First Day of Class 5/16/17

Our first day of work was on a Friday, an odd day to start the school year, but nice to have the weekend to assess the classes and create lesson plans. The workday began at 7:45am, we clocked in, I went to the staff room in the Prathom building (elementary), and Ryan went to the Mathom building (middle/high school). When I got to the staff room I immediately found the fellow foreign teachers. There were three guys, one from Canada and two from England. They had all been working there a few years or more, so they knew the system. I would be working with Daniel. We had the same schedule, except he taught social studies and I taught health. The way it worked, we would both walk to the homeroom of each class we had, and we would divide the class in half. I would take students 1-24 (group A), and he would take students 24-50 (group B). There are four classes to each grade level, and there are six grade levels, all of them which we split in half, which means I only see each class once every two weeks. As far as lesson planning goes, this makes it easy on me, since I only have to plan a lesson every two weeks, but for the students it doesn’t seem like a very good strategy. How are students suppose to remember what they are taught in a fifty minute lesson if they only see me once every two weeks? Some aspects of Thai teaching re very different from the United States. For example, because I work at a private school and parents pay for their children education, they expect their students to receive all passing grades. So it is against the rules of the administration to give any students below passing grades, even if the student refuses to do any work. The laid back life style of Thai culture is also very prevalent in the school system. It is so laid back that it can definitely be seen as unorganized and not prepared. On the first day my classroom changed three times. At first I was to move classrooms every time I taught, and then I was told I would be teaching in the staff office, and finally I was placed in my own room. I was so grateful for this. The room was large, with plenty of desks, an open area, and whiteboards. The only downside was there was no air conditioning, but I wasn’t going to complain because I had my own room, which was a lot more than most of the other foreign teachers got. The first Friday of teaching I was suppose to have taught five classes, but only ended up teaching one. Every class I went to to pick up my students their Thai teacher said that they were behind schedule with their class, and that they wouldn’t have time to make it to my class. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to teach, but was also happy for that time to clean up the classroom and perfect my lessons. One of the things that is definitely different about teaching in Thailand is the resources. I went to the office to ask for paper, and they were hesitant to give me any. Finally they gave me a small stack of white paper from the photocopy machine. I got the impression that if I needed any materials I would have to buy them myself. While I was in the office getting paper, the head of administration for Pathom greeted me. She looked at my outfit; a long blue skirt that went down to my ankles, and a white long sleeve button up blouse, and told me that my skirt was too long. I thought this was funny, because I wore the exact same outfit when I saw her a week ago in the interview, and she told me my outfit was fine. The school is an all girls catholic school, and I knew that they would be finicky about dress code, but I never thought they would have told me my skirt was too long. Almost all of the staff at the school don’t know a word of English, so communication is difficult and nearly impossible. For that reason, I am happy there are other foreign teachers who have been there a while who can answer some of my questions. When lunch time came around I made my way over to the Mathom building with the other teachers where we went to the staff cafeteria and were served a free lunch. The lunch was rice, chicken, and cucumbers. I found an open table and sat down. Ryan joined me shortly after and we told each other about our day. Like me, he hadn’t taught any classes yet. Earlier in the morning there was a school assembly that I didn’t know about, but Ryan went to. He said that in the assembly all of the new teachers got up on stage to introduce himself, and he was the only white person among a line of Thai people. One by one they passed the microphone, everyone spoke in Thai, and when Ryan got the microphone he introduced himself and said what grades he was teaching. When he did this, the girls in all of his grade levels, began to scream and cheer, like he was a celebrity. When he told me this I was so disappointed that I wasn't there to see, or to be on stage and introduce myself as well, but the foreign teachers in the prathom building didn’t go to the assembly, so I was unaware that there was one. When we finished lunch we washed our dishes. This is one aspect of Thai culture that I think should be in American culture. All of the students and teachers wash their own dishes after their meals. Outside the cafeteria there is a washing station where you wash, rinse, and leave your dishes on a rack to dry. When we finished I said bye to Ryan and made my way back to the Prathom building where I taught my first and only class of the day, fifth graders. They were a fun group, and because they were older they understood enough English where I could play games with them. We played musical chairs, four corners, and introduced ourselves. At 3:30pm we clocked out, and made the short walk back to our apartment. Although Ryan and I only taught one class each, we had a great day, and know we will enjoy our teaching experience. 

