Day 5 - All day trek in the Fang national park and overnight camp
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The day dawned bright and early with Mr Phillip’s customary (and far too) cheerful wake-up call and soon after a hearty breakfast we found ourselves at the start point of the 11 km trek through the Fang Nature Reserve.
The weather was blazing hot and there was little cover for the first part as we climbed through orchards and a hill tribe village to the temple that contains a human skeleton found in one of the caves we were on our way to visit.
A backbreaking climb found us at the mouth of the cave and slowly we descended through the darkness into what felt like the bowels of the earth.
When finally ahead of us we saw the glow of the exit to the caves there was a general sigh of relief.
Fortunately the menacing growls that had followed us through the caves turned out to be nothing more threatening than one of our instructor’s grumbling stomach.
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Lunch was at a beautiful waterfall and the rice, chicken and boiled egg tasted great.
Another huge climb upwards after lunch delivered us to the high point of the trek
and we then descended gently through bamboo forests, followed a winding jungle contour pathway and eventually after 4 hours and 15 minutes of walking (a new record) emerged at the river adjacent to the hot springs.
Never has water felt so good!
After a serious soak we moved across to the hot springs nearby where we were to set up camp.
The tents were duly erected and we then decamped to the hot springs where another good soak followed.
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Supper was fairly uneventful and afterwards we retired to our tents for the night. Shortly after this we reassembled to compare war stories about the heat of the tents, size of the ants, ferocity of the mosquitoes and likelihood of any form of sleep in the night ahead. Needless to say by 10:30pm the camp was still and quiet except for the outrageous snores coming from a certain tent and Boss who still had several hours of PSP battery life to use up.
and Boss who still had several hours of PSP battery life to use up.
Day 4 - Chinese village, Golden Triangle, Laos and musical celebration
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After some very busy and physically challenging days today's visit were one of the special highlights of the trip so far. We had magnificent views of the North Thailand mountains, the might Mekong River and glimpses of Myanmar and Laos in the Golden Triangle region. This region became notorious in the 70's as a major drug smuggling area.
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On the way we stopped at Mae Saelong, a Chinese village about halfway on our outward journey. I found this fascinating and our guide Will dazzled us with the rich history of the area. The original Chinese inhabitants were part of the Nationalist army that instead of going to Taiwan settled in Northern Thailand. They were given land by the government as they helped fight communism in Thailand. So now there was a complete Chinese community, who spoke Mandarin and Thai.
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stop allowed all members of the party to do some much needed shopping and all sorts of gifts and curios were purchased, along with rather a lot of tea tasting.
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When we arrived at the border of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand we embarked on a river cruise along the Mekong river. Various sights were pointed out to us including a large casino and river side temples. We anchored on the Laos side of the river and spent a short time in a very intriguing market. Items on sale included bottles of spirits containing spitting cobras, with a few scorpions thrown in, and many different designed T shirts amongst many other things.
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After a delicious special Thai Buffet we headed for our final destination of the day “The Hall of Opium.”
This was such a surprise to all of us who had not been to this part of Thailand before as we found this enormous state of the art museum in a rather remote and poor area of the country.
The museum was established by Princess Srinagarindra, mother of the King. It records the history of the opium trade throughout the Far East and in this area in particular. The devastating effects of drugs on individuals and whole countries was clearly displayed as well as measures to provide alternative income and employment for the Hill Tribes who grew the opium in this area.
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The tour was incredibly interesting and we learnt much from this largely interactive experience. The Hall of Opium really is a must see and is sure to have a lasting impression on visitors just as it had a profound effect on many of us on this trip.
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More information can be found on the Hall of Opium at: http://www.tatnews.org/new_products/1620.asp
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Storm Lindenberg.
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Day 3 - Community project
We awoke to a tropical rain storm that was so heavy you could not see from one side of the resort to another.
The journey to Ban Huay Luang School took us past numerous paddy fields of rice with the occasional citrus orchard. On arrival we were greeted warmly by the staff and the children and we had a look at the classroom block that KES had helped to build last time.
The time flew and before we knew it was time for lunch in the school’s canteen. They had cooked us a special meal of fried chicken, spicy beef and a vegetable soup, followed by pineapple and water melon. Cold drinks were provided in large cool boxes full of ice and these were needed as the sun came out and temperatures rose to over 30 degrees.
After lunch we started on the construction of the library. It had only begun two weeks ago and the foundations, uprights, walls and a large part of the roof metal beams were in place. Our task was to bring in several tons of sand to level the floor before laying concrete. The only problem was that the sand was at least 20 metres away and the only equipment we had was small buckets and a few spades.
Afterwards we played football with the students, although they were much smaller than most of us and they played in bare feet they were very quick and skilful so it was close game that was decided by just one goal.
