Teaching English in Thailand: Day 18, Adventure Fails

Day 18: Saturday 11th July

 

The first ellie that I've seen in Thailand.... Sad times

As I mentioned yesterday, everything so far about this weekend’s trip has been hilarious: the pre-departure meal, the toilets, the bus journey, the lack of beds, the dogs…. So today we were just waiting for more hilarity to top it all off. 

My bedside view

We woke up at the wonderful hour of 11 in an amazing bed. Next to my bed was a curtain, and what I didn’t know was that behind the curtain was a huge window, overlooking a pretty little area outside with a pond, or as I called it, the lake – just to make it more fancy. We drank complimentary hot chocolate in bed, and I dunked in some peanut butter(!) Oreos, which were so dreamy! It’s the simple things in life J

We headed to the hotel café for some breakfast, seeing as it was literally the only place around to go to! The café was very cute, with lots of pictures and teacups hanging from the walls. Unfortunately, the menu was all in Thai so we ended up ordering the one thing that the waitress could explain: bread and jam. Unlike the jam on toast that we expected, we were given a huge wedge of bread, covered in jam that was so thick it was almost jelly. It wasn’t too bad, so we stuffed the sugary treat down our throats, along with condensed milk and sugar-filled iced tea and coffees.

We called a taxi to take us to another hotel so we could go swimming in the sunshine. Guess who turned up? Our best mate in his party taxi!! There we were, partying on down the road at high speed to Pitbull, when he made a U-turn and went back in the direction we came from. We were all getting a bit irate, thinking he was just trying to add figures to the taximeter, and when we arrived back at our hotel, we were all pretty confused about what was happening. Then, the hotel receptionist came to the taxi and handed me my bag of underwear and other bits that I was taking to the swimming pool! Silly me left it in the café! Awkward!

 

Candid

When we finally arrived at the other hotel to use the swimming pool, we were sent on a wild hunt for the pool by the hotel staff. First, they told us floor 6, so up we went. No pool on floor 6. Lets try floor 7… Nope! We ended up asking the maintenance man who directed us to floor 2, and finally we found it. We had arranged to meet another ETA at the pool, so after a short time of us being there, Harry arrived. We had some sun for only about 30 minutes, and then it started to cloud over. The clouds filled the sky and everything went grey, but we stayed in the pool for a few more hours because we had longed all week for a pool! The thunder and lightening was what eventually got us out of the pool, because I’ve heard that its just a teensy bit dangerous, what with water being a huge conductor of electricity and all that!

We got out and hid under the shelter, where the air was still warm enough to dry us. Once the rain had subsided, we jumped in a taxi in search of some food. We ended up eating in a farang pub/restaurant, which was just what we wanted! Beef burgers, chips, spaghetti (for me, of course) and onion rings galore! Again, all we wanted was western food this weekend, after shoving in so much rice and spice over the week. 

After eating, we went for a stroll in the now-dry province of Loei. We wandered round the streets, admiring all the different street foods and little shops. Jess and I both bought a banana pancake/ roti from a street vendor. It was delicious, and so unbelievably sweet! Lashings of sugar and condensed milk are added to everything nice in Thailand! 

Mmmmmm sugar

Love a good sunset!

We eventually came to a bar, overlooking the river. We ordered some beers and sat outside as the sun made the sky go pretty colours. We stayed there all night, listening to the live bands play, drinking some nice Thai beers, chatting and getting bombarded by a range of bugs. At one point, we even had a stray dog and kitten come to join us, much to our delight and love of Thai dogs! We left at about 23:30 and unfortunately didn’t get into our usual party taxi who’s car smells so strong of flowers it starts to smell like sick before long. What a shame.

 

Drinkypoos

Such a good band!

Tonight, Kirsty deserved a nice comfy bed, but neither Jess nor I wanted the floor. So we cuddled each other’s feet all night long in the classic 12-year-old sleepover style.

So, there were some more funny events to add to the 'stupid things that happened in Loei' list, including the annoyingly thick 'jam on bread', my clumsiness when leaving my underwear around, and the annoying weather stopping me from becoming a golden princess! Let's see what tomorrow brings, eh?!

Peace,

Olive