Research Trip

In just over two weeks my children are going on their school residentials. Now that they are both in senior school this is the first time their weeks have coincided.

I am therefore free of Mum Duties for five days.

I toyed with luring Husband away from work; I decided I’d rather have him for longer over Christmas and New Year, so I’d go away on my own. I uhmed and ahhed but I couldn’t decide what to do or where to go (if anywhere).

Then Carol, in her role as BWG* Welfare Coordinator, told me about Andaman Discoveries who had made contact with the *British Women’s Group to ask for funds to help their community-driven rehabilitation project which raises funds to aid tsunami impacted villages of the North Andaman region. They are a responsible tourism project who offer holidays/study trips/cultural tours and home-stays to volunteers and tourists who wish to do something more with their leisure time, learn new skills and give something back to host communities less fortunate than themselves.

Carol said that Andaman Discoveries were looking for a volunteer writer to put some articles together for various magazines in Thailand (and any other potential markets) to raise awareness, funds and advertise the holidays. Kelly, their project director, came and gave a talk to us and that was it: I was hooked.

In a little over two weeks, I am off on a research trip to Kuraburi Province (three hours north of Phuket) to do a mixture of volunteering and eco tourism. I am very, very excited and a little bit frightened but I know it will be impossibly good for me and hugely rewarding.

I am thinking of getting dreadlocks for the trip – what do you think?