Thailand Personal Experience

              We just landed in Bangkok, Thailand! This is our fifth country on our trip. From the airport, we go to our hotel. We will spend the night in Bangkok, and then we will leave in the morning to Sing Buri. We will stay in Sing Buri for two weeks, and then we will come back to Bangkok to spend a night. Then, the next morning we leave to Laos. Since we will only be volunteering in Sing Buri, we will each only bring a backpack. We packed our backpacks, and then headed out to visit the city.

First, we visited the King’s palace and the Jade Buddha. At the entrance, we rented some audio guides so we could learn more about the history of the palace. The palace is dotted with temples, cloisters, and statues of the Buddha. Outside many of the temples, there are statues of warrior guardians protecting the Buddha inside.

The temples are covered with beautifully colored glass, and the doors are carved with ancient Thai stories and engraved with Mother of Pearls.

The palace is like a maze. There are little cloisters lined with statues of gold Buddha that lead to wide-open courtyards with tall trees and beautiful statues.

One of these cloisters led to the most beautiful Buddha of all, the Jade Buddha. The temple encasing the Jade Buddha was entirely covered with colorful stained glass. The huge double doors were carved with flowers and engraved with Mother of Pearls. Inside the temple, we were not allowed to take pictures, but my mind broke the rules. The Jade Buddha was sitting in a meditation position. He was sitting on a very tall throne covered with gold and jewels. The Buddha was so high up he almost was touching the ceiling. At the base of the throne, there were offerings of food, money, incense sticks, and beautiful flowers. We walked forward and sat down to meditate. In front of us was the section where the monks would meditate. Then, we said goodbye to the Jade Buddha and to the King’s palace!

By this time, it was already 2:00 PM and we were all quite hungry. We took a boat along the Chao Phraya River to have our lunch. After lunch, we went to the night market. This market in Bangkok is very modern; it is very different from the markets in Myanmar and Cambodia. For example, the market was clean and the shops had air conditioning.  As we were leaving the market, I told my mom I wanted to try a fish massage, and coincidently at the exit, there was a spa that offered the fish massage.

After a 15 minutes massage, we left the market to get a good night’s sleep.

Today we will leave to Sing Buri! We woke up 6:00 AM to go to the bus station.  go to the bus station. It is a four hour bus ride to Sing Buri. During this time, my brother and I listened to an audiobook about the Khmer Rouge takeover in Cambodia. When we arrived in Sing Buri, we were met by the volunteer coordinator named Phil, who took us to Lemon House (the house that we would be staying at for the next two weeks.) Once we arrived, we had some time to get settled in, and then it was time for dinner. We were the only volunteers staying at the Lemon House during that time. After dinner, we decided that we wanted to do one week of teaching English and one week of orphanage work. Orphanage work consists of building a wall to protect the orphanage and the school within it against fire and flood and cleaning up the orphanage and the school.Then we went to sleep to be ready for our first day of teaching.

On our first day, we got picked up at 8:30 AM by the principal of the school. We called him The General because he was always dressed in army clothes and was always giving the children lectures about discipline! The General picked us up in a pick-up truck.

The ride was around 25-30 minutes. We would take this time to talk to our friends back in Miami!

Once we arrived at the school all the students came out to greet us.

We walked to our classroom and began to teach our first class. Then we had two more classes, the grades varying from 2nd grade to 6th grade.

When there were 15 minutes left of class, we went outside, jumped rope and hula hooped with the kids. At 12:30 we had a one hour break to eat lunch. All the students and teachers gathered together to eat. Before the meal, they said a prayer, but the only part I understood was Kap Kun Kha (for women and Krap for men), which means thank you. Then, everyone started to eat. Our lunches consisted of steamed rice, sauteed vegetables, fried chicken, and tofu. After lunch, my brother and I went outside to play with the kids because it was their recess time. On my first few days at recess, the girls and I mostly spent our time on the swings made of old tires. Then, on the third, fourth, and last day at recess we played tag; they all created an alliance and tried to tag me.

After recess, the kids brushed their teeth and cleaned their cups.

Next, the children sat in straight lines with their backs straight facing “the general.” He stood at the front and began to lecture the kids about discipline and how they should respect their teachers. After 20 minutes of this discipline class, the general dismissed the children to go to their classes. In the afternoon, we had four classes and the grade range was the same as in the morning. After our last class, “the general” drove his pickup truck to the front of the school where we would say “see you tommorrow” to the kids. We drove back to the volunteer house, did homework and ate dinner.

On the last day, “the general” put four chairs in the front and brought out a big screen. On this screen, he showed the children videos and pictures of my family and I teaching them. Next, one of the teachers stood up and went to the podium to speak. She thanked us, first in Thai and then in English. Then, my dad stood up and read a letter that we had written together about the children and how thankful we were that we had the opportunity to teach them. Then, starting from the youngest to the oldest, they came towards us on their knees in a single file line. Each student gave us a card that he or she had written for us. After all the students gave us a card, we took several group pictures with the students and teachers.

After the pictures, we had to leave the school. Even though we were only able to spend a week at this school, I really bonded with the children and will miss them very much. After leaving the school, we went back to the volunteer house to begin our weekend.

Today is our first day of construction work. We will be doing construction for one week. I wake up at 7:00 AM, and then I have breakfast. At around 8:00 AM, a truck comes to pick us up to take us to the other volunteer house where we will pick up more volunteers. After all the volunteers are in the truck, we head into town to pick up bricks and cement. After all our materials are piled up in the center of the truck, we head towards the school/orphanage. Once we arrive there, we are assigned our jobs and begin working.

We are building a wall to protect the orphanage from fire and floods as well as to keep the children from leaving.

Every hour, I would take a break to dunk water on myself. It was so refreshing because the temperature was 101 degrees Fahrenheit! At around 12:30 we got back on the truck to go to lunch. After lunch, we would go back and continue working. One day we decided to clean up the school, and some days we would plaster the parts of the wall we finished. By the end of the week, we had finished quite a lot!

I don’t think we will get an opportunity to do this type of volunteering any place else, but I was very content with my work and effort this week!

These two amazing weeks concluded our volunteering in Thailand! Our coordinator drove us to the bus station, and we took a five-hour bus ride to Bangkok. In Bangkok, we picked up our baggage that we had left there and re-packed everything. The next day, we took our flight to Laos!