had to find transport across the island to go and meet the Polish girls. As we headed along the streets, we came across a man who had a small monkey-like thing, and for a small fee he would let you take photos with the cute primate;

Shortly after that we found a taxi that would take us to the pier we were meeting at, from where we would get a boat to the island where we were going to stay. We arrived there just after sunset, and waited for the girls to arrive. When they came we exchanged greetings and then found our boat - a small longboat, not dissimilar to the boats the Vikings might have used, except for the outboard motor strapped to the back of it, and set off for our destination - Koh Yao Noi.

So we all arrived at our destination in the early evening, sat by the sea with a few drinks and chatted until it was time to go to bed. The next morning we woke up and were able to see just how beautiful and unspoilt our location was;

We were renting very nice chalets only a stone's throw (literally) from this beach, and so we all spent the next few days sunbathing, swimming, exploring, getting massages and eating delicious Thai food - there was one place that made a green curry which was one of the nicest things I have ever tasted. It was so relaxing, with good company, great food and fantastic scenery. I'd recommend anyone to go there.

After a couple of days we hired a boat and a captain and went on a tour of the surrounding islands. Our first stop was called Hong Island, which is a naturally formed lagoon, where the only way to enter is like this; 

The lagoon is very impressive, with high cliff walls and crystal clear water (until you stir up the sand), the boat rental included snorkelling gear, so we started to search for things; 

I managed to find some starfish, which were a source of amusement for a while;



but we couldn't find any fish, so we moved on with the tour. Our captain took us to beautiful island after beautiful island, most of them looking a bit like this;

There was one with a particularly nice beach and scenery, where there was shallow water and lots of beautiful fish. It was great for snorkelling, but as we didn't have a waterproof camera, this is the best picture I can show you;

After that we went to the last few stops on the tour, through more amazing scenery;

We even saw, from a distance, this cave quite high up on one of those rocky outcrops, which seemed to be inhabited by what I like to imagine are modern-day pirates;

The penultimate stop was two small islands joined by a sandbar, whaich was very picturesque, but by this time we were all quite tired and sunburned, so we didn't linger long;

The last stop seemed like an unremarkable island, but as we approached we saw why we were stopping there;

So we spent some time feeding the monkeys, before heading back to our resort to rest.

The next day we rented a pickup truck and went off to explore Koh Yao Noi. We went to the shopping area, and bought a few clothes, and then went around to the relatively isolated North side of the island. As we drove along we saw this sign; 

And decided to go and find out what this beach was like. The road turned out out to be a narrow dirt track, which wound through plantations of rubber trees, up hills and down gorges, which really tested my off-road driving skills;

But eventually it was worth it because we arrived at this pristine and isolated beach;

So we spent couple of hours there, before heading back, with a stop for food on our way. Later that day, Jo and I decided to rent a canoe and paddle out to another island we could see in the distance. I guess it was about 2km away, and we were paddling across open sea, but we made it without any problems, explores the island and paddled back. It was fun, and really felt like an achievement. We got all the way back to our island, and then I jumped out of the canoe to push it onto the beach - and landed right on a rock, putting a big gash in my foot - oops!

So our last day I stayed near the resort resting my injured footand my sunburn while the girls went to explore a nearby beach, and after some good food it was time to leave Koh Yao Noi.

Unfortunately, I had to go back to work, so I said goodbye to the girls as they boarded a boat to a town called Krabi, and I caught a different one going back to Phuket, so I could catch my flight back to Singapore and then to Batam.

They continued their holiday for another week without me, going on elephant treks, petting tame tigers and seeing ladyboy shows - generally making me very jealous with their updates on their days.

After that Jo came back to Batam, she only had a couple of weeks left until she went to Australia, so we made the most of the time by eating in the best restaurants, going to the beach;

And, of course, visiting more monkeys;

Then, sadly, all too soon, Jo had to leave. Since then my life has been a lot more boring (this is one of the reasons I haven't updated sooner). I have just been working a lot and trying to save as much money as I can. My plan is to go to Australia after my contract finishes in September, I have already been granted a year-long visa, so perhaps this blog will change from "English Teacher In Indonesia" to "English Man in Australia".

Anyway, while I am still teaching, I'll talk about what I do. With one of my classes I decided to try and make their learning more interesting by getting them to make a movie. We did an adaptation of the Cinderella story, with the students improvising all their lines and everything filmed on their mobile phones. The final product is probably not worthy of an Oscar, but if you are interested you can watch it here;

EF Nitarella on YouTube

It was such a good project that I have decided to do a similar thing with another one of my classes, so hopefully there will be another video in my next post.

Finally, this blog has been nominated for an award (whoever nominated me, if you are reading this, thank you) the nomination is for "Best English Teacher Blog" and there is a week to vote, so if you would like me to win, please click here

 

Fascination Awards - Teacher Blog

 

Thanks for reading everyone!