a thailand travel blog...

the end of one chapter, the beginning of another

2009-09-10T22:33:00.003-04:00

Four months. Four months I've been home yet the memories of Thailand still linger vivid in my mind. I'm sure things will fade slowly with time, like all memories have a habit of doing but there's a lot about Thailand I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forget.

Speaking of forgetting things, I have yet to meet a single Thai person here in Toronto which might be partly my fault for not looking hard enough. They're here, I know they are. I find myself always listening to conversations in other languages on the bus seeing if I can pick up anything familiar or recognizable but thus far my evesdropping has been fruitless. As a result of my lack of practise, I'm sure my Thai language fluency has gone out the window, kind of like my Spanish...and my French.

School has just started, today was my first day of classes, and what with UTSC being constantly lauded as the most multicultural campus in Canada I'm sure there are Thai students as well. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled.

I'm really excited for this year, my courses look really interesting and I've got this thesis to do as well. I've been working like a madman transcribing the recordings of the research interviews I did while in Thailand but it's probably one of the most tedious processes I've ever undertaken. To write down a transcription for a 6 minute section of interview takes about an hour if I'm "in the zone" and there aren't any distractions. I've managed to finish two over the summer (my goal was to finish all eight but in my defence these were the two longest ones). My thesis supervisor is really supportive though and I think (/hope) I'm in good hands. This is going to be a good year. I'm also going to have to give some though as to what I want to do afterwards (Grad school? Work? Travel? Buy some land and start a farm? The possibilities are endless, which doesn't make narrowing them down any easy task)

On a scale from 1 to awesome I would say this summer was pretty flippin' sweet..

Working at Sheridan's was pretty much as lousy as I'd expected it to be which was made worse by the fact that I wasn't able to make as much as I was hoping to because they keep raising the minimum wage with means places feel like they don't need to give their employees raises. I mean I know this is generally a good thing for the majority but I still feel justified in being just a little bit miffed when I'm still making the same wages as the 16 year old loading cars at the front of the store my third summer on the job. Not planning on going back there.

Obviously my working environment did nothing to increase the quality of my summer, but this was more than made up for by the fact that all my friends were in town for the summer. As a result of my choosing the LONGEST DEGREE PROGRAM EVER, all my friends have now graduated, and were back in Toronto for a lot of the summer. Summers past, many people who go to school out of town opt to get a job there, especially if they're already having to pay for a room over the summer. This means it's sometimes kind of hit and miss with summers, you never know who's going to be around, but not this summer. Everyone was back, and it was phenomenal. On top of fun times being silly with friends, I was also co-coaching a frisbee team with two guys I've known since high school. That was also a stellar time, playing lots of frisbee, hanging out with the team, staying fit all the while.

As I expected would probably happen I've fallen out of touch with most of the people I was close with in Thailand. This is one of the unfortunate realities of traveling, you meet so many amazing people and share great times with them, but the relationships often lack the permanence you might expect at home. I'm painting in pretty broad strokes here but this has been my experience generally. I'm still in touch with Ying who is burried in work starting her Master's in English and working full time. Various others are spread out across the US, Europe, Africa and Australia all doing their thing in one form or another. Thing is, I know if I ever visit the city they're living in, I know I'll always have a bed waiting for me, and vice versa.

I was going to try to sum up my time in Thailand in a few words but I think that anything I could come up with would hardly do justice to the times I've had over the past year. Sure it was hard, but aren't the experiences that really matter supposed to be? I laughed, I cried, I learned, I grew and I changed. Who could ever ask for more than that?

So many adventures, and to those who shared them, I salute you.

Things that bug me about Canada

2009-05-28T18:05:00.000-04:00

1. People spend so much time griping, complaining and worrying about things that are (I searched long and hard for an adjective that captured the volume I was going for) monumentally trivial. Worrying about whether or not there will be food on the table? Okay. Worrying about whether or not you should purchase a second iPhone or a Blackberry? Not.

2. You can't buy food on the street here. I took it for granted there, and I admit that I sometimes grumbled about having to leave the house to eat things, but there's something about the experience of having to go OUTSIDE to eat that turns it into something of a ritual. There were many days when that was the only reason I would leave my apartment, to go outside and get food, but here I've spent many a day without going outside at all. The thing was, when I WOULD go out to get things, I would often start a conversation with the restaurateur or the food stall owner as they were making my food, or run into someone I knew on the street (because everyone else has to go out to get their food at mealtimes as well), and I'd end up coming home feeling far better than I did when I left. That doesn't happen here. I live in the burbs. You go outside and the streets are empty.

3. The way things have changed. This one's hard to pinpoint or capture in words, because it's hard to figure out how much of it is the fact that people HERE have changed while I was gone, and how much of it is the fact that I'VE changed while I was gone so I'm not viewing things from exactly the same angle. Either way, it's unsettling and kind of makes you wish you had something more solid to stand on sometimes.

4. The general lack of knowledge about southeast Asia in general. I'll mention Aung San Suu Kyi in a conversation, or the riots in Thailand over the past year and receive a chorus of blank stares in response. And then I have to explain. It's hypocritical that this bothers me at all, because before going on this trip, I was definitely just as Southeast Asia illiterate as everyone else. This is something I just need to be more tolerant of. It also means I get to educate people because after receiving a blank stare I will (usually) try to explain who the person was or what I'm talking about.

5. The pace of life here. In comparison, everything in Thailand seems to move so much slower. Meetings don't start on time, buses are ALWAYS late, if you show up somewhere less than 10 minutes late, you're early, things like that. Some would say people were wasting loads of time doing nothing in particular. It would be difficult to argue. Where I would lodge my argument is that somehow, for all this "wasted" time, people are no less productive in the long term. What they ARE is a whole lot less stressed out over everything. I think we could definitely take some pointers, myself included.

It's good to be home?

2009-05-28T18:04:00.001-04:00

(Written May 19, 2009)

I'm writing this from my cottage in Muskoka where I've been spending the Victoria Day weekend with my family and grandparents. I've only been home about four days now but it feels like longer because of how busy I've been. Everyone seems quite happy to have me back, and it's been really nice to see all the people I've spent the last year missing while I've been away. That being said, it certainly hasn't all been rosy for me on the inside.

My first thoughts upon touching down after the ludicrously long plane ride were "Whoa, okay, I take it back, I'm not ready to go home. Stop the ride and let me off." I was struck by how little green there was to be seen.

I returned home to find that an apple orchard near my house where I remember picking apples as a child was last year razed to build a massive Wal Mart. This happened in conjunction with the destruction of a fairly large tract of farmland surrounding the orchard which has been "developed" into a shopping area to support a new housing development. Hooray for "progress". I've seen a number of friends that I really have been genuinely missing and it was kind of nice to find that being away for a year hasn't changed our interactions much. It was kind of like slipping on an old familiar glove, it still fit, it was still comfy. For the most part. Living in Thailand (far away from Bangkok) I'd grown unacustomed to the intense brand of capitalism practised by the North American 18-25 youth demographic. It certainly doesn't help that I live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods in the country (I read this, I'm not just being pompous here). Sitting and listening to conversations about the merits of iPhones versus Blackberries, or the mention of relegating one's Blackberry to "Secondary Phone" status to justify the purchase of an iPhone kind of caught me off guard. I don't have a phone at the moment. In Thailand, I had the cheapest phone money could buy, a very popular though thoroughly outdated type made popular by it's affordability.

Right, I've just erased a whole bunch of writing because I realized I was turning this post into a rant against capitalism and North American society in general, which isn't my intention. I just want to get my thoughts down.

I had an argument while doing the dishes about how Wal Mart was selling scooters now for under a thousand dollars.
I said "I'd question how they were able to get their prices so low"
"Well they were probably made in China or somewhere like that." Was the response
"That's one of the many huge problems I have with Wal Mart as a corporation because by setting their prices so low and undercutting all of the competition, they force manufactures hoping to secure one of Wal Mart's huge lucrative contracts to cut their production costs which often takes the form of long hours and or lower wages for workers and inattention to safety standards. This in turn forces competing store chains to lower THEIR prices to compete, turning the whole thing into a positive feedback loop where the consumer "wins" by seeing lower prices but those whose hands actually make the goods get stomped on harder and harder." (I have to admit I wasn't nearly this eloquent at the time, but I made the points. I really hate the way anger can render one inarticulate)

To which I was told
"Isn't that the way capitalism works? The lowest price gets the contract. If the workers really don't like it then they should go do something else"
"Like what?"
"There's always something else."

It was the first time in a very long time I was speechless with rage. I finished the dishes and left the house. I'm unashamed to say I cried that night, in the forest by myself. It was all too much. This is the life I've been missing all this time? This is the glove that used to fit? This was me? It sometimes feels like no matter how hard I push to break the cycle, or how hard I try to break out of the mold, I'll always be part of the the "machine", part of the problem I'm trying to solve, perpetuating this global imbalance. Nothing feels worse than realizing you're part of the problem you're so bothered by. It was a critically low point for me.

I felt a lot better afterward. Nothing had been solved, I still have my complex, but nobody can argue against the merits of a good hard cry on occasion. After a while I came back inside and I showed my family pictures about my trip. As I going through them I could tell I wasn't making my time there seem very interesting. It was great, what more can I say? I didn't care.

I am going to Michigan next week, a trip I'd planned to make shortly after my return. I'm ashamed to say I'm somewhat happy to be getting away for awhile even though it is so soon after I've returned. I think I've had about enough of "my life" as I can handle and could use the vacation. This has been far more intense than I thought it would be. None of this really happened when I went to Thailand, I'm supposed to be Mr. Untouchable, culture shock aint got nothin' on me. Right? Wrong.

4AM Citrus Ponderings

2009-05-28T17:51:00.004-04:00

(Written May 13, 2009 in a notebook at the Suvarnabhumi Airport while waiting for my check-in time at 4 in the morning ...which probably explains a lot)

For some reason I've got limes on the brain. Completely inappropriate at a time like this, about to leave Thailand for what could be the last time ever, I know, but it is what it is.

Joey told me on Thursday afternoon that the dry season lime crop in Thailand was a very poor one this year. The comment didn't register as anything profound at the time but it must have stuck, hidden under the corner of a birthday reminder or an email address in the back of my mind.

Friday night that same week, I was at dinner with Ying and asked for lemon-something-or-other but was promptly told that I'd have to choose again as that menu item wasn't available. I didn't make the connection to Joey's comment but instead quickly chose again and ordered something else from the menu.

Saturday night we hit the bars. Money was tight so I decided on that place on Soi 17 with the really cheap tequila shots before hitting the Nimman strip. We sat down, we ordered. The drinks came arranged on a platter with a mound of salt in the middle. Sitting in a circle around the salt were seven of the thinnest, saddest looking lime wedgest ever sliced. We grumbled at this aparent travesty but had our drinks and went on our way.

Sunday came as it often does, lazy and a little hung over from Saturday's tequila. 2PM found me shuffling in the door of Ran Lao bookstore in anticipation of a late afternoon spent curled in a corner with a cold drink and a book. I asked for an ice lemon tea, just the thing to chase the cobwebs from my brain and counter the heat and humidity of a Sunday afternoon during the hot season in Chiang Mai. The response came in Thai: No can do, you'l have to get something else. An ice coffee would do just as well, I supposed.

I was halfway to my corner before I finally made the connections and when I did I had to stop in wonder for a few minutes, my book lying unnoticed on the table in front of me.

How could something so seemingly mundane and personally inconsequential be having such far reaching effects on my daily life? A failed crop of lemons isn't the first connection one would seek between eating, partying and reading but there it was, plain as day. I wonder what other butterflies in my life are getting away with causing tornadoes undetected?

The sign above the bookshelves says "Ran Lao" in Thai. It's a witty name for a bookstore, because Ran Lao literally translates to "house of alcohol, or bar".

Packing Reminiscences

2009-05-10T12:09:00.003-04:00

It’s Sunday night and I’ve begun packing for my trip home which starts Tuesday, and ends sometime Wednesday afternoon (PLUS the 11 hours I’ll be living twice as I switch my clock back). As far as the “departure process” goes, I think this is a pretty important step so I wanted to take a few minutes to put my brain-pen to e-paper and sort out what’s going through my head.

Firstly, I’m really excited. It’s been building slowly for the past few weeks, but now I can’t wait to come home. This is quite different from the way I was feeling when I finished work and began the “research phase” of my placement at the end of March, then I wanted nothing more than to stay on at NEED and keep teaching those amazing, inspirational students.

The thing that kind of takes the fun out of the feelings of excitement, is that I have the feeling it will be pretty short lived after I get home. I doubt it will take too long for the novelty of convenient public transport and daily weather changes to wear off and for me to begin missing Thailand HARD. Fortunately I’ve got a few things lined up to help buffer the transition process and make things easier for myself.

I’m co-coaching a Frisbee team with two very good long time friends this summer and that’s something I’m really looking forward to. I think I may have actually played MORE Frisbee in Chiang Mai over the course of the year than I did at home, at least in terms of consistency. Twice a week will keep your game sharp, provided you’re playing with the right people and I feel like I haven’t slipped too far from the level I was playing in Toronto. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually played WITH anyone from Toronto in a year, so maybe it’s all in my head and I’m actually terrible now. Here’s hoping I don’t get blown out of the water.

I’ve really missed my longboard while in Thailand. This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone who’s never ridden a longboard before, and I can forgive all of you for that. Seriously though, I think about it a disturbing amount and going for a sidewalk cruise is going to be pretty high on the list of things to do as soon as I get home.

Seeing friends and family is probably number one for me in terms of things to be excited about. I’ve heard stories from other people who’ve returned from placement about how disheartened they were after getting back because they’d just gone through this huge experience and it kind of seemed like nobody back home really cared to hear about it. This is definitely a possibility, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with it but simply being aware of the fact that this might be the case I think puts me in a better position to deal with it if it does happen.

What if everyone back home has changed and I don’t fit into anyone’s plans anymore? Or what if I’ve changed to the point that we don’t get along anymore? I’m definitely going to be analyzing the differences between Thais and North American’s for awhile after getting back. For example, while North American youth right now are doing the Stanky Legg, the kids in Thailand are getting down on the dance floor to Thaitanium. Actually, I guess there’s not that huge a difference between lame hip hop and lame Thai hip hop. I am planning to bring back a fair amount of Thai music though, there’s a surprisingly large indie music scene here and a lot of it is good stuff.

As I was packing, I stumbled across a packing list I’d written before I left home in preparation for coming here. It made me stop for a second because it sort of brought home how “full circle” this experience has been for me. I remember clearly sitting at my desk in Markham writing the list, and here I am, almost a year to the day later packing again for the reverse experience. How am I different today than I was then? More mature? Maybe…more organized? Yeah, right. More open to new experiences? I feel like I was a pretty open person to begin with, but I’d say yes. This sort of self-reflection is going to play a big part of my transition home and you’re welcome to come along for the ride. I can’t promise it will be pretty but it may make for some interesting reading.

Tomorrow I’ve got a “lunch meeting” (because I think “lunch date” sounds weird) to go for Som Tam (spicy green mango salad with fish sauce, peanuts, dried shrimp, chilis and tomato all crushed together in a giant mortar…the production is a sight to behold) with a Thai guy I met at the vegetarian restaurant down the street from where I’m living now. He doesn’t speak English. I think he’s basically a testament to how far I’ve come language wise in a year. From not knowing a single word of the language to being able to carry a (though semi-coherent at times) conversation with a stranger, and having them be engaged enough to want to hang out again is HUGE for me. There were definitely some dark and very discouraging nights for me on my road to learning Thai but the payoff has been worth the struggle a thousand times over. And before any of you go getting silly ideas, there’s nothing romantic about two guys going for som tam on a Monday afternoon.

All right, it’s time to make some more hard decisions…to bring or not to bring….this bag isn’t going to stuff itself with my junk.

The Triumphant Return (to Thailand)

2009-05-05T04:29:00.007-04:00

Cambodia was fantastic overall. The trip had it's ups and downs but looking back I'm really glad I went through with it. Returning to Thailand was kind of a shock to me after 10 days out of the country though, because it felt a lot like 'coming home'. A familiar bed, the ability to talk to people on the street (especially when asking directions), and familiar food make a world of difference in terms of comfort level. I guess while traveling I'd been keeping my guard up so to speak because so many things were unfamiliar and I was trying to be careful, and letting some of that extra stress slip away felt like a weight had been lifted. I returned to Chiang Mai this morning in very high spirits.

From past experience I know that my last week here is going to pass by more quickly than I'd like it to so making the most of things is going to take some planning. I've already scheduled one more thesis research interview for Friday morning and I've emailed 3 other organizations about potentially sitting down with me as well. I'll have frisbee Wednesday and Saturday and a farewell BBQ at Sam's house on Friday night.

I'm also trying to work in time to pack each day so I don't end up packing the night I leave (which seems to happen EVERY SINGLE TIME I GO ANYWHERE, though I wouldn't be able to tell you why exactly...though if I were to guess I'd say my uncontrollable penchant for procrastination may have something to do with it).

I suppose I should say a little bit more about Cambodia while it's all still fresh in my mind.

Phnom Penh, the capital city and my first destination was an interesting experience. I arrived in the dark the first night (after that hair-raising moto taxi ride) and began looking for a guesthouse. This is one of the downsides of sponteneity in terms of trip planning. It was raining by the time I found a place with a free room for 5 dollars a night. Fortunately I asked to see the room before paying anything because there was a huge leak in the ceiling and the bed mattress and the floor of the room were both soaking wet. The man offered to turn the mattress over (as we stood there watching the water drip-drip-dripping from the ceiling onto the bed) to which I queried whether or not turning the mattress would stop the roof from leaking on me all night. In the end I ventured back into the rain to find a drier room. After asking a few people on the street if they knew of anywhere with free rooms, I was taken to a dimly lit wooden guesthouse that extended out over the lake in the middle of the city. It wasn't the cleanest place but I figured I could spend one night anywhere as long as it was dry and could move the next day. After dropping my bags, I went out to find somewhere to satisfy my appetite. During dinner I bought a Lonely Planet Cambodia Guidebook from a boy selling them out of a box he'd hung around his neck with string. I managed to bargain him down to 5 dollars for it and was feeling quite proud of myself for having done so until I saw the same book in a shop for 2.50 a few days later. The money situation in Cambodia is interesting because you can interchangeably use Cambodian riel, or US dollars. The first time someone handed me a wad of change that was a mixture of US and cambodian currency I was shocked, but you soon learn to convert from one to the other (4000 riel=1USD). I also found myself converting prices to baht in my head. Before getting ready for bed I killed two cockroaches in the bathroom using the roach spray I'd fortunately packed with me.

The second morning dawned hot and still. Having gone to bed early I was refreshed and ready to go by 8, and I set out to follow a walking tour of the city outlined in my guidebook. What followed was an incredibly hot and dusty walk through downtown Phnom Penh. I enjoyed it immensely. The hustle and bustle of covered outdoor markets crushed up against the outside walls of shopping centres, the dirt and grime of garbage-filled alleys and side streets side by side with post colonial french style architechture. And bread! Because Cambodia used to be a french colony you can get loads of baguettes, croissants, danishes and all sorts of assorted pastries. It was truly a city of contrast. I spent about 8 hours walking around that day and saw most of the city on foot, checking into another guesthouse for the evening as I went.

That evening I had dinner at a restaurant run by an NGO which runs programs for street children in Phnom Penh (there are lots of them) which is why I could look past their somewhat steeper prices.

I have to say that eating on your own is one of the downsides of travelling by yourself. I don't really like it. If I'm at home in my room, fine, no problem, but I don't like going OUT by myself. All the tables at restaurants have two chairs which makes it especially depressing. I had plans to meet some other backpackers I'd met the previous evening somewhere in town later but basically wandered the streets by the river until the time came to go and meet them. Once I actually met up with them the night turned around and ended up being a really fun time. People you meet travelling are fantastic 97% of the time. You could question whether that is true of people generally, or whether it's because the people who choose to go travel tend to think the same way and thus get along well, but I'm not here to argue the details. Either way, the trick is to put yourself out there and be able to start up a conversation which is something that I'm working on. This trip definitely helped me practise.

The next day as I already mentioned involved a visit to the S-21 Detention Centre used by the Khmer Rouge as an interrogation centre during their time in power, and to the Killing Fields, very powerful stuff. I read up on the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia a little bit before going but I certainly wasn't prepared to see the evidence in living color. Intense doesn't begin to capture it. I wasn't alive when the events took place and would really like to sit down with someone who was after I get home or something just to get their take on the situation and what they remember of the global response (or lack thereof) at the time.

My next morning saw me on a bus on the way south to the beach at Sihanoukville, the small town on the very southern tip of Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. It was time for some sun and some sand. I notice in my last post I said I was going to meet with my friend Janeen on the beach, but in a hilarious turn of events she headed to Phnom Penh the same day I went to Sihanoukville. Our busses may have passed each other on the road. Regardless, an excellent time was had there, I realized the second night that the guesthouse I was staying at was patronized mainly by american sex tourists, but they stayed out of my way and I stayed out of theirs and the room was cheap, clean and had cable TV so I didn't see a problem with staying. Met quite a few people on the beach which was nice, all the backpackers in town seemed to congregate their after the sun went down for barbecues and beach parties.

The second morning at the beach I woke up at sunrise to go for a run on the beach. I was the only one out at that hour, and the only sounds to be heard were my bare feet on the wet sand and the sound of the waves. I hadn't jogged in a long time. Frisbee keeps you in shape, but you get to rest occasionally, and the beach was longer than I'd expected but I was determined to run all the way to the end. I finally made it sweaty and exhausted to the point where the beach ended at a rocky slope with a wide stream running along the bottom of it into the sea. As I stood there catching my breath and trying to get rid of the stitch in my side I caught sight of an incredibly short old woman who was picking her way down the rocky slope toward me. She was moving with what I thought was surprising speed down such a precarious slope, especially for someone of her age. When she made it the bottom, she was on the opposite side of the stream and without hesitation she waded in among the rocks protruding from the surface of the stream and sat down in the middle of it in front of a rock so that the water covered her stomach. She then proceeded to use a sharp piece of metal to pry the mussels off of the rock dropping them into a plastic water bottle. I watched in silence for some time. It was silently magical. For me at least...for her it was probably more like "What's this guy staring at me for...this is why I hate tourists." I wondered how mornings before she'd descended the same slope (quite a few judging from how easily she was able to navigate her way down), and what she did with them when she went home. Did she sell them, or eat them herself? Anyway, after I felt I'd stared this lady down long enough, I headed back up the beach and then home for a much needed shower/rest.

That same day I decided to get out of the backpacker area of town and see some more of the area which was FANTASTIC. I got some great pictures, and ate the first real 'Cambodian food' from a stall by the side of the road. It was meat and vegetables and rice and three cups of sugar cane juice all for 1.25 american. Tasty tasty tasty. I've always felt kind of conflicted about taking pictures in some of the places I go. If I see something really interesting like a house on stilts with someone sitting underneath weaving a fishing net (yes I saw it, no I didn't take a picture) around underneath it, part of me is all "Awesome, grab your camera!" while another part is saying "Whoa, he's just doing his thing, living his life. Why would you have to walk up to him and start snapping pictures like this was some sort of National Geographic special? Leave the man in peace." In my mind it would equate to you doing something completely mundane like washing your car in your driveway and then having someone walk up onto your lawn and start snapping pictures of you, then walking away. This conflict has meant I haven't taken pictures of a few of the really neat things I've seen not just in Cambodia but in Thailand as well, but I think that respecting your subjects is more important than getting that perfect shot a lot of the time.

My third day on the beach saw me lazing around like it was my job. I read a lot and ate a lot and generally was a waste of space, breathing all the good air that should've gone to the deserving, productive people of the world...scientists and the like.

After a day of laziness, I was ready to hit the road again and hopped a bus up to Siem Reap, a dusty town in the North of the country, home of the UNESCO Heritage Site that is Angkor Wat. Dusty was somewhat of an understatement. To be honest, everywhere I went in Cambodia was pretty dusty, but if there was a contest, though the competition would be stiff, I think Siem Riap would emerge as the dust king of the country. The odd thing is that all the roads are paved so there's no real excuse for having clouds of dust hanging in the air all the time, that just seems to be the way it is. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the circumstance) all of Cambodia is way further south than Chiang Mai, which means the rainy season comes earlier and it was definitely in full swing, with daily or bi-daily showers by the time I took my vacation (whereas in Chiang Mai, it only rains once a week or so). This was good because it helped control the dust, but bad because it turned the streets into a muddy quagmire.

