Ban Phe

Well, I'm finally out of Bangkok! After four days, I have decided that it was too much for me on my own. I was nervous about meeting up with my fellow TEFL classmates, but as soon as I sat down with them, I knew I'd be fine. Three of us met up at the airport to take a shuttle to Ban Phe. It took about two and a half hours to get here, and when we pulled up to the school/place we were staying, we weren't so sure what to think. Sure, you can look down the street and see the ocean, but there was nothing we could see on the short street but a laundry place and two restaurants. We got "set up" in our very basic rooms. It has a double bed, which is nice ... a bathroom, which is alright, despite the lack of hot water ... a bureau with one drawer and 5 hangers, which is so so, considering I had no "off button" when packing. But, it has AC and that's what really matters at this point :)

We quickly decided that we needed to put on our bathing suits and hit the beach. And as quickly as we decided to put on our suits, we decided that the beach wasn't quite as inviting up close as it was from the school :) Apparently the "nice beach" is down the road a bit, away from Ban Phe ... Which turned out to be a lot more than our little street (thank goodness). After exploring a bit, there seems to be quite a few restaurants and markets ... Although there isn't much in terms of nightlife ... which is why I'm sitting in an internet cafe at 9PM writing a blog :)

We are pretty sure there are only 10 to 12 of us enrolled in the 4 week course, and there aren't many westerners in the Ban Phe area, so it may be some close corridors by the end of the month, but hopefully well worth it. The 4 classmates I have met so far seem great, so I'm not worried ... But it may be a long month of card games and studying.

I'll be posting more photos soon of Ban Phe and my tiny little room :) The class starts Monday, and I had to sign something today recognizing that the class can be very stressful, so send good thoughts my way ... I haven't been to school for a while, and grammar is not my forte, so this could be interesting.