Trip to Laos 4/25/14-5/14/14

The last two weeks have been very mellow. We moved into our new apartment at Doi Ping Mansion, and couldnt be happier. For $300 a month we get a fully furnished one bedroom apartment with huge living room, kitchen, bathroom, and giant bedroom. We even have a small balcony with a great view of the ping river and a temple. The place felt huge compared to what we had been use to. More than anything we were grateful to have a place with a kitchen so we could cook again. We cooked up a storm. With two weeks in our new place with out any real obligations I spent a majority of my time shopping at the markets for new produce, researching how to make different things, cooking, and eating. I made tortillas, fried rice, pad thai, coconut milk and banana ice cream. We definitely filled our cooking needs. In between cooking and shopping we met up with our usual groups to play basketball, worked out in our apartment, and watched movies. A week before we started work we got a call from Aom letting us know that our paper work for our work visas came in. This meant that we would need to make our last and final trip across the border. The next day we caught a night bus from Chiang Mai to Vientiane Laos. The bus ride was a brutal twelve hours. When we got there we went straight to our hotel to nap and shower. We had three nights in Laos. The first day we leisurely checked out the city. Although Vientiane was the capital of Laos, it had a small town feel The streets were clean, the buildings were new, and everything was well kept. Because Laos use to be under the French rule, you can see the influence of french culture through architecture and food. At almost every restaurant and street food vendor you could find baguettes, where it was a baguette sandwich or a baguette with butter, they were everywhere. The people of Laos were not as friendly as Thai people. If you smiled at someone, they most likely didnt smile back, which is complete opposite of the people in Chiang Mai. The food was also on the pricier side. I'm not sure if it was because we were in the capital, but everything was at least fifty cents more. The one thing that was very different about Laos was their currency. One bottle of water was 13,000 kip. An average meal was 100,000 kip. It was so confusing. On our second day we woke up bright and early to go to the Thai embassy to turn in our paperwork to get our Thai visas. We arrived forty five minutes early trying to beat the crowds, but a long line had already formed. The doors opened at 8:30 am, and everyone went in and got a number. It felt like we were at the DMV, but worse. It was excruciatingly hot and humid outside, well over a hundred degrees, and we had to sit outside in the heat as people were called one by one to the counter. When it was our turn we went to the counter and turned in our paperwork that was given to us by the school, and then sent inside another building where we paid the fee for the visa and left them our passports. The passports are suppose to picked up the next business day, but because the next day was a Thai Buddhist holiday, we had to wait an extra day to pick it up. When we finished we went back to our hotel where we rested until late in the afternoon. We would have explored more during the day, but it was too hot to be outside. Around six we made our way to the park near our hotel where we caught the most beautiful sunset. The blood orange sun looked beautiful as it lowered in the sky, with its reflection sparkling over the winding river. We walked through the park and checked out the night market. For dinner we ate at an Indian restaurant where we had the most delicious food. One of our favorites was the Aloo Palak, which is an Indian style spinach and potato dish. It was to die for. While we were there it started storming. The sky lit up purple as huge white streaks of lightening crashed to the ground. It was the loudest thunder and biggest lightening bolts I had ever seen. We Sat there eating our delicious food, and enjoyed natures show. The next day we spent the hot afternoon in the room. When we came out later in the day, we decided to take advantage of the fact that Laos had a good variety of bread. So we went to the cafe near our hotel that sold croissants, baguettes, bagels, and bread rolls, things that we had been missing and couldn’t find much of in Thailand. The next day we went back to the Thai embassy and picked up our passports. This time we got there two hours early, and there was still a line outside, but this time it was less than a dozen. We left the embassy around three o’clock. From their we walked to the bus stop where we bought a ticket to Udon Thani in Thailand. When the bus arrived an hour later it took us to the Laos border, where we had to get off the bus and get our visas checked and stamped. Once everyone on the bus passed through we got back on and drove to the Thai border patrol, where we got off and repeated the same routine. From there we were taken to Udon Thani, where we took a tuk tuk to the second bus station and caught a ten hour bus to Chiang Mai. We arrived the next day at 7am. We were exhausted. When we got back to our apartment we immediately went to take a nap, so we could be ready and prepared for our first day of work the next day. 

