Well I went the same time the monks do without eating which was difficult! very! Me and Ewan had to sleep in the main hall, and the girls in another toom in another building. We did some meditation and chanting in the evening which was really interesting. The problem is, the book they gave us to read the chants with the monks, were written in phonetics. Which sounds good. But they don't seem to realise that Thai and English phonetics are different. This made it very difficult and confusing. The monk seemed to take great interest in me, especially during meditation. Apparently I was doing it very well and had very good posture. He asked if I did yoga, and then asked how old I was. When he heard I was 18 he told me I was too young to become a monk. I think he may have been jumping to a few conclusons. We were asked if we wanted to join in the 5 o'clock chanting the next morning. Though me and Ewan didn't really have a choice as the chants were taking place in our bedroom! But we were all still up for it anyway. Then after that we followed the monk around the village with buckets and a big cart as we collected the food for the monks. They can't buy anything for themselves so the local villagers give them their food for the day... every day. Its wierd to see how selflessly they give up their own food for the monks when they have so little themselves. We then swept the entire temple for a coupld of hours, and it was really rewarding to see how clean of leaves it was. But it was extremely annoying to walk back through the temple and see that the whole place was already covered in leaves again, which we found very amusing. They had piranhas in their lake!!! We returned to brown house and relaxed for a bit.

On thurday we went on a REALLY long bike ride up and down the river. But it was a lot of fun. Except I whacked my head stupidly hard on a low door frame of the place we stopped at to have lunch. This made the rest of the bike ride a little blurry. In the afternoon we went into Sing Buri where we looked around for all sorts. I am looking for a simple t shirt that I can get people to sign all over.

Yesterday, Friday, we went to Tesco Lotus to get some last provisions we may need for the trekking. Then to a restaurant for lunch. In the early afternoon we went to the hundred year market, it had some great stuff there. I got a brilliant straw trilby from there and a couple of presents. But the best bit was the zoo. We got to see baby tigers and lions, and orangutan family, full grown lions, tigers, panthers, bears, monkeys and a HUGE snake. I have photos of me with the big fat orangutan and the snake. Seriously, if that thing wanted to, it could sterangle you without even putting in any effort. Madness.

Last night we had another fany dress party, so we went as the BRAMY (Brown House Army) with war paint, war wounds, aviators, toothpicks, camoflage, the lot. It was brilliant. Its inredible to see the costmes that people manage to pull off with the limited resources they have. Annoyingly I cant upload photos of anything in this internet cafe for some reason. No idea why.

I've found that I have been losing my appetite a bit. I think its because of two reasons. Firstly, I am drinking so much water to stay hydrated that my stomach is swelling and thinking it is full. Secondly, the food is so sweet and heavy that it is difficult to eat too much. But the food is still really nice!

It feels wierd to think I am already half way through my time here. It isn't a nice thought, because I am enjoying myself so much and having so much fun! But I have the thought in my head that when I get back I have America to look forward to! That makes it a bit easier. Trekking in the jungle this week, going to be a huge experience. Waterfalls and the like. That also means that I won't be ale to get online all week, so updates won't be for a while. Also means I am going to have a huge backlog of emails from youtube to sift through, ek!

Well I am going scouting for shirts now, and then off for a dip in the pool. Hopefully the cool pool will ease the itching of the insane amount of bites I recieved last night. The deet effect wore off it seems....

xxxxx