Sri Sangwan Waterfall, Pong Ang Hot Spring, and Chiang Dow Cave

We loaded up the cars at 8:50 AM and were ready to depart from the school at 9:00 AM. Today’s trip was to three different places, which is a way for the children to see more of the surrounding area near the school. We arrived at Sri Sangwan Waterfall after an hour and a half car drive; when we finished unloading the food from the cars that we picked up from a market along the way, I was ready to do some swimming. The waterfall was amazing because after getting in the water, I was able to climb my way up the different tiers of the waterfall (about 4 tiers). The water was warm enough that the children did not have a problem swimming in the water either though many of them did not want to put their heads under the waterfall; they all had a laugh when they saw my head disappear under the water. I took only one child to climb the waterfall with me, Ahtit who was also the only boy on the trip because the other boys had behaved badly during the week and were not allowed to go on the trip. I knew Ahtit was going to make sure the other children knew what they had missed because he was so excited to reach the last tier. After getting out of the water and drying off, the mat that was laid out for lunch was able to fit all of us for a nice picnic by the water. The meal, for the most part, was good, but I’m starting to get this feeling that the staff likes to see what kinds of food I will be willing to try, so they handed me deep fried chicken foot on a stick. I would say that there really is no taste difference from the legs and breast that I’m used to eating, but the chicken foot only had a few bites of meat that were edible (or if you were more daring you could eat the whole thing). After filling up with chicken and sticky rice, we made our way back to the cars to take a short drive of about 20 minutes to the Pong Ang Hot Spring. The hot spring had two pools that were for swimming and putting your feet in. I decided that putting my feet in the water was enough for me this time. The children had a different idea about swimming because they all decided that they would get in after one child, Praw, slipped and fell into the water. Since her clothes were wet and needed drying, she stripped down to her birthday suit. The other children thought that if she was in her birthday suit, why not all the other girls too (Ahtit had his clothes on). In less than one minute the Pong Ang Hot Spring had turned into the garden of Adam and Eve! The children were having lots of laughs and good times swimming, but unfortunately, all good times need to end. Everyone put their clothes on and made it back to the cars to drive a little further down the road back towards Starfish to visit the Chiang Dow cave. I enjoyed this place the most because I have never seen or imagined a place like this. The Chiang Dow cave was home to the Chiang Dow wat (surprisingly enough), and inside there were places where people were meditating. We walked about 200 meters through the cave to the Buddha that was lying down on its back. Inside, the cave was damp and cold, and there was water crystallizing down from the ceiling. The floor had rock in some areas and damp sand in others, so when we made it to the end I showed the children that they could write their names in the sand. After exploring inside the cave for about twenty minutes we walked back out to daylight and hung out by the fishpond near the entrance. I was able to see some of the largest (or most overfed) fish that I have seen so far in Thailand. I could not believe how many of these fish were well over 40-50 lbs, and imagine that even after being fed by five people, they were all ready to eat again seconds later when another group came to feed the fish. While watching the fish, one child, Tam, who thought that hanging her foot over the fence was a good idea, managed to have her sandal fall off into the water. If it were not for the quick reactions of the staff, I was sure that the fish were going to eat the sandal, but after two attempts the sandal was rescued from the fishpond. I knew this would be the end of fish watching for fear of losing more sandals, so I took my pictures and we headed back to the car.