Another thing about cambodia is that you get harassed CONSTANTLY by people. Now, I've never been to India (which I'm told is the harassment capital of the universe) so I had nothing to measure this by other than Thailand really, but it did get pretty intense at times. On the beach when all you wanted to do was sit on the beach in the sun and enjoy your book, people (always women) were constantly coming up to you with platters of fruit or lobster balanced on their heads asking you if you wanted to buy some. The children were also in on the game. They walked up and down the beach, some with fruit, some with string and other assorted arts and crafts materials asking people if they wanted to buy a bracelet. The interesting thing about these kids was that their english was impeccable. I didn't end up buying anything from anyone on the beach, beacuse I feel like as soon as I buy something, I give up my right to complain about getting harassed all day. The reason people sell things on the beach is because it's profitable and allows them to earn a living. If nobody bought anything, begging would cease to be profitable and they'd be forced to find something else to do. Herein lies the dilemma for me, because the next question is always, well what else could they be doing and I don't have an answer. Work long hours in horrible conditions for low pay in a garment factory making shoes or clothes for Wal Mart or The Gap perhaps? I'm not making the call on whether or not that's a viable alternative.
On the one hand you could argue that you were supporting these people and helping to put bread on their tables which is likely valid, but I would counterargue that at least as far as the children are concerned, the amount of profit they recieve personally is likely far less than what you're paying for whatever you buy from them. These kids aren't going to the market to buy their string, etc. It's far more likely that they get it from someone else, who in turn takes their share of the profit from whatever these kids earn by selling the bracelets (this isn't all speculation, I asked where a boy of about 7 got his string from and he said "The Man buys the string and give to me so I can sell bracelets and pay him back for the string"). Those of you familiar with the concept of cycles of poverty, or poverty traps will notice a familiar ring to what the boy was saying. In economic terms, he needs the string to make bracelets, he pays for the string by selling the bracelets, but he's not likely to make enough to collect enough profit to do purchase the capital to embark on another (more profitable) business venture.

In the temples at Siem Riap it was the same deal, kids selling things from flutes to guidebooks to cold drinks and water. The thing about these kids was that they often spoke 5 or 6 languages. When my motorcycle driver told me this I was astounded and tried to stump the next kid that came up to me. He flowed effortlessly from english to french to spanish to thai and likely could have kept going (german, japanese, korean and vietnamese and of course Cambodian) but I don't know any more languages. None of them receive any language training, it's all picked up 'on the job', and while it's likely that their linguistic talent doesn't exctend far past what's required to ask people to buy things, I still think it's impressive considering how young some of these kids were.

The temples themselves were AMAZING for the most part, but to go through each day blow by blow would take too long so I will just only about the best one.

I ended up getting swindled HARD on the last day (100 US out the door...) but I don't really want to dwell on it as it was a depressing experience, probably the worst I've had since I got here. Long story short, I found a motorcycle driver taht spoke Thai and a little bit of English, and using a mixture of the two we were able to communicate pretty well. We agreed on a price, 12 dollars a day for each of the days he took me around the temple complex and on the last day (my second) I expressed interest in going to a temple I saw in my guidebook that he hadn't been planning on going to. He said that temple was extra far away, and would take a long time to get to and he'd have to charge me extra, 100 dollars or something. I was like whoa, okay, if it's far and 100 dollars, that's a no go, forget it we'll just go to the short ones. Or so I thought, I didn't really press the issue afterwards but obviously I should've made sure he understood, because this whole conversation was in Thai. I don't know if it was purposeful deception or genuine misunderstanding but in the end it didn't really matter because I didn't know where we were supposed to be going and he ended up taking me to this really far temple and then demanded the money for it when we got home, saying that I'd agreed on the price beforehand. He ended up taking me to an ATM where I took out and forked over the cash, because it's hard to argue with someone when you remember the conversation, and the mention of 100 dollars, and he's already taken you to the temples you had asked for. I don't know, I was really really bummed out about it that evening but I've since tried to put it in perspective. Yes, I'd lost a hundred bucks, but it wasn't like it had fallen out of my pocket and was lying in a ditch slowly decomposing. I'd put it into someone else's pocket. Maybe this was karma's way of telling me I should've been more generous with those kids on the beach or something, I don't know. Over the course of our two day conversation, the driver told me about his life, the 8 years spent as a chef in Thailand, his wife at home, his dreams of children and his worries about being able to support them on the meagre wages of a motorcycle taxi driver. He also spoke of his plans to save enough money driving people around to open his own restaurant in Siem Riap, making enough money to be able to afford the children him and his wife dream of having one day. Hopefully my cash (seriously though, in Cambodian terms 100 US is a huge sum of money) will put him that much closer to being able to buy a building and open his restaurant. I also pointed out to myself that this was probably the worst experience I've had in the year that I've been living here and all things considered I think that means I've come out WAY ahead of the pack. So hopefully one day when this man opens his restaurant he'll think of me and my hundred dollars. Or maybe he went straight to the bar and drank it all, his wife at home never seeing a penny. I know that's sometimes the cruel reality but even though I'll never be able to be sure, I know which story I'm sticking to in my head.

The last temple, Beng Malea was probably one of the most insane experiences I've ever had. Better than watching the sun rise at 5:30 in the morning over the three huge towers of Angkor Wat, better than the 214 staring faces of the temple of Bayon, better even than Ta Phrom, that temple where a scene from Tomb Raider was filmed. We arrived at Beng Malea about 5PM, just before sunset and since this temple was so far away, as I was going in, the last few straggling visitors were leaving for the day. I was the only person there. The temple itself was MASSIVE. About 200m by 200m, and unlike all of the other temples I'd seen previously, this one had been left virtually untouched and unreconstructed since it was built. Aside from a few wooden supports holding up crumbling archways and things, it was completely left to it's own devices. There isn't really a path through the temple, and in many of the corridors and passageways you're clamboring over huge and precariously balanced pieces of the temple itself that have been left where they've fallen as the temple slowly collapses. The other thing is that it's been taken over by the jungle. Ta Phrom is another temple that's advertised to have been "taken over by the jungle" but it's obvious that there's been considerable effort taken to make sure to manage said 'take-over', there are a few trees left inside in strategic places to make the temple look wild, but Beng Malea definitely shows more accurately what a jungle takeover is supposed to look like. If my internet wasn't being a jerk at the moment I'd post some of the pictures but it is, so you'll have to use your imagination. Ask me when I get back and I'd be happy to have a sit-down. The pictures from this temple specifically weren't the greatest because the light was fading and for some reason digital cameras go nuts the second the light dims slightly and the flash just didn't cut it in this massive place. Anyway, I spent about an hour exploring the crumbling ruins of the massive temple structure, and marvelling at how huge and regal the temple must have been in it's hayday.

The artsier fartsier side of me also kind of liked the way the temple, like the beach during my morning run in Sihanoukville could be thought of as an art piece, forever unique in that it was constantly changing. Every wave carries sand up the beach, as it comes in, and drags some away as it goes out, changing the space gradually over time. Every stone that tumbles from the wall of the temple, and every tendril and vine that snakes it's way up the side of an archway simultaneously alters it and becomes a part of the piece itself. Silently beautiful.

My trip around the temples (especially Beng Malea) was also very humbling. These things have been here for A THOUSAND YEARS. Yes, they were "lost in the jungle" (I use the quotes because it's speculated that 'lost in the jungle' meant that the people who knew they were there weren't European and thus didn't count, at least as far as the history books are concerned) for hundreds of years, but here they are, still doing their thing. I'm 21 years old, but a thousand years from now (unless my plans for world domination take off in a big way, in which case I'd still probably end up being remembered as little more than a blip on the radar millenia from now) then I'm going to be forgotten in ways I can't even begin to contemplate. Kind of makes you think twice about rolling out of bed in the morning doesn't it, but on the other hand it's kind of hard to squeeze juice out of every day if you spend too much time being depressed about your insignificance from the comfort of a warm bed.

There really wasn't much to do in Siem Reap other than the temples, although I did end up meeting, among others, two Scottish guys: Frasier and Scott (or, Scott the Scott, as I called him in my head) who were also travelling together. We were supposed to meet for dinner on the last night I was there but I got back from Beng Malea far later than I'd expected and I wasn't able to find them. So, on the offchance one of you two are reading this give me a shout because I'd love to stay in contact.

The morning of my last day saw me once again boarding the now familiar 'bus out of town' on my way to the Thai border. Long story short, it took 22 straight hours of travelling to get to Chiang Mai, but it's good to be back. I remember posting a "one week and counting down" post before leaving for Thailand but that seems like it was only a few months ago, yet here we are in the same situation but the destination is Canada. Funny how life works, no?

Cambodia Day 2: Khmer Rouge Remberance

2009-04-26T04:13:00.003-04:00

I'm going to have to sum up quite a profound second day in criminally few words because I'm out of time at the net cafe.

This morning woke up early and went to visit S-21, which was a high-school turned torture and detainment facility during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the late 70s. It was a thoroughly disturbing yet very moving experience that shook me to my core. Afterwards, though I didn't feel like it much, I felt I should go to see the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh where 200,000 innocent Cambodians lost their lives in the mass execution. Not exactly a light fun morning but I am glad to have seen the two and I would highly recommend them to anyone visiting Phnom Penh.

So much more has happened today but I just don't have the time to talk about it. Tomorrow I head down to the beach hopefully, to meet Janeen a friend in the same university program as I am who's travelling here at the end of her placement as well.

Cheerio!

CAM...wait for it...BODIA

2009-04-25T00:54:00.004-04:00

Lets jump right in, no introduction needed because this internet cafe is as hot as...the inside of an internet cafe in cambodia at noon in the hot season. It's also packed with kids who I assume are on their lunch break.

Bussed to Bangkok overnight, where I ended up chatting for hours with this really sweet older woman who said I reminded her of her son. When we got off the bus, she told me not to take the skytrain, but that I could save money by taking the public bus into the city. She then took me around the bus station until we found the right bus number and told the driver where I needed to go and to let me know when we got there. Needless to say I was touched. After bussing into the city and walking to the VSO/CUSO office in Bangkok, I met with Thomas my CUSO country supervisor for a debrief session and then took the public bus to the airport. He asked me if I would be willing to come back. I said yes. We'll see where that goes. He also seemed very interested in my research and wants a copy when I finish writing up my findings. Great guy, couldn't have asked for a better country supervisor.

Anyway, from the office, I bussed to the Airport (I'm leaving out a lot here, just assume it was hot and uncomfortable the whole way on account of my carrying all my bags while it's 39 degrees in the shade).

Plane trip only took about an hour and a half, I got stopped at the carry-on baggage check because they FOUND A KNIFE IN MY BAG.
The check lady put the bag through, and then called me over to some side table and asked if there anything in my bag that I wanted to tell her about. I said no. She said "pocket nai?" I had no idea what she was saying, because I couldn't tell if she was speaking english, or Thai ('nai' means 'where' in thai) so i said I didn't understand, and she repeated it 3 or 4 times. FInally she reached into my bag and pulled out my swiss army knife. Being the genius I am, I was packing right at the last minute (an hour before i had to leave for the bus station) and so I completely forgot that my swiss army knife ended up in my bag. I had intended to switch it from my carry on to my checked luggage but that never happened.

Okay, I've got about 1o more minutes on my hour of time at this cafe so lets speed through the rest:
Got to Phnom Penh at about 4:30, it was raining, ignored the taxi drivers at the airport and walked out to the street to save 5 dollars on the trip into town. Ended up agreeing on 2, and hopped on the back of a motorbike. I spent a good deal of the next 2 weaving in and out of traffic going the wrong way up one way streets, driving over grassy medians, weaving around padestrians and other vehicles, running red lights and generally watching my driver prove that he either had no concept of "the rules of the road" or that he felt he was above having to follow them. I remember having this conversation with myself in my head:

"Wow, this guy is driving like a MANIAC...and having lived in thailand the last 11 months that's saying something. Oh...this is a one way street...we seem to be traveling against the flow of traffic. Isn't that something. Uh oh..traffic jam. The street's packed. Wait, did he just eye the sidewalk? He better not be thinking about doing what I...WE'RE ON THE SIDEWALK! WATCH OUT! PADESTRIANS! WHAT'S GOING ON?"

I won't bore you with the details but it continues along the same lines for quite some time. The 30 minute trip into town took 2 hours because the street was PACKED with cars. there'd been a major rain storm just before our plane touched down and many of the streets were flooded. I had to lift up my legs many a time so as not to soak my feet in the raw sewage which was overflowing from the open gutters. Everyone else seemed to be in a great mood though.

Spent the night in a cramped roach-y guesthouse (good thing i brought my roach spray) and am planning to switch to a new one today. Right now I'm in the middle of a walking tour of the city thanks to my handy-dandy Lonely Planet which I picked up for a few dollars from a kid outside the guesthouse last night. My hour here is up so I should probably pay my 37 cents and be on my way.

oh, before i go, Cambodia used to be a french colony so there's french architecture and french pastries everywhere. i paid 25 cents for a HUGE baguette for breakfast. it's great. Time to hit the streets for some more exploring.

Cambodia Ho!

2009-04-22T21:32:00.002-04:00

I leave tonight!

The itinerary has been on my mind all week, but it only really came together yesterday afternoon. I've been interviewing like a crazy person running around Chiang Mai all week but I'm proud of the amount I've been able to get accomplished in...wait for it...1 week of research. I'm also really surprised how much I LIKE it. I love the feeling of sitting down with someone who's in many cases founded an amazing organization and finding out first hand what they do, and why they do it. I've never really done anything like it and it's fantastic.

I have two more interviews to get through today before I leave this evening (the first of which I need to leave for in 5 minutes and I haven't had breakfast yet). Here is prospective itinerary:

April 24 - Arrive by air in Phnom Penh at 4PM and get a guesthouse in the city
April 28 - Head to the beach! ->3 nights in Sihanoukville on the southern coast of the country
May 1 - Leave the coast and head up through Phnom Penh to the rarely visited Kampong Chnang, smack in the middle of the country and right on the shores of the Mekon River for 2 nights
May 3 - Head to Siem Riep for 2 nights before laving for Bangkok on May 5th by bus
May 5 - Arrive in Chiang Mai that morning after a ridiculously long series of bus rides

When I get back I'm hoping to get through some more interviews before I go. I've got at least one scheduled for sure.

And no, haven't bought a Lonely Planet guide to Cambodia. This is going to be exciting.

I am going to be SO late for this interview.

2009-04-16T02:46:00.003-04:00

9 Days and counting down. It's begun. My time left in Chiang Mai has reached hitherto unheard of lows and it worries me.

I've been researching as hard as I can for my thesis, but none of it first hand as I've been sitting on my hands waiting for ethics review board approval. It came yesterday, but they only approved half the research I wanted to do. How can I compare two sets of data if they'll only let me collect one? I feel like that would make it kind of hard to assemble any sort of sound argument. I'm a little bit bitter.

In other research related developments I've managed to track down a potential research supervisor. I'm planning on talking with him tomorrow to try and figure out what I should do because I'm kind of at a loss at the moment.

I'm not actually coming HOME in 9 days by the way, I'm just going backpacking. Where you might ask? Cambodia. I'm flying into Phnom Penh on the 24th, and am returning to Thailand at some point before the 10th of May to pick up my stuff and actually hop on a plane back to Toronto, but between the 24th and the 10th, I haven't done much planning. I want to keep my schedule open so as to give me the flexibility to really do what I want, when I want. Isn't that what vacations are supposed to be all about? I may end up at a hill station in the mountains, or in a lounge chair on the beach (yes, Cambodia has beaches too!) I'd love to hit up Saigon as well because It's so close, but I don't know if I'll have the time (or the money for a visa).

In other news, I've finished work (tearfull goodbyes were enjoyed by all...I miss the students already), drove to Laos and back in a day (6.5 hours one way...that was a LONG day) and visited Kampang Phet, a province between Chiang Mai and Bangkok for a rip roaring good time of a weekend where I ate THESE THINGS

Need a closer look?

That's right, ant larvae.

This week was also Songkran, which is the Thai Buddhist New Year celebration. It's celebrated in a few ways: visiting family, visiting the temple and making offerings to monks to name a few. Oh, and also by GOING BUCK WILD IN THE STREETS WITH BUCKETS OF WATER ND SUPER SOAKERS FOR THREE DAYS STRAIGHT. The city grinds to a halt, literally. Most businesses close for the holiday, and it's a good thing too because it's difficult to get to work when the streets are jammed with people. One of the days my friend Ekk volunteered his pick up truck for the festivities and we took to the streets. I honestly don't think I can describe what it was like, but you can check here and here for pictures (there was no WAY I was taking my camera out during Songkran. Pure and utter mayhem. I had purchased a super soaker water gun for the occasion and put it to good use. People walk up and down the street with massive blocks of ice (maybe 15 kilos each) meant to be placed in garbage cans filled with water so you could not only soak people, but shock them half to death in the process.. It took us 5 hours to travel 2 kilometres and we were all exhausted and SOAKING wet by the time we got home.

I've been purging like mad but I've still got a disturbing amount of stuff to get rid of before leaving. I don't know how I've amassed this number of books (althogh I'll hopefully be able to get some cash for them at used book stores by selling them).

Bleh...home. I'm not ready. Not even almost. I think it's going to be a messy landing. I'm planning to keep updating the blog after I return home both to document all the miserable details and as a way of dealing with the reverse culture shock situation. We'll see how it goes.

quality control redux

2009-03-11T23:11:00.004-04:00

See if you can spot the difference.

May 24, 2008

March 12, 2009

quality control

2009-03-11T07:50:00.002-04:00

I just got back from a breathtaking game of frisbee. It wasn't breathtaking because it was so intense, it was breathtaking because you literally couldn't breath most of the time because of the terrible air quality.

Air quality in Chiang Mai is TERRIBLE right now. The huge mountain JUST outside of town that can be seen from just about anywhere in the city and surrounding area is completely obscured by haze.

I did some research and found that the air gets like this every year. I will try to take a picture of it because it's actually crazy.

In the US it is considered a serious pollution episode if the PM-10 level (the number of tiny airborne particles per unity of air) exceeds 50.

Today in Chiang Mai the PM-10 rating was 166.1. Yesterday, 181.4. According to the data the PM-10 levels haven't been below 50 since February 10th. On March 2, they reached a record high of 191. I'm staying indoors as much as possible but I don't know how much good it's doing. I have my balcony door open most of the time because I won't use the AC.

If things aren't better by Saturday I may consider skipping frisbee. Maybe.

life is a musical

2009-03-09T02:25:00.008-04:00

Holy moly am I ever busy. I mean, I know I've been saying I'm busy since I got here, but now I really mean it folks. What have I been up to recently? Lets run down the list.

1. Bangkok Hat Ultimate Frisbee Tournament
SUPERCRAZYFUN weekend in Bangkok playing frisbee with amazing players that came out for the weekend from Korea, Canada, Malaysia, China, Japan, Indonesia, the US, and of course all over Thailand (when we found out how far some other people had travelled, we didn't feel so bad about the 12 hour train rude we had to sit through to get there.
Two weeks before the tournament I suffered an ankle injury (and then proceeded to be a FOOL and continue playing on the ankle twice a week, which didn't exactly expedite the healing process). Also, there was an all-out costume party the first night of the tournament, which was fun, although we dubbed the MC "DJ Play What I Want" because despite numerous requests to spin some hip hop he refused outright and continued with his lame set.

We rolled as a unit

Pre-party warm up, Practicing our moves at the hostel. Nobody wants to be the one to pull a muscle 'cause they didn't stretch enough.

Of course we had to ride the Bangkok Skytrain in uniform. Lets just say we turned some heads on the street, but I think we pulled it off well.

Once we got there we felt right at home. 10 points to Gryffindor if you can figure out the costume of the gentleman in the box.

Considering that would be my only complaint from the weekend, I'd write it off as a resounding success.

2. My birthday! Celebrated 'kon dio' (by myself) in bed on the train back from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The overnight train pulled into the station in Chiang Mai at 8 in the morning (only an hour late, I was impressed...the train is notoriously tardy) and I was due at work at 9:15.

Always the penny-pincher, I walked straight through the crowd of pushy taxi drivers that always swarm the entrance to the train station trying to charge naive 'fresh off the train' tourists exorbitant prices to take them wherever they need to go. I've lived in Chiang Mai long enough to know when I'm getting my pants pulled down over a price and I just wasn't in the mood to deal with it this early in the morning. I crossed the street, planning to head out to the main road and try to catch a ride home from there. I was walking quickly down the street (looking like quite the tourist profile with my huge backpack of frisbee paraphernalia) when I was stopped by an upper middle aged Thai gentleman in jeans and a red flannel shirt.

"Bai nai krap (Where are you going)?" He asked pleasantly. I wasn't overly surprised. It really isn't that uncommon for me to be stopped on the street, and everyone always asks where people are going. It's like a saluation. Another common one is "Have you eaten yet?" Until I figured out that these were polite greetings and not nosy inquisitons, I was really confused as to why strangers took such an interest in my daily itinerary and eating habits. I figured he was just a concerned citizen trying to steer a confused tourist in the right direction.

"Grap baan krap (going home)" was my response. Everything routine so far.

"Baan yu tee nai krap? (where do you live?)" Said the man.

"Tee tannun Huay Kaew, taew taew Kad Suan Kaew krap (On Huay Kaew road near the mall)" I answered.

"See-sib baht krap (40 baht)." He offered. I was caught off-guard by this because up to this point in the conversation I hadn't realized I was being sold anything.

"Poot eek tee dai mai krap (Uhh...what?)" I sputtered. Obviously he took it as a bargaining technique, and countered with an exhasperated

"Daai, daai, sam-sib baht, took maak (Okay, Okay, 30 baht. Special price just for you)"

At this point I had to weigh my options, and as usual I began with the cons.
1. I don't know this guy and he's not wearing any identifiable uniform
2. I'm in a hurry so if he attempts a kidnapping I'll likely be late for work.

Then there were the pros:
1. This mysterious stranger's prices were bargain basement low. I'd been expecting to pay 50-60 baht minimum for a ride home (more like 150 or 160 if I'd taken one of the guys at the door of the train station).
2. He was a good foot shorter than I am
3. I probably had 60 pounds on the guy
4. Based on Pros 2 and 3, I could probably outmatch the guy in a scuffle if it came to that (unless he was some sort muay thai master, in which case my goose would be cooked. I suppose I should've added "Potential Muay Thai master" to the cons).
5. I was in a hurry, going with him would mean I'd probably get to work on time if I didn't waste time at home
6. It was 8:00 in the morning.
7. I can run really fast.

I weighed my options and decided to accept his offer, PROVIDED that I didn't have to get into any sort of closed vehicle.

"Okay, krap" I said, and he motioned me to get on the back of a beat up looking motorocycle. I figured that if I got wind that this was some sort of bizarre kidnapping attempt, I could hop off of the back of the bike, or at least cause us to have an accident without too much difficulty.

As it turns out my hesitations were completely unfounded. He turned out to be a really cheerful, friendly guy. It turns out he's worked as a motorcycle taxi driver for almost 20 years now, ever since he moved to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. He also drove really really slowly, which meant that I did end up late for work, but I suppose that's the price you pay for adventure.

3. My Thesis Proposal!
That's right kids, with about 1.5 months to go, I've finally recieved approval. So basically I'm running around trying to gather as much information as I possibly can before I leave so that I'll have something to work with when I get home. Hoping to send in my ethics review by tomorrow night (fingers crossed). I'm kind of at the point where work is crunching, and thesis is crunching, and a lot of my friends are leaving since they're teachers and the school year is ending so the rest of life is crunching as well. Today I taught from 9-5 (turned the compost and then a lecture on soil texture in the morning, followed by soil properties and a lecture on soil organic matter in the afternoon). I began this post at lunch, got home an hour ago and continued, and plan to spend a good deal of the rest of the night working on my ethics review so it can be done by tomorrow night. Have you ever tried to develop a survey of NGO effectiveness indicators? It's not exactly a walk in the park.

Hard at work (on the thesis proposal) in a coffee shop at 11:54PM on a Friday night. Strangely, this coffee shop, like many shady establishments in Chiang Mai doesn't seem to have to adhere to the rules about closing times observed by most other shops. I stayed until about 2 in the morning, (although the sign advertises that it closes at midnight). I've seen them smoking (not cigarettes) inside, the barista's usually way past drunk if you show up after 7PM, and when I left that night they'd just lit a BBQ INSIDE THE SHOP and were grilling meat and squid. The owner's friends seem to hang out there a lot.

