Peace Corps Guyana: NUEY WON!!!! Oh... and Sukhothai part 2

Sorry last week was so emo, it was pretty stressful at Wat Metang! Mel and I would go home and even though we would tell ourselves it isn't that big of a deal, we were just super tense and nervous all last week!

On Thursday, Nongnoot asked us if we would like to go back to Sukhothai because she had to go to a seminar in a neighboring province and Sukhothai was on the way. Since Mel and I were busy with the speeches and hadn't really had time to plan anything we decided to take her up on the offer. By bus, it is about 4 1/2 hours and you have to change buses in Phitsanulok. By car, it was about a 3 hour drive. Super nice!

Last time we stayed in the Historical park area and did the Wats in the park. This time we stayed in Sukhothai city and decided to explore some new things. We did this evening sunset tour called "Cyclying Sukhothai" and it was SO FUN! We went through villages and rice paddies and just kind of back roads Thailand, not touristy. It was beautiful. The company is owned by a Belgian man, his Thai wife, Mam, and their son. Our tour was around 3 hours long and had around 20 other people on it, ALL FRENCH! We think maybe the French Lonely Planet really hypes up Sukhothai or something because everyone we met that weekend was from a French speaking country.

Anywho, Mam took us all through the countryside and taught us about the rice paddies, spirit houses, interesting plants, and other random goodness.

Picture this: Riding on a bike through a rice paddy, a rainbow off to your left, the sun slowly going down on your right, and beautiful green rice paddies on either side of you. It was one of those moments where Mel and I looked at each other and said, I can't believe we live here! It was a great moment and a great tour. We were both wonderfully exhausted and sore by the end and ready to go to sleep!

Rainbow!

Mam showing us about the rice paddies!

Riding through the rice paddies!

The next day we went to the one Wat we had missed from our last visit, Wat Chang Lom. Chang means elephants in Thai so we were expecting to see some elephant ruins. We were not disappointed! It was very cool, with some elephants intact and some completely destroyed.

We were the only ones there so we decided to take some fun pics!

Then, we went to the Ramkhamhaeng Museum, named and dedicated to the crown prince of Thailand. We weren't expecting much but we actually learned a lot about the different positions of the Buddhas and saw some pretty cool artifacts from the 13th century.
A really exciting thing about Sunday was our lunch, I had a club sandwich and Mel had spaghetti! This is not a big deal in America but in Thailand, especially in Phrae, it is AWESOME! We were in heaven! Nongnoot picked us up around 6:30 and we headed back to Phrae!

Speeches time!! So all last week we worked with our students on their 3 speeches and had a ton of fun working with them! It was like our own little family. It was basically the 6 of us in a room together all day everyday and so we all got pretty close! All the kids wanted to do was take breaks, obviously, so we would make them practice for a certain amount of time and then they could play angry birds or temple run on my iPhone for a little bit. They were obsessed and super good! They also taught us to play this jack-like game that they love to play. It was pretty cute because they were so excited to teach us!

This morning, Monday, was the competition in Phrae. Everyone was sooo nervous! When Poom, Am, Nuey and Chain were speaking I swear I didn't breathe. Mel kept calling me a stage mom. 555
They all did so well though and no one forgot their speech! What we didn't realize/know and the teachers were really pissed about, was that children of foreigners could be in this competition, so the children of the filipinos who are English teachers were in the competition also. Some of them had been speaking English all of their lives. One girl was named Amy Sanchez for crying out loud! So that was a little disheartening...
So everyone said their speeches, we had lunch and then they came back with the results! Nuey was the only one who had won, which was super exciting, I teared up a little...:-) So now she advances to the next round which is on Saturday and which Mel and I are helping to judge, I wonder who we will pick...(because this is Thailand and that isn't against the rules, by the way)

Chain, Poom, Am and Nuey!