Good for running... to the bathroom

It's going to be very difficult to summarize this weekend's adventure, because it was quite the saga. We didn't actually spend much time in Chiang Mai... it mainly served as our base.

The night before we left, it was suggested and decided that instead of just hanging around Chiang Mai all weekend, we would embark on a 3-day trek through northern Thailand. This organized trek consisted of hiking, bamboo rafting, elephant rides, and two nights staying in local villages. We took the overnight bus on Wednesday night and arrived Thursday morning to begin. It was six of us and one guide, Toto.

It started with a very long truck ride into the mountain wilderness. It was winding and bumpy, and we occupied ourselves by singing the entire time (this will be critical later). That afternoon we hiked up a mountain and to a small waterfall, then down to the village for the night.

The village was small, simple, and apparently traditional. We were immediately bombarded with kids who enjoyed playing with our cameras and looking at pictures. After dinner, they sang songs for us, and Toto made us sing for them as well. It was disasterous. We had no idea what to do, and we wound up picking the most ridiculous songs (including Build Me Up Buttercup, Hark the Sound (heck yes), and some Backstreet Boys). We kept thinking we were done, and then Toto would say "one more farang [foreigner] song!" When we later asked him about it, he said that he doesn't normally make his trekkers sing, but our singing in the truck had prompted it. What a racket.

We slept in a bamboo hut in little pods with mosquito nets (very modest accommodations). There wasn't electricity, and the bathroom facilities consisted of a squat toilet (i.e. bucket) and a small spigot, but the first night wasn't too bad. That night we were awoken around 3am by the loudest roosters that you could ever imagine. They kept crowing, and crowing, and crowing, and I kept thinking "where's the sunrise?" The cacophony continued until the actual sunrise, by which time we were all about ready to strangle the first rooster we saw. Both the villages we stayed at were full of animals - everything from pigs, dogs, and chickens, to cows and buffalo (I think that's what they were).

The next day, the real adventure began. We hiked through the jungle to a river, where we stopped for lunch before our 3 hour bamboo rafting adventure. All the trek brochures advertise bamboo rafting with pictures of very happy travelers wearing life jackets sitting on sturdy rafts and having the times of their lives. These images are not at all accurate. Not only did we have to stand up on the rafts and hold our balance, we also had to steer the rafts down the river with bamboo poles (avoiding the banks, trees, and rocks). It was very Oregon-Trail-esque. After an injury to another rafter forced me to steer the back of the raft, we of course proceeded straight toward a gigantic tree which I didn't even attempt to avoid.

In Oregon Trail, when you hit a tree or a rock, you lose everyone on your journey, but again, this is not realistic. We hit that tree and probably 20-something odd rocks and roots, nearly losing our bags each time, and we still made it down the river. Plus we had to battle bug infestations and a red ant nest on the back of our raft. It was quite an accomplishment. And by the way, the river was pretty shallow (my bamboo steering pole could reach the bottom), so I was able to avoid flipping out the entire time at being on the water.

We were very happy to arrive at the second village with everyone in one piece. It was much like the first. We ate dinner and headed to bed without having to give another performance (thankfully) and hoped to get some sleep in before the next chorus of roosters.

During our hikes, Toto would give us random pieces of fruit or snacks and say something like "it's good for running ... to the bathroom!" I found this joke very funny until that 2nd night, when I found myself actually running to the bathroom. Shortly after going to bed, half of our group came down with the dreaded, infamous food poisoning. I don't really want to talk about it... just imagine the facilities (or lack thereof) described earlier. On one particularly urgent journey, I fell down the steps of the hut, and I now have a football-sized bruise on my leg (as well as 4 other bruises). Needless to say, by the end of the night the roosters were the least of our problems.

The next morning, we skipped hiking and took a truck to meet the others at the elephant camp. We decided that it would be preferable to be sick on an elephant as opposed to sick in a truck, so we rode the elephants anyway. It was actually an incredible experience with amazing scenery... I wish I'd been able to enjoy it more.

