Trailing Off....: Trang-quility: A Trip with the Thai Teachers

These strange mountains poke out of the sea everywhere.

Imagine getting invited on holiday for free and not having to do anything in preparation. To sit back and be carted around, given food, and taken to see cool stuff you wouldn't otherwise know about! Ahh, teacher field trips--one of the many perks of my job at Rajamangala University.

We went with about 30 Thai teachers for an island hopping trip off the coast of Trang province in the Andaman Sea (a bit north of Satun and Lipeh Island). We were given an itinerary in Thai and so every experience was new and unexpected as we had no idea what was going on. Here's a summary:

We ate a lot. The first restaurant was a classy place in the middle of nowhere. Polished teak chairs and tables and plenty of family style eating: mixed vegetables, omelette with pork, sour yellow curry fish soup, and the most amazing invention of all: banana filled donuts dipped in honey.

First of many feasts on the trip. Thais love to eat all day.

We went into a sea cave that was so low you had to lie down flat on the boat. Squished next to three Thai men and Stephen as the cave ceiling nearly removed my bosom.

In the boat on the way to the cave with Stephen, Sakchai and two other teachers.We didn't know what was in store.

We ate some more. Thais like to share their treats. This was a purple roasted potato that tasted..purple.

a very purple, but rather bland roasted treat

We drove a lot. It was an arranged tour so the tour guide did some sort of stand up show with games involving prizes. There was a lot of incomprehensible (to us) shouting and laughing, so we put in our podcasts and watched the mountains and villages slide by.

I also experimented a lot with the camera.......

We stayed in a four star hotel. Rather than explore Trang City and get hot and sweaty, we enjoyed the comforts of a real bed, TV, and hot showers.

View from our room

We ate some more. While we swam in the hotel pool, the Thai teachers had some sort of professional development meeting. We came in for the last part, which was a big feast.

a ton of delicious food spinning round and round...

We sang a lot. No banquet is complete without karaoke. I was forced to sing "My Heart Will Go On" because I couldn't think of another option quickly enough. Stephen sang, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and enunciated very clearly.

This song goes on and on....

We snorkeled a lot. There were quite a lot of people, so it wasn't meditative snorkeling, but it was great fun.. For the entertainment of those who stayed on the boat, people would bring bread or rice into the water to make all the fish swarm to the surface.

Stephen sporting the requisite Asian photo pose

We ate some more. A bbq of grilled crab, grilled prawns, and tom yum kung was prepared. Actually, I mangled some crab and prawns and Stephen ate rice and soup because he doesn't like shellfish.

We stayed in a two star cabin on the Rajamangala Trang campus that was a fortress against a thirsty mob of tiny buzzing vampires.

A lovely little cabin in the forest

We ate some more. Breakfast at this famous dim sum (a la carte) establishment included crispy pork, fried donuts, dumplings, chicken wings, bacon wrapped sausages, won tons, and a bunch of other stuff with no English name.