On Sunday night we went out for one of the girls birthdays and we thought this was an appropriate occassion, having got to know everyone by this time, to unleash the moustaches which we bought before we came. They went down a treat, although they weren't very sticky after we all became so sweaty from our crazy dance moves!

We started our volunteering on Monday, a little hungover from the previous night - Lucy doing the childcare option and Jess doing the building option. Jess's week volunteering didn't start well. We arrived at the site where we were supposed to building our road for the orphanage and the Thai company had flattened the wrong bit of land. We also hadn't received any tools except 6 hoes between 14 of us. So we spent the first two days hacking away at the wet clay, attempting to make drainage ditches for the road. By day 3 we were due an arrival of the luxury of a few wheelbarrows, mores hoes, buckets, spades and even some gravel. But even dropping off the materials didn't run smoothly. As soon as the truck arrived it got stuck in the mud so all 14 of us found ourselves pushing it out in the torrential rain - only in Thailand! We finally had everything we need to make a proper start to the road. Jess wasn't particularly talented with the tools so spent most of the time runnig up and down with the wheelbarrow full of gravel and mud. The weather was very unpredictable, and the sweltering heat resulted in a very unattractive t-shirt tan. But, after a slow start we managed to make a great start to the road so tractors and trucks can carry materials the the orphanage.

Lucy was volunteering in a Mon nursery, a nursery for children who had migrated from Burma, and was assigned the 2-3 year old class - brill news. They were the cutest, but naughtiest children ever! The days consisted of playing with the children from 9-10.30am, building many towers, dancing to videos and attempting to sort out fights in Thai/Burmese/English! At 10.30 it was lunchtime (excellent) where Lucy was forced to eat a couple of dodgy school dinners. After lunch it was nap time so we had another lunch and then made some teaching materials and cleaned the toilets (grim). The toilets were the worst I have ever seen. They were the 'asian toliets' i.e. a hole in the floor but the children just weed no where near the toilet/in the corridors/in their pants, one even weed on one of the volunteers, very amusing! After the children woke up at 2 we had to tidy away their nap sacks, which for an unknown reason were always soaking wet. We couldn't decide if it was sweat, dribble or wee. We then sung some Thai songs, prayed to the Buddah, taught a little bit of English before hometime! It may sound like an easy day but it definitely wasn't! One girl was picking her nose so Lucy said 'no' in Thai (check me out) and she just wiped a massive bogey on my skirt! The same girl a couple of days later decide to bite my maxi dress to which Lucy said 'no' again before the girl spat out part of the dress, leaving a hole and finding it hilarious. The volunteering was fun but 5 days was definitely plenty and it's quite clear that neither of us our cut out for unpaid work!

One night after volunteering we headed to the longest wooden bridge in Thailand, second longest in the world - it was amazing, the pictures speak for themselves.

After a long week volunteering, we headed to a pizza place on Friday where you could bring your own alcohol (we love Thailand) and then went out Friday night for some more crazy dancing on the world's slippiest floor. We planned the wedding of our co-ordinator and her ex-boyfriend which was highly embarassing the next day!

Saturday morning came the drama... Earlier in the week, there had been an argument with a boy from our group and the co-ordinator of another group which, from what we have heard, got quite aggressive. The boy was asked to leave the trip and return to Mexico where he lives, even though he was innocent. This caused a huge uproar. We all made a stand and asked to speak to the head of Real Gap to try to bide more time for him to stay, at least until Monday so we could speak to the UK Real Gap team and try to make them change their decision. There was a huge debate with the manager and several of us (including us) were in tears. The manager agreed to reconsider the decision so we set off, a little later than expected to the days activity.

Our transport methods were getting worse - we were told to get in the back of a pick up truck where we just stood up in the back while the driver pretended we were on a rollercoaster! We arrived at the most beautiful lake we have ever seen, in the middle of the jungle complete with kayaks, a water see-saw and a water trampoline - we were in heaven! We were all playing on the trampoline when a taxi pulled up and the boy who was asked to leave gets out and shouts 'I'm staying' so we all jumped off the trampoline and swam to a very emotional group hug! The others left to go ziplining but we weren't keen so while they were gone we gathered everyones belongings and spelt out 'Team Mexico' for when they returned (cute). We then went to explore the lake in our kayaks in the monsoon rain (it was suprisingly nice the rest of the day) - absolutely loved life. Some of the others did quad biking which was a disaster with people getting stuck in ropes and ditches - we were happy with the trampoline and kayaks for entertainment. On Saturday night we returned to the only bar in Sangkhlaburi (again) and drank too much (again).

Apologies for the long blog but we've been too busy to write! We start our jungle trek for two days tomorrow so will hopefully update the blog again on Wednesday/Thursday - miss you all!

J&Lx