We stayed at the Khao Lak Palm Beach Resort in the town of Khao Lak. Most of our work was done on an island about 30 minutes away (driving and riding a ferry). A couple days were spent in Bang-sak - where the Mercy Foundation built about 50 some-odd homes. The Mercy Foundation was in their beginning stages of building 40 homes on the island (aka Gilligan's Thailand - or Kho Koh Khao).
Anyhoo, we really did build stuff! We worked a lot with reinforced bar (aka rebar). Bending, twisting, cutting, welding - we did all of that. We also had a concrete day, where one guy mixed the concrete, while the rest of us helped keep the supply of gravel and sand going, and the others poured it onto the second floor.
The food was amazing - lots of noodles, rice, papaya salad, etc. yum.
We had a great time hanging out with Dean, the main guy at the Mercy Foundation, as well as some other native Thai Mercy Foundation volunteers that had come down from other cities. We also met some really great people from all around the world - all volunteers through the tsunami volunteers organization.
On the plane back, I sat next to an Irish guy who worked at a dairy farm in Saudi Arabia, who had just visited his Thai girlfriend who lived in Phuket. Random!