Wats Up

Before leaving Chiang Mai, I was able to visit some of the well preserved wats (Buddist temples) that are around the city. On the outside of the abbey the sign said Welcome so I took off my shoes and started to enter before I saw about 10 monks eating in a circle so I quickly ran away. It is a good thing I did because I learned that they only eat once a day at 11am and I nearly interuppted their meal. I went back later and walked into the foyer.

A Thai woman was communicating with one monk while kneeling on the floor and the other monk in the room sat cross-legged. He was quite old and I believe he was meditating because he didn't seem to see me. He had this very serene look on his face with a slight smile, it was a look of someone who had reached nirvana or some high degree of enlightenment. It would be wonderful to have such peace of mind. Before I forget, I want my sister Chelsea to know that I observed a monk talking on a cell phone while crossing a busy intersection. I guess they are allowed modern conveniences after all, or at least some are.

Friday I was trying to get myself to Ko Samui in order to get to Ko Tao where I will be meeting my friend Rachel and her husband Darren for a week. They will be diving and might talk me into taking classes. All of the flights were booked and a train would have been 16 hours. I decided to fly to Phuket and take a bus to the other side of the island so I could take a ferry over to Ko Samui in order to get to Ko Tao. A friend that I met trekking was going to be staying at a posh resort in Phuket called the Banyan Tree and said that I was free to stay there that night. Seeing as that I wouldn't get to Koh Samui until very late, I accepted his generous offer. I mean, why not stay in a beautiful 5 star resort? We went out last night in Phuket to an area called Parong Beach which Matt kept calling Pooty Tang because he kept forgetting the name of it. It was like Bangkok meets Waikiki, a very crazy and different party place. One neither of us would have hung out for long if we were on our own. First we went to a place called The Expat Bar where Matt the youngest male by about 25 or 30 years and I was the only non Thai female. I have observed many couples in Thailand with these demographics, it is no wonder it is such a cliche. We were walking around and I suggested we cut through this alley. We realized we had found ourselves in the gay section of Parong. Now Matt is gay himself and was a little intimidated by the environment so I told him I would be his shield. We walked into one bar just to see what it was like. It was a bunch of 19 year old guys on stage standing in their underwear looking quite drugged out so we got out of there right quick. We then thankfully found an Irish Pub called Scruffy Murphys and hung out there for a few drinks. I just love how you can be anywhere in the world and find an Irish pub. In front of the pub out in the street I managed to find myself some Australian male Playboy Bunnies.


From monks to people in their underwear, I have got it all for you. Currently I am writing from Koh Samui and tomorrow I leave for Koh Tao.

Trekking in Chiang Mai

On Sunday I left for a three day trek in northern Thailand, outside of Chiang Mai. We stopped at a market to get some things and then made another stop. We were in this village and I figured the driver needed to get something so that was why we all got out. We wandered around, saw some kids and older people doing their thing and stayed for about 20 minutes. It wasn't until after it was over that I realized that this was an actual stop on the trek. I found it to be a little strange that we were taking pictures of people in their natural setting- I don't know, it just felt a little invasive. I couldn't imagine tourists coming to my town and taking pictures of me cooking in my house. But apparantly they were used to it as people came trekking through their village every day. I also learned that the Longneck tribe up near Chiang Rai were all but disappeared as they were forced to return to Burma. You know the ones with the bracelets up their unusually long necks? There was only one Longneck tribal family left up there and that was for tourism purposes.

We continued on where we stayed in another tribal village that night. That didn't seem so invasive as we looked at it as a bed and breakfast of sorts. We started of as 12 then dwindled down to 7 of us in our group, from Canada, the U.S., France and Italy and we all got on really well (pictured above). The next day we went for an elephant ride, it was so cool!



They are just the most amazing creatures and it was hard to settle on just a few pictures as I took so many. We rode for an hour and then trekked to our next destination, an overnight campsite at a waterfall. Well not really a campsite, both nights we stayed in a dorm style hut with mosquito nets around each bed. Oh and never mind the quirkiness of the Tokyo toilet, the Thailand squat toilet is nothing I should write about. Makes me appreciate what I have, that is for sure! In the evenings we did what you do when you are camping, one of my favorite activities- drinking beer and playing cards. The second night besides our tour guide, the person who managed the waterfall campsite, Lut, wanted to play. There were too many players and not enough cards so we had to think of a game where everyone could play so Kristoff, the very entertaining Frenchman, suggested Assasin. You decide on a card, say its the Ace of Spades, to be the Assasin. You deal out a card to each player including that card and whoever winds up with it is then the Assasin. If that person winks at you, you announce you are dead while the other players try to guess who the Assasin is. So, we were trying to explain this game to Lut who speaks very broken English.

He thought he understood the game and this time Matt was the Assasin. He winked at Lut and instead of saying "I'm dead", he got out a frying pan. I thought he was going to either hit him with it or make him wear it as a hat. Instead, he wiped the bottom of the pan with his finger and put it on Matt's face like it was Ash Wednesday. It was pretty hilarious. So much for translating card games. I can only imagine what he would do if we let him play A**shole with us.

The next day we trekked an hour again to the bamboo rafts which was another highlight. It was a mellow float down the river although we had some instances of nearly falling out a few times. We really enjoyed it and it seemed like it was over just as soon as it began. Since I couldn't bring my camera because it would get wet here is a picture of some random people starting off as well as me walking through rice fields.