For one week of the school year, the whole of grade 7 goes away on holiday to either Beijing or Chang Mai. I chose to go to Chang Mai because I have already been to Beijing with the school before and I have never been to Chang Mai, ever. 111 students went to Chang Mai and the remaining students went to Beijing so the resort that the Chang Mai students stayed in was completely full. The 111 students were split into 8 groups with 14 students in each group. The weather in Chang Mai was sunny and hot in the day but in the evenings slightly cooler and high chance of thunderstorms and lots and lots of rain. On 2 of the nights there were huge storms and no electricity during them so it was very annoying.
I didn’t have a favorite activity because I liked all of the activities we did. But the ones I thought were the most exciting have to be the confidence course and the archery. The confidence course is an obstacle course that is on top of water. First, I thought that the confidence course was exciting was because when I saw the picture of the confidence course i thought it was going to be easy but when I got on it it was actually really hard (I actually fell in immediately TT_TT).
There are 4 parts to the confidence course, step 1 is the chain and rope, you have to bunch up the rope tightly because it is really loose, by bunching up the rope it will help you get across because there will be something to grab on while you get across. Part 2 is a rope swing, it goes from one barrel to the other. The trick is to aim high and leap to grab the rope and get all your momentum into swing towards the next barrel. Part 3 is the balance beam, all you have to do is walk along to the middle and do a three sixty and proceed to finishing the balance beam (I found this the easiest part). Part 4 is the monkey bars. There are a set of rings and monkey bars, the boys had to do the rings and the girls could choose, I thought this was a bit unfair but most of the girls still picked the rings so it was ok. I thought the rings were the hardest part because I found it hard to keep my grip on the rings while trying to grab on to the next ones, if I get to go back I will definitely try it again.
Next, archery. I think I am fairly good at archery, I have done it a lot before and I know how to aim. To start off, we split into 4 groups each group had its own shooting range so there were 4 targets and 4 bows. My group was furthest to the right. Before we started our instructor explained the basics of archery to the whole group and we all had a couple practice shots before we started our competition. We blew up some balloons and we drew some faces on them, after that we pinned them to the targets. 
The aim of the competition was whoever pops your opponents balloon first wins. I was the reigning champion for the whole thing until right till the end. The last round was one of the most suspenseful things I have ever experienced ever because it took a long time until we each obliterated each of our balloons, well my one was completely obliterated but I managed to puncture my opponents balloon and it deflated so in the end there was no champion.
The one thing that bothered me the most on this trip were the nights with the huge thunderstorms. During these thunderstorms, the electricity trip and we were left with no electricity until the mechanics fixed it. Also, since there was no electricity, there was no air-con and since there was no air-con in the room it was terribly hot. On the first night my buddy and I were so hot that we couldn’t fall asleep so we were awake for the whole time until one of the supervisors came and turned on our air-con. Life lesson, never let electricity keep you awake, being tired on an important day is very annoying … TT_TT
I think the leaner profile attribute I showed the most on this trip would have to be risk-taker. throughout this trip I have always tried to try new things and take some risks whenever there is a chance to. I learned a lot on this trip, like how to tie a clove hitch not and how to make green curry but the most important thing I learned on this trip is that, no matter what happens always have confidence in yourself and believe that you can do it. To rap up this passage, I would like to conclude that after this amazing experience I really enjoyed everything the Maekok River Village Resort had to offer and all of there amazing activities. If I ever had the chance to come back I would defiantly come (seriously, it was awesome).
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