To celebrate the end of the school year, and I guess reward their teachers for a job well done Kasintorn takes all of its employees on a 3 day trip.  This year that trip was to Kanchanaburi.  If you follow my blog you may recognize the name because I have already visited this little town on the western boarder of Thailand, but I didn't mind returning because A - its a free trip, and B - there were things I handn't seen the last time, such as a gorgeous natural waterfall. Kanchanaburi town is only a 2-2.5 hour bus ride from Bangkok, but for some reason we only stopped for a short time in the actual town, where I assumed we would be staying, and then continued on deep into Kanchanaburi Province, into the hills another 3 hours.  Our hotel was this kitschy little place where all of the rooms were giant fruit. It was cool at first, but once the novelty  wore off we started to realize that we were stranded for 3 days smack dab in the middle of nowhere.  The resort had nothing to do, not even a pool, or well anything.  There was not even a 7-11 around for us to buy snacks or drinks.  This may not make sense to someone who has never been to Thailand, but to not have a 7-11 around is strange.  Even the most remote locations in this country have a 7-11 within walking distance. They did attempt to keep us entertained with dinners, dancing, a fancy hat party and karaoke, but by the 2nd night we were beginning to find our own means of entertainment. ie - drinking and having a sing along on the dock, followed by drunken durian climbing.  It was kind of nice on the docks because it seems at times that the school is doing everything in its power to segregate us teachers, and it was nice to have all of the Thai, Western, Filipino, and Chinese teachers in one place singing songs (or attempting to sing songs) in different languages, and just having a good time.
During the days they would bus us around to different locations around the province.  Everything took at least 2 hours to get to so we spent a lot of time on buses over those 3 days.  The communication was also severely lacking as they would tell us that we had 2 hours at a plce and then all the sudden that would change to 45 minutes and we would be dashing back for the bus.  Another time they didn't tell us that the bus would be picking us up in a different location than in dropped us off, so a few of us walked up this steep hill to get back to the bus to find that it wasn't there and so we had to practically run the other way to catch the bus before they left us.  This same thing tended to happen over and over almost everywhere we went.  I can also sadly report that I didn't make it to the waterfalls, which was a bummer.  Also, on the last day they told us we were going to the Tiger Temple, a place where monks live among tigers and you can pet and take pictures with them.  Instead we went to this other temple that granted, was very beautiful, but the only reason it was called tiger temple was because it had tiger statues all over it.
So in some ways this trip was a bit of a bust, but in other ways it was really nice seeing sights I would have otherwise missed, and spending more time getting to know the other teachers better.  Maybe eventually I'll get back to actually see those waterfalls.

Holi, which is also referred to as the festival of color or the festival of love, is a Hindu festival to welcome the Spring and in the more spiritual sense the triumph of good over evil.  It's mainly celebrated in India and Nepal, and for years I have wanted to celebrate the holiday in one of those countries, though when I was traveling I was not in the right place at the right time to make it happen.  So, when a friend told me that they were holding the festival at the India-Thai chamber of commerce in Bangkok I all but jumped at the opportunity to go. I have to say that is was probably the best day that I have spent in this country since I landed in Thailand back in October.  The colors were beautiful and the people were happy, warm, and so friendly. 
It was such a blissful experience and I think the best way to describe it is through pictures...and there are a lot of pictures because they were all so beautiful and wonderful I could hardly decide which ones to exclude.  
Enjoy!

On our way home we walked through Lumpini Park, like the Central Park of Bangkok, and got the great stares and comments from passerbys. Might have been because of the color, or that we were acting like idiots on the exercise equipment.  The one woman even stopped us on the street, she spoke really good English, and she asked where we were coming from.  We told her and her response was..."Oh, I had forgotten about holi. When I first saw you I thought you were just crazy."  Hahahaha....I love how honest Thais are sometimes.


And just in case you were wondering, some of the color stayed on our bodies for days after.  Luckily I was able to scrub it off of my face at least before school the next day.