Roughing It

I can't start this post without wishing my dear DAD a happy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! If you didn't know, he is the best dad in the world!

JUNE. Already June?! Where did the past 9 months go? 5 weeks from now we will be breathing Saskatchewan air.

I just returned from a four day "camping" trip with my grade 7 students and some high school students. I say "camping" because at no point would the trip pass as a camping trip back home. No tents =  not camping. However, the resort (yes, I said resort) we stayed at insisted on calling it camping. They even went as far as saying the students slept in tents. Hah. (See pictures).
Anyways. It was great fun, and I would give up another weekend to do it all over again (no joke)!

The three of us teachers who went were treated like royalty. I am not afraid to admit that I loved every second of the special treatment. We stayed in this four bedroom, three bathroom, two living room, two kitchen house.

Of course the only time it rained was when the students had to haul their stuff to their "tents" (our bags were carried, obviously).

Dance party while waiting for the rain to stop.

The sun soon came out, and fortunately stayed out the entire time.
Here are the so-called tents the students stayed in. Complete with lights, air conditioning, a shower, a sink, and a flush toilet.

We went to Wangdum Mountain Camp, a resort and renewable energy learning center. The camp is located about 2.5 hours from Bangkok, in the province of Kanchanaburi (a place I love- I talked about it here and here).



It was nice to escape the polluted air of the city, and get in touch with nature again.

Since the field trip was science based, we toured the Srinakarin Dam.

Everyone! Our guides (and my heroes who made me lift not a single finger or bring out my teacher voice the entire time) are the characters in the front.

We stopped to check out the bridge on the River Kwai for a few minutes. In the 25 minutes we were there, the students managed to do some shopping at the nearby market- buying beer t-shirts and pocket knives. Oops?

We also stopped at the war cemetery, which interested the students 0%. The cemetary is associated with the victims of the Burma Railway. Over 6,000 prisoners of war are buried here. The majority being Australian, British and Dutch. The oldest person I could find buried there was 46 years old.

Another day was spent at a bamboo farm.

We learned many things, including how to properly hack off a bamboo shoot to make food with.

Picking mangoes.

Learning about solar energy at our camp.

Meat being dried in a solar dryer. Note the glistening hair still attached.
We ate this for supper.

A man-made waterfall.

The swimmable pond was a lovely surprise. Teachers vs. students is always the best.

On the last day, we walked an entire 3 minutes into the forest where the students learned to build a fire and cook rice in a bamboo shoot.

They also cooked eggs.

Best field trip ever!!