During the summer holiday twenty-four girls, accompanied by three teachers and two leaders, took part in the Kingsley School’s sixth World Challenge Expedition, this time in South-East Asia.  They were divided into two teams; the Gemini Team was so called because it included two pairs of twins!  We spent an interesting month travelling through Cambodia and Thailand, returning safely, our rucksacks stuffed with souvenirs.

We will never forget the five days we spent at an orphanage in Phnom Penh, living between a swamp and a rubbish dump, especially when the orphanage was flooded and we ate our lunch with our feet in muddy water.  We will certainly never forget wading through the floods to reach the hole-in-the-ground toilet, not the cockroach that got there first!  Most of all, though, we will remember the children, who played musical chairs with determination, queued up to have their nails varnished, and for whom we were able to buy bunk beds and chairs.

In the Thai jungle we trekked up steep slopes and sat on banana leaves to eat our lunch from newly made bamboo mugs.  We experienced sleeping in hammocks, extreme elephant trekking, and realised that bamboo huts are not suited to arachnophobics!  Four of us were relieved to hear that the Akha tribe has now embraced Christianity, so people don’t feel obliged to murder twins any more!

The night sleeper train between Bangkok and Chiang Mai proved to be a great way of travelling, and it was interesting to walk across the bridge on the River Kwai.  The island paradise of Koh Chang, although in the grip of a tropical storm when we arrived, provided swimming pools and the opportunity to get sunstroke before we left.  A barbeque on the beach, as waves rolled in and lights glittered in palm trees, was wonderful.

Finally, we stayed in a hotel on the Khaosan Road in Bangkok, where team members bought all sorts of things and generally wallowed in Backpacker Heaven before flying home in time to collect their dreaded examination results!

Sue Minton