Sa-Wa-Dee-Ka

            That's hello, goodbye, and your welcome in Thai. If you're a boy you say Sa-Wa-Dee-Krap and if you're a lady boy you say Sa-Wa-Dee-Ha. Fun Facts.
            After having four consecutive days in Chiang Mai, I knew that I probably wouldn't be coming back. The only thing I hadn't seen yet was the Temple on the Hill. The first weekend we were in Chiang Mai we didn't have time to go to the temple and the next time in Chiang Mai I was only there for a night before I left for Pai. Getting to The Temple on the Hill costs anywhere from 400-600TB for a taxi ride, so normally you want to go with a bunch of people. Unfortunately the way things played out, I was the only one out of the group in Chiang Mai last weekend who hadn't gone yet. It was either I pay to go myself, or I wasn't going; so of course I just forked up the 400 Bhat (thankfully I found a nice taxi driver) and went.  It was definitely worth the money. It's one of the most renown temples in Thailand. When I got there it was raining, which wasn't a huge deal but Thailand puts tile everywhere and it gets quite slippery when it's wet. It has to be incredibly cheap because other than that, there's no logical reason you would use so much tile when it rains all the time. Anyway, I was carrying around my huge camera with flip flops and trying not to slip and fall--thankfully I didn't. The gold tier statue in the middle is called a pagoda, which is a completely closed temple that holds Buddhas and other sacred items. On opposite ends of the pagoda were two temples. One of them had a Buddhist monk who blessed groups of tourists and then gave us bracelets. It was quite cool to be blessed, but since it was in Thai I couldn't understand any of it and couldn't help but think he could be placing a hex on us and we would have no idea. Either way, it was awesome.
              It was a pretty quiet week at the foundation. A lot of volunteers had left over the weekend and all the outdoor volunteers were on homestay. One night, one of Thai interns asked if we wanted to go to a temple. Having nothing else pressing to do, we all piled in the truck and went. It was modeled after a pagoda (but you can enter and climb up all the levels) and the outside lights up at night. It was on a huge hill so during the day you can see the view of Chiang Rai. All the temples have dragons at the entrance because their symbols of protection. Fun Fact. It was fun hanging out with some of the interns and they even stopped at 7-11 on the way back so we could get ice cream.
             This weekend I'm back in Chiang Rai hanging out. Tomorrow a couple of the girls need to renew their passports so we're going up to Mae Sai. I was going to renew mine but I'll save over thirty dollars if I just go next weekend and cross the border. I'll probably be going by myself, which isn't a big deal and I'll even get to hang out in Burma for a couple hours.
            It rained for 5 days straight and it's been off and on this weekend, but because of the rain I didn't take my camera many places this week. I wish I had more photos to upload but I plan on taking it everywhere this week. I only have two weeks left of teaching; I can't believe how incredibly fast this trip has gone. There's a police holiday on Thursday and Friday this week, so there's no class. Thursday we're going to work with outdoor and Friday, in honor of the Olympics (that we have no way to watch), we're having a sports day. I also plan on taking pictures around the foundation because it occurred to me that you guys don't really have an idea where I've been staying for the last six weeks. It is literally in the jungle on the mountains and it is beyond beautiful. So get excited kiddos!

The stairs up to the Temple. There was so many tourists that getting a decent shot was near impossible.

The Pagoda and Buddha statues surrounding it.

          

A replica of the Emerald Buddha. The original is in Bangkok at the Grand Palace (Don't worry, I will be going there).

The Temple the Thai interns took us to in Chiang Mai.

This temple was unique because the largest statue not only wasn't Buddha, but it's of a female. One of the workers in the temple told us she was the first female to become a monk and was one of the closest followers of Buddha. The temple was also quite modern.

Hippies and Temples.