My First Night Staying in Chiang mai

After the four-hour bus ride back from the border town of Mae sai on the VIP bus, which is a very comfortable ride, though very long, I arrived back in Chiang mai at 7:30 PM. This was too late to catch a White Song Toa back to Mae Tang so I was expecting a ride back from the school. Having spent the whole day trying to beat the clock, I just wanted to lie down in my own bed to sleep. As the title of this entry suggests, none of that happened. I waited for ten minuets and decided it had been a long enough time, so I called the school to see if anyone was on their way. After hanging up the phone I came to the conclusion that I should find a place to stay in Chiang mai and go back the next morning on a White Song Toa. I was nowhere close to being prepared to spend the night; all I brought with me was my wallet, backpack, travel book and a map of Chiang mai. If you have ever had that feeling of just being dirty after spending all day at an amusement park, I was feeling just that. I looked through my travel book and found a guesthouse called the Supreme House. The only way I chose this place over any other guesthouse is that my book said the owner was very helpful. I called over and was able to reserve the last room in the place, so I felt my daylong bad luck was beginning to turn. I caught a motorcycle ride right to the front door for 40 baht ($1.00). As it was my first time checking into a guesthouse, I wasn’t sure what to expect but the owner, Remy, an Irishman complete with accent, showed me to my room. The room was fine and he gave me what seemed like a reasonable price of 150 baht ($3.75) for the night. My guide book, Let’s Go Guide to Thailand listed the price as 100 baht for a single ($2.50) but since the book is two years old, I decided not to try and bargain for a better price. I sat down in the waiting room and chatted with a few other people about what I was doing in Thailand and my day’s trip to the border when I discovered to my amazement that Remy, the guesthouse owner, had also spent his day going to the border and back for his visa renewal. I sort of expected I might then get a discount since we shared the same feelings of tiredness! Since I was in Chiang mai anyway, I decided to go to the Night Bizaar and see what all the fuss was about. The Night Bizaar is a crazy place with vehicles on the street zooming by every second, stands that sell everything from watches, pirated DVDs, and even lingerie for both men and women. The sidewalks are packed with people so you might have only a foot to squeeze by. I spent some time looking and found a few things I wanted to buy which I priced at different stands to come up with an average first asking price to begin the bargaining. Depending on the product, I was able to get at least 30-40% off the first asking price, which is a good deal in Thailand. It was getting late and I hadn’t eaten all day so I spent the next hour finding a place to eat as a lot of the food places were closing. Once I walked away from the Night Bizaar area, I was able to find noodle stands where I ordered my favorite Thai dish, fried rice and pork with one fried egg on top. Though the food was good, it didn’t beat the fried rice dish I can get in Mae Tang at my favorite restaurant. Since I planned to go back to the school early the next morning, I headed off to sleep. My evening in Chiang mai was interesting and full of new experiences but I prefer the Thai countryside and small villages like Mae Tang to the city life Chiang mai.

