Christmas, Part 2: Phuket

And now, the post you’ve all been waiting for:

Christmas Day was quite full! It started with Sophie and I picking up my parents for church at the Akha church. It turns out that basically all the families of Taw Saeng go to this church, or at least attend on Christmas! It was so fun to see all the kids and I got to introduce my parents to the parents of the Taw Saeng kids. They met Lucy’s mom and dad, who were very excited to meet them, and we saw Winnie’s family too. Sophie had pulled out her Akha special occasion jackets and there were three, so each of us wore one: my mom, Sophie and me. It was hot but fun to wear some traditional clothing, considering American “traditional clothing” consists of jeans and a t-shirt. 

Even though my parents didn’t understand a word of the service, they still had fun singing Christmas carols, they just sang in English while everyone else sang in Thai. After service was over, they got ushered to the guest of honor spots at the tables where everyone was eating Christmas dinner together, family style. Of course, my parents had never had Akha food before, so it was an interesting experience for their taste buds, and quite spicy, but I think they enjoyed it anyway.

Afterwards, we took some pictures in our Akha clothing and then went back to the house, where Maiko was having a church celebration with the house church. Faa was there, Ning’s sister, so it was great spending some time with her and catching up and playing games with all the people who had come to the house church. I finished packing up, and we headed over to see the world famous Chiang Mai Walking Street. We saw Lucy’s family again and Winnie’s mom’s booth too. My parents were stoked to get all their souvenir shopping done and see the amazing things people make in Thailand. We also ate a bunch of great food, of course.

Finally, it was time to head for the airport and off to Phuket. After a quick goodbye to Sophie, we got the hotel shuttle to the airport, checked in and flew through the night. Well, it was night, and we flew, but it was only 2 hours. Phuket was great! It was so luxurious to spend the day on the beach with the beautiful, soft sand and playing in the water. The day after Christmas, my friend Jenny flew in from LA at about midnight and rallied so well the next morning that she was able to come with us on a day of touring the islands. We took a speedboat with a bunch of other people and saw James Bond Island, Ice Cream Cave and some other really cool tropical places. We had a lovely dinner on the beach and my parents got to set off a paper lantern into the night sky. 

Our final day in Phuket, we took a cab into Phuket town and walked around a bit, visiting their library, “Muddy Beach” and, since it was brutally, swelteringly hot, we got fancy ice cream. We headed back to the hotel, packed up and sent my parents off to the airport, while Jenny and I walked down to the beach for a final seaside meal before we were off to the airport and up to Chiang Mai.

"Don't Take Any Guff"

And now, for something completely different:

I’m on a cross-coountry trek up the west coast of the US to do fundraising and visit my family. The first stop is San Jose to see my cousins. I tried ride-share for the first time and it worked out great! Ended up getting a ride from a nice guy named Edward who has a similar story to mine. Worked in film for about 10 years and just decided he was never gonna be a big famous whatever, so he got a job working for the news in San Francisco and now works as an editor and cameraman for them while getting to see his family often.

I stayed with my cousins Judy and Bob and Maggie the dog overnight and had a great dinner with them, filling them in on the past year. I got to visit my cousin Gail’s classroom and talk to her kids about Thailand and our program. They all wanted to buy the stuff I had brought to sell at churches, so it was pretty funny; they cleaned me out before I even got to my destination! I figured, who cares who buys it, as long as I can sell it for the families. Plus, this way, it gives more people the chance to hear about our program.

I bought a train ticket on Amtrak to go up to Eugene to visit my friend Erika, partly cause it was cheaper, partly because I had never been on a train in the US before and wanted the experience. At the station was an old man, a volunteer conductor, according to his badge, who explained to each individual person what the process was to get on the train, and called us all together when it arrived. He said, “Now listen, if anyone gets off the train and starts smoking by you, tell them to smoke down here. Don’t take any guff offa them!  It’s against the law to smoke this close.” It was awesome.

He went on to tell us that the Union Pacific freight lines own the rails, and Amtrak just rents them for passenger trains, so they always have to get out of the way of the freight trains. I never thought of anyone “owning” the rails, I guess I always figured they belonged to the US as a whole. He was also chatting with a Filipino mom and her two teenage girls about their trip. Apparently, he’s been taking classes at the senior center and learning all about Southeast Asia. Great volunteer conductor, that one!

On the train, even though I was just in coach, the seats recline almost all the way back, and it wasn’t the best night of sleep ever, but I got a good 6 hours at least. I woke up just at sunrise as we were passing the base of a beautiful snow-covered mountain. Wow, what a great sight to wake up to. Definitely reminded me that I was in Oregon, not in Thailand anymore. At our next stop, in Klamath Falls, I got off the train to stretch my legs, and was hit with a blast of cold mountain air, about 40 degrees. Very refreshing, but FREEZING. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, because I knew it would be cold in spring, but I still could only handle it for a few minutes before getting back on the train for warmth.

The conductor invited all the people who were interested in learning more about Oregon history to come sit in the Sightseer car where they would be talking about the train lines and the towns we were passing through. The sightseer car was nice because it has huge windows that run the length of both sides of the car, so much better than the seats in coach. Of course, even with the best of intentions to learn something, most of the people, including myself, succumbed to sleep with the rocking of the train. I did wake up to see some nice waterfalls and an old train from 100 years ago that had been knocked off the tracks and into the ravine below by an avalanche.

