Bat Scat!

Hellooo! Today was quite the day...for starters, today was Friday which means we go into the village and do some sort of community service. I was on kitchen duty this morning so I was up at 645am scrambling around with the other kitchen people trying to make breakfast for everyone. After that we went down the road to this Buddhist temple where a few monks live and picked up trash. Picking up trash at 930am a little hung over with 90 degree weather was tiring to say the least. A bag of trash, 2 pepto bismols, and one long and hot hour later, we were done and moving on to this cave for lunch. We got to the cave and I cannot even begin to describe how incredible this thing was. The first thing you see is this calm and peaceful little lake/lagoon surrounded by trees and filled with lili-pads (spelling?) Once we walked past that we entered the cave. This thing was seriously insane looking. Throughout the beginning of the cave was this crystal blue lagoon of water, we followed this for a little bit but once deeper inside the cave the water came to an end and it was just sand and crazy looking rocks. When I say rocks I'm talking about "rocks" that look like they should be on the moon or something; they were coming from every direction--above, below, left right, everywhere. Then we moved onto this one area that was probably 200 feet in circumfrence and was just sand and rocks--this part seriously looked like you were on the moon. After that we had to climb a ways up and down and in and out all these little caves to reach the "mouth". Once we reached the final spot to climb up in order to get outside the cave and have a good look at the surroundings, I suddenly realized this cave looked exactly like the one from Aladdin. Okay yeah, lame childhood flashback but if you saw the movie you know what I'm talking about. These huge rocks and boulders lead the way to this opening where you could look out and see nothing but palm trees. Immediately I asked myself how the helllll am i suppose to get up there?! There was nothing left for me to do than to head up the rocks--afterall, I wasn't gonna be that one girl that just sat at the bottom and waited for everyone to come down bragging about how cool it looked. So me and my shweet hiking boots (thanks dad) rock climbed that shiza and made it to the top with few problems. Actually, the only problem was all the BAT SCAT that covered the rocks. Bat poo looks and feels exactly like dirt and really doesn't smell so it wasn't that gross but gripping all the rocks and knowing my hands and legs were covered in mozzy spray (mosquito repelent), sweat, and now BAT SHIT really made me crave a shower I guess you could say. Once I made it to the top though the climb was completely worth it. The view from this opening of the cave was unreal. All you see for miles is palm trees and green jungle. Nong--the guy from the restaurant next door that we always go for a beer at-- was the tour guide again. He is a great tour guide with great english and makes sure that we are as safe as can possibly be. It was funny, he had about 6 boys from the village come and help out to keep an eye on us tourists to make sure we didnt fall or anything. These boys were literally straight out of the jungle book--they all climbed in barefeet or sandals and ran up and down the rocks with NO problem whatsoever. They were seriously running in circles around us all.

Hanging out at that viewpoint was nice until I realized the only way out of the cave was to go back the way we came. My first thought: Shit. My second thought: okay this is gonna be a great memory and it's all worth it! All the girls followed this one staff member the exact way we came up but I followed Nong and two other boys and took the shorter--but harder--way down. I was quite impressed with myself if I do say so. I was charging down these rocks as fast, if not faster, than the three boys I was with. Once we made it back to that moon spot we waited about 20 minutes for all the other girls to meet up with us and then headed back towards the opening. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I dominated that treck back. These hiking boots have really come in handy dad! I was leading the whole group out of the cave--something I thought would NEVER happen in my life! Even Nong said he had his doubts about me and rock climbing in the cave but was very impressed at the end haha. So hey, maybe rock climbing will be a new workout for me? Ya never know.

We made it back to the lagoon area and ate lunch there. At that point I was almost black from all the bat poop that was all over my hands and legs, but like I said before it was WELL WORTH IT. Had a nice little picnic lunch with everyone by the lake and just relaxed after that two hour climb.

Thursday was my first day of teaching the entire hour and a half class without sharing it with anyone. It went really really well and was the funnest class I have taught! The subject was descriptive words like blue eyes, blonde hair, big mouth, big nose, curly/straight hair, etc. I teach at 7pm and this kid Dan teaches at 5pm so we wrote our lesson plan together and thought of the best games to play with our classes in order to demonstrate all the descriptive words. We did a slap game and then a "chinese whispers game". Chinese whispers is where there are 3 lines of students spread out and I tell the last student in each line a setence like "Short, curly, red hair and blue eyes" then that student has to tell the next student in line and so forth then the last person has to shout out "I have short, curly, red hair and blue eyes!". In order to make this game more interesting me and Dan made these hats with fake paper hair (brown, blonde, gray, and red) and fake eyes that they had to stick on their faces like sunglasses. So when the last kid in line found out what the sentence was they had to run to the pile of hats and eyes and pick out the right ones and put them on. It was SOOO funny seeing these Thai people with these awkward hats and eyes trying to say they had blonde hair and blue eyes. They all loved the game. After that game we played "Stand up if you..." This game is sorta like musical chairs where the person in the middle says "Stand up if you have green eyes and brown hair.." Then everyone who has brown hair and green eyes stands up and runs around looking for a new chair to sit in. 1 person gets left out and then has to be the one in the middle. Since everyone here has black hair and black eyes I made them wear the disguises for this game too. All in all it was a good lesson except for the fac that I finished 20 minutes early so I had to drag the games out for an extra 20 minutes--but I don't think my students minded to much obviously.

After that lesson we decided to do a "hut crawl" and hit up every hut that served beer on the 15 minute walk home from class. Don't worry Mom and Dad, only 2 "huts" were open. It was really fun though, drank some beers and had some laughs.

That's about it so far. We are going to Ao Nang tomorrow to hang at the beach then go out and THEN SNORKEL on sunday! I cannot wait! This snorkel spot, like i mentioned earlier, is going to be heaven on earth! I'll write about it as soon as I get back! I think I'm gonna take another shower now to make sure that all this bat scat is off of me! Miss you all! LOVE.

P.S Hendo, I'm getting some good footage out here so hopefully you can edit a little video for meeeee?

Picture Captions:

Picture 1: The very beginning of the bat guana...poopy

Picture 2: Climbinb up to the top of the cave--looks like Aladdin huh??
Picture 3: Buddhist temple where trash pick up was

Picture 4: playing Stand up if you...how funny do they all look with their hats on hahaha

Picture 5: trying on the sweet blonde hair and hat combo for the class