Pai

Tangled Up In Blue

I got a bus from Chiang Mai to Pai and it was rough. Three hours of really windy, hilly roads and even I (who doesn’t easily get car sick) was feeling pretty nauseous. I got to my hostel called Spicy Pai, it was recommended to me by a friend who had stayed there and it was so cool! The Spicy hostels are a chain in Thailand and there are 3; one in Koh Tao, one in Chiang Mai and one in Pai. It reminded me of Granny’s (my hostel in Bali), with a big open hanging out area and lots of solo, friendly travelers. Pai is a tiny little mountain town with a verry hippie-ish vibe. Sort of like the boulder of Thailand if you will! I went out on the town with my new friends from the hostel and slept soundly until 1230 the next day. When I woke up I went to the common room and me and some friends went into town and got motorbikes to go exploring. There are two loops that can be done on motorbikes around Pai. The north and south loops (really original names, I know). That day we did the Southern loop. It took around 4 hours and was so fun! We rode out of town surrounded by majestic mountains and made our first stop at a waterfall. There was a little hike to reach it and we jumped into the cold water which was quite refreshing after our walk. From the waterfall we continued south and found some hot springs but didn’t go in because they were expensive, so we kept venturing and found the Pai Canyon. Which wasn’t so much of a canyon as it was a rock ledge with an incredible view. From the canyon we spent a little time just driving around the mountains and eventually headed back to the hostel. We all showered and went out for food at the night market. The night market was awesome, the whole street just becomes lined with vendors and they have delicious Thai dishes for less than a dollar. My favorites are dumplings, spring rolls and mango sticky rice. We went to a reggae bar for the night and listened to the band play covers of Bob Dylan and The Band then we called it an early night. The next day we did the northern loop but it was rainy and pretty cold. Still so beautiful though. We stopped at a Chinese village and did a funny ferris wheel type swing then checked out some more waterfalls and headed back to town. We hung out at the hostel in the afternoon and met some really cool people- a ton of Americans, actually the most I’ve met my whole time abroad! A bunch of people from the hostel went out that night and we had a really great time. The next day an English girl and I did a Thai cooking class. I learned how to make pad Thai, red curry, Tom kha gai soup, spring rolls and mango sticky rice. I also went to the market with the woman in charge of the class and we learned so many useful skills. Like how to tell if pineapples are ripe! And how much things should cost at Thai markets. By the end of the day I was incredibly full and exhausted so I went back to the hostel and went to bed pretty early. I did get to take home the recipe book though so a few of you lucky people may be getting a home cooked Thai meal when I get home. As it had been about a week, the next day I was due for a massage so I went to get one with a girl from new York. It was delightful as usual and we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the town. That night spicy Pai had a barbecue for everyone at the hostel. It was so yummy and so fun! Afterwards we all went out on the town, I ended up meeting a guy from boulder who knew my two best friends in college, the more I travel the smaller the world gets, it’s crazy. I headed back to Bangkok the next day on an equally gruesome bus ride back to chiang Mai then overnight bus to the city. I then went straight to the train and went to visit my friend from home who was doing an English teaching course in Hua Hin.

Hill Tribes

Golden Triangle

Chiang Rai- White Temple

Last Dance With MaryJane

I mentioned having to do a visa run earlier, this was because my Thai visa was about to expire! When I entered Thailand I had 30 days to stay and believe it or not that time frame was closing in on me. So I booked a visa run which is a pretty common thing to do and buys you an extra 15 days and I figured since I was going all the way to the border of Myanmar I should see some sights along the way. So I booked a sightseeing visa run tour. They picked me up at 730am and we drove to a hot spring that was about 2 hours from Chiang Mai, it was really small and un eventful. From there we went to the White Temple (Wat Rong Khun) and it was incredible! It is the only all white temple in Thailand and it sits on a little lake so it reflects on the water. There was some weird aspects of it too, like the hanging clay heads on the way in and the pits to either side of hands reaching up at you, but I thought it was really freakin awesome. After the white temple we drove to the golden triangle. This is where the Mekong river separates Thailand and Myanmar from Laos, it also used to be where opium in Asia was produced. After the golden triangle we had lunch and then went to the border. The other people in the trip didn’t have to get a visa extension so I walked across the Burmese border alone! It was funny I just walked straight from Thailand into Myanmar then straight back into Thailand. Once that was done we started heading home to Chiang Mai. On the way we stopped to see some hill tribes, one of which were the long necks (the people who put gold rings around their necks). When we finally got back it was 730pm and I had managed to read an entire book in the car! Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri- if you haven’t read it, you should. It’s sad but so good. I was also super impressed with my skills of reading in the car because that used to make me sick… Anyway it was a long day but I got my visa extension and can now stay in Thailand until the 26. Which is perfect because that is the day I fly to Myanmar!

