In the weeks leading up to the long winter break, children at school start getting excited. Their eyes glaze over during lessons, and when you toss a board marker at their heads to snap them back to reality, they often comment, “I was just thinking about our Christmas vacation!” Some will make the long journey back to their home countries for traditional family holidays; others will jet off to a tourist destination like a beach in Thailand or Hong Kong Disneyland.

It’s no different for the teachers. Shortly after school resumes in August, we begin the countdown to Christmas break. By October, most of us have already booked tickets and planned our get-aways. We share experiences from Christmases past, often following in the footsteps of our fellow travelers.

For many international teachers, long holidays kick off with a visit to Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok for a preventive care visit. Our insurance covers a comprehensive check-up, and Bumrungrad offers one-stop shopping for world-class healthcare.

Coincidentally, Tony and I are among a slew of teachers in Bangkok for our health checks this week. We were thrilled to meet up with friends from Shanghai American School – Jiff and Fay (whom you may recall from my posts about Lijiang, China – another serendipitous reunion!) and the Voges (Elaine, Dean, Callum and Owen). We rode the Skytrain to Ban Chiang Restaurant, a restored wooden house with quirky décor and tasty Thai food. Poor Owen left early with a bad headache (chaperoned by his dad), but the rest of us had a wonderful time catching up.

Here we are in front of the restaurant with Jiff and Fay.

We leave Thursday for some beach time in Krabi, where we’ll see the Voges again! Some other great friends – the Munnerlyns (who now teach in Abu Dhabi) and the Powers (SAS) – are vacationing in nearby Phuket, and they’ve promised to pop over to our neck of the woods on the 28th.

We would have loved to visit with friends who live here in Bangkok, but doctors and dentists ate up most of our free time, and the traffic here is so insane that we could actually fly back to Laos faster than we could catch a taxi across town. So, we’ll see you guys next time!

I suppose international teachers never really say “good-bye”; they just meet up again and again in Thailand.

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