Days twenty-eight and twenty-nine in Thailand – 2015

Day 28 – Thurs – 2nd July:

Yesterday Sherry gave me ‘homework’ to learn all the Thai numbers up to twenty. I sat on the beach with some snacks from 7-11 and spend several hours reading the lessons from yesterday’s class.

There is no class on Thursday for beginner level so I spent the afternoon snorkelling on our beach (Haad Yao).

    

    
Day 29 – Fri – 3rd July:

Class at 8am again today. I sat through both classes and met two groups of different people. 

There was a Turkish guy (who I had met on Wednesday already), a guy called Olay who was Spanish I think, and a lady who was English, whom I also can’t remember the name of.

I went for lunch at a local cafe and ordered my meal partly in Thai! ‘Cow pat muu’ is fried rice pork but translates literally as ‘rice fried pork’.

I used the awesome hotel pool and then turned around to the study centre again for 4pm. I joined the group class from 4 to 6 and then had my second private lesson, this time with Marie (Sherry’s sister). This lesson went on till 8pm.

While we were finishing up an older guy turned up on his motorbike wearing a pink rain poncho, a Greek who is studying Thai cooking at the centre. Marie said he often turns up really late in the evening to eat dinner with her but she doesn’t always like to eat so late. He only spoke a little English and little Thai so it was a bit hard to communicate.

He was very nice and I sort of had a conversation with him about my trip to Greece last year, but I couldn’t for the life of my remember where I went for some reason. Duh. It was Chaina, Crete, and I had no wifi so I couldn’t look it up on facebook.

Anyway we ate dinner. One of the dishes was a sort of fried bamboo curry? But it was very nice, and I think the bamboo comes from their own garden.

I have a good handful of words now in Thai and have learnt some of the basic grammar which is essential if you are to form your own sentences. The second class today 5-6pm was a little more advanced and I got a bit lost, but it was good to hear the language spoken anyway. I just remembered, there was also a girl from Japan and a couple of other people. One couple was vegan and there was a little discussion about that when I said ‘Pom chob muu’ which is ‘I like pork’. Later at my private lesson Marie apologised for them (not for their belief which is fine but the fact that they were trying to force it on others, Marie said something about it not being polite in Thai culture to criticise other people’s lifestyles) anyway I am used to vegans etc and I didn’t mind.

After dinner I tried some new Thai fruits which I can’t remember much about now but one of them was Jackfruit.

Next up: days thirty and thirty-one.

Previously: days twenty-six and twenty-seven.