COUNTRY: Thailand
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Murdoch Nursing & Midwifery
WRITTEN BY: Murdoch University
After a long day of travelling we finally made it safe and sound to our hotel in Chiang Mai. Our first day began with a "2kms" walking tour in 39 degrees, of this wonderful city, starting with a visit to the museum learning about the history and culture of this beautiful city. We then strolled some more where we visited Chiang Mai's largest temple and we joined the locals with their prayers. Our next temple was filled with wax statues of important monks that had passed away. We were slightly in awe by the realistic nature of these wax works! The end of our day brought shopping in the chaotic Sunday markets which are amazingly close to our hotel and a Thai massage which let me tell you was definitely a different experience!
On Monday we travelled to Payap University - McCormick faculty of nursing and experienced the life of a nursing student in Chiang Mai. Uni life is so different here, students must live on campus for the duration of their four year degree and only visit their families on the weekends if there are no tests or activities. Students are not allowed to have a job because they are in class 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday! After a tour we had the opportunity to meet some students and it was great to see that they are just like us! We also got a look into what subjects they study each year and we saw how similar it was to our own degree. After a fantastic day we started our three hour journey to Om Goi, stocking up at the 7 eleven with snacks and naughty treats! Sleeping in a big room with all 11 of us students tonight! Lots of laughs and giggles before bed!
Our first day in Om Goi we travelled to the hospital and visited different wards, the outpatient clinic, women's health clinic, labour ward and the doctors room. It was so good to see how differently equipped the Om Goi hospital is compared to back home. There are only two doctors in the whole of the hospital and only one in that day. The whole team learnt so much in one day and truly enjoyed the experience. After the hospital we travelled to our very first village stay in Yang Pieng.
The rest of our week conisted of running our mobile health clinic. The rain certianly found us and has not really stopped much for three days! Our very first clinic, which we held at the Yang Pieng school met 180 patients of all ages! This proved a little tough for everyone, using skills we haven't used in awhile and trying to recognise that there is only so much that we can do with the resources we have. We have done lots of education and health checks over the three days and there can only be more! We all love doing our mobile clinics, working with the amazing Thai healthcare teams, and slowly slowly giving away all the donations we collected!
This weekend we plan to ride an elephant, try zip lining, cookery classes, pampering spa days and lots of amazing food (the Thais really know how to cook!) and no doubt we will squeeze in more shopping time before we head out to our next village for five days of busy clinics.
Bye for now!
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