At Our Jungle Resort´s, we try to get everyone excited about the surrounding nature Khao Sok National Park has to offer. With our newly established family activities, we are aiming at offering youngsters from 4 years of age the possibility to explore the surroundings of Our Jungle Life Camp in a safe and protected environment.
Parents are welcome to observe or join in as they like, but many of our recent guests have embarked on their own adventures on our vast jungle property.
During the last weekend, our current volunteers Thor and Janani have joined the family fun and wrote a great experience review on What´s it like participating in Our Jungle Life Camp´s Family Activities?
“We learned about the different bugs and insects you can find on the farm, and Por showed us how to build a shelter to live in the jungle!” - one of the kids
We met Mike who together with Por is responsible for outdoor learning and family activities at Our Jungle Life Camp. Mike is very enthusiastic about the local plant and animal life and has 10 years of experience with teaching children about the wonders of the jungle. Por is the farm manager responsible for building and maintaining the organic farm that produces food for the restaurant of Our Jungle Resort´s.
It was going to be a fun family day, full of learning with activities including understanding the local plants and insects, learning how the locals use palm tree leaves to weave many of their items, making our own bamboo flutes, building jungle shelters, and learning cooking skills by using local techniques.
We met Mike and Por at 9 am and together walked over to the organic farm. Here Por introduced us to all the different crops they grow, including roselle used for the jam we had for breakfast, eggplants, mint, Thai basil, papaya, and much more. We tasted edible flowers, passion fruit, and plucked roselle and Thai basil leaves that we were going to use as ingredients for lunch.
During our walk we even found a gigantic yellow caterpillar, and Mike explained to us the difference between caterpillars, centipedes and millipedes. The caterpillar was beautiful but Por said we were not allowed to touch it, as it could be poisonous.
Next up Mike introduced us to the different bugs and insects we can find at the farm. He taught us which are useful to the farm, and which are only eating the crop, such as the yellow caterpillar. To study the different insects we were all given nets and a jar and together with Por, we chased around the farm to catch butterflies and bugs. Mike even caught the biggest bee we have ever seen. Using magnifiers Mike taught us how to tell the different bugs and insects apart from one another and afterward we released them into the farm again.
While Mike was teaching us about the insects, Por brought in an armful of palm tree leaves and prepared them for our next family activity – local style weaving. Por told us that we would weave a coaster and we began to separate the palm leaves from their stem until we had 8 long leaves.
Then as a group of kids and adults, the weaving started. It was a little difficult at first, but with Por’s help we quickly got the hang of it – the trick was to always put one leaf under the other until we had a square solid coaster. We quickly got a sense of the level of skill required and after we had completed our coaster, Por showed us how they both use weaving to make hats, plates, and even the house we were sitting in.
We were so enthusiastic about the weaving that Por brought out some bamboo and started making flutes for all of us. It was a little difficult to learn how to blow the flute properly for it to make a sound, but once we got the hang of it, there was no stopping us and we engaged in a major flute war, to test who could make the loudest sound.
Lunch was served at around 12, cooked by some of the staff at the farm and we saw how the roselle and thai basil we had collected was cooked into our meal which consisted of fried rice, soup and fresh vegetables. The meal was delicious and afterwards we played around for an hour together with the other kids.
Now came one of the bigger activities – learning to make a shelter from materials found in the jungle. First however Mike asked us if we knew what the most important factors for building a shelter are – it must be strong enough to withstand the wind, thick enough to keep out the rain, and wide enough to cover us all. Before building the shelter we had to work together to design it. With a design in place we collected sticks, made our own robe out of palm tree leaves, which was fun but also a little messy, and Por helped us cut some big banana tree leaves that we could use as cover. Then the building began, and it was very fun to work with the other kids to bind the sticks together with the rope, to create a solid skeleton that we could hang the banana leaves on. Although a little snug we managed to build a great shelter that we could all fit in.
After the shelter building activity, we deserved a snack. Luckily some of the staff had prepared a sticky rice dough that we could cook over the fire. However we needed to learn the local way of doing things. First we learned how to start a fire and then we collected palm tree leaves that we cleaned. Secondly, the clean leaves were dipped in oil, and then the sticky rice batter was added into the leaf, which we folded and put on the fire. The final result was a delicious snack that we happily enjoyed with the view over Khao Sok.
The day ended with our parents picking us up at 4pm and us showing them all the fun activities we had done throughout the day.
“It really sounds like the kids have had an amazing day! Thank you so much for teaching them how the locals work on the farm and how they use nature as tools to keep it organic. Our kids even tell us they want to come back next year to learn more” - parent
If you or your children want to join our family activities at Our Jungle Resorts with Our Jungle Life Camp, contact us via the details below, or find more information about family tour offers under:
Our Jungle Camp – Khao Sok
Tel: +66885776838
Line-ID: ojc-khaosok
http://line.me/ti/p/~ojc-khaosok
GoogleMap: https://g.page/ourjunglecamp?share