We its not strictly re-thatching in the English cottage sense, more re roofing in the traditional Thai structure sense. But both use a form of reed, in our case rice stalks that have been folded over a Bamboo strip to form a roofing panel aligning two layers of rice straw in the same direction which is then lapped at around 4 - 6 inch spacing.

The Main sala has now been completely re-thatched with “Ya Ka” as this is called, just in time for the rainy season. Also the veranda roofs on the main lodge and lodges are almost complete. The traditional rice straw roofing that we use has a life span of around 2 -3 years. This time under advice from our local thatcher we have re roofed with the individual panels closer together ( 3 inches) to give us a roof that will last longer.

Room re fits will be going ahead in the next few weeks along with re flooring of the main sala balcony area.

Plans for the long awaited organic vegetable garden are underway and rough sketches of our new study center/dorm building

Pics to follow.

The Wild lodge site will be updated in the near future to feature our Northern Thai location in Muang Khong. At the moment we have kitchen, sala and toilet facilities on the valley side overlooking the Mae Teng River and plan to construct a lodge in the off season.

The location will be the base camp for several new forest/jungle based trekking routes and the start point for climbing Doi Chang Dao, one of Thailand’s highest peaks at 2225m, which can be seen from the Muang Khong Lodge. Watch this space….

We headed to Singapore last week to present to parents the year 7 and the year 9 Expedtiion to Northern Thailand. The Australian International school parents were a well informed crowd and we hope all there questions on Thailand and the program itself were answered. We also briefly met the would be year 9 expedition members and briefed them on equipment selection and the challenges they will be facing.

technology allowing both programs will be blogging daily to parents and friends from this site.

The 130 strong group of Harrow students return to Bangkok this morning after their week spent journeying to Pak Koh Lam a Karen village in the Chiang Dao region. Here they helped to install a new water pumping system in the village for the school.

The materials and pump for the project were all funded by the Harrow students themselves.

Reto, Num and the Widl Planet crew kept things running logistcally and on the river.

Well done to all.

Wild planet photographer Danny “Kojack” Bowes was along so images to follow

Robin

 Dave Milne is looking into the implementation of solar Hot Water showers for the lodges, not required for all of the year, but most welcome Nov - Jan.

Commercial systems are available but we will try initially to develop our own design.

So look out for pics of the first prototype system soon.

 

We have posted some images from the second group and will be posting more once we have collated them.

 

The Lodge Team

Last week saw us welcome the students of Concordian School yr 5 to the Wild Lodge for their 2009 residential program.

We spent three days on the high ropes, canoeing in Khao Ito and trekking the river scramble. Fun was had by both students and instructors, and some of the students discovered to their amzement that it is possible to exisit for 48 hours without access to the internet :)

Izzy and Dave were with us from the Prem Centre in Chiang Mai and provided some great facilitation and legendary games.

Dave and myself put on our packs and trekked the base route up to the Plateau on the top of Khao Mot Deng last week with the aim of doing a little bush-walking and GPS logging a fixed base route.

This route will form the base line from which other exploratory routes leave and return to the lodge, it departs from just behind the main lodge ends at a great camp area on the top of Khao Mot Deng. It is a relatively easy and can easily be completed in a couple of hours.

On the way up there is a small rock outcrop which affords great views out over the plains past Khao Ito.

 

 

On the way down we followed the route of the watercourse that is the origin of the stream that runs past the Wild Lodge. It is possible to canyon down this stream and Dave and I descended for a few hundred metres before deciding we were not equipped with the right gear for the canyoning style scramble down and returning to the base route.

More pictures as the routes are developed over the next couple  of months.

Sally Madden and Andy Mac (IYA big cheese in UK)  ran an International Youth Award group leader course in Bangkok during June and as a bolt on to the end of the course brought the attendees down to the Wild Lodge to have a look at what outside providers (such as ourselves) can offer for IYA groups.

The IYA award (D of E in UK) is a great program that gets students into the outdoors and challenges them though a series of projects and expeditions rising through Bronze, Silver and Gold awards.

Attendess of the course came from all over Asia and the award is growing rapidly thoughout international schools in the region.

Upon the groups arrival at the lodge we had coffee and bisuits and, as usual I pointed out the parts that were still under construction (August 15th is the final completion deadline) and told them to feel free to wander.

I also assured them that the high ropes challenge course was defintely finished 

We also showed how the lodge has been used as a base camp for Bronze IYA programs and induction training, and talked about more challenging Silver and Gold routes into the forest directly behind the lodge.

Coffee over, we split into two groups and ran high ropes and low ropes workshop sessions entitled “adding value” showing how addtional team exercises can add to an IYA weekend.

During lunch both Sally and I chatted about risk assessment and then Dave “Old School” Williams and I gave short presentations on what we could offer in terms of locations and programs for IYA training and expeditions.

Dave runs a fantatsic kayak and nature touring company called Paddle Asia based down in Phuket and is the man to go to for anything in the Andaman Sea or Khao Sok National park in South Thailand

We had a fun day and it was good to swap idea and experiences with like minded people.

Big Thanks to Sally and Andy Mac for running the program and taking the time to visit us.

Anyone interested in possible locations for their IYA programs contact us :) Anyone interested in starting an IYA program in their school, have a look at www.intaward.org/