Songrak (Thai New Year) 4/11/14-4/16/14

Connie and her friend Kristen arrived two days prior to Songkran .It was my first friend from home visiting, and I was more than excited to see a familiar face. We began their visit with a fun cooking class. Our cooking instructor took us, along with five others to the market where he pointed out the different ingredients used in common Thai dishes. After a fun and informational tour we were brought to a small cooking school. Each of us were given a piece of paper with different meal  options. I chose green curry, mango sticky rice, cashew chicken, and coconut soup. We all gathered around a large table with a set of cutting boards, knives, and ingredients. Our instructor talked us through each recipe. We cut, chopped, fried, stirred, and prepared all of the meals individually. After every dish, we sat down at the dining table and ate together. When the meal was finished we returned to the cooking table to make our next dish. By the end of class we were so full we could barley eat our last two dishes. The instructor ended the class by giving everyone a cookbook with the  recipes of the dishes we made, along with a few others. We left feeling happy, full, and eager to use our new cookbooks.
The next day the Songkran festivities began. Although Thai new year is officially the 13-16 of April, it begins a day early in Chiang Mai. We realized this when we woke up the next morning to the sound of music blasting, water splashing, and kids screaming with laughter. The new year was traditionally celebrated in temples where water would be sprinkled on peoples foreheads as a cleansing for the new year. But more recently, in the last decade it turned into a country wide water fight. Chiang Mai is said to have the second biggest celebration of the Thai new year. Although it is celebrated through out the city, the most concentrated part of the celebration,as well as the craziest, is along the moat where we live. We were told that Songkran was a crazy celebration, this is an understatement. We were completely blown away by its insanity. For four straight days we were soaking wet from the moment we walked out of our apartment, until the moment we walked back inside. We participated in the mayhem by buying cheap water guns and buckets, soaking anyone and everyone; kids, adults, elderly, people in taxis, no one was forgotten. This same rule was followed by everyone else. If you were outside, you were guaranteed to get drenched. No one had immunity from the festivities. The outside road bordering the moat was the craziest. Thousands of people lined the side walk with tubs of ice water, filling up their buckets and water guns to splash anyone walking or driving by. The roads were jam packed with pickup trucks. In the bed of every truck was a group of thai kids and adults crammed together with trash bins filled with ice water. With buckets and guns they would drench everyone they passed. The people who didnt have access to the bins of ice water, like us, were throwing  buckets into the moat,filling them with water, and pulling them up with a string. In the center of the moat food vendors lined the streets. They key was finding a vendor that was a bit more hidden so your food wouldnt get soaked as you were eating. The options for food were endless. There were vendors selling pad thai, coconut icecream, fried tempura, you name it. Near the food, was a large stage with a dj and dancers. This was the craziest area of them all. Thousands of people gathered in front of the stage dancing and screaming with laughter.And as if the celebration couldn't get any crazier,on both sides of the stage were bubble machines. This was my favorite part! Every hour for fifteen minutes ,the machines would go off, filling the street with bubbles. The madness never stopped. Around 6pm when the sun would set, we would seek shelter at a nearby restaraunt. Dinner time was the only time we had dry clothes; as we stepped back on the streets we were drenched. It wasnt until we were back in our apartment that we were safe. 
The first few days we had a great  time walking through the streets and wandering through the massive crowds of people, but on the last day of Songkran we spent most of our time hanging outside the THC Rooftop Bar. The owner of the bar put a large garbage bin out front and kept it filled with ice water. When the ice would melt, someone would come out with a fresh block. The bar also had a DJ playing reggae and EDM. Everyone at the bar stood out front filling their buckets and water guns, and attacking anyone who walked by. At one point a group of people across the street counted down from five, ran over, and soaked everyone outside the bar. From that moment it was an all out war between both sides of the street. We would fill up with ice water, they would fill up with ice water, someone would count down, and we would all charge to the middle of the street. When our guns were empty and our pales were light, we would return to our sides of the street and repeat. This went on all day! The amount of people who partook in this event blew my mind. There were hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the street and on the sidewalks splashing, spraying, and soaking everyone with water. The best part was everyone was filled with joy. I have never in my life seen so many smiling faces all together. It was a beautiful experience being around so many smiling faces and happy people Without a doubt Thai people have the best New Year's celebration in the world, and I am so grateful that we were able to experience it.

