The story of my aunt and uncle coming to Thailand should start on the 27^th of April but actually it starts on the 26^th. I decided to go to bed early to have lots of energy the next day to make the best of my family being in Thailand. I went to bed at 9 and started thinking of what we were going to do and going to see and everything I needed to do and take them to see and things I should remember and 10 came and 11 came and 12 came and by now I was thinking about things like how they drink their coffee and if they packed flip flops and if they could sleep on the plane. Then I tried counting sheep and then I tried listening to classical music and somewhere close to 1 I finally fell asleep. Then I had to wake up at 3 AM and get dressed and ready and start going to the airport at 4. When I got to the airport I got some coffee and went to International arrivals and waited and waited and waited and I didn’t see my family. After a while I went to go and ask if there was more than one gate they could be and the lady told me that there were 2 gates but that everybody had to pass through the gate where I was waiting to get out but I know my family and I know they will be waiting for me right where they get out of the gate so I decided to walk to there and I was right they were waiting right there. When I got to hug my aunt for the first time in 5 months I could not help but start crying tears of happiness and relief. We got some coffee and then headed back to their hotel. It was the most amazing feeling to get to sit in the car with them and be able to answer their questions as we were driving and showing them a little bit of my world. They unpacked and changed their clothing because they realised just how hot it actually was and then we went to the royal palace for a few minutes and then we got a tuk-tuk to take us to the mall for breakfast. Seeing my uncle’s face in that tuk-tuk is something I will never forget even the driver was laughing at him and I realised for the first time (there would be many more times) that I was used to the things they find new and amazing. We had to walk around in the city for a while because the shopping malls were not open yet but I got to show them the magic shop called 7 eleven. Then we went to get some breakfast and they had traditional fried rice breakfast for their first breakfast in Thailand. Then I took them to Amarin centre to see the market where everything is handmade and all the proceeded go to the local people and they got to try Aunty Anne’s Sweet Pretzels and loved it! We then went to MBK centre and they got their first look of just how big shopping centres in Thailand are and how many things you can buy around every corner. My aunt went for a message/facial and me and my uncle got a chance to talk. It’s amazing to me how much I missed having real long conversations in which I can say what I think and how I feel and actually understand what the other person is saying and having a common back round to relate to having people we both know we could refer to. I never realised how much I miss that until I had that conversation with my uncle. Then we went to dinner and I ordered traditional foods for them to try and they liked most of them but hated others and it was nice to see they felt the same about the food as I do. At dinner we saw a really drunk group of people next to us and got to talk about them and they didn’t even know. Oh how I missed Afrikaans. Sadly they day had to come to an end and I went home. The next morning after their horrible night at the hotel we went to the airport and I had to say goodbye and they went to Phuket. Then I went back to the city to see my friends and got to meet Nikolai for the first time. The next day a whole group of exchange students got to spend the day together and it was most of the most amazing days in Thailand ever  simple things make a very big difference and I don’t think that is a day I will ever forget. On the 2^nd of May my aunt and uncle came back from Phuket but I did not see them because it was at night but I saw them early the next morning because it was my uncle’s birthday!! And everything he said on his birthday goes. We went to breakfast and then went swimming on the roof of the hotel. And ate sweets and talked and watched tv in the hotel room until it was time to go to dinner and I took them to a Danish restaurant and we had great food. After eating we went to an Australian pub, let me just say it is so fun to support your team in another country even if they arnt playing that well you just feel so proud and want everybody to know you are supporting them (and believe me everybody did know because my uncle is South African and loud) we watched Rugby and talked until it was time for me to go home. The next day my host mom arranged a car for us to take us into the country side of Thailand were I have exchange friends and my family would get to see a different side of Thailand. The driver could speak no English at all and my Thai is very limited so im still surprised that we made it there and back but I told him we wanted to go to the tiger temple and after a 3 hour drive we got to a really temple with a tiger statue and not the temple that had tigers. Luckily I had my phone and Google maps helped us with the hour drive to where we actually wanted to be and at least they got to see a nice temple. When we got to where we wanted to be we were just in time to see the whole tiger show and it was more than amazing!! We got to see all the