Our first night in Thailand was…eventful. Highlights included one of a local farmer’s cows - which we promptly renamed ‘Hellcow’ - escaping and spending a good half hour circling our house and ringing the VERY loud bell around its neck, followed at 4am by some early-rising rebel playing traditional Thai music at top volume for atleast two hours. Add to that a very hard mattress and a humid night and you have, you guessed it, another 24 hours without sleep to get through.

Luckily, the eventful day ahead soon woke us up. On getting up we experienced the Thai rain for the first time: it is almost a relief to stand barefoot in the downpour when it’s so hot. Our breakfast was an eclectic mix of rice and chicken, bread and jam, Thai fruits and chocolate milk, which we would come to both love and hate over the next two weeks.
Our first stop of the day: Kanchanaburi Safari Park where, once again, health and safety regulations went out the window as I was allowed to hold a baby leopard which promptly set about gnawing on my arm. Ah, bless. The safari tour itself was something else you’d never see in England: the animals, particularly the giraffes and deer, decided they would rather be in the bus with us - and the food we had to offer.

The trip took a bitter turn, however, when we saw painted elephants performing in a show, balancing on impossibly narrow bridges and being forced to stand on two legs. As International Student Volunteers we would later learn the dark, secret side to Thailand’s most popular tourist attraction: domesticated elephants are often abused and irreversibly injured as a result of shows such as these. More on elephants later.

Lunch at Tesco Lotus (we sadly caved and bought KFC, eating it with our fingers as we are used to before looking around and realising that in Thailand KFC is eaten with cutlery!) was followed by a trip to Erewan National Park, famous for a seven-level waterfall. Although the lower levels are most popular for swimming, some of us decided to hike up to the top levels. Unfortunately, we discovered that the path was steep and very, very muddy - several falls and broken flip-flops later, we were hiking barefoot and covered in mud. On the way, we found this shrine (see pic) consisting of fine robes tied to a tree. Our swim in the waterfall (to clean and cool off) was cut short by a shoal of hungry fish intent on giving us a rather vigorous massage.

^The whole group at Kanchanaburi Safari Park