The sleeping Illegal Aliens 4/10/14

The next day we woke up at 5am to take care of our visa issue. Our first stop was to the atm where we depleted our savings, by withdrawing $1,300  to pay for our costly mistake. It was a tough lesson to learn, but one we would never make again. From there we hopped in a tuk tuk, and went to the bus station. The tickets for the first bus to Mesiah was sold out, and the next one wouldnt depart until 4pm, but that  would be too late since it is a 3.5 hr bus ride to mesiah, and immigration closes at five. We didnt want to stay the night in a hotel in Mesaih for a few reasons, for one we didnt have the extra money to spare, secondly we needed to take care of the issue immediately, and lastly my friend Connie would be flying in the next morning to Chiang Mai, and I wanted to see her. After talking to the sales woman we learned that our only other option was to purchase a bus ticket to Chiang Rai which was departing at 11am, and from there book a bus to Mesiah, which leaves every half hour. So we did it, we bought our tickets to Chiang Rai, and went to a nearby coffee shop to kill three hours.At the coffee shop we started to research buses to Chiang Rai, and Mesiah. In our search we read many comments from fellow riders who said that because the buses ride along the route of the "golden triangle", the most natorious opium drug trade in the world, that buses are frequently stopped by police to search for drugs and check ids. These comments sent us in a panic. If the bus is pulled over and we are asked for ids, we will without a doubt be taken to jail and deported. Even if we tell them we are on our way to the border to take care of the issue, the police have no mercy on overstayed visas. After contemplating what to do, we decided to lose out on the money we spent buying our bus tickets and book a mini van ride to Mesiah. We left the coffee shop, hopped in a tuk tuk, went back to our apartment, and started to call minivan companies who do daily visa run trips. After calling a few companies we learned that they were all closed for the next week because of the upcoming Songkran holiday. We looked at our watches. If we got a ride back to the bus station we could still catch our bus to Chiang Rai. We caught our third tuk tuk ride of the day, and went back to the bus station where we caught our bus, and took our chances with the police. On the way the bus drove past three police check points. The first two check points the police officer waved the bus past with out coming on board, but the third time we werent so lucky. My first instinct was to pretend like I was asleep. Luckily Ryan and I were at the very back of the bus, which bought us a few extra seconds to think on our feet. I quickly tapped Ryan and told him to pretend like we were sleeping. We shut our eyes, slumped over, and I even cocked my head back and opened my mouth a bit for authenticity. When the officer came to the back of the bus I could feel his presence next to me. "Passports", he said. "Passports", he repeated. We pretended like we were sleeping, and after what felt like an eternity, he finally gave up and left the bus. We waited until we felt the bus in motion for a few minutes before opening our eyes, and when we did we looked at eachother is disbelief. I couldnt believe we got away with that. I turned my head to the seats across from us and a thai man and his wife, saw what we did, and they smiled and laughed. An hour later we were in Chiang Rai. From there we caught a mini van to mesiah, which was another hour. In Mesiah we caught a ten minute sangtao ride to the border where we would meet our fate.We took a deep breath, and walked up to the border patrol window and handed over our passports. The whole process was a lot easier than I expected. They looked at our passports, called over an official officer, he translated to us, telling us that we had overstayed our visas, and said we needed to pay our fines. We nodded in agreement, handed over the cash, signed a few papers, recieved a stamp in our passport, and were pointed in the direction of Burma. From there, we walked a hundred feet over a bridge to the Burma border patrol. The patrol officers at the Burma entrance saw the stamp in our passports that indicated we over stayed our visa, and saw that we paid a twenty thousand baht fine. When they saw that we had paid that much, their faces lit up with excitement. They tried to charge us a thousand baht each to enter Burma, because they knew we had money. Luckily before making the trip to the border we had done research online, and knew that we would each have to pay 500 baht to enter Burma.We told them no, that we would only pay 500 baht. They tried to hassle us into paying more, but we finally got them to agree on 500 baht. They gave us the stamp we needed, and we  immediately walked out of the office and back over the bridge to Thailand.At the Thai border we filled out an immigration card, received another stamp in our passports, and were allowed back into the country. We were so relieved that everything worked out, it felt good to legal again. After our experience, we could say that we felt a new understanding and compassion for people in the U.S who are illegal immigrants. We made our way back to the bus station and hoped to find a drect bus to Chiang Mai. The woman working the ticket booth told us that the last bus to Chiang Mai had just departed, so we bought a bus to Chaing Rai  with hope that we could catch a bus from there to Chiang Mai. On the Ride to Chaing Rai our bus was stopped twice by police officers checking ids, and this time we confidently handed over our passports.When we got to Chaing Rai, we were lucky enough to buy the last two tickets available for the last bus to Chiang Mai. Once again everything worked out perfectly. We arrived back at our apartment in Chiang Mai around 11pm.