All work and no play make Leslie a dull boy.

4. I stopped going to Thai Lessons!
I found I was really sad to stop going to Thai lessons when the time finally came. I decided that I'd gone far enough in February. A passing photographer happened upon my Thai teacher (Ajan Lah) and I in the middle of a lesson and snapped this candid shot. That's a lie, Ajan lah wanted to put a picture of me on her website so we coerced this lady in the lobby of my apartment to take a picture of us. After 4 tries the lady still hadn't got it right, and she seemed pretty indignant at Ajan Lah's insistence that the picture not be blurry, so in the end we said thank you, and asked the receptionist to take a picture instead. It was kind of awkward, because the first lady is actually sitting at one of the chairs you can see in through the glass windows behind us, WATCHING us get someone else to take the picture. Whenever I share the elevator with her she glares at me now.
Ajan Lah was a fantastic teacher though, I definitely have her to thank for the bulk of my Thai skills. It's a shame I'm not staying longer, I feel like I'm at the point where my skills are really starting to take off, because I can understand enough to put more of the pieces together myself.

5. Still working. A lot.
Yep, still doing that whole farming thing. Now that the new facility on the farm is complete, that's where we're teaching. I'm teaching on my own at this point, which is great because it really makes me feel like I've managed to figure out where I fit into NEED as an organization. It really is a fantastic feeling.

Adding water hyacinth to the stagnant cesspool behind the new kitchen in an effort to clear up the water a little bit. Water hyacinth is supposed to have some water purification properties, and be good at removing toxins. A few months later, the hyacinth is growing like crazy, but the water doesn't look any cleaner. This may be because more grossness is constantly being added to the system via the wash-water.

The new students are FANTASTIC. I really wish I wasn't leaving so soon. They're so keen to learn and soak up everything we teach them as fast as we can get it out. They ask questions and are always eager to get dirty (the girls just as much as the boys). I'm really really impressed with them so far, and hope that they continue to shine even after I've left.

The outside of the training facility

There was a flower festival in Chiang Mai. The Bonsai exhibit was pretty awesome.

The old kitchen (And our director's wife/one half of the cooking staff). She's great.

I think that just about covers it for me, life-wise...

summer fun cont'd

2009-02-10T04:36:00.002-05:00

After much deliberation, loss of sleep, gnashing of teeth, etc. I've decided to stay in Markham for the summer. Alaska looks fantastic, it really does but I think I've just got too much on my plate to orchestrate that kind of a transition at this point.

These are a bunch of the cons that tipped the scale

I'd need to pay for a visa ($585 CAN for the summer, plus a $180US SEVIS fee...whatever that is) because I guess it's harder to work illegally in the US than it is in Thailand ("What? Who said that! *looks around*)
None of the jobs will pay for me to get to anchorage, which means I get to shoulder the plane ticket on top of my visa (some of the companies were generous enough to offer to take the cost of your plane ticket out of your wages over time so you didn't have to pay it up front, but that was the best they offered)
Minimum wage in Alaska is $US7.15/hour, which is what I'd likely be getting as a first year worker at an entry level position. This means on a 40 hour work week, working ALL summer I would gross $4195 CAD. Then we subtract taxes, plane and visa costs, potentially food and rent as well and I'm left with like 85 cents. Thanks Alaska.
If I'm somewhere remote, food isn't always provided with all of the jobs (and if my experiences last summer working in remote Northern Ontario were any indication, that's going to mean some hefty food bills)
Housing in Anchorage is expensive
A lot of the jobs require you to be a US citizen to apply
A lot of the ones that don't are already filled
I will be able to get there at the beginning of June at the earliest (and that's still with less than 2 weeks turn-around time) and would have to be back at the beginning of September to get back to things school-wise which would mean I didn't qualify for any of the "End of Season Bonuses" many of the jobs offer to reward people for staying for the full season.

I've concluded that this is something I should look into in the future, but I think I'm too crunched this summer to get it together.

Pro

SUMMER IN THE CITY (back of my neck gettin' dirty and gritty)

In other news: the passionfruit vine I transplanted from the farm to a planter box my balcony has begun growing again after a few months of dormancy and is looking rather lovely, if i do say so myself.

Now I've got to go eat a sandwich and study Thai before my Thai teacher gets here in an hour (her new apartment doesn't allow any foreigners (racism much?) so she's begun making house calls)

the great white north indeed

2009-02-09T05:27:00.003-05:00

I've been looking at summer jobs in Alaska. Fishing lodges, adventure tours, summer camps and National Parks are all on my list to look into.

Pros:

I would get to spend the summer in Alaska
The money is really good. I guess they figure they've got to do something to attract workers from out of state because I feel like the domestic labor pool would be pretty sparse
I'd be gaining valuable...skills...or so the websites tell me
Alaska is awesome

Cons:

The cost of living is pretty high so I might not end up banking as much as I hope what with rent (most of the jobs don't cover it), fun and food.
I'd have maybe 2 weeks to deal with the reverse culture shock of returning home (I expect to be a mess. You've been warned) before flying out again (and potentially dealing a whole new breed of culture shock)
I'm pretty sure a number of people who were expecting me to be home for the summer will want to kill me.
I don't really have any related work experience for any of the jobs I'm looking at, save the summer camps
I would likely arrive back home at the end of the summer in a really messed up place...leaving friends/a life in Thailand, home for a few days, Alaska over the summer, back to Toronto at the end of August saying goodbye to all the awesome Alaskans I would've befriended by that point, just in time to recommence the downward spiral of insanity that is university life.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Christmas etc.

2009-01-15T23:38:00.009-05:00

February already??? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? End of placement preparations are beginning, I've now officially purchased an airplane ticket which should mean I arrive home on May 13th.

I'm anticipating a dark first few weeks. I'm told 'reverse culture shock' is quite the ride. But lets wait to cross that bridge when we reach it.

I'm still quite busy with everything but I suppose I'd be complaining far louder if I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs.

Now, to go over my Christmas break in a bit more detail.

About ten days before my family arrived, I went down south to the island of Koh Wai with Ying. In Thailand it's not actually considered to be a 'southern' island because it's slightly south, and a fair distance east of Bangkok, right by the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Ying suggested it because neither of us really felt like battling crowds of tourists in the heart of the high season, we were both really just looking for someplace to go and relax. And that's exactly what we got.

The island is really really small, just off the much larger and more touristy island of Koh Chang. It's about 3 kilometres long and 1.5km wide. There are 4 guesthouses on the entire island, no roads, and the electricity only runs between 6pm and 11pm. It was awesome. We had a tiny one room bungalow on a small cove with a rocky beach. We'd wake up every night as the tide came in and washed against the steps of our house. I spent many a lazy afternoon reading on the porch dangling my feet off the edge over the water. It was amazing. Ying didn't know how to swim, but I was told there was really good snorkeling on the island so the first two days in the sea she spent a lot of time learning. All those years of swimming lessons and instructor courses finally came in handy in some capacity (I never actually worked as a swimming instructor or lifeguard).
Anyway, on the third day, we rented snorkels and flippers (and a life jacket for Ying to be on the safe side) and headed out. There was a reef about 50 metres from the beach on one side of the island that basically went from one end of the island to the other, and it was really really fun. Lots of tropical fish, sea cucumbers and coral. One morning looking out our window we also saw a green sea turtle swimming past our bedroom through the foamy surf.

Another day we went out in the kayak and spent about 3 hours paddling around the whole island, which was nice because there is a lot of it that you can't really get to overland very easily, and neither of us had brought hiking boots. All in all, a fantastic little vacation (also, the room: 300b per night, which is the equivalent of about 10 dollars, spit between the two of us.

Sunsets were phenomenal, but they were on the opposite side of the island to where we were staying so we had to hike to see them. So worth it.

Just off screen was my book, and a bag of sesame snacks. Set for the afternoon. (also notice the snorkel mask)

Taken during an afternoon exploring the island. I never quite got over the color of the water...Kool Aid anyone?

There was a sea turtle hatchery on the island as well, I assume that's where the turtle we saw in the ocean came from, but you can't be sure.

Our room was the one on the right. Unfortunately at this time of year the tide is in during the day so there weren't many white sandy beaches, but walks on the beach at night aren't the most terrible things in the world either.

A little before sunset, note the tide going out. That's our room again on the right. If you compare this picture with the previous on you can kind of see that the rocky beach we were on was pretty isolated. There were random Russian and German tourists from the larger islands nearby who came during the day on snorkeling trips, but none of them ever really did much more than pass by our beach, likely because of all the rocks. It really made for a quiet stay though, which was nice.

I really like the gaudy paint jobs on the fishing boats. They would go out every night and come back every morning laden with fish and seafood for the two guesthouse restaurants on the island. Fresh seafood anyone?

Anyway, we stayed there 6 nights after which time we went back to Bangkok three days before I was to meet my family who would be flying in on the 21st. It was my first time back in BKK since I arrived and all I have to say is whoa! It's huge, bustling, and kind of overwhelming. I guess I'm especially lucky to live where I do. You can get all the same things you can in the city (sushi, indian food, live music, bars, clubs, galleries, cafes, etc) but the inner city is maybe 4 square kilometres. I mean, there's a lot of sprawl so it extends much farther than that, but it's still relatively small and easy to get around. 20 minutes on a bicycle will get you anywhere in Chiang Mai.

After three days in the city I finally figured out the public transport system in Bangkok. The buses, skytrain and subway system, while incredibly confusing,are generally very cheap and efficient ways to get around.

Then came the family. Jennifer arrived a day before everyone else and there we the tearful hello at the airport arrival area. I feel like that would be a neat place to hang out, just because you're constantly seeing people who are seeing each other again for the firs time in a long time. Lots of tears, lots of hugs. My sister, Ying and I spent the day touring Bangkok. The next night, Ying left to go back to Chiang Mai and the rest of the family arrived. We spent the next morning looking around Bangkok, visited one of the big temples and then waited in the train station for a few hours because of a mix-up with the tickets. On arriving in Chiang Mai after the 13 hour train ride (the fact that we got beds for the night took the edge off), we headed to the hotel. The next 5 days were spent basically hanging out as a family and touring Northern Thailand. We went to an elephant camp, the night safari (which was a lot like African Lion Safari, but at night, and in Thailand) a big national park, visited some hot springs. It was really beautiful, Northern Thailand is really a side of thailand a lot of tourists who just go to the south miss. Mountains, valleys and rice paddies. Very rural.

Here's the proof:

This is a monument in downtown Bangkok commemorating bloody student clashes in the...80s? The date's not important, what IS important is that basically high school and university students ended up going head to head in bloody clashes with the military and the government because they felt that the government wasn't one that fairly represented the people. Students, fighting for democrating government. There were many many casualities. In an effort to suppress the student uprising, the military was authorized to fire upon the crowd and basically things escalated from there. There were 3 or 4 days when the street the monument was located on, and the area outside the government buildings was basically a war zone. What really drove it home for me was the fact that they had lots of pictures, and much of the conflict occurred on the street just outside where the monument was (it's one of the biggest streets in bangkok, maybe 8 lanes? Huge.) Anyway, in the picture, the road had been completely closed and was filled with thousands and thousands of students demonstrating. Why did I never learn about this in history class? It was really sobering to think about the sacrifices so many young people made in the name of democracy.

I'm not one of those who will try to tell you that democracy is the perfect form of government, in fact I think it's riddled with flaws. What gets me though, is the fact that people were ready and willing to fight and to die to work toward the system of government we in the West don't think twice about most of the time. Get out and vote kids. It's a privaledge. Anyway, that's my voting PSA. Moving on.

This was taken at Doi Inthanon National Park, the highest point in Thailand. My brother is obviously too cool for school.

Guess why they call this area "The Golden Triangle"?

Taking a river boat up the Mekong.

Early morning in Ta Thon

Yeah I drive ox-carts. Who doesnt?

Yes they're bugs, yes I've tried them. Next question.

We're all either coming or going when you think about it.

The skytrain sure beats sitting in traffic.

The white temple in Chiang Rai. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Cool statues at a temple in Bankok

Oh! and Christmas, we can't forget about that. On Christmas morning, most people didn't really want to go to church so only I went with my mom and dad to a church we'd seen somewhat near my house. Unfortunately it was closed (which, as we were told later made a lot of sense since Christmas was a Wednesday and most of the congregation would likely have been at work), so we decided to walk to another one somewhat nearby and if that was closed to we'd give up and go home. After having to ask a few people how to find the place, we finally got there and to our surprise the door was open and the sound of Christmas carols could be heard wafting out the door. We went inside to find a group of maybe 20 young people, led by a pastor practicing Christmas carols (all of which were translated into Thai). They didn't mind us being there but explained why there were no services, and then proceeded to give us a private recital of all their Christmas carols. So there we were, my mother, my father and I sitting in three chairs being sung to in Thai on Christmas morning. It was surreal yet incredibly uplifting. They did 'We wish you a merry Chrismas' (Koh hai mii kwaam suk wan khrit maat), Oh Holy night, and two other ones I can't remember. After practicing they were all going to go to a seniors residence in Chiang Mai to sing for the seniors (because many of them don't get many visitors) but we politely declined as we had plans for the afternoon.

I was also lucky enough to get to watch all four of my grandparents use skype for the first time over the holidays. When you consider how much technology has changed over their lifetime I think they both deserve to be highly commended for how well they've kept up.

Unfortunately it couldn't last forever and the day before new years they had to pack up to go home in order to have a few days to sleep of the jet lag before school was back in session. Since then I've been doing more thesis research, writing my thesis proposal, finding for more resources to include in the curriculum manual, finishing up two pieces I've been working on which will be published in the NEED Journal 'Natural Light' and trying to keep my head on straight.

Last Saturday there was a one day ultimate tournament in Chiang Mai. Lots of fun was had by all, we had people come up from Bangkok, and one guy even flew in from Hong Kong. I've also signed up for a weekend long ultimate frisbee tournament in Bankok at the end of February, which is going to be MUCH begger, but I'm very very excited about it. I hear the team from Singapore is AMAZING.

Right, I think that just about covers it. I'm sorry again for taking so long with my response, I hope the length and detail make up for my tardiness.

I forgot to mention, January 10 was Children's Day in Thialand. All over the country there were activities set up for kids, like letting them ride in fire trucks, or fighter jet flying exhibitions, magic shows, etc. I know there's a children's day in Canada but it's not really a holiday and doesn't get mentioned much, but I thought it was neat that here it was such a big thing. And, everyone goes around wishing each other a happy children's day (suksan wan dek). The traffic was terrible though.

Lets see...what else have I been up to lately.

Oh! A while ago there was this...I suppose one would call it an 'event'. 11,000 monks gathered on this street near my house at 5 in the morning, and thousands of people came to say prayers and give offerings. It was SO surreal.

Work is also still going well, we've now officially finished the new training facility at the farm. I thought about it the other day and realized that I've been able to observe the ENTIRE process, from designing the building to applying for funding to construction (and associated difficulties). I suppose all that's left to do now is begin to use it. The new students have started to arrive and are moving in on the farm, training is set to begin with an orientation week Feb 16. Still working hard folks.

Although you'd never guess from the picture below. I took it at last week's staff meeting.

Oh, and I'm also starting to miss home...it's taken long enough to set in, and it's not the best feeling. I suppose I'll be back soon enough.

sawasdee bee mai!

2008-12-31T22:31:00.002-05:00

That's Happy New Year in Thai in case anyone didn't catch it. I learned the phrase, said it a million times yesterday and may never say it again.

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and ready to ring in the new year and figured what better way to do it than with a blog post? I read my last one and figured I should let anyone who didn't already know that things in Chiang Mai are still fine, although I'm still seeing riot images on the news from Bangkok. I'm just way to exhausted at this point to bother keeping up with the situation. All I have to say is that democracy as a political system only works when the minority that loses a democratically held election is willing to acknowledge a ruling party they didn't vote for, however begrudgingly.

2008-11-27T03:17:00.002-05:00

Quick update just before I run out to my thai lesson, the clashes have finally hit the streets in Chiang Mai. I just got a call from the travel agent I was supposed to go see in an hour to say that she was leaving the office and going to take her son out of school and going home because there were PAD/anti-PAD clashes going on at Wat Loi Kroh and at the offices of the Prime Minister in Chiang Mai. The PAD has come here because the Prime Minister flew in from Peru a day or two ago and I guess they're here to speak to him in person.

Also, she said there would be a curfew tonight so I'm going to keep watching tv. I'm going to my thai lesson early so I can be home before sundown. I feel like things are starting to heat up, but I don't think anyone back home has anything to worry about because things really aren't as terrible as they may look in the newspaper or on tv (I don't know how much of this has hit the Canadian Media).

More trouble in paradise

2008-11-26T21:16:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to post a short "hey guys, I'm okay!" in light of recent political developments in Thailand. The People's Alliance for Democracy still isn't happy with the Prime Minister and in an effort to get him out they've taken over two airports in Bangkok, and the Parliament buildings. Grenades have been thrown at demonstration groups and there have been shootings in Bangkok between the two groups. The general word is that things are about to come to a head, the pro-government and anti-government groups just can't seem to get along and it is felt that a 'street brawl' style showdown between the two groups is imminent.

Conveniently, the ASEAN summit is coming up in two weeks, as well as a ASEAN leader's summit in Chiang Mai, which are two very high profile events. Some sort of disruption attempt may be attractive to people looking to garner attention for their cause, although the Prime Minister was on telelvision last night urging groups to settle down. He said something about thinking about how this makes Thailand look to the rest of the world but I didn't understand it exactly.

Slightly scarier is the fact that there has been a shooting in Chiang Mai, a PAD supporter was dragged from his car and shot near the airport yesterday, according to news reports that are just rolling in.

I haven't actually SEEN anything out of the ordinary as of yet, no demonstrations or supporters of either group. Just to be safe I think I'll leave my yellow or red shirts at home for the next little while (The PAD wear yellow shirts and the DAAD (pro gov't) wear red).

I did think it was somewhat humorous that the two groups fighting each other are called the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD). It kind of sounds like they're both fighting for the same thing...although in reality they definitely aren't.

Anywhoo, keeping an eye out for trouble, making sure I stay safe, working from home at least until Monday...When I've got to Make the 9 hour trip to Mae Hong Son to interview students for next year's program. 3 Days in Mae Hong Son...that should definitely give me some time to work on the thesis. Good thing I'm not planning to fly. All this airport craziness had BETTER clear up before my family is planning to arrive for Chrismas.

Got to love those deadly holidays

2008-11-17T05:40:00.003-05:00

According to this article from the Nation (Thailand's top English News website) , This Loy Krathong wasn't even half as deadly as last years with it's 61 injuries and 2 fireworks related deaths. Somehow it turned from the most serene beautiful scene in the world, to World War 3 in the span of maybe 15 minutes. Link to the article below

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php?newsid=30088462

Looking at my video you realize where those statistics are coming from.

Cottleston Pie

2008-11-10T19:57:00.011-05:00

Good morning (or evening...or afternoon, depending on where you're tuning in from)!

It's almost 8AM and I've decided it was time to dust off the ol' blog for an update of sorts on my situation. I thought it might be easier to organize my thoughts if I used headings.

weather!
In my opinion, winter is beginning to get a little bit too enthusiastic. I was on the back of Ying's motorcycle the other day, and she turned around at a red light and said "by the way, it's winter now". I said "oh...okay, cool." And that was that. I suppose the luxury of gradual season transition is a luxury we just don't appreciate enough living in North America. No fall colors, no brisk nippy walks on windy days through fallen leaves, no birds flying south for the winter, just..."it's winter now". Anyway, there were about two or three days when the weather was absolutely PERFECT, cool in the mornings and evenings, sunny warm during the day, and dry all the time (I've had to start watering the plants on my balcony again). But NOW, it's getting kind of...well..cold at night. I was walking home from Tops the other night after a fruitful grocery expedition (no pun intended) and I realized I was uncomfortable. I kid you not, it took me a few seconds to place the feeling. I was COLD! For the first time in literally months. It was bizarre, made even more bizarre by the fact that the feeling was unfamiliar. I mean, buses and movie theatres are usually uncomfortably chilly, but this was outside. Unheard of. Anyway, I just checked the weather report, and the low last night was 14. It's now climbed to 17 (though I think higher because my apartment faces East) I had to close the door to my balcony because it got too chilly. But it's still perfect during the day, so one can't complain too loudly.

food!
Still awesome, next question.

money!
Doing well in the saving department, especially considering that I started this month by dropping the down payment on the family vacation, which has effectively forced me to save a whole ton of money, simply because it wasn't in my accout to spend. I was a little bit worried for a while, but I've calculated I should be able to make it to the end of the month without too much difficuly, so I think I'm home free.

loy krathong and yi peng!
It's here!

Loy Krathong is one of the biggest Thai annual holidays (second only to Songkran) and occurs on the full moon of the 12th month of the traditional Thai lunar calendar (it's a different year here than it is in North America, so if you pick up a Thai newspaper this morning it would read November 11th, 2551. Anyway, the holidy usually falls on November of the western calendar. Loy means float, and Krathong is a small raft, maybe a about the span of a large hand that's traditionally constructed from banana leaves, or part of the trunk (although now you can find ones made of everything from elaborately folded whisky bottles to aluminum coke cans. They're decorated with flowers, candles and incense, and then released on a river.

Apart from venerating the Buddha with light, the act of floating a Krathong symbolizes the relase of grudges, anger and impurities, wiping the slate clean as it were to start afresh. People also cut their fingernails or hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of the negative aspects of themselves, and for good luck. The rafts are also to thank and to honor Phra Mae Kongkha, the Goddess of Water.

In Chiang Mai, we also celebrate Yi Peng. This involves the release of 'kom', which are these really cool floating lanterns. Let me try to describe them. They're usually made of white tissue paper, which is stuck together to form a large bag-type thing, which is closed at one end, and held open at the other by a circle of wire (ranging in diameter from 1.5 feet to maybe 3.5 feet). At the open end is attached a brick of cloth and parafin mixed together, to provide fuel to heat the air inside the bag. When the brick is lit, the air inside heats up, and the bag expands, and can range in length from 1.5 feet to maybe 6 or 7 feet tall when upright. These lanterns, when released, float up into the night sky, like a huge orange jellyfish, slowly growing smaller as it gets higher and higher. The release of the lanterns symbolizes ridding ones self of bad luck and other troubles. Last saturday night, I went to Mae Jo university with a bunch of friends to release lanterns. It's a HUGE event every year, and there were thousands of people there. I was a genius and forgot to bring my camera, and that's a shame because truly it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. We were eating dinner, because someone heard that the lanterns were supposed to be released at about 9PM, but at about 8, we were walking down the street, when I looked up and saw thousands and thousands of these pinpricks of light rising into the sky from somewhere far away. We were probably about 1km from the launch site, which in retrospect I think was a good thing because it really let you get the big picture. The sky was literally filled with them, all rising and then floating away on the wind, orange, delicate and beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. Anyway, the path to the launch site was absolutely RAMMED with people, so it took us about an hour to get there, at which time we launched our three lanterns, and headed out. I'm going to have to rely on pictures stolen from others to give you an idea what it was like, but I have to say, absolutely nothing can compare with being there.

This is a picture on Wikipedia taken...whoa, it was actually taken the night I was there, November 8th. I suppose this is what it was like to actually be in it. (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

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These other three were taken by my friend Ekk, who was also at Mae Jo saturday night.

visa!
My last visa run was an absolute disaster. Instead of a straightforward trip to Mae Sai and back to get my passport stamped, I ended up being shuffled onto a bus that was going on a sightseeing trip around the north of thailand, a fact i was not made aware of until the bus was already moving. Anyway, an 9 or 10ish hour trip to the border turned into a 14 hour one. We went to Chiang Rai, the Golden Triangle, Wat Chedi Luang, two hilltribe villages and Mae Sai. Although i did get a free (though mediochre) buffet lunch out of it. I booked it with the same travel agent that I booked my christmas vacation with, so I'm torn between going back to have a sit down and a chat with her about why she didn't let me know that this is what she was signing me up for, and assuming she had a good excuse for giving me the runaroud (maybe there weren't enough people going on visa runs that day to organize a van straight to the border and back?).

I just realized today was Rembembrance Day. I will definitely be taking my minute of silence at 11...I wonder if the Canadian Embassy is doing anything.

wedding!
Relax, it wasn't mine, althogh going as Ying's 'plus one' I did get asked a disturbing number of times when our wedding was going to be, but I'm sure it was all good natured...right? Anyway, it was a good time, with good food and good fun had by all.