I finally arrived in Eugene, where Erika met me at the station and we had a nice lunch: GRILLED CHEESE! I did not realize how much I missed grilled cheese sandwiches, until I got back. Also, I love Erika’s cats. They are awesome, all five of them. I even won over the skittish Siamese. While Erika and her husband Doug went to dinner with her former boss, I wallowed in the luxury of Netflix and watched copious amounts of Parks and Recreation! Ahh, American (scripted) tv, how wonderful you are.

Erika played hooky and we went up to Portland to hang out for the day, dodging rain showers the whole time while shopping and finally ended up at the greatest bookstore known to man: Powells. If you have never been to Portland, go there just to see this bookstore. If you have been to Portland and not to Powells, well WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU? :) We met up with my cousin, Kate, and had drinks and hors d’oevres (don’t check my spelling, I studied Spanish) at this cool restaurant. That night, after Erika headed home, Kate and I went to see The Iron Lady at one of the coolest movie theaters I have ever been in. It reminded me of the theater in Roslyn, the one in the old funeral parlor. They have little tables built into the back of each row so you can put your food there and they make their own fresh lemonade and pizza. Great movie experience!

The next day, we had breakfast with Kate’s boyfriend Chris (great guy) and I was introduced to delicious gluten-free oatmeal blueberry pancakes (shocking right?), and reintroduced to the incredible American portion size. I wandered around downtown for a bit of shopping. After Kate’s roommate got off work, we piled into the car and drove up to Olympia. Love that drive up the coast, it’s so beautiful. I am sad I did not get to stop into Vancouver and visit my friends there, but we just did not have time. I did get to see my college roomie, Neli, for a brief visit on our way up, but that was about it.

Finally, we got to my grandma’s house and I got to see my mom for the first time since Christmas and my grandma for the first time in a year and a half, almost! OK, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. More about the WA visiting in a moment.

Christmas in Thailand (Part I, Finally!)

March 3, 2012

Oy, I had such plans to update the blog and then life got insane. Basically, I ended up working every single day of January, most days about 12 hours, so it was like being back on set again in LA. I was working feverishly to finish all our promotional materials and stuff for the sponsorship packs because Larry is going back to the US to do some fundraising. So, here is the insanely belated update about Christmas.

First, a few days before my parents arrived for Christmas, Ahna’s friend Emily came to visit from China on her way back to the States. We decided to go up to Bua Tong waterfall because it’s SO MUCH FUN and I wanted to take Sophie too. She wanted to bring her friend Ying, so the 5 of us piled into Jasmine’s car with a bunch of food for a picnic and headed out of town. Sophie was worried because she still had a mountain of homework to get through before she started back to school on Dec 26, but she had been spending so many hours every day working on it, I thought her brain needed a break. She was convinced that she would not want to go in the water, but I brought all my swimming gear anyway, because I knew she and Ying would not be able to resist the lure of the falls. We had a nice picnic at the top, battling ants the whole time, and I was really excited to show Sophie and Ying the falls.  

After the battle of the century finally resulted in Sophie and Ying changing out of their regular clothing and into swim gear so they would not be sopping wet when we went home, the five of us headed down to the bottom of the falls. Along the way, we all had so much fun playing in the water and splashing around. When we got to the bottom, Sophie even swam in the lake, despite the chillier water. She and Ying had such a blast, I was so glad we all went. On the climb back up, they couldn’t believe that you could just climb right up the rocks and not slip off. The water was really warm too, so it wasn’t unpleasant at all. We took a ton of photos and almost all of them turned out great.

Before heading home, we went up to look at the pond with 7 colors (though I have never been able to count more than 5) and Ying and Sophie tried to catch fish in a bucket that was supposed to be for getting this Buddhist “holy” water and pouring it on the little shrine. It cracked me up that they really thought they could catch a fish that way.

On the way home, they both completely passed out, it was really funny to see. Playing in the water in the sun really takes it out of you.  When we got home, we still had time for Sophie to get some homework in too, so it all worked out.  

My parents got into Bangkok on the 19^th of December and spent the 20^th being tourists around there, doing a day tour of a bunch of temples. As a result, they ended up knowing more about Buddhism in Thailand than I do after living here for 10 months!

They arrived in Chiang Mai on the 21^st for their whirlwind trip. Luckily, I had borrowed my friend Sacha’s car while she was in Australia for the holidays, so Sophie and I were able to meet them at the airport. But of course, on the way there was first a traffic jam and then construction on our route, so we had to go completely the opposite way from the airport for a good 3 miles before finally hitting a U-Turn and heading back to the airport. I was so frustrated because it normally takes about 10 minutes to get from our house to the airport, even in a car, and this time it took about a half hour or more! My parents had no phones to contact us with, so I was so stressed out, but we got there, finally found a parking spot and saw them right away when we came in. Sophie was so cute, she wanted to get dressed up to meet them, so she made me put on a skirt and nice top too. My parents were surprised, obviously, since I would generally go in shorts and a t-shirt to the airport.

