It's been a pretty long time since I last wrote.
Social Media websites like Facebook seem to capture my moments through the last few months the best.
A brief summary of what I've went through, from finishing my backpacking days with Mel, to watching my senior students (M6 students) graduate, to planning the future of my life...
I've spent a month with a group of amazing individuals all seeking to graduate with a TESOL certificate, had some amazing friendships form and bonds were made, was placed in a very well known private all girls Catholic school in Bangkok, many teachers were illegally working expats, I was involved with drama, got a Thai girlfriend, got a second job teaching English to students from 4-40 years of age, and had a roommate leave early... I am happy to say I think my craziness may be coming to a settled state for now. I'm focused. I'm teaching. I'm learning. I'm happy... Where I left off:
Mel and I were at Chiang Rai. We got on a bus that was heading to the White Temple. (Wat Khao?) We were shooed off the bus on the road. It was a rather large road to cross to the white temple we saw in a distance. We booked it and ran. We went to sit for a minute across the street from the White Temple and got some coffee/tea. We take a minute to embrace the temple from afar. As the no so many people approach the entrance, we walk right on in. Unfortunately some of the White Temple was still under construction. The history of how it was made is pretty neat. I won't get into it now, but it describes why the temple is under construction now.
This temple is beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice. Pictures might actually give it "too much" justice. I feel like seeing the cracks and the "realness" in the structure makes me appreciate it even more. It's not a magical fantasy and some place that is not reachable. This place exists. This place is somewhere Mel and I physically went to.
Mel and I take a walk around, watch the fountains turn on giving the temple a softer look. We walk around the outside and make our way to the steps. The bridge was not accessible at this time. All around the temple are offerings of beer, cigarettes and liquor. The faces of these sculptures are disgustingly creative.
Our short trip to the temple allowed us to see some other traditional wishes that Buddhists make. There are trees made of hanging wishes. I actually want to focus on that a little bit.
Think of a single place, where you have a magnitude of wishes all compiled in one spot. What are wishes? Wishes are passion. Drives. Compassionate ideas that human beings strive for, or hope for.
One single tree made of wishes hangs, with each wish supporting each other forming one global idea. Unity at its best.
We head back to the road looking for a bus back to the bus station. The road is empty. No buses, no cars, no motorbikes, no sungtaews. Where are we? .............realistically about a 15 minute drive from the bus station. Walking in this heat?.... no way. Mel and I start walking to look for more opportunities..
After about 5 minutes of "what the hell are we going to do? we have to make it back to the bus station for our ride to our bungalow", we turn around and spot a sungtaew.. We yell from a short distance "Chiang Rai Bus!". I motion to Mel in the distance to run to the sungtaew as I hop on the back and yell "2" so they know she is with me. It's crazy how little words you can use to communicate. No need to for sentences. Knowing a tad of the Thai language could help..
We make it back and wait for our ride in plenty of time, and luckily our ride shows up early.
Here goes the ride to the bungalow.
Mel and I make eye contact with this guy about my age, maybe a little older. He approaches us and just waits. We have our booking in hand and before I know it we are throwing my backpack in the bed of a truck. I quick strap on the rain gear incase it down pours on our ride. You never know! Mel and I hop in the truck. I'm exhausted. I'm about to fall asleep. I know its a long ride but I try to stay up as long as I can before dozing off. I'm losing focus as we make random left turns and take long side roads. Where are we going?
We stop. The driver look sat us and just motions "1 minute". What?... He runs out to a small house in an alley. We wait a few minutes. Mel and I look at each other and think, "We hardly spoke to this guy at the station... are we in the right car?... What is happening? Wouldn't it be a crazy story if he was picking up some illegal black market stuff..." We wait... and wait.... and wait.... I have no clue what's happening. We just laugh. We are slightly worried, but after all the travel we just don't care we are exhausted.
Finally, he comes back with some groceries of some sort. We made another 3 minute pit stop along the way. Now we are cruising along the mountains. These mountains are not like other mountains I've seen. They have many peaks, but all with drivable terrain.... well I shouldn't say drivable... I should say "Thai drivable". hahaha.
I am falling asleep and can't hold my eyes open. As I doze, every time we see something cool, Mel shakes me, or pokes me, or shoves me into the door. I appreciate it, but I just do not care at this point.
I didn't care until I turned around and look out the window. I'm suddenly wide awake again. Mel says, "Sorry, I just feel like you are missing a lot and I don't want you to." *Best part of a travel buddy* You have two sets of eyes, you can support each other and help each other see and do the best of things. Not missing a beat.
The views are amazing and terrifying to look down. Why look down? Oh, because we are now at an extremely steep incline on a rocky..no, BOULDER made road. Dirt and rocks and nothing on the right side of the truck as I look out my window but pure open space/air with banana leafs, bamboo, and free falls.
We are in the boondocks. The damn boondocks. The driveway to the bungalow leads to a peak on a mountain. There are 7 huts. One house. a few dogs. This is it. We hop out, are led to our room, and I can't wait to take pictures.
We are in the middle of the jungle, in the mountains. The view shows the hills rolling over each other in the rice fields into the jungle and the paths carve along the sides and into the valleys. The clouds glow above, and in the distance you can hear a small waterfall. Mel and I decide immediately that we will be doing the hike that the house owner offers. We book it with him that night. When I say "book it", this is not like any other booking we've done. What did the next day have in store for us? We will see but I'm sure its going to be amazing. We order dinner (which we have to let them know hours in advance about because it takes time to prepare up here). Curry was my choice.
