Weekend trip to Burma

I am happy to now find myself safe and sound in my bed at the YMCA in Chiang Mai after the short but exhausting weekend I just survived. The visa run I needed to do in Burma led me and two friends on a weekend trip to the northern city of Chiang Rai, known locally as the smaller and cooler version of Chiang Mai. We got in Friday night just in time to check out the night market and order some spring rolls, fried squid, and beer while listening to the live amateur band playing for the central eating market.

Saturday morning the three of us had the great idea to rent motorbikes and explore the nearby hill tribe villages armed with only an almost-decent map and a distaste for organized tour groups. The adventure we found ourselves on once we took a turn-off at a sign to see a waterfall was at times thrilling and other times frightening to the point I seriously doubted our safety in the remote area. The roads were completely washed out for long stretches at a time, forcing us to basically dirt bike in our automatic mopeds. The hills we passed through, however, were absolutely breathtaking and the ethnic Karen, Akha, and Lahu villages we saw were so traditional and poor that I was surprised we had found something that seemed so untouched by modernity. About halfway along our route we came across what the map had labeled a "bike bridge." We didn't know before then that bike bridge meant a four foot wide suspension bridge made from rotting wood slats and sparse cable "railings" over a rushing river. After we saw a few villagers cross on their motorbikes we had almost gotten up the courage to just push ours across when some understanding man came running over and offered to drive ours across himself. We were incredibly thankful and impressed as he easily steered straight across the bridge. The following return route of our loop turned out to be much easier and we were relieved to ride on cemented roads that still traversed through small villages. On our return to Chiang Rai we headed to the Saturday night walking street market where we shopped around and eventually tried the infamous Southeast Asian fruit durian. I am not quite sure how to describe its pungent smell and taste and will leave it up to everyone to try it for themselves.

This morning we left Chiang Rai for Maesai, a Thai border town to Burma. 500 baht got us a one-day visa and we walked across the river bridge that acts as a crossing for about 3,000 Thai and Burmese everyday. The few hours we spent within Burma were enough to visit a couple temples and pagodas, that turned out to be very different from Thai Buddhist art and architecture, wander around a few streets, and order a delicious lunch of goat curry, rice, soya bean soup, and this funny traditional salad of fermented tea leaves and shallots. Later while waiting for our four hour bus ride back we relaxed with a Thai iced tea and a Thai massage to ease the back/neck pain of our motorbiking adventures. It is getting late now though and I am supposed to be teaching English again tomorrow but have not prepared anything for my lesson yet!

Field trip to an organic farm

It's been a long day here and I am ready to read myself to sleep after capping the night with a beer and friends planning our trip for the weekend. My team taught an English class to a group of Thai students today as part of our training and I got to do the listening comprehension lesson. I actually really enjoyed it even though I won't really be teaching much at the ngo. When we got done at 5pm VIA had organized for us to visit an organic farm outside of the city. An expat friend of VIA has started a really cool farm that emphasizes sustainability and enviromentally friendly farming methods while producing over fifty varietys of fruits, vegetables, and edible plants on just one acre. He gave us a tour of the farm and showed a lot of knowledgeble in explaining his work spreading methods to the surrounding farms, his employment of Shan refugees from Myanmar and their general condition in Thailand, and the interesting details of strategic green farming. Just being in Thailand it was funny to hear his commentary on international politics and liberal cynicism of all of the problems caused by capitalism in the world. Moving on to dinner at our host's home, his family cooked us an amazing assortment of dishes from the fresh produce straight from his gardens. The stir fried morning glory, rose flavored rice, spicy Thai salad, vegetable curry, and slightly fried balls of tofu were truly remarkable. By tomorrow night, however, I will be much closer to the border with Myanmar and the local food is supposed to be much closer to Indian fare.