We took a truck back to Chaing Mai, and after all the mountain-winding and elephant-riding, I was reduced to staying in bed all night. The following afternoon, we took a bus back to Bangkok and arrived that night, with many of us (uh... mainly me) still sick. I stayed home today and am just now starting to feel better. It's a shame that the trip had to end this way, because the first two days were so amazing. My description hasn't done it justice because I'm forced to summarize and give a weather report. But there were so many more little things that happened that were just incredible. And honestly, there's nothing quite like getting sick in a bamboo hut in the middle of freaking nowhere with minimal facilities and a chorus of roosters cheering you on.

Second Week Recap

Let's see what happened last week...

On Wednesday the other UNC students and I were invited to an evening reception for the Kenan Institute Asia, a SE Asian development foundation that is supported by UNC. It turned out to be really nice, and we were able to meet a lot of people involved in KIA as well as the US ambassador to Thailand. The following day, a few of us went to a presentation for one of their partner organizations that had interested some of our Thai friends. It was awkward because everything the director (American businessman) said had to be translated into Thai. It seemed to us that he was frustrated with not being able to understand the Thai students, who spoke either in Thai or broken English, and didn't regard the fact that English was their second or third language. This made me think about the effect of language barriers on international businesses. With the majority of the world business environment controlled by English speakers, are intelligent people (and their ideas) being left out or dismissed because their English is imperfect?

On Friday, we went on a UNC-sponsored bike tour of Salaya (the town where our school is). It began at 6am, so naturally we complained nonstop for the entire week prior, but it turned out to be very fun. We biked 56km total and stopped at a nice market and a park. After the bike tour, we were too tired to do much, but we instead made plans for a well-earned "spa day" the next day. A bunch of girls from the house and I went out to Bangkok to a cute little spa and had massages and pedicures (yes, I had a pedicure. And my feet were gross because in Buddhist/Thai culture you take off your shoes when entering homes or holy places, causing your feet and shoes to be perpetually dirty. (In Buddhism, the head is the holiest part of the body, and the feet are the lowest.)) Anyway, we had a lovely time chatting and sitting around and sipping coffee and tea. The total price came to 320 baht, or about $10.

Obviously, after such a highly concentrated day of girly activity, I needed to balance my chi and return to my roots. I woke up at 6:00am on Monday morning to watch the NFC championship game (skipped out on the 3am Patriots game, though it was a tough decision). It was well worth it. Due to a convenient, well-timed motorcycle taxi delay, I managed to see the end of the game before going to class.

School is still going well. Classes here are much less organized, and it is frustrating at times because the material is really interesting but the classes don't seem to have depth or plans. I went to volleyball practice yesterday and am thinking about playing on the team here, but it would take up a lot of time that I could be spending exploring/traveling. This weekend, we are headed to Chaing Mai in northern Thailand. We'll take the overnight bus tomorrow night and probably return Sunday night or Monday morning.

I believe that is all. Here's a picture of a few of us (including all four UNC girls) at the school coffee shop on the first day of school. (Our pins are on the wrong side because the people at the international relations office told us wrong. For shame.)

Pictures

Main street in Mae Sot












Schoolchildren in Myawadi, looking over the edge of a hilltop temple.












Wat Sa Si, at Sukothai Historical Park












I also forgot to mention the refugee camp that was near our guest house in Mae Sot. It was very jail-like, and I found it extremely disturbing to see people caged in like that. From what people told us, when the Thai government catches illegal refugees, they send them to these camps (picture a smaller, jail-like version of the refugee camp in Blood Diamond). If the refugees can't pay their way out, they are eventually turned over to the Myanmar government. It's a generally depressing scenario, and again, totally different to actually see in person. And we thought US immigration policy was bad!

On the Border

This weekend I went on what is best described as “not your average first weekend vacation.” I wasn’t originally planning on going anywhere, but one of my housemates had to make a border run to get a new 30-day visa (very complicated) and needed some company on the journey… as most of the rest of the house was headed to the beach to party into a drunken stupor. One of the other guys in the house has a sister who lives and works in the town of Mae Sot, which is close to the Burmese border, and suggested that as our destination. I was definitely not planning on going to Myanmar, but I wound up really liking Mae Sot for its lively and unique mix of cultures.

