BanSamChong Experience

My experience in Thailand was awesome. I lived with locals in the Ban SamChong Village. Our days consisted mostly of waking up to breakfast (sweet rice, pastry things, fruit and instant coffee), painting a Mosque, learning different types of weaving (baskets, fans, etc), eating a delicious home cooked thai lunch, making a lesson plan and then teaching the local kids english and playing games, then another tasty meal and off to bed. The family who housed me were very welcoming and when I became sick my house mother treated me just as my mom would at home, giving me hugs and making sure I was okay. The fruit is absolutely fantastic, I found mangestine at home but its just so much better in Thailand! It was rainy during my stay, the village is on stilts above the water so it did flood and we would have to wade through the water to get around. This also made the walk ways rather slippery so we'd have to watch our step so we didn't fall. It's much hotter in Thailand so the rain wasn't always a bad thing as it cooled us off. We formed great relationships with our host families as well as the children we taught and the morning we left, the dock was filled with people wishing us off in the torrential down pour of rain. It was humbling to see how much of an impact our efforts had on their village. The other half of the trip was the adventure tour. The next accommodation was tree houses in the jungle. This was beside a river, which also happened to flood and although inconvenient, also very cool to see. We sea kayaked, learned muay thai, rock climbed, learned to cook and did so much more. The adventure tour was great fun and the other volunteers helped make the experience that much better. I made great friends and memories of a life time.