A GROUP of carefully selected Scouts are packing for the "trip of a lifetime" -- to the sun soaked beaches of Thailand.

A specially designed camp is being built in Sattahip to cope with 40,000 Scouts who have been invited to the twentieth World Scout Jamboree.

And eight teenagers from East Lancashire are part of the 3,000-strong contingent from the UK heading to the country's stunning East coast for three weeks.

The plane takes off on December 28 so the youngsters will be trading in their Christmas Turkey roast for fresh fish and melted marshmallows. Robert Sykes, 15, is the only Scout representing Darwen but has been involved in the organisation for nine years.

He said: "We will be helping people in the community as well as doing all the usual Scout things like building camp fires!

"It will be great to share our lives with other peoples -- what we do and bits of our culture."

James and Bill Ruddick, aged 17 and 15, are looking forward to the week-long stay with a family in the Philippines.

James said: "With so many Scouts coming they have to stagger our arrivals and departures so we are staying a week before and after the Jamboree. In the final week we are staying with a family which will be great."

Each Scout has had to raise £2,500 in eighteen months for the Jamboree which centres on the theme Share Our World Share Our Cultures.

James Jennings, 16, said: "We are a couple of hundred short now but we have raised the funds doing anything and everything. We did a bare foot walk across Morecambe bay, cycled cross country, packed bags at Morrisons and did a dance evening. We are all looking forward to it now -- its a trip of a lifetime."

The Scouts have had to pass rigorous interviews, tests and a selection procedure before finding out they were heading to the bamboo jungles of 'paradise'.

Former police officer, Chris Creelman, County Commissioner for the Scouts, is going on the trip as part of an international security team.

He said: "This is a tremendous organisational effort with 40,000 Scouts arriving in Thailand. The security team fly out two days before.

"Everyone is really looking forward to the trip."