(FYI, Myanmar is the country formerly known as Burma, and most people there are Burmese. The government is doing an ethnic purging of sorts, and many Burmese refugees flee to Thailand and work for very (VERY) low wages.)

We took an overnight bus on Thursday night and arrived early the next morning. After exploring Mae Sot for a little while, we headed to the border for the visa run. Typically, the Thai-Myanmar border is not exactly friendly, but this particular area has a safe land crossing that allows for a day-pass into the town of Myawadi. We walked across the “friendship bridge” over a river and arrived in Myawadi. Even just looking across the bridge, you can see a drastic contrast between the two countries. Myanmar is very poor and underdeveloped. Where Mae Sot has tall buildings and lots of motor vechicles, Myawadi has small village housing and saamlaw, which are 3-wheeled man-powered vehicles (basically pedaled rickshaws). Only the main road was paved, and poorly, with the rest of the streets being dirt paths. We were immediately hounded by saamlaw drivers and various people (Westerner = $), and we eventually gave in and let some drivers take us around to a couple temples and a market, which was a good experience. We met some schoolchildren who were just about the sweetest kids ever (didn’t speak English), and other than that we generally felt really out of place. I was relieved to return to Thailand, although I am very glad to have seen the country and met the people that we met along the way. It is the type of thing that you don’t really understand until you see it in person, and it puts everything else (especially Bangkok and our school’s suburb of Salaya) in perspective. We also got to talk to some really interesting people, both in Myanmar and Mae Sot, including a wise-looking man at our guest house who has family in Myanmar and described it as the “safest country in Southeast Asia, because the government is too busy policing its own people to bother with foreigners.” Ponder that one for a bit.

On Saturday morning, we took a Burmese cooking class at a really cool non-profit shop in Mae Sot called the Borderline shop. It sells goods made by Burmese refugee women and donates the proceeds to community organizations. Most Burmese food is vegetarian (likely since they’re so poor) and full of potatoes, which was a nice contrast from Thai food. The dishes we made were really good, and we enjoyed chatting with the cooks about various Thai-Burma issues. The cook, Bo Bo, took us to the market and introduced us to a variety of “foods”, the most interesting of which was a type of egg called hundred-year-old eggs, which are normal eggs that are buried for 10 days in a mixture of dirt, marble, and horse urine and then dyed pink. So if you ever see a pink egg in Thailand, be warned. The inside is black, and I suppose it doesn’t taste too bad if you can get past the fact that it’s black and was basically marinated in grossness. Yeah.

After the cooking adventure, we took a van and then a bus to Sukothai, the ancient capital of Thailand, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. On Sunday morning, we took a sawngthaew (pick up truck with benches in the back) to the old historical park, rented bikes, and biked around the park, which is full of ruins of ancient wats. It was really nice, and hopefully I can get my pictures to upload. After another bus-catching-and-connecting adventure, we arrived back at our house around 12:30am, just in time for me to follow a little bit of the Colts-Chargers game online (SO weird to have football going on in the middle of the night!).

During the course of the weekend, we took just about every form of transportation available in Thailand (except train). This included 3 different classes of bus, taxi, sawngthaew, saamlaw, tuk tuk (motorized version of saamlaw), and one very packed and cramped van. We also usually ride to school on the back of motorbike taxies, which are super fun and only slightly scary when riding side-saddle in a skirt. The VIP and 1^st class busses were very nice, and the 2^nd class bus wasn’t bad until they brought out little stools and sat people all the way up the aisle (talk about a safety hazard). It’s a good thing we weren’t claustrophobic or sick.

This was a long post, but I’ve been getting a lot of positive blog feedback, and I wanted to be more detailed. Pictures to follow... if I can get this blasted internet to work with me. I don’t have any uniform pictures yet – sorry!