Photos of Thailand

Muay Thai Boxing

The other night a few of us volunteers decided to attend one of the Muay Thai boxing matches that had been advertised in fliers all over Chiang Mai. The match started around 9pm and we set up with some Singha beers at a table with a good position facing the boxing ring. While I am in no way a fan of any sort of professional (or unprofessional for that sake) fighting, it was interesting to see the cultural side of this national sport. Each match began with the fighters doing a ceremonial warm-up dance around the ring, bowing to the referee and it seemed crowd also. There were seven matches total, beginning with the least experienced and building up into the better fights, and each match consisted of five rounds to determine the winner. Fighters threw punches, kicks to the head, and elbows and knees to the torso seemed a preferred hit. Surprisingly, and somewhat disturbingly, several matches were between young boys just ten years old, accompanied by loud, drunk Westerners cheering them on to beat each other up! There was also one "Lady Fight" and one where four random audience members volunteered to fight each other blindfolded in front of everyone, quite a scene especially when the referee got punched in the side of the head. The last two matches were really the only two that displayed any skill but the atmosphere of gambling Thai, drunk Westerners and a very unsuccessful female Thai MC made for an interesting night. At least I can say that I have seen the spectacle of this popular Thai martial art now.

Orientation begins!

Last night Ceci and I arrived in Chiang Mai, marking the end of our 2 1/2 weeks of wandering travels and the beginning of my orientation for VIA (Volunteers in Asia). Starting the program off on a fun note before the packed full days of TESOL/cultural/NGO work training ahead of us, the VIA directors gave us a funny scavenger hunt around the Chiang Mai today that included getting a Thai massage at the Women's Prison, photos with locals and at sights around the city, learning Thai phrases, and trying different local foods. Exhausted afterwards, Ceci and I got some dinner (I finally caved for some Western food) and then we checked out the city's popular night bazaar. While we managed to grab a few souvenirs, it was an entirely overwhelming yet disappointing experience as we were constantly being harrassed by vendors whose goods all hinted at the same manufacturers. Still, the excitment of today has come with the relief to finally just be in a city without having to think about the next move or repacking my backpack and just knowing I will get to explore the city pretty thoroughly during these next couple weeks. It is also a lot of fun to see all the other participants after our San Fransisco orientation last April and meet the new program director for Indonesia, a real chill Aussie guy with years of experience in Indonesia! I was relieved to learn that noone else has been studying Indonesian and we have come together over discussions on the lack of amenities we will be facing, the trips we want to take, what we packed, and the immunizations we still should get. However, bright and early tomorrow morning mandatory TESOL training starts, even for the NGO volunteers like me, so its time for me to go to bed. I will be posting some photos to the blog soon though!

The hippie retreat of Pai

After a quick visit to the ruins of Sukothai, Ceci and I embarked on a grueling 10 hour bus ride to the little mountain town of Pai, northwest of Chiang Mai. The trip from Chiang Mai to Pai was only 80 miles but literally had 762 turns! It was the curviest road I have ever been on and half the people in our little mini bus got sick on the way up. I am a little nervous for our bus ride back today... We have spent the past two nights in this sleepy town and have enjoyed the laidback atmosphere and views of rice paddies below misty mountaintops. Ceci and I even braved it and rented a motorbike yesterday (for just $3) and went touring around the nearby mountain tribe villages, Shan, Lahu, Lisu, and Chinese. We met a Thai guy who used to lead trekking tours and he offered to show us around for the day for free, we learned a lot from him about the situation of refugees coming from Burma, the military’s presence in this border region and Thai politics related to Thaksin and the separatist movement in the south. This morning we fulfilled a highly anticipated trip goal and rode an elephant! While it was pretty cool to do, after 30 min we were happy to get off and rest our tired and sore legs. Afterwards we continued on to a local natural hot spring and relaxed in the streams and pools of warm water there. We have been doing our fair share of relaxing, another Thai massage and super cheap facial and now we are sitting at a café waiting before our bus departs.

