Suay!

After a 5 hour van ride from Wan Pen's back to Bangkok and a 14 hour train ride from there, I find myself in the tourist city of Chiang Mai. It's only been about a week since I arrived in Thailand, but the thought of Washington right now is more foreign than the country I'm in. It's absoultely beautiful (suay!) and the people here are so willing to help you and speak to you, even if they only know a few key English phrases. Since I left you last, so much has happened. The flight from Seattle to Korea was the longest I've ever been on, but Korea Air treated us so well. Each hostess looked exactly the same, and we learned later that to be hired for Korean Air, you must meet certain exact facial and body proportions. Most would fight, yell, and sue over that in America, but it's about setting an example for your country and the position holds a high degree of pride for those who are accepted. And I've never heard of better service on a flight before. I slept the whole 5 hours from Korea to Thailand and woke up at 1 am on the tarmac. The smell when you first walk out into Bangkok is overwhleming. Sweet, spicy, fishy, hot, all blended together in the most satisfying way. That night, I walked around the empty market during their dead hours. The workers were preparing for the next day. Live fish and frogs hopped out of their little water buckets and flopped around on the floor, full pigs were being butchered to sell, and the spice tent smelled so amazing everyone had to stop and sniff each one. Our hotel, the Shanti Lodge, was a quaint little tourist place with people from all over the world. It was all open, only doors on the hotel rooms, and plants grew from the alleys over the shower walls and through the cracks in the brick. In Thailand, you have to take your shoes off when you enter someones home, so we left our Choco's and Keen's outside in the alley and spent our time there barefoot. The first day, we walked to the river and hopped on a boat to go see some phenomenal temples. The architecture is outstanding and gold Buddhas are a favorite decoration. One temple had steps so steep you had to walk sideways to get up, but at the top we had a full view of Bangkok. Afterwards, we took a river tour through the "backroads" of Bangkok, which used to have no roads at all and everything was accessible only by boat. The Venice of the East. At night, we took a little tuk tuk to Khao San road, one of the biggest tourist roads in Bangkok. Lots of lady boys (men who dress like women), bars, clubs, and white people who spoke all sorts of languages. It was interesting. The next day, we were off for Erewan National Park and Wan Pen's. Wan Pen and her family are beautiful, wonderful, kind Thai people living in the jungles around Erewan. They have open air bungalows to host tourists and fed us the most amazing Thai food I've ever had. Pad Thai in the states is complete BS. We had fresh pineapple, starfruit, dragonfruit, and mango every morning, some from straight out back in her garden. We hiked to a limestone cave, played soccer with the local Thai boys (ages 9-15, who all rode up on their huge motorcycles alone), and meditated at sunrise on the hill behind the local temple next to statues of Buddha and monks. Every morning, the orange-clad monks walked down the dirt road for miles accepting offerings from the townspeople. In Thailand, giving to a monk is one of the most fulfilling things you can do. It's considered good karma to have them accept something from you. At 5 am every morning, the hundreds of town roosters crowed for hours to bring up the sun, and all of us. The second day there, we went to the Erewan waterfalls. Seven different swimming holes cascading down from the top of the mountain behind it, each one beautiful and unique in its own way. At the top, the water fell straight down over the limestone, but the rock is sticky and we could climb up to the top where there was a cave with crystal clear water, red rock cliffs rising behind it. In each pool, fish swim by your feet and eat off the dry skin. It's the strangest feeling ever, and people pay bunches of money to sit in a spa and have it done down in Bangkok. Bang came with us, one of the boys who live at Wan Pen's, and he showed us all of the best spots. Wan Pen walked me through her garden one afternoon, where she grows tamarind, pineapple, banana, peanuts, coconut, eggplant, avocado, bok choy, lemon, and all other sorts of vegetables, fruits, spices, and medicinal herbs. Many things she didn't know the english word for and we didn't recognize the smell of it. Her farm is completely sustainable. She uses no sprays or insecticides, she weeds the garden by hand, and the seeds for the next year come from nowhere but her own plants. It was sad to leave. But now I'm in Chiang Mai, a city I have yet to explore, so I better get off and see what I can see. Adios!