Elephantine Adventures

The previous week in Hua Hin was very relaxing, so I was more than ready for a more adventurous week, the last one with the organization Greenway. We made our way to Umphang, a beautiful province in the West of Thailand, just at the border to Myanmar. The first part of the journey was in a coach through the night, which was relatively comfy for the standards I had been traveling by. Then, in Mae Sot, we hopped on to yet another truck, what a surprise. I knew it was going to be cold, so I had already had on as many layers as possible, which wasn’t much with my tropically packed suitcase. Luckily, a friend of mine lent me two more sweaters and the drivers handed out sleeping bags to everyone on the truck. The following ride was extremely unpleasant because the street was basically only curves, 1219 to be exact. It isn’t called the ‘death highway’ for nothing… As you can imagine I didn’t get much sleeping done especially since I had to hold on to the bars of the truck to keep myself from slipping off the tiny bench. Nevertheless, when the sun began to rise, we got a small taste of the beautiful landscape looking out the back of the truck. After four hours of this cold, windy and winding journey, we finally arrived at our cute little guesthouse, the “Umphang House”. Thank goodness we were allowed to go straight to bed for a couple of hours, until lunch was served.

In the afternoon we were supposed to have a first meet with the elephants and feed them. For that, we drove to a banana tree plantation, where we chopped down some trees (diameter max. 30cm) with real machetes. How cool! Not that I had any stowed up aggression to let out whilst chopping, but it was very fun. My shorts still carry the stains from the juice of the trees that sprayed everywhere. With one of our trucks fully loaded we drove to a place that got to be our ‘elephant headquarters’ for the next few days. The elephants were already lined up and eagerly awaiting their belated lunch. We cut the trees in to smaller pieces and held those up to the elephants for them to grab with their strong long trunks. Although I had been near elephants before, this felt a lot different. It felt more personal, not at all like a tourist taking advantage of these fascinating creatures. No, this was real, and so was the sticky elephant slobber on my hands.

The following mornings we did the same routine: drive to a banana tree plantation, chop banana trees, feed elephants, watch them eat, eat our own lunch with the gentle giants standing a mere 5 meters from us, repeat. We even got to ride the elephants a couple of times, barebacked!

And it gets better. In order to cleanse our karma, we washed the elephants in the river near our headquarters. What an amazing experience…

The afternoons were just as great as the mornings with the elephants. We hiked through the jungle to a hot spring, visited two breathtaking waterfalls and watched the sun set while enjoying a stunning view from the top of a mountain. Although we did all these great activities, it would have been enough to just drive through the countryside of Umphang to be left speechless...

Getting my tan on in Hua Hin

After slaving away at the orphanage and a fun Friday night out in Bangkok, it was finally time to do some proper relaxing. My next week with the organization Greenway took me to Hua Hin, a town 3 hours south west from Bangkok. 

The whole six-hour drive was on the back of a truck that had become our main transportation vehicle. Oh how I loathed that drive, but little did I know that there was a lot worse of that yet to come… More on that topic in the next post. We stayed in really cool luxury tents, which looked rather like little huts than something you’d take with you on a camping trip. The beds were a lot better than the ones in Singburi, and there was even a hot (ok, warm) shower, the first in two weeks! 

The program consisted of a mixture of sightseeing shopping and volunteering in the mornings and leisure time at the beach in the afternoons. Although we went to a different beach almost every day, they were all far from the typical image that pops into your head when you think of Thailand. You could basically find beaches like these in nearly any maritime European country. But honestly, laying on my chair under the umbrella, sunglasses fixed, listening to my favorite tunes, I couldn’t have cared less.

One morning, I got to teach English to a class of 14-year-olds, which I enjoyed even more than the last time at the orphanage. We started out with numbers and colors, and then we went on to body parts (you guys might know the song: “ head, shoulders, knees and toes, eyes and ears and mouth and nose, head, shoulders, knees and toes” etc.) Next we did animals and finally we even managed to play a short game of hangman. You really noticed the difference between the school and the orphanage (sadly, I forgot to ask if it was a private school), the class was much more attentive and the whole school seemed more organized.

Volunteering in an orphanage...

… wasn't at all what is sounds like.

Expectation: You get to take care of cute little orphans, play and laugh with them all day. You get to know them really well and build real relationships, which makes it heartbreaking to leave them behind at the end of your stay.
Reality: You're supposed to help RENOVATE the broken down school ground. You are given a big ass tool you don't even know the name of and are told to mix heavy cement. You look around for any fixing, painting, wall building that needs to be done and make it your project for the week.


Once I had wrapped my head around the fact that I wasn't going to spend my time at the orphanage with the children, I was positively surprised at how 'fun' the volunteer work was. Admittedly, fun might not be quite the right word. It isn't FUN to mix cement in the boiling sun, it isn't FUN to paint the bars of a very leggy table, it isn't FUN to build a brick wall in a corner where it stinks like pee, but it sure as hell is FULFILLING. That's volunteering for you, you don't get to choose the work that is needed and you certainly shouldn't complain about the job that is appointed to you. 