Elephant Camp

Do You Realize?

Elephants!! The first day we arrived to the elephant camp around 10am and were shown to our rooms. We each had a private little bamboo bungalow with our own hot shower and toilet and the beds were pretty comfortable. We went to see the elephant show after that which was adorable though also sort of circus-y. The elephants do handstands. Play harmonica, hula hoop, paint pictures, play soccer, make funny noises and some other things along those lines. After the elephant show we got to meet our elephant and mahout (elephant trainer) that we would be paired with all week. My elephants name was Gamlai, she was 11 years old and my Mahout (Don) had been working with her for 8 years. It was so amazing to see the way they interacted and to see how much control he had over this giant animal just with his voice. I could also tell that he cared about her deeply and vise versa. Before lunch we went to the vet and helped pack vitamins to feed to the elephants then went to have tasty buffet lunch. After lunch we had a little break then went to our elephant stall to pick up their poop, sweep the area, then ride our elephants down to the river for their afternoon bath. The ride was so scary, I was sitting on the neck of Gamlai and was convinced I was going to topple over the front of her head but miraculously I didn’t. When we got into the river we started to scrub down our elephants then Claudia’s mahout started a water fight and we all emerged from the river soaking wet. I rode Gamlai back to her stall through the little village outside of the camp then went back to my hut to have a shower. I then went to get a Thai massage and based on everything I had heard was prepared for it to be painful but it wasn’t too bad! After massage came dinner and unlike lunch it wasn’t buffet style we got to order off the menu, and by 830 I was in bed asleep. The next morning we got up at 6 for the morning bath and putting on the wet bathing clothes from the day before was so cold! Luckily the water wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be and no one started a water fight so I didn’t even get too wet. I felt way more comfortable riding Gamlai the second day, I think initially I was just in shock a little bit. At 830 we were put with a partner and assigned a job for the day. I was with Ina and we were working at the show selling bananas and sugarcane to tourists to feed to the elephants. It was pretty boring, and I have to assume the mahouts must be bored as well because they perform the exact same show, 3+ times a day, every day. Ina and I were discussing whether we thought the elephants were happy or not because they spent a lot of time chained up. We decided its not totally ideal but it is better than a lot of other situations, they got lots of food and exercise and as I said before their mahouts really care about them. I asked the program coordinator about elephants in Thailand and he said there are about 5,000 spread out in camps and sanctuaries and about 3,000 still in the wild which I thought was pretty cool. After the show we went to pack vitamins then to lunch. After lunch we learned how to make paper out of elephant poo. The paper that they paint on in the show is made out of their own shit! So it basically gets mixed with water in a big tub then you put a screen in and sift the poop through it. When it comes up there is a small layer of poop on the screen and you let it sit and dry in the sun. I was elbows deep in elephant poop! After a shower I went to have dinner then off to bed early. Third day was early wake up, bath, and for our job Ina and I were in the kitchen chopping vegetables. We peeled three giant bags of potatoes for so long that not only did I get a peeling blister on my thumb but I was convinced I would dream of potatoes that night. Ina was great though we chatted through most of it, making the time go by pretty quickly. After vitamins and lunch we went into the jungle and cut down banana trees for our elephants. Just to reiterate we didn’t cut down bananas, we each cut down a whole tree! They are small though and it was pretty easy. I also felt really cool in the jungle with my machete. Gamlai was very happy with her banana tree snack. Afterwards dinner then sleep. Day 4 same same (in Asia the main saying here is same same but different, I may have already written that but I can’t remember ). Early wake up, bath, sunrise, worked at the vet but there were no customers to pretty much just sat around then had lunch. After lunch we got to do jungle trekking with our elephants. We crossed the river then went into the jungle. It was basically just a giant food fed for the elephants and it was fun but also really scary cuz once again I was convinced I would fall (and I saw some scorpions on the jungle floor). Gamlai was literally eating everything in sight. She was pulling down entire trees and at one point was even eating mud. After the trek we went straight to the river for a bath. We went to a different part of the river though and the current was really strong. I was holding Gamlai’s tail while she pulled me up through the current. We had a big waterfight again and I was jumping on top of Gamlai to bathe her so the river didn’t sweep me away. Also Hannah’s elephant gives kisses (jup is kiss in thai) and he was kissing all of us during the bath- cutest thing ever. After the bath was shower, dinner, sleep. The next day was the last before heading back to Chiang Mai for the weekend. I was supposed to stay at the elephant camp for two weeks but decided one was enough for me. I felt I got to know the elephants and the routine very well and was also getting sorted tired of being on someone else’s schedule. So early wake up, bath, french toast breakfast with everyone, spent the day at the show with all the volunteers, then lunch, shower, pack, goodbye to my elephant (which was so sad!) and jumped in the truck to head back to Chiang Mai. Overall it was an amazing week!