               I'm back from Pai and spending a couple days in Chaing Mai. We got back from Pai on Wednesday and then Sasha left for Ubon at four in the morning on Friday so I spent Friday alone and then I'll meet up with some of the girls from the foundation on Friday. Enough boring details, let's talk about Pai!
                As we were traveling to Chaing Mai, the day before we left for Pai, we shared a songtaew (taxi) with the most interesting family. The parents were traveling with four kids and the entire family had dreadlocks. They had been living in India for the past six years, but for only six months out of each year. Because of the constant rain in India, they would leave for six months and travel and then go back during the dry season. After traveling for so long they wanted to find a more permanent home and out of all the places they had traveled, they decided on Pai. As I've mentioned, Pai is known to be very similar to the Haight district in San Francisco, so I found it greatly ironically entertaining that they lived in a hippie commune in the Haight district of San Francisco for nine years. O, and what did they do for a living? They run a Christian meditation center. I don't know what that entails but I guess it earned them enough money to raise four kids and travel the world. Needless to say, after meeting this couple we were even more excited to get to Pai.
So the next day we jumped on a mini bus to Pai. The town is only three streets and is nestled in the middle of the mountains. Let's just say there wasn't a single straight road the entire three-hour drive. After settling in our bungalow, dropping off some laundry, and eating at a nice little cafe, we booked our white water rafting trip for the following morning. We met our ride at eight in the morning and drove for an hour and a half to the start of the river. It was Sasha and I, a couple from Europe, and our tour guide, Po, in our boat. We got really lucky because Po knew a lot of English so it was super fun to talk to him. When you're on a boat for six hours you learn a lot about people; we had some great conversations and laughs with our bud Po. We paddled down the river for three hours and had lunch at the hot springs, which are boiling hot puddles by the shore of the river. After lunch we then hit some rapids, which weren't very intense but somehow I managed to fall out—bit scary. Southeast Asia river water up your nose isn't the most pleasant feeling. We literally rafted down the river with mountains and the jungle on either side. I didn't take my camera, but even if I had, there was no way I could have captured the view. At one point we even saw a gibbon. I also didn't wear sunscreen and watched my self literally roast, but that’s an irrelevant side note.
            Our second day we wanted to see the hot springs right outside of Pai and most people rent motorbikes and drive them down there. It’s three dollars to rent one for twenty-four hours and we were a little worried about the whole danger, crashing aspect, but we had to at least try. Long story short, we couldn’t rent one because I had never driven one before and when the lady saw my attempt, she told us we had to rent one from a place that sold it with insurance. We then crossed the street and rented two regular bikes, with no gears, and decided we were going to make the treck up to the hot springs old school. Remember how I mentioned we were in the mountains? Yea, so we started out and the hot springs were six miles out and by the time we hit the second hill we called it quits. We ended up renting a taxi to take us out there. That night we ate at Mama Falafel, which was definitely a highlight of the week and an undiscovered restaurant by most of the tourists.  Another amazing place we ate at was the Witching Well, which had fabulous sandwiches and salads. That night we met some tourists who ended up trusting me enough to drive their motorbike. So, I might not have gotten to rent one, but at least I got to legitimately drive one. The next day we grabbed brunch and headed back to Chiang Mai.
            Sasha and I just hung out at markets on Thursday and then she left at four in the morning on Friday to fly west. Friday I hung out in used bookstores all afternoon, which was nice and relaxing. Used books here are fairly expensive (200-300 baht; &7-10). I guess I can’t blame them because the only people buying English books are going to be foreigners. The best part is I left it on the bus coming back to Chiang Rai, which really really sucks. More later!

           

These are the hot springs in Pai.

Our romantic bungalows.

Sasha and I in front of our bungalow.

A temple built in the 1300's in Chiang Mai.

Tacky tourist pic.

A food mart in Chaing Mai that all the locals go to buy their food for their restaurants.

They're really in to wax monks for some reason....

Oh the places I've gone.

 

As I sit in a hammock outside our bungalow, I'm going to tell you about last week. Let me first explain this hammock-bungalow situation. A couple weeks ago, Sasha (a volunteer from Boston), was talking about how she was going to travel to Pai after she was finished at the foundation, but she had no one to go with. She turned to me and said, "You should try to take a week off from volunteering to come with me. I think you would really like it." Pai is notorious for being a hippie, laid back sort of town. It has a variety of restaurants including Greek, Israeli, Yummanese (I still don't know what kind of food this actually is), Indian, Organic, Vegetarian, and Vegan food. . Once I finish at the foundation, my roommate and I are flying straight back to Bangkok so I knew this was my only opportunity to see more of the north. I talked to a couple of the staff member about leaving and now I'm sitting in a hammock in Pai. The names of stores and restaurants here are hilarious. Some of the ones I've seen are "You are Ting Tong," "Witching Well," and "Don't Cry". I couldn't imagine a better place to spend my official one-month mark in Thailand. That's right ya'll, I've been here for a whole month. 

