No room at the Inn

This weekend we went to Koh Samet which is and island to the South East of Bangkok...we set off at 5:45 in the morning as we didn't have any accommodation and we couldn't book anywhere (everywhere we phoned said they were full!). When we got there, we walked around - and each place basically told us "it's a holiday weekend, we're full, everyone's full!"...actually that's not exactly what they said...what they said was in Thai...I've got to that stage now where I can ask people questions - but if they answer in Thai and it's not one of the 3 words I know I'm a bit stumped! So after the first few places I started asking in English...Anyway here's a picture that I took from a restaurant we ate in on Sunday afternoon.


I went with four other volunteers (see picture below - sorry for the poor quality btw), they are (from left to right) Frida (Sweden), Megan (UK), Lena (Sweden) and Elli (Sweden)...it was a really nice weekend and we all had a cool relaxing time...well that is until the last day - when we all got food poisoning! We had to wait something like 5 or 6 hours for the bus back to Bangkok and during that time we ate at a place across the road from the bus station - which unlike most of the places we eat in Thailand was actually a proper restaurant...still we're pretty sure that's where we all caught something - some got it worse than others, I wasn't too bad...I wasn't sick, I just...well, actually, you don't want to know what I just had - but whatever it was, I'm OK now and so is everyone else thankfully...to be honest I'm quite surprised that it's taken this long for anyone to be ill - hopefully it won't happen again too soon as it wasn't particularly pleasant for everyone involved.

I thought I should let you guys know that I have been doing loads of other stuff while I've been out here but I haven't had time to put it all on the blog...just as an example, a couple of weeks ago we went to Wat Pra Kaeo, which is the main tourist attraction in Bangkok (also called The Grand Palace)...it was pretty impressive, and definitely one of the things that you should do if you are in Bangkok but I have to be honest that by the end of it I felt like I'd OT'd...that's Over Templed btw...

Tomorrow we're going to take some of the guys (at the orphanage) out to the zoo...which will be really cool for them I think...Jeff and I suggested it, and Jeff is going to pay for it out of some of the sponsorship money he raised before coming out...I'll let you know how it goes and try to take a few pictures as well.

Also, while I'm on...some of you will know that there has been an update on the situation with my PGCE course - I won't give the full details now as I'm going to wait until everything's confirmed but let's just say that things are looking a little better than they were a couple of weeks ago!

Take care.