Best. Week. Ever.

I don't even know where to begin on this one. So much has happened this past week. I would like everyone get comfortable and park it, because this is going to be a long one. I feel like I am going to have some trouble summarizing the past week on a whole so I'm just going to write things out as they come to me. Pardon the randomness, and if it doesn't make sense just keep reading, I'll try to get myself back on track. It all started 2 Fridays ago when we had to judge an English speaking and singing competition. Pretty boring stuff actually, sat around all day listening to Thai students talk about the effects of global warming and its impact on Thailand. Interesting topic, but every student said almost the exact same thing, and it got old real fast. Every now and then a student would come up who just froze and didn't know what to say so they just stood there awkwardly for 3 minutes, staring at the audience. The singing competition was not much better, but a little funnier. They love Celine Dion and that Titanic song of hers, I think I heard it about 20 times in the span of 3 hours. After our duties as judges were over, Jon and I ran back to our apartment real fast,

changed and hopped on a van to Bangkok. We got a really nice, new, and modern hotel room on the infamous Khaosan Road. It had a great view, if not a little noisy. We met up with some people from our program and enjoyed some drinks and pad thai until about 2am, when we realized we should probably go to bed since we had to be up in about 5 hours. And up we were, bright and early, I took a hot shower (the first I've had in who knows how long) and had a quick breakfast, and quickly got in a cab heading off to Si Racha, and then off to our final destination of Ko Si Chang. It took about an hour to get there, and then we took a ferry to the the island of Ko Si Chang. It felt so wonderful being on that ferry, surrounded by clean, blue water, finally on my way to a Thai island. Once we arrived on the island we met up with the rest of our friends who were already there and we immediately went to the beach. I got a floating tube and just went out into the water and lied there in the sun all day long. It wasn't a huge beach though, very different than other Thai islands, but it had sand, it had water, and that's all I needed to be happy. After being out all day, and staying to watch the sunset, we went back to our boathouses that overlooked the water and got ready for dinner. We ate at a famous restaurant on the island called Pan and Davids, and I had wine for the first time since I've been in Thailand. It was fantastic. I forgot how great a nice

glass of red wine compliments a dinner. Expensive, but totally worth it. I woke up really early the next day and watched the sunrise come up over the mountains and it was really something. The sun was radiating, and the colors in the sky were surreal. The day continued and was basically a repeat of the day prior, but we did do an island tour on a tuk-tuk. It took us around to various sights worth seeing on the island, and it was fun to see some parts of the island you normally wouldn't see. Ko Si Chang has the look of a European/Mediterranean beach town, not a Thai town. I swore, sometimes I felt like I was back in a small Portuguese fishing village. We stayed at the beach and watched the sunset again, and enjoyed another nice dinner at Pan and Davids that night. We ended up just hanging out on the boat house, talking for a while before we went to bed. The next morning Jon and I said our goodbyes to the group and left early. Even though everyone had to get back to school the next day, we still had a week off because of a school fair. So it was off to Ko Samet for us, the 2nd leg of our journey on the Thai islands.

Friends.

It took about an hour to get to Rayong, which is 100k south of Ko Si Chang. And we quickly got onto a ferry that would take us to Ko Samet. Ko Samet is more of what you would expect from a Thai island, although it is still different than the islands in the south. It has bigger beaches with sand so fine you feel like you are stepping on air, water so clear you can still see your feet underwater 30 feet out into the water. We spent most of the first day hanging on the beach, I did a lot of reading and finished Shutter Island, which might be my new favorite book. For dinner, I splurged and had my first pizza in Thailand AND a Panang Curry and it tasted real darn good. A quick stroll on the beach at dusk and a few drinks later, it was time for bed. We crashed early and got a good nights sleep. After all, we had a whole day of nothing to do the next day. The next 2 days were almost the exact same thing so I won't bore you with the details as I realize this entry is already really long and I'm barely halfway through my week. To sum it up, we found a nicer, smaller and more secluded beach further down the island that we spent

all our time on. It had a great restaurant and a raft out in the water that I spent most of my time on. Jon left Wednesday afternoon to go to Chiang Mai, but I stayed the rest of the week, because more friends were coming the next day. I met some really cool people while I was on my own though. They were from Belgium and they all had interesting stories about places they had been and where they wanted to go next. We went to watch the sunset on the other side of the island on these cliffs, and it was really nice because there were no other people around. We parted ways later in the night and I walked around and took pictures for a while before I went to bed. I had so much trouble falling asleep that night though because my hotel was right next to a club and it was blasting music and thumping bass until 4am. My bed was actually vibrating from the bass and I really thought I was going to kill someone. Eventually I fell asleep. My friends came at around 3 the next day and it was good to see them because they are all really fun people and I knew we were going to

have an awesome time together. It was a different group than my friends from Ko Si Chang, but just as fun. Basically to wrap up the next 4 days, we spent loads of time on the beach down the island with the raft. Went on an ill-fated squid fishing trip that might have just been the most hilarious/bad idea we have ever had, and really made us question our own judgement. We ate lots of good food, we watched fire shows, something Ko Samet is famous for, and we partied every night. We went to this place called Silver Sand twice, which was a dance club right on the beach. The nights were young and so were we, so we danced the nights away till 4am. We danced on tables, danced on chairs, and occasionally the floor. Everything lights up at Ko Samet at night and the whole beach looks like a world of neon. Every bar is blasting techno

music, has a fire show out front and everyone is either dancing, smoking hookah or drinking. It is a place of sensory overload if I have ever seen one, and I loved every single moment I was there. I believe that it has taken over from Albufeira as my new favorite place in the world and I really cannot wait to go back there again. I had such an amazing time with my friends this past week, doing nothing on the beach, watching the sunsets on the cliffs, going out dancing, getting very tan and just plain old hanging out. It made me realize that I have made some lifelong friends already in the short 2 months I've been here. I feel like I have known all of them forever. It was really sad when I had to leave yesterday, and as I watched the island get further and further away as I took the ferry back to the mainland, I couldn't help but think of Ko Samet's slogan..."Heaven on Earth." Yeah, that sounds about right.

Sarah and Lauren throwing rocks off the cliffs at sunset on Ko Samet