A sister's view

"My brother got us up at 7am for the third day in a row so that we could begin our travels around the country. Apparently we have many provinces to visit, but as always, nothing with Ant is certain! We made our way to the bus station to catch a bus to a place called Sattahib — all that I know is that it is near the beach. As we approached the station there were plenty of people to hurry us on to a bus. Ant was chatting away in Thai and as usual I had no idea what was going on. Eventually we were ushered onto a bus and paid the bargain fare of one pound fifty. According to Ant, the journey was supposed to be 2 hours. I settled down and caught up on some of the sleep that Ant had deprived me of."

"A couple of hours later we were awake and telephoning the camp organiser to pick us up. Ant spoke to the woman collecting the fare who assured us that we were only 'about 40 minutes' away from our destination. An hour passed and we were getting concerned, as were the people collecting us. After another hour I was beginning to regret drinking a whole bottle of water at the 2-hour stage. And also doubting my brother's ability in catching buses around Thailand. I think I would have been better off staying with the lovely girls in Bangkok — P'Bua and P'Lyn know how to organise a good trip! Eventually, after the longest 2 hours in history, we arrived in Sattahib 5 hours since leaving Bangkok."

"Ant had not told me much about this trip except that we were going to a Summer Camp where 60 English undergraduate students would be waiting to meet us. By the time we arrived they were halfway through the days' activities, so we showered and ate before the afternoon trip to temples and the beach. When we met the students they were very shy, with many of them afraid to speak English to us. By the time we had visited the temples, a few of the students had began to ask some questions and as the day progressed more of them were getting confident in asking what these two farang were doing here. They were most pleased to hear that Ant and I were brother and sister, as opposed to boyfriend and girlfriend!"

"Ant was enjoying the occasion being surrounded by cute 19 year old girls who couldn't stop smiling at him. Actually he has been surrounded by girls every day of the trip so far — no wonder he keeps coming back to Thailand. On Sunday he had lunch with 10 girls (and only 2 guys), on monday he was dining alone with 5 girls, and on Tuesday he was escorted around by 4 girls. The only time there have been less girls than guys was when we took 4 monks to Wat Phra Kaew — Ant somehow managed to find these monks to join us on a tour of Bangkok. Another random thing that happened that day was that I got a Thai lesson from the abbot of one of Bangkok's most important temples."

"Back to the Summer Camp and a trip to the beach. After feeling the warmth of the sea, everyone couldn't help being relaxed and the English started to flow. Combine this with seafood and all the Thais were happy! The evening passed with some games before heading for bed in the small hours — have to be ready for 7am in the morning for another long journey!