tigers and take pictures with them and walk with the and see how they live and it was just something that not a lot of people ever get to do and I am so grateful that we could and I will never forget it but something that would of made it so much better is if it wasn’t 42°C. it was so so hot and being in-between all  the mountains made it so much more humid and hot and im pretty sure we almost melted but it was an unforgettable experience and im so glad I got to share it with my family. After that we called my exchange friends and they gave us a name of a really nice local place we could meet them for lunch and the prices were less than half of what you pay in Bangkok and so much more and so much better and im so glad I could show that to my family. Then we met my friends Ryan and Frederik and they stayed with my uncle while me and my aunt went to get a traditional Thai message. My aunt and uncle had what they thought was a Thai message in Phuket and I wanted to prove that what they had was not a traditional Thai message so me and my aunt got changed into our message outfits and the message started. Through the whole message I kept looking at my aunt and seeing her facial expressions and I kept wishing I could see my uncle get a Thai message because I am pretty such I would almost die of laughter. A traditional Thai message hurts anybody can tell you that but you feel so amazing afterwards when you are drinking your sweet Thai tea. We tried getting my uncle to go but sadly he said he didn’t wanna be our clown. Then we joined the other people and just talked for hours, going up and down the streets to different places sitting down having something to drink and talking and I am so happy that I could show my family Thailand out of my friend’s perspective and not just mine and show them a different side of Thailand that not many tourist get to see. We only got home very late so we all slept in the next morning and then I went to show my family other parts of Bangkok and they got to use the subway and had some awful coconut ice cream and walked around eating until it was time to go to my house for dinner with my host mom. Having dinner with my host mom in my house with my family was really strange and great at the same time but I was so happy that they could see my family and try my host moms food and see that I am okay. On the morning of the 6^th it was such a nice rainy day and we went to Amarin centre again and had Auntie Anne’s for the last time and walked around talking. Then we went back to the awful hotel they were living in and packed and had some problems with the hotel that were really bad but my uncle just has a way of making everything so funny that I was crying of laughter. Then we went to get something to eat and had to walk in the rain a little and decided to get lunch at our favourite restaurant at the same table we had been sitting all week and talked and laughed and saw the weirdest couple in the whole world and im sure the people around us thought we were crazy because you could see me and my aunt crying and then laughing and then crying again. Saying goodbye to them sucked so much but it also gave me the motivation to get through the rest of the year quickly so that I can get back to them and the rest of my family. There were so many moments that I will always remember but there is just no way in the world I could ever explain it on paper. It was a very very special week of my exchange because I got to share it with them.

On the ninth day we woke up and took our last ice cold shower and then we went to see a waterfall in between the mountains and some of us climbed over the railing and went to sit with our feet in the water and it’s like we started something because then so many tourists started doing it. Beto made me laugh as usual when he asked me: “Janique do you think the water is less today because of the dam we built yesterday” gosh I love him and his stupid questions! We spent about an hour at the waterfall playing with the water and just spending time together. After that we got into our vans again and drove to Chiang Mai, then we stopped at a really nice hotel and after being in the mountains for so many days we felt very out of place but that feeling soon changed into a feeling of excitement when we saw all the food we could pick from and after having exchange student made food for 3 days believe me when I say each one of us had about 3 plates of food! When we finished eating a few of us got up and went to sit next to the pool talking about normal things like shaving the hair on your toes… out of nowhere David and Ryan jumped into the pool with all their clothes on and shortly after we were all told to get away from the pool but it was fun while it lasted. We made our way to our hotel and then we got a briefing about what we should do and not do at Songkran festival. So Songkran festival is Thai New Year where they throw each other with water and wash away the past year to be clean for the year to come. Chiang mai where we were is where the biggest celebration in Thailand with almost 350 000 people is held. We left the Hotel at 2 and they told us to meet again at 6. When we started walking in the street there was really not so many people and I think most of us were quite disappointed, but then we turned a corner and all of a sudden there were thousands upon thousands of people and we only had to walk a few feet before we were soaking wet and let me just say we found out with a shock that most