Friday marked the end of my time with IHF, and a sad thing this was too. The last week was great fun - showing the kids Gene Kelly tap dancing to 'Singing in the Rain' brought much joy (to them as well as me) and I finally managed to get back in the (bike) saddle with a rather dodgy trip through the city as steering was still a minor issue for me. On my final night we threw a fondue party to top off a great last couple of days spent exploring CR with Laura my fel...

Three weeks in and I've more than settled into the way of life here. The days are just slipping through my fingers, and in 6 days I'm to leave to embark on my travels! It feels such a shame to be leaving after one short month, as I am only just now feeling that the kids here are letting their barriers down (understandably) and I'm getting into the swing of teaching them. On Tuesday I taught an art class, a challenge in itself for me - art isn't a strong point!, b...

The last few days have seen me take a break from the orphanage, and embark on a 2 day trip to Chiang Rai's bigger sister, Chiang Mai. CM is the capital of the North, as well as being the city of wats and sure enough there were a lot of them! I even had the privilege of having an hour and a half long chat with a monk about the workings of a temple and the nature of Buddhism. Enlightening stuff you might say. I was met at the bus station by a lovely friend of a fr...

I'm completely and utterly in love with Thailand. All it took was one week and one night market and I feel my heart may just be lost forever. On Saturday night (after a rather slow day at the office - we are looking after teenagers, who mostly like to be left to their own devices!) myself and three other volunteers ventured out onto the streets of Chiang Rai in a bid for freedom and in search of some good Thai food (finally!). I know many of you reading this (if...

Whether or not a 7 week adventure warrants a blog I guess is debatable, and I apologise if this is slightly self indulgent. I always love nosing around other people's travel endeavours and so for the curious out there, here are some (hopefully interesting) snippets of mine. It wasn't really until I was sitting in the departures lounge at Heathrow, last minute sunscreen and DEET bought, that it hit me I was actually going solo across South East Asia for the nex...