Day 3 - Chiang Mai

Obviously the fun is catching up with a few children as almost all were still sound asleep at 6.15 this morning and needed to be practically shaken awake. Conversely, the teachers jumped out of bed bright and early and, after a 5 mile jog, a quick 20 laps of the pool and a sunrise yoga session, joined the children for a hearty breakfast.

Following breakfast, we split into groups again.

GROUP 1: The children set off for the elephant farm in high spirits. One noisy journey later, they arrived in even higher spirits and rushed to buy bananas for the elephants. They were soon brought back down to earth when, whilst trying to feed the elephants one banana at a time, were shocked to find that these intelligent animals just reached past the children and grabbed whole bunches of bananas that were apparently 'hidden' from view! After the elephant 'show', we took a ride on the elephants through the forest. Lunch was yet another delicious spread and, after a short break, we climbed aboard the bamboo rafts and sailed down the river. Actually, to be more precise, the teachers rafted down the river whilst the children spent most of the time in the water, swimming between rafts and shrieking with delight the whole time. A brilliant afternoon, finished off by (yet another) round of ice creams!

GROUP 2: Bikes, Mud, Team building and The Prem farm.
(Miguel A)
After a refreshing sleep, we got changed, ate, walked to the bikes and we started our long journey to the buffalo farm. We passed picturesque landscape and we felt like we were biking somewhere in the province of the Philippines. Only when we saw Thai writing we realized we were in Chiang Mai. At the buffalo farm we got to plough in the mud with buffalo. Chris, Josh, Ben and I each got 2 house points for being the first to volunteer when no one else would. One of the most memorable experiences was jumping on to a buffalo from behind, I also enjoyed planting rice and eating sugar made from the juice of sugarcane (which was made by making the buffalo walk in circles and a wheel it was attached to crushed it). Later, we biked to the prem center for lunch. Team Building was the next activity. We played 2 games: Sherman Tank and bean bag, my favourite was Sherman Tank because I won with Ben. Next we went to the farm and learned about how prem center recycles everything. There are also boars, goats, chickens, rabbits and water buffalos there. We did a scavenger hunt and we got a first hand experience of farming when we planted cucumber seedlings. I can't wait for the Khantoke dinner and the elephant camp tomorrow.

GROUP 3:
(By James)
Its been so fun in cooking. Heres all the things we learnt so far. We had a long walk all the way to the farm and saw little bunnies. The guide told us all about the plants and farm animals. After that we started to collect the ingredients for our fried rice and soup. Later we rode on the van back to start cooking. The head chef explained and showed us what to do then we started cooking soup with chicken and vegetables. Not long after we listened on how to make fried rice with a lot of ingredients. In the end when we ate it it tasted so good.

(By Paco)
Today has been really fun we did many fun activities including; arts and crafts and cooking. The first thing we did was to meet with the chefs and farmers to collect some of the ingredients for our meal. Once we had done so we took the items back into thee nearby kitchen and began cooking. We prepared three Thai dishes for us to eat, a dessert made from coconuts and plant seeds, a soup containing chicken and other vegetables and a platter of fried rice. All were delicious. Once we had finished our lesson we headed towards another building in the PREM campus, where we started our arts and crafts. All the activities there were also really great.