Trip Schedule

Today I booked the last of my flights for my trip this summer!!! My trip is all planned out, so I thought I would leave the details here for anyone interested in what's going to be happening. I will have Internet while I am away, and will be blogging. I am so excited :)

INDIA

I leave Toronto at 10:45pm on May 1st to fly to Hyderabad, India. I am flying with a friend, Sarah Mens, who I met through Hero Holiday when we both did work in the Dominican Republic. We have a stopover in Abu Dhabi and then arrive in Hyderabad at 3am on May 3rd. We are flying Etihad Airways, purchased through Expedia.

We will get picked up from the airport by Sarah Rebbavarapu and we will drive about 8 hours to Ongole, where Sarah lives with her husband and three kids. We will be staying in the apartment of Theresa Hill, an American woman who is living in India and working with Sarah. Sarah's husband James runs India Christian Minstries and Sarah runs a branch of this, Sarah's Covenant Homes. We will be working mostly with SCH, which has 2 children's homes that provide care for kids with special needs. We will play with them, teach them, feed them, and care for them with Sarah, Theresa, and the Indian staff. We also hope to do some education projects with young girls who are not receiving an education, or who are at risk of being forced to drop out of school to work.

We leave Ongole on May 31st. We will drive to Hyderabad and then fly into the capital, Delhi. We will be staying at the YWCA International Guest House, as it has been recommended by people who stayed there before. We will stay here until June 6th, mostly doing sightseeing. At the top of our list of things to see is, of course, the Taj Mahal in Agra! We are also going to be spending one day working with Project Why, as I am really drawn to the way they focus on education for slum children. We will be running a class with the Prep Class; about 30 kids between the ages of 3 and 6.

India Links:
India Christian Ministries
Sarah's Covenant Homes
Project Why
Volunteer Blog
Culture Shock India

THAILAND

On June 7th, Sarah M. is flying back to Canada, and I am flying from Delhi to Bangkok, Thailand where I will stay for a few weeks. My boyfriend, Chris, is going to be meeting my there and flying in from Toronto. I arrive in Bangkok on the morning of June 7th, and he arrives on the 12th. We are still not sure which hotel we will be staying in (if anyone has recomendations- let me know!). The attraction I am most looking forward to seeing in Bangkok is the floating markets.

We are going to fly into Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand, on June 16th and stay until the 23rd at Mountainview Guesthouse. Here, I am most excited (in terms of sightseeing) to go on an elephant ride, and to learn more about the Hill Tribes. I also am interested to learn more about the sex tourism that goes on in Thailand, and hope to visit a program in Chiang Mai that works to prevent child prostitution, like The Sold Project or The Children's Development Foundation. After that, we will fly back into Bangkok on the 23rd. We will celebrate my 21st birthday on the 24th, and then fly home on the 25th.

Thailand Links:
Mountainview Guesthouse
The Sold Project
The Children's Development Foundation
Not For Sale (read this book!)
Elephant Conservation

For both countries, I want to experience as much of the culture and sights as possible. This was one of the things I wish I had done more of in Ethiopia, so I really want to try to visit the tourist areas, and also take part in some of the more cultural sights that may be less touristy. In Thailand I hope to look more into the sex tourism as this is one of the main problems in Thailand. In India, I want to look into how development centers are run, and learn more about special needs as most of the kids I will be working with will have various special needs. I am collecting donations to bring, and right now am focusing on school supplies, craft materials, shoes, clothes, and medical supplies (gauze, tylenol, benadryl, pediasure, etc.)

final photo is of a Buddhist monk in Thailand