First Week of Classes

I've officially finished my first week of class. They haven't been too bad so far. We're going to have to write a lot of research papers by the time we're done here, but most of the professors are really nice and understanding about travel demands and such. I'm taking Thai language and culture, environmental issues, women in Southeast Asia, and contemporary issues in Thailand. I have 3 classes MW, 1 on TR, and Fridays free.

One of the girls here had a Thai roommate at UNC, so we've been hanging out a lot with her and friends. All the Thai people I've met are so nice. And it's great to be spending a lot of time with them because they know more about what to do here, places to eat, etc. We're planning on going to some temples and seeing Thai boxing with them pretty soon. A lot of major events are stalled right now because of the death of the king's sister, and the temples have been packed. We'll probably try everything next weekend.

In the meantime, I've been exploring the area. I started to get headaches from the smells here (and I think a little jet lag) a few days into the trip, so I gravitated to familiar American food for a while. But now I've been eating lunch at school, which is delicious and cheap (usually around $1).

I've been having a lot of trouble with my email here. I can receive, but not send. So a humongous thanks to everyone that has emailed me - I'll respond soon! I'm frustrated with ITS, because when I sent in a help request, they responded with "please call us." Apparently my first sentence, "I am studying abroad in Thailand," and my phone number listing of "n/a" meant nothing to them (12 hour time difference and $2/min phone charge), and my problem itself prevents me from being able to email them back. Arrgh!

Either way, everything is still great. I feel like I've been here longer than a week because I've done so much already. I'll update and hopefully post some pictures soon. The internet here isn't strong enough to post or send video, unfortunately.

Why did the elephant cross the road?

We still don't know. But there's nothing like seeing an elephant saunter across an 8-lane highway to remind you that you're in another country.

Yesterday, the school took all the international students on a field trip to a place called the Rose Garden, which turned out to be very resort-like. I rented a canvas lounge chair and spent most of the day relaxing, as I'm just now starting to feel confused and jet-lagged.

That afternoon, we watched an elephant show and a Thai cultural show. The music and instruments reminded me of Gamelan. The show also had Thai Boxing and sword fighting. I'm posting a video from part of the elephant show because it made my day. (I'm thinking the music is the Thai equivalent of Ace of Base.)

Speaking of music, I've been surprised at how much American music there is here. They have all of the current pop music and play adapted versions of a lot of American hits (we heard an elevator jazz versions of Whitney Houston and Boys II Men yesterday, and Christmas music all over the place). The other day we went into a small shop that was playing a string of ultra-American songs - Starts and Stripes Forever, Yankee Doodle Dandy, etc. (...?...)

The site isn't letting me upload the video right now, so I'll try again later. Hopefully it'll work, because it's great.

Happy New Year!

Of course, this was the most lackluster new year ever. I didn't even notice when the plane crossed the international date line ... we were somewhere between Alaska and Siberia. However, later a Japanese flight attendant went up and down the whole plane passing out little bottles of wine, then mixed nuts, then cheese and crackers, wishing everyone "happy new year!" It was great.

Anyway, now I'm in Thailand! The flights weren't too bad. We got to the house around 2am last night (the "morning" of the 2nd), slept about 5 hours, and then went to Bangkok today to explore. We started at a mall called Siam Paragon, which is huge and very Western, and then walked around outside for a while. There is a place called Big C that is a lot like Target, and I've decided that it's my favorite place ever. Most stuff is really cheap here. I think I spent 20, maybe 25 bucks all day - 2 meals, coffee, cab rides, a Thai sim card, and tons of stuff for the room/house. So far I've noticed that people are really nice, driving is insane (lanes, signs, and laws are optional) and so is trying to walk across streets, and my tolerance of spicy food is not adequate (but will improve).

I'm staying at the international house at Chaiyapruk Village, with other international students (as the name suggests). It's been great so far. We have orientation tomorrow. I have solid wireless in my room, so I can still spend countless evening hours sitting at my computer... it's like I never left. Only difference is Google now comes up in Thai. Hopefully I'll get out more, though. :)

I don't know how often I'll actually update this thing, but I figure I'll at least post a picture or two when cool things happen. So stay tuned...