Thanks for the checking out the blog for this Global Leadership Adventures program!
Here are a few things to know and expect:
- Blog posts are written by onsite program staff and/or students and sent to our Headquarters team who will post the blog on this page.
- We typically receive 2-3 blog updates per week from each program, so please don’t be alarmed if you don’t see a blog post every day – that’s totally normal.
- Blog updates received late in the evening or overnight will be posted the following day.
- Blog updates received on weekends may not be posted until Monday.
- Due to many factors such as internet accessibility, program staff aren’t always able to send photos, so some blog posts may contain text only.
Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we hope you enjoy following along on these unforgettable adventures.
For frequently asked questions about the blogs, please visit our Program Blog FAQ page.
-The Global Leadership Adventures HQ Team
Click here to jump down to the most recent post!
BLOG POST FOR JULY 10
Hi parents,
All the students have arrived and GLA’s Elephants, Education, and Cultural Discovery program has kicked off in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
After long flights from around the world, GLA students arrived at Chiang Mai airport jet lagged but excited to meet everyone. The group hopped in vans and mingled with one another on the short ride from the airport to our home base. Immediately upon arriving to the hotel, the group ate their first meal in Thailand: pasta, stir fried chicken and veggies, and lots of fruit. Finally, everyone met their roommate and headed to unpack their bags in their new room.
In the afternoon, GLA leaders Meg and Andre led an orientation for students explaining the trip itinerary, code of conduct, and house rules. During orientation students played a few initial ice breaker games to get to know their peers. Soon after orientation wrapped up, dinner was served: roasted chicken, veggies, pineapple fried rice, and potatoes.
The group ended the day with some card games on the balcony and the creation of their community agreement, which consists of positive actions all members of the trip can take to ensure we thrive as a team over the next two weeks. Students are tired after a long day of travel but excited for what’s to come!
See you tomorrow,
Meg, GLA mentor
BLOG POST FOR JULY 11
Hey parents,
Day two of Elephants, Education, and Cultural Discovery started off this morning with breakfast at our home base. After, our local Thai staff, Nina, Aom, and Aoffy gave students an orientation on Thai culture. The presentation included cultural norms, explanations of thai foods, and a few Thai phrases for students to practice. Of course, there was also plenty of Thai snacks for everyone to try.
After orientation, we left home base for lunch at a local restaurant. Students enjoyed classic Thai dishes such as Pad Thai, green curry, and fried rice. Before our city walking tour, the group stopped by an ice cream stand for a classic Thai dessert: coconut ice cream with peanuts. The cool dessert was much appreciated as we explored three different Thai temples in Chiang Mai throughout the afternoon. The weather was hot and humid but a little bit of rain cooled things down as we headed to our Thai cooking class.
In cooking class, students had the option of picking four different dishes to cook: an appetizer, stir fry, curry, and dessert. We took a tour of the local market and explored the herb garden before diving into our cooking. Pad Thai, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice were all popular picks amongst the students. Four dishes later, and with full stomachs, the chefs headed back to home base to end the day and get a good nights sleep for tomorrow.
See you,
Meg, GLA mentor
BLOG POST FOR JULY 13
Hi,
today we first we took a long trip through the fog to get to the highest point in Thailand. We were looking out for a clouded leopard in the cloud forest and did a small walk to the point. Then we went to see the twin pagodas that were made for the king and queen. We learnt many interesting stories about the backstory of the Buddha.After, we had amazing food over a beautiful view at royal project! This place was one of the most successful conservation projects. Following that, we went to a beautiful waterfall and it was some of our first times experiencing one. In the afternoon, we went to the Sunday market street. Here we immersed ourselves in the Thai culture by haggling for lower prices and trying local delicacies like green tea and scorpions.At the end of the day we had our sunset circle and the new leader was crowned with the Burger King hat. See the next blog to find out who…
Your leader of the day,
Tara
BLOG POST FOR JULY 14
Happy Day 5!
