On Sunday, we visited Dream House orphanage that is funded by our tour company. We were welcomed by a lovely Filipino woman called Vic who singled-handedly runs the orphanage for Burmese children whose parents can't afford to keep them. Jess was crying at her welcome speech before we even went inside. We were greeted by about 30 children aged 2-17. Vic explained how some had trekked from Burma for 5 days to reach the orphanage. The younger ones played with the toys we all bought for them. Lucy and another gym coach from our group taught some of the girls gymnastics but they were more advanced than we assumed. We bought had our nails painted with nail art and Jess had her hair braided (hence the side pony on all the pictures). Vic had taught them all these skills to help them in later life. One 15 year old boy did paintings of scenes around Thailand - they were incredible, especially since he taught himself. The youngest child, Happy, fell asleep on Jess for about half an hour. At the end of the day we sung some songs and dances and all the children performed a touching song for us which had us all in tears. It was an eye-opening day and the lady who ran the orphanage was an inspiration!

On Monday, we began our 2 day jungle trek which was almost half a marathon through a rainforest. The pick up trucks took us to the middle of nowhere where we met 6 guards carrying 6 rifles, machetes and a dog to protect us from the Burmese as we were so near the border. We set off looking sexy in our leggings and walking boots and Lucy foolishly opted not to bring a waterproof to the rainforest. We came to the first river and used stepping stones to avoid getting our shoes wet. We trekked deeper into the jungle and arrived at more rivers where we had no choice but to be knee-deep in dirty water, filling our "waterproof" boots and making our feet as heavy as logs. The guards tied ropes so we could climb some hills which was not the easy walk we had been hoping for (and nothing like Holcombe Hill). We stopped at a cave to eat lunch - Pad Thai a.k.a. mush in a bag - but resorted to crisps we had thankfully bought earlier. We are so fed up with Thai food! The cave was fascinating with stalagmites and stalactites. We found a rope swing made on vine and bamboo. Pukkii our co-ordinator, the smallest Thai person ever, swung on it first and Lucy thought it would be a good idea to go for an ambitious swing with a run up. Massive fail! The bamboo snapped over the most jagged rock, giving Lucy and lovely bruise for beach week and a dead-leg for the rest of the trek. We continued the trek getting more wet in the monsoon rains, our boots now weighing the same as a small elephant and covered head-to-toe in mud after a few comical falls. We finally arrived at where we were staying for the night... a wooden shack with tents inside. We devoured an all-you-can-eat buffet and sung songs with the guitar before bed. We had the smelliest tents and sleeping bags ever, the loudest rooster, and the continuing monsoon rains on a corrigated iron roof which meant we had the worst night's sleep ever!

We were cheered up in the morning with a yummy breakfast - jam sandwiches and eggs (yes, this is now considered a yummy breakfast). We donned our muddy, smelly, wet leggings from the previous day and set out on our shorter 10K trek. We trekked through a whole river this time to a waterfall which we climb and swam in. This definitely made up for the previous sleepless night. We bagsied the forst seat in the pick-up truck home so had a dry ride back to the hotel.

On Wednesday, we had a great lie in until 12 then went river rafting on a bamboo raft. We attempted to stand up all the way and took turns thinking of water-related songs to scream much to the dismay of the Thai rowers.

We leave for Koh Phangan (the beach, sunshine and party island) today for a week so we may be too busy sunbathing, elephant trekking and drinking to update you regularly, but we promise to have some hilarious stories when we do.

J&L x