The Race to the Border and Back

I have never had to depend on public transportation so much in my life; I now know that I have been taking having a car for granted. On Wednesday morning I was driven to the local bus station in Mae Tang where I caught a White Song Toa for an hour ride to the Chiang mai bus station where I would catch a bus for the four hour drive to the border town of Mae sai that connects Thailand and Burma. I took this trip with Lawson as we both needed to have our visas renewed for another month. The trip to Chiang mai, which usually takes only an hour, took us about an hour and fifteen minutes. After we entered the Chiang mai city limits we only had exactly fifteen minutes to get to the bus station before we would miss our bus to the border. We thought that if we caught a Red Song Toa inside Chiang mai’s city limits that it would be faster, but since the Red Song Toa took the long way around to the bus station, we arrived five minutes too late to catch the bus. At this point I was disappointed, thinking if we had just done it differently, we still would have made it to the bus in time; nevertheless, Lawson and I decided that we would take the next bus at 9:30 AM, an hour and a half later than the first bus that left at 8:00 AM. Since I had some time to burn and I was in no mood to sit, I went for an ice coffee at a nearby store to cool down and sat around the bus station writing a few postcards that I needed to get in the mail that day. No sooner had I finished writing the last postcard and dropping them into the mailbox and the hour and half was up and we boarded the 9:30 AM bus. I don’t want to sound too snobbish, but the first bus was the VIP bus (the highest level of service), and since we missed it and were not reimbursed by the company, Lawson and I settled for the regular class for the 9:30 AM bus. I didn’t know what to expect in the regular class, but it turned out it was a lot better than riding a school bus for an hour. We were served a drink and a snack box; I didn’t care too much for the crackers. Though the weather outside was at least 90°F the bus was a cool 75°F. The time on the bus went rather slowly and when I finished reading what I had brought to read, I still had two hours left of driving. It is important to understand that the race to the border began the second we missed our first bus, but it did not hit me until I was on the second bus for four hours that I realized the time I would have at the border was starting to get cut shorter and shorter from the time of my return ticket bus ride back to Chiang mai (the one I bought previously for the first bus ride). I had hoped to spend some time at the border just to venture around, but that thought was quickly eliminated from my mind and I was really just hoping to make the return bus. By the time I arrived at our final destination, Mae sai’s bus station; I only had fifty-five minutes to make it to the border and back. Jumping off the bus in full sprint, Lawson and I were running, not to a Song Toa, based on prior experiences, but instead running to the back of a motorcycle taxi. The motorcycle taxi ride was about ten minutes, including two red lights that we stopped for even though there was not another car in sight. I was dropped off right at the border and I asked the driver to wait for me to return. As I made it to the front of the line, I was prepared for anything to happen that would slow me down. The way the border crossing works to renew your visa is that you need to be stamped out of Thailand, and cross the bridge which spans the river that separates Thailand from Burma. Then, upon arriving on Burma’s side of the border, you need to be stamped to enter the country and then pay $5 to be stamped out of Burma, and the funny thing is the stamping process is all done in this little room on the edge of the bridge. I accomplished what I needed to in Burma, which also included taking a quick picture of myself at the Burmese border, and then I took a quick look around from all directions on the bridge. I did all this with thirty minutes still to spare, though the next thirty minutes would test my patience and endurance. If receiving three stamps was not enough already, I needed to get another stamp to reenter Thailand, which would include my thirty-day visa. I filled out the visa application card and then waited in a line with fifteen people who were also getting their visas renewed. The clock was ticking and when I finally made it to the front, it had taken fifteen minutes due to the slow computers (a sign was posted telling everyone in line). By the time I made it out of the Thai border office I had thirteen minutes to catch the bus. The motorcycle ride back was a little different because both Lawson and I rode on the same bike, I was sitting off the back with my butt hanging halfway off while I held on for dear life with the little handles underneath me. The ride took about ten minutes as expected, and though it seemed impossible at first, I was able to make the bus with three minutes to spare, and it really was only three minutes because we left exactly on time at 3:15 PM.

A New Workshop (Business)

Since my arrival at Starfish I have not done a lot that I expected I would do, but instead I have ventured a little off the road less traveled. In just the past couple of days I have created a small workshop of three people working on building Montessori tools for the classroom. Though this might seem to be a small production process, the products that we produce are all cut on a homemade table saw, hand sanded and waiting to be painted on Thursday. I am trying to get a painter hired, but it will not be until Thursday that I will have the opportunity to convince the school that the person I have in mind should be paid for the work. It took me a little time to get the workshop going because it took some convincing of the teachers and the people that pay the workers, and if that was not hard enough, trying to manage the whole workshop when no one speaks English. I have figured out several ways around the language barrier, by using small words like big, small, yes, no, and drawing pictures, but the product always turns out the way I expected it to. There is one man named P-Song who has been the main builder, and we just laugh when we do not understand each other because we have both figured out that half the time we are thinking the exact same thing. There is still a lot to be done before the workshop goes into a full on production process, but in the final month that I am here I hope that we will produce more for the classrooms. I only hope that I can convince Richard Haugland that he has the finances, the manpower and tools to make Montessori classroom tools for all of Thailand.