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Bank Minchaiynunt
Day 2 (am)- River trip, temples visits and Shan weaving
As it was still raining, this meant that we couldn’t start the building the library so we changed our plans and decided to teach English to a class of 8 and 9 year olds. We separated them into three groups in order to have smaller numbers and to get closer to them. The English topics chosen were animals, transport vehicles and parts of the body. My group started by getting them to repeat words of animals that we had written on paper. We also tried to make the sound of the different animals to help them and then we taught them the song “Old Macdonald had a farm.” They learned so fast and managed to join in with the song very well. All of the children were so friendly and they impressed us with their smiles which made us very happy to teach them.
This problem was overcome as several classes helped us and we formed two human chains. One passing buckets of sand and the other returning empty ones.
It was very hard work filling the buckets, passing them along the chain and emptying them on to the floor area. However we all sang songs in English and Thai and we managed with a great effort to complete half of the floor area –it is a very large library.
Finally it was time to go back to the resort and swim in the pool and some of us had a Thai massage.
It's Tuesday morning and today we had a boat ride to a temple and then a trip to see the local Shan weaving ladies.
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The first leg of the river trip took just over 5 minutes and we could see the forest "wat" (temple) from our resort. On landing we were told to walk up a small hill, that seemed more like a small mountain. The dense tropical forest encroached on the steep steps and we had to step over much plant debris as we slowly made our way to the top. Some of us arrived panting and puffing but as we recovered we took
in the stunning panoramic view and noticed that one of the resident monks hid his designer sunglasses when we first appeared.
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Will our guide told us about the monks and nuns ( nuns have 338 rules to follow whereas monks only have 228). He explained that for each day of the week there was a particular Buddah statue and pose and two for Wednesday, one for those born in the day and the other for the evening. The journey down was much easier than the ascent.
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We were back into the narrow river boats and we had a refreshing 30 minute journey to a landing point, where the yellow limos were waiting. In the Shan village (a Burmese Hill tribe) we saw some of their beautiful woven costumes, musical instruments and paintings. The Burmese temple was next and this was very different in style from the Thai one we had seen earlier.
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The final part of the morning was to visit the weaving cooperative and the ladies were all very happy to see us and they let us try weaving with them. This seemed straightforward but the set up must take forever. They can spend up to a week weaving a full length sarong which they will only sell for 900 baht (£18). We were impressed with their workmanship and they were pleased that we bought so much.
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Ian Tavener
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Day 2 (pm) - Hillside trek, more temples and river race.
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We took yellow "limos" up the mountain to the start of the trek near the Myanmar border. The trek took us up and down around several hills. On our travels we encountered few people until after a steep climb we reached the Mong village. Here we saw children just about to go home after school.
At the end of each day they line up in size order for boys and girls and sing songs to the Royal family and to the Buddah. Their teacher sent them home with firm instructions to clean their houses, wash their family clothes and start preparing the evening meal as their parents were working hard in the fields.
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As a storm was gathering we set off at a quick pace down the hill until we had a very steep section just below the main Buddist temple in the region. This cost 200 million Baht and ten years to build but there was no wonder why. It was a spectacular display of Thai craftmanship and indicated the high regard that their religion is held in.
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The yellow perils were on hand to take us down to the river valley below for the final part of our journey. We were given life rafts and large rubber tyres to float, paddle and capsize down river for just about a mile. We came to a sticky and muddy end as we had to wade through the shallows to land near by the centre. We returned to the centre to wash off the mud and "chillax" as Will calls it.
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Nicola Tavener.
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Day 1 - Team building and Jungle Survival.
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After a long journey the party arrived at 10 pm at the Centre. There was a rice meal awaiting and another two birthday cakes for Tom, provided by Bank and Boss. Not long after everyone retired as we had a tiring day.
Breakfast was slightly later than normal at 8.15 am and everyone was able to enjoy the panoramic views from the upper floor restaurant. The Centre is quite different from the original one that we stayed at on our last two visits. This one has been purpose built with student groups and hotel guests in mind and has some amazing and high quality facilties.
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The day was divided between team building activities where the group could earn Baht to purchase equipment and food for the jungle survival exercises.
The group did well in the morning and some of the problem activities involved completing a suspended maze without talking and balancing the entire group for 10 seconds on a see saw. The last task cooled everyone off and involved a tower which had to be filled with water in order to raise a floating ball to the top.
The only snag that there were lots of holes in the tower and the group was only able to use fingers, toes and other parts of the body to prevent the leaks. This was very well coordinated and the task was completed at the first attempt, however finishing had not been discussed, so several team members got soaked as others moved quickly from the tower.
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The morning jungle task involved lighting a fire
and cooking a basic meal as well as fashioning cooking utensils, chopsticks and containers from bamboo.
In the afternoon two types of shelters were constructed from bamboo; one was a traditional two sided A tent frame and the other a lean to construction. These were then tested for stability and waterproofing. The tent team got rather wet but the lean to team stayed relatively dry.
The last task was to design and build a stretcher to take a wounded member of the team through an assault course of obstacles to meet a waiting helicopter. Both teams achieved the task but most were covered in mud having to crawl through a drainage pipe that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of London's sewers! Overall this was a really good start to the expedition with everyone working together.
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Gwyn Phillips
