Eucational River Barge

This past weekend, shortly after returning to my town, I joined a group of about twenty Thai English teachers for a training/trip. Now, trips with Thais can be wonderful or horrible (usually depending on the hour of departure and how many hours they scream karaoke on the bus - the record for the latter is 8 hours straight). However, I really like most of the teachers that went and I was up for one last hurrah!

So, we set out at 2am on Saturday morning to drive down to the Chao Praya River, near Bangkok. This is one of the largest rivers in Thailand, but I really didn't know anything about it.

The first day was a little hard because we were all quite sleep deprived, but the facilitators were amazing and kept us moving with activities, cooking, cleaning and games. We started out with safety instructions:

We learned the English word "life jacket" (not life guard or life saver) and how to correctly put them on. We also discussed emergency routine and learned the phrase "Man Overboard" (not 'man overboat'! :) though it makes sense).

After this there were English language activities with breaks in between to take in some beautiful river-side views.

Here the teachers figure out the correct order for the steps of corn harvest using pictures and English sentences.

Then we wrote our own steps for various food items. This one is potato chips. We "learned' that potato chips take more energy to make (and create more waste) than fresh boiled corn.

Here the Thai trainer, Chompooh, prepares a white board to teach body parts of sea animals. All of these activities taught English words to the teachers, but were activities that could also be used with the students back in their classrooms.

Here are some views from the boat:

A Ferry boat docked outside a riverside house.

A beautiful, Thai-style, pavilion on the side of the river.

Even some monks prefer boat travel!

The evening of the first day, we docked near an open field where we played some team building and listening activities - most of which involved blindfolds and listening to instructions from a partner/team.

I partner with AJ Wasana for a game of "Sherman's tanks". We came in third.

Listening for the instructions from her partner, Jenny is ready to bomb another tank.

(She was the winner.)

By the end of day one, we were exhausted and ready for bed, but it didn't stop us from sitting on the upper deck and enjoying a beautiful sunset.

Sunset on the Chao Praya River

Day two brought us to Ayutthaya. After a few more activities on board, we started seeing some of the ancient ruined temples of the former capital of Siam, Ayutthaya.

a ruined temple on the side of the river

After doing some activities about Ayutthaya on board, we docked in the city itself and visited a museum and some historical ruins. It was great fun. I love this town!

a bunch of us at the temple of the three kings in Ayutthaya

What a great trip!