Nevertheless, we did get to spend some time with the kids. One afternoon we taught some 14- to 17-year-olds English which was a lot harder than imagined. The students that had been assigned to me had a English level of pretty much zero, so it took a (long) while to get through to them. Also, I found that the ongoing men were a lot shyer than their female classmates and that they love to let them do all the oral participation. Sadly, this inevitably leads to lesser language skills. 


All through the week the kids occasionally gazed at us with their deep brown eyes while we were beautifying their school and home. It was great to see the smile on their faces when they realized our only purpose there was to gradually improve their lives, brick by brick.

„What should we do if we see a bear?“ – „Take a photo“

Soo sorry this is coming so late, but here it is:

Last week on Friday we visited the Monkey Palace where little monkeys stay in a semi enclosed area (they can easily jump over the fence and walk freely on the street if they so wished). I hadn’t even set foot in the actual monkey area and two of them had already jumped on me from behind and reached for the tiny banana I had had in my hand. Once they were off of me, I could appreciate their cuteness and watched them from afar. Some of my friends had a constant presence of monkeys on them and we got some great pictures.

Yet that hadn’t been a big enough adventure for eleven of us, so we separated from the rest of the group and made our way to Pak Chong, a town near the National Park Khao Yai. We had a day trip through the park planned. After observing an amazing view over the park a tour guide led us through the depths of the jungle while we searched and hushed for any kind of wildlife (birds, elephants, tigers etc.). On our three-hour trek we found three gigantic squirrels and a long horn spider. 

Sadly, we didn’t find any wild elephants, even though we rushed after the cracking of the trees caused by them. At one point we were about 30 meters away from them. Nevertheless, the jungle plant life had more than enough to offer and it was a great outing.

We also got to see a beautiful waterfall which some of you might know from the movie “The Beach”. As we drove home we kept our ears open for even the faintest elephant sound. Thanks to another tour group we saw one from the street, but only a little peek of it’s dark back. So we made our way towards the gentle giant through some spicky plants. “If he runs, we all die” is what our guide had said. Yieks, good to know! We were all quite scared and just listened while it ate its vegetarian dinner. Yet we still only got to hear it, the plants were too thick to be able to see it. After this nearest to death experince I’ve ever had, we stopped one two more times, the last one seeing a group of about 10 t0 15 elephants, small and big, walking along a hill on the other side of a lake. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take any pictures.

That was the best day yet!

Sa-wad-dee-kaa

I've been in Thailand for only 5 days and I've already experienced so many different things. In the Siam Culture week that I'm attending we went to see many temples including the monks in orange, huge gold Buddha statues, the ruin city Ayutthaya which is the old capital of Thailand, the local town and so much more.

 As expected, the food here is delicious and as it turns out, not that hard to make. In the cooking  class today me and my 23 fellow travelers prepared our own lunch consisting of a spicy papaya-carrot salad and fried rice noodles with tofu and vegetables. Yumm! 



Everyday I learn something new about the fascinating and beautiful religion Buddhism and I've really come to admire the Thais way of living and thinking.

"Everything happens for a reason"

On Tuesday we went to a floating market that was absolutely stunning. It reminds of a small version of Venice made of wooden shops, decks and bridges. There I had the chance to try out some of the sayings we had learned a few days ago in a short Thai lesson.

• Sa-wad-dee-kaa   -    Hello
• Taw-rai                -    How much?

• Lod-dai-mai        -    Can you discount?

Getting ready. Mentally and physically

In eight days it will be my turn. After seeing many of friends, and even my mom, leaving home to travel the world, or parts of it, it's finally time for me to say goodbye to my comfy life here in Zurich. I'm going to be gone for two whole months, spending 5 weeks doing volunteer work in a children's home in northern Thailand, 1 week with my boyfriend on the island Koh Samet and 2.5 weeks with my mom traveling through Vietnam. It will be the longest I've ever been away from home, and also the first time traveling all by myself, so naturally, I'd say I'm allowed to be nervous. Of course I can't wait for the big adventure, the highlight of my gap year, to begin. Yet I can't help being just a little bit frightened or stop my mind from panicking at the end of the day when my body is trying to fall asleep. 

Like always, lying in your bed is when one seems to get the most brilliant ideas, when your brain just won't shut up and keeps you from your beauty sleep. This is when I go through my mental packing list, imagine how it's going to be to meet all kinds of new people, getting to know a foreign culture, etc. It's really quite nerve-wracking. 

A part from preparing oneself mentally, there's lots to be done on the physical part (besides packing). I just had my last rabies shot out of three, which were spread over only the last eight days. My left arm is definitely fed up of being poked. In addition, I bought an insect spray for clothing to keep those nasty malaria- or other deadly-diseases-carrying mosquitos away. Also, I'm moisturizing my skin (almost) every day to keep the tan from the last Caribbean trip. That way I hope I won't blind the Thais completely when I walk around in short sleeves. Silly, but that's just me. 

16.01.2015, Zollikon