Home Sweet Home !

Well, I made it home safe and sound. After over 30 hours in the air I arrived back in the United States on July 29th. 

Sorry everyone, I really meant to stay up to date with this blog. My last couple weeks in Thailand got the best of me and I wasn't able to post all of my adventures. A combination of school work, procrastination and simply enjoying the wonderful country of Thailand kept me away from my computer. 

But, as strange as this may sound, I'm going to retroactively go back and post on some key events that took place. So, for those of you who don't have the ability to hear about it from me in person, stay posted for more updates on Steve-in-Thailand! 

*UPDATE 8/8/12

Okay, now I'm entirely caught up with this blog. Even though I had to write the last 5 entries while I'm back in the United States I'm glad that I was able to log all of my adventures in Thailand.

Thanks to everyone who followed this, and thanks for all of the positive feedback. 

I'm not sure how long I'm gonna keep this online, but it will be up at least through the end of August. 

A Day in the Life

Unlike my other posts, which recount specific field trips and events, this post is meant to try and describe my daily life as a Chiang Mai student.

I had class at 9am on monday wednesday and friday, and at 1pm on Tuesday and Thursday. I took Buddhist Philosophy, Thai Language, and International Business Management for a total of 7 credit hours. 

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I usually woke up around 8am , hopped in the shower and put on my uniform. Some days if I was feeling tired I would also make instant coffee. I would then head down to the first floor and unchain my bicycle and begin my ride to class. I'm not really a breakfast eater so I think I only had breakfast at the cafeteria once or twice. 

View from my commute to school

I had about a 10 to 15 minute ride to class , where I would try not to get hit by scooters and red trucks. The majority of students at CMU rode motor scooters to class, but some walked and took shuttles to different parts of campus. 

I'd get to the humanities building slightly winded and sweaty, lock up my bike, and then I would stop by a little Cafe located right outside our buidling where I would buy a tea and a Chicken Pie, for a total of 30 Baht... about 1 dollar. I guess that counts as my breakfast. Just to clarifiy a chicken pie is like a mini breaded dish with chicken inside that you could eat in  a few bites. 

I would then go to class, for 3 hours or 2 depending on the class, then I would get on my bike and head back to Uniserv. It was cool having class at the humanities faculty because there was always something going on. We would always see tables set up, people passing out fliers, or some other type of event happening in the lobby. 

It's interesting to note that class often started at 9:10 or 9:15 rather than promptly at 9:00am, in Thai culture punctuality doesn't have nearly the priority it does here. 

The university itself was huge. At least as large as Ohio State's campus. it took me about 40 minutes to walk from Uniserv to the humanities building. and Uniserv can basically be considered on campus. 

Also the university was beautiful, it was right next to the mountains, had a reservoir on campus, and had beautiful vegetation that made campus seem more like a park than a university at some points. Everything seemed less neat and tidy than an American campus would though, the sidewalks were broken in some areas and some of the campus looked overgrown, definitely a stark contrast to the perfectly manicured landscaping of Mount Union. 

Lobby at the Humanities faculty

After getting back from classs I'd get to Uniserv and have lunch at the cafeteria. My usual choice was rice with crab or rice with chicken. For some reason, maybe dehydration or my anti-malaria medication I was on, I would almost always get a headache in the afternnon, so usually after class I would take a nap and wake up around 1 or 2. 

more like a park than a campus

After that I would usually write a blog, work on homework , or head out to a coffee shop to check email. 

Usually at night we would go out to a restaurant or bar, or go down to the night bazaar to haggle for souvenirs. 

On tuesday and thursday I got to sleep in, but would usually wake up around 9 or 10 am in the morning anyway, that's when I would work on homework for class, read, or pick up laundry. 

We had a pretty cool laundry place where they would wash dry and iron your clothes for a really good price. They were extremely friendly and seemed happy to get alot of business from foreigners. 

College dog

Also, I had Thai massage class. Not officially for credit, just for fun, that I would go to a few nights a week at 5pm till 8pm... It was a really nice way to wind down the day and just relax. It was really intense though, we learned alot of massage and had to practice for hours to get the technique right. 

Courts where we got beat

We had a favorite burger place called G-Long that I would frequent a few times a week. I would ride my bike by after massage and often see someone I knew there. We always said that G-long had some strange gravitational pull on everyone from the USAC group. 

