Fairy Tales

I have more or less fallen in love with the family that lives on sight on the school. I wrote in the letter to my mother that the kids names are Din, Nam, and Fon. It turns out these are nick names. They haven't bothered to tell me there real names. However, they have told me that there names mean Earth, Water, and Rain respectively. I live with Thai hippies. It's pretty awesome. Not to mention, after having Bangkok leave me wondering if "the land of smiles" was a myth this family has quickly shone me how many times it is possible to smile in one day. As we cook dinner Nam sits in the hammock and plays his guitar and sings in Thai. The boys each have motorcycles (really more of scooters) and are nice enough to let there little sister ride on the back as they zip around Chang Rai with there shades on. They are the coolest teenagers I have ever met. The parents speak very little English but smile and laugh as they teach me Thai and try to improve there English. The father (Pi Sak) has learned the word for cute uses it the most as I try tirelessly to correctly pronounce Thai words.

As it turns out we do not work very much on this farm/school (VBAC). I have not worked on the mud house (or anything else for that matter) since my last entry 1 week ago. I am starting to understand that just by having travelers coming through and more or less being in the community and representing the school we are helping the school. I think Silapa more wants us to be learning about Thai culture, meditation, herbal remedies, and Buddhism.

We often are given a rough idea of what we will be doing each day - but very rough. For instance, last Sunday we were told we were not working this day but going to a Waterfall. We piled in to the back of the old pick up truck the school uses. 10 minutes later we arrived at a near by temple. We ended up staying at the temple for 3 hours putting together a "money tree" for the upcoming meditation retreat. (A money tree is like a much more exciting collection plate).

We make it to the beginning of the trail to the waterfall. It is about a 20 minute easy hike in until I round the corner and am blown away by a waterfall 3 times the size of anything I was expecting. The waterfall was mentioned so casually I figured we were going to swim and it would be neat and maybe we could even slide down it. Standing fifty from the waterfall my clothes were soaked from the mist and you had to yell to hear the person next to you. Din, Nam and Fon arrived shortly after us and Nam was nice enough to be my guide under the waterfall. It was incredible. There was just enough space for 3 or 4 people to climb up in behind the fall and sit for a few minutes.

The next morning we woke up expecting to work. We were once again told to climb in the truck little idea where we were headed. We arrived at a monastery. Our money tree was proudly displayed at the front of the temple. This was the first day of a 5 day meditation retreat. Silapa introduced us to an older Monk who explained the different activities and workshops going on (acupuncture, Tai Chi, natural healing work shop) he told us to look around but not to wonder far because the truck would be here soon to take us to the cave. Everyone was talking to us as if we had any idea what was going on. I get the impression that Silapa sets up many very interesting things for us to do, but maybe doesn't have the English to explain what is going to happen. It's always a surprise waiting for us in the morning.

So again we arrive at a trail opening, we hike in on a short path that crosses a stream. We arrive at a huge hole in the side of the mountain. The cave is maybe 40 feet deep and 30 feet high at it's highest point. There are a few tents set up and two young monks sitting with crossed legs on mats. They welcome us with smiles. We spend about an hour with the monks. There are two other caves close by that they takes us to explore. At the end of our time they begin talking about how we will be staying with them for the week in the cave. Once again news to me. It turns out it was our choice to stay or not... there were some key words lost in translation. But honestly, how often do you get invited to camp in a cave with monks for a week to learn about meditation.

We had time to go back to the monastery, try out having acupuncture done, and return to VBAC for just enough time to pack what we will need in the cave.

4 nights

3 Americans

2 monks

1 yoga teacher

Incredible.

The monks turned out to be hilarious. There names were SuphaChai and Matt (Matt is actually German but wanted to try out being a Buddhist Monk for a month). SuphaChai is Matt's teacher but has been a mentor and friend of his for many years now. SuphaChai was as incredible as his name suggests. The mornings were spent doing a little yoga with the yoga teacher (Sylvia), exploring the area, washing dishes, rinsing out muddy clothes in the stream, swimming. Afternoon often got us lessons in meditation exercises, background and basics of acupuncture, Buddhism 101. After dinner was talking about meditation techniques to try out the next day, stories about monks crossing streams, king frogs, and kings who like to hunt for fun. It was somewhat of a adventure base meditation style. Mostly it was an incredible experience, and a whole lot of fun. I am proud to say I have two brand new Monk BFF's. :)

First impressions (Letter to my Mother)

Hi Mom,

So I just arrived at the "farm". I guess it's a farm. It's very cool whatever it is. So I mentioned we are on a university. It is actually more like a trade school. School is out right now. maybe for the week, maybe the end of a longer vacation period. I'm not sure. It looks like there is a palm tree orchard on the grounds. There is a pond and 7ish cows. However, life so far has been very cool.

