The Return

I knew I'd be back. This past weekend, I returned to my favorite place in Thailand, Sanghklaburi. But this time, I came with some friends of mine. When I heard they were planning a trip there, I hopped on the bandwagon and tagged along. It all started Friday night, when I took a bus up to Suphan Buri to meet my friends at their apartment for a night of western food, movie watching, and good company. We watched "Up in the Air," which I liked, but honestly did not understand why everyone thinks it's the best movie of the year. Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and hired a van to take us to Sangkhlaburi. It was a long ride from Suphan, about 5 hours, but we kept busy by talking about this and that and everything in between.

The road to Sanghklaburi

Upon our arrival in town 5 hours later, we got right into the fun. After few quick pit stops at scenic viewpoints, a temple, and some shops, we went to our hotel. We stayed at the same place I ate all my meals at the last time I was there, and to my surprise and delight, all the staff that worked there remembered me! They all came up to me, shook my hand, told me they were glad to see me again, and it felt pretty great to feel so welcomed back to a place I love so much. We chowed down on some Burmese dishes,

dropped our bags off in our rooms and dove into the lake. We swam out to the bamboo raft and hung out there for what was probably a couple hours. One of my friends has an underwater camera so we brought that out there and took lots of pictures of us on the raft, jumping off, in the water. It was loads of fun, but by the time our fingers were shriveled into oblivion, we thought it was probably time to go back onto shore.

I fell in the water about 2 seconds after this picture was taken

The next few hours we spent walking over the Mon bridge, admiring the sunset and wandering aimlessly around the village. We met some locals, played with some kittens, and talked about how much we all love this place and wish we never had to leave. We were all tired after a long day and went to bed early. A 6 am wake up call was in order so that we could take a misty morning boat ride on the lake, something I did last time and was eager to do it again. We all piled into a long-tailed boat and sailed on the water for an hour or so, circling the underwater temple, passing farms, and waving to villagers.

B-E-A-UTIFUL

The next thing to cross off our list was a trip to Three Pagodas Pass, which if you remember was where I accidentally walked into Burma last time I was there. Lucky for me this time, there were no international conflicts and all I got from my second voyage there was a t-shirt and some great pictures. Before we knew it, it was time to return back to our respective schools, but not without a quick stop to a waterfall along the way. The falls were packed with Thai vacationers and their kids having the time of their lives swimming around in the pools. Not many other times have I seen a place with so many people in complete and utter joy. It made me happy to be there, if only for a short while.

Pure joy.

Once back at school, it was a return to normalcy that I have become a little too bored by. I know I'm in Thailand, but during the week my days are pretty boring. I'm ready to start traveling, I'm ready for Josh to get here, and I'm ready for an adventure unlike no other. Until then, I'll just have to do the best I can and try to make these final days of teaching something to remember.