Post travels and Job hunt 4/1/14-4/9/14

After a month and a half of traveling we were back home in Chiang Mai. Going back to Chiang Mai was a strange reminder that we were actually living in Thailand, not just on vacation. It was fun to be back in a place of familiarity. Within the short time we were gone, we noticed many changes;new construction, more businesses, changes in whether and a decrease in the number of tourists. Our main focus now was finding a job. I must admit I thought I would feel sad that our travels were over, but I was even more excited to do what I love; teaching. That's the beauty of loving what you do, it doesn't feel like work.The transition from traveling to moving back to Chiang Mai was an easy one. We decided to keep things simple, by renting an apartment at our old place. The move was temporary, since we didn't know what school we would be working at or what part of town. Once we were settled in to our room, we made our first stop to text and talk. At school we received our teaching degrees from Moz and talked to him about possible jobs. He gave us valuable advice for applying to jobs, and told us that he might have a few available for us, but wouldn't know for another week. We thanked him for his help and headed back to our apartment to update our resumes and search for online job postings.For the next few days we walked around the city dropping off our resumes at as many schools we could find. It was hit and miss; some schools told us they weren't hiring, while others had us fill out applications, and told us they would contact us. Although we heard from a few people that getting a teaching job in Chiang Mai was difficult due to the competitiveness, we weren't worried. After a few days of job searching we received a call from Moz telling us that there were two jobs available at Regina, the all girls catholic school that we substituted for in January. He said the positions were ours if we wanted them.We gratefully accepted. I would be teaching health to students in first through sixth grade, and Ryan would be teaching English to first, second, third and sixth graders. We were overjoyed by the news. The next day we went to school to sign some paperwork and get our passports photocopied to start the work visa application process. Moz said that it would take a few weeks to hear back from the board of education, and once we got the letter of approval we would need to make a trip to Laos to get our work permits.We were about to leave when Moz told us that if the paperwork didn't come back within the next two weeks we would have to make sure we didn't over stay our tourist visa. We told him that we weren't worried because we had six month tourists visas and they weren't up until July. He looked at us with confusion and asked to see our passports again. With a worried tone of voice and a look of shock, he pointed to our passport stamps and told us we were suppose to leave Thailand on March 1st. My heart sunk. What do you mean we were suppose to leave the country March first? It was now April 9th, what do we do? What are the consequences of staying past our due date? A million questions raced through our minds. Moz could sense our panic and told us to take a seat. He said that we needed to take care of the issue immediately. If we came in contact with the police at all and they found out we had an overstayed visa we would be taken to jail and deported back to the US.  He called Aom who use to work at the immigration center, and had her talk to the office asking what we should do. When he got off the phone he told us that we would need to pay a fine of 500 baht a day, for each day that our visa was over due. We were over due by 40 days, which meant that each of us would have to pay 20,000 baht ( $625). In order to pay this fine we would need to take a bus to the town of Mesiah, on the border of Thailand and Burma, and bring 40,000 baht in cash with us. Once there we would need to go to the border crossing and pay our fine, cross the border into Burma, get our passports stamped, and walk back into Thailand. I took a deep breath and sat in silence for a minute processing the information. All of this was so sudden. I couldn't believe we had been walking around illegally for the past forty days. We were so lucky that we didn't have a run in with the police, otherwise we would be in jail. Looking  back we had a few close encounters, like the motorbike incident, or when we were on the bus to Khao Sok and  a police officer came on board to check everyone's id, but decided to bypass us. My heart skipped a beat at the thought of how close we were to being deported. Here in Thailand if you are past your visa by one day, and a police officer finds out, you can go to jail and be deported. On the other hand, if you voluntarily go to immigration office and admit to overstaying your visa, you will most likely be charged a fine, and not taken to jail, unfortunately, it all depends on the mood of the person working at border, and tomorrow that someone will determine our fate.....

