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 next seven weeks. No guarantee that the charity I had signed up to volunteer with wasn't a strange scam, that I would have a bed to sleep on, and God knows what hygiene facilities could be awaiting me.

But, thankfully, I was met by a friendly director of the orphanage as I traipsed off the plane in Chiang Rai, north Thailand. Straight away I got an experience of the famous tuk tuks as we squished in alongside my massive bag, and off we went to the orphanage. It was about 9pm by the time I arrived and so I couldn't really see anything (the lights aren't too bright) but I gathered it was simple but comfortable, and collapsed into bed. Jet lag is a funny thing - I woke at 2am and couldn't sleep again, so for the first day, and possibly the last time given my inability to rise before 10am, I watched the sun rise over Thailand.

The surroundings at the centre are lusciously green and with a very grand temple just at the end of the road, we are not far from plenty of culture and life. And a mall, which is always good when I can't cope with any more plain rice mixed with strange spicy cabbage. Not a brilliant introuduction to Thai food I feel.

I had my first experience of Chiang Rai town yesterday - for a trip to the hospital no less. After a slight language barrier issue, I finally managed to communicate the fact that I was half deaf because my ears were so blocked and they sent me to a private room and put stuff in my ears, told me '15 minutes' then proceeded to leave me for over an hour. After half an hour of tentatively shouting 'hello' I finally managed to stand up with my head tilted enough that it wouldn't disturb whatever was in my ear, made my way to reception only to be watched with confused stares, given a load of cotton wool and told to go to the waiting room. Self service is apparently the way of this particular Thai hospital. All sorted, prescibed some olive oil (I kid you not, I had to buy this from the hospital pharmacy) and told to come back next week at 9am (eek) I scuttled off to try and navigate the bustling streets. I located the infamous clock tower, a huge golden structure a far cry from any clock tower I've ever seen, and settled down to a cup of Chiang Rai coffee (apparently a speciality- who knew) and watched the passers by, including one woman riding side saddle on the back of a motorbike casually tucking into a bowl of noodles using chopsticks! What co-ordination. I also stumbled across a huge 'wat' (temple) smack bang in the middle of the sprawling food market - I have no idea what any of the stalls were selling, but I have four weeks to try all their delicacies!

All in all, a successful week. Thankful to be able to hear again - maybe next week's teaching endeavours will improve on my bid to teach them London's Burning when I couldn't hear what either I or they were singing.