Monks Have Birthday Parties, Too

Just when I thought being a monk had enough perks already, there was one perk that I did not know existed. On Saturday night I went to a monk’s birthday party, and it was not just any monk. The monk whose birthday it was, is the president of the largest wat that I have seen so far in Thailand. This wat has a bright blue roof with gold painted walls and is just 3 km (2 miles) away from the school. The birthday party had games, cheap food, and when I went up to the wat there were over 10,000 people there; this included farmers, hill tribe people, and locals. This occasion brought everyone together for a two-night event, although I was only there for the first night, if I had wanted to I could have slept at the wat as many people were planning on doing. I arrived where everyone was congregating and saw a structure that had thousands of 20 and 100 baht bills attached to it. I do not know what they planned on doing with all the money but on the second night there was going to be free food for everyone and a concert - the money had to go towards paying for something. I walked around, taking in the atmosphere, and stopped to watch some hill tribe men dance; this was more like fighting each other without ever hitting each other, all to the beat of drums. As I watched the dancing, a fireworks show went off just overhead. I was standing so close to the fireworks that sparks were falling less than 50 feet way, and not once did it cross my mind that this could be somewhat dangerous because I was too caught up in the moment; besides there were sparks that were landing right next to people. After the ten minute fireworks show I was able to get a view of the monk whose birthday I was celebrating because he was being carried high in the air on a large chair with bodyguards and hundreds of people gathered around that came to see him. He was throwing something to the crowd, but I was not able to get a clear picture of what it was, either way he was a very popular person. Though the party had not died down one bit I started back down the hill to the car, but not before I played the dart and balloon game. I was given eight darts for 20 baht ($0.50), but when I finally threw all the darts I had only popped three balloons, though even popping three balloons rewarded me with a writing pen for a prize. If this monk’s birthday is the largest birthday party I have ever attended, and he is just the head monk of the small town of Mae Tang, I wonder what the birthday party for the head monk of Chiang mai or Bangkok would be like!

Starfish’s Full Moon Party

Monday night we had a Full Moon Party at Starfish School. Since school was cancelled on Monday because of a national holiday, it was a wonderful reason to have a party. The party began with group games; the first game was to see how many pieces of clothing could be put on the body in two minutes, the second game was to have a balloon tied around your ankle, and while running around the room you have to pop other people’s balloons before yours was popped. The little children kept crying when their balloon was popped because they did not understand that popping the balloon was part of the game, so when their balloon was popped they thought someone was just being mean. The last group game was an obstacle course that involved spinning around a bamboo stick ten times, running across a balance beam, digging in the sand for a flag, swinging across on the swing, and finally, climbing a bamboo ramp to touch the top pole. For the most part, I think everyone understood the concept of an obstacle course, but the children still have a lot more to learn because they did not understand that it was timed or that you needed to touch the next person’s hand before you could go. After the group games we had several individual games for an opportunity to win prizes. The only catch was that the prizes were not candy, but prizes that did not cost anything (i.e. going camping in the tent, going on a bike ride, or pushing JR into the pool with all his clothes on). The last one became a hit and the following day I was pushed into the pool, but after I was pushed in some of the boys and girls wanted to go swimming with their clothes on, too. About seven children went swimming in the pool with all their clothes on and some of the maebans (house mothers) were not too excited about this, so some children were asked to get out right away. The boys, however, were not in trouble, so Lawson and I thought it would be a good idea to show them that if they lie on their backs we could launch them by swinging them by their hands and feet very far into the pool (sometimes landing on their stomachs). We also taught them how to tackle someone into the pool like they tackle in football. Back to the full moon party, after it was too dark to play any more games, everyone roasted hotdogs and sweet corn on excellent bamboo cooking sticks (corn is coming into season right now). When we were all full from eating, Richard Haugland explained to the children about what a full moon is and a little about why the moon is different sizes each night. Surprisingly enough, I remembered my middle school education, but I did learn that what makes a star a star is that it needs to produce its own light (i.e. the sun). As the children went off to bed I continued to sit around the fire to watch the moon and stars as the fire died down.