After picking them up, we headed to their hotel and checked them in, then went for lunch at a restaurant I hadn’t eaten at since I was here with my church in November last year. After lunch, we gave my parents directions to Taw Saeng while Sophie and I ran home to change and get to Taw Saeng.

That night, my parents found their way to Taw Saeng only getting lost once! Haha. They got to come to class with me and see me teach; and, despite the utter chaos that always reigns, I think they had fun. Amelie was so funny: once she found out they didn’t speak Thai, she was like “why didn’t you teach them??” and then she said “you have the same face as your dad. And a little like your mom. Well, your mom and dad must be happy, now because they have a grandkid. (Pause) But she doesn’t look like you.” Later she was teasing Sophie saying “Hey, how come you aren’t calling P’Heather’s parents Yai and Tda? (Thai words for Grandma and Grandpa) They are your grandparents now!”

After Taw Saeng, we went out to an Italian restaurant I have been wanted to try for a while now, near our house. It was so fancy and nice, and more expensive than I thought it would be, so I offered to pay for our dinner, but my awesome dad was like “What? Put your money away! I only see you a couple times a year, I can buy you dinner.” Yay! Thank goodness for generous parents. Sophie took forever to decide on what to eat and she was bugging me to get red wine because it’s made from grapes. She was convinced that it would taste sweet, and would not believe me when I told her it was really bitter, that it’s wine COOLERS that taste sweet. So, I ordered a glass and let her have a little sip. The look that came over her face was priceless! I wish I had a picture of it, it was hysterical! She finally believes me that red wine is not sweet, just because it’s made from fruit.

The next day, I sent the three of them off with Emily, Ahna’s friend, to ride elephants for the day. It was funny because Sophie had to speak Chinese to Emily, who would then translate for my parents. When they got back, Sophie said “P’Heather, it was SO much fun! But I spoke SO much Chinese today, so now I’m really tired. And your mom really loves me.” I thought something must have happened to make her say that, but no, it was just my mom being herself. I was like “Of course she loves you, you’re an awesome kid!”

That night, we visited the Night Bazaar and had dinner at the German restaurant. It was a special treat because I have not had ribs since I have been here, they are so expensive, but we got ribs and fries that night. I was worried Sophie was starting to get super spoiled, but how often do my parents fly half way around the world to visit us, right?

Friday we had the day off from work, but Sophie wanted to go to school to get some extra study help for starting back to school the next week. In the morning, my mom and I tried yet again to see Winnie dance (this is the 5^th time I have tried and failed). We got there at 9:25 and were just in time to see the last 20 seconds of the dance. I was so disappointed because I asked her so many times what time to come and she said 9:30am! At least we saw the tail end of it and then we saw her little brother’s class dance, which was super cute. They were all dressed up like cats and did a song with a lot of meows in it. After we saw a few of the other classes dance, we went back to the hotel to get my dad.

 We went up to Doi Suthep, which is the big temple overlooking the city of Chiang Mai. It’s a beautiful view and you have to climb 300 steps to get to the top. It was cool to finally see Doi Suthep, but it was SO hot up there! It was fun to get a bunch of food for my parents to try, like fruits and quail eggs. However, I didn’t realize there was a waterfall so close, and I was super bummed when I found out about it later cause my mom loves waterfalls too. We didn’t have time to go out of town to visit the big ones, but we could have gone to the one near Doi Suthep, had I realized its proximity. Oh well, more reason for them to come back, right?

We headed back down the mountain after about an hour and I dropped mom and dad at their hotel while I went to pick up Sophie, Winnie and Winnie’s mom. The four of us went to the market to get food to make for our big Christmas dinner that night. We bought enough for 10 people to eat, and it was only about $18. Plus, we had so much food left over! We went to Winnie’s house to cook because they have two burners and we only have one at our house. I took some back home with me and showered and changed while Winnie’s family showered at changed at their houses. I went to pick up my parents and we all gathered at our house about 7pm with a huge spread of food. It was so fun and was the perfect Christmas dinner. We had Maiko, me and my parents, Sophie, Winnie and her mom and brother and Winnie’s two cousins who I have become friends with since I’ve had Sophie. Then we had Winnie’s family open the presents we got them and they were all very happy with them. They went home, I took my parents to their hotel and then Sophie and I did dishes for a long time! J

Christmas Eve was Saturday and I had some last minute shopping to do for Sophie’s stocking. I dropped her at the hotel and ran to get some candy and the new Justin Bieber Christmas CD for her. Then we all went to the Night Safari, where Sophie and I got discounted tickets because of our Thai status. J Having that Thai driver’s license gets you discounts everywhere! Best deal I’ve gotten here.  

We had a great time at Night Safari and saw a bunch of animals and Sophie got to feed a lot of them. Dad got scolded for feeding the zebras because there are signs everywhere in English saying “DON’T FEED THE ZEBRAS” and they told us that when we got on the tram and again when we got to the pen with the zebras. But, Dad fed them anyway, so the tour guide said “Sir, please don’t feed the zebras. They have very sharp teeth. You will lose your hand and I will lose my job.” HA! Luckily, he didn’t try to feed the lions.

