Umm yeah so it turns out Chiang Mai is the best place I've been this whole trip. Clearly that says a lot given I haven't exactly disliked anything I've been doing these past weeks.
Casey and I had a really lucky find with lodgings.. we arrived at the airport in Chiang Mai without any idea where we'd stay, made friends with our very cheery taxi driver who was eyeing Casey's chocolate bar the whole time, Case gave him a piece of her chocolate when we were paying and he offered to drive us free of charge to a newly opened guesthouse. When we got there, he got us a hundred baht discount (a big discount for our budgets) for a beautiful brightly colored room. After jumping up and down a bit about our good find and taking a nap while watching Animal Planet, we decided to walk across town to an Indian restauarant and of course, being in a new city at night, got lost. We looked like such backpacking losers walking around with our Lonely Planet in hand but since we were on the opposite site of the moat (there is a moat and crumbled castle walls around the old city), it was pretty necessary.
Again, I cannot write anything without telling every detail so I am stopping myself b/c I am leaving for a mountain trek today. Part of the trek includes elephant riding.. I'm worried about that part because I saw a photo of an obnoxious American tourist hanging on an elephant trunk and was really turned off by the whole idea of riding elephants. Our friend at the guesthouse convinced us it is worth it though, so we'll see..
wow I'm late. sorry for the scatterbrained post
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Clearly I am horrible with this whole blog thing.. but anyways... I'll try to fill you in quickly on some events of the past few days.
Before I do that (here I go on a tangent already.. but whatever) I just wanted to preserve on the internet the troubling thought that I have had today that this trip will soon just be a closed chapter of my life. Basically, I'm already mourning the end of this trip and its not even over.. pretty lame, eh?
OK enough of pointless paragraphs.
Last weekend, Mackenzie, Casey, Kate and I went to Krabi. We stayed at a nice guesthouse for the equivalent of 3 bucks a night.. not too bad. The following morning we went to a wat (temple) and climbed 1,237 steps to reach the stupa (Buddhist shrine containing a relic related to Buddha) at the top. To help you picture what 1, 237 steps really is.. we basically climbed a mountain using stairs. We picked up some Dutch backpacker on the way up so the 5 of us did the climb in about 45 minutes. I felt like I was on a family hike.. with everyone competing not to be last and shortening their water breaks to not look weak.(we are very mature). The experience at the top was one of my most memorable of the trip. I did a lot of writing at the top and want to tell you more about my feelings in person.. so just remind me.
The next day we went sea kayaking to see sea caves. One cave has drawing from 3000 BCE. they were cool. We also learned about the Sea Gypsies of Trang Province and how they knew the tsunami was coming before everyone else and tried to warn people about the waves but few people believed them. It was fascinating.
That day we went to Railay, a rockclimbing hotspsot. There we found cheap rooms for 1.50 a night and I spent much of the afternoon in a hammock overlooking the water. Great backpacker vibe and fire show at night made this part of the trip awesome. Our boatride over there was unreal.. very bumpy.. our longtail boat was more than half out of the water as we wave jumped... I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face during that ride.
Teaching is still wonderful. more singing and dancing and goofyness in general.
Monday we went to a local pottery workshop and made clay pots on a pottery wheel.
Tuesday we saw the ancient Thai dance, Menorah performed in a school. Very beautiful costumes and some funny facial expressions on the 13 year old dancers.
Wednesday we went on a trip to a weaving village and saw silk fabrics being made by Thai women. I made a video on my camera, ask me to see it when I see you.. its fascinating.
Today we went to botanical gardens and went on a tree canopy walk 75 ft. up.
Now I am packing.
I'm off to Chaing Mai with Casey tomorrow. We will be there until Monday night when we fly to Bangkok and then I'll be home early Thursday morning.
Again, I didn't proofread or edit... sorry if it bothers you.
Before I do that (here I go on a tangent already.. but whatever) I just wanted to preserve on the internet the troubling thought that I have had today that this trip will soon just be a closed chapter of my life. Basically, I'm already mourning the end of this trip and its not even over.. pretty lame, eh?
OK enough of pointless paragraphs.
Last weekend, Mackenzie, Casey, Kate and I went to Krabi. We stayed at a nice guesthouse for the equivalent of 3 bucks a night.. not too bad. The following morning we went to a wat (temple) and climbed 1,237 steps to reach the stupa (Buddhist shrine containing a relic related to Buddha) at the top. To help you picture what 1, 237 steps really is.. we basically climbed a mountain using stairs. We picked up some Dutch backpacker on the way up so the 5 of us did the climb in about 45 minutes. I felt like I was on a family hike.. with everyone competing not to be last and shortening their water breaks to not look weak.(we are very mature). The experience at the top was one of my most memorable of the trip. I did a lot of writing at the top and want to tell you more about my feelings in person.. so just remind me.
The next day we went sea kayaking to see sea caves. One cave has drawing from 3000 BCE. they were cool. We also learned about the Sea Gypsies of Trang Province and how they knew the tsunami was coming before everyone else and tried to warn people about the waves but few people believed them. It was fascinating.