English Day Camp for Primary Level II

Thursday was a different school day schedule because today I was going to be an English teacher, not for the Starfish Country Home School children, but students in grades 4th, 5th, and 6th from the Pajeewangdaeng Wittaya School at the Starfish Country Home School site. I was a bit nervous about teaching because I had no idea what level the children were, and I received only a day’s notice for planning. I knew I was not alone because Lawson and Pauline, two other volunteers at Starfish School were also going to be teaching English in my group. The camp is an English Day Camp (for) Primary Level II students, and it is set up to be a day of fun for the students to learn a little more English. They arrived in four groups of about thirty students each so there were about 120 students total plus the teachers that accompanied them. After the students arrived, the opening ceremony began and it was nice because it really helped to set the mood for the rest of the day. The head teacher, the Mae Tang mayor and Richard Haugland all spoke a few words about how the students were lucky to have native English speakers on hand today to help them and even though they would not become fluent, they would become a little bit more confident (I was also becoming a little more confident at hearing words like this). The opening ceremony ended and the four groups were identified - the Red Group, Blue Group, Pink Group and Green Group. Each group was to visit each station for about 30 minutes each. The stations were the Speaking Station (my group), Reading Station (Richard Haugland), Writing Station (Gap, Haugland’s translator) and Dancing, Listening and Singing Station (Izume, another volunteer, had to lead this group all by herself, so this became the joke of the day). Though each group did something a little different, my Speaking group had three smaller groups of ten where the students were able to work with Lawson, Pauline and me on English speaking questions (i.e. What is your name? What do you want to be when you are older? What is your favorite color?) After I spent a few minutes telling them the questions and what they meant, I then went around to each student in the semi-circle and helped them form a one-sentence response. The purpose was to help the students not just say one word answers, but to be able to say a whole sentence with the answer. At first, I could see that most students were nervous when the group of ten came over to me, so I helped them to relax by showing them that after introducing themselves they should also shake the other person’s hand using their own right hand. Most students thought this was funny and fun because they are so accustomed to bowing their head with their hands in front when introducing themselves and saying hello. I think I had to shake over a hundred students’ hands all during the camp’s day because they found it to be so much fun to shake my hand. A group of students would come up to me throughout the day and say, “Shake hand!” and each of them would stick their hand out. It was not until the very end of the day that some of the students began to have a strong handshake because I kept telling them that it was important to have a firm handshake when shaking another person’s hand. That was one trick I used to help the children feel more comfortable in my group, but I also made animal sounds to help with understanding animal names (they liked to hear my favorite animal because it is a pig, for which I snorted to give them the sound). The colors were also fun for them because I had them stand up if they were wearing the color that I either said or pointed to. It was fun to see how many did not stand when I named the color of their nametag, but I told them they should all stand up even when some did not, and they laughed at the idea. After getting through each of the four groups, I could tell that they began to open up a little more with each group and it also became easier and easier for me. When it was lunch break, I began to feel more like a celebrity because all the children wanted me to write my name on the back of their nametags. I found this to be funny and interesting, I was even asked to write my phone number (I gave them my American cell phone number, whether they understood it or not) and some even wanted my home address in America (maybe I will have a letter waiting for me when I get home). There were games in the afternoon and candy given to people that could answer the questions that were asked in English. I think that I ate way too much candy so by the time the closing ceremony rolled around, my stomach began to ache. The closing ceremony was nice, the students did short English skits and the Starfish Students did a dance that they had practiced at the beginning of the week. I was able to film a lot of this, so I hope to make a movie before I leave to give to both the schools. Each student at the Pajeewangdaeng Wittaya School received an Award of Achievement, which they all were very proud of receiving. I was also given a gift of appreciation at the closing ceremony and later, when I opened the gift, inside was a wooden box with a lid that slides open and an elephant covering on top. When I turned the box upside down it says “From: Pajeewangdaeng Wittaya School,” so I will always remember how much fun I had on this day. After all the fun at the English Camp had ended, my batteries had finally run out in both my camera and video camera, my stomach was starting to feel worse from all the candy, and after I signed all the name tags and shook everyone’s hand good-bye, I decided it was time to call it a day.

