Phuket Excursion

“You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.” – Albert Camus

A week full of experiences in Phuket, which all of us students and teachers shared, is something that could not possibly be put in words. It was nine days filled with camping and sea kayaking, cultural exploration and mixing of people, growth of friendships, amazing food, local school visits, Thai boxing performance, and one or two spiders…

“Vision quest” was the theme of this year's excursion week, and this quest required us to try numerous new things and to overcome plenty of challenges. Some of us had the great opportunity to try out things we had never even dreamed of, such as kayaking a distance of about 3 kilometers over the open sea, or try Thai boxing against a teacher. While for some this trip meant to explore the beauty of Thailand, learn about local cultures through a school visit, a tour of Phuket town and a Thai cooking course, and in general to just have a change from our ordinary life, and learn that it is not actually that hard to survive without our own comfortable beds and proper-working bathrooms, even though most of us learnt that the luxurious lifestyles that we do have are something we appreciate very highly.

Looking back upon the trip makes me realize what a lucky group of students we are, who had the opportunity to travel to Phuket and its surroundings, spend a week camping and interacting with nature, and at the same time going through incredible experiences, which would not have been possible without the involvement of the Rock and Row staff at the location, along with the four teachers who accompanied us from our school.

I am also pretty sure that all the rest of the students would agree with me that this was an experience which brought us all much closer together. We had the amazing opportunity to get to know people with whom we don't usually spend time with, and spend even more time with those people who are our close friends. This can, along with the physical challenges of the trip, be seen as one of our “quests”. It has also built a bond, a bond which will stay with us for the rest our lives. The kind of bond that if someone asks, you can not possibly explain, but you just know that you share something with all those friends and teachers who went through the same experiences as you did. These experiences cannot be created or acquired through an experiment, but they are something you must live through to be able to feel it.

“ Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

- Sam, The Lord of the Rings

For us, it was not a 4 foot high door built out from the side of a mountain. Instead, thirty somewhat eager and yet anxious students of all different nationalities, stepped out through the doors of Phuket International Airport into a great adventure. And, boy did it sweep us all off our feet.

It is important to recognise that this experience would not have been what it was had it not been for the crew of Rock ‘N' Row. They not only welcomed us in, but they embraced us and taught us what they could right up to the very end.

This excursion week was packed full with a wide range of activities that kept us all busy and in awe. It made no difference if we were on the boat making our way to the next canoe destination, or if we were at camp in the evenings entertaining ourselves, we were always busy.

The trip was not only about us and making ourselves happy, though. On the third day we were fortunate enough to visit one of the local schools and spend a few hours teaching and entertaining the kids.

Although we had a great time and lots of laughs, it was not all easygoing. We faced some tough challenges with the hardest coming on the last day of kayaking. Sixteen of us faced the challenge of crossing the open sea which was roughly 3km in distance from another island back to our beach. Whilst some, like Putera and Alex, went for the speed approach just because they could, others like Heather and I went for the slow and steady approach. It was an exhilarating feeling having nothing but you, your partner and the water between yourselves and the next beach. There is a certain bond that forms between people, an unspoken and often unacknowledged link, which ties a group of people together after they have all shared in such a strong experience.

Although we had a great time together exploring Phang Nga Bay, a very important lesson came out of all this. Being such a popular area, Phang Nga is fast becoming overpopulated with tourists and hotels. Perhaps you might visit Phuket sometime in the near future, and if you do go, I implore you to try and preserve nature there as best as you can so that future generations can experience this once in a lifetime adventure, just like we did.

From myself and everyone else, we would like to extend our greatest gratitude to the teachers for giving up their time and providing us with an unforgettable experience.

In a way our trip together was similar to the journey that Frodo and Sam undertook; new friends were made, existing friendships strengthened with plenty of discovery. Frodo and Sam were concerned about leaving their doorstep, because of danger. As for us, we stepped out onto the road, not knowing where we would be swept off to, but we kept our feet and we had a great time.

Naris Vickery and Michelle van Eck