One day I just decided to head down to the old city and  explore by myself. I got on my bike at 7pm and  rode down there and visited a few shops and stores, my primary mission was just to explore, it was refreshing not to really have any goals and get a chance to just see the city. There was so much to see in Chiang Mai; going down a street you hadn't been down before was a new adventure. 

So yeah, that was an average day for me... go to class, get some food, maybe explore Chiang Mai, and then go out with some friends at night. It might sound mundane but the little adventures that happened every day really made the weeks fly by. 

The Last Field Trip

Our last field trip consisted of venturing north of Chiang Mai, to the similarly named Chiang Rai. We headed out Saturday morning for a jam packed weekend. This trip would consist of many more stops than our previous trips. Our first stop on that long list was "the highest hot spring" in Thailand. 

Highest Hot Spring in Thailand

Unfortunately the hot springs were not  like the ones I had enjoyed in Pai. In Pai they were organic, natural hot springs, but here you could tell they maybe had some natural element but were basically built up to be extremely tourist friendly.

At the Hot Springs there was a section where you could dip your feet in a tank and little fish would nibble off your dead skin. It sounds gross, and well i guess it is pretty gross now that I think about it. But we just had to try it. It's one of those things that you do just so you can say you did it.

Dan G. was the brave one and put his feet in first. The fish immediately swarmed to his foot covering it from toes to ankle joint. At one point it even looked like he was wearing a sock. 

my foot getting tickled by the fish

The rest of us reluctantly put our feet in and drew some of the fish away from Dan. I didn't have the self control to keep my feet in for longer than a few seconds, not because I was grossed out, but because my feet are extremely ticklish. 

The White Temple 

Our next stop was the White temple. the White temple was a modern Buddhist temple built recently by a local artist. From what I gathered, it seemed like more of piece of art than a functioning temple. It was definitely a tourist attraction either way. 

It looked like something out of Narnia, The white temple was ornate and intricately detailed, and "white temple" is a perfect description of what we saw. 

The temple had some nice landscaping outside of it and a moat, and there was a bridge you had to cross to get into the actual temple. 

The most striking thing I saw was when looking down from walking over the bridge. There were hundreds of hands made out of cement that were reaching up from  he ground, some of them holding skulls. Since there is no concept of heaven or hell in Buddhism, I'm not really sure what that was all about , but it was pretty visually arresting. 

Creepy hands

There was an interesting mural inside the temple .. it featured such pop icons as Keanu reeves, kung fu panda, and characters from Star Wars. Though I studied Buddhist philosophy for 6 weeks, I still had no idea what this had to do with Buddhism. 

It's kind fuzzy, you weren't supposed to take pictures inside the temple

Our next stop was lunch at a mall. I gave into my cravings and had McDonalds, but i guess it was good because I was able to see if it was any different from American McDonald's . It tasted the same to me.

We got back on the vans and headed to another Hill-Tribe village where we would be staying the night, this time however, we would be doing a homestay and living with a family for the night. 

Hill Tribe Tour (Reprise) 

We took a quick pit stop before the village at the Ban Jalae hill tribe museum. Which, no offense to the people who made it , was a pretty lame as far as museums go. It was one room, about 20 by 15 feet, with captioned pictures covering the walls, and a few artifacts of hill tribe history. It was underwhelming. Anyway, next we went to the hill tribe village where we would do our home stay. 

Myself, Dan G. , Alex and Dan (Dan G's) roommate all lived together with our host P.T. Wat. P.T. was a very hospitibal host, he was in his late 20s and not married. We found out that he spent a year in Taiwan working. 

We found our hut and sleeping quarters, much smaller than the other hill tribe visits.After getting settled we, talked to P.T. for a bit and then headed out to explore the village. 

As I was walking around, Daniel,  Dan G.'s  roommate, told me that he was going to play a game with the village kids, so I joined in. We walked and jogged for about 15 minutes until we got to a field where there was a low hanging badminton sized net. 

Turns out, the game we were playing is called Sepak Takraw, which was awesome . The game features a small woven ball that each team kicks over the net. It's pretty much volleyball but feet only. We weren't very good at it... 

Sepak Takraw courts

After playing around for a little bit, trying to get that ball over the net we headed back and had dinner with our adopted family.