The girl getting married was one of Ying's co-workers. It took place in the yard of their new house, and the setup was kind of similar to a North American wedding, with chairs and tables arranged in tents outside, and a stage at the front where there were performances later in the evening. The groom's arrival marked the start of the actual ceremony, the video of which is below.

Above: The groom was preceded by a few minutes, by a pickup, who's bed was occupied by a group of women who weren't trying very hard to hide the fact that they were intoxicated. One of them immediately spied me waiting quietly trying to quietly blend into the crowd with little success and made a stumbly beeline in my direction. Holding a full glass of what I later found out to be straight whisky on the rocks. She had a dangerously playful glint in her eye. As she walked over, Ying quickly whispered that refusing a drink from this lady would be rude, but that I could just pretend to have some and that would be fine. With all eyes on me, I was commanded to drink in Thai, to which I politely accepted, lifting the glass and taking a small sip.
"More!" was the response, she wasn't buying my ruse. I took another larger one, and she seemed satisfied and moved on, trying to force drinks on the other wedding guests. After a few other people refused to drink, she whirled back around to face me, demanding I drink some more. I didn't feel so bad refusing after I'd seen others do the same, so I said I was full (quite a useful phrase to know, as it allows the refusal of food without causing the giver or the reciever to lose face...nobody can help being full, and it's not a reflection of the culinary skills (or lack thereof) of the cook). But this lady was having none of it. After three or four forceful reptitions of the command, I gave in. But my sip wasn't big enough, so I was made to take another one. At this point fortunately the groom arrived and the wedding began, but before turning to join the procession, the lady told me not to leave, as she would find me later. This was the procession:

The procession made it's way like this from the road in to the house, stopping at three points, where two people were positioned with chains (I think they were silver or gold) blocking the path (or the doorway).
The groom had to present the people with money to allow the procession to pass, it was all very ceremonial. I liked it.

The ceremony in the house. After the appropriate exchanging of gifts of gold had occurred, this was the groom giving the ring. After this happened, the bride and groom had to sit at an altar just off the left side of the picture, and everyone at the wedding who was older than they were came and tied a white bracelet on each of their wrists (you can see at least one bracelet on each of their wrists already in the picture) and say something to wish them luck in their new marriage.

Anyway, after all was said and done, out came the food, which was tasty and copious, and when it was all over we headed back to town.

work!
Work is still going well. I've been splitting my time between working on the farm and teaching recently (though spending more time teaching). We were able to take the students out to the farm three or four times, which was good, although the rainy season went late this year so unfortunately it was wet which makes it less pleasant and impossible to plant anything. We did dig a huge banana circle for the compost though, and have planted some sweet potatoe along the high areas near the fish ponds. The students have left for home this week, so teaching for this year is pretty much finished. I'm helping to write the curriculum manual, which we hope to finish by the time our contracts expire. This involves taking all the lesson plans, activity outlines and handouts and organizing them into a standardized, easy to use format, as well as compiling background information on the topics covered and resources where further info can be found. It's quite a job. So far I've been given all of the lesson plans, we've done so far and am working away organizing and adding to things where need be.

We're also going through the recruiting process for next year. The students have been asked to provide a picture with their application and resumes (a completely standard practise here (for many jobs, women will also be asked to provide their height and weight along with the picture), something I'm not used to at all), and we've been interviewing the people on the Thai side of the border, and intend to do phone interviews with those we can't see face to face.

There was also a HUGE fiasco last week about an ASEAN Summit planning meeting organized by the Burma Partnership Organization which I was asked to go with the NEED director to the night before, when I had been planning to be interviewing students (I'd already written the questions, sat down with the students to discuss the process and brief them on their right to refuse the interview, written the consent and release of information forms, etc). Anyway, things have worked out now (sort of, i interviewed the students the day after) but (CURSES!) the recorder I used to record the three interviews records in a file format my computer can't read (.VOC), and I couldn't find a program to convert it successfully (this is the summary of a maybe 8 hour ordeal). Anywhoo, if anyone would like to take a crack at converting the files to something you can listen to on your computer, feel free to let me know and I'll send them over, but I wouldn't bother. Thanks to the urgent words of Professor Kepe (Project Management C01), I took careful notes both during and after the interview, so I have all the answers, it's just quotations that will be difficult to use. The interviews were for a potential article for the NEED journal 'Natural Light', which we're also in the process of putting together at the moment.

books!
I've only included this because I've been reading a lot lately (coffee and books were made for each other), and felt like I should share, because I've gone through some good ones.
The Old Man and the Sea - Earnest Hemmingway's heartbreaking classic novel, I read it in grade 8 for a book report, but feel like I got much more out of it
The Interpereter of Maladies - A fantastic collection of beautifully crafted though often gut-wrenching short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Tao of Pooh - My current book-on-the-go, by Benjamin Hoff. It's a really straightforward explanation of Taoism using the characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh books, which is still one of my favourite sets of books.
A Brief History of Tractors in Ukranian - Marina Lewycka's hilarious tale of intergenerational (and intercultural) discourse, also providing an incredibly interesting and detailed history of the tractor in the process.
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho's # 1 bestseller, a fairly short and easy to read story with appeal to both children and grown-ups alike due to it's heavy use of symbolism and its relevance as an allegory for the human condition.
The Little Prince - I haven't actually read this one yet, but from what I read on the back, the description should read exactly the same as that of 'The Alchemist'

Next on my list:
Atlas Shrugged - Far too many people have recommended this novel by Ayn Rand for me not to want to read it. I've seen it at the used bookstore in town, but there's no room in the budget for new books until next month.

thesis!
I still have no idea what I'm doing my Thesis on, if anything I'm farther behind than I was before. I've done a bunch of background research on food security in Burma (which is what I interviewed the students on), and it looks like basically everyone is saying the same things. I also wrote an introductory piece for the journal, the rough draft of which I've included below...Read it, or don't it's up to you. Anyway, after all this research, I feel like researching the issues behind food security or lack thereof in Burma would be like beating a dead horse, I'd end up with tired arms and the world wouldn't really be any farther ahead for it.

My article:

Food Security - An Overview: What is it and how does it relate to Burma?

Access to safe, healthy food is one of the most fundamental human needs, and yet for many this basic need goes unmet. Over 800 million people worldwide lack access to sufficient food, the majority of which live in developing countries (FAO, 1998). As of 2004 in Burma, it was estimated that 2.4 million people lived in chronically food insecure situations (FAO, 2006). It is impossible to determine the accuracy of this statistic (the actual numbers of people without food security are likely far higher than those reported), but it does give a rough idea of the importance of food security within a Burmese context. Before we are able to examine the reasons behind why these numbers is so high, it is important to have an understanding of what food security is and exactly how it relates to Burma.

In November of 1996, world leaders met in Rome, Italy at the World Food Summit to discuss this pressing global issue. It was here that an internationally understood definition of food security was drafted. According to this document, “Food security exists when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” (FAO, 1998). According to this definition, for there to be true food security food must be available, affordable and utilized (AusAID, 2008). This means that food security involves far more than simply production. It also involves the complex issues of food distribution and utilization. Even when sufficient supplies of food are being produced, parts of the population will continue to live without food security if this food is not equitably distributed. This is often argued to be the case in Burma.

One of the major causes behind the lack of food security in Burma is poverty. Without the money to afford adequate food, achieving personal food security is very difficult. Farmers with low income tend to own smaller farms, thus reducing the amount of food they can produce. These farmers are also less able to buy agricultural equipment, or fertilizers and pesticides which further limits food production within a conventional agriculture framework (USAID, 2008). This also places limits on farmers’ abilities to feed themselves and their families, and on their ability to produce food to sell, generating personal income and providing food to others.

Recent economic inflation has contributed heavily the problem. Between 2005 and 2008, average global food prices doubled, rising 43% in the past year alone (USAID, 2008). This rise in food prices occurred while average income stayed constant, which caused the number of people who could no longer afford adequate food to increase dramatically. Many who were living just above the poverty line now find themselves below it, due to higher food prices.

In Burma, the effects of rising food prices were further exacerbated in 2008 by Hurricane Nargis. The hurricane struck during the initial few days of the dry season rice harvest, which meant that it did the maximum amount of crop damage. The affected states, often referred to as the ‘rice basket of Burma’ produce 60% of Burma’s rice and 50% of Burma’s poultry (USAID, 2008). To make matters worse, much of the harvest that could be salvaged could not be distributed because of damaged road and bridge infrastructure. Thus, it is unsurprising that in the 3 weeks following the hurricane, already elevated food prices in Rangoon increased by a further 50% (USAID, 2008). The effects of Hurricane Nargis will continue to be felt in Burma for a long time, mainly due to it’s devastating impacts on key food production areas in Burma.

Government and military programs and policies also negatively effect the food security of Burmese citizens. Military operations greatly increase the burden on rural farmers and greatly reduce their capacity to grow food to feed themselves and their community. These operations include land confiscation, counterinsurgency programs, displacement and forced relocation, crop and livestock destruction and farmer extortion. SPDC structural and economic policies such as crop quotas, genetically modified crop production and unofficial taxes, also worsen the food security situation by lowering farmer income from the food they do manage to produce. Furthermore, government run programs such as national security projects, development projects and agricultural planning projects work to exacerbate the situation due to corruption and an overall lack of concern for human rights by the Burmese government and military.

Because food security is such a basic human need, the effects of its absence are far reaching and very damaging. The most obvious effects are on human health. Without adequate food, malnutrition becomes a serious risk. Increased malnutrition also increases susceptibility to opportunistic diseases (The Peace Way Foundation, 2004). Some of the worst affected victims health-wise, of food insecurity are children. Lack of proper food and nutrition prevents healthy child development, the effects of which are felt throughout the rest of the children’s lives. It also increases infant mortality rates. A lack of food security can lead to increased debt when farmers cannot grow enough food to feed themselves, let alone to sell to pay for food and seed for the following year. This often forces them to seek out money to borrow from loan sharks, the military or the government, all of which have involve incredibly inflated interest rates and can easily trap people in a cycle of increasing debt (The Peace Way Foundation, 2004).

Food security in Burma is an important current issue, the causes of which are numerous and diverse. In the following pages, the different issues pertaining to food security in Burma will be examined and analyzed, and potential solutions offered to the problem. While the causes may seem simple, the solutions are anything but.

Reference List

AusAID. 2008. Global Education: Food Security. Accessed October 13, 2008.

FAO. 1998. Rome declaration on world food security and world food summit plan of action. Accessed October 16, 2008.

FAO. 2006. Food security statistics: Number of undernourished persons. Accessed October 16, 2008.

USAID. 2008. Global food insecurity and price increase update # 1. Accessed October 13, 2008.

The Peace Way Foundation. 2004. The right to food denied: The current situation of food security in Burma. Accessed October 12, 2008.

Leslie bai taambon OR How I ended up on my knees in the street at 6:30 this morning

2008-10-10T20:07:00.002-04:00

I just got back from picking up breakfast. It's going to be: Pat fak tawng sai tawhoo gap cao daeng. Fried pumpkin with tofu and brown rice. It's also going to be fantastic. But I thought that before I did I should talk about this morning before it becomes lost in the bends and eddies of my twisted cloudy mind like so many other noteworthy events in the past little while.

This morning I got up to go with Ying to make merit. But lets back up a little bit.

Merit is a concept in Buddhism (especially in Theravada Buddhism which is quite prevalent in Southeast Asia). It can be obtained in a number of ways, most of which relate to doing good deeds for others or having good thoughts. These good deeds, acts or thoughts are thoguht to carry over to help you later in life, or to your next birth. Basically on the quest to reach ever higher levels of purity, merit is a helpfull push in the right direction on the quest for enlightenment.

I've been passively interested in Buddhism for quite a while now (which wouldn't be difficult considering how heavily the religion influences Thai culture and society), which is why I was fairly curious to see what this would be like. I think I've spoken before about seeing the monks out walking the streets barefoot in their brown or orange robes every morning with their copper offering bowls. Giving the monks food is one way to make merit, and from what I'm told, most (if not all) of what the monks eat at the Wats is donated.

I asked quite a few questions on the way to the vegetarian restaurant (one I frequent often because of the cheap food and good eats. I've also been going there every day for the past two weeks or so because of the Jay Festival, which is this big national vegetarian festival that takes place for 10 days at the end of September every year in Thailand. If you choose to be Jay, you can't smoke, drink, eat meat of any sort (eggs, fish and dairy included), or eat any food that is smelly, such as onions or garlic. I was (for the most part) successfull. Unfortunately one of my weekends teaching frisbee in the camps fell during the festival so I requested vegetarian food but I'm pretty sure there was garlic in it...I think it would've been worse overall not to eat the food that had been prepared though though, jay or not) about the proper technique for doing offerings:

You begin by taking off your shoes and waiting for a monk to reach you as he walks down the street. When the monk (or monks) come to you, you use your right hand (supported by your left to show respect) to place food in the offering bowl. We began with the rice, then the curry, then the desert, giving one set to each of the monks. After the food was given, we knelt down and waied (palms together, head (but not back) bent as low as possible, thumbs on the nose, pointer fingers between the eyebrows). As we knelt, the monks chanted a blessing which was somewhat surreal yet hauntingly beautiful. If in a group, sometimes they would be in unison, sometimes one would be chanting and the others silent. We gave offerings to four monks in total. Once the blessing is finished, the monks continue on, and we put our shoes on and went back inside to buy our breakfast.

Anyway, now that I'm up, I figured I would take the time to do some more research while the day is still young. I'm writing an article on food security in Burma for the annual journal published by NEED and wanted to get the rough draft finished by Wednesday. I don't know if this qualifies as "getting published" because it's not peer reviewed or anything, but it is distributed among a number of networks and is growing in popularity, so at this point I'll take what I can get. This research could also serve as background thesis research, and I was never one to pass up a two-birds-one-stone opportunity like this.

And you can take that to the bank.

Ultimate. It's everywhere.

2008-10-06T03:44:00.014-04:00

Spent the last two weekends at two different Karenni refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border coaching ultimate frisbee and had an absolute blast and I've got the pictures to prove it.. It was organized through DARE (Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education), which is the organization my friend Janeen is working with (although I don't think it had much to do with their organizational mandate, it had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol).

The road on the way to Nupo Camp was TERRIBLE

We stayed overnight at Nupo Camp the first weekend, which was my first sleeping on the floor experience. It was pretty chilly because we were high up in the mountains and being a fool I'd forgotten my sweater. Fortunately a sleeping bag was available, so I survived the night.

Ice-breaker games the first day. We played 'Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes' in as many languages as we could. I surprised myself by remember the words in french. Thanks Madame Sisti.

The boys and the girls sat on opposite sides of the building for some reason. In the front there, you can see our translator, Million Gold, who did a fantastic job all weekend

Going over the rules the first day

The field was gorgeous

Janeen and her kids

Some kids were just watching

Others were just fighting

Teaching how to mark

The girls did a FANTASTIC job, and kept up with the boys beautifully. Nobody minded when it began to pour and the field turned to a muddy disaster

Lunchtime!

To wrap things up, we had a tournament at the end of the weekend. The kids played amazingly, I couldn't get over how quickly they picked it up. I took this video the second day. Bear in mind that they had learned how to play less than 24 hours previously.

Exploring the camp in the evening

I couldn't believe how muddy it was.

Janeen has the feet of a poet. A dirty dirty poet. This was just after our walk.

I was told it works

I'm telling you, stunning vista-wise, Thailand definitely knows what it's doing. This was the scene that greeted me when I woke up Sunday morning to go home. It did nothing to ease the 12 hour trip home though. (3 hours from Umpang to Mae Sariang, 4 hours from Mae Sariang to Mae Sot, 5 Hours from Mae Sot to Chiang Mai)

This picture is from the second camp (the weekend just finished). It was also really beautiful (although I don't know if I'd find it so beautiful if I were told I wasn't allowed to leave).

A classroom in the school. You'll notice everything in the camps is built out of bamboo, wood, leaves or other temporary materials. This is because the camps are supposed to be 'temporary living arrangements' so they aren't allowed to built 'permanent' buildings anywhere on the camp grounds. Meanwhile people have been living in them for 20 or 30 years.

All in all, a fantastic experience, I'm looking forward to one more weekend of coaching in November.

what's leslie been up to? a photo-update

2008-10-01T20:42:00.016-04:00

A lot has gone down since I've last posted, but I thought it would be nicer to explain using pictures.

Graeme and Hridi(/everyone who participated in the poker tourney over the summer) donated money to the farm, and these new seeds and tools were the result. The guys at the farm were actually really happy, but were far too cool to smile for the photo.

Took a weekend trip to Pai, about three hours from Chiang Mai. It was all kinds of gorgeous, and I'm glad we went in the height of rainy season because although we did end up getting absolutely soaked twice, there were almost no other tourists there. During the dry season it's choked with tourists. This was the hotel. They had one of those neat pools where the water overflows the edges.

This was the view from the window I snapped just after waking up.

We rented a bike and drove for miles through the countryside. There was supposed to be a hike up the mountain as well, but being the rainy season the road to the trail head was underwater. We'd forgotten to bring trunks so we decided to give it a miss.

Also, I've started a second weekly Ultimate Frisbee game Wednesday nights 5PM at Chiang Mai University and it's been a huge success. You should drop by if you're ever in the area. I'm actually ON the poster (courtesy of the artistic talents of my buddy Ekk), I'm the silhouette in the middle of the triangle of guys on the left.

As you can see, football (soccer) is no laughing matter here. This was during a tight match between Man. U and Liverpool. This guy felt the need to remove his shirt in response to a Liverpool goal.

Oh, and I mountain bike now. I finally bought new bicycle tires and looked up trail maps. There are some really cool jungle trails a few kilometers from my place. Living at the base of a mountain definitely has it's perks. I snapped this during my first afternoon ride just before I turned around. Greg wasn't home (he's just picked up a bike as well, so we go riding together) so I went on my own. After about an hour I came to my senses and realized it had been a really stupid idea to go out solo, even though nothing happened.

The noble steed with the giant new tires. I love my bike and she loves me (although she probably wasn't loving me as much after my ride, things get pretty muddy, sand all over the gears and what not...I'm told bikes don't really like riding through streams, but she was a good sport nonetheless).

I have had some bike troubles though. I used to have a bell but it was stolen (as in someone took a screwdriver and unscrewed my bell...), and same with my bicycle headlight (they took the headlight mount as well). I've since replaced the headlight for safety reasons, but take it off and just leave the mount when I'm not using it. The light on the back remained untouched for some reason although it's given me it's fare share of grief as well. It isn't very secure and has fallen off while I'm riding 5 or 6 times, and when it does it EXPLODES (there are about 6 pieces including the batteries) all over the road. I then have to stop, go back and pick the pieces up, assemble them and put them back on my bicycle. This happened once on the highway, so here I was in the dark, running out onto the highway when there was a break in the cars to pick up pieces of my light. Miraculously nothing's broken yet, and it still works, although I've had to replace the batteries three times in the past two weeks. I think someone's been turning on the light at night when I'm not around and letting it run down. I have my suspicions about who's been messing with my bike, but no evidence so I can't really accuse anyone directly (*if this were a speech, I would pause at this point to stare accusingly at the building security guard who likes messing with bikes before continuing*) As of yesterday, I started taking the back light off as well. We'll see if this solves the problem.

There are definitely some talented graffiti artists around Chiang Mai (although I suspect this was stenciled)

Some home-cooked soul food. Panang tofu curry with fried morning glory and a fried egg to top it off. Serve over rice and enjoy.

The first time I saw these guys going through the garbage behind our building I thought they were cops. Further inquiry revealed that they're actually how garbage here gets recycled, even though there's no central recycling program. People go around, going through garbage cans and picking out the recyclables (if you look closely you'll notice he's got all the cardboard and plastic in the sidecar). They take the recyclables and sell it to the recycling plants. Not only does this niche provide jobs, it also means lazy schmucks like me don't have to sort their garbage.

I can't stress enough that weather here is ridiculous. I snapped this picture about 20 minutes before the one below it.

I live in a pretty trendy part of town, right by the university so there's a big student scene. I like this statue.

To introduce the unit on agriculture and natural systems, we took the students to the Chiang Mai waterfall. I hadn't been there before but it's only 20 minutes from my house and made for a great day. We basically wanted to get them to observe and take note of the components that make up a natural system so that they could start to think about how it might be possible to design an agricultural system to mimic nature. The day went well, and I took some really good pictures.

Biodiversity analysis anyone? It felt strange leading this activity considering I was doing the same thing in my Ecology course a year ago.

Of course we ended up getting caught in a downpour during the afternoon and had to take cover. Someone was keeping their pet beetle out of the rain. You see a lot of people with these giant beetles, they're tied to a piece of sugar cane, which I suppose provides food and a home to the bugs. From what I'm told, they're raised, traded and fought. Personally I would stick with roosters (if it wasn't for the fact that cockfighting is barbaric and cruel).

Straight from the horse's mouth

2008-09-03T23:28:00.005-04:00

An email from the embassy.

"On September 2, 2008, the Government of Thailand declared a state of emergency
in Bangkok due to ongoing violence as a result of clashes between pro and anti
government forces, making public gatherings illegal and granting additional powers
to security forces. There are reports of casualties. The security situation remains
tense and could further deteriorate without warning. Canadians in Thailand should
exercise extreme caution, follow the advice of local authorities, and are strongly
advised to avoid gatherings and areas targeted by protestors. There have been
significant disruptions and suspensions in air and rail services. Canadians are
strongly encouraged to verify travel schedules and services with local authorities or
travel service providers prior to departure as further disruptions may occur and
delays can be expected. Travellers may encounter additional security measures, such
as road checkpoints, and should exercise patience and plan accordingly."

You'll all be glad to know that I am indeed exercising extreme caution, following the
advice of local authorities and avoiding gatherings and areas targeted by protesters.
There was this really great picture on the front of the Bangkok Post a few days back
depicting a train being pushed down some railway tracks.  Apparently the train car had
been purposely driven there and then abandoned by the rail operators to block other trains
and disrupt service.  It certainly got the point across.

I predict a riot

2008-09-02T21:30:00.002-04:00

The current political situation in Thailand is SO INTERESTING. And also somewhat disruptive to everyone and everything. I don't know how much news is getting through to Canada, but there are currently huge riots in Bangkok.

In a nutshell, the Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have been staging growing demonstrations over the past three months because they are unhappy with the elected government, which have now swelled to massive numbers. Recently, those in opposition to the PAD have begun anti-PAD riots in Bangkok, and the two groups have begun to clash. Yesterday there was the first fatality, which came along with 44 other injuries and the police had to step in to break up the groups (up until now there has been very little police crackdown on the rioting).

I'm reading headlines like this

"Widespread disruption of public services is expected today as state enterprise labour unions have confirmed they will down tools to press for the resignation of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

Most have promised strikes and the disruption power and water supplies to government offices, despite the declaration of a state of emergency. Sawit Kaewwan, secretary-general of the State Enterprise Labour Relations Confederation, said Monday's resolution will not be revoked."

(Bangkok Post, Sept 3, '08)

Though centred in Bangkok, the riots are affecting all of Thailand. The national rail system has been shut down, as the rail operators (conductors, engineers, technicians, operators) have all walked off the job (they actually simultaneously called in sick, which I thought was kind of genius) in solidarity with the PAD. In response, the government of Thailand is threatening to fire every single one of them. There was a huge picture of a train being pushed and there have been threats to cut electricity and water to government run buildings (fortunately mine is private, but it's still a big deal). Rioters also shut down at least one airport, by blocking runways prevent planes from taking off. I was watching the news this morning and there was footage of riots somewhere in Bangkok (it was either a train station or an airport, I didn't catch which), but it was literally hundreds of people running through at full speed with flares and other smoky things shouting at the top of their lungs. All very exciting, but somewhat disruptive to 'business as usual' as one might imagine.

Anywhoo, I'm posting partially to say that I'm absolutely fine, nothing's happened in Chiang Mai yet (though there are MASSIVE anti-PAD groups in both the North and Northeast of Thailand on standby waiting for the word to go to Bangkok to join the riots). I'm not planning to go to any riots or demonstrations. Thanks to the state of emergency (which was declared yesterday, i got a text message) people are not allowed to be in public in groups of more than 5.

I'm going on a trip to Pai this weekend, but we're taking a van, not a train so travel should be no problem. Unfortunately we were all planing to go on a trip to the beaches south of Bangkok next weekend for Sam's birthday, but if the trains still aren't running, those plans will have to be nixed.

