Homestay and Jungle

by Judith Schneider

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to go to Ban Talae Nok, a close by village with who Andaman Discoveries does Homestays. I was staying over night with a very friendly family and again felt sorry that my Thai is not yet good enough for any type of proper conversation.. But we still were able to communicate – no language was needed to see how much I enjoyed the food and their hospitality. Also, P’Tui, AD’s director was never far away to translate, staying with Janice and Andrew, the volunteers who spent the whole week there.

We were quite busy making postcards from handmade recycling paper, planting palmtrees and mangroves and we even painted a sign for the women’s soap group. At an intercultural evening with the local kids, they had a great laugh listening to my repeated thai rhymes before I thaught them to sing “Tirol isch lei oans” – a famous traditional song from Tyrol, Austria, where I come from – which also was quite funny! 🙂

Also, we had the chance to jump into the ocean at the beach nearby which was wonderful after getting all dirty in the muddy jungle where we got the mangroves and palm plants for reforestation.

What a great experience to get to know life in a small authentic village while helping the locals!

For the weekend, we went to the closeby Khao Sok National park in the jungle where we did rivertubing and relaxed in a beautiful resort surrounded by rainforest and its animals! Amazing. If you want to know more about my time in Kuraburi, working as an Intern in the office of Andaman Discoveries, check out my personal Blog: http://u-did-snider.blogspot.com/.