Sa wat dee kaaa, I'm back! After a short but sweet school holiday in the UK (getting AWAY from the rays), I've made a 30-hour, 3-plane return back to my tropical home-from-home, my little village in a northern corner of Thailand. And I've somehow found myself already 2 months in, so I think it's about time to write another blog while I melt under the air-con, watch the sun set over the distant mountains from my bedroom window and munch on a banana from the tree outside my door.

So to kick-start my first weekend, I was invited to a teacher's housewarming in the next village. And not the British, politely formal, cocktail-and-pineapple-on-a-stick kind: these people know how to party. The whole village showed up, the booze was flowing, the band was playing, the karaoke was warbling, the dance floor was heaving and the food was rolling in. I had middle-aged women dragging me up to boogie, middle-aged men jabbering away at me in Thai, flowers slipped in my hair, photos taken with every one's grandmother, cousin's cousin, great uncle. And so it continued as we rolled on to another teacher's house, with that ever-present karaoke set providing the entertainment into the night…First day back at school the next day, you can imagine the state of the office that morning. It's still the Thailand I remember!

Also to welcome me back, Thailand decided to have a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in its NE region just before I landed. Although it wasn't hugely serious (the major fatalities including beheaded Buddha statues and split highways), there were over 100 aftershocks recorded across the north. So, lying over a fault line, the local government ordered that all schools in our region practice earthquake drills in preparation. So the paramedics and police were called in and the sirens were dug out, set off at random intervals throughout the day to signal our cue to leg it to the basketball court as quickly as possible. This all culminated in a final "real earthquake" scenario that afternoon, with students being carried out on stretchers and hauled away in ambulances to demonstrate the rescue-services' role in the emergency. So, tectonic plates, we are ready and waiting! (Kinda hoping a small one might come out way, I really want to experience one for real…).

Speaking of encounters with nature and all things wild at school, we've already had a cobra casually sitting outside my office door and a teacher finding a scorpion in her desk one morning. All part of the daily grind! And I've been here long enough now to turn a blind eye to the odd little gecko scurrying up my wall or the cockroach in my shower (maybe the former more than the latter…), but working in my bedroom the other day I hear a crash in the other room. Creeping in, I see a bloody who-ate-all-the-flies Godzilla gecko running across my floorboards and up my wall while my cups slowly finish rolling around the floor. Cue instant call to my advisor (I am NOT sleeping with THAT crawling around my face at night) and she brings along one of my little 12-year-old students donning a long wooden pole and sack. Apparently his little hobby-turned-business-enterprise is to go around the village hunting these geckos to sell to neighbouring gecko-munching countries (yep, it surprised me also to know that gecko is not on the menu here - why would I even think such a thing…?). So he comes to the rescue, swiftly hooking the mini noose at the end of his pole around the critter's neck and stuffing it in the sack already moving with that night's hoard. Felt a tad guilty afterwards, but I think it chose the wrong house to go hunting in…

And it's not just geckos they hunt around here. The annual hunting season for giant cockroach-looking bugs has just finished and my village is famous for it, lucky me! Villagers, including my school advisor, excitedly venture out into the trees at night with huge purple lamps to catch as many as they can to be taken home and fried up for tomorrow's snack, or sold on in demand to other districts. (I was kindly invited to check this out one night, but figured that considering my popularity with flesh-guzzling insects, I would turn up to school as one giant ball of mosquito bite with legs. And it does not sound like my idea of a fun night out. At all. EVER.). So inevitably each week, a bowl of fried, (egg-laden if you were lucky) bugs would join us at lunch in the office for everyone to pick at. Guys I tried, I really tried to be a good farang. I did. But I just couldn't … just … wait … nope. Sorry. I'll pass. Bleurgh.

On the other hand, a weekend abseiling down waterfalls and trekking through the jungle with a machete-wielding guide? That's much more up my street! Once we'd settled back into school routine and Thai life again, I met up with another teacher from Australia who played a big part in my foreign teacher friendship group last semester (that has now sadly dispersed, leaving only two farangs left to represent the north!). With 2 awesome Bear-Grylls-esque guides leading the way, we waded through rivers, abseiled down stunning secluded waterfalls and dived into the plunge pools below, while being taught the tricks and trades of the natives in catching food and water, along with a few stops at cobra holes and medicinal white-worm nests en route. Then we sat down to eat our freshly-speared frogs and snake-eye sandwiches. (Just kidding.)

School-wise, I've been given another 2 classes a week, meaning I'm now teaching over 500 Thai teenagers. My Department Head also set up a much-anticipated Teachers' English Class twice a week that I lead, which HAS to be the most manic 2 hours of my timetable! I've never seen a bunch of adults become so excitable in the classroom; they're noisier than my 12-year-olds! I literally explain the speaking activity and dive for cover. It's so much fun, albeit it's 8th period Thursday and Friday, but try getting them to describe their physical appearance and suddenly you have a group apparently consisting solely of "slim, muscular, bald, beautiful" teachers … ahem.

We also celebrated the school's 39th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, with students dedicating the whole afternoon before to intricately decorate the hall and suspend a giant web of white string across the whole space with one piece dangling down for every person sitting beneath. During the ceremony the next day, our individual piece of string was wrapped around our heads while a line of monks chanted (and chanted, and chanted…) to bless one end of this string, sending it through the interconnected web to bestow upon us good health, happiness and fortune for this life and the next. Buddhism is a beaut of a faith.

Another annual celebration (and definitely the most important…!) is Wai Kru Day, a whole day dedicated to thanking teachers and reminding us of how awesome we are (oooh yeah). In Thailand, the hierarchy of status goes like this:

1. Buddha (the big guy)

2. The King (adored by all)

3. Monks (doing big guy's work)

4. Teachers (inspiring the next generation)

So teachers are pretty high up the ranks here and are highly respected (might bring a few of these concepts home to our Brit teens). As with the anniversary, students spent the whole afternoon before making beautiful models from clay, intricately decorated with tiny, hand-collected flowers and amazingly detailed weaved banana leaves and petals. (There's a HUGE emphasis on creativity here, and every student gets willingly and intensely involved in making these kinds of things to the point where whole days are just wiped off to dedicate to it). So on the day, the teachers all sat on the stage looking out over the students who came up class-by-class to present us with their creations and to thank us with prayers and songs. You're very welcome.

In other news (national and international), the big bad scary military coup has been continuing, putting in place a national curfew from 10pm-5am, suspending TV and closings all schools in the first week of its announcement. It really hasn't affected us up here in my northern village, though, or even much elsewhere in fact, which is very frustrating for my agency that've had many foreign teachers backing out of positions here because of the political issues. Sadly it means that another farang won't be joining me in Chiang Muan this semester in place of the much-missed American teacher, as the primary school struggled to find anyone willing to come. So, looks like I'm the only farang in the village now…

And that pretty much sums up my Life of Thai Take Two so far, the sun has officially set behind the distant peaks and the empty banana skin is attracting way too many bugs than necessary, so I'll love you and leave you. Until the next time, jer guhn na ka! xxx