River Therapy

Hello everyone! For those of you who have heard about the flooding in Thailand, do not be alarmed...we are fine. For the moment our area of Bangkok seems to be safe. However, I only say for the moment, because it could change over the next couple days. Today at school we were all told to go immediately to a grocery store after work to stock up on food, water, and candles (which I have yet to do). The rain keeps coming, the rivers keep rising, and the tide is coming in (tomorrow). Not a good combination, especially since Bangkok is only 6.5 ft. above sea level. Despite how scary it may sound, I am sure everything in this area will be okay. Another thing to add on my “things I am thankful for” list this thanksgiving season, is having dry ground to walk on. Today one of my grade seven students told me that her house (located outside of Bangkok…she lives with a nanny here during the school year) is full of water. She didn’t even get a chance to try and save anything she had.
 
Before all the latest flood warnings were issued (areas of the country have been flooding since June) I managed to escape on a mini holiday as I mentioned in my last post. 5 of us teachers (4 from my school and one from another school) went to Kanchanaburi, a small city right on the River Kwai. It was a great weekend. We left right after school on Friday, and took a two hour bus ride to the place (costing a grand total of $2.96). The highlight our weekend was renting kayaks and floating down the river. Since the water was so high in the river, it pushed us the entire 4 hours we were floating. We paddled maybe a total of 20 strokes the entire time. No one else was on the river, it was so peaceful. I didn’t take my camera on the kayak since I was worried about it going overboard, but I wish I did. There were so many neat things we saw along the river including gigantic temples and statues, large skinny cows, picture perfect resorts, railway bridges, and floating houses. Near the end of our river trip, we stopped at a restaurant floating on the river. Aside from kayaking, we spend the majority of the weekend relaxing. We had many things planned like hikes to waterfalls, elephant trekking, and museum seeking…looks like we won’t run out of things to do for the next trip!



The guesthouse we stayed at.

 


View from the place.



Pool at the guesthouse.



Best outdoor sink ever.



Friday night dance parties.

What is used to fuel the dance parties.
(Buckets of alcohol are consumed through these colourful things).

Banana pancakes.

 

This is a country full of random things.

 

Floating on the River Kwai.

Kristin lounging.

The Burma Railway also known as "Death Railway".
Over 100,000 labourours died building it during World War II.

 

Annilee and myself.

The girls (Heidi, Annilee, Kristin & Louise) relaxing on Sunday morning.

I got in trouble by a few people who read my blog post a couple posts back (when I said I don’t think anyone reads this besides my brother and dad). I guess more people read this thing than I thought. Here is a SHOUT-OUT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! Thank you for thinking of me :)

I would also like to say a shout-out to Jack Attack. Happy 1^st Birthday!