It was an early morning today as we had to go teach at the local Thai school. We started the morning by eating breakfast at the hotel, then promptly leaving to the school. There were three blocks of 45 minutes. Each time we rotated to either grade 4, 5, or 6.
We left school around 12 to go eat lunch at Chom Cafe and Restaurant. After we went to the Elephant Parade. There we took a tour of the facility, learning about Mosha the Elephant and their goal as a company. Once finished we got to pick an elephant and paint it.
Once we got back to home base we had a quick talk about teaching and made our lesson plan for the next day. We had a break for about an hour, then had our sunset circle followed by dinner. Right after, we practiced our routine for our cultural exchange for the following day.
Bye bye,
Sammie
BLOG POST FOR JULY 15
In today’s blog, we started by conducting our second day of teaching the children English. After an entire morning of teaching, we left and headed for amazing lunch at the Dara Academy. Now, this was a lot of fun as there were many things that Dara Academy has shown us for the Cultural Exchange. We were with our cultural exchange buddies, introductions were given to each other as well as gifts. We gave the bracelets we made yesterday as a gift to them. Then, the students at Dara Academy gave us a presentation of what Dara Academy is. The presenters, who were students of Dara Academy, gave us a tour of the museum where Dara Academy first started and the origins of Dara Academy. We were paired with our cultural exchange buddies, so we did everything together. Another activity we did is the fan painting, where we painted handheld fans with your buddy in Lanna-style designs. After, the physical activities started at the gymnasium area. There, we gave them a show by performing two songs, which were What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction, and Hotel California by the Eagles. Everyone sang while one plays the guitar. The two activities, Sack Race and Disco Foot, were very fun. Sack Race is a game where you put both your lower half in a sack and jump or move your feet as fast as you can to the finish line, while Disco Foot is football, but everyone is dancing. Everyone was paired with their buddies and put into teams. Then, it was time to go back to homebase and have a small debrief for the plans for the third day of teaching tomorrow. After, we did our sunset circle and crowning of the next leader of the day for tomorrow with the Burger King Crown, before going to dinner and ending the day off with a small survey of the entire program. If you want to know who’s the new leader of the day, stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog!
Stay awesome, stay cool, bye bye!
Zach
BLOG POST FOR JULY 16
today we started off with breakfast at the home base as usual and then headed to the school for our third day of teaching! we had lots of fun teaching and playing games with all the kids.
after teaching, we had an amazing lunch at Khaomao Khaofang Restaurant. we all highly recommend, the restaurant (especially the bathrooms) was so gorgeous and the food was delicious!
we then headed to a market and checked out local snacks and items, which we later had for dessert after dinner (+ great explanations about the foods by the thai staff). after browsing the market, we had coffee and matcha in a lovely air-conditioned cafe nearby and planned for our next day of teaching.
we made it back to the home base and had downtime before dinner, some of us choosing to swim in the pool. after dinner, we played an exciting game of mafia (the villagers won 🙌🙌) which was wonderfully narrated by meg. we then rested and headed off to bed!!
tune in to tomorrows blog to find out the next leader of the day…
Alex
BLOG POST FOR JULY 17
Hi!
Today we completed the last day of our teaching experience, which ended with fun group games and was filled with bittersweet goodbyes. After a quick lunch back at the home base, we enjoyed a good workout in the form of a traditional Muay Thai class at a local gym.
Back at the hotel, Thai students from an international school gave us an educational presentation on their food, festivals and customs, followed by a water-fight by the pool in keeping with the Thai Song Kran festival!
After a dinner of pizza and salad, we finished off the evening with some karaoke, some more enthusiastically than others!
Your leader of the day,
Magdalena
BLOG POST FOR JULY 18
Welcome back everyone!
Today, the ninth day of our trip, has started with our every day breakfast at 8:00, where our great leader of the day (a clue…me) explained how today we would experience first hand how Buddhism works by having a private chat with one of the monks at the temple “Wat Suandok”, which gave everyone a new insight into the religion we all know, or rather, the philosophy as the monk said.
