Koh Samet

Linda has been to Thailand many times but she had never been to the island of Koh Samet.  Koh Samet is only a bus and a ferry ride from Bangkok so we decided to check it out.

We ended up loving it there. We had no hostels booked so we took it night by night and stayed in 3 different places.

On the first night we accidentally saw the big fire show on the beach while eating sea food curry and drinking Thai beer (soooo much better than Chinese beer).

 How low can you go? (We didn't try)

There wasn't a lot to do on Koh Samet (if you don't count finding new places to sleep almost every day) so we spent a lot of time on the beach.

We ate a pancake nearly every night.  YUM!  These are in Bangkok too but it was more fun eating them on the beach.  You can get just about anything inside - peanut butter, chocolate, eggs, fruit, nuts, and condensed milk. 

We stayed in the nicest place on the last night -it included breakfast and was very close to the beach.

 It was a nice way to start Linda's birthday!

7 Eleven is EVERYWHERE in Thailand.  But in 2 spots on Koh Samet we saw 2 right across the street from each other.   We did have a favorite.  One was cleaner and had more to choose from.

Next: Bangkok!

Thailand - Pattaya and Kanchanaburi

I met up with Linda in the Bangkok airport.  After leaving Xi'an 2 months prior Linda traveled around India.  Our first stop (after sleeping for 2 hours) was Pattaya.  My friend Tanya, who I met in Cambodia, lives there and it just happened to be her birthday.  When we walked into brunch we were in heaven.  We hadn't seen food (or coffee) like that for almost 2 years - eggs, meats, salads, cheeses.  After brunch Tanya rented a boat to take us to an island where we relaxed on the beach for a few hours until a storm came in.  The boat ride back to the mainland was rough. We were grateful we didn't go flying right out of the boat.

It was nice to be back on land!

The next day Linda and I went a bit further south to Kanchanaburi.  A woman met us at the bus station and we were convinced to pay her a couple dollars to help us find a place to stay.  Not a bad deal since we didn't know where to go and we got to ride in this:

We found a nice bungalow on the river.  It was quiet and beautiful.  We loved relaxing on our porch.

A big attraction of Kanchanaburi is the 7 tiered waterfall at Erawan National Park.  We hiked up and it was as beautiful as we read. 

Goodbye Xi'an!

I actually said 再见 to Xi'an on October 22nd.  Whoops.  I'm a bit behind.

The last weekend of classes was nice.  At the end of each class the Chinese teacher told the students I was leaving and introduced the new teacher who had been sitting in the corner during class.  Some of the students did genuinely seem a bit disappointed I was leaving.  A couple asked if I would remember them. 

On my last night in my apartment I went upstairs to have dinner with my friend / Chinese teacher from my first school. I rented my apartment from her uncle.  Her husband made us a wonderful dinner and gave me a box of the tea he always makes me when I visit.

On my last night in Xi'an work had a dinner for the A+ staff and teachers.  It was at a German buffet restaurant (that serves Chinese food) and the beer was all you could drink.   Yikes.

After dinner I went to a bar to say bye to my foreign friends. 

I was surprised at how sad I was saying bye and leaving Xi'an.  I had finally settled in and found a group of people I really enjoyed hanging out with.  I came a long way during my 21 months in China.  I surprised myself by loving the language and studying became my main focus.  As I could understand more and more of what my students said they became real kids and I looked forward to having class with (most of) them.  I also grew as a person in so many ways that I wouldn't have if I hadn't spent all 21 months in China. 

My next stop was Thailand.....