Journey to Surin - Sunday 9th February

Today we all rose early to make our journey to Surin, where we will be based for our volunteering projects. Surin is approximately 6-7 hour coach journey from Bangkok. We were all very impressed with the coach station and, in particular, the coach. We were spoilt with comfy seats with folding leg rests, tv screens, bottled water, snacks and a meal. There was even a clean toilet and elegant coach hostess serving us for the journey. To top it off we were provided with blankets to keep us warm if napping. I've not had flights with such good service and facilities! We all enjoyed the coach journey, amusing ourselves with tales and jokes, playing puzzle games (thank you Laura Hadfield!) and snoozing. As we got nearer Surin, we started to get excited seeing the different things the town has to offer.

Finally we were greeted into our new home by late afternoon. The nine of us volunteers are all staying in one big guesthouse together which has a kitchen and living area too. As you can imagine, we were all so happy to be unpacking and settling in. Later that evening our project manager and co-ordinators gave us useful information about the town and later about our volunteer projects. 

I am the only volunteer English teacher. My fellow volunteers and housemates are on other volunteer projects, such as elephant sanctuary, medical, construction and childcare. Over a group dinner at one of the local restaurants, we all swapped notes about our projects and made plans to fill our weekends with excursions.  We also planned weekday leisure activities to fill our evenings.

We all turned in early so to be best prepared for our first day on our volunteer projects. Never before has a Monday morning been so eagerly anticipated!