Volunteering at an Orphanage

Yesterday was Friday, which usually means that I'm off travelling to another exciting adventure. This weekend is a little different. With midterms coming up in a week, and several group projects to complete, I'm taking this weekend and next off to actually study. And also to just explore Bangkok more, because lets me honest, this city is huge and exciting and has so much to offer. So long-story short, I'm home all weekend with no definitive plans other than catching up on sleep and homework. When I woke up yesterday I was in a bit of a sour mood, and decided to spend the entire day in my room in solitude. That plan lasted a whole ten minutes. 

Two friends of mine have to volunteer somewhere as part a project for one of their courses, and they chose to help at an orphanage. They mentioned it to me a few days earlier and I told them how I thought it was great idea and would be such an awesome experience, so they invited me to tag along. I'm so happy that I agreed to go. While we didn't specifically help with anything, it was great to just sit and play with the children for a few hours and to see how excited they were when we walked in to room. I've seen videos of people being attacked by puppies, but we were attacked (in a positive way) by toddlers! They just ran up to us and jumped on all of us for two hours! The orphanage itself is very nicely kept and large, but it's obvious that each child doesn't get the attention they deserve, solely because there are too many kids and not near enough staff. I also spoke with a director and he informed us that many of the children are not actually up for adoption, but rather that their parents are either in jail, rehab, etc., and the kids just remain there until it is safe for them to be with the parents again. There are, however, lots of children that remain in these facilities for years. This orphanage in particular usually only keeps children until age six, and then they are separated and moved to boys/girls homes. I was also informed that many Canadian families adopt from this facility, and it's something I would love to do in ten years time. 

Again, we didn't do much except play with the children, we fell so much in love with them that we would like to make a few more trips to the orphanage before we leave Thailand. One of the guys I went with had the great idea that we should try to do a mini-fundraiser at Nonsi (the building we live in with 100+ other exchange students). We also agreed to bring the children some treats next time we visit. We know we won't be able to do much, but we're hoping that anything will help in a positive way. 

I'll leave you with this note: if you want to see genuine happiness, look into the eyes of a child who finally gets his turn to play with a broken dinky car.

~Ally

BBA Trip- Hua Hin

***Just realized this didn't get posted. This was the weekend of September 4-6.***

Ah this weekend was so much fun. And I know I say that about almost all my weekends, but this was one definitely one for the books. It wasn't anything super fancy, but it was a weekend where I really got to know some of the local Thai students, and that was absolutely amazing!

So some of the awesome Thai students in BBA planned a weekend getaway to the city of Hua Hin, which is about three hours outside Bangkok. We left Friday afternoon, and after some delays in traffic and stopping for some amazing seafood on the way, we arrived at our hotel (which was so beautiful, situated directly across from the beach) at 5pm. We all took a few hours to rest up before we headed out to a night market for some more amazing seafood and a little bit of shopping. I also experienced my first rotee, which is basically a streetfood version of a crepe. They are utterly delicious, and I think I ate about four of them just this weekend. After the market came the real excitement though! We headed back to our hotel to have a party and truly get to know one another. We had lots of leftover money from what we each paid for the trip so the Thai students surprised us with tons of whiskey! This led to a very eventful night to say the least. But it was so much fun, and I am now close friends with some local students, which is great! They seriously have the answers to all our problems, so I highly recommend making friends with the locals wherever you go!

We also had the perfect place to hang out at night! All of our rooms were in the same hallway, so it was super easy to get to one another. And the Thai students all had a big family suite at the end of the hall, so we could all hang out in there. But outside their room led to a children's pool and playground, and lots of lounge chairs. And since the area was technically closed at night, it meant we had lots more room to enjoy ourselves. The whole night was actually so great. We had a guitar going and lots of singing happening outside by the pool, card games happening in every corner, people just sitting around getting to know one another, and of course, lots of whiskey being poured into cups.

Saturday was a super eventful day, once we finally got everyone up and out of bed. We first headed off to a temple about 35 minutes away. The area itself was small and the only main attraction was this giant statue of a Buddha, but regardless it was very cool to see. We then headed for a Thai Boxing Class, and I think I fell in love with a new sport. It was fun and such a good and hard workout. I'm currently looking into finding some classes in Bangkok that I can attend to learn a little bit more about the sport. Before supper that night we went to this little Vintage Market that is designed to look like old Thailand. It was small and the stores weren't super great, but the food was amazing! They also had live music being played and a dog show taking place. It made me miss my own little pet squirrels (I mean dogs). We went to a different night market on Saturday that was more touristy with everything there being handmade. So it was really more of a craftshow. There were buskers all around the area singing, breakdancing, doing magic shows, etc. It was neat to see but it was more like the markets I've been to in Canada, so we actually decided to leave early. Once again, Saturday was very fun with even more whiskey. Except this time, I was determined to stay up all night so that I could watch the sunrise over the beach in the morning. I just barely managed to stay awake long enough, but was it ever worth it! I can't even describe in words how beautiful it was! Only six of us were awake to watch it, but it was perfect. I've never experience serenity like that before. I'm sure I'll see lots more sunrises and sunsets during my time here, but that was a perfect first one to see.