Sam is especially bummed because he collects records and has this one record store he really likes in Bangkok. The epicentre of the rioting is located right across the street from his favourite shop which means he won't get a chance to visit until they disperse.

Photos I've been too lazy to post...UNTIL NOW!

2008-08-24T05:25:00.012-04:00

That's right folks, the title speaks the truth. Inspired by a stranger with a photoblog that puts mine to shame, I've decided to try to take/post more pictures. I've got a ton on my computer so far that I haven't posted because the internet connection in my building can be infuriatingly slow, and the upload process takes forever (and often aborts for no reason after 15 minutes of doing nothing...I think that's how my computer gets it's kicks). Anyway, enjoy.

I'm looking far too proud of myself heading into Burma (Myanmar) on a visa run

This fine gentleman was kind enough to take my friend Heather and I to a fresh market on our search for a special kind of pineapple that you can get along the border. Our search was unsuccessful, but thanks to him we did got to see way more than the touristy stalls right by the border crossing.

I figured I would pet the end that wouldn't eat my hand

In Thailand they use tigers to control the coconut population.

A massive exhibition grounds built to host the 2006 international flower festival. Unfortunately most of the flowers are gone, but the grounds are still stunning. They've also got a giant parasol out front for some reason.

These pillars were kind enough to line up nicely for a picture

The doorstep of a temple

Young artisans at work

A drive in the mountains

I'm pretty sure my motorcycle helmet was being stolen as I took this picture. We hiked about 10 minutes off the highway to a waterfall, which was gorgeous (there were stands of bamboo everywhere) but the trip was soured when I got back to the bike and found my helmet had been taken.

Hmong children playing in a village in the mountains. I happened to be in the middle of a book about Hmong culture the weekend I went on this trip, and it was kind of cool to put the pieces together. I think they're playing 'farmer', a fact that shouldn't be surprising to anyone who's familiar with Hmong culture.

Lazy Saturday afternoons are the same wherever you are in the world

A village in the mountains

Nothing like the open road
Mountains Panorama
Second mountains panorama

This is how they get down on the dance floor in Chiang Mai

A young entrepreneur greasing the wheels of justice on the dance floor

The fruits of his labour

This guy built his own house...I kind of want to do that one day

This earthen coffee shop was perched at the top of a mountain just above an orange grove, and it had the best view of any coffee shop I've ever been to. That was a relaxing afternoon...

This was the view

Getting into mischief at the reservoir

updateage

2008-08-21T02:32:00.001-04:00

The rainy season has really kicked into high gear now. It’s raining at least once or twice a day, and it seems I get caught in a downpour without my raincoat every time I leave my house. I suppose one might argue that I should just learn to bring my raincoat everywhere to avoid this, and I’d be inclined to agree I’m just very forgetful.

Things are going well at work, though we haven’t been doing any teach at the farm yet, for a combination of reasons. Firstly, the farm is very wet and very muddy at the moment thanks to all the rain and really isn’t conducive to teaching agriculture techniques. Also, we’re in the process of finalizing construction plans for the new building but nothing’s been built yet so transport of the students to the farm for teaching sessions is both expensive and complicated. I’ve been working on lesson plans generally for a set of seminars on waste management that I will run once we start having sessions at the farm, but for now that’s about it.

Fundingwise we’re looking a lot better (at the farm, at least) than we were. My friends Graeme and Hridi have both been kind enough to donate some money to the farm (money which will go much farther here than it would back home). Just for the record you guys are awesome. A friend of Greg’s and Sam’s Aunt have agreed to donate as well, so we’re planning a farm related shopping trip sometime in the very near future.

Last week I went to Burma for an hour or so to get my visa stamped at the border. It was pretty neat. I took the bus to the border with a friend I met at Frisbee whose visa was also expiring. We didn’t have time to do much more than check out one of the local markets and buy some Burmese food before heading back but it was cool nonetheless. There was this bridge you walk across, and on the other side all the signs are in Burmese and people drive on the other side of the road. Cars driving over the bridge actually had to switch lanes to drive on the opposite side as they crossed the border. And there was a 30 minute time difference, which was kind of strange as well. Greg and Janeen had to go to Laos because they had different visas than I did, and due to complications ended up having to stay a week (instead of the 3 or 4 days they’d originally planned). I keep thinking how lucky I am to have been able to get the 1 year visa without any hassle. It save so much trouble. In the end, Greg and Janeen were only able to get 2 month tourist visas in Laos so they’ll have to go back to get a new one in two months.

I fell off my bike two days ago while riding home from the office in the rain. We’d had a Monday morning meeting which had stretched for 6 hours (although during that time I was able to complete a funding application, so it’s not like nothing got done…and lunch was fantastic as usual) so I really REALLY just wanted to get home and lie down. Just as I was going to leave, it started pouring rain (and I do mean pouring. It’s difficult to describe to anyone who has only ever experienced the piddling dribbles Canadian’s call rain showers, but imagine it raining so hard you inhale water when you breathe). Of course I’d forgotten my raincoat that morning. I looked at the grey sheets of clouds covering the city and figured the cloud cover was indicative of a fairly lengthy shower so I might as well get the ride home in the rain over with. All went well most of the way home. The streets were flooded in some areas and I was soaked to the bone, but it wasn’t overly cold, and I didn’t have anything electronic in my pockets (I have taken to keeping plastic bags in my backpack for just this reason). It was when I rounded the corner onto Huay Kaew that I ran into trouble. For some reason whoever paved our street decided it would be a fun to make the sidewalk along the street near our condo using tiles instead of using cement which would have obviously been the logical option. The tiles become slippery as well-greased ice as soon as they get the least bit wet (a fact I’m well aware of, having ridden home in the rain before). Partway along the sidewalk I had to turn to avoid a tree (there’s a line of trees planted down the middle of the sidewalk leaving a narrow pathway on either side). It was a no-win situation. I turned the front tire to the right with conviction but my bicycle was having none of it. It skidded forward a ways before losing my balance and falling hard (I didn’t so much fall OFF the bike as fell while still on it). Fortunately, my knee and my butt were there to cushion my fall. I don’t know why but I always get embarrassed when I fall in public. The first thing you do is look around to see who saw you fall. I heard a girl shout something in Thai from across the street as I was falling, but at that point I really just wanted to get home. Nothing was broken and after a cursory glance over the bike I hopped back on and pedaled the 45 seconds it took to get home. Once I got there I was able to give the bike a more thorough look over, and I realized I’d bent my tire when I fell so it was rubbing against the break. I was able to fix that without much difficulty and aside from a few bruises and a sore wrist I’m fine as well. I’m glad it happened on the sidewalk and not on the road.
I know my bike wasn’t meant to be ridden in the rain (the treadles tires are great for speed but not so hot for traction) but that’s essentially unavoidable at this time of year (the alternative would be getting a motorbike).

I’ve been spending a lot of time planning for the family to come visit over Christmas break, I’ve never been away from home this long before (three months and counting, the time truly flies) and I’m really excited. I do miss home a lot, even though I’m having a fantastic time here.

I need a haircut.

I’ve resolved to do more practice between my Thai lessons because I think that’s the only way I’m going to continue to improve. We’ve reached the point where I can’t continue to build my ability because I will forget things that we went over a few weeks ago, which is really frustrating. Also, with one on one lessons it’s impossible to sit quietly at the back of the class and try to look invisible while hoping the teacher doesn’t make you answer any questions.

Money-wise I’m doing much better at saving. I’ve made friends with this Australian girl who goes to Chiang Mai University and through her I’ve been introduced to the world of on-campus food. The servings aren’t massive but the prices are incredibly cheap and aimed at students without much cash. It’s perfect for me. I ate at a university cafeteria for the first time today and I will definitely be back. It’s depressing to think that what I save in a year over here I could probably make in a month or less back home, but I do still need to pay my school fees for this year ( I was only able to scrape together the minimum payment and I’m afriad the UofT goons will be at my door with bats ready to bust some kneecaps and harm my loved ones if I don’t make with the rest of the dough).

I’m ashamed to report I still haven’t started my research with any sort of vigor and I’m all too aware that my time here is quietly slipping by at breakneck speed. I NEED TO START. In fact, right here right now I’m going to set a goal for myself. I’m putting it up here because the potential shame of failing in front of other people will be motivation for me to actually get it done. I, Leslie Campbell will have chosen a research topic by one week from today (Wednesday, August 27, 2008) (or as they say here, ‘wantee yee sib jet, deuan singha kom, bpee song pan haa roi haa sib et (Aug 27, 2551 (Thailand uses the Buddhist calendar))).

And you can take that to the bank

It was a hot hot day in July...

2008-07-16T06:56:00.006-04:00

I've been shamelessly lazy with posting for the last little while for a number of reasons, but I am back and will try to write with greater frequency now. I've got the day off today because it's the first day of Buddhist Lent, so Thursday and Friday are holidays. In celebration a bunch of my friends decided to go to the nearby town of Pai to blow off steam for the long weekend, but I declined with hopes that with fewer distractions i'd be able to get more work done. It's working okay so far. There are a ton of things that have happened, many of which I made a note at the time to blog about, but as so often happens I can't recall a single one now that I've actually sat down in front of a computer.

Things at the farm are going all right, although the rainy season is wreaking havoc on the crops. As you can see from the picture, things are pretty well flooded at the moment, and the only ones who're happy about it are the fish and the rice. We spent a lot of yesterday transplanting the banana trees which were growing in between the rice paddies because they were dying from being partially submerged in water all the time. Banana's don't mind a lot of water, but they certainly aren't water plants. The okra also seems to have developed a strange yellow discoloration which we fear is the mosaic virus, a disease which is being spread by these little black and red bugs that you see constantly on the plants. They're not eating it, it's just causing leaf discoloration.

Also, the passionfruit seeds we planted a few weeks ago have germinated beautifully, so it looks like we will be able to plant them in another few weeks. We're planning to put them up on the trellis we built a few weeks ago over one of the fish ponds at the farm. The shade will keep the water cooler and the fish happier, and any insects that fall off the leaves into the pond will supplement the fish food as well. Not to mention we've increased the efficiency of land use by using the space above the fish ponds for growing. Everybody wins!

Attended a meeting about the CUSO 1% Fund, and it looks like I am going to be on the organizing committee for Thailand. To explain, the 1% Fund is a volunteer-run fund set up by CUSO volunteers, where every CUSO member can elect to pay 1% of his or her salary to this 'fund', which is avaliable to all the organizations that CUSO works in partnership with. The fund is used to give small grants to organizations who submit project funding proposals, no more than 20,000 baht, or roughly 600 dollars per organization/project. Recently, an email was sent out saying that the fund would be discontinued, but a number of volunteers (including myself) expressed that we'd like to see it continue, so we set up a meeting to discuss how we were going to do this.

I'd worked really hard on a funding proposal for more seeds and tools at the farm
(SIDENOTE: we broke one of our two remaining digging shovels yesterday, which makes the current tool list:
3 Hoes
1 Digging Shovel (a long heavy pole with a blade on the end which can be lifted and driven into the earth to dig straight downards lossening earth very effectively, but is terrible for actually moving soil)
1 Machete
1 Machete blade with broken handle
4 pairs of boots (purchased by Greg and I)

Yep...that's everything we have to run a 3 acre farm. All of the earth moving that happens on the farm digging is done by hand, one person using the diggin shovel to loosen the earth at the bottom of the hole, and the other using their hands to scoop the earth out of the hole. Money for tools would have been very, VERY nice.

Anway, I'd just polished up my shiny new 8 page funding proposal before going to the meeting, only to find that the 1% fund was in a pretty bad place at the moment. There was only about enough money for 2 projects currently, so before any more money was given out, we would need to at least raise the funds for more projects (if we spread the word that the 1% fund was going back up, and then tons of proposals started coming in, we'd look like fools if we could only fund 1 or 2 before the fund ran out). It made sense, but it was disheartening. We're going to try to raise at least 200,000 baht before starting the fund again, and so I've got to send an email to all the volunteers for CUSO and VSO (the Europe-based Volunteer Sending Organization with which CUSO is merging in the very near future. The results of the merger are really up in the air, nobody knows if they'll have a job past March 31st, so things are a bit confused at the moment, which was another reason the proposal to discontinue the fund went out). Anyway, that's another thing I'm doing in the next little while.

Greg has designed an experiment integrating ducks with rice paddy agriculture, and we've set aside one of the paddies on which to raise the ducks. Basically we're going to observe the amount of time it takes to weed the other, duckless paddies, and then look at how well the ducks control the weeds on their paddy, as well as how the yields compare. The ducks should eat pests and weeds, and their dung should help to fertilize the paddy as well, so if all goes well we shold be able to prove that ducks not only make the paddy more fertile, they decrease the work for the farmer as well. I want to work this into my research but I still don't know how. We spent Monday morning at the farm moving mud from one paddy to the other in a human chain to build up a dry area in the corner on which to build a duck coop and so that the ducks ahve a dry area as well.

As well, there will be a Regional Food Fair at the end of July and NEED would like to set up a booth to raise their profile in the NGO sector as well as to hopefully sell some of the organic seeds produced at the farm as a revenue generating excercise. I've got to write a pamphlet and work with Greg's girlfriend Dale (who's just arrived from Canada to work with NEED as well) to make the display.

I've also been trying a lot of new fruit lately, on the list are green mango, guava, lychee, longan, mango, mangosteen, papaya, pineapple, pomelo, rambutan, sugar apple and watermelon. I'd like you to take a minute to appreciate the time it took me to come up with and then alphabetize that list.
And now a word on Durian.
Where to begin...to plagiarize shamelessly from Wikipedia, here are a few descriptions of the odor and taste:

“The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

“... its odor is best described as pig-sh*t, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia”

"like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory."

"Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing with dead people."

After actually having had 'The Durian Experience’ as I call it, I can verify that all of these descriptions are correct. A friend of mine brought it over because I’d told her I’d never tried it before. I could smell it the second I opened the door. I immediately went to put it in the refrigerator. A few minutes later she asked where it was and I said I'd put it in the fridge. A look of petrified horror flashed across her face. "NO! YOU FOOL!" She screamed, and flew across the room to throw open the refridgerator door. She grabbed the offensive package and practically crashed through my back door in her haste to move the fruit outside to the balcony. She informed me later that everything in your fridge will both reek and taste of durian if you keep it in the fridge. I appologized for my ignorance. I had no idea it would be so potent, though it is making a few things make sense. I've seen signs on the front doors of some apartment buildings and stores that say "No Pets, No Guns, No Drugs, No Durian", and have always wondered what this seemingly innocuous fruit has done to deserve such a terrifying reputation. I was excited to try it, but I had to go to the 1% Fund meeting so I figured I would save the fruit until after I'd finished. When I got home it was waiting. And so was the stench. Even though it was on the balcony, I could smell it as soon as I got off the elevator on my floor. I headed straight to the balcony, having convinced Sam to come over to try some durian as well, partly because I was scared to take the plunge alone. Staring up at me, plump and yellow through the saran wrap window on it's styrofoam tray, the durian seemed to smell my fear and feed on it, the stench growing ever more potent as I neared. I unwrapped it, and poked the fleshy mound. It was soft and warm to the touch. The smell was very difficult to describe. I would say there was definitely an oniony armoa in there, but that's about as close as I can get.

I gingerly took a bite.

And felt like vomiting. The taste was unlike anything I've ever had before, and to try to describe it would be like attempting to describe the color turquoise to a person who's been blind since birth. Whatever it was, it was powerful. For some reason I felt compelled to take a second bite though, because I'd read the more you eat the more you like it. It was the strangest thing. The second bite was just sort of confusing. I honestly wasn't sure if I liked it or hated it, so I took a third. And did kind of like it. If you concentrated hard, you could pick out a subtle sweetness to the fruit, though the creamy, custardy, stringy texture was really bizzarre. The fourth bite made me feel like vomiting. After six or seven more bites, I was still going back and forth between kind of liking it and wanting to spit it out. Never before has a fruit so skillfully played with my emotions. It was impressive.

In the end, I decided I couldn't keep it, because the neighbors would complain about the stink (i've already had one complaint, when my window box leaked soil onto the balcony beneath mine during an especially violent rain storm) so I carefully disposed of the rest of the package...in a garbage can two floors below mine, so the soon-to-be offendingly smelly can couldn't be traced back to my room.

gross gross gross

2008-07-05T02:26:00.003-04:00

ugh, so it turns out i should've done something about that burn i got from the exhaust pipe yesterday morning on the way to work. basically when you're driving the exhaust pipe of the motorcycle gets INSANELY hot, and when you get off, if you're not careful it's really easy to brush your leg against it and give yourself a nasty burn (See Exhibit A)The skin turned grey and waxy, and I figured it should heal itself...and also, the first aid situation pretty much consists of a grubby t-shirt (seriously...that's the extent of medical attention I recieved when i sliced my thumb cutting bamboo for a trellis. it wasn't too bad, it just hurt a lot and bled all over the place. i had to take the grubby tshirt home to wash it afterwards so it was ready to go for the next emergency. i think a first aid kit is definitely something to put on the funding wish list).
Anyway, it hasn't healed itself and it was none too comfortable spending the day squatting picking weeds because the burn would rub against my pants. Anyway, yesterday night i lifted my pant leg and found these impressively painful blisters where the grayish area had been. Now I assume you wait? Don't worry, I'm googling 'motorcycle exhaust pipe burn blister treatment' as we speak, Dr. Google is on the case.
Right, looks like I should've run cool water over the area immediately...and then applied a cool compresses for 24 hours. But it's been more than 24 hours. Looks like I'm going to make it, I just have to wait for it to heal on it's own, and not fiddle with it.

You actually see people with impressively gross burns on their inner calves all the time from motorcycles. I was being especially careful, up till yesterday. Though, in my defence, I was holding a massive bag of REEKING organic material from the office that we were taking to the compost area at the farm. I think the recipe went something like:
Mix together in a garbage bag (with holes in it so that it;s nice and leaky) prawn shells with rice and veggie peels, egg shells, fish scraps and chicken bones plus some sort of...white soupy gunk. Leave in the sun for 2-3 days until it reeks.

Anyway, the bag was leaking this white stuff, and it STANK, so i wasn't going to put it in my backpack (i learned my lesson when i had to throw out my water bottle after taking it to the farm in the same backpack compartment as the office compost contribution), so i had it in my lap the whole time. It was really heavy, so by the time we got there, my arm was thoroughly tired, i had this gunk on my pants, which i was sour about because it would mean I would smell like Michigan for the rest of the day and all i wanted to do was hop off and get rid of this bag.
The things I do for the environment...

internet, how sweet the sound

2008-07-04T03:14:00.002-04:00

the nice folks at the building were kind enough to bash my computer on the desk until the internet started working again, and for that i salute them.

plenty to report, but nothing insanely important. things are still going well, thai lessons have begun, and i've actually got a lot of thai homework over the weekend. we've started on verbs, which i've been waiting for FOREVER, because the only ones i know are pretty much 'to want, to buy, to eat and to go'. kind of puts a limit on those late night philosophical discussions in thai if you know what i mean.

still biking a lot, still going out every weekend, still making friends, still having fun, still working. discussed with Greg about starting to take a day off every week to do research in hopes that will motivate me to get off my keester and actually get something done.

starting to miss home, not so much because things here aren't going well but because my friends and family happen to be awesome.

Janeen is coming down to the city this weekend which i'm definitely looking forward to. i think we're going out saturday or sunday night, but plans are still in the air.

Saving money this month is actually going all right, but paying rent put a depressing hole in my bank account.

Turns out CUSO may reimburse me for a portion of my bike sale so I'm going to send in my reciept and see what happens.

There was a discussion at work about security and as a result I'm unfortunately going to have to edit the contents of the blog somewhat and censor myself a little bit in the future. I don't like it but I understand why it's necessary.

the adventure continues

2008-06-23T02:59:00.004-04:00

Phew!
It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to have a chance to sit down and write anything, and I’ve only got about 20 minutes before I have to go to a meeting for work. In case you were curious Thailand is still awesome.

Went out on Saturday night with David and Greg, and another CUSO co-operant I hadn’t met before named Dan who also lives in Chiang Mai. It’s illegal to serve customers past midnight in Thailand, (and also, incidentally, there’s a random law against serving or providing alcohol between 2 and 5PM. I’m not quite sure what the logic was behind that decision), so we moved to this place called the Rasta Bar, which had a live band (they’re pretty common in the touristy areas). It was absolutely packed, being one of the only places still open. It was pretty amazing. At one point I looked at my watch and I realized it was 2:30 in the morning, and I was standing in the middle of a bar in the heart of Northern Thailand that was packed with Thai students going absolutely NUTS to Bob Marley.

By the way, somehow Bob Marley is worshipped here. Don’t ask me how that works, but it does. Also, a Korean girl on vacation asked to take a picture with me. I’d never met her before, but I obliged. A lot of the time I find myself walking the fine line between feeling like a total freak and somewhat of a celebrity. Anyway, all in all a good weekend.

Still going to Frisbee, which is going great. There are a bunch of really good players and everyone knows the rules so the games definitely move at a good pace. I’m really happy with the way things have turned out on that front. Also, I went out last weekend with a guy and a girl from Frisbee. They’re both teachers and usually go out Saturday night with a bunch of their co-workers to this club near my place called Warm Up. These teachers put most students to shame they way they partied. They were still going strong at 2 in the morning and were going to go someplace else when Warm Up closed but I decided to walk home instead of staying out.

Sadly, it turns out we can’t apply for the scholarship because the application requires you to submit previously published research, and from what I gather the grant is actually to encourage people to do MORE research, instead of actually funding the research itself. More of a job-well-done-pat-on-the-back sort of thing. And we don’t have any previous original research to submit.

Speaking of research, I really need to start.

Thai lessons start tomorrow (hopefully), I’ll have to give my Thai teacher a call to make sure she’s feeling okay again.

The composting is going really well at the farm. You do get the occasional food wrapper thrown in with all the rinds, peels, rice, and other assorted organics, but all in all it’s definitely a success. Greg and I are helping out as well, saving all our household stuff, and they’ve got a big smelly bag at the office that they throw their compost contributions into as well (although it’s usually not very well sorted and requires some sorting to remove all the unwanted plastic and paper). We've also built a planter box around a trellis just outside the house to start growing passionfruit vines which will really shade the open area in front of the house, as well as keep the temperature down in those ponds you see in the background. Fish don't like it too hot.

Also, the food at the office? AMAZING. I love eating there...well, I love eating anywhere in Thailand really, but I especially like Burmese food. Today we had curried prawns, burmese seaweed, roasted pork, boiled water spinach and squash with vermicelli. IT WAS ALL AMAZING. Especially the prawns. All the flavor is in the head and legs.

I went on a pretty wild adventure Friday afternoon. Thursday evening had been Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday. She's this non-violent political activist and the leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma. So for anyone interested in social change in Burma, she’s pretty much the Burmese version of Ghandi or Nelson Mandella, leading the struggle against the military dictatorship in Burma. Oh, and did I mention she's been under house arrest off and on since 1989? Anyway, there was this big celebration at Chiang Mai University but on by one of the Burmese student groups, and there were speeches and keynote speakers and a film and everything. A bunch of people were wearing these really cool shirts that said “Free Burma” and had Aung San Suu Kyi’s face on them, and I wanted to get one to let the world know my political views concerning Burma (there was another reason as well but I can’t go into it at this time). When I asked someone wearing the shirt, she said that the didn’t sell them there, and that I had to go to the Burmese Women’s Centre on the other side of town if I wanted one. She didn’t tell me exactly where it was but said that it was by the Chiang Mai Imperial Hotel. The next day, I looked up the Imperial Hotel online, but was completely unable to find anything about a Burmese Women’s Centre. I asked at the front desk of the condo, but no one seemed to have any idea. The manager (Noi, super nice lady) wrote down “Burmese Women’s Centre, Near the Imperial Hotel on Loi Kroh Road” (which were the directions I had been given) on a piece of paper in Thai and said I should ask people when I got there. Then I set off on my bycicle. It took about half an hour to get to the right part of town, and then the search began. Problem was, nobody I talked to had ANY idea where this Burmese Women’s centre was. I buked up one street, and down the next, I must have talked to 6 or 7 different people. The sky was beginning to look pretty threatening rain-wise, so I figured it would probably be a good idea to head home unless I was looking for a nice cold shower, so I asked one more street vendor, intending on leaving when she told me she had no idea what I was talking about. She took the note, scrutinized it, and then shouted to another vendor down the street. He came over, and looked at the note, and then called out to a girl who was crossing the street a little ways up the road. She came over as well, and after some thought said she didn’t know where the place was, but that if I followed her, we could go look together. I said sure, locked my bike, and we set off up Loi Kroh in search of the rare and elusive women’s centre once more. We asked a few more people (her English was good enough that we could talk, and she could translate for me as well which was great), but still had no luck, and had to run under an overhang when it started to pour. It rained (and I mean POURED), for about half an hour, during which time I learned that she had been working at a bar at the Muay Thai complex nearby for about four months now. Her and her two younger sisters (11 and 16) had moved to Chaing Mai from Chen Gao, (maybe 3 hours south) so that her sisters could go to school, which was thought to be better in the City. Her brother was studying computers at Bangkok University and she thinks Chiang Mai is too loud. She also doesn’t like the rain. I can remember all that but I can’t for the life of me remember her name. It might have been Win…or Wan…I hate being so bad with names. Anyway, by the time the rain had stopped the streets were flooded, and I ended up biking home through six inches of water. It was fun! But unfortunately I was new-shirtless so I’m going to go to the Women’s Centre at CMU to rattle a few cages and see if I can’t get an address for somebody. Also, since I’m doing work with an organization that is heavily involved in the Burmese community, it definitely doesn’t hurt to make those connections. Networking is key.

