Project Rakchuay (Love Help) - Thailand, Chiang Mai (10-20 July 2005)

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Day 3 (12th July 2005)

We said goodbye to Chiang Mai early morning. Armed with all the provisions we had brought and bought, our group of 16 embarked on a 2 hrs “Road Trip” (bumpy ride) up the mountains to Mae Wang, Karen Village.

4 of us were old-timers from the previous expedition ½ a year back. I was privileged to be given another opportunity to serve the local opportunity through this check-dam project.

Of course, as the days wore off, we were expecting lots of unexpected. These somehow helped to add variety to this expedition on top of the numerous gossiping & debriefing at night + the stray dogs that barked for no reason at 2am that sends a chill down your spine.

It was evening when we finally reached the village as we hurriedly cleaned up our place for sleeping. Of course, there were frantic attempts to fill up the kerosene lamps since the whole place would be pitched dark once the sun sets. Anyway, our arrival had attracted some curious stares from the kids in the village who would run off the moment we tried to go near them.

We later learnt that these small kids needed time to warm up with strangers. After all, they had stayed in the village for most part of their lives out of the mainstream society. It must be apprehensive for them to suddenly come in contact with 16 strangers from Singapore who would be living in their village for the next few days.

Night time soon falls and with much hesitation, I took the notorious icy cold bath. I’m not sure whether everybody in the team had a great sleep that night with their sleeping bags laid over the wooden floors. One thing was sure that this expedition would officially start the next day and thinking how I could cope with an injured wrist made me worried.

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Photos

The Village Church
The most happening place in the village on a Sunday morning!

Bamboo Garden
Where we usually have our dinner (alfresco dining experience)

My son, Werayu
At the end of the expedition, most of us have our favourite kids. This fellow can easily outrun me in the 100m dash.