Bangkok was neat but kind of horrible. I mean it was just kind of a big dirty city. I probably told you already that it was really not that unlike any other cities I've been to. I was deffinatly singled out as a toursit very often. It was also very hot and just kind of gross. My hostel there was cool. I paid 4 dollars a night to stay in the dorm and then I spent my last few nights on the roof for free. They had the roof set up with a few hammocks and beds, a shower and bathroom and a few sinks. There was also a cover over the roof and 1/4 height walls giving you more of a chance of catching a breeze at night. The door to the roof locked from the roof, so I felt really safe staying up there as well.

My friend Vickie and I took an over night bus 11 hours north to Chang Rai. They served us meals on the bus and we watched Thai TV (which was a very very strange slap stick comedy show). We arrived at the and called our host. He came and picked us up at the bus station. Our host's name is Silapa. He speaks very clear English. There is also a family that lives on sight. A husband and wife and there three teen agers. The two older teenagers (Din and Nam - boys) will go back to college in a few days. They go to school in Chang Mai which is a larger city south west of here. I think students are in university younger here. Maybe 16 and up?

The youngest of the tree is a girl (Fon).

The family cooks all of our meals for us in there house. If we show up at the right time and ask many times they will let us help. We eat on the floor. Every meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) consists of rice and stir fried vegetables. Every meal tastes completely different from the last and is very spicy (even when tuned down for our sensitive Western tongues).

All the ingredients are fresh and organic. What doesn't come from the farm comes from farms near by or from the produce market at the end of the road. The fruit is incredible. The bananas are as sweet as grapes.

Silapa is an herbalist and medicinal wine maker. There is also an herbal winery on sight. He actually just left a few minutes ago on his motorcycle to gather herbs in the forest (no joke). I feel like I am describing a fairy tale. For work we are eventually building a mud brick house. Right now we are working on the bricks. In the morning we make the mud - soil, water, rice husks, and crushed clay. We mix it with our feet in the mud pit. This takes a few hours in the morning. The afternoon is often dubbed too hot to work ... so we take it off and return to work for an hour before dinner. This is when we put the mud in the frame and set it to dry for two weeks.

This is all for now. Love,

Emily

For those who are interested in every detail :) (Ireland and Qatar)

My trip started with visiting my sister Becky in Limerick, Ireland. Becky is doing her first semester of college abroad. I stayed with her in her apartment/dorm. For me, the point of this stop was getting my travel bearings and of course getting a chance to see Becky. We didn't do too many touristy things. We did manage to journey to the homeland (which is apparently Cork). Cork was awesome. Just a small city two hours out of Limerick. We went on a Sunday so, of course, very little was open. As we came to the end of the hub street we found ourselves in the middle of a good sized folk festival. At first there was a live band at one end of a big open court yard area and they were calling Irish Folk dancing that anyone was welcome to join in. We watched for a few dances before joining ourselves. Unfortunately this left no one to get pictures. We wondered Cork a little more, tried to get a bus to see Blarney Castle (we missed the last bus) and ended up back at this same court yard in time to see Salsa Celtica. This Cuban /Irish folk fusion band was incredible. I highly suggest looking them up on YouTube or trying to find them online. It was truly amazing music.

Back in Limerick, Becky and I visited her local castle (St. John's Castle) and the museum and made sure we went out for Guinnesses and some more traditional Irish music before I left. All in all Ireland was a great place to chill out and get reorganized after a first leg of my trip.

So I left Ireland. I had a 6 hour stop over in Doha, Qatar. Which I realize doesn't really count as a destination on my trip, except that it was so different from really anywhere I had been before. So there you have it, I am counting it. We off boarded the plane by climbing down stairs and walking outside over to buses that then drove us 15 minutes to the terminals. This wasn't so strange except that it was 75 degrees outside at 2am. That was new. I stayed awake while in the airport. I browsed the duty free shops and tried out the perfumes. I swear it was dark and the middle of the night as I left one end of the terminal and by the time I looked out the windows at the other end it was daylight. I watched the sunrise before getting back in line to board my 6th plane of the week. This time as we rode the 15 minutes on the buses I could clearly see my surroundings. The airport is right on the edge of the city. I feel like we drove pretty close to down town Doha. It was pretty neat. It is clear from the in flight magazine that Qatar is really trying to push Doha as a great new tourist destination. It was interesting to get to see a little bit of it. While through the haze you could see colorful buildings in the city everything directly around me was the all the same desert camel beige color. Everything, the ground, buildings,workers clothes, even the haze turned the air a sky a similar hue. Anyways, I've never been to a desert before. This is what I have to report from Qatar.

I had a really lovely flight from Doha to Bangkok. It was sunny and beautiful the entire way. The clouds just below us made incredible shapes in the sky. I was embarrassed for myself when I looked back through my camera and realized that the 20 something pictures I took of clouds. My friends and I met at the airport and began bargaining with cab drivers. After an hour and a half of one way escalators, not being able to find the buses and resilient Thai cab drives we settled on what we knew was an extremely over priced cab out of exhaustion.