Going to the Zoo to See All the Animals and a Picnic at Doi Suthep

It was another Sunday, and the staff and I were ready to take the kids out on a day trip to see another part of Chiang mai province. The day before, we spent Saturday at the school where I finished some more painting and started my new project of building eight wooden boxes for the classroom. I was happy to go on today’s trip to the Chiang mai Zoo with a picnic lunch afterwards. After loading up the cars and vans with people, two vehicles went ahead to the zoo while the third went to the market to order food for the lunch later in the afternoon. After we arrived at the zoo we had to wait for twenty minutes before the third vehicle arrived. Not seeing any food in the car, I asked if there had been a change in plans but I found out our food was going to be delivered from the Mae Tang market at 10:30 AM. This type of planning is very strange, instead of buying the food in Chiang mai, it would be delivered from a town an hour away. I only mention this because, even though it seems like a minor problem; this type of planning takes place often in Thailand and doesn’t always seem to make the best sense. We gathered on a zoo tram that would take us to one area of the zoo, drop us off and then we would wait for another tram to pick us up and drive us to another part of the zoo. I say “parts of the zoo” because the zoo is enormous in size with at least sixty different animal exhibits to visit. Our first stop was to see the one-humped camels, bird atrium, orangutans, tigers and a panda (you had to pay an extra 100 baht ($2.50) per person to see the panda, so we skipped that). The orangutans were my favorite in this area of the zoo because it was fun to watch one that seemed to still be waking up from the morning and the other one that could not have been a more of a pain to someone that was still half asleep. The children and I thought it was fun to see the annoying orangutan have a lesson taught to him when he was splashed with water and had a bag thrown over his head to stop him from being a pain. We waited twenty minutes for another tram because it took an empty one to fit everyone in our group; next we went to the Children’s Zoo area. I was a little disappointed in this area because only three out of the twenty exhibits were open. Since the children do not need a lot to be entertained, there was no disappointment on their part, but I think feeding the spotted deer was the highlight for them. The deer were my favorite animal in the entire zoo because I have never been so close to a deer that I was able to touch their noses and antlers. I was also able to feed the deer; I thought that some could have used a little less feeding because a few seemed a little overweight, but it was so hard to resist feeding them after they stuck their mouths through the holes in the gate that I had to give them a treat. After feeding the deer, we waited about an hour for an empty tram but finally, after waiting so long, we just had to send the drivers in the group down to the parking lot ahead of us to get our own van and a car to pick us up. Since it took us so long to get a ride and it was already 11:00 AM, we had to call it a day at the zoo (I was hoping to see the hippos because ever since I was little, I have always enjoyed the hippo exhibits). Fortunately, the food was delivered later than 11:00 AM, so we did not have to have them wait. Rather than eating at the zoo, we decided to take our picnic up the mountain to Doi Suthep, which is a wat on the mountain that overlooks Chiang mai. I was happy to do this because this was another of the places I wanted to visit while in Thailand. When we arrived at Doi Suthep, we found a nice grassy area in the shade and had sticky rice and pork on a stick from the market. They ordered so much food that they gave me a bag of pork on a stick to myself, so it was my job to eat as many as I could and pawn the rest off on the children. After convincing the children that if they ate them they would become strong like me, I was able to empty the bag of pork on a stick in no time. After eating the picnic lunch, everyone lined up to see the wat. The key word is “up”, having eaten all the pork on a stick and sticky rice; everyone had to climb at least 150 steps to get to the top of the wat. I ended up carrying one girl, Prauew the second half of the way because there were too many steps for her to climb all by herself, plus I was trying to prevent the crying that could have come at any moment. The wat was very interesting; we all had to take our shoes off before entering, and inside were golden statues of Buddha everywhere with a center structure that was covered in gold leaf. The children made their way around the entire wat until they were inside one little room where a monk sitting on a chair was able to bless the children and they each received a string bracelet that represents good luck. I did not go inside because I was taking photos of the children along with other tourists who thought it was really cute to see all the little Thai children kneeling and bowing in front of the monk. I had to tell one couple about who we were when she asked if I was related to the children (I thought this was a pretty interesting comment considering the fact that the children and I look somewhat different). A few more group photos were taken, and then I managed to get separated so I headed down a little bit before they did because I thought they had left. It ended up that I had some time to shop at the bottom and found the stand serving iced coffee before I met up with the group again. The day was fun and had an exciting pulse, and I was able to see and do a lot that I wanted to see while I was here in Chiang mai.