I love coffee. I love air conditioning. I love clubs. I love live music. I love technology. I love lamp. Not surprising, then, that I’ve resided in a city for the last five and a half years. However, when you take a peek at my travel bucket list, you’ll find more items like Hike the Inca Trail, Helicopter over Iguazu Falls, or Backpack Cinque Terre, than those that detail city landmarks. Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing man made wonders in cities that I’d like to experience, but I find it hard for anything to be as impressive as the beauty of landscapes. The combination of sights, sounds, and smells of natural beauty evoke a state of marvel that’s not easily surpassed.

Sports Day

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Week 12 in Thailand brought a heavy amount of buzz and excitement to my school. Sports day, which I wrongly assumed would just be a giant field day or something, would be held on Friday. Throughout the week, fourteen of my twenty-one classes were cancelled for practices and rehearsals, though at the time I really had no clue what that actually meant but I went with it. Friday came and I stumbled into school, having missed my morning alarm, still half dazed from my night’s sleep. On the main pavilion, the four different teams—where students from all grade levels had been randomly assigned—were preparing to start event one: running relays. The day continued with a jump rope competition, a soccer championship game, and then the cheer competition. When I had been told the final event was a cheer competition, my initial expectations were from my US concepts of cheer: girls in short skirts and crop tops chanting while also performing gymnastics and pumping around pom poms. Clearly, Thai cheering is completely different or perhaps what they meant to tell me was that they were performing skits because what followed were four elaborately planned performances that were each no less than ten minutes. They reenacted older cultural Thai themes while also introducing modern ideas of culture through dance and music. Immediately, I realized why so many classed had been cancelled throughout the week as I watched in awe at my performing students. While there are many authentic ways to travel around and see Thailand, it was one of those unique cultural moments that I would’ve never experienced had I not decided to be an ESL teacher.

Kanchanaburi

Following an unexpectedly pleasant day at school, I jumped on a van to meet three friends at Bangkok’s southern bus station. At around 10pm we were on our way to the countryside city of Kanchanaburi—just a few hours west of Bangkok. Having spent a majority of our travels touring cities, we were ready for a weekend outside so we woke up early Saturday and took a ninety minute bus to Erawan Falls. Over the course of the day, we hiked a few miles up and down the seven levels of waterfalls stopping every now and again for pictures, swimming, and admiration.

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Exhausted from the day, we returned to our hotel in Kanchanaburi and rested for a bit before getting ready for a night out. For the next several hours we visited bars, ate toasties from 7-11, and ultimately ended up in a really weird party at a club where most people were dressed up as what looked like anime school kids.

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After logging in a few hours of sleep, I woke up early Sunday morning to watch the Philadelphia Eagles win a sloppy playoff thriller, which gave me the energy to make it through the day without a nap. As the day progressed, we slowly made our way back to Bangkok and by dusk I was back in my apartment getting ready for Monday classes.

The Wrap Up

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Thanks for reading this post and as always, I encourage you to #gotravel!