Don’t go chasing Waterfalls…

Day 7

My head ached a little, just a little. It transpires Chang is 6.4% in Thailand, not the lower percentage that I am used to in England!

The plan for the weekend was to accompany David, his family, and Cliff & Jackie up into the mountains, and to Hot Coffee (a resort owned by The Rain Tree Foundation, to help support their adjoining children's orphanage). The resort is in the Maenonchorn area of Northern Thailand, which meant travelling through the Doi Inthanon National Park.

First things first – Cliff and Jackie are lovely people! They set up a charity called Josie’sDragonfly Trust, about 5 years ago, when their Daughter - Josie - died of Leukaemia, at a tragically young age (16). After months andyears of treatment, nothing was helping, so Josie decided that enough was enough, and that she was going to enjoy her final moments, instead of suffering them in a hospital. This led to the Dragonfly Trust, which uses its funds to help brighten the difficult days that many young children & teenagers experience when living with cancer - they do this by giving young children and teenagers suffering from Cancer a ‘cash gift’, so they have some money and independence to enjoy themselves and to take their minds off their illness.

Obviously ‘cash gifts’ cost money…and money doesn’t grow on trees, so feel free to donate some money to this wonderful cause, to tell others about it, or visit their website to buy some jewellery or dragonfly products - Josie designed the Dragonfly necklace whilst ill!

The Dragonfly Trust have organised some fundraising treks/trips in Thailand, and thus why they wanted to do a ‘dry run’ and see some of the places this weekend. A part of the trip involves each fundraiser donating money to buy a Rain Tree Foundation water filter, and then helping the villagers install them. So it’s win, win, the Dragonfly Trust raise money for their wonderful cause, whilst aiding one of the Rain Tree Foundations wonderful causes!

So, we headed into the mountains and away from Chiang Mai (my head was still aching!), our first stop was the Vachiratharn water fall in the Doi Inthanon National Park. A lovely waterfall, I think you’ll agree...

Whilst here, some Thai Muslims (a minority religion in Thailand) asked to have their photo taken with me and Cliff - I’ll confess this has happened to me once before - whilst in Spain, Madrid to be precise, some Spanish girls asked to have their photo taken with me, and then went back to join their family at their table, to this day I don’t know why, I've always assumed they mistook me for Brad Pitt, so I’m going to assume this is what happened this time as well! Anyhow, they got their photo, and I managed to get one back!

We then headed onto Hot Coffee at Maenachorn. Here, we met with 3 other Rain Tree Foundation volunteers, Lara and Linda – who are helping to look after the kids and teaching English at the local school, and Jessica – who is helping to run Hot Coffee, as well as helping out with the kids. The kids were all at a sports day, so we all went Bamboo rafting!

When we returned, we looked around the Childrens home, to find out what the kids do and understand the project more.  Some of the Kids are orphans and some of them come down from the tribes for the school months. There is little education or opportunities for the children up in the hills, so the project provides the children with some basic education and language skills. The kids go to school from about 8am – 4pm, then they return to undertake various activities around the home i.e. gardening, cleaning, woodcraft etc then after dinner, they have another English lesson. Although this sounds like hard work, it’s not as hard as they would be working if they were with their Tribes – where they would be getting no education. As well as the volunteers, there are also ‘Host Parents’ living on site.

Day 8

It is supposed to be ‘colder’ in the mountains, and I’ll be honest, for the first time since being in Thailand, I felt a little Chilly in the morning! However, still warmer than 95% of the year in England!

I had decided to have a bit of a lie in, partly to shake off the remaining jet lag/mild hangover, and partly because I was comfortable!

I had some free time in the morning, so I got talking to one of the workers at Hot Coffee – Rut, who is from the Karen Tribe, and can speak some English. Sensing I had some time to kill, he took me to see a local church/prayer room near the Childrens Home/Hot Coffee, a few of the kids said ‘hi’ and shook my hand, others stared and kept their distance. I spoke to some of the locals, who were all friendly, smiled and laughed a lot – I’m pretty sure at times they were mocking me! I think they thought it was strange that I am 26 and have no wife or children!

On the way back into Hot Coffee, one of the kids was playing Takraw on his own, so I thought it would be nice to play with him. This probably ruined his fun, as I wasn’t as good as him, my excuses for this are as follows: the ball was smaller than usual, it was made of rattan and I’m not used to playing some kind of football/volleyball/tennis hybrid!!

After this, we heading back to Chiang Mai, stopping off for lunch on the way. Davids two kids had got more used to me during this trip, and decided to spend the whole day attacking me with the dragonflies that Cliff and Jackie had kindly given them, also at one stage they tied my hands together and declared at various stages that I was their prisoner/pet/a pirate. I’ve decided that entertaining two kids for a day and a half is knackering...which is why I’m 26 and have no children!

All in all I had a pleasant weekend, which went quickly. It was nice to meet Cliff and Jackie, and I hope their fundraising trips are successful.

Although tired, when I got back I decided it would be nice to go for a cycle around the local area, whilst there was still a little sun left (and to help burn off the copious amounts of Rice I have been eating). As per usual, this lasted longer than I had planned (I definitely didn’t get lost/go round in circles), I was relieved once I had found my ‘homing device’ – the Ping River. Many of the locals said ‘hi’  on this trip and it seems they live quite contently away from the mod cons of the modern world, and I felt envious…but then I got back to my guesthouse and Skyped with my family, and I thought how great the modern world and its mod cons are!