We had dinner at the international buffet for only $4 a person! After that, we went back in to see the evening show and watch the water show, which was pretty cool but not quite on the scale of Disneyland. I know, I’m a bit biased. Afterwards, they had a baby white tiger that you could take pictures with. Sophie and Mom sat with it and Sophie was holding a bottle and had something shiny on, maybe her earrings, so the baby tiger tried to attack her! I got a bunch of pictures of her getting pounced on and finally a nice picture with my Mom as a buffer between Sophie and the tiger. It was half scary and half funny.

We got home and it was time for presents! Wow, my parents brought so much stuff from the US. Sophie was very excited about her new Converse (from me) and her new pea coat (from Mom and Dad) as well as a necklace that matched one they gave me.   

Next time, on The Thais That Bind: Christmas Day at Akha church, Phuket, touring Chiang Mai with my friend Jenny. Also, pictures!

Christmas 2011: Taw Saeng

Christmas was wonderful this year! It started with decorating our house. Sophie and I bought a live Christmas tree from the flower market and got decorations from the Christmas store in the big open air market (Gad Luang) near our house. We put on Christmas music and decorated with Maiko. We put ornaments on the tree and hung Christmas lights outside. It was fun, even though our little tree looks like the one from Charlie Brown Christmas. But, that is why I love it. J Then, Maiko and P’Dtip (who is helping her with the house church) decorated the walls with ribbon and hung live roses with little pockets of water all over the walls and hung ribbon in our courtyard too. It looked so pretty!

We also had a great Christmas program at Taw Saeng this year! In the past, Taw Saeng has bought snacks for the families to eat during the Christmas party, but this year we decided to use Hollie’s baking kitchen and bake goodies instead. It was so fun, despite the fact that I was sick with bronchitis (typical for this time of year). I felt pretty lame driving around with my sweatshirt and scarf while seeing all these tourists running around in shorts and tank tops.

Anyway, we decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies for the party. Franziska, Ahna, Ning and I went to the kitchen at the Kijkandee head office Tuesday, Wed and Thursday morning to bake for hours. It was so fun, but the oven ran out of gas on Thursday morning!! We had a mild panic attack, but luckily, P’Mary was there (she’s the cleaning lady, and is super sweet) so she called the guy to bring us a new tank. Crisis averted.

We decorated with some stuff we had upstairs, including our fake Christmas tree and lots of ornaments. We had the kids make angels and decorate them, then we got them laminated and hung them up from the rafters with stars and other decorations we had been making. We also made snowflakes and hung Christmas lights around our little patio area for people going by to see. It was so cool to see the whole place done up for the holidays!

We had been practicing with the kids for weeks for the program. We had Franziska’s kids doing a hip hop dance with the younger boys (SO cute to watch!), Ning had Sunny, Sophie, Willow and Yvonne do a traditional Thai dance, Ahna taught the littler girls a fun dance to a pop version of Away in a Manger, we had the older boys doing a song on their guitars, and my girls (Winnie, Amelie and Miriam) do their songs on the piano.

So many family members came out for the performance and it was so exciting! We started with the kids singing a Thai Christmas song while Ahna and I accompanied on harp and guitar, then they sang Silent Night in English and sign language, then in Thai, then we started with the performances. I felt like I was running around all night doing something for setup or videoing or playing guitar. It was really fun, but it all happened so fast! I was so proud of my girls playing their songs. They all had them memorized and they did a great job even though they didn’t play perfectly. For their first performance in front of anyone other than me, they were amazing! I was so excited to have their parents come see too, because I know they must be so proud of their kids as well. It’s really cool to be able to teach them piano, because there is no way they would ever be able to afford lessons or have a place to play without Taw Saeng. I know that playing piano for me is so therapeutic, so I think it’s kind of like music therapy for them too, since they have had so much stress in their lives. 

It was so fun to watch Sophie dance too because I have only ever seen pictures of her dancing before and never seen it live. She was the best of the girls because she is oldest, but it was so funny because she was concentrating so hard that she looked super serious, while all the other girls had big smiles on their faces. Every time she would look at me, I’d be like “Smile!!” and she would smile for about 10 seconds, and then go back to her concentration face. It’s pretty funny to watch the video of it.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

or, Welcome Home! It's a Construction Zone!

That was an unintentional rhyme, btw. So, we are out of the hospital! Hooray! 24 hours after we got back, I was missing my mat on the floor of the hospital because the townhouse connected to ours was undergoing major construction. At least at the hospital, they would wake us up and 6am and then leave us be for 3 hours so we could pretend we were getting a full 8 hours of sleep. Not so here! The construction noise is so loud that Sophie had her tv turned up ALL THE WAY and I could not hear it until I sat directly in front of it. This morning at breakfast, we were standing about 2 feet away from each other screaming at the top of our lungs: “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?” “WHAT?” “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?” “ORANGE JUICE!” “WE DON’T HAVE ANY ORANGE JUICE!” “WHAT?!??” “WE DON’T HAVE ANY….” You get the point. Loud.

At one point Sophie was screaming at the wall WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD????!!!!!  Despite that, it’s nice to be home, OH, wait. I have not told you about what they are doing. So, I go outside to do some laundry and the entire back wall is missing for 3 stories. Like they just jackhammered the crap out of it and now there is no wall. Oh, and no FLOOR on the second level. I have no clue what they are doing, but I guess they really like their ceilings high. Today they built scaffolding out of bamboo and rope. Very interesting. And unsafe. I think. But what do I know? I’m not a builder. 

