So on to Day 3:

Day 3 was check dams day. Yes I can still remember what I wore, and it was a green shirt with black pants. We loaded up onto the bus (not the van) with our driver wearing a military style uniform with the ranking system very much like that of a pilot. Chiangmai transport company, the exact name. We loaded up and travelled into a mountainous area. Before we reached in, the exterior looked like a theme park with military style security and fences all over. Rather puzzling. But when we entered into the real thing, it was really like "in your face" sort of thing. What I expected was really what it was. So then we disembarked, waited for the guests to arrive. We played Pepsi Cola in the mean time, something that I had not played for years and of course, not expected many to remember how it was played. And yes, I was bad at the game. When the guests finally arrived, a long description of the project was described to us by the Thai Rotary Club there, in sub-standard English, and we were given souveniors to commemorate this day. A notebook and an elephant souvenir. As I was the I/C for the day's activities, I gave a speech about the importance of water, something that we in Singapore never realise. How fortunate that we are to have clean drinking water and do not need to dig for water. Yeah and people start nodding on the Thai side. Done a good job I think. Better than self destructing for IOP since it was a serious situation and I don't think I would have wanted the class to laugh on my joke "I'll make it brief". Famous last words. So then we start on the duties, with the flower necklace they gave us. Dump bags on the floor, take shovels and start removing all the rocks which may hinder the water from passing through. Then of course we run through the problems of having to remove fantastically big rocks. Han An starts digging and finds no way out to remove the damm rock. So we both do it and the rock which was damm big comes out. Like Wow. Tea break. Nice pastries and orange juice did it for me. Some say the apple juice tasted like medicine, so I was glad that I took the orange juice instead. Bus driver comes up to me and describes his daughter that is in Singapore in some exchange programme. A nice guy, really, and he gives me his contact card, saying the next time we come to Thailand, (you fill this in yourself). Back to work. Kerriann trips and falls, Benk insults her calling her rocket. The next moment he steps on a rusty nail and he is like "ouch!" It went right through his footwear and he lands up in hospital. Hehe... Revenge? This one is for real. We build check dams from scratch and it really was not easy. Cement and we have to hammer in the bamboo logs, put in the bamboo husks to use as a frame for the cement. To fill up the holes, I poured some concrete powder over the holes and added water. Much easier than trying to use other methods. I try to sit on 4 stacked bags of concrete and Mr Liang advices me not to, because cement is acidic... Later we have lunch at the site itself. It was chicken fried rice, something that I was quite familiar to by now, and in the mean time, interacted with Morgan to find out his background. Water in packet form runs out and I take the last of the orange jelly that was in there. A helpful lady pours some water into a flask with water and it becomes chilled and nice. Free flow of water. Continue service session and we finish building our dam by 2.45 pm. We then proceed to see how the "ideal" dam looks like and we were pleased to note that ours held water, just like the "ideal" one. Mr Chiam comments that he thinks ours is also ideal and of course, that made us happy. The villager also shows us what the villagers do with the dams, like making a small fish pond, and we can see the reservour of water around us. I cant see the fish pond, and Jaimie loudly comments, make way for me. Embarrassed and slightly irritated by this random behaviour. We walk through a short cut and we see how the village houses look like. A far cry from our ho(s)tel. Mr Chiam then says "Take the bannol" to have a phototaking session and all of us burst out laughing, since we know that Mr Chiam has a funny speech problem like "Frasole" and "Whispol", pronounced "Fraser" and "Whisper". I have my own rock that I unearth from the ground and it comes to good use, solving my backache just by lying on it. I return to the hostel deciding to buy iced boom chocolate from Wavee Coffee and it was really nice to have. Zhang washes the clothes in the toilet basin, mine and his and it was quite fun. But this held up the bathing schedule and when everyone had bathed, the 2 of us had not yet. Played bridge while waiting. Then we bathe and have another 2 hours before dinner. Dinner was at a nice buffet again at one of the restaurants with all sorts of food from roast beef to sushi to ice cream and the like. Try to get a sprite glass bottle but cannot get one. Slightly irritated. We then go to the night bazaar in the pickup and in the mean time, we do cheeky things like sending flying kisses to the ladies on the motorcycle. They start laughing. When we arrive, we are ready for the kill and start hunting around for stuff. My first purchase was the salt and pepper shaker, very nice and cute, and then we proceed to buy other stuff, from clothes to lanterns. We tried bargaining with the store owner for cheaper, but she gets pretty mad and we get pretty mad too. We say goodbye to her and she says goodbye in return. Han An wants to buy a stupid lighter and I tell him not to buy. He walks away and the woman starts chasing him. My considerable distaste for him shows up later, when he gangs up with Reks and Andrew claiming that the 100 Baht necklace was not a good buy. Anyways, Zhang managed to get a better price of 80 baht for 7 lanterns and we go home happy, but not before they film "The Biggest Loser" which I was pretty mad about.