Interesting....Took the opp to go to another school this week as my school was closed for Poetry Day to honour the Thai Will Shakespeare.. Went to Casey and Rachels school - 2400 pupil secondary school in Trang Town... Different kettle of fish altogether - much as I love the Sikao school, its kids and teachers it is somewhat rundown, poorly equipped and dirty. The Trang school is clean, well equipped and vibrant. I initially went there to observe but was soon whisked off by an English teacher to a class and told 'the lesson is yours' - went through the basics about me, my family and what a great place England is..:) Seemed to go well - the teachers wants me back so I've negotiated 2 days here and 2 days at Sikao. 6 weeks in it would seem sensible to see another school. what confuses me is the fact that the new shiny school is government funded and the Sikao school is parent funded. Sikao parents are fishermen and rubber plantation workers and are quite poor surely the gov should help them more. The Trang parents are townies with professional jobs generally who could flash the cash for their kids. Not had a satisfactory answer to this one yet??Went into town last night with a few people for some cold ones. Came out of the bar to find everyone had gone to bed - no taxis, tuk tuks.. Ended up blagging a lift with the local plod in the back of their truck - 6 of us ....I'm on a beach in Kho Pha Nang now having just arrived by night ferry which was awesome. take a big old wooden boat put in an upstairs , lay down loads of mattresses and provide a pillow like a brick, nail a fan to the support beams and there u have it, your bed for the night... Everyone just lays down next to each other and chills... With the warm sea breeze coming in the window and the gentle chug of the engine and the half moonlight - well.....Ko Pha Nang on the face of it seems to be full of drug crazed (and this was 0600 am) Brits.... Something to look forward to - will let u know how the 'full moon party' goes in the next installment..
right. its 2200 and we're having a cocktail on the beach waiting for our speedboat to take us to the FMP.......... in we get 26 people on a boat whose capacity is 17 .... nasty journey, petrol fumes, bumpy, too crowded- felt like shit....
basically you hug the coastline of Kho Pha Nang for about 40 minutes when suddenly you round a headland it and hits you. the pulsating throb of the FMP resonates out from the beach which at this point is still a mile away...... visually you see a mass of bright and flashing lights stretching about 1km along the beach... due to our overloaded boat we had to wait around before going in as the Feds were on patrol....
finally got there - an amazing place..... 1000's of people seemingly all with a smile on their face partying in countless bars to a mix of Techno, Pop and Rock tunes..... i spent most of my time in Cactus Bar dancing and drinking Vodka buckets.... because its so hot and youre sweating like crazy the booze seems to move through your system without you getting hammered.....
came out of there about 0500am - my friend Chrissie from Kansas snagged herself a matey from Aylesbury in England and i left her to content myself with a hot dog.... met the others and spent the next hour trying to find the return boat..... you wander into the shallows checking out all speed boats on view...... ours was called "luvly jubbly" - yeah really.....eventually found it i slept all the way back as the sun was rising....
had to sleep in a friends room as adam my room mate who had the key got lost with a bunch of Austrians.......
A great night with a great atmosphere and completely unthreatening even though everyone was out of it...
had a phone call from mum Sunday lunchtime - very upset, my Dad is very ill. i need to go back to England ASAP.
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