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We arrived at DinDang (in a tiny village called Pak Song in the south of Thailand which no one had heard of) and got shown around the area and where we were staying etc. We got straight to work with the clay, but didn't really know what we were doing…so don't know how long that part of the wall is going to last! Also met the other volunteers (we were the only English ones but everyone spoke some English). Abi then had 2 days doing work with a school that was linked with DinDang for 'special' kids in the surrounding area, and spent a day playing with them and doing art etc. Millie was working in the garden using her amazing strength to dig up bamboo roots etc and going for swims in the river. We then had 2days off work and went with the other volunteers to a monkey temple nearby…which as the name suggests, has lots of monkeys around the site playing about. We also went to a night market nearby and tried some local food (slowly getting used to the spicyness but both of our mouths basically burn all the time!)
On our other day off we went to a tescos (!) nearby to stock up on snacks and then decided to go with a couple of other volunteers on a wander to a nearly waterfall. We thought it was just round the corner so were wearing flipflops, no insect repellant, no suncream and just a camera. One of the other volunteers had been there before and said it wasn't far, so we set off in high spirits. We walked up the road for a bit and then turned off into the jungle and passed a sign saying the waterfall was 6.5km away…don't know why we didn't turn around then. What we didn't know is that we would be walking up a mountain through the jungle, and whenever we stopped to ask the locals how to get there, they just laughed at us and told us to keep going. After about 2 and a half hours, we had trekked to the top of a rocky mountain to find that we were going to wrong way. By this point we had massively lost our sense of humor, the other volunteers were jabbering on in French, Abi had a blister between her toes from the flipflops and Millies knees were giving her grief. A kind local then told us that we were going the wrong way and that we had to go back the way we came for about 2km and then turn off for another 1km then we would find it. By this point it was getting quite late and we felt like crying but soldiered on. 3km later with the help of lots of people we found this little track through the bushes which they said was to the waterfall. Abi has a massive thing about bugs so was freaking out and Millie was scared of poison ivy type stuff, but we kept going. We then got a little further and found we were going the wrong way again…so turned around, and one of the other volunteers found she had a leech on her. So that was the last straw for us two and we freaked out and said that we would wait by the road and just not see the stupid waterfall. So we basically ran to the road…but having got there Abi found that she had a leech on her foot…and a little bit later we found that Millie had a leech which had inhabited a cut on her foot! Literally wanted t get out of the jungle so badly!! Thank god we then managed to get a lift back home on top of a truck with bags of coffee and various locals laughing at us screaming at the leeches and bugs!! Needless to say we were seriously happy to be home and to have a shower (even if it was just a bucket of cold water and a bowl…!)
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