Constitutional day - another day off!

So yes, I've had 2 days off in the last week. Not so shabby... My coordinator Charin asked me to join him and his family on day excursion to Doi Mae Salong, which was incredible. Mae Salong is a village up in the mountains on the Burmese border. It is famous for its tea business run by the Chinese. We made several pitstops as shown by the pictures below.



Hot springs...

Chiang Rai winter morning mist...

the orange grove where we stopped and took way too many pictures!

With Charin, his wife and his son's friend.

With Simon, and Fame (Charin's son) in the pick up truck!

On the temple balcony overlooking Burma...

Right there, that's Burma!

refueling!

Mae Salong from above.

We stopped at a tea plantation and again took way too many pictures!

She is standing up higher than me, and I still look HUGE!

Koh Samet - do you want to go to the seaside?

Last weekend, I had Friday off for the King's birthday and decide to travel far and wide. I took the overnight bus to Bangkok on Thursday night, met up with my friend Steve there, and he and I took a bus and a ferry to the lovely island of Koh Samet. Not much to be said about this except for the fact that I had an amazing time with Steve and running into other friends. I also forgot how much I love the ocean. It was a nice little prep for my trip down south to the islands with the family in 2 weeks, I cannot wait!!


Sipping blue margheritas on the beach...

On the ferry ride over with Steve.

Thawangpah - weekend retreat!

A couple weekends ago, I went to visit my friends who are teaching in a town called Thawangpah in the Nan province. Only one bus ventures out there from Chiang Rai a day, so my trip was short, but well worth it! In fact the bus ride in itself was an adventure. We cruised through the northern mountains, the road is infamous amongst northern Thais for car sickness. They hand out vomit bags on the bus and the girl sitting next to me on the way there threw up the entire way. The road is quite spectacular though. With my ipod on, I couldn't be happier. The way back was a bit more difficult as the bus was packed and I stood for 2 hours in the mountains. I learned to appreciate the beauty in that though after I told myself "Juliet, you are standing in a packed bus amongst Thais, high up in the mountains on the border of Thailand and Laos..!" I know that in a year when I'll be sitting in my cubicle in my 9 to 7 job (that is if I find a job), I will do anything to be standing on a bus in the Thai mountains!
The day spent in Thawangpa itself was lovely. My friend Marianne gave me the grand tour on her motorbike. That night, it was freezing, but we all went out to a nice dinner and warmed up to Tom Kha Gai soup and beer.



Attempting to capture bus ride home back!

Enjoying the Thai beer.

With Marianne in the rice paddies.

My little friend Luis

Little anectode:
As a fun little project to get my students more immersed in so-called American culture, my fellow foreign teachers and I decided to have our students choose American or foreign (fareng) names. My roommate googled the top 100 most popular names in the US. I guess it was not surprise when a good third of the names were "Alejandro, Pedro, Juan, Maria, Gabriela..." I should have taken these names off the list for confusion's sake, but out of laziness and perhaps interest I kept them on. A part of me was curious to see what names the children would gravitate towards. A few of my boys chose names like Angel and Alejandro. These children can't even pronounce American names, should I really go through the complicated explanation of explaning how to pronounce these names? I decided to just pronounce my Angel like angel, the English...to avoid such confusion. One of my boys has chosen the name Luis. When I asked him his name he said "lu-CY," after a minute or so of trying to figure out this boy's name I realized he had chosen Luis. When I told him how to pronounce Luis, he insisted "Lu-CY." At this point, I was doubled over in hysterics. The whole class started laughing, and although they had no idea why I was, it was a bonding moment with my class. How do I explain to them that the list of names I had them choose from was .... well ... not so American afterall? I did try to explain that Lucy was a girl's name, but the boy insisted on it. Apparently, he loves the name Lucy. Hey, I love Lucy too, so Lucy he will be!

The political situation and more...

So apparently there is political unrest in Thailand. I use the word "apparently" because I only know this through my daily NYTimes emails that I could receive anywhere in the world, from my mother's worried emails to me, or a comment written on this blog... seriously! Up here in Chiang Rai, I feel no difference... not yet at least. I hardly speak a word of Thai and barely understand, so it's likely this is why I don't hear much of it. Actually, I lie... our director talked to us about what was happening in Bangkok yesterday , "Bombs, airport..." was the gist, lots of smiling. I looked at him seriously, and asked verrrryyy slowly, "Is it dangerous?" He responded keeping the huge grin on his face, "Yes (high tone) dangerous in Bangkok." The smiling is the Thai way, but nothing here is ever that serious it seems. I spoke to my friend in Bangkok who seemed utterly unaffected.
I do feel like I should start looking into a Thai lesson, just so I don't feel so isolated all the time. Yesterday, I got a 2-hour Thai massage in an untouristy part of town. The masseuse tried to speak to me and taught me a few words (Thai massage and Thai lesson in one for $6, not bad). I really need to start learning. I hate never understanding anything. I've always felt that I could eventually make out what is being said to me... but this... no, Thai is a whole other ball game.
Not being able to communicate is one of the most isolating and hardest things I've gone through.
Since being here, being alone has taken a whole new meaning. There are a few foreigners in town to talk to, but I spend a lot of time writing in my journal, reading, going on long walks, or blogging ;) It's definitely an interesting test I have found myself in. I have gotten good at having conversations with myself, being introspective about life etc. Just as long as I don't go crazy... maybe this loneliness will propel me forward or be more transformative than expected. Who knows?

Where I Live...Surrounding Chiang Rai...

Last weekend, I stayed in Chiang Rai. My friend Bertrand who is a French tour guide took us around on Sunday. We saw the White Temple, below. This temple was built by a famous Thai artist who sounds slightly out of his mind. He's very grandiose and apparently quite hauty. I'll admit his art is pretty cool though... The mural inside the temple is divided into 2 parts, the good side and the evil side. On the evil side, you can find Bush, Bin Laden, Zidane and Materazzi, the Twin Towers in flames, Neo from the Matrix... the list goes on. On the good side, only famous Thai people. Westerners didn't make it there.... Interesting...

Houses in a REAL Akha village...

Self-portrait after my 2 1/2 hour walk last weekend by myself on Saturday :)

Loy Kraton

La Kraton is a festival in all of Thailand that happened last week. It was nearly a week of festivities. On Tuesday, there was a parade through Chiang Rai. On Wednesday, we had dinner with our coordinator and his family. We lit hot air balloons and let them fly away taking away all of our sins in the last year. We also bought kratons (flowers with candles on them) and let them float off in the river also taking away all the bad energy we needed to let go of.