Also: these are a few of the Americans I met at the coffee shop. We've hung out a few times since, but they're leaving in a week to tour Southeast Asia. They're Mormon-tastic.

This is a video I took at a fundraiser last weekend put on by the Art Faculty at Chiang Mai U. It's this burmese theatre group that was raising money for the victims of Hurricane Nargis. The show lasted about 4 hours and I'm sure it would have been slightly funnier if I'd known burmese, but the dancing was really cool and I took some video. By the way, my camera takes WAY better video than I've been able to post here, but when I record using the best quality, the videos end up being HUGE and won't fit on the blog. Anyway, this is Burmese traditional dancing.

Went back to my favorite market yesterday (I think it’s called Warrarot Market) to stock up on fruit. It’s way outside the touristy area of the city, and I think I’ve seen maybe 2 white people there in total out of the four times I’ve been. Now if you have that few white foreigners visiting the market, you can imagine what it does to people when I stroll through. It is about as far outside my comfort zone as I could possibly put myself. I don’t think I can describe what it feels like to walk down the street and have EVERY eye on you. Yesterday I walked by one stall and the gentleman behind the counter burst out laughing. It’s surreal. And awkward. And uncomfortable. And I think it’s exactly the kind of experience I want to walk away from my year abroad having had. I know enough Thai to get by brokenly, and usually when I ‘wai’ and give a polite “Sawasdee Kaap” it blows people’s minds. I don’t know. I’m sure many of my classmates abroad are having the same kind of experiences, but to feel it for yourself kind of changes your mindset. Growing up in a multicultural environment is truly a blessing I didn’t really appreciate fully until now.

the AC in this cafe is cranked way too high

2008-06-19T05:21:00.005-04:00

hot off the press: in just-before-i-go-for-an-afternoon-bikeride news, two of the girls from the front desk have offered to trade me thai lessons for english lessons (their names are Ying and Not). the only issue is Ying pretty much speaks NO english at all, and relies on Not, who speaks a tiny bit, to translate for her. I think my Thai is already better than their english, but I said i would give it a shot.

We sat down in the lobby of the condo for about an hour last night and pretty much just talked. It was decent, and I realized that Not's english was much better than I'd figured at first, but she's really shy about speaking in front of people because she thinks she's terrible. I can definitely relate to how she's feeling, but with my Thai. It's intimidating for sure. Especially when you initiate a conversation with someone, like ask a question or something and then have NO idea what they say in response, it's embarrassing. Anyway, I think we may have another session Friday night. I figure I should take advantage of whatever opportunities I can get to learn more Thai.

Now to get down to that bikeride..i don't really have anything to pick up, but I may go check out the furniture market by Tesco to pick up some kitchenware. With using my fridge more, I'll need to expand my dish collection past spoons forks and plastic plates.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

2008-06-19T04:51:00.004-04:00

If you felt like exploring my neighborhood, Angie (See link in sidebar) sent me a REALLY cool link to a mapquest type site that works with street-level pictures instead of sattelite images.

http://www.mapjack.com/?cncyUjMYacnA

My condo is about 50 metres down the street you see initially, but you can't explore down there (it's a really small street). Click on the viewfinder (upper window) and drag the mouse around to change your view, and you can click on the blue circles to move around. Also, click on the map screen (lower window) to jump anywhere in the city.

Happy travels!

all that and a bag of chips

2008-06-19T04:15:00.002-04:00

I'm currently reading about this crazy new plant we're trying to grow at the farm called the moringa. The leaves, flowers, root, seed, fruit, leaves bark and sap all have a number of different nutritional or medicinal uses, and on top of all that, the tree is drought tolerant and fast growing. we're going to try to grow it as a living fence on the farm and then harvest continually. It's also nitrogen fixing, which means it will enrich the soil, AND that the leaves can be mixed into the soil to add further nitrogen to the garden beds.

A dude just walked into the coffee shop and bowed to his associates...these are things you just don't see in Canada.

In other news, I'm not sure if I've posted about this yet, but it sounds like I should be able to wrangle a trip into Burma at some point while I'm here. Janeen said her NGO is going to be organizing an ultimate frisbee tournament in one of the camps in the fall and I'm trying to work it out that I go along as a frisbee specialist of some sort. I'm definitely qualified, the question is will I be able to get a camp pass.

I was talking to one of the students in the program the other day (I was wrong, her name wasn't Thu May Lin, it was something else...she told me again but I forgot. Anyway, I hadn't actually ever thought about it before but it made sense (if you can call it that) when she told me. If you're born in a refugee camp in Burma (or elsewhere I'm assuming), if that camp isn't recognized by the government, you don't get issued a passport. Also, in many of the camps birth records aren't kept. In essence, you aren't a citizen of any country, and aren't recognized as existing by any formal decision-making body. That would make international travel virtually impossible, essentially trapping people in their current unfortunate situation.

The ability to drive/walk/sail/fly/crawl freely across an international border isn't something I appreciated as being a privilege before a few days ago.

My Thai lessons were cancelled on wan ang khan (Tuesday) because my teacher got sick. She said it was her policy that if she cancelled last minute, she would pay the students for their inconvenience, and said that one of my lessons next week would be at no charge to make up for it. She did sound legitimately sick, and said that she was going to be going to the hospital, which was why she couldn't have the lesson that day. I'm kind of up in the air as to how I want to handle this situation. On the one hand, I'm most definitely experiencing the end-of-the-month cash crunch, but on the other...I could likely afford to pay her when it came down to it. It might mean one more peanut butter and banana sandwich dinner instead of going to a restaurant, but I could do it. What would you do?

Speaking of eating in, the fridge is working wonderfully. I had to duke it out with an ant colony before turning it on though. Turns out ants like sugar, and if you keep your sugar in the fridge, ants will set up a nest way in the back behind all your boxes of tea and your bag of cosmetics where you can't see until you go to clear everything out to turn on the fridge. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Anyway, I've switched to eating muselix and soymilk and cut up mango and banana for breakfast instead of going out, and it's just as tasty except you have to make it yourself. Plus I get cold water whenever I want instead of lukewarm. Greg reminded me the other day that we had to pay 3500 of next months rent out of our pocket because we were accidentally overpaid for this month, but I figure I will take that out of next month's salary. Definitely going to try to save more money from now on. I'm going to have to if I hope to do any traveling after my contract here expires.

Went for another Thai massage yesterday, which brings the grand total up to 3. There's a place down the street from our house that does them for the equivalent of about 5 bucks for an hour massage, and not only do they feel good during, but you feel great afterwards as well. There are adverts for massage courses all over the place, and you can get certified fairly easily I think. Maybe I'll have to come home and open my own chain of Thai massage parlors. You need to be careful where you go for a massage here though. The place down the street is totally legit, but you'll want to stay away from the ones with red and blue neon signs and scantily clad women calling out to passers by.

David's in town tonight (former NEED Director), and I think we're all going to go out to a bar in town that has trivia on Thursday nights. I haven't really applied myself to anything overly academic in about a month now, so it might be a good way to get my mind back on the right track before starting my research.

Scholarship

2008-06-17T00:03:00.002-04:00

I've received word of this scholarship from Japan that's awarded (I think by the Japanese government) to young researchers involved in environmental or agricultural research projects in Asia. Definitely going to apply. There's a 5000 dollar research grant (which would go SO FAR on the farm) and possibly a trip to Japan to present the results of the project afterwards? I'm going to sit down with Greg later this week to talk about a possible research project. He is going to apply as well, because they are accepting one application from an individual, and one from an organization, and he's going to apply on behalf of NEED. If I am able to get a paper published in my name by doing this, that would be SO huge. Also, if I'm able to structure the project so it lined up with my research for school that would be even better. Although I may have to wrestle Greg for the trip to Japan.

Fingers crossed!

Thai Lessons

2008-06-16T22:51:00.002-04:00

Today's the day! I start Thai lessons, which will hopefully let me finally figure out what everyone around me is saying. I have high hopes.

In less cheery news, I'm running really short on money this month. In an attempt to make what little I have left last till the end of the month, I have caved and finally plugged in my refrigerator in hopes that buying groceries will be cheaper than eating out all the time (but remember I still don't have a microwave or any sort of cooking apparatus aside from a kettle)...I wonder if you can cook rice or pasta in a kettle...I have the feeling my next post is probably going to include a paragraph on how I've now broken my kettle.

I think it's all the start-up costs that have eaten up the cash...the bike, the apartment furnishings, the everything else...it adds up.

Also, it doesn't help that little things keep coming up. For example, yesterday morning, I took 1000 baht out of my drawer and said "This has to last me 3 days". It didn't last 24 hours.

In the morning I spent 85 baht on breakfast, then paid 100 baht to reimburse Mr. Khai for the tickets to the theatre fund raiser at Chiang Mai University we had attended the previous night. It was put on to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Nargis, and was all in Burmese, (and lasted about 4 hours) but I'm glad we went. Then, during the meeting in the morning, one of the girls at the office had to be taken to the hospital because she was having terrible stomach pains which had been going on for a week already and she hadn't said anything. The word appendicitis was thrown around, but we couldnt be sure until she'd seen a doctor. Thing is, as I mentioned before, there isn't an 'emergency medical assistance' portion of the budget. Everyone threw 200 baht into a pot to cover her medical fees. That afternoon, I went grocery shopping which ate up another 500 baht, and stocked up my fridge a little bit, and bought some mangoes from the old lady with the highway robbery fruit stand by the mall for another 35 baht. Another 60 baht on dinner just about cleaned me out. It was terrible. I've got maybe another 10 days till I get paid, and it's going to be tight but I will make it work.

We were supposed to go to the farm this morning but it's pouring rain so we've decided to hold off till noon and go then.

Pictures (continued)

2008-06-12T01:48:00.006-04:00

Okay, I've managed to load some more pictures from yesterday at the farm, so here they are.

This is Mr. Khai's wife (right) along with two of the students folding the coconut we had shaved earlier into the white dough and then wrapping them in banana leaves to steam. We're sitting in the house at the farm, which has actually expanded quite a bit since I've arrived. The area where we're sitting used to be bare ground in front of the house but they extended raised platform out from the front of the house for people to sleep on (it has to be raised or it would get wet during the rainy season).

All the students were really happy to be able to spend the day at the farm. You can see the shaved coconut in the pot in the middle of the semi circle, and the girl on the right is kneading the dough.

I really like this picture. I had to ask Mr. Khai to take it because I wanted to be in it (I'm not in very many of my pictures). We were all just sitting down to lunch.

That's Lutai on the left, one of the men who works at the farm full time, and the gentleman on the right is a friend. He comes to the farm quite a bit and is quite a joker. He's always got everyone laughing. Greg and I can't remember his name so we just refer to him as 'Animal' as in 'party animal'.

The planting of the rice. This was probably one of the highlights of the day. The rice had been germinated in the bag (you should be able to see the small white shoots coming out of the grains if you click the picture to blow it up), and then would be planted in the paddies.Everyone waded into the muddy rice field and used their feet to mix up the mud and puddles of water and to crush any hard lumps in the soil. You had to be careful of snails though, becuase they were everywhere burried in the mud and you were constantly stepping on them. When crushed, their hard shells are very sharp and thanks to them I have small cuts all over the bottoms of my feet.

This is me building working on my Arakan (one of the Burmese ethnic groups) traditional cooking skills. It's not as easy as it looks, and your fingers get really sticky from the coconut so the dough sticks to them. Or at least it did to mine. Somehow the women were doing fine. In the background you can see one of the guys who had come to the farm for the harvest celebrations on the guitar. He was playing with one of the other younger guys on the farm who's just off screen to the left. I don't remember the young guy's name, but we're told he is a very popular Burmese singer and is here to learn about agricultural and political issues and then wants to go back to Burma and use his music to spread the message. How cool is that?

This is that same dish cooked and ready to eat. You had to unwrap the banana leaves before eating and they were fresh out of the pot so they were piping hot (you can see Mr. Khai's daughter in the background trying not to burn her tongue). It was terribly difficult though, because they were so amazingly delicious that you wanted to stuff it in your mouth all at once.

I'm really happy this worked! This is one of the videos I took of people singing and playing the guitar during the afternoon. Best. Day. Ever.

More pictures

2008-06-11T04:30:00.009-04:00

The net keeps cutting out, I think the storm is messing with the wireless signal. I'm not sure how many more pictures I will be able to post, but I will try.

In the meantime I suppose I will continue my run-down of yesterday (Read the previous post first to bring yourself up to speed). Yesterday was such a huge deal because it was the day of the rice planting. Traditionally, in a Burmese community, everyone gets together and has a party to celebrate the rice planting, and again after the rice is harvested 4 months later (that's an even bigger deal with a correspondingly sized celebration, so I'm definitely looking forward to it). You could immediately tell that the students from the office were ecstatic to have a chance to get outside for the day They were laughing, and joking around (in Burmese), and most of the time when I've caught glimpses of them at the office, they look fairly somber. Also, usually when we go to the office for meetings, all the students (mostly female at the moment) scamper upstairs and aren't really seen. I think that's also a cultural thing, but it hasn't really given me a chance to get to know any of them particularly. That's another reason yesterday was such a valuable time, because I actually got a chance to talk to some of the students. They sort of stuck to themselves at first, but partway through the morning I noticed one (whose name I subsequently learned with Thu-Lin-May (the only name I remember), using a beer bottle cap to scrape the meat out of a coconut shell. I asked if I could help and when she agreed I sat down and set to work. Her English is way better than I had first thought, since she's never really said anything past 'hello' in our past interactions. A bunch of the students english is actually pretty good and the ones with better english could help translate for the others (though they don't all speak the same language...) Two of the girls are from Arakan refugee camps, and I would have LOVED to get the chance to sit down with them and talk to them about their experiences growing up in a refugee camp. Unfortunately there wasn't the time, and I didn't want to seem too pushy the first time we had a conversation. I'll be here for a while though, and hope to get the chance at some point. Anyway, it turned out the coconuts were being scraped into a bowl which would be used to cook a Burmese sweet to be eaten after lunch. The bottle caps cut my thumbs up pretty good, but the ladies seemed to be doing just fine so I stuck with it. After the coconuts were shaved, it was time for lunch, which consisted of this amazingly tasty but insanely spicy dish made with prawns, as well as water spinach and okra. Mr. Khai snapped this picture for me just before we dug in for lunch, and you can sort of see how the food dishes are all in the middle of the table while everyone has their own separate place of rice sitting around the edge. After lunch, Greg and I went into town to get some more drinks for everyone, and when we got back the women were sitting in a circle using a sticky rice ('cao neao' in Thai, 'gai nea'(I think) in Burmese) and corn starch dough to wrap up the coconut (which had been mixed with this clear syrupy stuff) into little packages resembling perogies. When I went to sit down, I turned and looked at the guys, who were all sitting at the other end of the house drinking beers and talking, and suddenly they all turned and started laughing hysterically at me. I turned back to the women to see why they were laughing, and I couldn't see anything funny, which made the men laugh even harder, the women joining in at this point. I turned back to the men and they were hardly able to contain themselves (Greg included), tears of mirth rolling down their cheeks. I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on, but the moment passed and we made the perogies. After they were made, they were wrapped in a banana leaf and placed in a pot to steam. Once they were all in the pot cooking, I went over and asked Greg why everyone had been laughing. Turns out one of the girls had made a penis with her dough and was waving it around behind my back every time I turned around. It must have been hilarious to everyone watching.

In recent developments, I've just made friends with a group of 5 Americans who are here teaching english. We're all going to dinner and a movie Friday night. Awesome.

These pictures are NOT loading.

Anyway, after making the perogies it was time to plant the rice, which was SO much FUN. It was basically this giant field of mud, and everyone got in and stomped around while the sprayed water on the field to mix the mud up. Then the fields were smoothed out with this long piece of bamboo and the rice seed was thrown out of this big sack where it had been germinated. I have some awesome pictures/video of all this, but it still refuses to load. After the rice was planted, the logical way to clean off seemed to be to jump in the pond. So we all did. it was kind of smelly, but everyone had a lot of fun spalshing around and generally being silly.

In even more recent developments, remember the students I was talking about a moment ago? Their professor just arrived. He's in the International Development Studies department at Brigham young university in Utah, and he's here for the summer. He knows a bunch of the professors at Mat Joh University as well and he's told me to get in contact with him about my research. This couldn't be more perfect. Anyway, the rest of the day consisted of guitar, singing, playing football on one of the old rice fields, and general all-round good times. I wish I had time to load more pictures, but the internet is painfully slow and the cafe is closing in a few minutes. I'm going to go talk some more with these students and their professor because I think that networking right now takes precedence over blogging.

*Added 24 hours after the original post*

Hey! The pictures loaded after all.

This was a panorama I snapped on my bike trip halfway up the mountain the other day. You can see most of the city, it was really really neat.

On my way back down, the sky got really dark and grey, and I snapped this picture with a storm rolling in fast. You can see it already raining on the right side, but the sky to the left is still clear and sunny. It was eerie. I had to mess with the camera filters and the white balance a bit to make the clouds show up, but I like how it turned out. In case you were wondering, I didn't make it home dry.
We've built trellisses over a number of the field plots since we've been here, and are planning to grow beans on them. This will provide shade, as well as to allow us to get more produce from each square meter.

Things grow INSANELY fast here, and I snapped apicture of these beans as four inch sprouts about 6 days ago...I'm astounded at how fast they've shot up
We weren't sure whether or not the composting bin we started up would be put to use, but it seems to be working so far. And we're taking the fruit scraps from our apartment and using them as well.
This is a picture of a bunch of the guys from the farm transferring some baby snakehead fish (which are really valuable when sold) from the large pond to one of the smaller ones, (all the ponds have filled up with water in the past few days from all the rain)

Hopefully the pictures work this time

2008-06-11T03:51:00.008-04:00

Right, I'm back in the cafe, which doesn't close for another 4 hours so hopefully I will have time to load all the pictures this time. The net connection is painfully slow, but I'll update as they load. On a side note, it's about to POUR. The sky is so black, it's ridiculous, and it's just gotten really windy (all you climatology buffs out there will know that's called a 'gust front' and usually travels ahead of large thunder storms). The lightning and thunder are kind of a giveaway as well. (And just before you get all 'what? using a computer during a lightning storm? this is madness!' on me, relax. I have a powerbar. Besides, this is Sparta)

moving on,

Yesterday was awesome. I had so much fun. It started unassumingly enough, going to the farm with Greg for 6:30AM (though we were originally aiming to be there for 6 which meant I was up at 4:50), because Mr. Khai had told us that the guys start work at 6 in the morning every day.

As a side note, Greg’s bought a new motorcycle which is really great because I no longer have to hold on for dear life when we go somewhere. I had no idea that gear shifting was supposed to be a smooth operation on a motorcycle. Also, it’s nice because now we can keep up with traffic on the highway.

Anyway, when we got there, the guys were just rolling out of bed and hadn’t had breakfast yet, so we sort of sat around and scratched our heads trying not to look awkward while everyone sort of did their getting-up routine. Greg called Mr. Khai who was at the office in town and needed to look over a legal agreement concerning the lease on the land for the farm, so we headed back into town. Mr. Khai looked over the agreement on Greg’s computer, and we went into the city to look for a place to print the file. Unfortunately it was 8:15 at this point and none of the printing places really opened until 9 so we found a nice café and sat and had a coffee (or in my case fresh squeezed orange juice because I’m not a fan of the coffee). The café where we stopped also provided internet access upstairs and that’s where I snapped this picture.

I thought it was really neat the way it was designed so people had to sit on the floor and sort of recline on those triangular cushion things. It’s incredibly reflective of the relaxed atmosphere in Chiang Mai. You see those cushions a lot of places around here.

Anyway, things opened up at 9 and we printed our documents and headed back to the farm. Mr. Khai was there when we arrived and he had brought his wife and daughter as well as the few students currently living at the office. There are also maybe 9 guys at the farm now. Today was a big day because they were celebrating the planting of the rice. You need to understand that in Burma, to say that rice is kind of a huge deal is a serious understatement. I don’t know what the actual statistics are off-hand (I’d Google them to make myself look more informed except that I don’t have an internet connection as I’m writing this.) but to be sufficiently vague, rice is an incredibly important dietary staple as well as a source of income for a large portion of the population. To put things in context, when Greg asked David how he should approach Mr. Khai about switching to a different rice planting technique, David sort of scoffed and said "Good luck. You don't tell a Burmese man how to grow rice...you just don't do it." Needless to say the new technique never really flew.

Oh! Excellent, the first set of picture just loaded. I will explain these while the second batch are loading.

First off, this is a picture from Natasha's (my boss's wife) muay thai boxing match. I realized I never really followed up on that one. It was really really neat. The match itself took place in a venue in the heart of the red light district. Basically there was a big ring in the middle and a bunch of bars aroudn the outside where you could get drinks/food if you were so inclined. Depending on where you sat in the crowd, you would be approached by the waitresses from the bar that served that section. There were 5 matches, organized by weight class from 60 pounds to 160 pounds. The 60 pound kids couldn't have been older than 8 or 9 and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about watching 8 year olds in a ring beating the stuffing out of each other. You could also tell that muay thai was a sport laiden with tradition...

On a side note, the rain's just begun to come down in buckets and I just watched a sopping wet policeman sprinting down the street for cover.

Each fighter went through a ritual before their match, which involved walking around the ring, kneeling and bowing to the crowd and to their oponents. All in all, it was a good night. Unfortunately, Natasha lost her match, though if I were judging I think I ould have given her the win.

Eee, I'm right by the door and the rain is coming in...my computer's getting slightly wet.

This is a picture I took while riding my bike around the city. You can see the moat which surrounds Old Chiang Mai, as well as remnants of the original wall that used to encircle the city to protect it from attack.

This is a Buddhist temple, or 'wat', one of many that can be found inside the city, and all over Thailand. They are usually ornately decorated and the architecture is quite intricate. Monks study and train at the 'wats', and you see them around the city swathed in their orange robes. Actually, when Greg and I went to work really early yesterday morning, there were monks out everywhere. I'd never gone outside that early in the morning, but I suppose this happens every day. The monks each had a metal (brass I think) container around their neck which was for donations of money or food. I think the Buddhist belief is that basically giving donations to the monks is the equivalent of building up good karma in this life so as to improve your stature in the next life and bring you that much closer to achieving nirvana. But I could be wrong. I want to pick up a book on Buddhism the next time I pass a used book store.

This is a picture I took on that long bike ride partway up the mountain the other day. (Oh bother. The connection cut out and I have to start loading the pictures again). If you click to view the picture full size and look at the top of mountain peak farthest to the right (sort of close to the middle of the picture) you can just make out Wat Doi Suthep.

This last one was one I just throught was neat. It's the playground in front of the Japanese restaurant down the street from our building.

Okay, I'm afraid the internet connection is going to cut out again and prevent me from posting, so I'm going to put up these and try for some more later. I realize I still haven't explained in full why yesterday was so awesome, but it will come in due time.

Pictures for everyone! (or maybe not so much...)