I also think that the demolition has caused structural damage to our house, because Sophie’s bathroom now is leaking dramatically from the floor and the other day, the plugs holding the pipes into the wall burst and started spraying water everywhere! We didn’t have water for a day because it emptied our water tank. Oy.

Ah, but speaking of construction, we are super excited about a team coming from Canada in February to help fix some of the kids’ homes. We went on a walk through of three of our most needy kids’ homes with an architect friend of Rob and Judy’s, Michael, who was able to give us an idea of what we could do to improve their living situation.

One house is up on stilts because it frequently floods underneath, but the stilts are made of wood, so they have been eroded over the years. We want to replace those beams with cement blocks to make it more stable.

House 2 currently has only one room to sleep in and we are going to divide it into 2 rooms so that the girl of the family has her own room and the boys have their own room.

House 3 is a total reconstruction project. The house has been falling down for months, and will not survive another rainy season. The walls are buckling and the roof has caved in more than once. The plan is to demolish it and rebuild with cement posts in the corners, as well as add a loft for sleeping in so there is space downstairs for the kitchen and a living space.

Hopefully we will have enough builders come to finish all 3 projects and be able to get a lot of the prep work done and supplies purchased before the team arrives in February. Please keep the building project in your prayers, as it is a big one but will give hope to the families involved that their lives can be better than they are. 

Stay tuned for the Christmas program update with pictures.

Chiang Rai, Poo Chi Fa and other Funny Names

So, I have written a little about the complications surrounding Sophie’s citizenship status, but this weekend was the most stressful part of it so far. Basically, because Sophie was born in the village at home, she has no official birth certificate. There is a village book where births are recorded, but apparently her families’ copy of it was lost years ago. In order to gain citizenship here as a hill tribe member, you have to apply for it through the government. For some reason, when her mom filled out the application, she put two names on the form for Sophie’s parents that were not really her parents. She also put that Sophie is two years older than she really is. Why, I have no idea, because it is really screwing with her life now. Even more complicated, her mom had one ID with her Akha name in Chiang Rai but then got a different ID with a Thai name in Mae Taeng. When she opened a bank account, it was with her Akha name, which is not officially recognized by the Thai government and she was admitted to the hospital with her Akha name, so now Sophie can’t access her families’ bank account either. It’s so, so complicated and hard to work all this out. They say it could take up to 10 years to get her Thai ID, which means that she will not be able to work a real job, have health insurance, own property, go to university as a citizen, or many other things.

So, Ning and I drove up to Chiang Rai, where Sophie’s mom’s village is to try to track down these people and get going on her Thai ID application process. We had a blast on the way there, jamming to my iPod with Thai music and Switchfoot (obviously). Ning kept saying how we were teenagers because of what we were listening to. So, we finally get to the province of Chiang Rai and Sophie sort of knows where we are going, but not really. In her defense, she hasn’t been there in nearly two years and has never driven there herself, she’s always gone with her mom. However, I had specifically told her to call the people in this village the day before to get very specific directions. So, what happened next was at LEAST 50% percent her fault.

We drive down this main highway looking and looking for the entrance to the village. We turn off the main road onto a dirt road. At first this is fine. I’m thinking it can’t be that far right? Wrong! SO wrong. We start driving down the dirt road and come to a fork. We sit there for about 10 minutes debating which way to go. The obvious answer is to call the people who live there, but wait! We have no cell service. Awesome. We decide to go right. Bad idea. The road gets more and more rocky and I’m driving super slowly over these rocks trying to avoid the numerous potholes and ditches and praying no one comes flying around a corner while I’m on the wrong side of the road. We are getting further and further from civilization and no people or houses in sight!

We finally come upon a guy on a tractor. He actually knows where this village is so he agrees to lead us there. We keep driving, the road getting ever more treacherous. Finally we come upon what can only be described as a pile of boulders. We are in a small SUV, but not a freaking bouldering Jeep for crying out loud! I was adamant that I was not going over this spot because it was too dangerous for the car. I was like “We leave it and walk” but Ning said that robbers would strip the car if we left it there, so we had to keep going. I wanted to turn around go back to the road, but it had already been an hour by this point, so finally I was so frustrated, I ordered Ning and Sophie out of the car to watch and tell me if the car was going to get the bottom ripped out by a boulder. I put it in 4-wheel drive and drove as slowly as possible over the rocks, but apparently not carefully enough because the exhaust pipe got cracked. (Too be honest, I’m not sure if this occurred at this point or later as we were climbing Poo Chi Fa in the fog on a road riddled with potholes.)

I was so stressed by this point from all the driving and not knowing where we were going, that Sophie got back in the car and was like “P’Heather, are you ok?” (in English). It made me laugh a bit and get a little less tense, but I was like “I don’t know. Is the car ruined?” Finally, we found the village and Sophie recognized the house we were going to. We met with the village elder (by we I mean Ning spoke for about an hour in Akha and I sat there trying to keep my stomach from growling.)

