Week 1 - WFFT

Caught the bus to Cha-Am in order to start my 4 weeks volunteering with WFFT. I sat next to a 50ish man, I initially thought a man travelling alone to Cha-Am was a bit suspicious, but upon chatting to him, found him to be lovely, he was an English teacher from Bangkok and was going camping for the week. We got off at Cha-Am and hired some motorbike taxis to take us to the beach where we ate an icecream, then I called the Centre to come and pick me up.

Upon getting to the Centre I was met by Emma, the volunteer co-ordinator. She showed me to my room and I was pleasantly surprised, I had expected much worse.

I had my Centre tour with another girl who started on the same day, Liz from Newcastle in England. I was so shocked at all of the information we had to learn, and so quickly!

In 2-3 weeks we would be team leaders and in charge of teaching new people things!

There are nearly 300 animals at the Centre, 200 of them primates. There are 4 working teams split into different areas to make the work possible, Primates 1, Primates 2, Bears & Nocturnals, and Other Wildlife. I was put on Bears & Nocturnals for the first 2 days and thought the work was a bit hard, very physically demanding and in the sun and rain for most of the day. The next 2 days I was on Primates 1, which was a lot easier and mostly working in the shade.

My first day off couldn't come quickly enough, I went with Liz to the local resort and just relaxed by the pool and enjoyed some nice hot showers!

The resort was amazing, pure luxury in comparison to the Centre! Hot showers, air-conditioning, sun-bathing on sun-lounges by the pool, "Western food" of hot chips and vegie burgers, certainly a welcome change from pineapple curry!

http://www.petchvarinresort.com/Default.aspx?tabid=311&language=en-US