I had an inkling that I would return to Bangkok with intentions of staying there for a longer period of time after just six days in the city my very first week abroad. Southeast Asia’s most-populated capital was vibrant and exciting with plenty to eat, pray and love — if we’re getting all Elizabeth Gilbert on travel — though I prefer to change “pray” to “play.” For all of the amazing experiences Bangkok has to offer, like visits to extravagant golden wats and nearby floating markets, they paled in comparison to my visits to a place all tourists try to avoid: the Immigration Detention Center (IDC).

I learned about the IDC my very first night in Bangkok, Jan. 8. Fresh off a 23-hour journey, I forced Andrea up and out to one of Cody McKibben’s Bangkok Tweet-ups, where I met Dwight Turner, the face behind the incredible hyper-local nonprofit organization, In Search of Sanuk. I spent much of the evening hanging with Dwight “getting uncomfortable,” being light-heartedly ridiculed as the new kid on the block and learning about the different projects on which he works. We parted ways with him reminding me that any time I wanted to “get uncomfortable in Bangkok,” to give him a call or shout on Twitter.

Finished with the loop around Southeast Asia and all comfortable in my new Bangkok apartment two months later, it was time to make good on my promise to Dwight and plan my first of what became twice-weekly visits to the Immigration Detention Center. The aim of visits to the IDC is to bring some sanuk (which is the Thai word for happiness) to the refugees detained in the squalid detention center with fresh food, clean water, hygiene products, and diapers and children’s coloring books for those refugee families with young children. Beyond the material happiness of fulfilling those basic needs, however, lies something much greater. By bringing a group of volunteers, the sanuk is magnified. The detainees in the IDC are held in cells with anywhere from 100 to 300 people and are separated by gender and sometimes age, pulling families apart. Entire families detained in the Center can go months at a time without seeing one another.

Most refugees in Thailand entered like we do. They fly into the country, receive a 30-day visa entry stamp and make their way into Bangkok just like us. However, unlike us, most refugees fear some kind of persecution in their homelands and thus, grossly overstay their visa in hopes of starting a new life. If found, they are arrested and either deported back to their home country or thrown into the IDC, where they can petition the United Nations for formal United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) status. In a process that on average takes around two years (though many are stuck much longer), the refugees in the IDC go through extensive interviews and medicals before receiving status and then waiting for a country to accept them for resettlement.

I would arrive at the IDC at around 9 a.m. with my passport (note: do not forget this like I did my first visit) and after photocopying the identification and visa pages, I receive a detainee’s identification number who hasn’t been visited in a while to “take out.” From there, the registration process with the IDC begins, where I’d fill out forms provided by a usually grumpy guard. After registration, volunteers and I pick up some fresh water and milk from 711, chicken and rice from a nearby street vendor and the usual morning mango shake for myself from the soi in the above photo. Visiting begins at 11 a.m. and after locking up my belongings, receiving a thorough pat-down and a guard examines what we brought for the detainees, permission to enter is granted. It’s unbearably hot and there are two long iron fences separated with a walkway for guards to patrol the visits. As detainees file in, visitors and prisoners on each side grip their respective fences, yelling over the masses to try and speak to one another.

What makes visits so special are the times enough volunteers gather to coordinate “taking out” a whole family, an additional part of Dwight’s missions with former-visit coordinator Becky Hubbell. Without visitors, families are only entitled to see each other once per month, and there are many families who have been there for several years (I’ve met several women who gave birth in the IDC as they were detained while pregnant). While refugees are certainly happy to have visitors, the overwhelming sense of joy they get when seeing their entire family out of the cells together is one that brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

If you’re in Bangkok for even just a little bit of time, I can’t stress enough how important it is to take a morning off from seeing the Buddhas and recovering from a Khao San Road bucket hangover. To learn more about the opportunities with Dwight and In Search of Sanuk, visit his website or follow In Search of Sanuk on Twitter.