Thailand’s northern metropolis Chiang Mai will host 550 Swedish scouts and leaders over Christmas.
The city’s mayor has even promised to arrange a real Christmas tree for the guests to make them feel at home.
The scouts are in Thailand for the world scout jamboree that starts 28 December in Satthahib.
“We have been dreaming about this for the last two and half years,” says Katarina Stadler from the scout organization KFUK-KFUM to the local daily Kristanstadsbladet.
Katarina and her friends Lina Hjertqvist and Caroline Karlsson, all 18 years old, are half way into their last year of high school studies in Kristianstad.
Their first destination when they take off from Sweden 13 December is Malaysia where all scouts will be hiking in rainforests and se for themselves how the locals live.
“That’s true scouting,” says Lina Hjertqvist. “It will be exciting to see how people live.”
After jungle trips and learning more about Malaysia’s divers culture and society, the Swedish contingent travels north for another cultural experience in Thailand.
Arrival in Chiang Mai is planned to 22 December.
Christmas eve celebrations will take place outdoors in Chiang Mai, with traditional Swedish Christmas songs and a mass.
The scouts stay in the north, making trekking and hiking excursions and study visits in the surroundings, until the 26th when it is time to leave for Bangkok and later the jamboree site east of the capital where they will join HM King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and thousands of other scouts from all over the world.
