Hey everyone, once again my apologies for the lack of updates. I received a couple more photos from my TEFL training days, so make sure to check them out on the Photos page.

As I mentioned in my last post, some of my teacher friends are now in Chiang Mai. We’ve been hanging out a little bit, but nothing like during our training. I am currently living in Central Chiang Mai, while everyone else is either on the West side or East side. We’re only about 10-15 minutes away by taxi, but considering we all have different schedules, we only really get together for special occasions. I would definitely have more pictures if my camera was working!

[Edited: The events described below actually took place on April 12, the day before Songkran, but they're still accurate.]

Songkran (the Thai New Year) was an interesting experience, but unfortunately nothing too out of the ordinary happened, so there isn’t too much for me to say. Apparently it is the year 2552 now, I’m living in the future! Sorry, no flying cars or robots, though. Anyway, if you’ve done any reading on Songkran, it is also known as the Water Festival, and that’s because people have water fights all day. There were super soakers, buckets, water bottles… basically any means of hitting people with water was used.

It wasn’t this intense in my area, but you get the picture (links to YouTube video):

Songkran Water Fight

Later on, I went out with Jacques (South Africa) and introduced him to a cute friend of mine, Tong. Along with the girl I’m seeing, Bee, we all went out drinking and dancing, and had a fun time. The only interesting thing that really happened was a mid-30’s British guy, Colin, a total drunkard and druggie, stopped by the bar we were at, and, after spotting a Thai girl that he had previous relations with hanging out with another man, he immediately called her a whore, and started cursing at and challenging the other man to a fight. Luckily, the girls were able to convince Colin to back off and leave, but for a good 10 minutes or so, it looked like there was about to be some action. Other than that, it was a pretty standard night of partying.

I know the other teachers have been doing things like treks and such, but money is tight right now for me, so I’m trying to stay as frugal as possible. I would definitely be doing more interesting things if I was here on vacation, but I’m not really here for that. This whole thing is more for transitional purposes, rather than just taking a break from the rat race.

That’s all for now, I’ll check in again soon (and sooner than next week, I promise!).