That day we went to Railay, a rockclimbing hotspsot. There we found cheap rooms for 1.50 a night and I spent much of the afternoon in a hammock overlooking the water. Great backpacker vibe and fire show at night made this part of the trip awesome. Our boatride over there was unreal.. very bumpy.. our longtail boat was more than half out of the water as we wave jumped... I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face during that ride.
Teaching is still wonderful. more singing and dancing and goofyness in general.
Monday we went to a local pottery workshop and made clay pots on a pottery wheel.
Tuesday we saw the ancient Thai dance, Menorah performed in a school. Very beautiful costumes and some funny facial expressions on the 13 year old dancers.
Wednesday we went on a trip to a weaving village and saw silk fabrics being made by Thai women. I made a video on my camera, ask me to see it when I see you.. its fascinating.
Today we went to botanical gardens and went on a tree canopy walk 75 ft. up.
Now I am packing.
I'm off to Chaing Mai with Casey tomorrow. We will be there until Monday night when we fly to Bangkok and then I'll be home early Thursday morning.
Again, I didn't proofread or edit... sorry if it bothers you.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Dad- your jokes on your comments are lame but I still love you
I am so happy here it is overwhelming. Today, Casey, Mackenzie and I woke up at 6, left for our school at 6:45 where we were given Thai music lessons (Thai instruments have startlingly beautiful tones) from a few students. They asked me to play the keyboard for them and I played the first page of my recital piece (Debussy's Reverie) but I could only find the first page for free online so I didn't really give the performance of the year to say the least. The students and music teacher working with us were volunteering to teach us completely out of their own free will.. I rarely see such friendliness in the States. After our music lesson, we taught our morning classes. We exlained 4th of July and played a game to celebrate.. they really liked the game and it has been one of the best methods of teaching English yet. In honor of the day, we decided to teach the class Don Mclean's "American Pie" so with the use of my ipod and a projecter, we put lyrics with words blanked out and had them fill in the words.. this is both a listening comprehension and vocabulary lesson but mostly its very fun. Lots of dancing and jumping and giggling.. all around good times. After our first two classes, the three of us chilled, and I played them lots of music from Amadou and Mariam (and thought of you, Jules) and Elvis Perkins to Beethoven's Ave Maria. The three of us mesh perfectly and we are all just so incredibly happy to be here. We then had lunch and around 25 kids raided our classroom during our lunchtime to take photos, dance, run around and get our autographs (craaazy). Lots of hugs and "I love you"s were exchanged. After lunch we were hyper and the next class was hyper. BAD (or wonderful?) combination. Mackenzie calls us the Three Stooges b/c the three of us spent more time pushing eachther and teasing than being calm teachers. We played the word scramble game and Casey got soo frustrated teaching that adjectives go before nouns (in Thai its the oppostite) that I honestly thought her head was going explode. The last class, Casey completely crashed and fell asleep at her desk while Mackenzie and I ran the class. After that class we went outside, sat in the shade, and juggled soccer balls with the kids during their gym class. I made a kid cry when accidentlly kicked the ball in his face.. good thing I'm making a positive change in Thailand, right?
I am so happy here it is overwhelming. Today, Casey, Mackenzie and I woke up at 6, left for our school at 6:45 where we were given Thai music lessons (Thai instruments have startlingly beautiful tones) from a few students. They asked me to play the keyboard for them and I played the first page of my recital piece (Debussy's Reverie) but I could only find the first page for free online so I didn't really give the performance of the year to say the least. The students and music teacher working with us were volunteering to teach us completely out of their own free will.. I rarely see such friendliness in the States. After our music lesson, we taught our morning classes. We exlained 4th of July and played a game to celebrate.. they really liked the game and it has been one of the best methods of teaching English yet. In honor of the day, we decided to teach the class Don Mclean's "American Pie" so with the use of my ipod and a projecter, we put lyrics with words blanked out and had them fill in the words.. this is both a listening comprehension and vocabulary lesson but mostly its very fun. Lots of dancing and jumping and giggling.. all around good times. After our first two classes, the three of us chilled, and I played them lots of music from Amadou and Mariam (and thought of you, Jules) and Elvis Perkins to Beethoven's Ave Maria. The three of us mesh perfectly and we are all just so incredibly happy to be here. We then had lunch and around 25 kids raided our classroom during our lunchtime to take photos, dance, run around and get our autographs (craaazy). Lots of hugs and "I love you"s were exchanged. After lunch we were hyper and the next class was hyper. BAD (or wonderful?) combination. Mackenzie calls us the Three Stooges b/c the three of us spent more time pushing eachther and teasing than being calm teachers. We played the word scramble game and Casey got soo frustrated teaching that adjectives go before nouns (in Thai its the oppostite) that I honestly thought her head was going explode. The last class, Casey completely crashed and fell asleep at her desk while Mackenzie and I ran the class. After that class we went outside, sat in the shade, and juggled soccer balls with the kids during their gym class. I made a kid cry when accidentlly kicked the ball in his face.. good thing I'm making a positive change in Thailand, right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)