Sukothai 3/28/14-3/30/14

When we got to Sukothai we were a bit exhausted from all of our bus rides, so we walked to the nearest guesthouse. Luckily, we only had to walk a few hundred feet. We checked in, freshened up, and made our way out the door in search for food. After consuming a diet of dried fruit and nuts for our  twenty five hour of bus ride, we were craving real food. About a mile from our guesthouse we came across a restaurant packed with Thai people. With hungry curiosity we walked inside. There were two large buffet tables filled with food. On one table were fruits, vegetables, and meats, and on the other table was already prepared dishes; pasta salad, fried rice, and gelatin desserts. We looked around at the tables and saw that every table had a small charcoal burner, and on this burner people were cooking their meats and veggies. As we stood there in amusement watching people cook their own food, a man approached us asking in Thai if we would like to eat. We nodded yes and he led us to an open table. Unable to communicate because of the language barrier we were unsure of the price and how it worked. We sat at our table for a moment and watched others. After a few minutes I walked to the buffet tables and repeated similar steps to what others were doing. I filled a basket of veggies; cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, and brought it back to the table. I returned to the buffet table and filled a plate with watermelon and pineapple and another with shrimp and chicken shish kabobs. When i returned to the table our waiter brought us a small charcoal BBQ that he placed in the center of the table along with a metal shallow pan. He filled the pan with water and pointed to the vegetables showing me that it was for you cooking veggies. We sat there in excitement for the experiencing of cooking our own food; something we had been greatly missing since being in Thailand. We ate our delicious meat, veggies, and fruit. Through out our meal a few employees would walk over to us with a plate of food; fried rice, meat, or noodles. They would put it on the table, give us a thumbs up sign, and smile. We noticed that they were only doing this for our table. After looking around and noticing we were the only white faces among a hundred Thais in the restaurant, they must not get many foreigners. Because of this they were treating us like royalty, making sure we tried everything. After about an hour of nonstop eating, I couldn't eat any more. As Ryan paid the bill I sat stuffed to my gills at the table counting 22 empty plates on our table. It was by far the most fun and most satisfying eating experience I've ever had.When we left the restaurant I was glad we  walked so we could help digest some of  our food. The next day we rented a motorbike from our guesthouse and road three miles to the ruins of Sukothai, which is known as the "Angkor Wat" of Thailand. Just outside of the entrance to the ruins we rented bicycles. With our bicycles we rode around the ruins and took pictures of the amazing sites. There were old buddha statues, pagodas, and ancient structures. Riding our bikes through the area was a lot of fun. Although it was fascinating to see, a lot of the structures looked the same, and after an hour we had seen it all. After returning our bikes we hopped on our motorbike and road into town and got dinner. The next day we hopped on a five hour bus ride to Chiang Mai.

Khao Sok National Park 3/24/14-3/28/14

Khao Sok
The day we left Surin we were brought by speedboat back to the one horse town of Kuraburi. At the pier we were picked up by the Woman from the Am and Tom company. In the car we asked her what time the next bus to Takua pa was. She told us that the last one departed at 4. I looked at my watch; it was was 3:50. Once again time was on our side. We hurried to the bus station, bought our ticket, and hopped on the bus with out a minute to spare. The ride to Takuapa was a short one. As soon as we hopped off the bus ,we saw a minivan preparing to depart to  Khao Sok. With our luggage we ran to the van, and made our way to the last two empty eats in the back. Forty five minutes later we arrived at Khao Sok national park, where we were greeted by a crew of men,all of whom competitively tried to get our business. They all offered the same service, a night stay at a bungalow, tours of the park, and transportation. We picked a random one, and lucky for us it was a great choice. We were taken by car to a small guesthouse about a mile from where the minivan dropped us off. For 250 baht we were given a bungalow with the basics; a bed and toilet. Our's came with a familiar roommate. At the top of our wall, under the ceiling, we spotted a Tokay gecko. It was a little bit smaller than the one we had in our apartment in Chiang Mai, but had the same coloring and made the same tokay sounds.In the lobby of our guesthouse, we were able to  purchase a two day,one night organized trip to the lake. Although the lake is part of the national park, it is about an hour drive past the park headquarters and hotels, making it a bit of a challenge to visit. For this reason it is less often visited by tourists. This being said it is by far the prettiest part of the national park, and definitely worth the extra money and time to get there. The