Everything this past week has gone by so quickly that I’m very grateful to be able to document my experience here before it flees my mind entirely.

I’d like to avoid, if possible, the complete play-by-play and instead give you an idea of some of the things I’ve done in the past couple of days.  I’m currently writing from my new bedroom, in my new house, in my new town, in my new country but I’ll describe my surroundings and experiences here in more detail later.

On Sunday all 86 of us future teachers set off for Kanchanaburi.  Driving through a place is the best way to get a sense of it.  Maybe that’s a very American perspective; the roadtrip being so integral to the American experience.  Either way, driving through the countryside was fascinating despite my legs being too long for Thai buses (or any buses, let’s be honest here).  We arrived at a gorgeous hotel complete with two pools and a lake.  It was also right on the bank of the River Kwae.

Our hotel room at the Pavilion Resort.

Lake/pond in front of the hotel. Had a great view of this from our room but couldn’t get a good photo from there because there was a tree smack dab in the center of the shot.

This was followed by a visit to the bridge over the River Kwae.  I won’t go into too much detail on what this is or why it’s significant, because it’s a huge bummer but you can find more info here  (at that link note Herbert James “Ringer” Edwards who survived crucifixion by the Japanese during construction and Eric Lomax whose experience has since been made into a film with Colin Firth).  The river is beautiful, and the bridge is still an operational rail line.  There is also a tourist market there where I had my first coconut milk ice cream.  It was my favorite thing I’ve eaten here yet!

Bridgetastic!

I had more planned for this post, but I am tired now and I am going to go to sleep super early.  I’ll hopefully post more details soon!