Amarin Lagoon Hotel Phitsanulok

<br>...thanks to the Loy Krathong Festival and one of just many firecrackers I've seen set off within steps of others. <br>Classes are well underway and I've met with my classes at least once. 300 students. Exactly who thought I was qualified for this?!? Although with such little preparation Ifeel like I'm doing quite well for myself. Now that I am learning what level my students are at it makes it easier for me to try to fill in the gaps in their English. I ...

We took a taxi to Hualampong train station, which was 4 kilometers from our hotel right next to Khao San Road. As we arrived there to the train station, at least 10 people appeared immediately, ready to help us...it is hard to tell if they are official and wanna help you for real or if it is another trick and they wanna get money from you somehow... granted our previous experience we refused their help and figured out things rather on our own...afterwards we joined the crowd of farangs ...

... shop sort of feel. From there we went to another temple next door that appeared to have the Buddha image we were looking for, but we discovered was only a copy. The original was yet to come. Why they felt the need to have two very similar looking Buddhas right next to each other is beyond me, but there it was. When we got to the correct temple, we knew we were in the right place by the throngs of people ...

... see what time it got to once we were done. Lopburi was quite unlike Ayutthaya. Though small, the town was far busier and seemed to have fewer attractions. We managed to track down the TAT (Tourist Authorities of Thailand) and get our hands on a map to help us understand the place a bit more and decide what was worth seeing. Before long we were on our way to Narai's Palace and accompanying museums, which was the big attraction of the town. The grounds were ...

I just finished serving the second ten day course in Thailand. Serving here is much easier than in America. In America, you are usually working in the kitchen preparing all the meals and cleaning up afterwards. It is hard work, and everyday I remember being worn out! Here, there are permanent cooks and the main responsibilities of the servers are to clean and watch over the meals and the meditation hall. That means there is ...

... you from Angkor? This place is NICE, yeah?!" And then enter American Girl. "Oh HEY! Where you from? CANADA? That's so fun!" Woke up the next morning to find that Nikki was not feeling so hot (she tells me the details are not needed), so we decided to spend the day relaxing in what turns out is a really fun town. But not before The German tells me his plans! "Ha-lo! We leave today!" That night we went down to ...

... pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" ;)<br><br>The food was fantastic value for money, fresh &amp; really tasty. <br><br> <br><br>With full stomachs and a few cold beers inside us we went back to the room and probably had about 8 minutes sleep in TOTAL before morning, it was an absolute shocker. <br><br>The bed was about as soft as a ...

Anita and John next board another train, and travel 4 hours North to visit the city of Phitsanulok, and day-trip to the ancient capital city of Sukhothai. After being a little bored in Ayuthaya, our duo is looking for a little excitement... HE SAID: It may be difficult to believe, but we really enjoyed Phitsanulok quite a bit. It is a very Thai, and non-touristy sort of city/town... but we ended up having a really good time. Our ...

... We took another train to Lopburi, one hour to the north. On the train, we met a nice French couple and Pascal, a French expat who now lives in Montreal, Canada. The group of us walked around town, visited another wat, and checked out the resident band of mischievous monkeys, who are fearless! There were hundreds of them, climbing and swinging around on the telephone wires and signs overhead, crossing the streets, and swimming around in cement tubs of water. The locals feed ...