Day 9 - Community Project final day.
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The day began very pleasantly with Mr Pentreath telling the whole group their accumulated fines for the past week. This was a light hearted way of collecting tips for the resort staff, whilst drawing attention to mishaps and amusing incidents by all members of the party. Fines were given for a wide variety of events including over lengthy showers, being late for breakfast and questioning the fine master.
We arrived at the school for our final day and for once it wasn’t raining. In the morning our task was to plaster the one remaining breeze block wall that had been left especially for us. Basic scaffolding had been erected so that one group worked on the top of the wall whilst another group worked below. We were shown the basic technique by the local labourers and then left to get on it with it. I was glad to be working at the higher level as quite a lot of cement didn’t stay on the wall and landed on those members of the party working below!
Very quickly everyone on the lower level donned the local sombrero hats to keep most of the cement at bay. We managed to complete the first layer of cement rendering in quite a short time and then the local Shan workmen took over to complete the task and what a good job they did.
Our next task was to prepare the foundations for the exterior paths. This involved constructing a breeze block containing wall and then back filling with sand before a final skim of concrete was laid. This was back breaking work, especially as the sun had come out and temperatures soared. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to complete all of the concreting as we had run out of time but everyone had worked hard and stuck to their tasks and by the end of the third day we had made a significant contribution to the construction of the library.
In the evening we had the farewell ceremony at the school. Just before we set out we were surprised to see Mr Fulton-Peebles and his wife Margaret at the resort. Mr Phillips hadn’t told us they would be joining us and they had flown up especially that day from Singapore. The entire group was wearing our special blue T shirts that finally had arrived from Chiang Mai.
The teachers at the school and the local people had prepared a special meal that included coconut pancakes, freshly pressed fruit juices, bar- b-cue pork kebabs and a fiery salad that contained chillies, lime juice and various vegetables. Whilst we were eating the youngsters from the school performed local dances and modern ones. The real surprise of the evening was a traditional dance performed by local dancers some of whom were “lady boys.” Later the party received gifts, which included local woven bags for the students, Shan style jackets for the staff and a framed woven presentation cloth from the school and village to King Edward’s. In return Prapen Aree Hongsakul School was given two laptop computers and an English Thai learning course on CD roms for the new library. After the speeches and the exchange of gifts we were each given “holy ropes” tied on our left had by every teacher at the school and they were meant to bring you good luck and health. The whole ceremony was very touching and I hope that one day I will come back here again.
Aleksandra Mirek.
Day 8 - Community project and more rain.
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Day 7 - Thai culture, massage, cooking and meditation.
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Sunday was to be one of our more relaxing days of the trip so far. Our first session was with Will learning some of the basic aspects of Thai culture and etiquette. Thai Society is hierarchical starting with the King and the Royal family, monks, elderly people and younger persons. It is expected that young people will show respect to the groups above them and they do. In terms of a person’s body we learnt that the feet are the lowest part (no surprise there) and it is rude to point the sole of the foot at anyone. We finished the session by learning to write our names in Thai script – their alphabet is much longer than ours and totally different. The Thai written language has no punctuation so reading and making sense of the words takes longer.
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Thai massage instruction was our next task and the instructor was a local lady who had already demonstrated her skill on some members of the party, in the week before. We were working in pairs taking in turns to massage each other working up the body from the feet. This was an interesting experience for me, as I had never had a massage before and it ended up being fun.
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In the afternoon we had some free time and this gave us the opportunity to play water polo in the pool, basketball, table tennis and some went for even more massage. At 4 pm we gathered in the Maekok’s specially designed teaching kitchen as were going to prepare our own evening meal in pairs. We had three dishes to make; spicy prawn and chicken soup, stir fried vegetables and chicken or prawn green curry.
These were all demonstrated to us and with the aid of clear instructions we set about cooking. It all went to plan until I came to eating as I dipped my spoon into the spicy prawn soup to eat a mushroom; little knowing that lurking beneath it was the third hottest chilli in the world! I rushed off looking for water or anything else that would cool me off and that was the end of my eating for the evening.
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By the time I had recovered we all assembled in the Sala to learn a little basic Buddhism and meditation whilst sitting or walking. This was not one of my favourite activities and I got the message completely wrong as it was a means of controlling our mind not letting it run.
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Tom Jarvis
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Day 6 - Camping, Mountainbike Ride and Archery
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I started my day with a horrible awakening, around midnight. This happened because my tent had a broken zip, so it allowed the mosquitoes and ants to come and sleep with me! I decided to move in the pitch dark to the nearby Dining Sala, with my sleeping bag and a small uncomfortable pillow. I put my slleping bag down on one of the big dining tables and tried to get back to sleep but the animals that lived nearby wouldn’t let me as they kept making a noise which disturbed me. At about 4 O’clock I finally fell asleep when my tired body ignored the sounds and the battery on my PSP ran out. The group found me just about asleep as they gathered for breakfast at 7.30 a.m.
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After breakfast we had a 40 kilometre bike ride that fortunately was downhill for the first part. We were cycling on main roads until we turned off toward Fang and then rode on minor roads.
The group kept up a steady pace, with regular stops to ensure everyone was together.
As we neared Thaton we went off road onto dirt tracks around the farmers fields. We spent just under 4 hours on the bike ride, which was a great time.
At the resort my legs felt sore and I felt very hungry and lunch seemed to be the best I had ever eaten.
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After lunch several of us in my room went straight to sleep and we didn’t feel like doing anything else that day. Archery and climbing were scheduled for the afternoon but in the end we agreed just to do archery. This turned out to be great fun and the competition at the end with balloons as target provided a lot of amusement and rivalry. Storm won and should have got an ice cream but I am not sure that he did. Although the day was very strenuous it was fantastic and the things that we did I will never forget.
Boss Minchaiynunt.