Khao Yai National Park

Yesterday we embarked on a day-long tour/trek through the rainforest jungle of Khao Yai National Park, Thailand's oldest national park. Our uneasiness over completely changing the direction of trip to come here when we heard the north was very rainy subsided when we immediately started seeing wildlife in the park. After a three hour trek through the forest we had seen a number of gibbons, a giant black squirrel (looked more like a monkey), and a few hornbills (huge tucan-like birds). We got to relax by a waterfall for a while and then went to the highest point of the park for its view. However, all we saw there was some kind of poisonous green snake because we were quickly notified that someone had spotted a herd of elephants so we raced back down the mountain to find a herd of six elephants tromping around the jungle near the road! It was really amazing to spend so much time watching them- there was even a baby elephant! They were even kind of aggressive, stalking and chasing people and cars who stayed too close. Time to go now because this morning we have about seven hours of train/bus travel to get to our next destination: Sukothai, the first capital of Thailand.

Royal ruins and aggressive monkeys

We have now concluded the first half of our trip in Thailand with a 12-hour night bus trip back up to Bangkok, and after seeing ruins at two cities we are about to head east to Khao Yai National Park.

The last few days we stayed on an island on the Indian Ocean side of Thailand called Ko Phi Phi, famous for the containing the beach from the movie The Beach (which of course we took a day-long boat trip to see and snorkel around other islands). Ko Phi Phi was unfortunately equally overcrowded with tourists and the resulting Thai hawkers trying to get you to take their boat, or stay at their guest house, or buy their goods. But I still got to go diving again! The sea life was even more spectacular here than in Ko Tao and I got to see six turtles on my second dive as well as lots of pufferfish, barracuda, eels, lionfish and pipefish!

So today was pretty busy since we arrived in Bangkok around 6am and took a train to Ayuthaya, the former royal Siamese from the 14th to 18th C. The temple and palace ruins here were beautiful, and despite the scorching heat, we enjoyed not being surrounded tourists at every turn as on the islands. We then took a train to Lopburi, a city literally crawling with monkeys! They were on the telephone wires, on the sidewalk, in stores, and when we went to this old temple that was their main "habitat," Ceci and I each almost got attacked by monkeys that wanted our water bottles! It was almost creepy with about 100 monkeys all around us and just this little Thai boy with a stick offering to sell his services of "protection."

Now just waiting for the next train that will take us to Thailand's oldest nature reserve.

Relaxing on Ko Tao

We are on the island of Ko Tao in the south of Thailand now and have been enjoying the laid back atmosphere and tropical environment for a couple days now. Yesterday we hiked to a more secluded beach and did some snokeling before feasting on Thai food at a beachside restaurant. Today I went diving (for super cheap!) and got to see some amazing fish and coral, I even saw a whale shark that was like 10 feet long! Extra cool since it is really rare to see them and they are the biggest of all sharks around here. I am stoked and want to do some more diving when we go to Ko Phi Phi next... The place we are staying at is beachside and we have our own little bungalow. The restaurant/chill area is right on the beach so we have just been hanging out there and reading during our downtime, the weather has been amazing and not too hot like in Bangkok. Today being the Fourth of July we are pondering some sort of celebration, I might have a cheeseburger for dinner and I think it is possible to purchase sparklers around the town. Our place offers yoga classes to so we are going to head back for an evening yoga session right now, and possibly another five dollar, hour-long Thai massage.

Ceci's day in Bangkok

So Ceci arrived late last night and I walked her around some of the nightlife here, pointing out the numerous wasted foreigners stumbling around and aggressive street vendors. This morning we got up early and took a river boat to Chinatown to explore the markets and then showed Ceci some of the temples in Bangkok's historical district. During our wanderings we tried some dragonfruit juice that was bright purple and a spicy seafood dish from a street vendor. It's just a couple hours until our night bus to southern Thailand and its tropical islands and we are debating the possiblity of Thai massages...