Our day started out by leaving our "host mom" in Phuket and heading to the meeting area. We had the breakfast of champions...icecream and water, before all piling into a bus to head off to Nakorn Si Thammerat. The trip would take about four hours, so most of us tried to catch up on some shut eye since we were all feeling a bit tired.
The first thing that we did when we got to our hotel was get into our bathing suits and head out on a river rafting adventure. It wasn't actually a river rafting adventure because there weren't many rapids...okay there were barely any rapids, but it was still quite fun. We rode in the back of a pick up truck there, and that was an adventure in itself....every bump felt like we were going to fall out..but no one ever did.
We ended up having three boats-one big one and two small ones....but the big one never flipped because it was too big, the little ones flipped quite often, which was quite amusing. We learned that David (the only boy exchange student at the time) was not a nature boy, and everytime water got into the boat, he would frantically attempt to bail the boat out....which was really funny to watch.
We ended up having three boats-one big one and two small ones....but the big one never flipped because it was too big, the little ones flipped quite often, which was quite amusing. We learned that David (the only boy exchange student at the time) was not a nature boy, and everytime water got into the boat, he would frantically attempt to bail the boat out....which was really funny to watch.
This is a picture of some of us in the back of the truck. The people in the back of the truck are Kimberly, Courtney, Anna, Emi, Pee-Boy, Emily, Emily, and Emmi. Haha it was quite an adventure :)
The people in the big boat! As you can tell, the water isn't exactly the cleanest, so we were told not to drink it. I'm not sure if they thought we were going to lean over and take a drink, but it was nice that they warned us against it....
The two smaller boats that headed down the river...these boats were flipped quite often, and I did get the opportunity to ride in one of these, but we didn't flip until the end when the guide flipped it for us.
Three of us desperately trying to get away from that rapid after the boat flipped. You can't see it in this picture, but the other boat is directly behind them, and they got run over by it...which caused the other boat to flip. Quite amusing for all of us.
A group shot of us chilling on a rock in the middle of the river. It took a lot of effort to get to this rock, because the current was much stronger than we originally thought. There were a few people who fell over, and then floated down a few feet before one of the other people grabbed them and helped them back to their feet.
This is Pee-Boy, our chaperone, showing us the rubber trees. These are famous in the province of Nakorn Si Thammerat, and they were everywhere. They collect rubber much like they collect maple syrup in Canada. They use a tap, and then a collection bowl. The people would collect the rubber in the early hours of the morning, (these ones had yet to be collected, despite the fact it was quite late in the day).
Here is a close up shot of the collection of rubber. I thought it was a very creative picture :)
After our dropping off the boats and the guides, we headed to this hotspring type thing. There was a natural hotspring, but had been channeled into this tub, so that we could warm up after our chilly adventure on the water. It was really quite nice:) nice and warm.
We were given these drinks that were made out of natural ingredients, that all had a different "healing" power. Some were there to help with eyesight, stress, blood pressure....lots of different things. They weren't always the best tasting though, some were downright nasty. I drank one that was made out of ginger, that was pretty good. So after that we headed back to the hotel, showered in cold water (defeated the purpose of that warm hotspring) and then ate and chatted for a bit. We headed to bed fairly early because we were going to be getting up early in order to see the sunrise!
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