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My Thai Adventure

Posted by Jodie Hart - 09:42 on 03 August 2012

The current job situation in Spain is very bad at the moment, especially for young people like me. Therefore, after being made redundant from my job, I decided that I wanted to have a solo adventure, so I started looking into what I could do. I had been surfing the net for a couple of days and came across some voluntary work teaching English in Thailand and I thought that it would be perfect given my previous experience in teaching English (and having an English teacher for a mother!) and that it would give me the opportunity to visit a country that has fascinated me for years.

After two hours travelling from Barcelona to Zurich, six hours waiting at the airport and then another ten and a half hours flying halfway across the world, I finally arrived at Bangkok. I was mesmerized by it - I couldn't believe that I was finally there and that I had done it on my own!! I spent my first night alone on the famous Khao San Road (in a hotel, not literally “on the road”). I was quite anxious to begin with, but when I started meeting up with other fellow travellers who were also travelling alone, I began to gain more confidence. The following day the rest of my volunteer group arrived and after doing some tourism round Bangkok, visiting temples, floating markets, the Grand Palace, etc, we started our journey to the town of Sangkhlaburi.

When we finally arrived we realised that this was definitely not your typical Thai tourist area. This was the real Thailand. As a matter of fact, apart from us, the only other Westerners there were some of the voluntary work coordinators. So that you can understand the purpose of doing our voluntary work teaching English here instead of another place, I will explain a little bit about the town. It is located about 5km away from the Burmese border, so there are a lot of Burmese refugees residing there. The curious thing is that they don’t actually have residence or work permits in Thailand, but the King (who everyone totally adores), given the internal conflicts that this country is suffering, has let them cross the border and granted them permission to live in Sangklhaburi. However, they aren't allowed to go anywhere else in Thailand. The government has given them the option that if they can become fluent in English and Thai as well as learn a trade, they will be eligible for a work permit and be able to move anywhere they wish in Thailand. Across the River Kwai, famous for the 1957 British WWII film "The Bridge over the River Kwai”, there is another small village belonging to Sangkhlaburi where the Mon tribe lives. One of the oldest tribes in South East Asia, living along the Thai-Burmese border, the people are very poor and in need of help in education and health. This is where I did my voluntary work, at a pre-school in the Mon village.

Every day, together with five other fellow volunteers, we would cross the bridge in a typical Thai pick-up truck to work with the children from 9am until 3pm. Obviously the children were toddlers so there wasn't much teaching per se involved, but the teachers were very glad that the children were meeting Westerners and interacting with English speakers, in the hope that one day these children would learn English and be able to have a better life. It was quite shocking at first as schools in Thailand, especially in such a poor area, bear absolutely no resemblance the schools that I am used too. Also, a lot of the children had never seen a Westerner so they were a bit frightened of us to begin with.

Our day consisted of playing games and singing songs with the children (all in English), feeding them, getting them cleaned up and putting them down for a nap, then waking them up and getting them ready for their parents to pick them up. One thing that was very amusing on the first day was when we saw all of these children covered in talcum powder! We finally discovered that for them the whiter you are the cleaner you appear. After the second day the children began getting very comfortable with us and were very happy to see us arrive every morning. We may not have taught them to speak correct English, some of them couldn't even speak Thai, but I feel that we helped them to begin interacting with Westerners and hopefully have given them a little bit of a start bit towards a better future.

After working hard as volunteers, we thought that we deserved a nice break, so we spent our last week on the tropical island of Koh Phagnan. It took us over 15 hours to get there but it was worth every minute. Just to wake up every day in my beach hut and see the sea was breath taking!

This experience has been such an eye-opener on so many different levels. I would recommend that everyone who has just the tiniest bit of curiosity about the world do something like this. Travelling opens your mind and by doing it this way, not taking the typical tourist routes, you get to see what real life is like in a country and experience things and meet people that your average tourist wouldn't even dream of.

And of course, give a little something back along the way.

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