Koh Yao Noi ---> Luang Prabang

After spending time at the resort in Phuket, my grandmother and I flew up to Chiang Mai for a few nights. It was such a good time! I was really happy to get a chance to experience northern Thailand, as it differs greatly from the south. We spend our days relaxing and exploring the area, and we went to Doi Suthep, a famous temple right outside of Chiang Mai. During the evenings we went to the night market and shopped so much! It was perfect timing that we went right before Christmas. When we got back down south, we went back out to Koh Yao Noi- the island in Phang Nga Bay that my uncle lives on. 

Koh Yao Noi is such an amazing place! I've never been anywhere like it. Everywhere you go has such a relaxed and laid back atmosphere. It's really unique in the way that the residents are so mixed. There's Thais, and then loads of foreigners who either married a Thai or married someone from another country that they met there and then ended up having kids and staying. It's a typical small island - everyone knows everyone and everyone hangs out together. It's a very special place. The cost of living is extremely cheap (as is most of Thailand) so you can get a very high quality living situation for not much money, it truly is the good life !! I can't even really describe it better than that, it's like Neverland from Peter Pan... A great place where you never really have to grow up, the easy life, in a good way. 

So obviously leaving Koh Yao Noi was difficult. I will most definitely be back, for longer next time. We had a great Christmas all together, my cousins, uncle, grandmother and I. Thailand is a very special country, and I loved every minute there. The people are incredible, they work so hard to make sure your time in their country is pleasent. They are happy you're there, and that shows. I'll miss everything about it... The delicious spicy food, how you can grab it off the street anytime, the relaxed beach town feel, everything. I love it there and I was very sad to leave. It's one of my favorite countries I've been to. 

The day after Christmas I left for Luang Prabang. It was an easy journey, left Koh Yoh Noi at 7 and got to Luang Prabang at 4ish with a couple hour layover in Bangkok. Once I got there, someone picked me up at the airport and I went to the guesthouse I had reserved for that night. Saturday morning at 9am I would meet with the GVI staff and get started on training. The lane we live on is sooo cute! I absolutely love this city so far. Laos was colonized by the French, and that influence is definitely still present today. Generally from my experience I have noticed that Southeast Asia has this bad smell to it in the cities. Just awful. But not in Luang Prabang... The air is crisp and fresh smelling of coffee and good food. Like Europe. The architecture is very quaint and pretty.  Everywhere is relatively clean, cobblestone sidewalks, cute cafes and reasturants everywhere, night life, shops, night market, morning market, resorts, everything all in walking distance! It's incredibly charming and gives the sense of feeling that time is standing still. It's very relaxed and pleasent. 

Such a huge difference from Ban Naam Khem, where I worked with GVI in Thailand. Yesterday, (Saturday) we had a few hours of training in the morning and then the day as free. I met the other volunteers, and we all went to this fair type thing going on a few minutes down the road. Basically from my understanding there are three tribes in Luang Prabang, and one of them is celebrating New Years. So all week there has been this festival going on. It was pretty crazy!!! Lots of games, singing, food, basically like a state fair for us but a bit crazier... We returned later that night once it had cooled off. The weather here is so nice. It's not humid like south Thailand, and it's much cooler. No AC needed at all !!! The days have been pretty warm but apparently that is unusual for this time of year , and the mornings and nights are chilly. There's a place next door where you can go and do yoga on a big deck right in the river, they have it every morning. It's nice and chilly that time of day, and supposed to be very pretty. I'm going to try and do that a couple times a week if my schedule permits. 

This evening we had a couple hours more of training and got our teaching schedules for the week. It's a pretty easy week cuz of the new year, but the first two days are still going to extremely busy. I'm already on for teaching tomorrow night! And Tuesday I have two classes. I'll be very busy planning tomorrow for tomorrow nights class and Tuesdays as well. Then we have the rest of the week off, which will be nice! I'm pretty nervous, it seems like it will be very different from teaching in Thailand. Since this program is strictly teaching only, it's a lot more formal than it was in Thailand I think.. But that's good. I will learn a lot, that's for sure. When we teach we have to wear the Lao sin, a traditional skirt that females wear. It's actually quite nice. 

One more thing- the accommodation here is sooo nice!! Coming from living in a small house with quite a few people, having my own room is amazing. Bathrooms are still shared  but I can't express enough how nice it is to have my own space. I've got a wardrobe, a little desk, and two beds-one twin and one King size! It's so nice. But in the next two weeks we are getting 13 new volunteers, so without a doubt we will have to start sharing rooms. That's all for now, I'll write more in a week or so! Thanks for reading :)