Then we met our amazing tour guide for the day, who taught us all about Doi Suthep and Thai culture. There our guide introduced us to many different cultural practices, such as, “Chedi” which consisted on going around the chedi three times carrying a lotus flower and thinking about different wishes. One of my favorite things was the “Ancient Chinese Prophecy” where we were given a cup full of sticks with different numbers, which we had to shake in order to get one out and receive our prophecy (not to brag but mine was the best one…).
Then we took our vans for a 30 minute drive to Doi Pui, where we had a great lunch at a local restaurant, and then followed our guide to a cafe, where we all had a peaceful time enjoying each others company. Then we explored the local market, where everyone did some shopping and had fun exploring the village.
At 15:00 we headed back to the home base, and arrived an hour later and had some free time to pack. Then we did our daily sunset circle and had some dinner at the hotel. We then split up into our mentor groups where we discussed different stages of our life’s and wrote some goals.
That’s all for today! See you next time!
Besos,
Celia
BLOG POST FOR JULY 19
Hello all
We started our morning with a drive to elephant camp stopping at the long awaited 7/11 where everyone bought snacks and drinks for the rest of the trip. Upon arrival we had some downtime to relax and get ready to finally see some elephants. When we got to the elephant sanctuary we had a lesson from the sanctuaries veterinarian about common anatomy and general information about elephants, after we started with feeding the three female elephants watermelon which they all loved. We were then tasked with measuring the elephants height, getting their weight, and circumference of the foot. Once we had gotten plenty of information on the elephants we split into two groups and presented the information to the rest of the group. Rounding out the day we played a modified version of red light, green light and a few heated rounds of mafia. A delicious dinner full of spring rolls and curry we all went to beds on a full stomach ready for our big day tomorrow.
Your leader of the day,
Jackson
BLOG POST FOR JULY 20
Hi everyone!
For our 11th day of Elephants, Education, and Cultural Discovery we began with our first breakfast at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary Lodge. We then got ready and took off in our vans to spend the morning planting Napier grass for the Elephants to eat. We got instructions from our fun and enthusiastic guides then got to work separating the healthy stem cuttings proceeding to space them apart planting them in rows across the field. While working, we had fun listening to music and singing along. At 1130, it was time to head back to home base and enjoy some khao soi for lunch.
After spending some time relaxing, we got back in our vans and headed to the trailhead ready to adventure to another waterfall. We saw lots of greenery, dogs, and insects on our way and rested at the top to enjoy the waterfall. On our way back, we came across an elephant bathing himself and further on a mom and its baby! We made it back to the vans and headed to a cafe where we enjoyed smoothies, coffee, and tea then headed back to the lodge.
We started our evening with our daily sunset circle and a delicious dinner and finished off with an evening activity of an elephant tourism debate.
See you next time!
Chloe
BLOG POST FOR JULY 21
After arising from bed to the sounds of the jungle, the group gathered at 8 to eat a breakfast consisting mostly of bread and spreads. The calm morning was interrupted by the screams of our group members as a very large spider had found its way into one of the rooms. The group separated into two trucks as we made our way back to the elephant sanctuary. We pet, took pictures with, and fed the large animals before walking with them down a small creek. The group then ate a filling lunch only a stones throw away from the happily grazing herd. Next, the group began some activities. We made paper from the surprisingly clean feces of the elephants mixed with the paste of a native tree. Then we smushed a plethora of fruits and plants to feed the elephants for daily nutrition. The mood shifted slightly as the group moved away from crafts and into cleaning and bagging the elephant poop. Finally, we ended our day at the sanctuary by cutting and gathering the tall grasses that the elephants love to eat. After waving goodbye, the hot and tired group set out to a café. Delicious drinks recharged our mood as we made our way back to our home base. From here we hung out, played games, and ate dinner before heading to bed.
Jasper