Finally, Ning looked at me and said, “We have to go to Mae Fah Luang. Now.” I was like, “Ok, let’s go.” By this point, it had been about 5 hours since we had eaten. I figured we’d get to MFL and eat some lunch. This plan was not to be. The village elder and another older woman joined us in the car, which required some rearranging, and we headed off. Yeah, so the way out was on a hard packed dirt road with very few potholes and very wide. This is the way we should have come in. It took about 15 minutes to get to the main road, rather than 90.

Now MFL is a province as well as a city, which I did not realize at the time. So, we exit for the city and get to the bottom of a large hill. We can either turn right or go straight. All the people in the car agree we need to go right. All the people in the car are wrong. So, we drive and drive, up and down windy roads. No, windy is putting it to mildly. They are basically Z curves stacked up so tight that I have to turn the wheel 100% to the left and then basically stop the car to turn the wheel all the way to the right to avoid smashing into the rocky mountain and stay on the road. These roads have no guardrails and in most places are about the width of a car. I am praying no one comes tearing around a corner going downhill. Luckily 95% of people in Thailand own motorbikes, not cars.

After driving for about 3 hours, Ning decides this is ridiculous and realizes that no one has a clue where we are or where we are going. We pull off the road at a village and ask the people for directions. “Oh, no,” they shake their heads. “You should not have turned right.” Three hours ago we should not have turned right. THREE HOURS! They decide that rather than describe where to go, they will just jump on a motorbike and lead us there. Thankfully, with someone who knows where they are going, this trip back down goes much faster. We finally get back to where we started and go up the other way, until the village people see the sign pointing to the village.

At this point, I am getting really irritated, hungry and tired, not to mention the stress of driving someone else’s car through these crazy mountain roads is giving me a massive backache. I am relieved that we finally are at the right turnoff, but another hour goes by before we get to the village and the further into the mountains we go, the narrower and more full of potholes the road gets. We stop at every village on the way this time, making sure we are going the right direction. We finally come to a building at the top of a hill and I’m like “This is it. I know this is it. I’m going up the hill.” But Ning says “No, that’s just a school, keep going.” I stop and I’m like “really? Really it’s just a school? Don’t schools need people? This is the village.” But of course, I know the least of anyone in the car, so I am outvoted. We keep driving another 20 minutes until we hit—wait for it—Burma! Yep, a dude with a machine gun and a gate you would see in a parking garage are just hanging out at the top of a mountain. The soldier probably hasn’t seen anyone in hours, and is a bit surprised to see a farang driving a bunch of Akha people around. We ask him for directions and shocker! I was right. I would like to say I refrained from saying I told you so, but at this point it had been 12 hours since I had eaten, so I totally said “I TOLD YOU SO!”

At this village, the guy we were supposed to be meeting was not there, he wasn’t coming home til about 8pm. It’s now 5pm so Ning and I wander around and meet some of the families who live there and play with the many litters of puppies running around. Sophie discovers that these people have a satellite, so she is happy just watching TV. Because she has to take medication at 5pm with food and we haven’t eaten since breakfast, I force her to eat all the fruit and chips and junk food in the car so she can take her meds. The wife of this village elder is so sweet and makes us dinner at about 7pm. Nothing better than Akha food, I’m telling you. Nothing. So good!! 

After dinner, the elder is still not back, so the entire village congregates around a fire and watches an amazing full lunar eclipse. Despite the many frustrations of the day, I gotta say, if I were almost anywhere else in the world at that moment, I would not have seen that, and it was pretty awesome. Because there are so few lights in the village and we are so far removed from any city the stars are incredibly bright and close and the moon is full so it’s so bright out. I keep hearing guns go off and it’s kinda freaking me out so I ask Ning about it. She tells me that in ancient times, when the moon would have this “problem” (I’m like well, it’s not a problem, it’s gravity, but ok) then they would all shoot guns to scare away the shadow from the moon so it could be free again. Kinda cool, right? Side note: They don’t put bullets in, just powder. That would be unsafe. 

Finally the guy comes back and Ning, the village elders from Sophie’s mom’s place, Sophie and myself sit there and go through all these documents and talk and talk and talk in Akha, so I’m completely lost. Finally, it’s over and we go to sleep. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s like 20 degrees F up here in the mountains? No? Oh, and Sophie and I are prepared for this by having flip flops, capris and t-shirts with a hoodie. Needless to say, I woke up with bronchitis. The fun continues. Strangely, Sophie, the one with the lungs ravaged by tuberculosis, has no ill effects from the cold whatsoever.

Our plan was to wake up early, like 7am and eat breakfast and go right away to get back to the other village and head out. The old people had different plans. I ended up sleeping for another hour in the car waiting for them to come back from finding the old people. Then we ate breakfast and waited some more for them to get some tea. So, only late by 3 and a half hours, we headed back to the Chiang Rai village.  

