Chang Mai Tri

My only full day to explore Chang Mai was pretty stunted. I woke up late (which was totally necessary) and daddled on the internet for a while. I came across an e mail from a good friend from home, Jason Matsch, which seemed a bit downtrodden. The intimate details of the email are unimportant, but he pointed out to me that my blog had become a bit superficial (which I, too, felt it was becoming), that it has basically turned into recap on what I’ve down and not why and my reactions/reflection. In my haste to continually play catch up, I have begun to leave out the most important part—no more, my friends; it will now be a healthy mix of the two. Hope you’re happy, Jason ☺

After my morning run, I attempted to find one of the orphanages I wanted to work at (or told I could volunteer short term services, rather). No such luck. I talked to two nice Thai men who drew me a little map to where the house really was, then they helped me get a taxi truck to the Doisuthep Temple which is located on top of the local Mountain This is where a white elephant died carrying a golden Buddha statue, thus making it the “chosen” place for the statue to eternally rest. Honestly, I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe the amazing temples in Bangkok and Kyoto jaded me; don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful, meticulously decorated shrines and hand painted murals with a large balcony view point looking out over the city. The temple itself was lined with bells to ring. My favorite part was an unnoticed shrine off to the side in the midst of constrution. Two men were sitting outside delicately painting the tiniest details on wooden panels in gold paint. Their patience and precision is outstanding. What they were slowly painting covered every crevace and wall of the temple area—the time and labor that must’ve taken! I rode back down the long windy mountain road in the back of the truck taxi with a family, whose mother held a bag to her mouth and was heaving due to car sickness (the road is not easy for those with a weak stomach) and an older man with a toung Thai girl who spoke no English. At first, I was disgusted and thought he should feel embarrassed or ashamed (this is a very common occurance in Thailand) but now I don’t know how to feel. It’s quite sad, that way of life that seems to start out with only desire, no communication or common understanding besides pleasure and the pleasure of money. I wonder what these men and women do feel, what it takes to buy and to be willing to sell yourself.

I found the other orphanage but couldn’t help out because the kids were eating. They told me that I could come back any day at five pm in order to play with then for an hour or so. I, instead, tried to take myself to the night bazaar, but suddenly felt very hot and dehydrated so I decided to go to my room and upload pictures and relax for the rest of the evening.

The following day, I took a Thai cooking couse from 9:30 am to 3 pm which was phenomenal! I was picked up, along with an older couple from the UK and another couple from Holland and we were brought to the market to buy our ingredients for the menus we picked (we each got to choose six dishes). Thai’s rarely use supermarkets, all of their food is fresh. I haven’t even seen one, to be honest. She showed us around and explained different types of mushrooms and herbs and what they’re used for. We were then driven back to her home where she has an outdoor cooking school where we each had our own station. First, we each picked a curry and made the paste by hand—I chose green, currently my favorite though I’ve yet to really try any others. You get a morter and pestle to grind up the chilis, onions, and other such ingredients depending on your recipe, until they become a paste. It took forever! I have so much appreciation fo the work they put into their food. After, we went through four dishes we had chosen and then ate them all—Delicious! Everyone shared their dishes and by the end were were extremely full but still had two more dishes to prepare. After, I was so full I went back and took a nap. I woke up three hours later and went to the night bazaar for maybe an hour until I realized I was still too full to function. and went back to sleep.

The next morning I had to get up at 5:30 am to get ready to be picked up for my flight of the Gibbon trip! A group of eight of us went 45 minutes out of the city to do a 2km series of flying foxes over the tree tops of the jungle. The view was increidible! We were so high up you couldn’t even see the ground. They fed us a local cousine lunch of curry and vegetable and fruit before having us hike up a local waterfall (nothing like what I was looking at in New Zealand or Ecuador, but pretty nonetheless) and then brought us back to Chang Mai. There was a nice odler couple from Minneota in my group as well as a couple from Holland and three people from New Zealand who I got close with. Lilly gave me a lot of advice about India because she lived in Goa for 3 months. After I got back I went for a run which was ridiculously hot since it was two in the afternoon. I ran around a track where there was a group of older men wlkaing on as well; they kept giving me the thumbs up sign when I passed—so cute. I then met up with Kelly, she’s a friend of Dr. John who I had met during the Tokyo Santa Con Pub Crawl. She is living in Chang Mai studying Thai massage; we went to the nearby orpahanage Bahn Ging Kaow to play with the children for a couple of hours. There were between 16 and 20 kids from the ages of two to six. They were so happy and kept wanting to be held. I always had atleast one hanging on me. A little boy sat in my lap for probably twenty minutes—not doing anything but watching everyone else play. There aren’t as many adults as kids, obviously, so I don’t think they’re used to having extensive individual attention like average children in a nuclear home—they don’t always have a lap to sit on. I did learn that next time I should remove my jewelry because they kept trying to take it and play with my rings and necklaces. Also, no tube tops, it may be hot but they try and pull it down (There really aren’t that many busty Thai women). We went to the local food stall market across the street for some food after the kids were shuffled inside to free them from the mosquitoes and the met up with Lilly, Katie, and Quinn whom I had met during the flight of the Gibbon. They were at a Vegetarian Restaurant and bar called THC..a hippy place with Rastafarian flags and Bob Marley posters everywhere. We sat on the floor at a low table and drank beer and consumed vegetarian curry. Lilly and I got into a big Buddhist discussion because, though I understand the fundamentals of the religion, I can’t quite grasp the translation from Buddha’s findings and teaching into todays form of practice. The massive excessive temples seem, to me, to be the antithesis of his teachings. isn’t the point enlightenment, a mental goal for oneself and the bettering of humanity? Why th excessive displays, the offering of gifts to statues? This seems contradictory to me. I actually just purchased a book “What the Buddha Taught” that should ease my confusion.

Afterwards, we went to a few bars. Quinn purchased a round of drinks, which we were unaware of, so when they arrived on the bar we hightailed out of there because we thought they were forcing us to drink since we were using the pool table. Kelly ran back to get us and we got back in time to see Quinn getting yelled at by the Lady Boy bartender—she hated him for the rest of the night. We finished our drinks and went to another bar where I got into an argument first with an older Brittish ex cop because he was saying “Oh, now we know someone is getting high in the white house” I was livid. What does that mean? He argument was basically because Obama is black; how racist! He said that he was happy with the decision and excited to see him in the White House, but the fact that his intial compliment was a possible drug habit was appalling. Then, a US ex marine got into the conversation and it somehow turned into a quarrel concerning homosexuality in the army. He was trying to convice me that it was the law to transfer someone out of your squad if they’re gay soley because they are “a f*gg*t”—you’re KIDDING me!!!??? You mean to tell me, that if someone has been working next to you for maybe five years, the best person on your team, has even saved your life, and you find out he’s gay…you move him???

yep.

OMG. Quinn had to drag me away because I was getting so heated. By then it was 3 in the morning and time for bed.

FOOD CORNER

100 Year Egg—The outside is dyed pink to distinguish them from regular eggs and then inside is black and tastes and feels just like a hard boiled egg except the yold isn’t dry but quite creamy. The egg isn’t actually 100 years old; the nae has to do with the fermebtation process where it is buried with ashes for 100 days.

Taste:3
Aftertaste:1

Meal worms- Crunchy and VERY dry. These would make a fabulous bar snack.

Taste:2
Aftertaste:1