Chang Chang Chaaaaang in Chiang Mai

Sa-wa-tee kah! That’s pretty close to an English version of how you say hello here. I’ve been in Chiang Mai the last two weeks and I have loved nearly every minute of it. I haven’t posted in a while because life has been fairly monotonous for the last two weeks—Monday through Thursday I have Cal Poly classes 10:30-noon and then Thai Language Class 3-5 pm, so most of our days have been consumed by school. The language class is actually pretty fun though, although it’s incredibly hard and I don’t remember much I got lucky to get a fabulous teacher who takes us on fun outings all the time. This is my teacher, “Ajaan Ni”—we all love her!

 

But anyway, the first week we had class Tues-Fri because of orientation on Monday. We went out to some fun bars and clubs both weekend nights, and found a beautiful pool nearby that will allow us to escape the suffocating heat for just a few hours. Here’s where we go when we can’t handle the heat and really need to relax:

I didn’t do much cool stuff the first weekend, I was still trying to adjust to the jet lag and get settled into the swing of school. This week, however, we had class Monday-Thursday, and on Friday morning embarked on my favorite adventures of the trip so far.

At 8:30 AM Friday, we loaded into four huge vans (with big squishy seats and air conditioning, thank goodness) and after a quick stop at a museum, headed into the hills surrounding Chiang Mai. We were on our way to visit a (semi-) traditional hill tribe of Karan people. Luckily, though, the vans only took us part of the way and we got to hike through a beautiful jungle for the rest, complete with a swim at a waterfall!

Although Chiang Mai is not a huge city it was so refreshing to get out in the wilderness again and see nothing but green for a while. Along with the intensely beautiful wilderness we saw some intensely huge spiders—to give some size perspective that orange-ish brownish blob at the lower end of the spider is a butterfly that he was munching on—eeeek!

Anyway, after swimming at the waterfall and coming out of the jungle we hiked through tiered rice paddies to get into the Karan village. There was a pig or two tied up under almost every house, chickens running around everywhere, and water buffalo roaming the main road.

 

I didn’t take as many pictures as I wish I did, but I am lucky enough to be travelling with a photography major (also named Jenny!) so I plan to steal some of her beautiful pictures from the village—with her consent of course. Upon arrival at the village we were served coffee from beans that had just been roasted and ground. They used simple boiling water, not a coffee machine to brew it. The most interesting part for me was that even though there were animals running around everywhere, open-air huts as houses, and people hand-weaving on looms, most people still had electricity and cell phones. I felt like I was truly seeing one of the paradoxes of a developing area.

We had a great night at the hill tribe. Just as we arrived it started pouring, and we were all so happy to be there and refreshed from our hiking and swimming that we played like kids in the rain, lauging, dancing, and twirling around while we explored our new surroundings and got completely soaked. After an awesome dinner of vegetable and tofu soup (they were nice enough to make a pot without pork for the 2 vegetarians on the trip), rice, and stir fried veggies (with watermelon for dessert—yummmm!) we sat around a campfire outdoors with our group of 28 plus 12-15 indigenous Thais. We sang songs to a guitar and even had a performance from a famous Karan traditional musician—one of our guides described him as the Justin Beiber of Thailand. We drank beer and rice whiskey and had an overall great night under the stars just chatting, singing, and appreciating human connections. Although the nightlife in Chiang Mai has been loads of fun, with crowded clubs and lots of foreigners (who actually speak English!), our night at the hill tribe was definitely my favorite so far. Although we had little cabins with beds and mosquito nets, I opted to sleep by the campfire under the stars—I had a friend to help keep me warm though, one of the local dogs who loves the attention of the tourists. Here’s what “Momma” looked like:

 

The next morning, we reluctantly left our accommodations at the hill tribe around 9:00. We had a quick stop at a Hmong village where we saw just a flash of another indigenous culture, before riding a windy, bumpy road in our vans to an elephant camp! I was a little worried about how well they treated the elephants there, with benches strapped to their backs and a sharp tool in hand in case of emergency—but I was impressed with the kindness of the handler. Our elephant was a fairly new mom so we had her baby walking along with us—it was soooo cute. My favorite was when we walked through the river, the baby laid down in the shallow water and rolled around, playing in the mud and water. I had to fight the urge to jump in and join him. This is what the cute little guy looked like (with us riding on his mom's back):

Next we headed down the mountain a little more to another great experience: riding guided bamboo rafts. The rafts are maybe thirty feet long and 4 feet wide, with huge pieces of bamboo tied together with (oddly enough) broken bicycle tires. There was a guide on each raft with a long, skinny bamboo pole--which he used to push along the bottom and guide us around obstacles. I couldn’t take pictures here because everything was so wet (we obviously got in splashing fights with every raft we passed, whether we knew the people or not), but it was a really cool experience—hopefully our friend on the trip with a waterproof video camera will let me add his footage to my electronic archive of memories.

            The jungle hike/hill tribe visit and the elephant riding/bamboo raft days have been my absolute favorite days here, and possibly the best days of my life so far. I’m just as excited for tomorrow, where myself and three other friends from the program are taking a guided course in top-rope rock climbing at a world-renowned climbing site called Crazy Horse Buttress. I hope to never forget the amazing experiences I’ve had this weekend, and most importantly the simple happiness I found in being in a beautiful place with quality people. Life is good.