Anything from one and a half to three hours out of Bangkok (driver dependent), is the Lopburi School for the Blind and the Blind with Multiple-Handicaps. The school/ children's home is actually situated close to the border of neighbouring province Saraburi, so it's a half-hour sawngthaew (a pick up truck with benches and a covered back) ride (costs 5-7Bhat / 4-5pence) or 15 minutes on car or motorbike to main town Lopburi. There you'll find the train station, some ruins, a few bars, 7-elevens, a KFC and the wild monkeys.

The monkeys mainly hang round the ruins of a shrine called Prang Sam Yot. A local tourist attraction, they're almost the only reason any other foreigners turn up in this town. A feast is laid out for them in November. Apparently though, to keep the food looking good for show-time the monkeys have stones catapulted at them if they try and tuck in too early - leading to some too-scared-to-be-hungry monkeys when dinnertime finally comes. February has a three-day festival celebrating a past king of Thailand (King Nar ai), who frequently stayed in Lopburi. Around this time painfully slow monkey shows are performed. For close-up action, admission to Prang Sam Yot is 30B (about forty-odd pence). However, the monkeys can still be appreciated just by standing aside and watching as they rip up car aerials, swipe at dangling bags, steal food, make love, beat each other up, throw poo and talk amongst themselves.

Just around the corner from Prang Sam Yot is the mini-bus station. From here, air-con mini-buses leave for Bangkok ('Krung Thep' in Thai) throughout the day and cost 80B (about £1.15). Again, it's driver (as well as traffic) dependent - so can take anything from one and a half to two or three hours. Train is apparently much cheaper (about 26B / roughly 40 pence), but will take at least 3 hours and leaves less frequently. The non air-con government bus should be cheaper than the mini-bus. Leaving less frequently from beside the resident supercentre (Big C) car park, the mini-bus arrives at Victory Monument, trains arrive at Hualalompong Station and buses at one of either the North or North Eastern bus terminals in Bangkok. Coming back is much the same, just in reverse. It's worth trying to find out what time the last bus is, though they definitely run until at least 6pm. To find the bus it sometimes helps to say 'Lopburee' and quickly imitate a monkey.

There's by no means any need to go to Bangkok to have a good time. Lopburi's offer of a nightclub is The Bank (a motorbike taxi away) - like other clubs in Thailand it's probably over 20's only, passports might be asked for. Bic C is a massive place 20 minutes up the road by sawngthaew and is the easiest place to go to for food or a film. 5 minutes the other direction from the school is a restaurant that sells cobra, and across the road is a guy called JoJo with a healthy stock of beer, snacks and a roof that blows off in the wind. Every Wednesday there's a big evening market held in Lopburi with plenty to see. The kids from the school make various items to sell here: in particular lengths of material and candles.

There's a good internet cafe across the road from KFC and also one up near the train station. Others are not so good (ie. loading up the entire page except for the box to type mail passwords into). These cost 15B (11p) an hour, better ones cost 20B (14p). Internet is also available at the school and it was being updated when I left.

Considering it's beside a main road, the school grounds have a peaceful environment. I'm not easily excited by architecture but there was a beauty in experiencing a building designed for people that buildings aren't generally designed for. Each floor-tile is bordered with a rough stone, stopping anyone from slipping too far. All the rooms have a similar layout (ie. toilet door here, main door there). Banisters, door hinges - everything's been thought about to cater for the blind. Out the back is a large farm with fresh honeycomb, fish , loads of plants, vegetables and fruit. The children here take it in turns to sit around large metallic bowls, crushing up herbs from the farm that you can then put in your shoes to stop them from smelling. Some days you can look over a wall and see a teacher in his underpants trying to hand-catch fish from a stream.

Though the children are up early for meditation and breakfast, the school day really starts at half-eight. This is when the national anthem is sung and a quick talk is given by one of the teachers. Once the kids are upstairs and lessons start you could be doing a number of things. The popular subject there is music - playing an instrument can offer more personal enjoyment than helping kids to beat drums and clap for hours on end. It also gives them the chance to hear something new. However, like kids universally - repetition is pretty often preferred to variety, so patience is necessary for trying to remain enthusiastic about Jingle Bells day in day out. Every Friday afternoon there's a sort of big gig/party in the dining hall, when the music's turned up loud and dancing and singing and playing goes on. The school's well equipped - bass, lead and acoustic guitars, a drum kit, keyboard, microphones, tambourines etc. There are some interesting Thai instruments as well, and every Wednesday students come from the Lopburi arts college to teach Thai dance and the recorder band. Of course, not all the children get loads out of music, so there's always other kids to hang round with if you're not feeling like dancing!.

English is taught to those classes capable of picking it up, which is not the majority. Two of the classes were learning English brail when I was there which meant we had things we could teach each another. Cooking also goes on - stuff like sandwiches and soup. Each Wednesday the kids did P.E, which was largely running around, treading up and down a sand dune or playing on ropes hanging across some trees. For the older students there's running machines, exercise bikes and a punch bag. Most nights after school the children do stretching and jumping exercises.

The accommodation at the school may not be traditional - I had a urinal in my en-suite bathroom - but it's still got nice touches. Namely, one of those small hose things to clean your bum with and a cold shower that though when working is warm after 5pm once the sun's heated the tank, doesn't always have water! I was given two fans, but one would've been enough and there's always plenty of drinking water stocked up in the fridge. All that and a balcony! I think they've even got a washing machine in now for any volunteers. My room was cleaned for me every week.

There are other staff who live here, so there's always someone to have dinner with. The cooks at the school made all three meals of the day and it was always dead nice. On top of this, resident staff cooked dishes for us, and I also learnt to do a few. I was taken out for meals (raw beef, duck beak, rat, insects and rice whiskey to name a few), and brought several Thai delicacies to sample throughout the day. I was also invited back to nearly every teacher's house for food - food over here I figured, was as much of a social lube as drink is in Britain. I found it a good way of meeting people and of picking up Thai.

Thai people in general were generous, and at the school there were no exceptions. I'm certain that it'd fade if taken for granted or not shown appreciation of, but at the same time its genuineness lay in the fact that nothing was expected in return. That was overwhelming sometimes - especially with the staff who were giving all day to the kids and who earn less in a full-time month than I earned dossing round in a month of my old Saturday job. I did my best to repay them all by the end. In short: everybody you'll meet here is very nice. Just remember the obvious though, there's bound to be at least one person who annoys you!

This could all end with the average cliches: experience, opportunity, life-changing. Instead, two pieces of advice I found proved valuable. One - never put a spray mosquito repellent on in front of a fan. I did that so often. It really hurt my eyes! Two - if something bad happens, it'll probably make a good story. Tacky as this may sound, I don't see why I was ever worried!

Kevin Eadie

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