people use ice water!! Then most of us got buckets of white clay mixed with water that you smear on people and that was a lot of fun to attack your friends with! We walked and walked until we found a spot where they had great music and a steady supply of cold water and then just decided to stay there and start a war with the people across the street. It’s hard to explain what this festival is like if you don’t experience it for yourself, there are so any people around you and it’s just water everywhere it’s so loud that you can’t think, you see your friends faces in between all of these strangers but everybody is laughing and everybody is having fun and helping each other and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter where you are from, who your friends are, if you know the people around you nothing matters, it’s like a few hours of an absolute feeling of not having a care in the world and its only afterword that you realise how amazing that feeling was. Wish I could have that feeling all the time! At about 4 we met up with some of the exchange students from the other districts and decided to walk a bit down the road again and see what we can find, when we had walked for a while we found a foam party and decided to join the fun, we almost drowned in bubbles and my nose and ears were burning and I could not see or breath and there are just people all around you and you can hardly move but you are jumping around and singing and you have your arms around your friends shoulders and if you are not there you can never understand the pure pleasure you feel.  When it was almost 6 we made our way to the MacDonald’s where we needed to meet and we went to sit on the second floor with SO MANY BURGERS AND CHIPS and made a big circle and just ate and ate until the rest of the people came and we went back to the hotel to get dressed and go to dinner. For dinner we went to a steak house and then we split into two groups one group that wanted to go to the night market and one group that just wanted to wonder around in the city. I was in the group that just wanted to wonder around the city and see what we can find to do. We met up with people for the other district again spent time with them until we realised we had to literally run back to the hotel to make it back before curfew. We made it back at 11:58 with 2 minutes to spare and when we sat in the lobby to see that everybody made it back it hit most of us how many days we had gone without proper sleep and how busy our day had been and when we got the go ahead to go to our rooms I took a shower and passed out.  The “last day” of the tour we had most of the day free to go to the festival again but we did not want to even try and make the second day meet the first days standards so we decided to skip that and go to the big shopping centre and spend some time together eating Japanese food followed by Pizza just talking about the trip and being together. I decided to leave that group of people and go and meet up with the other group of people at the old Chinese market and we ate bugs and did some shopping. Then we had to go back to the Hotel where we all had to meet before we go to the train station and we fit 10 people into a tiny tiny car and laughed the whole drive back at how crazy we are to fit 10 people into a car. We got to the hotel and got our bags then we got into the bus and made our way to the train station. When we got there we out all of our bags in one place took a few group photos bought a lot of sweets and stuff to drink and then waited for the train. We found out with a shock that our train car did not have an air con so we open the windows as far as they could open turned the fans into high and tried not to move to much so we won’t get hot. Everybody started sending their countries flags around letting all the other exchange students write little messages on them and then the huge groups started again of everybody fitting into one small space when there is more than enough space everywhere else but we all want to be together. When we decided to go to bed we each had a bunk to sleep in and I took the bottom bunk closed the curtain on the isle side and opened the window just enough to let the wind cool me down and fell asleep. At 3 AM I woke up to thunder and rain and as crazy as it sounds I just kept lying there looking at the sky light up every few seconds leave the window open a little bit letting the rain come in because it just felt to cold and peaceful and I stayed like that until I fell asleep again. That morning when we woke up its like everybody just knew it was the day we had to say goodbye and the whole mood on the train was just sad, people crying here and there, hugs and holding hands and it was so sad but there was so much love in the room/train car. We got to Bangkok and had to wait for the next train so we went to get lunch together. We left all the Rotary members and the Thai students at the train station and just went as a group. We wanted it to be just us and we all crammed into one mini bus thing and put on a song that we all knew and we all sang together and cried a little while we smiled and sang. Then we had lunch and went back to the train station. We all just sat around talking until the last second when we started saying goodbye. The feeling you get when you know you will never see some of these people again is one of the saddest things I have ever felt, the bond between exchange students is something that can never be explained to anybody else they are the only people who really know what you are going through what you had to deal with and how you feel and they are what keep you going at certain points. You build friendships and relationships for 16 years and leave it for 10 months but you build friendships and relationships for 10 months and leave it forever, which one is harder? Needless to say we all cried a lot a lot a lot and getting on the train and going away from most of the other people as we all go the different parts of Thailand sucks. Then we got to Nakhon Pathom and said goodbye to the people close to us that we knew we would see again so that was not that hard and then we went home… and just like that the last trip was over. A million memories over such a short period of time