2008-06-09T05:22:00.003-04:00

Right, it's getting on in the afternoon, and I want to head over to the market to buy some fruit before everything closes for the night. I went out on my bike last night looking for mangoes but my search was 'fruitless' (I'm sorry, I had to do it). But seriously, it was terrible, riding around the city, not a fruit in sight. I ended up having to go to the "highway robbery fruit lady by the mall", or at least this is what I've dubbed her, because her prices are sky high. 40 baht for three mangoes? give me a break. And they weren't even that tasty...

Anyway, I'm going to upload a whole bunch of pictures instead of giving a wordy progress report.

For those who've been asking, the bike I bought has a good mountain bike frame, and I paid to have them replace the mountain bike wheels it came with with thinner road tires with less tread. Wider than an actual road bike, but not as wide as the fat mountain tires. I think I may want to buy a pair of the bigger tires as well though, because I want to take a bike trip up the mountain and down the other side. I've heard word that there's a trail through the forest, but considering the fact that it's the rainy season and "a trail through the forest" could mean any number of things, I would likely be wise to get some more rugged tires.

Greg and I took a trip up the mountain to Wat Doi Suthep yesterday (which you can actually see in one of the pictures). It's about 15 km from the bottom to the top of the mountain, and it's really steep, so I'm going to have to train a while before attempting this trip.

This morning we got together (myself, Bill and Sam) to discuss the building design for the training facilities. It's grown from one to two floors now, because we couldn't make it as big as we wanted it to be without sacrificing some of the surrounding farmland, so we extended upwards instead. After the meeting I pedalled around the Chiang Mai University campus becasue I haven't really explored that part of the city yet. It's a gorgeous campus with lots of nice smooth roads for riding. On my way out, I happened to pass the CMU library, and popped in for a look. My UofT student card was a lifesaver, because I still don't know how to say "I'm an international developement studies student from canada looking to do some research for my thesis" in thai yet. They don't have as extensive a collection as the UofT library, but there was some good stuff on agriculture. I'm definitely going to be going back at some point to look around some more. There is also Payap University farther outside the city which should have a library as well.

Speaking of Payap, I decided to ride my bicycle to the ultimate frisbee drop-in on Saturday. It took an hour and a half. I got lost. I felt like such a tourist, having to stop by the side of the road countless times to check my map. By the time I got there, the sky was black with rainclouds and it started to rain just as I'd stashed it under the bleachers. The though of cancelling the drop-in was never even a possibility on anyone's mind. We ended up getting soaked to the bone, but I had the time of my life. I had fortunately purchased cleats on my way to the game, so I wasn't slipping as much as other people were, and the rain made the ground nice and soft for diving. There were quite a few people there as well, I hope the turn-out is as good next week.

These pictures do NOT seem to want to load...I think I'm going to have to sign off and try to upload them another time. I really don't think I can go another night/morning without mangostines. I've also got to research suitable leguminous trees for the farm. We're looking to try using living fences to divide the fields.

Oh! and before I go: the number to call (or text) if I need to be reached is

00166898534500 (I think).

Also: Text message spam? I didn't think it existed, but I get useless texts in thai all day about offers i don't want. Supposedly everyone gets them here.

lost and naked in the city again

2008-06-06T01:41:00.003-04:00

Went on my inaugural bike ride yesterday with the new bicycle. She rides like a dream.

I started out by heading up to the 700 year stadium with Sam. The stadium is this big sports complex with an Olympic swimming pool and a bunch of stadiums and things which were built for the Asian games. I’ve never really understood why cities would pour such huge sums of money into complexes like this which are showcased once and then are sort of used occasionally afterwards. It kind of seems like a waste to meAfter touring the stadium for a bit (the grounds were beautifully manicured and there was hardly anybody there), I said I wanted to go back to the old city to buy some mud guards from the bike store. Cycling in the rainy season is a messy business without them. Sam came with, and after we’d got the guards, he said he wanted to go home and take a nap. I wanted to explore the city some more in hopes of familiarizing myself with it to the point where I wasn’t constantly getting lost, so we parted ways. I toured the cool back alleys and side streets of old Chiang Mai for about 35 minutes before realizing I was completely and utterly lost. I decided I would make random turns and hopefully eventually end up somewhere familiar (why that seemed like a good idea at the time I will never know). 20 minutes later I was still lost, so I decided to go with logical. The convenient thing about a square city is that if you go in one direction long enough, you’ll hit the moat, regardless of which direction you’re traveling. So I did. Once I got to the moat, I still didn’t recognize where I was, so I went left and decided to skirt the perimeter until I reached the corner closest to our place. Then it started to POUR rain. Fortunately I had thought to pack my raincoat before we left, so I put it on and it was back to riding. The rain was coming down really hard so my bottom half was drenched in about 9 seconds, but my top half stayed nice and dry. Or at least it would have if I hadn’t been sweating so much from the hard riding. I would have stopped and waited for the shower to finish but it was about 6:30 by this time and the sun had just set so it was getting dark quite quickly, and also there was no guarantee that the shower would stop any time soon (actually in the end it went on for about 2 hours). Also, I was having the time of my life riding in the rain and didn’t really want to stop. I think I went around the city perimeter twice. In fact I’m sure of it, because I passed the same street market in front of this huge park a second time. I must not have recognized the right corner in the fading light, but I found it the second time. I was really glad I invested in a front and back light for the bicycle though, because they definitely came in handy. I ended up making it home at 7:15, happy but completely exhausted. After going to dinner with Sam and Greg I went straight to bed.

Today I’ve got to recopy the map I made of the farm yesterday. I spent about 4 hours measuring the perimeter, the ponds, the house and all of the vegetable beds so as to make a scale drawing of exactly where everything was. We’ll be able to use this to plan for future bed locations as well as use it to draw up a crop rotation schedule. I think it will also be good to be able to show potential donors interested in the farm exactly what it looks like, because they don’t have another map with this kind of detail.

I am also writing up a funding proposal for help funding a new sidecar for Greg's motorcycle. The farm is currently producing MASSIVE amounts of vegetables (beans, eggplant, okra, morning glory, etc), about 5kg a day. These vegetables are 100% organic and would fetch top dollar at the market, but we currently don't have the infrastructure set up to sell them. We were thinking of marketing to other NGOs or schools in the area, but we also don't have any way of delivering the vegetables. That's where the sidecar would come in. We could use it to make veggie deliveries as well as to transport people to and from the farm when needed.

I think I will also go for a bike ride and pick up some more fruit. Two mangoes for breakfast are a lot cheaper than french toast and muselix with fruit and yogurt, and just as delicious as I found out this morning. I bought this new fruit yesterday which is small, red and has soft green spikes. It tastes somewhat like a lychee, and you eat it in much the same way, but I don’t like the fact that it’s got a chewy rind in the centre that you can’t really separate from the seed so you have to chew it up. I think I’m going to stick to mangoes and mangostines from now on.

It's just begun to pour again. So much for the bike ride..I suppose I will work a while until it stops.

Laundry day

2008-06-03T23:49:00.001-04:00

Written May 3, 2008

7PM

Today’s been a pretty busy day. We had a meeting at the office this morning which started at 9:30 and didn’t stop really until 3:30…except for lunch, which was fantastic. Then went to Office Depot, where I needed to pick up some graph paper because I’m supposed to go to the farm some time in the next day or two to map out exactly where everything is and since I’m somewhat artistically challenged I figured graph paper wouldn’t hurt. I think I’m going to call that lady from the flower shop and see if she’s in the night market today to try and get on those Thai lessons. On our way home from the store we passed a lady running an old-fashioned pedal powered sewing machine by the side of the road and I made a mental note because I have a few clothes with holes in them. Anyway, after getting home from the meeting I grabbed the clothes and went to a net café down the street and had an iced milk tea (yes, I feel the mundane details are necessary…they help to put things in context) which was also delicious and used the internet for two hours. On the way home I stopped by the lady and stood there awkwardly while she fixed my clothes. I was kind of conflicted because on the one hand, I’m basically saying “Hey you! Fix my clothes for a pittance!” but on the other hand income is income…is that right, even though I could easily afford to pay way more? I don’t have the answer to any of these questions. I do know that I would far rather take my clothes to a lady on the side of the street than go to one of the more major operations that you see along the road in stores, because I know that all of my money is going directly into her pocket.

Anyhow, after getting my clothes mended, I went to get my hair cut. I was pretty apprehensive about how things would go, but I ended up quite satisfied with the results and am planning to go back. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what it was called and it took about 20 minutes to walk there, but if you’re ever in Chiang Mai, check out the Third fourth barbershop on the left past Wat Suan Dok. (‘Wat’s are Buddhist temples and they are everywhere in Thailand. They’re usually really ornately decorated with gold and things, and the architecture is really beautiful. You’re allowed to visit them, but you have to dress modestly and take off your shoes while you’re inside. I have yet to go, but there’s a really cool wat at the top of the mountain that you can see from Chiang Mai, so I want to go there at some point). After the haircut it was time to do laundry, and then to go back to the café where I’d used the internet because I realized I had left my disk in the computer…I got back and started writing this post, and now it’s time to go downstairs because I think the laundry should be finished. Sam bought a bicycle. I want one too, but I’m torn between getting a really good one and trying to ship it home at the end of the year, or getting a lousy one and leaving it here. I just don’t want it to break before the end of my time here. The other thing is, bikes are a lot cheaper here. I also wanted to buy a bike just after I got home, but I wanted it to be a hybrid bike, and all the ones I’ve seen here are either mountain or road bikes. Decisions decisions…shoot! I forgot! The laundry.

sitting in a cafe down the street...

2008-06-03T05:03:00.004-04:00

Written on Monday June 2, 2006

I’ve spent a fair chunk of my time the past few days locked in epic battle with my broadband internet connection. It worked the first two or three days after I’d moved into my apartment but, has since come to the conclusion that it would be easier to do nothing at all.

For those of us who understand computers, it is having trouble renewing my IP address when I try to log onto my apartment building’s server. I have it set to detect the address automatically, but there seems to be something on my computer that is preventing it from getting one. I’ve played with every setting I can find but it nothing has made any difference.

For those of us who don’t understand computers, it’s broken.

In any case, I gave up yesterday afternoon and asked the building manager to cancel my internet connection. There are two cafes within walking distance that provide free internet for the price of a delicious beverage so I figure I can do most of my internet work from there. One is called the Lana café, I discovered it a few days after we moved in. It has local fair trade coffee (I didn’t even know Thailand grew coffee), and though I’m not a coffee drinker I’m glad to reward their sense of social responsibility with my business. Not to mention they make a mean banana pancake. One of my favourite breakfasts is yogurt with fruit and granola, because the fruit is so fresh and amazing…

I bought a cutting board and a knife and plates yesterday. This may not seem like a huge deal to you, but for it has opened up worlds of possibilities. I can now purchase fruit and eat it at home. Think about this. I bought a huge bag of mangoes yesterday for a dollar. As I sat at my computer reading about nutrient balancing through crop rotations and stuffing my face with sweet juicy mangoes (my notes are somewhat sticky as a result), I came to the realization that life doesn’t get much better than this.

On a somewhat related note, I now have ants. They are tiny and infuriating. I have been trying so hard to keep my apartment meticulously clean (and by meticulously I mean ‘kinda’) so I didn’t get ants, but it hasn’t worked. I am watching one crawl up the bottom of my screen as I type this. I brushed him away, but he’ll be back in no time with reinforcements, I know it. I’ve found the source, a loose tile on my balcony. There is a stream of ants to and from this loose tile, which means there’s likely a nest in the wall somewhere. Not cool. If they get into…augh! I keep having to stop and brush them off my desk as I type. Does anyone have any clever ideas for dealing with ant infestations? I’d like to avoid fumigation if possible. I went to 7/11 this evening to see if they had any ant traps or bait, but I wasn’t able to explain what an ant was to the cashier. It was pretty much downhill from there. I hope they don’t crawl into my computer and break it…I opened it up to write this post and one skittered under my keyboard. For all I know he’s in there munching away on my circuits and such. I don’t know what the allure of my laptop is anyway…although maybe they’re eating the three years worth of crumbs that have slipped under my keyboard and been forgotten…until now. Either way, they’re a nuisance.

There are also tons of other bugs on my balcony…and not the cool ones either. They’re these gross black beetle things that die for no reason. You see them crawling around on the balcony in the evening and you go out in the morning to water the plants and they’ve all gone and died all over the place making a mess. The nerve of these creatures.

Speaking of plants, I’ve bought a whole bunch of plants. I believe my collection is up to five now, four of which are orchids which are AWESOME because they don’t need to grow in soil…which is why you see all the dangly bits in the picture. You just spray the roots with water once every few days and they’re happy as clams. And three of them are blooming so the balcony smells great as well. I also picked up a hanging basket with a mixture of mint and…some edible thai herb. The lady told me the name of it in Thai but I don’t remember. She told me to chop them both up and mix them with ‘bpla’ which is fish in Thai. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t have a frying pan or even a hotplate because she seemed so excited about the prospect of me cooking with her herbs, so I let her have her fun. I figure I will use the mint to make tea when it grows a little bit more, and if the other plant doesn’t seem to be useful I’ll rip it out so that there’s less competition for the mint. All I’m looking for now is maybe a vine or two to climb the poles of my balcony railing…And before you accuse me of spending my hard earned living allowance on plants, bear in mind the most expensive one I bought was an orchid for the equivalent of about 6 dollars Canadian…I’ve seen orchids for over a hundred dollars in Canada, plus they don’t grow very well, so I’m taking advantage while I can.

I wanted to hang them on my balcony and saw some hemp string at the night market. The lady selling it assured me it was ‘very very strong’ when I bought it, so I rushed home, excited to test out my new super-string. She lied. It’s terrible. As you can see in the picture, I had to spend about forty minutes winding this stupid string back and forth between the air conditioning unit and the pipe on the other side of the balcony before I thought it would be strong enough to hold the plants. And it’s just occurred to me that being organic, the string will rot to nothing as soon as the rainy season comes. Blast…

Also, work is going really well for me. The meeting with the funder last week went really well (once he got to the farm, it turned out he knew the sister of the man we rent the land from, so they had a great old time swapping stories, and he seemed really enthused about what we were doing as well). I am definitely having to get used to the way things work here though. Here’s an example:

I was scheduled to be at a meeting with Mr. Khai and Greg and Sam and David at the office this morning at 9. I woke up at 8, exercised, showered, got dressed, and then the phone rang. It was Greg. He said he’d just got a call from Sam who’d been told by David who talked to Mr. Khai who had said the meeting should be postponed until tomorrow. So Greg and I went to breakfast at Lanna Café instead. Over breakfast Greg was expressing some of his frustration at the fact that he felt he was basically being given the brush-off at the farm. He would suggest something, and Mr. Khai would say yes, that’s a good idea, and then nothing would happen. That’s something else I’ve noticed. People don’t say ‘no’. My time here has already made me realize how blunt North American culture can be. In Burmese culture (and I’m not sure, but I think Thai culture as well), it is frowned upon to make someone look bad, or to embarrass someone in public. Part of this seems to involve agreeing with everything. It seems to me that it would be far simpler to say exactly what you mean, but of course this is me speaking from a North American frame of reference. It does make things difficult sometimes though. After breakfast, Greg called Mr. Khai as I was paying (he relayed the conversation to me later).
Greg: “Hi Khai, would it be a good idea for me and Leslie to come out to the farm to do some work today even though the meeting is cancelled?”
Khai: “I don’t know, would you like to come to the farm?”
Greg: “Well we could come if there is any work you needed help doing, because otherwise we could stay here and go over building plans.”
Khai: “Okay that would be good, but you could come if you wanted to”
Greg: “Is there any work you needed doing?”
Khai: “If you like”
Greg: “We could be doing work here as well, so it is entirely up to you Khai”
Khai: “Would you like to come to the farm?”

It went on like that for a bit, until Greg decided we may as well go and we could stake out the area designated for the new farm building even if there wasn’t any other work to be done. We arrived, and they had finished working for the morning mostly and were all sleeping.

(On a side note, that’s another thing. There’s no 9-5 at the farm. It’s more like:

5:30-6:00AM Breakfast 1
6:00AM-7:30: Work
7:30-8: Breakfast 2
8-9:30: Work
9:30-1: Relax because it’s hot
1-1:30: Lunch
1:30-3:30: Nap after lunch/Relax because it’s hot
3:30-6:30PM: Work

After work, I don’t know what they do really. We usually leave around 5:30 so that we can get home before it’s dark because the motorcycle Greg drives currently doesn’t have a headlight.)

Most of them got up once we arrived. We sat around for a little but, and then it turned out that Monsai (another one of the Burmese gentlemen…please note most names have been changed at the request of the individuals) was coming in the afternoon with a measuring tape to help us measure and stake out the size of the new building. The fact that we’d had the same idea was purely coincidence. While we waited, we decided to start work on a composting project for the farm. (Greg had talked to Mr. Khai about it on numerous occasions in the past, I think I even have a picture of him explaining it to him in a previous post, and Khai always said yes, this was a good idea but no moves were ever made to do anything to make the idea a reality). In the end, we figured we would start on it ourselves and if people had an issue with it they would say something…or maybe they wouldn’t, as that seems to be the Burmese way. Anyway, Khai found us a suitable spot in the bean patch, and we then proceeded to spend an hour walking around the adjacent field picking up cow poop with a shovel. Cow poop just so happens to be packed with nitrogen and other really great nutrients for starting a compost pile. For a field with cows in it (two to be exact), it was surprisingly difficult to find the poop in the tall grass. By the time we had enough, Monsai had arrived with his measuring tape and we all sat down to a lunch of boiled eggs, rice, beans grown on the farm mixed with egg and chili powder, and a really spicy chili sauce. There was also okra and other boiled mixed greens from the farm.

This is the field with the cows in it...I snapped this picture just before running inside. It rains almost every afternoon, but I've only seen one torrential downpour. I've been kind of dissapointed. I've never seen a real monsoon rain before and I was looking forward to it. The rainy season lasts for another three months though, so there's still plenty of time.

When eating in a communal setting here (and in Burma as I’ve gathered), food us placed in small bowls at the centre of the table (or mat as it were) and each person gets a plate or bowl of rice and sits around the food in a chair, or cross-legged on the mat. On the farm they give spoons, but I noticed that many of the men eat with their hands, so I do as well. There is definitely an art to it. When eating with your hands, you only eat with your right hand, (because the left is traditionally reserved for cleaning up after going to the bathroom). You also you pass things with your right hand as well, either with both hands or holding your right forearm with your left hand if you want to be polite. I haven’t seen a knife used as a utensil once since I arrived, as all of the food is already in bite sized chunks (he typed as he watched an ant zig-zag lazily across the upper right corner of his computer screen). A spoon and fork are used, but the fork is mainly reserved for sweeping food onto the spoon, which is held with the left hand (you can’t hold them BOTH in your right hand). Chopsticks are quite common in restaurants, and you often find yourself using them because no fork or spoon have been provided. Fortunately I knew how to use chopsticks before I arrived, and have no problems with all the practice. Someone told me that chopsticks actually aren’t Thai at all, and have been recently introduced from China…you don’t usually think of cutlery as ‘catching on’ do you…

Anyway, after lunch, we staked out the building and built the compost bins out of woven bamboo. It took quite a while. By the time we finished it was time to go, so I think we’re going to make the actual compost with the manure tomorrow. Right, I’m going to go eat mangoes and watch the last part of ‘Amelie’, a burned DVD I picked up for 2 dollars at then Night Bazaar a few days ago. It’s in French with English subtitles but I highly recommend it.

Before I go, I should mention briefly that I played some pick-up Ultimate Frisbee at Payap University on Saturday and had a blast, met a guy who was in town with his girlfriend on vacation and said we should all go to a really good live Jazz bar Tuesday (tomorrow) night, but he hasn’t called. I also started talking to a lady in one of the flower shops and it turns out she works in the student night market down the street from us selling school uniforms. Thing is, I also told her I was interested in learning Thai, and she said she knew tons of students who would be willing to tutor and that I should drop by. We exchanged phone numbers, but I haven’t had a chance to call. Also, I’m starting to need a haircut, but I’m not sure where to go.

PS I’ve just solved the mystery of the dying beetles. They’re attracted to the light on my balcony, fly into it and then die.

PPS I keep getting lost…Chiang Mai is the most confusing city EVER. Streets go off in every direction from EVERYWHERE and there are random side lanes and alleys all over the place.

looking for a fight

2008-05-27T09:13:00.004-04:00

I've got a few minutes before I have to meet Sam in the lobby. We're going to go see David's wife's fight. She does Muay Thai, or Thai boxing which is the national sport of Thailand. It's basically like boxing but more vicious because the elbows and knees are used heavily to inflict damage on the opponent. This will be my first fight, so I'm pretty excited.

We went to Tesco this afternoon after work and I picked up SO MUCH STUFF...okay, in actuality it probably only came out to about 60 or 70 bucks but here that's a small fortune, considering that I've been told average monthly salaries hover around $150 Canadian. I've finally picked up a fan for my room, and a kettle to satisfy those late night cravings for instant noodles, among other things.

I still haven't picked up any plants for my balcony but that's next on the list. Sam and Greg were able to find some really cool orchids at the Sunday market yesterday.

All right, I'd better go...don't want to be late for the fight!

home sweet home

2008-05-23T06:31:00.004-04:00

I HAVE AN APARTMENT! never been able to say that before....we moved in today. it's far too hot at the moment to give a proper update on what's been going on in the last little while, but hopefully i'll have a chance to update more thoroughly later on tonight after I get home.

i'm willing to take bets on how long it will take me to crack under the heat and turn on the A/C. It's no fun to have to pay for electricity out of your pocket when you're trying to save as much money as possible.

Current Temperature: 31 degrees. Rain in the forecast for the next five days. (It hasn't REALLY rained yet since we've been here...drizzles here and there but nothing major. I'm actually kind of hoping for some soon so I can break out the raincoat. fingers crossed!)

FUNding

2008-05-22T00:41:00.002-04:00

currently sitting in a coffee shop with Greg, Sam, David and Bill having a meeting about the AJRC interim report. AJRC is one of the donors for need. Greg's stepped outside for a cigarette but when he gets back we're going to move to another table to discuss plans for the farm. this meeting is giving me a better idea of how an NGO works and what's required to run an organization like this. hoping to be able to post more later on this evening or someday soon because there's so much to be said. still hot, still humid.

15 minutes and counting down...

2008-05-21T10:15:00.003-04:00

right, i've got 15 minutes until this net cafe closes so i'm going to have to make this another slapped-together synopsis of a post...or synopsost as i like to call them.

today was great, went to the experimental farm, met a bunch of the guys who are working there
NEED is a very complex organization and I definitely understand it better now than I did before, but I will have to post more on that tomorrow because there's not time to go into detail now
text me
looking for a place: hit the beat pretty hard today with Sam and Greg and saw a bunch of places ranging from roachy to ritzy...some hard decisions ahead
went to a korean-bbq style place for dinner...all you can eat meat buffet anyone? I'm the worst ex-vegetarian ever
tomorrow we sit down with david and Sam and Bill (I'll introduce everyone later when I have more time) to write the NEED progress report, which I wanted to sit in on because it would just give me a better idea of how NEED works and stuff
learning TONS, even though it's only been 2 days...feels WAY longer
very VERY excited about what's coming in the future
it's absolutely beautiful here...i'd never seen rice paddys before until today
will post more pictures later

night night!

Day 1 in Chiang Mai

2008-05-21T09:49:00.003-04:00

Written Tuesday May 20, 2008

I thought I’d take a few very quick notes on the first day in Chiang Mai.

· 12 hour overnight train from Bangkok, good, kind of neat to sleep on the train, but still long. Was up by 6, and the train was noisy. Thai countryside is amazingly beautiful, especially as you get into the mountains to the north

· Arrived in CM, met David Le Blanc, very cool young guy who has sort of been overseeing operations but whose contract is expiring soon and so is looking to be replaced by Sam, who was on the plane with me from Toronto

o Went for lunch/coffee, chatted about NEED as an organization, it was nice

· On a side note, Chiang Mai is awesome. Not nearly the hustle of Bangkok, but still very alive. Huge backpacker presence. Receiving LOTS of stares, starting to feel a tiny bit awkward sometimes (you’ll see what I mean in a minute)

· Went back to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes, then picked up by two of the other guys working at NEED and (I’m TERRIBLE with names I’m familiar with, and am likely going to be hopeless with Burmese and Thai names, but I am doing my best…the only name I remember from today is “Dau” (Pronounced ‘duh’)

· Went to the NEED head office and met some of the students working there (some of them have been trapped in Burma by the cyclone, and others have gone into Burma to do research and have been unable to be able to leave yet because the necessary bribes are still being arranged and hoops jumped through). Though shy, the students seem really nice and I look forward to meeting everyone else at the meeting tomorrow morning

· There just so happened to be a forum/rally at Chiang Mai University for Burmese Hurrican Relief, so we went to that after going to the office. It was really neat, there was a panel of speakers (some of it bilingual thai/English, some of it just thai)

o Incidentally, I also got my picture taken for the Chiang Mai Post, which should be coming out next Tuesday, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for that one...wasn’t expecting to make the newspapers my first day in town.
· After the rally, we went back to the hotel (Greg, Sam and I) and then headed to the mall to pick up cell phones. 32 dollars later I have a phone number! *email me and I'll tell you* I don’t think I have voice mail though. Or at least if I do, I need to know more Thai then I do to set it up. I can receive calls and text messages.

