Looking back, the trip seems to have at once lasted two days and two years: chock full of great learning experiences, elbow grease, and teamwork, it was sad to say goodbye to our English counterparts but I feel more connected to them than ever before.

Thailand is a beautiful country full of beautiful, thoughtful, and kind people with a perspective unlike any I’ve encountered before. I can’t say enough good things about Real Gap and the young, eager, smart, and motivated guides which comprise their Thailand team; no doubt they will all be off to do great things in the upcoming years and I am honored to have spent the short time that I did learning their stories and future goals.

Monday marks the first day back at work and I anticipate being at a bit of a loss to describe the trip in a way that doesn’t take the entire workday to explain. That said, if you are in the New York office and are curious, please come find me and I’ll be happy to share with you any and every aspect of this wonderful experience—from the yards-long ditch dug in torrential rain to the elephant expedition to the nighttime rooftop views of Wat Arun (if you’re remote, email us!).

This experience was absolutely one of a kind, and I hope Informa continues to offer up similar experiences in the future. In the meantime, enjoy the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenewool/sets/72157626659964879.

Cheers,
LW

Farewell, says Madeleine Armstrong from a Bangkok tuk-tuk.

Afterwards, a group of us decided to rent out a cab and head over to the Dream House orphanage to see the children one last time.  While there we dropped off some bottles that Vic exchanges for money to help with the purchase of food, uniforms and other needed supplies.  We also dropped off some more toys and played with the children for a little bit.  The seeds that we had planted in the previous week have already started to sprout which was as satisfying site.  On our visit I was surprised to see a handful of new faces as more children had moved in since our last visit.

After two weeks of volunteering and exploring our little city, we’ve had a ton of friends, Thai and non-Thai, old and young, to say goodbye to over the past few days.

We finished our work at the nun’s school, having planted watermelon, cabbage, eggplant (or eggurgine as we finally compromised on calling it) and cucumbers all of which the school will be able to use to feed the students in the coming season.

Afterward, a few of us got to sneak back to Dream House under the guise of a supplies delivery (more toys, our mosquito nets and our empty water bottles which can be redeemed for cash) and say goodbye to Vic and the kids.

Things were as cheery as ever at the house, although Vic was contending with the frightening (and expensive) need to hospitalize one of the newest arrivals. Vic has an indomitable spirit that always seems to see the house through.

The kids were almost as excited to see us as we were to see them and we got to get about a hundred hugs goodbye. While we were there we also got to check out the next group’s progress on our bathrooms and drainage system, their group is almost three times the size of ours and many hands have made light (and quick) work on those projects. We also inspected the small garden which was planted on our last Dream House day and is now already sprouting up beautifully, a great sign for the progress of our seeds at the nun’s school, which will probably have sprouted by the time we are back at our desks Monday morning!

There were many hugs and promises to email last night as we said goodbye to our Sangklaburi family, Sascha and Jay even got up at (what felt like) the crack of dawn this morning to say a last goodbye before we boarded our 7:30am bus back to Bangkok. We are all sorry to leave our amazing new friends but, it is safe to say, we are also incredibly thankful for the fact that we’ve gotten to know them and for the experiences we’ve shared as a group.

And now, since our goodbyes lasted longer into the night than was entirely advisable, I will try to join the others in sleeping through our eight hour bus ride to Bangkok…

On Sunday we had an amazing day at a natural park called Nature Club. We chilled out and swam around in the lake and had a great laugh ziplining, zorbing and quad biking. My inner boy was very happy…as much as I love a good pool table, theres nothing quite like throwing yourself down hills in water filled inflatable balls and skidding a quadbike around a dirt track!

Monday we started at the Nun’s school.. there are a lot more kids here and they love to pose for the camera’s (see below). They crack me up. We have been ‘hardcore gardening’. By hardcore I mean using handmade bamboo hoe’s and a machete looking tool to hack through the jungle and insanely thick bamboo thickets.. in 35degree direct sun. I’ve got some serious guns! It’ll all be worth it when we plant the new vegetable garden for them.

Today a group of us got a boat and went over to the sunken temple, which isnt sunken for another month or so when the rainy season kicks in!

Lovely afternoon, although between the walking, hardcore gardening and Muai Thai lesson a few of us took, my legs are considering filing for divorce.

More to come…enjoy the pics!

During this time the children of the orphanage have been working on taking rubber from the rubber trees and processing it into large mats.  After collecting the rubber from the rubber tree in little cups (which remind me of maple sugaring in Vermont), they run the rubber through a press until it is spread out in a flat mat.  Then the rubber is hung out to dry.

The children are very brave as they will climb up 30 feet into the trees to grab some fruit that are sour and tasty.  It’s amazing to see how quickly they will climb a tree and climb out on a branch that seems too small to support them.  No fear in these little guys.

Stemming the jungle tide!

The weekend was one of the best I’ve had and we certainly wrung it for everything it had, enjoying so many different experiences! I was pretty nervous as I climbed onto the back of our elephant on Saturday morning, but soon relaxed into the amazing experience. Then kayaking Indiana Jones-style over the top of a sunken town to an old temple that is submerged by the rising water levels for much of the year was definately a highlight! Of course, my surprise chocolate birthday cake also went down very well (and quickly – it’d been polished off in a matter of minutes)!

At the sunken temple

Last night – after another hard day’s work turning jungle into farmland at the Nun’s school – Jenna, Ethan, Madeleine and I all finally got the chance to work up a sweat at a Muai Thai kick boxing class. Sasha – our guide and boxing coach – was the best Muai Thai boxer in Thailand a few years ago so who better to whip us into shape? It was a pretty intense exercise session – even without the heat – and Sasha had us all practising kicking and punching techniques, doing push ups and lunges and squats! I almost did some damage to my ankle on the solid punching bag, but we’re all going back for another grilling after work tomorrow all the same!

Don't mess with the gloves!

Day 2 at the nun’s orphanage and it feels like we’re starting to make some progress. We finished clearing an area of jungle (lots of hard work chopping out bits of bamboo) and then marked out where we want to plant some aubergines tomorrow. Here’s a picture of the team hard at work.

We were helped by some of the kids who brought us some very sour fruit which definitely perked us up. The scary thing was that they climbed up trees at least 15 metres high to get them!