The sixth day of the tour was possibly one of the best days of my life and surely one of the best days of my exchange! In the morning we drove to an elephant camp and saw an elephant show when we got there where we saw elephant’s paint better painting than I could but it really bothered me when I saw how they treated the elephants and the Rotary did warn us before we went that they always get complaints from the exchange students but they can promise us the elephants aren’t actually hurt they just need to control them because they are so big and accidents can happen, but still I felt sorry for them! I got picked up by an elephant trunk and I thought I would be too heavy so that was quite cool! After that we went ox-cart riding followed by riding elephants!! Me and Noemie rode on one elephant while 2 of our best friends Frederik and Ryan rode on the one just in front of us and naturally that became a competition to see who had the best elephant (mine won can I just say) we walked down a hillside and through a river and trough a forest and the whole time I kept thinking how amazing and cliché it is to be riding elephants in the forest in Thailand and I LOVED IT. Our walk ended at a part of the river where the river was quite deep and quite wide and most of the elephants got taken back to their camps but a few stayed with us. We got brushes and the elephants sat/laid down so we could “scrub” them with the brushes. Can I just say how nervous this whole scene made me! I kept looking for my younger friends and telling them to watch out and not stand there and move away and be careful because the elephants could roll over or stand up or sit on you and it was all too much for me to handle! But out of nowhere one of the other exchange students Claire came to me and gave me a hug and told me “I think you can take a few minutes off from being everybody’s exchange mom and have some fun” and just when she finished talking one elephant pooped right in the water where everybody was standing and you just saw everybody running in different directions covered in elephant poop and I calmed down and joined everybody else. I got to sit on the bare back of an elephant and wash his ears, something I will never forget. After a while of just sitting around in the river and playing with the elephants we started an elephant poop fight and had sooo much fun, needless to say we attracted quite a crowd when some of the other visitors of the camp noticed what we were throwing at each other but we did care we had a great time. We then got split into groups and we got onto bamboo rafts and started going down the river, my raft had Etienne, Ryan, Frederik, Anya, David and me. Anya stayed on the raft but the rest of us decided that as soon as we were out of sight of the other rafts we got off the raft and swam next to raft and flouted in the water and steered the raft ourselves and laid in the sun for a while and just made the very best of our 2 hour raft ride. All the other people had such a normal rafting ride, stayed on the raft, looked at the scenery and dried off but not us, and I adore that quality in my friends! When we got to our stop we got back into vans and made our way to a hotel where we had such a great dinner and then went to bed early.

The next day we drove very deep into the mountains to Mae Kampong home stay. When we got there we got grouped into groups of 4 and then sent to our traditional host families. When we got to the host houses we were all in awe of how truly traditional their way of living was. The house I lived in only had electricity in one room and the whole house was made out of wood with the bathroom on the lower floor in the corner and a lowered area on the living room floor where fires are made  and great views of the mountains and the rest of the village and I really liked it. We got an hour to get dressed and meet our families and then we went on a hike in the mountains. I did most of the hike with Etienne and Claire and Etienne sang for most of the hike and I so love listening to him sing and make jokes so what would have been a really long hike was actually bare able and memorable because of simple singing memories. We stopped about half way up and learnt how to make rice in bamboo sticks and things you could find in the environment and sat on the jungle floor and ate lunch packed by our host families running away from huge bugs every 5 minutes. We then finished the second half of the walk and got to the mountain top where we took 100 000 pictures and ate watermelon and then we had to walk down the mountain again and we walked well into the night with no flashlights so that was a scary and great experience but the day was filled with great small things.

