Sunday

We were all on the bus by 9 a.m. and headed off to the Street Kids' Home. As we turned into the drive way the children were running towards the bus and waving. It was a great welcome. We played games with the children and watched them have cooking lessons - and later on we all tried it out. We had a huge group of kids playing duck, duck, goose; doing the hokey kokey and relay races. This was all on an incredibly hot day so our pupils did extremely well. We all went to see the chickens and pigs in the grounds and walked across the football pitch.

In the afternoon we got ready to go for our elephant ride. The bus took us up, and we could see the elephants before we arrived which added to the general excitment. We went through to the village and got taken to the platform to climb up onto the elephants' backs. We were in pairs, and after walking down a short path the elephants decended into the river which caused a great deal of shreaking! The water was a long way up on the elephants, the bottom of their ears got wet. Just as difficult was getting out of the river the other end as the bank was very steep. We then went through the countryside feeding the elephants with bananas as we went. After an hour we reached another platform and got off the backs. After climbing down the steps we had to go over a rickety bridge across the river. Unfortunately Mrs Amphlett had a fall, and had to be taken to hospital. We all went on in jeeps to see how Thai silk is produced, and then went back to the village for fruit and to watch the film of our ride.

We got back in time for a shower before supper, and as Mrs Amplett is in hospital we stayed at the center for the evening.