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.
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On the local bus to Mae Sai. |
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At the Golden Triangle. |
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The Giant Buddha at the Golden Triangle. |
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Fun tourist pics. |
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More fun tourist pics. Burma is on the left and Laos is on the right | | |
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On the packed bus coming back from Mai Sai. |
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One of the boys at the Hospital holding the butterfly craft we made. |
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One of the little girls at the daycare center. |