I don't even remember everything that has happened since the glorious trip to Samet and the less glorious school camp, but I'll do my best.
The third term of school melted swiftly into the fourth, with but a weekend separating the two. This is very strange planning to my mind, and made it feel like there was no difference at all.
About two weeks into term a friend came to visit from England, Matthew Gush, and so me, KC and Nicola duly made the trip down to Phuket to see him. We had a really really good time, and naturally the fact that it meant going back to the beach was part of that.
Ty's parents were in Phuket the same weekend, but as transport in Phuket is distinctly lacking (and the fact that I don't like driving a motorbike) I didn't get to see them until the next week when we were all back in Bangkok. It was really good to see them, I even got a bit emotional saying goodbye, since it was like having a piece of Ty with me again.
The next week (11 - 15 April) was eventually a break from school. This was because of the Songkran holiday, which is Thai New Year. Thais celebrate the New Year three times: once at the end of December with the western world, the Chinese New Year and then their own as well. Lucky!
We had heard that Songkran is basically one week-long water fight, and had a taste of this on the last Friday at school. Traditionally, Songkran is a time when Thais visit their elders, and many of them visit temples to pray and give alms to monks. At school 99 monks came to pray and chant, and we lined up to give alms, before the water fight started.
After this ceremony and a concert by the kids, all seriousness was over and kids and teachers alike descended into madness, with buckets and hosepipes all over the place. I got dunked a good couple of times, and all were soaking within minutes. There aren't many pictures of that, as obviously its not a good time to be waving a camera about.
But what happened at school in no way prepared us for what happened in Chiang Mai. We arrived on Tuesday morning, and although the festival was only due to officially start on Wednesday, there were already opportunists out with buckets and water guns. Its such a beautiful thing to see strangers, foreigners and Thais alike spending hours in the street wetting each other with whatever they can get their hands on. It starts at about 9am and continues to 7pm, every day for a week. Glorious. What is not so glorious is that some people have ice water, and a bucket of that poured over your head gives you a fright every single time.
'We' entails me, Nicola, KC, Kimmie, Ben and his girlfriend Lin, Jennie and her friend from England, Bernie. It was hard keeping track of such a huge group, and most of the time we didn't. But it was really good to spend some quality time with the girls, especially with Nic's departure so imminent. While there, we also met up with Mario, who was living in Chiang Mai for a bit, and Avery and her sister Mollie, friends from Phuket. Chiang Mai was full of tourists, not only foreigners and the atmosphere was really festive.
As Songkran is a religious holiday, we went and visited some temples, there were many Thais taking a break from the water fight and paying their respects.
On returning from Chiang Mai, there was not much time before it was time to say bye to Nics, our Thai pioneer. She flew back to Zim on Tuesday night and we went to see her off at the airport. I miss her very much, but we have plans to see each other in December. Her leaving brought home to me how my time here is also coming to an end, and I feel a bit frantic with all the things I still want to do. There are plenty more adventures to be had!
More about this weekend tomorrow.