We're going white water rafting tomorrow and I'm not taking my camera, but I'll make sure to let you know how it goes. We have many activities planned while we're here, but I'll get to that another time. For now, I want to share our most recent adventure to the Golden Triangle.  The Golden Triangle is about two hours north of Chaing Rai and it's where Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet. Back in the day, it was also where the country's supply of opium was smuggled in. Fun Fact. Sasha, Lauren (another volunteer), and I decided to make the adventure up there last weekend so we hopped on a non air-conditioned bus with all the locals and headed up to Mai Sai. From the bus station in Mai Sai we had to catch a taxi into town and from there we had to take another taxi up to the Golden Triangle. The taxi from the center of Mai Sai to the Golden Triangle was a tourist taxi and since we've had trouble before with taxis picking us up (see my first post about the ambulance), we asked this lady about seven times when she was going to be back up to the Golden Triangle to take us back down. She repeated over and over that she comes up every thirty minutes. We were against the clock because the last bus from Mai Sai to Chiang Rai leaves at six. We see where the countries meet at the river, hang out with a giant Buddha and take some fun tourist pictures, hiked up to a temple, and then went back down to meet our taxi lady. Three thirty rolls around, then four, and she’s nowhere to be seen. By this time we’re stressing out because we have to make that last bus. All the other tourists up at the Golden Triangle came with tourist agencies so catching a ride with them was out of the question. We found a taxi service guy and he told us it cost 600 baht ($20) to get a ride down. It was blatantly obvious he was ripping us off because we only paid 50 baht ($1.75) each to ride up. None of us wanted to pay even though it was only about $8 dollar each. We were less mad about the money and more upset that he was charging us so much based on the fact we’re tourists. From his broken English I gathered he knew the taxi we took and informed us she wasn’t coming back. It seems that they scam together; she takes tourists up for a low price and then doesn’t pick them back up so they’re forced to pay a ridiculous amount to return and they share the profit. We tried to hitch hike for about fifteen minutes but we found out the thumb out hitch hiking sign isn’t universal, in case you’re wondering. After a little stress and frustration we paid the 600 baht and were just happy that when you get scammed in Thailand it’s for fewer than ten dollars. We got to the bus station a little before five and got on the five o’clock bus. It was burning hot and by five fifteen we were still sitting on the bus in the bus station. The bus didn’t end up leaving until six o’clock and since it was the last bus of the day, it was beyond packed. I literally had someone sitting on my back for a majority of the ride. It was quite the adventure.

When I got back from Chiang Rai, one of the volunteers, Delyce (from San Francisco!), was looking at getting a tatoo. She had been planning it out for the last couple years and had a tattoo artist in Chaing Mai draw up the design. There’s a renowned artist in Chiang Rai but his wait list is three months long. She walked into his parlor and asked if there was any way he could fit her in before she left and he said that she could come that night. So I grabbed my camera and took photos of her momentous night. The tattoo is in Thai script and it reads, “Love is everywhere”.

As far as teaching goes, I had a really awesome week. I taught some of the older Thai staff and the older monks. Most of the Thais learn English through memorization so most of them don’t know their phonics and it’s hard for them to read. One of the volunteers made a phonics sheet to help one of the Thai housekeepers, Moey, with pronunciation and phonics. Moey caught on really fast and by the end of the lesson she was finding words in a book we had and was sounding them out. It was definitely one of my highlights from the week. Another fun teaching moment was when I taught the older monks (20-25 year olds). We mostly went over grammar since they’re English is pretty advanced. Near the end of the lesson we played a game and most of the time it’s just team one against team two. If the students seem like they’re into the lesson we’ll have them name their team and it’s always hilarious what they come up with. The monk’s game was “Price Tags” against “Fried Eggs”.

We’re leaving Pai in about an hour and it’s been a great trip. I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.

On the local bus to Mae Sai.

                At the Golden Triangle.

                 

The Giant Buddha at the Golden Triangle.

                                 

    Fun tourist pics.

More fun tourist pics. Burma is on the left and Laos is on the right

On the packed bus coming back from Mai Sai.

One of the boys at the Hospital holding the butterfly craft we made.

One of the little girls at the daycare center.

photos!

I have many photos still to upload and stories to tell, but I owe some photos from earlier so here it goes!

These are boys from our homestay. I took a photo of another kid and showed the boys the photo on my camera. After that they posed for photos for a half an hour. They were adorable.

 This is Keva (Ireland) teaching at our homestay.

