I arrived to Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand, last Thursday and felt very quickly the liveability of the city. Nobody came rushing at me at the airport to harrass me to stay at their hotel, the cabby brought me just where I wanted to go without trying to charge me too much. I was like, "Where am I? Did I leave Asia?" I hope that wasn't an un-PC thing to write. I celebrated the comfortable feeling by renting a room here for a month, even though if I have no idea if I'll actually stay here that long. I wanted to have a home base away from my cousin's house in Bangkok, cause that city just aint my cup of tea. The mountains suit me much better. The day I arrived, I booked a trek to ride some elephants and visit waterfalls. Our tour guide's name was Mr. P, who I found very irritating at times, but memorable. He kept on exclaiming, "Oh my Buddha!" and then pretending that he saw a poisonous snake or a crocodile and shot his slingshot at the imaginary animal. After riding the elephants and swimming in the waterfalls we hiked to a "hill tribe" village to spend the night. It was a Karen village, a tribe that fought for an independent state within Burma but was never granted it from the military government. Arriving there reminded me of being dropped off at my Peace Corps site, and I imagined what it would be like to spend two years there instead of just a night. How random an experience the Peace Corps was. Instead of bonding with the village kids, things stayed quite superficial. We were unable to talk to anyone there since we don't speak Thai, but the kids were trained to come sing us songs at night around a bonfire and then they collected money. Mr. P just had to say the magic word, "education" and all of the westerners opened up our wallets. Where the money was actually going...who knows. "Education."
Oh, another great phrase that can't be attributed to Mr. P, but to Thailand in general is "same same but different." When someone asked Mr. P, "Are we hiking to the same waterfall tomorrow or a different one?" He said, "Same same but different." I used the phrase today when someone asked me how the buddhist temple that I visited was. "Same same but different." It was a temple, slightly different from the others I've seen, but the same.
I slept surprisingly well on the hard floor with mats that night and the next day we went rafting down the river in boats that were made of bamboo shoots barely bundled together. Seated on the boats while two guys did the oaring, our butts were getting extremely wet, fully underwater at times. (I'm not sure if you could visualize that, no, not my butt, but the structure of the boat.)
Fast forwarding back to Chiang Mai, I have spent quality time with my friend Rachel from Washington, DC who is also living in the area. She and I are taking Thai language lessons twice a week with an awesome tutor. Me likey. Chan chop mahk mahk. This is the first country in Asia I've visited where I'll be able to put together whole sentences instead of just words or phrases. On Sunday there was an awesome outdoor market where there were incredible treats for the senses: tastes, smells, sights, sounds. The best part of this place is that there are so many foreigners that nobody sticks out and. Going shopping at an outdoor market completely at ease was a pleasant experience.
I met an Indian/Israeli girl on Sunday who is in a similar boat to me: a 29 year old who was doing well in her life but decided to leave her job, take a break and travel for a couple of months. Today we visited the zoo and noticed how different each animal was. The flamincos slept on one foot, for example, just like in the Three's company show. There were also these freaky-looking dinosaur looking birds with red and blue heads. It made me think of people too, how different we are and what makes one person happy isn't at all what another person is about.
My "job" opportunity, which is really just volunteerism, has not panned out yet, and I can't say that I mind. I just had dinner with two people working for NGOs in the area and they were complaining about how frustrating their work. Tomorrow, I'll be visiting orchid farms, more waterfalls and going white water rafting for the days afterwards. Maybe by next week they'll get their act together to start exploiting me for free labor.
Oh, another great phrase that can't be attributed to Mr. P, but to Thailand in general is "same same but different." When someone asked Mr. P, "Are we hiking to the same waterfall tomorrow or a different one?" He said, "Same same but different." I used the phrase today when someone asked me how the buddhist temple that I visited was. "Same same but different." It was a temple, slightly different from the others I've seen, but the same.
I slept surprisingly well on the hard floor with mats that night and the next day we went rafting down the river in boats that were made of bamboo shoots barely bundled together. Seated on the boats while two guys did the oaring, our butts were getting extremely wet, fully underwater at times. (I'm not sure if you could visualize that, no, not my butt, but the structure of the boat.)
Fast forwarding back to Chiang Mai, I have spent quality time with my friend Rachel from Washington, DC who is also living in the area. She and I are taking Thai language lessons twice a week with an awesome tutor. Me likey. Chan chop mahk mahk. This is the first country in Asia I've visited where I'll be able to put together whole sentences instead of just words or phrases. On Sunday there was an awesome outdoor market where there were incredible treats for the senses: tastes, smells, sights, sounds. The best part of this place is that there are so many foreigners that nobody sticks out and. Going shopping at an outdoor market completely at ease was a pleasant experience.
I met an Indian/Israeli girl on Sunday who is in a similar boat to me: a 29 year old who was doing well in her life but decided to leave her job, take a break and travel for a couple of months. Today we visited the zoo and noticed how different each animal was. The flamincos slept on one foot, for example, just like in the Three's company show. There were also these freaky-looking dinosaur looking birds with red and blue heads. It made me think of people too, how different we are and what makes one person happy isn't at all what another person is about.
My "job" opportunity, which is really just volunteerism, has not panned out yet, and I can't say that I mind. I just had dinner with two people working for NGOs in the area and they were complaining about how frustrating their work. Tomorrow, I'll be visiting orchid farms, more waterfalls and going white water rafting for the days afterwards. Maybe by next week they'll get their act together to start exploiting me for free labor.
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