Tiffany's show in Pattaya. 

Only in Thailand would they need a sign like this!

 The fly by.

 The Thai Air base from the cockpit of a Bombardier water bomber (a little bit of Canadian craftsmanship in Thailand).

The Thai airplane carrier.

Storm clouds moving in, we happened to make it back on the buses seconds before it started to rain.

At the sea turtle conservatory.

The baby turtle I set free into the ocean! 

RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards)

This past week I attended RYLA, it was a camp with most of the inbound exchange students and then any Thai students who know about Rotary and would like to go can sign up for the week long camp.  Before I even made it to RYLA which is on the coast I spent a night in Pattaya and I had the opportunity to see a show, it was called “Tiffany’s”.  It was a lady boy show as they call it here in Thailand, in other words most or all the actors were men who have had sex changes.  It was a very good show and the costumes and sets were amazing. 

Well after this very interesting evening, the next morning we got up to go to the Thai military base in Sattahip where RYLA was being held.  To go along with it being held at a military base, it was run in a military style, as in every morning we had to line up before the flag and stand a certain way.  In was very interesting to see how a camp in run in Thailand, because everything was very structured and there was no free time really, where as in Canada you are used to having a bit more freedom, so it was definitely an insight into the Thai culture and the way they like order and structure in everything that they do.   The best part of it being held on a military base was they we got to see part of the Thai Air Force and Naval base, which foreigner are never usually allowed to see so the exchange students at RYLA were very privileged to see this.  We got to go in some on the planes, have a helicopter demonstration and explore an aircraft carrier.  We also went to a sea turtle conservation center run by the Royal Thai Navy, here we got to see huge sea turtles and well as set baby ones free into the ocean, so much fun.

Well these were some of the activities outside of our main camp that we did, when we were at our camp, we got to swim in the ocean and on the last day we did a morning of team building activities, as in crossing a pond, using only ropes and getting the whole team across or filling a tube with water that had hole drilled into it.  So all in all it was a fun week and it was great to meet so many Thai and exchange students during the week.  

The water-less waterfall, it is apparently the most famous waterfall on the island!!

View from a point above the waterfall looking at the harbour that the ferry from the mainland arrives at.  

 The view form my hotel room on the first night.

Nangyuan Island Dive Resort, where I went snorkeling.

Huge shrimp, apparently they come from rivers and not the ocean.

This is a royal collection of Buddhas and a monk is covering one of the Buddha`s with little pieces of gold leaf until it is restored to its original beauty. 

Koh Phangan

This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel with my host cousin and her friend again. They took me south to an island called Koh Phangan, while travelling down to this island they amused themselves tremendously by trying to make me say words in Thai that were quite difficult for non-native Thai people.  Anyways on once we made it to this island via ferry, we were supposed to hike and see a waterfall, the hike happen but seeing a waterfall did not. This was because in the south of Thailand there is really only two season hot, and wet and the wet season is just starting down there so if we had gone a few weeks later we would have seen the waterfall in its full glory, sadly we had to satisfy ourselves with a gorgeous view the island and the ocean stretching into the distance.  The next day was quite spectacular, we when on a snorkeling tour, where we went to a protected island, a “dive resort” as they call it, called Nangyuan Island.  It was a beautiful place where they ensure no plastic bottles or cans make their way on to the island and disrupt the coral reef.  I got to play around with schools of fish, barracudas and much more, the coral reefs are mesmerizing and you can spend forever staring at one spot and never get bored!  They following three days we meandered our way back up to Bangkok stopping along the way and interesting points, such as the skinniest part of Thailand and its border with Myanmar.  Also seeing as we were along the ocean for this trip seafood was on the menu every day.  We ate the biggest oysters and river shrimp I had ever seen, all quite delicious I must say.  This trip was great and I got to see a big part of Thailand as we drove down and back from Koh Phangan and I must say Thailand has some very beautiful country sides, but the mountains spring up from nowhere, all of a sudden you will have a huge cliff and all before that was flat.  It is very interesting seeing landscape that is so different from the landscape you see in Canada. 

Well that is it for now, and I hope everyone has a great Canadian Thanksgiving!