next morning we arrived with our tour group at the pier around ten am. From there our tour guide, lead our group into a long tail boat, that we then took to the floating houses. The ride over was beautiful. Limestone cliffs topped with lush green jungle popped out of the crystal clear turquoise water. The topography was unlike anything I had seen before. The place was majestic and mysterious in all its natural beauty,and aside from the six floating houses, the lake was practically uninhabited by people. But the true inhabitants of the park were the thousands of species of birds, snakes, reptiles, and mammals that roamed the ground and glided through the canopies. After a quick hour boat ride we arrived at the floating houses;a series of simple wooden shacks strung together by loosely nailed wooden planks, connected to a floating dining area with five picnic tables.In each room there was a mattress and a mosquito net. It was as simple as it could get. The only electricity was in the dining area between the hours of 6pm-10pm. It was basic, but met all of our needs. In addition, meals and  access to kayaks were included in our stay. Our first day at the lake we participated in all of the tour group activities. We swam, hiked, explored a cave, and went on a night safari. The lake was great for swimming, it was clean, and the water was warm. The land surrounding the lake was dense jungle with few hiking trails, because of this the area can only be explored with a tour guide. Our guide was a riot, he was a young thai guy with a great sense of humor. Through out our hike he would hide in bushes and jump out to scare people. He would laugh and sing, and always made sure everyone had a good time. The highlight of our hike was exploring the cave. I have been in some pretty amazing caves in my life, but nothing compared to this experience. This was the real deal,no special lighting, and informational plaques, just raw untouched darkness.The ceiling of the cave was covered with thousands of bats, along with the most beautiful stalagmites.The floor was moistened with water,and in some spots there were small pools with  fish and toads. At one point in our cave hike our tour guide pulled a great prank. He grabbed a very large toad ,and  asked one of the guys in the group if he would hold his camera, then handed the guy the toad. His scream echoed through the cave as he grabbed what he thought was the camera.It was hilarious. About half way through the cave our walking path became very narrow. At one point the water was so deep that only our heads were above the surface. There were a few points where I had to tiptoe to keep my head above the water, and walk side ways to fit between the huge boulders.It was a thrilling and incredibly adventurous experience. After an hour of climbing over slippery boulders in water up to our necks, we finally saw sunlight which guided us out of the cave and back into the jungle. Everyone in the group had their preconceived notions of what the cave would be like, but it was unanimous , we were all blown away by the intensity of our cave exploration. After the cave we were taken back to the floating houses where we were served an amazing dinner of  fish, curry, rice, watermelon, pineapple, stir fry chicken and veggies, and omelets. Everyone enjoyed the food. In between bites of rice, we introduces ourselves and made conversation. There was a family of four from Marin County, a couple from San Francisco, six people from Holland, and a couple from Estonia. Everyone's gregarious nature made it easy to socialize. We talked about where we were from, our impressions of Thailand, and of our traveling experiences. We told everyone about Ko Rok, and of all the interesting things we saw. When we mentioned monitor Lizards, no one had heard of them, so we took out or camera and showed them pictures. Everyone was amazed. It was nice being able to share our experiences and stories with others, as well as hear theirs. For this reason, I love being part of tour groups, not only do you get to do fun activities, but you get to meet people from around the world and  in turn learn about their home country. After we stuffed our tummies with delicious food, our guide took us on a night safari. We all piled into the long tail boat, and road out into the lake. He stopped the boat near the shore and shone a large spot light into the trees. There were many nocturnal animals at the lake and the night safari was the perfect opportunity to spot some of them. Because our tour guide was constantly telling jokes and pulling pranks, none of us believed him when he pointed to the trees and yelled bear. Everyone laughed in disbelief. He responded in a very convincing tone ," no, I don't joke. Its really a bear." It wasn't until someone in the group said they saw it too, that we believed him. Sure enough, we saw a small furry black thing hanging from the tree eating fruit. It was a cat bear. After the night safari, the boat brought us back to the floating houses where we spent the rest of our night socializing in great company. The next morning we woke up to the echoing sounds of gibbons and hornbills. At seven am, everyone in our tour met at the longboat for our morning ride. With our coffee cups in hand we lazily climbed on board and enjoyed the slow ride around the shores of the lake. Early morning was the best time to spot gibbons.After a few minutes of scanning the tops of the canopies we saw gibbons, pig tailed macaques, and hornbills. My favorite was the gibbon. As the sun began to rise higher in the sky the animal sightings became fewer, and we made our way back to the floating house for a pancake breakfast. After breakfast, everyone in the tour packed their things and left the floating houses. Ryan and I stayed behind. We had arranged with the tour guide to stay an extra night at the floating houses, and depart back to town with a different group the next day. After the tour left, we had the place to ourselves.  