Beaches and Orphans and Sparkles!

The beach in Khanom, gorgeous and oddly empty

This weekend Andrew and I headed 1.5 hours out of Nakhon to the nearby beautiful beach town of Khanom. We ventured there because the other teachers in Nakhon were helping out at an orphanage benefit and because we heard it was beautiful.  We hopped on a van from Nakhon to Khanom. We were last on and had to sit in the way back. They pack these vans overly full. The ride it was beautiful and great to see the surrounding area.

Once we got to Khanom, I hoped of the van way before Andrew. Throughout the ride I had inched my way towards the front so I could watch the road to prevent carsickness. Right away a motorcycle taxi said “50 baht Where you go”. This was when I realized we had no idea where we were going. Our plan to go into town with the other foreign teachers was ruined when we overslept on Saturday morning so I said “mai rue”  (I don’t know). We asked to be pointed in the direction of the beach and started walking. We texted the teachers to try to find them and in the mean time enjoyed exploring.

The exploration and the getting to the orphanage benefit was half of the fun. If we had only been in Thailand for a couple of weeks for a holiday then our attitude towards walking in unknowingly in the right direction for two hours would have been different. Since we have almost a year in this country we were quite happy to walk for a while in this new town.

After about twenty minutes of walking we found the beach. Andrew suggested walking in one direction down the LONG beach so we just walked at this point searching for a nice place to sit, swim and relax for a bit.  We were the only people in sight on this huge beach. It was quite nice to enjoy a beautiful beach with no one around. I was a bit put off by the fact that no one was on this beach. It was absolutely beautiful and my first thought was that it’s too beautiful to be empty what’s wrong with it. But we survived, enjoyed a nice swim in the clear, calm ocean water and continued walking.

Once we got hungry and thirsty, because this happens when you walk for hours, we decided to head up to the road to ask directions toward food. There, we learned the closest food is about a kilometer down the beach in the direction we were already headed. This food establishment happened to be the CC Beach Bar which we recently learned from text message that that’s the very place the orphan benefit was! I found it funny that we had walked for hours exactly towards our original destination without even knowing it and without veering off path. I’m glad we ended up walking because we got exercise, saw the sights, enjoyed the empty beach and saved a measly 100 baht on taxis.

We arrived at the orphanage benefit three hours late. But we jumped right in to help, well after some food and water of course. I laughed at the kids having a great time playing and splashing in the water. I talked to some kids about their face paint. Then I served as a human post for some races by holding the green team's flag. The green team racers had to run around me and back to their team. Holding the flag for these races was so entertaining my face hurt from smiling and laughing this whole time. One of the races involved the kids running with a egg-filed spoon in their mouths. Their faces were too cute during this race. Then four legged race was underway, in which Andrew loaned his two legs to be tied to two kid’s legs. It was hilarious to watch the teachers running with two kids on either side of them. Some teachers just picked the kids up and ran. Some kids were falling over, pulling the teachers down with them, everyone was laughing. It was so cute to see these kids having such a good time.  I heard from the other teachers who had actually been there all day that most of these kids had never even seen the beach. Which is so sad because they live in Nakhon and it’s RIGHT next to the beach! Some kids were drinking the ocean water because they wanted to take the ocean with them, aww.

I was sad when they left. But we all smiled and waved until the busses pulled away. There were about 80 kids there and they all had no parents and this is just from one orphanage in one town in one country. I can’t imagine, poor kids. They seemed so happy on this day but I wonder what everyday is like in their lives. It was odd though 95% of the kids there were boys. I’m not sure if it was an all boys orphanage or only the boys were allowed to come or if there’s something about Thai culture that would result in only boys being in an orphanage. I shall find out.

After the kids left Andrew and I searched for a place to sleep that night, we found a cute beach hut near the ocean, next door to the CC Beach Bar. It was convenient to be there because that night all the teachers met back up at the beach bar for a party. I enjoyed getting to know the other foreigners that choose to come to Thailand to teach. They have great stories and are pretty cool people.

After hours of talking with the fellow teachers, drinking and eating horrible wannabe burritos, we headed towards bed. Walking for two hours in the blazing sun then playing with kids then drinking takes it out of you. A couple teachers stopped us from leaving so soon because we had to experience the phosphorescence in the water first.  We had to seize this opportunity so we jumped into the ocean in the middle of the night to see a sparkling glow following our every move. We would look down in the water and see our feet sparkling. Then swim and see sparkles in our swimming paths. It was so neat! I had seen this phenomenon in New Zealand but it was only with my hand from a kayak at night on a cruise up in the Bay of Islands. Swimming and sparkles coming off of you is incredible!  I feel lucky to have experienced this. Andrew could explain the science behind the phosphorescence (or I could google it) but he’s too busy being a science teacher to write blogs. So you’ve got me!

Saturday was an awesome day even though no live pink dolphins were seen L Hopefully I’ll see a pink dolphin one day because I plan to not leave Thailand until I do!

A horrible picture of a pink dolphin statue, I want to see a real live pink dolphin!