Chiang Mai

Half Moon Rising

Sawaddee ká! (hello in thai) I arrived in Chiang Mai after a long, uncomfortable overnight bus ride from Bangkok. Aom (the project manager) picked me up and took me to the volunteer house. I was so exhausted so i slept for a few hours then met some of the other volunteers and went out to dinner. My first impression of them was that they were sort of boring but throughout the week they grew on me. There is Claudia- 55 from Switzerland, an eccentric lady who loves neon and is CRAZY about elephants. She must have spent over $100 a day at the elephant camp buying bananas and sugarcane for them to eat. Ina- 35 from Colombia but also speaks fluent German. She is amazing, super easy to talk to, very insightful and kind, and we spoke almost exclusively in Spanish! Nina- 19 from Germany, very shy and reserved but a sweet girl. And Hannah- 21 from Scotland, I have probably become the closest with her, shes funny and quiet. There is also a guy named Alistair who is here volunteering at some hospitals, he’s from Australia and since he arrived at the same time as us he was in our orientation, also he’s hilarious so I was glad he was there. Orientation began with an hour long Thai lesson- Thai is an extremely difficult language to learn. Words change based on the tone in which you say them so it was super confusing. I managed to learn hello, how are you, thank you, how much?, spicy/not spicy, goodbye, and some numbers- which seems to be the perfect amount of Thai! After the Thai lesson we had some boring orientation stuff, going over rules and so forth then we went out to a yummy lunch and took a tour of the old city and spa few temples. Chiang Mai has an old city and a new city, the old city is inside “gates” that are more like old brick walls and only exist around the corners pretty much and the new city is everything outside of it. There is also a moat all the way around the old city which is pretty cool, and there are temples everywhere! After the city tour we had a break then were taken to dinner at a “cultural show” which I could have done without. The food was weird and the show seemed fake and sort of ridiculous. The next day we had another Thai lesson, lunch, then they took us to the largest outdoor market in Chiang Mai. It was pretty cool and very hectic. There were crazy foods and hand made crafts everywhere as well as a lot of cheap, fake, western rip off things. I ate a cricket! At the market Imm (who is the female program coordinator for the medical volunteers) asked me if I would like some pictures of myself. She explained that her boyfriend is a photographer and he wanted a series of pictures with a westerner and she thought I was pretty and asked if I wanted to do it. So of course I said yes! And the next weekend I went over to her boyfriends house with her and he took some really nice black and white photos of me that I’m waiting to receive in an email soon. After that market the other volunteers and I went to the Sunday market which was awesome! It was about 45 blocks of open air stalls with beautiful bright fabrics and trinkets. I wandered through and bought a few little things, practicing my bargaining skills I’m Thai though it was hard for me to understand the numbers when they said them so they ended up laughing at me alot (which was hilarious). After the market we went up to a rooftop bar that overlooked the market for a beer and the view was incredible! That night we went to bed early and prepared ourselves for elephant camp! The weekend after elephant camp I spent some more time in Chiang Mai. Mostly relaxing, though I had to do a visa run which I will explain later, and we went to a lady boy burlesque show! Lady boys are extremely common in Thailand and are even considered a third gender. Basically they are transvestites but many of them get operations to fully become women. Every night they do a free show at the night bazaar you just have to buy a beer or cocktail once inside. It was so fun! And crazy, some of them really don’t look like men at all… Anyway I like Chiang Mai a lot, it’s a lovely city.