As you can imagine, I was dead come Sunday. After a busy two days and two very long nights, I was running on no energy, and I really just wanted to head back to Bangkok. But as a last minute decision, 12 of us decided to take on of the vans and head to a waterpark for the day. Normally I'm not a big fan of waterparks, just because I usually find them dirty and crowded, but this one was amazing. It's call Vana Nava and they definitely had some good rides. Everyone's favourite was definitely one of the two big ones where six people go in one tube. I don't know how many times we climbed those stairs that day to ride it. My favourite thing about being at the park, however, was the view from standing at the top of the slides waiting to go down. It was breathtaking, and I only wish I had've had my camera with me to take pictures. If you looked in one direction, you could mountains covered with brush and greenery, and in the other direction you looked out into the sea. It was like two worlds colliding into one in that exact location, and I'm so lucky that I got to stand there and admire the views, all while riding exhilarating water slides for six hours straight with some of my best friends here. To say the least, it was a great day, and a great weekend, and I can't wait until the Thai students plan another trip for us all to go on.

~Ally

Weekend in Northern Thailand

Another amazing weekend has come and gone. This weekend I very much felt like a true backpacker. We started the weekend by taking a 14 hour night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. We were a group of seven so we stayed entertained for hours playing cards. I managed to meet a Canadian who was three bunks over from us who also joined us for the activities for quite some time. My only complaint with the train was that it was way too cold to sleep comfortably. But I would definitely travel by train again, just for the fact that you truly do meet some really cool people on there!

We arrived in Chiang Mai Friday morning and met up with my neighbours from Nonsi, who were also in the city for the weekend. Two of us spent the day visiting temples and walking around the Old City while the guys rented scooters and headed straight for Pai, a small town about four hour north of Chiang Mai. We took the bus and met them there later Friday night. Overall Friday was fun, but we were very tired from the train ride and then the bus. So Friday night I passed out as soon as we made it to our rooms. Speaking of rooms, our guesthouse was not the nicest place I've ever stayed. But it was right off the main walking street which becomes a food and shopping market at night. I actually loved Pai, the atmosphere there is so chill and relaxed. And we met some amazing people throughout the day who we would run into on the streets at night. We made really good friends with an English guy who now has plans to visit us when he makes it to Bangkok. I even met a girl from Ottawa at this tiny little strawberry farm on the outskirts of town. This is definitely my favourite thing about travelling, meeting people from all over the world and becoming instant friends.

Saturday was such a jam packed day. We headed out on scooters and first visited a Chinese village on a mountain that overlooked Pai. As we were climbing the mountain to reach some viewpoints we got stuck in a rainstorm and took cover under this little hut. We then sat in this restaurant atop the mountain and took in the view while we made more plans for the day. We next headed about 10km away to a canyon. We read that it is the supposed Thailand version of the Grand Canyon. While it wasn't near as big and exciting as the Grand Canyon, it was still very cool and my favourite thing of the day. We hiked up to the top and had again a wonderful view of the mountains in Pai. I just loved seeing all the greenery and breathing in clean, fresh air. The canyon was fairly large, but to see the best parts of it you had to do some tandem climbing, which of course we did! At one point we climbed up part of and realized we might not be able to get back down. Moving extremely slowly, we somehow managed to climb up and down some steep hills with not much traction. I've never used so much upper-body strength before, but it was so worth it. The adrenaline and the views made it all worth it.

Our next stop on our jam-packed adventure-sight-seeing day was a waterfall. We drove up some winding dirt roads and came across a small waterfall. Two of us jumped in to cool off for a few minutes and it was so refreshing. We were starting to get on a time crunch so we didn't have long to enjoy it. Getting back on the bikes and going back along the dirt road, we found our next destination: a land crack. Hiking up a hill on the mountain again, we were able to see two natural land cracks, one from 2008, and one from 2011. It wasn't as cool as we thought, but the guy who owns the property made up for the lack of excitement from the land. He provides all guests with fresh fruits and vegetables and juice, all for a donation. He was so nice to us and sent us home with a bag of fresh bananas, but not before he insisted we try his homemade wine, which was delicious. I actually wish he had bottles for sale.

Finally, to end our day, we drove to a large temple in the hills and climbed what felt like 30 flights of stairs to watch the sun set over the horizon. I'm sure you can imagine how beautiful it was. We finally made it back to our hostel to quickly clean up before hitting the walking streets and bar once again.

Sunday was a relatively chill day as we spent a better part of it travelling back to Chiang Mai. Once we all arrived, we did another night market until we got rained out and had to take cover in a bar. There, we found some of the backpackers that we met two days before in Pai, so we spent the evening drinking beer and playing pool with them. Monday was our final day, so we visited one last temple on the outskirts of town that overlooked Chiang Mai. We then took a river boat tour of the city where we learnt lots of the history of the city and were then treated with fresh fruits and the best mango sticky rice any of us have ever tasted. Our tour guide was so energetic and enthusiastic that he automatically put us all in a good mood and made the tour so much fun. If anyone ever goes to Chiang Mai, I would highly recommend taking the river tour with Scorpion Tail cruises.

After a long weekend away, and sleeping in less than ideal beds,  it was definitely nice to return back to my home away from home in Bangkok. Until next time Chiang Mai!

~Ally