Almost time to go.

I have set up this blog today, in preparation for our trip to Cambodia and Thailand. In total, there are around 30 students from our school (Teign School) going on this trip, which has been mostly organised so far by World Challenge Expeditions. We are flying out on the 14th from Heathrow airport, embarking on what will hopefully be an amazing month!

Over the last 18 months or so the teams have been busy raising money and deciding what they would like to do while on expedition. On this expedition responsibility for almost everything is given to the challengers (the young people), which should result in some interesting situations.

Now, a brief overview of what my team will be doing (the students are split into two teams of roughly equal size). For the first few days, we will be getting used to the heat and humidity, and doing our touristy bit by visiting various places around the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, such as the cheerfully-named "Killing Fields". We will then be going up to the famous temple complex of Angkor Wat, which should be a great experience.

Our second week will involve work at a Cambodian orphanage. We're not sure at this moment exactly what kind of work we will be undertaking, but it's likely that we are going to be fairly exhausted by the end of it!

When we leave the orphanage, we will make a border crossing into Thailand. After that comes the fun part. After a small trek lasting about three or so days, we will be trekking for a whole week in one of Thailand's many national parks. As well as some walking through the rainforest, we will have the chance to ride elephants and do some white-water rafting. There will be plenty of wildlife to observe, and we will be slinging hammocks up between the trees in the evenings. Hopefully, encounters with large spiders and carnivorous animals will be few and far between.

The final stage of this expedition will be a well-earned rest. A couple of days spent relaxing on the island of Ko Chang (with white sand and blue sea), and to round it all off we will be going to the Thai capital of Bangkok before flying back to London on the 13th/14th of August.

So, that is a (relatively) short description of how we will be spending our month away. Thanks to all of you who have given support to those taking part. We will try and update this as often as we can while out there, although that is likely to be not very often.

- Danny