Muay Thai is the longstanding art of Thai boxing. It was used in centuries past to train for the battlefield, but has been adapted as a sport by Thai kings and in the modern day. It involves kicking and kneeing your opponent along with punching with gloves. The blows are powerful. We have been a couple of times to a stadium in Chiang Mai, and it is always entertaining. Several instruments are played that heighten the experience.

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One awesome benefit of living in Thailand is the food. Thai food is so, so dang tasty. Delicious food is not something I was expecting, but it is a great part of the experience! It never fails to be extremely good and filling.  Meat lovers will find an array of delicious meats, while vegetarians will find plenty of tasty vegetables as well. Thai people eat pork quite a bit. My favorite pork dishes are moo ga ta, which is pork belly slow cooked over a fire, moo ga tiem, cooked pork with garlic and spices, moo bpeng, which is marinated skewers of pork found at street vendors, and deep fried pork strips.

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Being a young twenty-something in a foreign country, what’s one of the fun things to do? Go out of course! Chiang Mai city is a short bus ride away from our base where we live and work, Doi Saket. Chiang Mai is a bustling hub and destination for many backpackers coming through Thailand. There are plenty of places to eat and drink to suit varied and changing tastes. You can eat traditional Thai food, delicious cheap and quick street food, and many western dishes.

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On the weekends a lot of our volunteers like to partake in “adventure tourism” – visiting elephants, rafting, trekking and flying through the jungle on ziplines! This weekend I decided to check one of these events out, and I went ziplining. It was so much fun! I had a great time. We arrived at the check-in point for Thai Jungle. We were much relieved to find fresh, new facilities, which assuaged my worry about the safety of the course.

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Thailand is populated with thousands of temples. In Doi Saket, where we live and work, there are at least 12 or 13. Each temple has its own character. Some are forested, reclusive ones that host a single monk. Some are bustling hubs with schools that educate many young novice monks who live at different temples nearby. Some attract many tourists. There are a few centers with Buddhist nuns, who are much more rare in Thailand and are trying to establish more monasteries for women.

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The feeling of joy one gets when a student understands something cannot be overestimated. When you see the light in their eyes as they give a correct answer, it all becomes worthwhile. Thai students seem to excel at writing and copying down words, yet have a difficult time speaking what they know and making conversation. So, many of us like to teach in a way that gets them speaking out loud confidently. Learning another language requires skill but also opens the mind.

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I floated on my back in the middle of the river. I heard happy shrieks and calls from children travelling from the air to my eardrums beneath the surface of the water. My heart was happy. Where was I? Far away from my city of Boston in the US. I was in a remote hill-tribe village in Thailand known as Pa Pae. To get there we had travelled an hour from the town of Doi Saket into the city hub of Chiang Mai, another three hours or so to the village of Maiseriang, and an hour and a half of bumpy, winding, sickness-inducing mountainous road.

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Songkran is a massive three-day Thai New Year water fight festival. It originated with the custom of sprinkling water on one’s elders as a way to wish for good luck for the new year, but has evolved into a city-wide party in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand. This year we had the good fortune of being able to celebrate the new year, from April 13 to 15. Though we normally live thirty minutes out of the city, in the town of Doi Saket, we spent the three days in our GapGuru office in Chiang Mai, where a much bigger celebration took place.

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“And you’ll go to a Thai wedding, which will be absolutely absurd,” said David, country director for GapGuru in Thailand. I was soon to find out why. On my second morning in Thailand, at about 10am on a Saturday, we hopped in the back of a pickup truck and drove to the home of a woman named Ann, bride-to-be of our friend Ting, a driver for GapGuru. A stage and loudspeakers were set up, blaring beautiful rhythmic chanting from Buddhist monks inside the home.

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Yo! My name’s Amy, and this is Day 12 of me living in Thailand as a media intern for GapGuru. So far I’ve had jam-packed days and have met a slew of awesome volunteers. Thailand. Is. Great. The weather is warm and the plants are lush. The sun is often a bright orange-pink color that I’ve never seen from the US, where I’m from. Thais are very friendly and love to smile. Seeing the children that the volunteers teach is something special.

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