On the 8^th day of the trip we went to the highest point in Thailand at 2565 Meters and we got to walk through an elderly rainforest where we decided to play Ninja and got into trouble 3 times for making a noise, but I wish I could explain to you guys how big the smile on my face is right now because things like that are exactly why I love these people. We went down the mountain a little big for lunch and then we went hiking in another area of the mountains in the view from those mountains were so amazing and the different types of jungle we saw in one area was so cool. When we got to the summit point Frederik and Fran (after making sure the exchange students were the only people on the mountain) they decided they wanted that one crazy, insane, memorable exchange year photo and stripped right there in front of all of us and got p’Kong to take a picture from behind of the summit point, the view, beautiful dry grass and their lovely white bums, arms in the air and im sure if we could see their faces they would have a huge smile on their crazy faces. After the strip show we made our way down the mountain again and let me just add the whole day so far had been about 15degrees but we had been walking so much that it just felt like perfect chilly weather. But we sat down and had some hot instant noodles while talking about football. Then we drove to another remote lodge if you can call it that and had dinner repaired by exchange students followed by a walk to the river I the dark and then a camp fire (mostly made by me because Europeans suck at making a camp fires) and we just sat outside in the chilly weather talking until the morning hours.

The next day after 3 hours of sleep it was my teams turn to make breakfast for everybody else so we made 250 pieces of French toast and 60 hotdogs (still in the plastic because it was 5 in the morning and we were tired) and a lot of fruit. All and all we did pretty well except for the hotdogs. Then we went to a local primary school in the mountains and got dived into groups to clean separate parts of the school and paint and donate things to make it a little better for the poor kids. My team and another team got sent to the bathrooms and the areas around the bathrooms. We cleaned in a focused manner for about an hour after witch we started a water and soup war and had lots of fun except for the fact that you could see through my shirt so for my own sake I did what I could to get everybody back to work! The whole time we were working I kept thinking about how many school like that one we had in South Africa and how they could benefit from something like that.  When we finished our work we went to play with the little kids but I saw how horrible the main wall we painted looked so I grabbed the paint and tried to do what I could to make it look a bit better, Miri and Emily and Isabel saw what I was doing and came to help me, we were still sitting in front of that wall more than an hour after everybody else had left and I’m sorry to say it did not look a whole lot better but we did what we could, we wanted it to look good for those kids. Finally we decided that we had done everything we could do and went back to the lodge for lunch. After lunch we were handed big plastic/fabric industrial bags and shovels and got sent to the river. On our way we stopped at a strawberry farm and got to eat some of the fresh strawberries straight of the plants, delicious!  After getting stuck in the mud a few times we got to the part of the river where the water was quite low and (about hip depth) and got divided into 3 groups A. the people who had to shovel sand into the big bags B. the people who had to stand in the river and hand over the sand bags in a row C. the people who had to stand in the river and look for rocks and start to form the wall that we were building in the river to try and bring the water level up to help the plants and animals in the area. We had such an unexpectedly great time trying to build this dam in the river and felt so great when we got the water level up to about shoulder height! We then walked back to the lodge to dry off and then had dinner. After dinner we ones again made a fire and sat there for a while but then about 20 of us all went to one room pilled in onto the two little beds and watched a movie!

I once again only got 3 hours of sleep, but on these tours it’s like you used all the built-up extra sleep you  got over the years and you find a way to make the best of every single day because you know you only have so many days and so many hours with these people and you don’t want to waste you limited hours on sleep!