It only took 50 minutes to get back to the freeway. Then, we headed back to the village. Here is where communication broke down. For some reason, instead of turning into the village on the road we took out we took a “shortcut” that the elders “knew.” We start driving and driving and going up and down what is basically a goat path. Just dirt tracks where wheels have driven over, no road at all. I keep asking “Really? This is the way?” while elders bicker in the back over why they don’t know how to get to THEIR OWN HOME! Seriously? At one point, Ning is laughing, saying that first they blame each other, then Ning, and finally me for driving. I was so ticked, I was like “I will STOP this car and you can WALK yourself back to your village!! Are you KIDDING me?”  By the grace of God, I refrain from actually executing this threat because we come to a rise and see the main road below us. You’re safe for now old people, but watch out for next time. We drop them off and I’m like, ok, no time for chitchat. Let’s go. Ning is feeling the same way, so we say “Peace!” and drove off.

On the way up, Ning had talked about going to see Poo Chi Fa, a beautiful area of Thailand. “Since we are in Chiang Rai anyway,” she said. What does this statement lead you to believe? That Poo Chi Fa is close to the city of Chiang Rai, where we already were? Silly people. Of course it means that it’s another 4 hour drive to the very edge of Chiang Rai province and, incidentally, the edge of Thailand, overlooking Laos. (That’s a country, in case you are unfamiliar with Southeast Asia). Clearly I was just along for the ride, having no idea what exactly Poo Chi Fa was to begin with.

Yet more crazy windy roads, chock full of potholes and danger around every turn. We climb and climb and climb to the top of this mountain. It’s a holiday so when we finally get to the mini resort area it’s packed with people. It’s also freezing. Literally. It’s 0 degrees Celsius. Did I mention our packing preparation? We find a hotel, rent a room with a queen size bed, a door with huge drafts, and windows that are the slotted type, allowing all the cold air to blow right in, for the three of us for 500 baht (this is only about $18US but expensive for this type of setup in Thailand) and attempt to take a nap. We fail. For some reason, we have failed to notice that a huge loudspeaker was being set up in the parking lot/courtyard area of the hotel right outside our window. So, as soon as we start to fall asleep, the band starts up followed by announcements in Thai at 3000 decibels (or something like that).

We give up on sleep and go to buy some things to warm us up. Sophie gets a new hat and gloves while I get socks and a scarf to protect my throat in an attempt to deny the fact that I already have full blown bronchitis. Here’s a weird thing about Poo Chi Fa. Despite the fact that it gets incredibly cold in the winter, there are literally no restaurants that have walls. None. They are all open air. Imagine going to Utah for Sundance and having to eat outside all the time. You’d have to drink so much alcohol to keep warm! Come to think of it, that might be a great way to boost alcohol sales at Sundance (like they need it).

Anyway. So, we eat dinner all bundled up as much as we can and try not to spill our food with all our shivering. We find a place with hot cocoa, which I am excited about, and then head back to the room to take lukewarm showers, which arguably end with me colder than before I showered. I end up with the middle spot in the bed, which is fine by me since I’m freezing. My toes and fingers are white with cold by this point. Any extra body heat iss appreciated. All of us wear every piece of clothing we have with us to stave off the cold.

The next morning I finally understand what this whole crazy detour is about. We wake up at 4:30am. We pack up mostly and head to the main office where a bunch of other people are waiting already. I have no idea what is going on. “What are we doing?” I ask Ning. “They are taking us up the mountain.” Um, ok. We pile into a truck, Ning, Sophie and I scoring seats on the inside rather than in the bed of the truck. We drive up to the top of a hill and get out of the car. “Now what?” Ning replies, “Now we go up there,” gesturing into the blackness. My eyes finally adjust and I realize that there is even more mountain and that people are climbing it In the dark. They have flashlights for rent at the bottom, but why would I have brought money? I look at Sophie’s feet, clad in socks (day 3 or being worn) and her slip on sandals and look at my own crocs. We are not prepared to climb a mountain, but up we go. We keep losing Ning because we have to keep stopping so Sophie can catch her breath. The air is oxygen depleted up here and it doesn’t help that she is still fighting TB. We finally get to the top, or close enough. Let’s say we get to a point where I am fine not going any further. The moon finally breaks free of the clouds above and I realize what we are looking at. We are standing at the top of the world. In the moonlight, all around us we see peaks and valleys and oceans of thick clouds stretching into the distance. I try to take a bunch of pictures, but my camera is just not fancy enough to capture the view. 

It’s very exciting but very cold. Sophie and I are clinging to each other and Ning for warmth as we practically have convulsions from how cold we are. Finally, Sophie points behind me and screams for me to look. I turn around and there is the sun just peeking around the mountain. It gets lighter and lighter and the clouds are spectacular. We cannot stop taking pictures, but none can capture the splendor and beauty of what we are experiencing. Now I understand why we spent so much energy getting here. What an incredible experience to witness the beauty of God’s creation.

About 7am the novelty wears off and the cold and desire to return to warmth takes over. We head down the mountain, slipping and falling a few times, but luckily not off a cliff. At the bottom, Ning has money so we get some instant oatmeal type cups to warm up. At 7am, 1000 feet below where we had been standing it is 0 degrees Celsius. I estimate it must have been about 10 below where we were. That translates to about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

We get back to the hotel, load up the car and take off back home. I have never been so excited to sleep in my bed in Chiang Mai. The bronchitis takes another week and a round of antibiotics to finally recover from, but the memories will live on. Despite all the stress, anxiety, frustration and downright anger I felt this weekend, I do not regret going because it was a great time of bonding for Sophie and me. I’m really glad I got to see where her mom came from and got to stay in a traditional Akha village and experience the kindness and generosity of the people there.