One of the nights of our homestay we stayed with a family. Our family homestay was...interesting to say the least. Our family spoke almost no english but the grandfather came and talked to us for almost an hour. He hadn't spoken English in six years, but he was surprisingly still really good.  He slept alone, away from his wife, up in the jungle and carried a slingshot in his waistband.

These four girls asked us to play volleyball everyday with them at four--and we did.

After we stayed with the family, we walked to school with the child. This is what I saw while walking to school at six thirty.

 Pretty self explanatory, our elephant ride.

 In Chiang Rai, The Black house. It has weird snakeskins, ram heads, and other weird stuff inside.

The beautiful, spectacular, White Temple.

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A Waterfall in Chiang Rai.

Chicken Gallbladder and Fish Eyes.

Oh man, I can’t believe I’ve already been here for two weeks. I’m going to try to sum up my first week and try not to be verbose (and for me, as you know, this will take quite an effort).

            Some of the locals come to the foundation to learn English and we also teach some of the staff. Two villagers come each week and the first week I was here I taught one of them. I taught Lek, who is coming to America for three months to stay with his girlfriend’s family and help at their church. He’s from one of the local tribes, the Karen, which are mostly Christians due to missionary influence. During our lesson we talked about his upcoming trip, his faith, and other aspects of his life. Near the end of his lesson we got talking about his cooking abilities. Sasha, the other volunteer teaching, somehow got us invited to dinner in their village. So at five, Sasha and I trekked down to the road to wait for the villagers to pick us up on their little vespa-looking motorbikes. They took us up to a high hill and showed us their farms. I didn’t know until dinner that Lek had killed the chicken we had for dinner at his farm that day. I ate chicken gallbladder (apparently it’s the most fought over out of all the part of the chicken) and a fish eye, since they eat every part of the animal. Neither tasted quite bad, surprisingly. It was one of my most favorite nights of the trip so far.

            For the weekend, thirteen of us took the three-hour bus ride to Chiang Mai. We had dinner at a tex mex karaoke bar (the food was a lot like Chilis) and then headed to a huge street market that night. In the morning, each of us spent fifty dollars and did an awesome zip-lining course. Safety standards don’t really exist here and at one point our zip-lining guide dropped us three stories high using a slipknot and his own strength. There was no back up safety device. All of us survived and had an amazing time. The course had 22 zip lines, bridges, and even a spiral staircase up a tree. Included also was transportation, lunch, and a t-shirt. We definitely got our money’s worth.

            Monday we headed back to Chiang Rai and had one last good meal before eating rice for another week. Nine of us left for “homestay” on Tuesday morning. We drove two hours away and stayed at a school where we taught a couple hours of English each day. It seemed more hot and humid than at the foundation and after our eventful weekend we were all completely exhausted. The kids were receptive and enthusiastic for the most part. We taught a different class and lesson each day, so it’s really hard to actually tell how much the kids learn and remember. One day, Lauren and I taught animals to the kids, which was one of my favorite lessons. We played a game where we broke the kids into two teams and had a volunteer from each team come up. We named an animal and their teammates had to help them to spell the animal out on the board. At one point the kids were literally screaming so loud that one girl was cowering in the corner covering her ears. It was chaotic and awesome; the kids had a ton of fun. We also had the kids match the picture of the animal to the word on a worksheet and I helped this adorable boy with his because he didn’t quite understand. The next day Lauren and I sat in while two girls taught a different class the animal lesson. I don’t quite understand how the school works, but there was always kids walking in and out of classrooms and it seemed that at any point in the day at least one class was on break. While we sat in on this lesson, the boy that I helped the day before walked in and sat in the corner. While the girls quizzed the kids on the animal flashcards, the little boy from the day before was the only one shouting the animals out from the back of the class. I’m glad he at least remembered them for a day. The school didn’t have a running shower either, so I took showers by refilling a water bottle. It gave a whole new definition to “roughing it”.  I’m having some technical difficulties so I haven’t been able to get all my photos on to my computer. I’m going to by a card reader tomorrow, so that should work.

            I still need to upload pictures from homestay and tell you about elephant riding and this weekend. More to come!

           

   Lek, Jetseda, and Sasha at Lek's sister's house where we ate dinner.

   Leaving the orphanage where we spent one morning playing with the kids.

Two girls at the primary school who wanted their picture taken.

 Inside one of the temples in Chiang Mai.

One of the temples in Chiang Mai.