National Park trip

The day started with a trip to- as Gui put it- "Thailand's Grand Canyon". After walking what felt like a thousand stairs down we eventually reached the bottom, only to walk back up a few hundred more to reach the viewing point where we saw a famous actress having a photo shoot, holding up our chance for a group photo!!! But seeing the canyon was worth it as it was a site of natural beauty. 

On the way out Fiona convinced some of us to get a photo next to the sign for the park, which was unfortunately placed very close to a nest of fiery red ants, which Maisie soon discovered didn't half hurt when they bit you...but all was good no lasting effects !!!  Love, Charlotte, Grace and Anna :) 

After lunch, where there was a toilet in the shape of a windmill. We travelled up to the highest point in Thailand. 

This was where we faced with winds and rains of the British Isles! Safe to say we do not miss the British weather; regardless we traveled up the stairs and visisted the temples that were pretty magnificent, despite the vast looms of fog. Once we had got ourselves somewhat cold and wet, we all got ourselves warmed up with some hot chocolate! Love Maisie, Hannah & Flo :) 

After a long day traveling we arrived at our destination -the Doi Inthanon National Park- the scenery was lovely but reminded us of Europe, especially with the rain.

We were then designated new room buddies in our lodge in the woods and we had a bit of free time to settle in. We then went to eat our tea, where the crockery was all pink plastic but Abbi still managed to break it! To end the day we settled back into our cabin for an early night ( with some unexpected insect visitors) lots of love Maisy, Abbi and Beth🌳 x

Today, we went to Changthong School and met some lovely guides aged 14-15 to do lots of activities.

 After a brief introduction, they explained how to make Lanna Flags used to give good luck on traditional Buddhist festivals. 

Then we shared some activities, which we had planned before the trip, with the girls. Our activities were based around friendship as we thought this was important to us. One of the activities was making a people paper chain, by each girl decorating themselves on paper and then threading all the hands together so everyone was connected. This was then hung up in the library for the school to keep. Another activity we lead was making friendship bracelets which each girl got to finish making at home to remember their time with us. 

Since it was the National day of learning Thai we individually learnt some phrases with the girls we had paired up with. Many of us can now confidently count to 10!