Loy Krathong

So, November is one of the biggest festivals of the year: the combination of Yee Pang and Loy Krathong. Yee Pang is when you send paper lanterns up into the sky. I’m not really sure what it commemorates, but every year at Mae Jo University thousands of people gather to send up lanterns at the same time. It’s just like in Tangled!! I was SO excited for this festival because we missed it by mere days last year when we were here on the mission trip. A bunch of people wanted to go, so we all met at Troy and Grace’s house (other missionaries) and rented a couple of song thaews to take us up and back. It was so crazy! It’s about 10 miles away and it took us over an hour to get there with the traffic. Finally, we got to the entrance. Only one problem: it was on the other side of a canal. Not the kind that you can just jump across, like a real canal. They had built a small bamboo bridge over the water for people to cross on because it was about a half mile one way to the next road across and about a mile and a half the other way to the main road across the canal. So, when I say bamboo bridge, I use the “bridge” loosely. Envision something out of Romancing the Stone or if you have never seen that movie, then picture two long pieces of bamboo tied together with twine for the walking part, one long piece of bamboo to act as a hand rail and two pieces of bamboo sticking up out of the water to stabilize the foot path and hand rail. Sound stable? Hahaha. Well, we were all up for an adventure and Ahna was desperate to get across because she was trying to meet her students from the school she used to teach at whom she hadn’t seen since she got back to town because the kids had been so busy. We finally all made it across (19 of us!) and headed into the campus.

There were already thousands of people there and more coming as we arrived. There was a really long Buddhist prayer, followed by a few hundred monks walking with candles and then they announced that the special monks were going to send up lanterns first, then everyone would send their lanterns up together. Man, that sight is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Standing in the midst of thousands of lanterns floating up into the night sky toward heaven was just an amazing experience.

After most had gone up, we found Ahna’s students and then reconvened and sat down to eat our picnic dinner that we had brought but didn’t have time to eat earlier. It was a nice time to hang out and catch up with the other farangs who I haven’t seen in ages. As we were finishing up, all these Mae Jo students started walking past and wanted to get a picture with this huge group of farangs. So, about 20 of them sat down with us and took a bunch of pictures. It was so funny! Normally, it’s foreigners who want pics with the locals, but in this case it was the reverse. It was kind of awesome. J

The past weekend (Nov 10-12) was Loy Krathong. The Krathongs are little floating flower bouquets put on banana leaves that you then Loy, or set on the water, to float away down the river. You can buy them everywhere along the river and they are so beautiful. Apparently, this festival celebrates the river goddesses from ancient Hinduism I think.

It started on Thursday with tons of fireworks going off everywhere! The streets were closed already because they were doing a small parade so it was difficult to get around, but so cool to see the fireworks everywhere. I bought a few to do with Sophie at the hospital. After work on Thursday, Ahna, Franziska, Inna, and I took Willow and Bastian from my class with us to see the fireworks from the bridge. On the way, we saw a little amusement park and decided to take the kids on the Octopus ride that I LOVED as a kid. BIG mistake (for me). I hadn’t gone on it for years, and was excited, but I get bad motion sickness, so I was fine for the first normal run, but they kept going, and going, and going, for maybe 10 ro 15 minutes!! Finally I signaled to Ahna, who had gotten off, that we had to get off NOW. They finally stopped it, but I was so dizzy I could hardly stand up, and Bastian was no better, he fell over when he tried to walk. It was not as much fun as we thought it would be. I was so woozy, I almost couldn’t get home. But, I am a trooper, and I had promised Sophie we would do Krathong, so I stumbled to find some and bought two with beautiful orchids and then made my way back to my motorbike as the others continued to the bridge where they stayed for two hours lighting fireworks and had a grad old time. I made it back to the hospital ok, and we got permission from the nurses to go to the moat to do krathongs and fireworks. It was fun and we got some cute pictures!

Friday was a big day for LK. First, Ahna and I took Ning to lunch for her birthday and we got her some running shoes which she has been wanting for months and months. It was nice to be able to get her something that she really needed and wanted and deserves and can’t afford herself. Plus, it was nice to just spend time with her outside work.

Then, Friday night, there was a huge parade where all the different schools make ginormous floats and then parade them down the street from Thapae gate to the big open air market and then up to the river where they put the floats on the water and they float downstream. It’s pretty amazing. We were there for 3 hours and the parade still hadn’t gotten to the point of the river where they actually put the floats in. I guess it goes all night long and there are literally about tens of thousands of people who watch it. It was great because we started at Thapae Gate and walked along Thapae Road to the river. Along the way, we saw the families of a lot of our kids from Taw Saeng and we ran into a bunch of our friends scattered along the road. I went with Ahna and her students from last year. Their float got first place, and it deserved it, it was a-MAZ-ing! We got a bunch of food, including cotton candy(!) and bought some Krathongs to send down the river. Ahna was conflicted about taking part in a Hindu festival, but I told her to rewrite it to be like reenacting the sending of baby Moses down the river and then she felt better about it.

For photos, see my Facebook page under the album: Yee Pang and Loy Krathong.