After dinner we got dressed in traditional Hill-Tribe clothing so we could participate in a traditional dance. Our group each got vests to wear, but others in the USAC group got hats and different clothes. 

Dinner

The dancing was interesting. We all stood in a circle and linked arms and chanted and tried our best to do the correct arm movements the villagers showed us. 

Dan and Jaja dancing

The Golden Triangle

The next morning we got up, got back in our vans and headed to the golden triangle. The Golden Triangle is an area where the borders of Thailand, Burma, and Laos all meet. 

We arrived at a river and were told that the other bank was Laos.  We then got life jackets and got on board a narrow motor powered boat. The boat ride itself was a pretty cool little adventure, the combination of speed and being in such a small boat was pretty exciting.

We then went across the river to Laos where we did some shopping. One of the most memorable shopping experiences I had was buying snake Whiskey. Yes, exactly how it sounds except worse than you are imagining, snake whiskey is whiskey with a snake inside of the bottle. It looks like some old elixer miracle oil from the late 19th century. 

We all got free samples from a massive vat that had a big cobra's head hanging out. It didn't taste bad at all, but it's really not appetizing. I did buy a bottle though out of sheer novelty. 

snake whiskey

Laos Flags

After the stop at Laos we got back on our boats and continued down the river. We passed a giant statue of Buddha on the shore. evenutally we came to a meeting with another river where you could simultaneously see all three countries. Our boat drivers commented that if you keep going straight down the river you get to China. 

After hitting that point in the river we headed back to the Thai shore and had lunch. 

We then stopped at the Hall of Opium. Which is a museum about the history of the drug trade in the area. It was very informative, but there's not a whole lot to say about it. It had some neat displays and was interesting if you like history. I was disspointed that they didn't have a good giftshop. 

Meditation Retreat

No, Buddha is not the guy with the large belly you see in Chinese Restaurants...

The original title for this post was "Why I chose to sit in a room for two days with my eyes closed instead of going to Bangkok". The same weekend that we went to a Buddhist temple to learn about meditation, I had the opportunity to go to Bangkok for a business trip. Obviously, most people thought I was crazy in choosing the former...

The retreat was for my Buddhist philosophy class. Since meditation is such a major component of Buddhism, our teacher thought it would be good for us to learn about it through personal experience. Meditation, in the most simple form, is simply focusing your thoughts on one object, generally something like your breath, or a mantra ; it's  the art of clearing your mind and not letting your thoughts wander. 

We headed out to the retreat on Friday and arrived about an hour later at a temple near a mountain. The first thing we did was unload our bags and find out where we were sleeping. 

The guys slept upstairs in the temple right underneath some giant statues of Buddha. The floor was hard and we only had some light padding to sleep on. I wouldn't have wanted to sleep anywhere else though, sleeping in that temple was one of the most memorable places that I've slept for two nights. 

Do you want prefer your tile firm or extra firm?

After getting settled in we went to the meditation hall, another building within the temple complex, and met our meditation instructor. I don't remember how exactly to pronounce his name, let alone transcribe it in English, so I'm not even gonna try. I know it at least started with P, so let's just call him P. for the sake of this post. 

P. was a monk, and had been one for 14 years. He was currently staying at the temple where our retreat was, but said that he really didn't have a permanent temple to call home. P. told us that to him Meditation was happiness. 

The first thing we did after meeting P. was called "working meditation" where we helped clean up around the temple area and meditation hall. We cleaned bathrooms , swept floors and prepared dinner. P. told us to be mindful of what we were doing and really try and enjoy our chores... it sounded like something my dad would say.. "Get out there and enjoy cutting the grass", it builds character. But none the less we did our chores and I tried very hard to clear my mind and focus on each time I swept the broom. 

After "Working meditation" the head monk of the temple came to greet us and welcome us to his temple. He said he was very happy that we were there and he was glad to see us. 

Over the next 2 days we established a routine of eating, sitting meditation, walking meditation, learning about Dharma ( the teachings of Buddha) and break time. This routine was repeated more or less in that pattern. On Saturday I only ate two meals, because the monks only eat two meals a day and don't eat after noon, I thought it was interesting to experience how they live so I gave it a shot. 

Just hangin out... contemplating the universe

During one of the breaks in meditation I decided to walk up a set of stairs I saw which apparently lead to the top of the mountain adjacent to the temple. I had heard our professor say that there were over 1,000 steps to the top, which for some reason didn't register with me when I made the decision to walk to the top of the mountain. 

