Around the world and (giving) back again

I’ve left the pristine island of Bali in Indonesia and heading back to Thailand, where it all began for me 8 years ago. I look on that trip as almost the ‘Age of Innocence’, my first big tour outside Europe or the USA. I researched the company I was travelling with to the last degree and participated in the Facebook forum set up for our group of travellers. That was actually quite an intimidating part of the process, everyone else seemed to have travelled widely and I felt quite out of place with little to add. I hadn't ziplined through jungles or navigated the Amazon with an indigenous tribe- I was long divorced and recently out of a series of disastrous relations and looking for a path in life. But I wanted to push my boundaries and see where life could take me. I learned I was capable of being alone and I also learned new words like yogini, which I looked up before I left home so as not to look completely green. The Far East, yoga and all that kind of jazz were totally alien to me. But I was at a crossroads in my life and volunteer travel seemed as good a venture as any. 

You could say that arriving in Bangkok the first time would be like an assault to the senses but that doesn’t come near to describing it. Coming from a small rural village in Northern Ireland at the time, the food stalls, the noise, the smells, the bustle, the clothes, the everything was totally new, exciting and enticing. We had our first dinner on the arrival night and slowly got to know each other. And apart from one person, everyone else was open and welcoming. As we all know now, ‘there’s always one’. 

We met Jay the next day who gave us a briefing, the likes of which I never heard before. You couldn’t insult the King, use your right hand only and don’t point, don’t flush your toilet paper, no hanky panky with the tour guides. At least that’s one I don’t have to worry about these days! And over the next few days my sense of wonder just grew and grew. Temples, floating villages, learning the Wei, statues, Thai food- it was incredible and I loved it all. I also loved the Yogini, Norma, who very kindly offered us yoga lessons and we had those in the pool, in the hotel or wherever seemed suitable. It was also my first real introduction to yoga, so the learning was non-stop.

Finally it was time for the first of our volunteering. We visited the Lahu village which is on the Thai/Myanmar border and one of the first things we were introduced to was the coffee project. The King of Thailand at the time was trying to move the farmers away from growing poppies and making opium, so he had sponsored coffee plantations. I have such vivid memories of sitting in the mud with Julie Britten filling plastic bottles with dirt and sticking in little coffee plants which we lined up in a row. We spent time with the village children, teaching them some songs but they were more interested in singing Baby Shark- a new experience for me to add to the others. We celebrated my 59th birthday in the Jungle with a crazed Serbian mercenary who was living wild in the jungle and who drank all our rum. And I thought, this is it. This is fun, it’s rewarding, the craic is mighty and I want to do this again and again. 

It wasn’t perfect of course, but when you look back it seems character building, shall we say? We slept all together on mattresses in a house on stilts and had cold showers outside and downstairs. I learned pretty quickly how to squat, although to this day I haven’t mastered the squatty potty. We didn’t know any better at the time, so we fed the elephants, walked them down to a watering hole to bathe with them and generally treated them like pets. I had no misgivings and it wasn’t until a year later that I learned the emerging changes in the ethical treatment of elephants. Safe to say I know better and would never go down that road again. 

And the company we travelled with seemed reputable and very good. One of the owner’s fathers was on the trip with us and was lovely. I was a bit surprised when he told me that the company was spending the best part of a million dollars a year on Facebook advertising and even though I didn’t know much about marketing at the time, it still seemed extreme. The company was of course We Are Bamboo and it seemed their ethos and range of travel seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Within 4 years of course between covid, gross mismanagement and some pretty dodgy dealing We Are Bamboo was in tatters leaving hundreds of travellers millions of dollars out of pocket. 

It could have been all over at that stage. The sense of loss and betrayal was almost overwhelming and it’s fair to say that for some people that has not reduced in any way. As a result of the money advice group I’d set up to help people navigate getting refunds, I went a little further a set up a hub so that former travellers could make direct contact with the local operators. But I had opened a Pandora’s Box and before long I was managing that hub almost 24 hours a day and 7 days a week on a voluntary basis. Luckily my employer at the time was also my middle daughter so I had a good degree of latitude! 

But for the ones that wanted to travel, they wanted new destinations and new projects which brings us to where we are today. While I was happy to step into a gap and provide what people were looking for, I lacked expertise and knowledge of the tourism industry and the UK/EU laws that govern them in the UK. So I partnered with Inspired Ventures who provide the legal and technical support that EVA needs to grow.

Although this venture started accidentally, I feel it meets a present and possibly growing demand for people who want to travel with purpose- those who want to truly explore the world in an authentic manner and engage meaningfully with the communities that we support and visit. I've defined the purpose of EVA over the past 18 months and while I didn't start out as a conservationist, my interest in anthropology has stood me in good stead as we explore communities and find the right way to support and help sustainability. And following in the footsteps of the great David Attenborough we must be the voice of the voiceless, the natural world that has been damaged so greatly in the name of progress.

So here I am, back in Northern Thailand after so many years hoping to build on the relationships we formed back then and see if our support is still needed. I hope it is, because this is one place I can't wait to visit with a group of EVA travellers who all have the same purpose. Let's give back a little to make a big difference.