Some recent excursions

Reader, I must tell you, I have not just been teaching. I have also been exploring a little. These past few weekends I've ventured out of Phitsanulok to some choice nearby destinations.

First, a quick trip to the village of Sawankhaloke to visit my dear friend Marie. We took in the sights with a few of the girls at Sukhothai, where the ancient ruins of the 11th-15th century Thai capital make for a terrific day of bike riding. Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand prior to its relocation to Ayutthaya (see the my October homestay post for pictures of Ayutthaya). Now Sukhothai is a UNESCO World Heritage historical site, and it's also very very pretty. Large brick ruins in various states of disrepair and restoration, giant and ancient stone Buddhas keeping a calm watch on the few tourists and school children, lotus spotted lakes separating crumbling temples.






And also a trip back to Bangkok for Thanksgiving. Fulbright was ever so kind as to fly us back and put us to work cleaning the streets of Bangkok as a day of outreach and education. In reality, we spent about forty five minutes impeding the progress of actual Bangkok street cleaners before sitting down to a few hours of panel discussions about the state of street cleaning in Bangkok (thanks to Anna for some of these pictures).



Additionally, dear Fulbright made sure we got an authentic Thanksgiving feast by raiding the pantry at the U.S. Embassy grocery store (apparently such a thing exists). There were even imported Butterball turkeys! And cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Eating something other than rice and noodles was unbelievably exciting. The caterers actually voiced concerns to our host about the amount of food we consumed.

And finally, this past weekend was a three day weekend in honor of the King's 82nd birthday. After several hours of birthday ceremonies at school on Friday, I boarded a bus for the beach. It was total bliss.




Anna and I embarked on the trip with images of the backpacker-chic lifestyle in our heads, but ended up appearing significantly more like honeymooners than savvy young world travelers. Due to the holiday weekend every hostel and resort on the island was full save the Silver Sand Resort, which really ended up being totally lovely. However, it wasn't until right about when the resort's night club really got going that we realized we were staying at the island's gay hotel...

That's it for now. Sorry to bore you with a laundry list of activities. I hope you're doing well reader. Are you enjoying the brisk air of American winter? Have you seen snow yet (it's the cold season here too in Phitsanulok, which means 80 and sunny, though my students protest that this is still too cold)? Are the Christmas carols everywhere yet?

Yours truly,
Rebecca