So I started up the steps, trying to be mindful of each time my foot hit the ground and simply enjoy my walk. I got about 15 minutes in and thought about turning back, because we only had an hour break before our next meditation session. But i figured "Well, I've come this far... I'm sure it's not much farther to the top" so I kept walking... another 15 minutes later and the same thought ran through my head "well, i might as well keep going".About 10 minutes after that I finally reached the top of the mountain where I found another temple... Drenched in sweat I walked inside, and then immediately started back down the mountain.

When I got back to the meditation hall, about a half hour from when I reached the top of the mountain , everyone was laying on the floor doing a relaxation excercise... which was exactly what I needed at the time.

We ended up doing a walking mediation up those steps the next day, which I was not overly enthused about.

Sleeping Meditation?

Monks in Thai culture are an interesting phenomenon. It's a custom that every man should be a monk at at least one point in his life, though I believe this tradition is fading and starting to be viewed as old fashioned by the younger people. P. was on his second round of being a monk, he had been one when he was very young, age 7 or so, and lived a normal life and had a job until he was 25. At that point P. decided that he wanted to be a monk, so he quit his job as a restaurant manager and gave away all his possessions.

Monks are very revered and respected by the Thai people, on public transportation when you normally see something like please give up seats to an elderly person, there were signs that said please give up seat to a monk. Also, women aren't allowed to touch a monk, or give anything to a monk directly, so at the retreat the guys in the group had to give P. any food and water that our teacher wanted to offer him. 

It's interesting to note how pervasive the idea of mindfulness was on this retreat. P. tried to make it clear that we should try and spend every moment in mindfulness. Even when we had our meals P. reminded us to chew our food very thoughtfully and really taste it in our mouths. It seems kind of silly, but how often do we go throughout our daily lives not really experiencing the moment we are currently in. 

When it was time to leave the meditation retreat I was glad. It was a great experience that I'm glad is over. Being alone with your thoughts for 2 and a half days can be a very trying experience especially when you are 8000 miles away from home. But again, I wouldn't trade it for a trip to Bangkok. 

Despite the innate boredom and difficulty not being allowed to talk, I definitely learned alot from the retreat. I learned that learning to calm your mind takes alot of practice and cannot be mastered in two days. I learned alot about how much I missed home after being in Thailand for 5 weeks. I also learned the value of just trying to live in the present moment and not worry too much about the past and future. It's really something lost on today's society of high stress jobs and fast pace. 

After leaving the retreat we had a pit stop at another temple. Apparently there are 8 major temples in Thailand and this was one of them. So we stopped and walked around and got to see an absolutely beautiful temple. 

Pretty cool pagoda

 P. and a fellow meditator

Hill-Tribe Tour (Part 3)

We arrived at the second village after only about an hour of hiking, which was quite the welcomed surprise compared to the length of the first hike. Soon after arrival Sang told us to divide up into groups of four for the elephant ride. 

I didn't remember hearing about the elephant ride before this, but I was pretty excited when I did. We walked for about 10 minutes through the village and came to a clearing at the outskirts of town where we found a few elephants and trainers waiting for us. The elephants each had bench-like contraptions strapped to them so multiple riders could comfortably sit on them. 

We could sit 3 to the platform part of the elephant, and one person could sit on the elephant's neck. My group consisted of myself, Dan G. (also from Mount Union) , another student named jacob and his girlfriend Mila. Mila opted to sit on our elephant's neck. 

Elephants, ready to ride

Riding on the elephant was a little scary because it felt like our platform was ready to slide off the elephant's back at any minute. The platform itself was  metal, and was held on the elephant by rope that attached all the way under the elephant. There were about 25 thick blankets that shielded the elephants back from the platform. 

fellow elephant riders

As soon as we assumed our elephant riding positions our elephant started to move. Every step rocked us up and down and side-ways like we were on a boat. I constantly felt like we were about to fall off. We started down a path at a brisk pace. Sometimes our elephant got hungry so it would face into the jungle and grab some leaves. A few times we commented that it looked like he was ready to just walk straight into the jungle and leave the path altogether. 

Our elephant continued down the path and the elephants with other students followed. There were some trainers who stood nearby but the elephants seemed to know where they were going. 

