Day One - On Monday morning, I had to wake up at about 4:45 am to get to the school and catch the bus to the airport. After a 3-hour plane ride and a five-hour bus ride (which was torture; 100 degrees and humid, no air conditioning, and 60 kids in one small bus), we got to the Bridge. It was nothing like I expected, there was really nothing there except the bridge. After we walked across it, we left to go to our accommodations, which were the exact opposite of what they told us they would be. No air conditioning, bugs everywhere, tiny rooms shared by five people, rock-hard beds, and whenever the showers where turned on, storms of beetles, moths and hornets flew around the bathroom.
Day Two - On the second day, we started with what would be our daily meal; fried rice, steamed rice, fried chicken, watermelon, and pineapple. We ate this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Then, we took our first strange form of transportation to Hellfire Pass. It was a truck, but it reminded me of going on a hay ride, and we were sure someone was going over the side with all of the bumps and turns. We then hiked Hellfire Pass for about 6 kilometres. For anyone who doesn't know, Hellfire Pass is the name that was given to the railroad made by the POWs. It was made by hundreds of thousands of POWs and Chinese laborers, many of whom died. They were forced to work for up to 18 hours at a time using small hand-held tools to dig into the ground and create a path for the train. There were times where the ground level was a good 30 feet above where the path was dug. Given the horrible conditions and health of the workers, they decided the name was appropriate. After the hike, we went to a museum dedicated to the POWs and learned about history. For the rest of the day, we practiced our kayaking skills.
Day Three - This day was probably the highlight of my trip. We started the day with our second (and best) strange form of transportation: a party bus. Even at 7 in the morning, the disco lights and blasting music woke everyone up. We drove to a local Thai school. I forget the Thai name, but I know that the translation is School of Heaven. There were about 60 kids, ranging from ages four to ten, waiting for us. From the very beginning, two or three little girls latched onto me and literally didn't let go for the entire day. Most kids didn't know a single word of english, and none of us knew any Thai, so it was really interesting. We did songs like the ABC's and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, which were both great hits, and the kids loved singing along. We also played games including soccer, tag, and patty cake. By the end of the day, I knew the entire Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song in Thai (that I of course forgot by dinner time). We also built a fish farm and a mushroom farm, but as I said before, there were always little kids dragging me around, so I didn't have too much time to work on those. We were at the school from about 8am to 6pm. The girl in the picture below that is standing in the back wearing the red-orange shirt is one of the girls who wouldn't leave my side. At the start of the day, I was sitting down, and she came behind me, stole my hat, then sat next to me. She wore it for the rest of the day.
Day Four - On the fourth day, we took a third strange form of transportation: still a party bus, but with louder music and doors/windows that didn't close so that everybody could hear us. (Someone lost a hat out of the window inevitably) We went to the school again, and the same group of girls found me. They decided that they were going to teach me the numbers 1-20 in Thai. They got a huge laugh when I couldn't pronounce a single word, and were taking turns trying to teach me. While I was playing with all of the little girls, I saw that all of the boys from my school were getting pinned down and beaten up by a few Thai students. They said they didn't want to fight back, but we all agreed they couldn't have done anything to save themselves. There was one little boy in particular, who we named Boxer Boy, who was probably about nine. He ran around chasing any boy in sight, knocking him to the ground, and punching him until a teacher would come over and try to stop the fight. He even threw a few punches at the male teachers, but not a single girl. Boxer Boy is in the picture below in the black shirt.
Instead of staying until 6 again, we left the school at about one in the afternoon. About half of the students had done this the day before, but I did it on the fourth day. We got to kayak about 25 kilometres along a beautiful river. We were allowed to jump out of our kayak several times just to float in the water along side our kayaks. This was a lot of fun. We got out of our kayaks right at the spot we were staying for our last night. This was a river-side resort that was really just a village made up of one huge hotel. It was called Home Phu Toey, and it was a huge upgrade from our previous nights. I'm pretty sure everyone took an hour-long shower, still not completely getting the dirt off. But, of course, they were just building us up to let us down.
Day Five - We were woken up at 4 in the morning to get onto our fourth and final strange form of transportation: three camouflage-painted pick-up trucks with platforms built on top of the back so that more people could be seated on the top level. At this time in the morning, no one was awake enough to complain. If someone did speak up, they were hushed by 30 tired teenagers. Luckily, after about fifteen minutes, we switched onto a normal bus, this time air conditioned, and drove back to the airport. Every single person slept for the entire bus ride. I finally got home at about 5pm, ready for a nice long shower and a bug-free room all to myself. I got all of the dirt off of my legs only to reveal a huge tan line from my tennis shoes.
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