1st week in Thailand

On Sunday our group woke up at 7:00 to be ready to depart our hotel in Shianoukville at 7:30. It was so tough leaving the group we were such a close group and we didn't want to leave one another. Of course we did and headed in the opposite direction of our friends. There was only five of us on the bus and our bus driver did not speak any English. He was a speedy driver. We went through the hills and mountains toward the Thai boarder and on a couple of occasions I nearly fell off my seat. We made it to the Thai boarder in a matter of hours and when we got there our bags were immediately taken by these two Khmer ladies and loaded into a metal cart. We went to the Cambodian immigration window to get our exit stamps and give our departure slip and then walked across the boarder to the Thai immigration window. To get across the boarder was interesting. You just walk through some gates on a paved road each side has barbed wire and to the left you see the ocean. We weren't sure whose side we were on as we walked the 100 meters to the Thai boarder. Once we got through Thai immigration, which took no time at all, we went in search of our bus driver with our two Khmer ladies following us. We walked around for a good 30 minutes and could not find our driver. So I had to call our Program director Rick to figure out what to do. I guess our driver had been there the whole time he was just parked off to the side and he wasn't waiting outside his van so we never saw him. So he pulls up a very nice van gets us all in and off we go. What was great about this van was it had a tv and dvd player so we watched movies on our way to Pattaya. Pattaya is beach town about a two hour drive out of Bangkok. It is a tourist city and is quite dirty. The beach is not too nice and not a lot of people visit it. The most famous thing here is "Walking Street" which is a street full of bars, ping pong shows, and girly bars. We finally made it to the LanguageCorps building at like 6:30pm we were given our rooms and told to meet with our teach Jam who explained what time we needed to be up in the morning, what we were expected to wear, and our schedule for the next two weeks. After that we went a couple of stores over and had some dinner. It was a pretty quiet dinner we were all just so exhausted and wanted to get to bed. We all turned in early so to be ready for our first day.

Pretty much our days here are all the same. We get up at the same time everyday to go to student teach and we go to Thai class at the same time everyday. I teach at a local church. It takes me two minutes to walk there everyday and I have had about the same five ladies the entire time I have taught. The ladies at the church are great . Everyday they make me coffee and feed me till I am stuffed. They want to learn and are such great students. The only thing is that I really need to be on my game. My class is 2 hours everyday so I have to plan to do a lot of stuff because we do go through a lot in one day. I work my butt off for this class. Everyday I am printing off more pictures and making three or four worksheets just so we have enough to do in a class. I think I am doing too much and I have heard others who have done a lot less but I just can't seem to not do all the work. I do really love the ladies at the church they just love to take care of me and I am truly grateful . My favorite part of the days have actually been my Thai lessons. Even though Thai is ridiculous I am enjoying trying to learn it. There is no way I will be able to read or write it but if I can get by conversationally I will be happy. The tones in the Thai language are what are tough they have one word with five different tones and it can mean five different things. If you pronounce a tone wrong on lets say the word for banana it could be a curse word. That is probably the hardest part of learning this language.

As for exploring Pattaya there really hasn't been any exploring. We are busy all day long and by the time we can go explore we are too exhausted. Pretty much we have just checked out restaurants and stores. I haven't really determined if I like Thailand I have not been able to see much of it. I am keeping positive my room is not all that great but it could be worse. We have been job searching so hopefully I will have some idea of where I am going. I know where I want to be and have found the ideal job in the city of Chiang Mai now all I need to do is get the interview and hopefully the job. I am worried that if I start working right away I won't have time to travel which I would hate but maybe after a few months I can get comfortable making weekend trips to places. I think if I was to live in a city like Chiang Mai there would be plenty to do on the weekends to keep me busy for a couple of months. If Chiang Mai doesn't work I can always go down South were it looks like the rest of my group is going. The only reason I don't want to go down South is that it is close to the beach and I have lived near the beach for 12 years I want to do something different while I am here.