chang mai

well, i had a wondeful trip.

it is 4:20 in the afternoon on monday...my time (2:20 in the morning for those of you in vancouver). i am sitting in the airconditioned computer room with two of my students. i don't get picked up until 5:00pm on mondays and wednesdays. i should go do some planning, but i thought i would get this done first.

besides, i've been chit chatting with these two about some ideas. i told them this past weekend that i am expecting more from them (group two that is...not my group of course). as last day (wednesday) i heard they were teaching them how to break dance!!! i explained that IF they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, they wouldn't have the time. and that i don't want the teachers at the school to be wondering why we are here!! i actually switched up the groups today so that i could keep an eye on the other one. we'll mix it up again later.

the trip? i just wish it had been longer!! rene's assistant, tik, who accompanied us, is fun, but she isn't a wealth of information. i was bascially playing tour guide by reading the book that my cousin ryan (thanks ryan!!) gave me and then explaining the sites to the students. we got to chang mai late at night on thursday, so it was dinner and bed as we had to get up at 5:20am!!! then it was off to the highest point in thailand, doi inthanon. (doi means mountain in the northern dialect) it's part of the himalayan mountain range. so i thought that was cool. we visited a spirit house off the beaten path. it was built to house the spirit of a soldier who crashed there while doing some surveying. part of the plane lies beneath the spirit house and, as with all spirit houses, it had many offerings.

we did some trekking to see some beautiful waterfalls and then three daring students and i followed a guide up, up, up (and i mean up) to a huge cave. we were cursing the whole time. we actually attempted to find the path once ourselves, but apparently the locals were having fun with the signs and we never found it. we went a long way down a wrong path though. our spirits were dampened, but the man at the gate said that after we had lunch, we could return for free and they would give us a guide. sooo...we went. this guy was a maniac. he was wearing full army gear in the sweltering heat and just booking it!! we had trouble just keeping up. never mind the fact that we were sweating from every pour. i mean i was absolutely dripping! my shirt was soaked!!! it was rough. but worth it of course. i couldn't stop laughing once we finally got there. i am pretty sure the guide thought we were a bunch of complaining, out of shaped twits. even though he couldn't understand a word, i am certain it was not hard to tell.

on the way down the mountain, we heard drums off in the distance. apparently two different hill tribes are scattered at various places around that mountain, but as you need a full day and a guide to find the authentic ones, we didn't get to do that. one of the tribes is the "karen" tribe (pretty cool hey?). just hearing the drums was a really neat experience. i wanted to ask the guide to follow the sound but, one, he couldn't understand me anyway, and two, i nearly fainted on the way up, and it was probably best i just got back to the van and some water!! we ended up going to a more "touristy" village the following day.

after the cave we explored another waterfall. chris, jessica and i had a blast, as we were sooooooooo hot that we climbed some cliffes and lay back in the waterfalls, completely soaking ourselves. of course we all ended up with some funny looking black bugs all over our shirts, we managed to get most of them off. mind you, in the car i found one crawling out of my shorts. ewwwww!

originally tik didn't want us to make a trip back to the house (we were staying at the principal's "summer house" in chang mai...a HUGE place on the river bank), but one look at us convinced her otherwise. i think she thought we were all a bit nutty. after a shower break we went for dinner and then to the "night bazaar". however, it was raining something fierce and not all the stalls were set up. we actually had to brave stepping through the flooded street just to get to our van after dinner. i see now the whole "rainy season" concept. i didn't buy anything at the bazaar. there really wasn't anything that tempted me. jesscia informed me that the one in bangkok is much better anyway. and, quite frankly, i was too knackered to bother bargaining.

saturday it was to see the village people and the pandas at the zoo! then off to sukothai, a great historical place. but i won't bore you with history. a little tidbit that i find interesting, though, is that this great king that started this dynasty is said to be the greatest in thai history. he even created the thai script. however, recent historians have claimed much of his greatness is, how do i say, exaggerated and that stories about this king were mere creations to give the appearance of a unified thailand to possible outside threats. as at that time the west was trying to take some land (nothing new) and that the script even was just a copy of another more ancient script. thai people, i found, don't like to talk about that though. tik thought i was mad just for mentioning it i think! look at me, stirring the pot all the way over here!!

i also managed to buy myself a necklace and a funky hand carved elephant to hang on the wall.

it's a lot cooler here today. thank goodness. it's been raining off and on all day.

i wish i could learn more thai, but i really am too exhausted after teaching others all day to sit and teach myself. perhaps before next year i will? it's a difficult language. it's tonal. not something any westerner would find easy. it's is easy in that there are no verb tenses and such, but one word can mean five different things depending simply on how you say it! there is the netural tone, low tone, high tone, rising tone and falling tone. the same word can mean "pig" or "team" for instance. no wonder all the students laugh at me when i try to pronounce their names. i've probably just said something really vulgar!

teaching today was great. there was one girl who thinks that she speaks english too well to be bothered with this whole thing, but, again, for the most part they are really happy to have us with them. we provide them with a bit more entertainment. i sat in on one of the canadian teacher's classes. it was a review class. they were simply reviewing terms for "directions" and a lot of thai was involved in the explanation of things. danny (the teacher) said that most classes are like that. a lot of repitition of vocabulary. not a lot of games. so they must be enjoying this! we're basically doing three weeks of fun (or trying to at least).

it's almost time for my ride. see ya.