SPORTS DAY IS A BIG DEAL

3:30am. Parade day. 

We were also heading to the island of Koh Samui after the parade so our bags were packed and ready to go.

At Lan's at 4am we were greeted by the biggest spider I have ever seen. 

Eughhhh. 

Anyway, we head off to school with a stop off for coffee and breakfast at 7/11 on the way. We were then added to the conveyor belt of girls (and boys!) getting their makeup done. 

Here's Joy getting her makeup done. 

Here's me with some wonky lipstick and scary eyebrows. 

I then got sewn into my outfit, had jewllery thrust at me and got a middle parting with a ton of hairspray to slick it back and make my light brown hair black! I may sound pessimistic but it was actually quite fun. 

However at this point the parade with 11 other schools, that was starting at the 'Wat' (temple) next to the school had left. We were very late through no fault of ours as we'd been up way before the crack of dawn! The events that unfolded would make my mother shudder I'm sure. I hopped onto the back of a moped with one of the young teaching assistants driving riding sidesaddle (I was sewn into that dress, there was little room for walking let alone riding properly on a moped). Joy drew the short straw as she was on the back of a moped driven by a student! The boy couldn't have been older than 11. It's infact quite normal here for young children to have mopeds, I'm sure a boy that was 8 wizzed past me one day. Scary. Thankfully our moped ride was fine, the streets were very busy though so it was hard to weave through and not fall off! We finally reached the front of Watbansong's group and joined in waving and smiling to all of the people that had come out to see their children. For some people there it was the first time they'd seen a foreigner so we had lots of photos taken of us whilst we were talking through the streets. Did I mention that the sun was blazing and it was absolutely roasting? No? Yeah. I felt just like a melted ice cream. I wasn't sure if I had any make up left by the time we got to the stadium. 

It was actually really fun and I felt like a princess, I even whacked out a royal style wave. Professional. 

After the parade, some of the children were involved in the sports that would happen at any normal sports day. However, this was our que to leave. We had a ferry to catch! We went back to school to pick up our bags and had a quick photo shoot with Lan.