· After the mall we grabbed some food from a parking lot (a note about the food: IT IS CHEAP, DELICIOUS AND EVERYWHERE. I am going to come home fat and gross, but it will be worth the coronary bypass. And not all the food is bad for you. They sell fresh mango, guava and pineapple either whole or cut up all over the place, though I’m more cautious where I eat than most. I tend to stay away from the ones where you see piles of ingredients swarming with flies, no matter how delicious it may smell. Also, thus far I haven’t had any digestive problems, which is a plus.

· Pulled my back again this morning so I’m trying to rest it…it’s harvest season so there will definitely be some planting ahead

· After dinner we went to the night market, which is basically like a regular market but…at night…I feel like I didn’t need to explain that one.

· On the way we happened to pass through Chiang Mai’s red light district accidentally. If I had a nickel for every old white man I saw with a young thai girl, I’d be able to retire tomorrow. It was gross. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but so are a lot of other things…’massage parlors’ and bars that seemed to have copious numbers of waitresses none of which seemed to be waiting on tables lined the street. On top of this, there were all the women that simply stood on the curb, no, LINED the curb in mobs calling out to everyone who passed by. It was a eerie unsettling experience as I was shouted at from both sides while I conjured up images of every STD I’d ever been taught about in school. While I do respect the right of any woman to choose how she makes a living, I was unprepared for the aggressiveness with which they went about their business. I think we were all a little shaken by the experience and I doubt we will be passing through that part of town again, after dark or otherwise. On our way back from the market, Greg suggested we take a different route, and we did.

· We also saw this guy walking a baby elephant down the street. I think it had been working all day up in the foothills because it had empty cloth carrying sacks on either side of it. I think it was just the coolness with which the dude was walking this elephant down the side of the street that got to me though. Truly we are in Thailand.

· Anyway, it was fun, I bought some shorts. I actually ended up feeling really terrible about it because everyone says you should bargain at the markets, so when the lady gave me a price of 290 baht, I skillfully countered with 150. She came back with 250 and the game was on. I came back with 175 and she came down to 220. I said 180 was as high as I was going and she said 215 was already the best deal in town. I said 215 was too much and made to turn away, when she said “sir, please, 200” in a voice that didn’t really seem like she wanted to play anymore and more like she needed me to buy the shorts. She was holding a baby in one arm and (sensing it’s mother’s distress?) it had begun to cry. I stopped. I wondered if maybe I was the only person who had stopped by her cart that evening. I wondered if this woman had a day job from which she’d returned home this evening, exhausted, only to set up her cart in the night market hoping to make some extra cash on the side. I wondered how many other children she had at home. I wonder what she’s going to spend my 200 baht on…Food? School Uniforms? More shorts to keep her shop open and continue to supplement what would likely be considered a pitiably meager income by Canadian standards? Suddenly 200 baht (roughly $6.45 Canadian) didn’t seem like an honest bargain anymore. It seemed criminally low. I paid the money and left with my shorts, but without the elation one might expect to feel after their first successful bargaining experience. As I go to bed tonight I don’t expect to find sleep quickly. I have a lot to think about.

Bangkok, Day 1

2008-05-18T11:24:00.004-04:00

Wow….just…just wow. Where to begin. I think Thailand takes the cake so far for the coolest place I’ve ever been. Spending 37 hours getting here wasn’t the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever had to do, but now that we’re here it has definitely made up for it already. This is about all I ended up seeing of Hong Kong because I didnt' realize we could LEAVE THE AIRPORT so I spent 8 hours wandering. Things were super expensive so I didn't bother buying anything but dinner. Fast food in Hong Kong consisted of a bowl of noodles and beef with dumplings on the side. And chopsticks. No fork. And a sprite, which actually tasted a lot better than lame Canadian sprite. When she arrived on her flight from Vancouver after I'd been at the airport 5 hours, Janeen was also able to find Beijing Roast Duck Pizza for dinner. It was....interesting. This was about all I was able to see of Hong Kong (NOTE: Click the pictures to see them full sized), there were high rises and mountains surrounding the airport, but you could hardly see them. On our descent into the airport, I wondered why the clouds we were going through were thick and greenish grey instead of fluffy and white until I realized it was actually the smog. It wasn't foggy there, the smog just meant you could barely see anything.

We arrived around 1 last night, and were picked up at the airport and taken to the hotel. When I say we, I refer to myself, Greg, Sam (who are all going to Chiang Mai to work with NEED) and Janeen who is also from my program at UofT but working in Mai Sariang (next province over) on a different project. We had today to sort of get our bearings and rest off the jet lag in Bangkok and are expected to be at our in country training session tomorrow morning at 10. Janeen, Greg and Sam have all been to Thailand before in different capacities which ended up being a good thing because they knew where to find all the cool things to see on a day in the city. We started off by going to the...(Sathiyap?) weekend market which was really really cool. It’s this MASSIVE outdoor marketplace that springs up every weekend. You could get anything from paintings of the Buddha to pet squirrels to cheap tshirts to food to dress shorts. After getting lost in there for a while we took a taxi to another street (the name of which I’ve forgotten…I’m going to have to work harder to remember these things) which is supposedly one of the central tourist areas in Bangkok. As you can see in the picture it too was lined with tuk-tuks, taxis, motor scooters, shops, restaurants and stalls selling everything and anything. (The taxis are fluorescent pink here instead of yellow...go figure)
After stopping there for a bite of lunch and a few minutes at a net café we wandered over to the Royal Palace, but unfortunately there had been a death in the royal family recently so it was closed to the public. The rest of the day was spent wandering around Bangkok and we ended up at a nice little restaurant in a quiet corner of town for dinner before taking the taxi back to the hotel.

Things here are super super super cheap, and the food (from what I’ve had thus far) is amazing. I tried the pad thai for dinner (it came out to about 1.10 canadian) and it was really tasty. Also, there are food and clothing stalls all over the place, so I’m definitely not going to starve to death. Cooking at home is one of those things I’ve realized isn’t a universal norm. Many of the apartments here don’t come with refrigerators or stoves either.

Thailand is sometimes called the land of a thousand smiles. I’d say that was about accurate. Everybody smiles at you, and you smile back. It’s great. A cheerful ‘sawatdee krab’ (hello) or a ‘sabai dee mai krab’ (how are you?) is easy to come by. Anyway, it’s starting to get late (it’s almost midnight here even though everyone back home is likely about to sit down to lunch). Looking forward to training tomorrow and then taking the overnight train with Sam and Greg to Chiang Mai. Haven’t seen any massive bugs yet, but I hear they’re out there. Wait, I lied, there were two pretty big cockroaches on the street this morning.

Thus far, I think I’m going to like it here in Thailand.

three two one blast-off!

2008-05-16T03:28:00.005-04:00

Phew!
Hours of sweat tears and toil later my things are finally packed away. I ended up caving and getting another bag because with bringing the motorcycle helmet (which is MASSIVE...and not just because I have a freakishly large head) there was not a hope in the world of my fitting everything I wanted to into the one backpack.

In just 12 short hours I was able to go from this:

to THIS

Impressive, no? I thought so too.

Now I've got 3 short hours at home before I've got to leave for the airport. I thought it was somewhat important for me to write something before I left, as this will be the last time I write blog 'as of yet completely unchanged' by this experience. I mean, I suppose you could argue that the training and placement preparation seminars probably already changed the way I viewed my placement, but lets not be argumentative, I'm tired.

My gut is filled with a mixture of excitement and fear...and hunger. Dinner was a while ago. I am definitely feeling the pressure of responsibility, even though I am not entirely sure what form those responsibilities will take. I just hope I will be able to handle them when they do come. It will be interesting to see whether I up the independance and step up to the plate in response to essentially moving out of my house for the first time to a country on the other side of the world to do a job I've never done before or whether I crack under the pressure and cry myself to sleep every night. I'm certainly hoping for the former but you gents out there should note that there's nothing wrong with a good cry now and again.

The outpouring of love and support and well-wishes from those close to me has been fantastic and at times almost overwhelming. The number of phone calls and text messages I've received tonight alone has blown me away. I could not ask for better friends/family/loved ones/acquaintances. You are all awesome and don't you ever forget it.

Oh! My itinerary, for those who don't already know is as follows:

I fly out of Toronto at 11AM this morning (Friday May 16) and get comfortable for the 15.5 hour flight to Hong Kong. I'm slated to arrive in HK at 2:45 in the afternoon on Saturday (I'm pretty sure that's their time, not ours) and then have an 8 hour wait for my flight to take off to Bangkok at 10:45PM. The flight takes 2 hours and I arrive in Thailand at 11:55 Saturday night. Please keep in mind that this is the best case scenario. Fortunately I have plenty of wiggle room with the stopover...8 hours to be precise, so I think we should be all right. Also, I'm looking forward to exploring the airport on Hong Kong, it's supposed to be pretty wild. There's supposedly a mall with movie theatres and restaurants and shopping all inside the airport. I don't know how much of what I've been told is actually true, but I certainly intend to find out.

It's 4AM and I'm contemplating forgoing sleep altogether but fear it may be a decision I live to regret. I am definitely going to take a shower before I go to get as clean as I possibly can before heading to the airport, even though air travel somehow always ends up making you feel filthy by the time you arrive at your destination. Oh well.
I should pack my computer away and make sure all the essentials are where they should be. I feel like I should end this with something deeply thought-provoking about standing at this precipice about to take the plunge and praying I learn to swim before the lifeguard has to pull me out looking sheepish. But it looks like I just did. Here goes!

2008-05-07T01:41:00.003-04:00

Before I forget, I wanted to post a picture of my classmates. There was a final get together Saturday night to give everyone a chance to say goodbye and good luck. Placement locations range from Burkina Faso to Guatemala to Ghana to Bolivia and everywhere in between. These are the kids I've been fortunate enough to go to school with and get to know over the past 3 years. In the middle we also have Nancy Bradshaw, she was so many things to so many people...program coordinator...shoulder to cry on...mother figure...the list goes on. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for the work she put in to help people find placements this year. The laughter and the memories will not soon be forgotten, and I look forward to stories from them all when we return.

T minus 7 days and counting down...

2008-05-07T01:05:00.000-04:00

It's late, but I figured I should post an update before I got too far ahead of myself. School is finished for the summer and placement preparations have definitely kicked into high gear.

I've finally found the time to take a trip to Mountain Equipment Coop downtown to pick up some much needed gear. I had no idea they sold Monsoon Jackets, but I figured with a name like that I couldn't go wrong. I also opted to buy a huge travel backpack instead of going with a duffel bag because I figured that would give me greater flexibility in case I do end up ever doing any backpacking while I'm overseas. I also picked up a swiss army knife because they supposedly come in handy in a million different situations and are indispensable when living overseas.

Water is also going to be an issue in Thailand because I likely won't be able to drink the stuff that comes out of the tap unless I plan on spending extended periods of time time getting intimately acquainted with the nearest washroom. Thus, I decided on a Pristine water purification system, which consists of two convenient little bottles of solution that tag-team to kill the creepy crawlies in the water. This will come in handy if I don't have a kettle at my disposal, because supposedly boiling the water works just as well. The trick will be to remember to wash fruits and vegetables, and to figure out which food stands I can eat from and which to stay away from. I think stomach upset is pretty much going to be an inevitability for me the first while that I'm there (my adventurous culinary nature will likely prove more of a hindrance than anything else), I just aim to minimize the damages.

I have also decided on the malaria medication Doxycycline. It basically means I take these little orange pills every morning at the same time. I've heard mixed reviews about malaria meds. I have a friend who was on placement in Africa and said she got malaria 4 times while taking the anti-malaria drugs every day, at which point she quit the drugs and never got malaria again. Where I am going the malaria is resistant to certain types of preventative drugs so my options were somewhat limited, but this one seemed to have the fewest averse side effects. I decided to begin taking them 4 days ago and have yet to experience any negative side effects (the most common one is nausea). Hope things continue to look up.

I've also taken a trip to the dentist who cleaned my teeth set me up with a bunch of free toothbrushes and dental floss (am I the only one who hates going to the dentist? It's not a fear thing, I just happen to like it better when people don't go poking around my mouth with sharp bits of metal for 45 minutes thank you very much). Fortunately I was once again cavity free, and I received a congratulations on my diligence in flossing. But the joke's on him, 'cause I never floss. I think that's one of the only things I can think of that people will consistently tell you it's okay to lie about. I can't explain why it's so shameful to admit to your dentist that you DON'T floss...maybe it's that reproachful, almost disappointed look he gives you, as if somehow by not flossing you've let him down. Lying's just easier for both of us really. Though in my defense, I am planning to floss diligently from now on because I seriously don't want to have to be visiting a dentist with a cavity overseas. Visiting one here is bad enough.

Right, it's late, I should head off. I am going out to breakfast with some friends tomorrow morning. Went out for dinner with another group of friends this evening.It's tough to organize yourself to spend time with all the people in your life who matter before going away for an extended period of time like this. An exercise in time management indeed. I would also like to try and swing by a bookstore to look for some solid airplane reading material. And get a haircut. And go to school to discuss flight and visa details. And look over the theses of previous IDS students. The days are just packed.

scramble scramble scramble

2008-04-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

When they told me I'd be leaving May 13th my first thought was "Hey! that gives me a full 2 weeks after exams to get all my placement preparation finished. Fantastic!"
I was a fool.

In actuality, what that means is that placement preparation and exams collide with a sickening crunch somewhere in the second week of April, and pretty much fight each other for time in my life until exams are finished at the end of April.

Classes officially ended April 7th, which for me meant that the few weeks before April 7th were a depressing haze of final assignments and essays all of which needed to be handed in before the end of classes. I was lucky enough to have two classes without final exams, which I'm thankful for now but it meant that there were two or three times the number of assignments in those classes as the other ones. Anyway, somehow I've made it to exams.

The thing that makes end of year finals so much more difficult than the winter term finals has to be the weather. In the winter, it's cold, windy and grey so nobody really wants to be outside to begin with. In April on the other hand, winter is finally beginning to relinquish it's iron grip on the world. The sun is shining, the birds are singing outside my window, the flowers are blooming and I'm hunched over my desk scowling at an ecology lecture. The injustice of it all.

It's certainly been difficult to juggle placement prep and exams at the same time. I have had to visit the good Dr. Wise to get my vaccinations before I go. Unfortunately, his office isn't the closest to where I live by bus, and I've had to make the trip 3 times so far, and am scheduled to go once more before I leave because some of the vaccinations have required multiple injections spaced out over time. Taking 3 hours to go to the doctor really cuts into a day of studying. But, it hasn't been for nothing.
I can proudly proclaim that I am now vaccinated against Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid and (as soon as I've recieved this last one) Japanese Encephalitis.

I was supposed to receive my malaria vaccination as well but thanks to a recent incident where a dog bit a bunch of of people at a mall near my house, they gave out about a thousand rabies shots and thus are out of the vaccination. Looks like I'll have to stay away from strange looking dogs and monkeys. That's right, monkeys.

Also, in the end it was decided that I would not go through with the motorcycle course because (long story short) it wasn't specifically mentioned in my job description that I would be required to ride a motorcycle while there. Unfortunately, I had already purchased motorcycle gear when the decision was made (and paid for the course, incidentally) but the school was nice enough to reimburse me for the helmet (as the store where I bought the gear refused to take it back, even unused), and I was able to get some of my money back for the course as well.

I'm planning a trip downtown sometime either this week or next week to pick up a water filter and a good set of boots and a good raincoat for monsoon season. I think I may also look for a book or two to tide me over on the trip there.

My friend Angie (who happens to be going to Guatemala and whose travel blog I've linked to on the right) sent me a link to this Amazing site a little bit like Google Maps that gives you street views of Chiang Mai, the city where I'll be living. It's amazing, you can go anywhere in the city and have a 360 degree photo view of what you would see standing in that spot on the road:
http://www.mapjack.com/?TpbyUmRbacUE7CAA

As the trip nears, my excitement builds. My Thai is improving quickly, though it would be improving faster if I had more time to practice. I should be able to start putting more time in after exams have finished though (I say that as though I'm going to have tons of free time as soon as school finishes but I know from past experience that's never how it goes). In case you were wondering what I'm up against, this is what the language looks like. Basically, you have 44
consonants, but there is a lot of repetition. These 44 consonants make 21 different sounds (so you've got to remember which ones make the same sound, and when spelling you've got to remember which consonant to use with which word, even if they sound phonetically the same). Consonants make different sounds when placed at the end of the word, for example the letter that makes the 'r' sound at the beginning, makes a 'n' sound at the end, and so on. Once you've mastered that, it's time to move on to the 32 vowels! Vowels can be written before, after, above or below, (or any combination of the four) the consonant. Easy, right? But lets not forget the 5 tones (low, middle, high, rising and falling) which which any word can be said. There are 5 different tone markers which are used in conjunction with the vowels and are written above the syllables to which they refer. If there is already a vowel above the letter, the tone marker is written above that. Confused yet? Me too...this is going to take some practice to learn, but Thai is a beautiful language with lots of history, and it is interesting learning a language completely from scratch. At least with spanish and french they used the same characters. It's interesting to think that I haven't had to do this since I was learning to read and write and speak English.

Anyway, I think that's enough procrastination for me. Back to the books we go.

Motorcycle Diaries

2008-03-30T12:50:00.000-04:00

As part of the placement I'm likely to have to use a motorcycle to get around some of the time. Which would be swell, except that I've never ridden one before, nor do I have my license. While from what I hear, riding a motorcycle without a license will probably be less of an issue in Thailand than it would be here, I'm still definitely concerned about the safety implications of using a small, light, fast vehicle without previous experience in a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road. Also, I've been told traffic regulations tend to be viewed more as passing words of advice than strict rules of the road. Those of you who've spent any time driving around Montreal will likely have some idea what I'm talking about.

I am not sure whether or not I will be given any formal motorcycle training by CUSO during the initial few weeks we're required to spend doing in-country training in Bankok so I've decided to take matters into my own hands. I'm trying to find a motorcycle training course to take some time in April. It should be interesting to try and cram a weekend long motorcycle course amid the insane levels of scrambling I'm doing to try and keep up with school and placement preparations, but as they say, safety first, right?

In searching the web for a suitable course, I've learned a few things.

1. Motorcycles have a graduated licensing system in Canada, just like regular drivers licenses. (M1, M2, M)
2. Taking your M1, like your G1 does not require you to do any sort of on the road training, you just get the training book, study, and take the test.
3. To take an M2 training test, you need to have had your M1 for a minimum of 60 days.

Number 3 presents me with a pretty serious problem. My potential departure date is exactly 44 days from now, so even if I went out and got my M1 TODAY, I wouldn't be able to get my M2 before leaving.
This being the case, I've decided to try and find an M2 course that I can take without my M1 license, with the understanding that at the end of the course I would not go for my M2 test. All I really want is the safety training and motorcycle riding experience anyway. I think I've found one place that will let me do that, but I will need to call them Monday to make sure it's okay, and to sign up for one of the courses.

I never realized getting your license would be so expensive though. On top of the course fees, you're required to wear a Department of Transportation approved motorcycle helmet, leather jacket, heavy leather pants or jeans and heavy duty work boots that covered your ankle. I always just assumed that biker gear was all about style. Turns out the leather also conveniently helps you keep your SKIN on in the event of an accident.

I guess this is why it's so important to do all the research you can BEFORE taking a huge trip like this. Looks like I'm going to have to add to my list of "Things to buy before leaving" which is growing depressingly quickly as the departure date draws closer and closer. My bank account sobs bitterly as it remembers better days. Fortunately, the IDS program at UofT and CUSO are both AWESOME about paying for as many of the essential departure purchases as possible (Travel Visa, Water Filter, Mosquito Net, etc), so my costs are way less than they could be.

My only reservation about the motorcycle gear is the comfort factor. According to theweathernetwork.com, today in Chiang Mai, the high is 36 degrees celcius. Current relative humidity? 89%. Have you ever gone outside in a leather jacket, heavy helmet, jeans and work boots when it's 36? I can't say I've tried it either, and there's probably a reason most people don't. Heat stroke anyone? This being said, you can all rest assured that there's no way on earth I'm going to compromise safety for comfort at any point on my trip. I'll figure something out.

Now if you'll excuse me, these millions of essays and assignments aren't going to write themselves.

the journey begins...

2008-03-25T21:58:00.001-04:00

Thailand!
Doesn't it just roll off the tongue? Home of pad thai, elephants, malaria, coconuts and (I've been told) much much more. Thailand literally translated means 'land of the free', and it's where I'm going to be spending my co-op term starting in May.

Since I can never remember what I've told who, I'm going to take a second to go into the game plan in a little bit more detail in terms of what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

The third year of the International Development Studies co-op program at UTSC requires students to spend a co-op term living and working in a developing country.
I've been hired by CUSO (which USED to stand for Canadian University Students Overseas, but no longer goes by that name because they don't work exclusively with university students) which is a Canadian development organization funded by CIDA (The Canadian International Development Agency). CUSO works in partnership with local NGO's all over the world facilitating volunteer cooperant placements, and one of those placements has been given to me!

My Placement

My official position title is "Agricultural Program Assistant". For me to explain what I'm doing, I'm going to have to give a little bit of background on the organization I'm working for. NEED (Burma) is a non-profit NGO that operates out of Chiang Mai Thailand. They've been in operation since 2006, and work to promote environmental conservation and sustainable development (both agricultural and economic). Their mission statement is:
"To work towards strengthening Burmese civil society so that all the people of Burma may benefit from the practice of endogenous and holistic development strategies, based on economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable ideas."

website:
http://www.need-burma.org/

As far as the specifics of my job, I would reiterate them, but I think they've been captured fairly succinctly in my job description, which I will now copy shamelessly from:

Desireable Personal attributes:

The cooperant should bring as open a mind as possible to the placement. Working styles and living conditions are likely to be quite outside the experience of the cooperant. A successful placement will depend on the cooperant's ability to observe, adapt, and accept the experience on its own terms. Critical thinking as well as flexibility are absolutely necessary.

Desirable cooperant qualifications (education, skills, experience, personal attributes) in addition to those listed above:

Cultural Tolerance

Strategic Planning skills

Knowledge of issues related to Burma and ethnic minorities

Advocacy Experience

Thai or Burmese language skills

Ability to drive a motorcycle

Patience and Flexibility

Cooperant responsibilities (in order of priority):

1. Help with the development of the model farm

2. Development of environmental and agricultural curriculum

3. Research Indigenous Agricultural methods used by Burma's diverse ethnic groups

4. Writing of material related to sustainable agriculture (specifically in regards to Burma)

5. Fund-raising for sustainable agriculture projects

6. Report on model farm

7. Help with the elaboration of a cooking book with nutritional values

8. Networking with other organizations

Any questions? Excellent. I'm glad we had this talk.

Now, some people are likely thinking,"But Leslie, you aren't leaving for over a month. What could you possibly have to write about before going away?" I'm glad you asked.
I am writing this blog for a few reasons.
Firstly, it saves me quite a bit of time at internet cafes, because it will mean I don't have write umpteen slightly different versions of what I've been up to lately to keep friends, family and anyone else who's interested in the loop.
Secondly, This blog is going to serve as a journal in which I'm able to put down my experiences, thoughts and impressions, as well as to keep track of my achievements as the placement progresses. It will be interesting to be able to look back afterwards and reminisce about the little things you forget about a trip if you don't write them down. I am going to try to post a few times before I leave to express pre-placement questions, excitements and worries.

I've been sort of on the fence about allowing reader comments on the blog, but I think I'm going to give it a shot. Please sign your name if you leave a comment so I'm able to reply if necessary.