After a little while we headed straight towards a group of water buffalo, who promplty got out of the way. Then our elephant headed towards a pretty sizeable river... and to our surprise walked in it. We sunk low, but the river wasn't high enough for us to get wet. 

Water- Buffalo

The elephants followed the river for another half an hour until we were back at the village where we had dropped off our backpacks. Throughout the journey we encountered a few more water buffalo and we had to duck down to avoid being hit in the face by tree branches a few times. 

This ride was one of the memorable moments on the trip where I just stood back and thought "Wow, I'm riding a freaking elephant in Thailand right now!" I'm pretty sure Dan actually said that sentence a few times during the ride. 

After getting back to the village Dan G. (from UMU), Ryan, another student in the group , and myself walked down to a different part of the river and just hung out and cooled off for a while.  

We walked back up to the hut we were staying in and saw some village children playing. They were fascinated with what looked like rubber hair ties and a squirt bottle, and they appeared to be having the time of their lives.  It was cool to see kids that had so little having so much fun. 

We arrived late for lunch at the main hut, I wasn't lucky enough to be sleeping in the kitchen hut this time. We ate some noodles that were simple but perfect to appease my appetite. We also tried some spiky fruit called rambutan, that was almost as interesting in taste as it was in appearance.

After lunch relaxing

After the last group of elephant riders came back we went down to the river to learn how to build bamboo rafts. We would actually be using the rafts the following day to get back to the trucks to return to Chiang Mai. 

The rafts were probably about 30 feet long. They were made entirely of  cut pieces of bamboo strapped together. Sang was the expert, and he showed us how you tied the big pieces of bamboo together using small pieces. It was an interesting process to see. The Hill-Tribe people did most of the work... which was good, because if I had to build a raft i would've never made it home. 

Raft building

We finished getting our lesson in bamboo raft building and headed back to the main hut. Jaja told us that it was time to go to the village school. I'm not sure what the equivalent of the school would have been in American terms, high school, middle school etc, because we encountered a vast range of ages there. 

When we first arrived at the school, which was only a 5 minute walk from the main hut, we saw a group of young children standing, looking fairly uncomfortable to greet us. I had a few stickers with me which I tried to pass out to the kids but apparently I just give off an unfriendly-to-children vibe because they didn't accept them and never warmed up to me. After 10 minutes of failed attempts to befriend the children I went to play soccer with some older kids. 

The kids we played soccer against were probably in their teens. We played a 5 on 5 soccer match against them. Though we lost by about 7 goals, it was really cool to see the universality of sports and see that kids are kids all over the globe. 

Note the condition of the field

After the soccer game we all had plenty of bumps and bruises. It was a fun game but team U.S.A got pretty beat up, just from falling, twisting ankles,tripping, and so forth. 

We headed back to the hut where we had lunch and we sat around and hung out until it was time for dinner.We had more spring rolls than we could have ever wanted, and then we had, of course, more rice and vegetables. 

That night we got to see a traditional dance that the children put on for us. It involved the names of fruits and certain dance movements. I guess it can be compared to the Hokey Pokey or Chicken dance, which we ended up teaching them afterwards. 

I went to bed pretty sore from the soccer game and slept better than I had the previous night.  

We woke up the next morning, had breakfast and headed down to the river to raft home. 

There was a pyramid of bamboo on each raft where our belongings were stored to keep them out of reach of the splashing water. There were about 6 of us to each raft, and the guys on each raft carried long polls to help steer the raft. the current did all the work getting us down the river, but under the guidance of a hill tribe villager, we used our bamboo polls to keep our rafts from smashing into the rocks or sides of the river. 

We hit a few pockets of white Water where I thought someone was going to fall off, but everybody stayed dry. At one point on the raft ride we saw the raft of students in front of us stop. There guide pushed their raft near the side and jumped in and waded towards the shore... We just watched in stunned silence not sure why he abandoned ship, until a few moments later when we saw him pull up a huge fish on a fishing line. Apparently he had set a line near the bank the day before and just jumped off the raft to check it. 

A little farther on we stopped our rafts at Sang's home village, where I bought a few bracelets and necklaces from the villagers. 

We made it to our trucks safe and sound with only a few people falling off rafts, don't worry we had life jackets. Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of the raft ride because my camera was stowed away inside my bag.