On the 29th May I left England for the second time this year (the first being to come up to Edinburgh) to travel to Thailand. My two friends who I had met as a fresher were meeting in the airport after our long flights across the world. In February when the never forgotten beast from the east hit the UK leaving us stuck inside wishing to see the sun again, my friends and I decided to book to go away for the summer, so we picked Thailand. However, we all agreed that we wanted to do something that would make a difference, therefore decided to include two weeks of volunteering. For the first week we wanted to volunteer with elephants. Here we walked the elephants down to the river to wash them, cleaned their pens, fed them and lived around them. We were also given the opportunity to learn to cook Thai food – Pad Thai was a personal favorite! When we went out to find the elephants food around the little village where we also helped the villagers in clearing trees. Here we ended up coming away with masses of coconuts!
For the second week we went to Sangkhlaburi for a week, we went to a small primary school that needed help improving their facilities. So, for the week we were tasked with improving their path up to the school. We were shown how to mix cement by hand and then lay it out and smooth it over. This was hard work, but it was so rewarding and I’m glad we were given the opportunity to help. We also got to spend time with the children, playing games and teaching them little bits of English.
A week later we had finished the cementing the path and were on the bus to go down to the islands. We found a hotel in Koh Phanghan and rested for a couple of days before going to Koh Toa.
My month spent travelling around Thailand was an incredible experience and taught me lots and I couldn’t recommend it more.
University of Edinburgh Go Abroad 
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