Ryan and I took this opportunity to do some exploring of our own. We kayaked for over three hours. There was so much to see! The lake was massive, fingering off into side coves and islands. After hours of exploring we kayaked back to the floating houses, exhausted and hungry. For dinner we were served a gourmet six course meal. The food was delicious. We ate to our hearts content. With happy tummies we made our way back to our floating house and finished our night viewing all the amazing pictures and videos we had taken earlier that day. The next morning our alarm went off at 5:45am, signaling that it was time to jump in the kayaks and look for wildlife. The lake looked exceptionally beautiful. The water was a dark  blue, and the jungle capped limestone cliffs  were illuminated orange from the rays of the emerging sun. We rode through the coves stopping along shore to listen to the echoing sounds of gibbons in the trees. We spotted a few hornbills flying overhead, but the most incredible wildlife sighting we had was a small ringtailed macaque. He was high up in the canopy watching Ryan and I as we approached shore in our kayaks. As we got closer he became aggressive and territorial , jumping up and down, breaking large tree limbs, and making crazy sounds. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen from a wild animal. We watched in amusement from our kayaks, enjoying the jungle show this monkey was putting on for us. I felt like it was something straight out of national geographic. We watched for a while, and then made our way back to the floating houses where we packed our things, ate breakfast, and left with the morning tour group.Before going back to the pier the tour guide stopped at one of the beautiful limestone cliffs in the middle of the lake. It was absolutely stunning. The cliff was nested in a small cove surrounded by other tall limestone cliffs,each capped with luscious green jungle terrain.The sky looked extra blue and beautiful with soft white clouds drifting by. The crystal clear water  was even more spectacular with the reflection of the limestone cliffs and jungle tops cascading over its surface . When the boat pulled up to shore we all got out, and continued by foot on a hiking trail. Ryan and I led the group through the jungle, over boulders, and around bushes until we came to a clearing. At this point we had been hiking for an hour and were more than happy to be  greeted by a few Thai men who set up a lunch of fried rice, watermelon, and pineapple for everyone. We sat in the warm sun, eating our lunch, and taking in our beautiful surroundings. After lunch we had thirty minutes to swim before we journeyed back to the pier. Ryan and I took this time to take one last dip in the refreshing water, and capture a few more pictures, to add to the already hundreds of pictures and videos we had from our journey. When the thirty minutes was up, we all piled back in the long tail and made our way back to the pier.When we arrived, twenty of us, plus massive amounts of luggage, were crammed into a twelve person van.Luckily Ryan and I were the first to be dropped off. The tour guide took us to the bus stop in Takuapa. From there we caught an hour long minivan ride to Sathani where we were dropped off at the bus station. A few hours later we were on a night bus from Sathani to Bangkok. The ride was 17 hours long, but went by surprisingly quick. I was happy we paid the extra hundred baht for the nicer bus. The chairs were cushioned and reclined, water and snacks were provided, and they even stopped and fed us dinner. Why dont people ride more buses in Thailand? When our bus got to Bangkok I was immediately happy that we were only there to switch buses. The smog, the traffic, the pollution, it was enough for me to feel insane from inside the bus. When we got to the bus station, we meandered through the crowd and aimlessly walked around looking for a ticket booth. The bus terminal was huge, and not as easy to navigate as the last bus stops, luckily Thai people are very friendly, and if you show any sign of being lost, you will be approached and asked if you need help. With the guidance of a friendly employee we were pointed to the right direction. At the ticket booth we bought a ticket to the next bus to Sukothai. Fortunately, we only had to wait an hour. The ride to Sukothai was five hours, and felt longer than our 17 hour ride to Bangkok, partially because we were awake for the whole ride, and partially because it looked like we were driving through the Midwest. Flat grasslands and rundown houses were all we saw for hours. Around 3pm we reached our destination.