My 'Round the World' travels!: Good-bye Thailand

Whenever you sit in a bath for hours and start to get all wrinkly - that was a bit like the Songkran Water Festival. A festival whereby the Thais welcome in the New Year - they use the Tamil calendar and their New Year is something ridiculous like 5114, not 2012 like we do. It is a time of cleansing of themselves, their houses, everything and respect of their elders and Buddha. 3 whole days of getting absolutely saturated. Myself and a few of my friends could only manage one day of all the water before hibernating in someones house for the other 2 days. It was great fun. As soon a someone walked out of their door, they were attacked by people young and old throwing water everywhere and covering you with either perfume (which stank - if it was some fancy named expensive brand that was nice it would've been great), talc or orange paint. Ice water was the worst, especially if you had to go indoors to the air conditioning, then most people started to freeze to death.

There was an earthquake that occurred in Indonesia a few days before Songkran and whilst we were training in the gym an announcement came over the tannoy about stopping classes and staying away from certain parts of the island, as a tsunami wave was expected to hit 40 minutes later. The earthquake hit Banda Acheh (where the last tsunmai destroyed thousands of lives and wreaked havoc) so some of the people in Phuket weren't taking any chances. Neither were some of us.

So off we went back to our apartments, 3 of us jumped on Hermie my scooter and went to the nearest evacuation route - which was at the Big Buddha, which sits 6km high up on the hill (the same place the running of tyres on your shoulders occurs). Myself and 2 other girls, Tina and Emma looked ridiculous all squashed on Hermie, legs and arms hanging over the scooter in any direction, trying to drive slowly and get up the hill as quickly as we could without falling off. We made it up with hundreds and hundreds of Thais all up there already. Everyone waited eagerly for the tsunami - we had a good view of the sea - hours passed and the all clear came. There was a tsunami ok, but I suppose you could say a bit of a baby one. Actually, some people could probably cause more of a ripple if they had a bit of a 'wind' problem and let off in the sea. The tsunami wave was apparently 4ft high - even smaller than the tide coming in! At least we were safe and no-one was taking any chances this time round.

Have had my last week of classes and have now moved on from Phuket and am back in my little hotel in Bangkok, the one I was in before. No more sweating constantly, no more tyres, no more Hermie the scooter :( I had the most amazing time there and met so many fantastic people. Met so many people from everywhere around the globe and will keep in contact with a good few of them. Never met a Norwegian before, now I've met a handful. Well, let's just say I won't forget the likes of Tina, Nikita and Ted - 3 different characters, each from different parts of Norway - each totally different from the next, each adding a different dimension to my daily life, but all completely nuts (in a good way). Most of our waking hours were spent together: training, eating, going out, watching movies in each others room during rest times, going to the beach, going on the scooter... a few of us nearly morphing into each other in little ways. I suppose training at Tiger Muay Thai was a bit like being in a jail, but a brilliant jail at that, spending your life with these people. Thailand has been stunning - it's right up there with South America, beating Oz and NZ. The country is so pretty and the Thai people are just something else - and Thailand is known as the 'The Land of Smiles' - never did I meet an unhappy Thai person. Every single one of them were charming, always willing to help and always smiling and saying hello, asking if you'll come back and visit. They just love their Royal Family and their Buddhist religion, unlike many other countries in the world. The last 6 weeks have just been fantastic, but time to move on again for my next destination...?

Laos - I'll be flying there in the next couple of days and have no idea what to expect. Looking forward to it and then it's back to South America and Cusco for 6 weeks of studying Spanish and volunteering again. After that, more travel to Columbia and Ecuador. I never plan too far in advance as things can change at the last minute, depending on what is happening at that particular time. That's just one of the many things I've learned over the last 10 months of travel.