My hood

In case you haven't been to SEA or Thailand these are just a couple snippets I caught while driving around the other day.  Nothing too exciting but might give you a little idea of the world here in Chiang Mai.  I'll be leaving here tomorrow and heading to Sing Buri for work, a much smaller town.  I'll post some videos driving around there too just to show you the difference between "Falang Thailand" and "Actual Thailand."

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We Three Kings

In 1296 King Mengrai founded Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.  He worked with two other kings (I'm too lazy to look up their names right now) to design the city in its square/grid pattern that is seen within the city walls today.  There is a monument dedicated to these kings near where I am staying here in town, and yesterday there was a celebration there to honor their memory.  Unfortunately I could not quite figure out (language barrier) exactly what the festival was for. I asked my friends and as many people as possible and mostly all I got was "three king, very most important, dead here."  In the picture here you can see the monument with some Buddhists there in front, my friend Sak is the guy on the far right.



Ok so here is the interesting thing about this festival.  Lana people were celebrating along with Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Animists, etc...  .  Again, with the language barrier it was so hard to tell what was up, but what I know for sure is different cultures were coming together in one place and spirit and it was a really beautiful thing.  Check out this video.  I'm pretty sure this is some sort of trance. She was swinging around from this white cloth for a REALLY long time, but I only caught the tail end of it.  Notice when she begins to fall down she is helped up and a bowl of flowers and oil is brought to her which she dips her hand in and then puts it on her head.  I'm going to get a hold of my favorite professor back at OU and see if she can give me information on this...

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Again same festival, but now a different culture or religious group.  I think Lana but still not sure...

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And finally....no idea about this one but, either way she's getting DOWN....

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And here are just a couple pics...the first is the REALLY long table where everyone was being fed....soups and curries and the like, and incredibly it was free.  The second is me, Sak, and Jeean...the flower I am holding was given to me by the guy who seemed to be directing everything....microphone and all, and he was definitely Hindu but Sak told me the flower was "luck from Buddha," so that was kind of interesting.

welcome to my latest adventure

It was just over a year ago I sold everything I owned and ran away to Southeast Asia.  If my memory serves me right I believe it was a mixture of boredom with my job at the time and a dash of my cute Laotion-American boyfriend and his sense of adventure that led to such a drastic decision.  It was five months of heaven on earth and it just wasn't enough.  I didn't stay as long as I hoped, I didn't look for that teaching English job in Phnom Penh or Chiang Mai that I said I would, and I left before finding what I really went there for in the first place. This isn't to say it was wasn't worth it. In fact since returning to the states there hasn't been a day that has passed without dreaming of that place, day and night.  It took awhile to admit it to myself and even longer to admit to others that I must return.  And so, I have. I am here.

I have come back to finish what I started.

I will find work here.  I will make myself a home. I will stumble upon that NGO doing true work of value and I will dive in.  I will wake up in the morning and smile at the monks passing me by in their search for their daily alms.  I will smell the lemongrass sausage grilling on the street over an open fire and my stomach will rumble.  I will see the young men with their perfect cheek bones and be overcome with lust. I will fight that lust, and only sometimes will I be successful. And when the young ladies befriend me merely because I am an American I will be patient, knowing they will come to like me not just because of the color of my skin but because of who I am.  I will long for my family and cook outs and little girls' birthdays.  But then I will smile knowing that they are smiling too because if I am happy, they are happy. I will go broke.  I will worry about how I will afford my next visa run, but I will listen to what the monks say: do no harm, throw away your map, and the world will open its doors.  I will miss my American friends, and I will take comfort in knowing all things evolve, even friendship. I will wait for them to visit.

I will be doing what I am doing: running while being still.

I have stories already...falling down the stairs at the aiport (the large bump and incredible pain in my left knee is hopefully nothing more than just that), talking to a Chinese medicine man about herbal sleep aids and then being offered what I believe was an illegal narcotic (I politely said no), eating 3 versions of Kao Soy, a traditional northern Thailand SPICY curry, in as many hours (I got a little sick), and getting a hair cut in an alley by a Thai guy who promises he is "famous singing super star" (I had no problem believing him).  All of this and I haven't even been here 24 hours...

But first, I thought it would be appropriate to make a little post about why I came here in the first place, why I returned to the states, and why I had to drop everything and come back here again so quickly. I feel I owe it to you the friend, the family, the reader. Sometimes, I just have to toss the map....

There will be pictures and stories and thoughts and sad notes about how I miss you, all of you. You will love it, and if not, I will.

kc