Best curry I've had.
As we eat dinner, we meet an awesome couple backpacking through. They were the only other 2 people here. The mountains were ours. We got to know them quite well for the short amount of time we had. We ate dinner, learned about how they got here, how they met, what they are doing after, music, etc... Nui, the owner told us that he was going to start a fire for us. Around the corner of the house was a pit fire.
We offer to help and Nui insists on doing it himself, "Thank you my friend, no worries my friend. I work all day, no worries my friend." He is so kind. He tell us stories about his childhood, his past, his future, where he likes to live, why he likes to live here, what he doesn't like, why travel is good, why culture is good, why cross-cultural experience is good to have. He explains that everyone is different, and come from different places. When you understand not just one but two or three or more, things make a lot more sense. You can respect everyone a lot more. He has not done much traveling himself other than in Thailand. The way he speaks is so...... simple yet modest and wise. The little english he knows, he used in very soft spoken and decisive ways.
It's amazing how in language, even when using the simplest of words, how you say them can mean so much... We can tell that tomorrow will be more than just an adventure, but we will learn about Nui and his ways.
Mel and I enjoy the sunset, the fire, our new friends, drink some beers and let ourselves soak in the countryside laying on our hammocks, and eventually falling asleep in our beds under our nets....doused in bug spray. Haha.
The next day we rise up and have an amazing breakfast. This food is incredible here for what they have to prepare/how long they have until food would go bad.
We head out on our adventure with Nui.
A whole different type of hike. We start off from the top of our mountain, down the trails through the weeds, the pickers and the banana leaves with the dogs leading the way. First up is a road we drove on to get here. We walk down a bit, pass a small village with wooden planks as walls with weaves as protection and support.
Mel and I walk with Nui into the hills, up and down in the rice. We go from ankle high grass to Neck high rice. This season is right at the end of the monsoon season, meaning all the rice is extremely high, and the trails have not been walked on yet for many months and are disappearing. We plow through for around 2-3 hours of short breaks here and there.
We find ourselves at a small flat circle area with running water. This water doesn't look amazing, but this will do for our lunch. Nui grabs a piece of fresh bamboo and chops it down for us. We wrap rice in banana leaves, stuff the bamboo trunks with these small rice packets we created, and fill it with water. We then grab another bamboo trunk and pour egg into it. We lay these in a fire, and allow them to come to a boil. The egg is finished and cooked inside the bamboo in no time.... though the rice is taking a bit longer. We also have fresh chicken barbecuing, mmm.
I take it upon myself to find dry sticks and weeds to help our fire burn. The rainy season made all the plant life very healthy and hard to burn. Nui continues to chop burning wood down while I find small shrubs to keep it going in the mean time.
This whole process of cooking lunch took around 3 hours to complete. Crazy. We dumped out the rice, and chopped open the egg bamboo, and ate the chicken.
The food was really good. Or at least it was really good after hiking for a couple hours and cooking it for a long time. I was starving. haha. anything would be good I guess.
Nui does not feel so well. He does not eat much, and has been taking frequent breaks. His stomach seems to be acting up and he keeps running to the forrest to take some pups. poops. number 2s... etc..
Poor guy is sweating and slaving over work for us!
We have to continue forward though, we are supposed to catch a boat on the river! We move forward through more rice, more jungle, more weeds and pickers and vines. My legs itch like there are a thousand bugs crawling through my hairy legs, eww. The sweat and heat is unbearable. Water consumption is at a max. My camera is burning hot.
We are crawling through the dark shadows of the jungle and getting hit by random beams of light through the gaps in the trees and brush. The trail is completely gone. Nui has no idea where the trail is, but continues to say "no worries my friend, be happy". We pop in and out from the barracks of the jungle to the heavens of rice one after another, trying to find what peak we are on, what trail to look for, and what direction to travel in. I can't imagine what is going to Nui's mind right now. "Oh boy, we are lost and I have two farangs with me." We just continue to ask him questions about his life/the area, etc..
After scattering the fields and black holes of shrub, we emerge out into the daylight once more...
The day is one I will remember for the rest of my entire life. Mel and I glowed in the blue sky, with the white bed pillow clouds, and the fortress high grass. I couldn't be happier about being lost, with no water, no more food, and no trails to follow. The view was impeccable. Mel wasn't feeling so good either, but this moment made us silent. Everything is worth this view, and these few minutes of pure seclusion.
After a little rest on a random hut, we pass some bamboo pipes used to smoke. (Apparently they smoke more than tobacco herrreeee haha) Illeggalllll. :P
Finally we find ourselves approaching a village. A tiny village. About 10 - 15 huts...maybe. Toilets are 4 small cement walls with a hole and it wreaks of urine. Walking a little further, we reach Nui's destination. A small break to our adventure. I take a seat on the small deck of the locals who speak absolutely no English. In fact, they hardly speak at all. Mel sits next to me. A woman is handling buckets of maggots or bugs of some sort I have no clue. She sorts through ones that are "good" then throw the rejects to the chickens to each. Little did I know that eventually down the road.. I will have eaten those bugs in my in Thailand.
They end up having hand made bags accessories....not many. Just a few to show off to the people that Nui brings through. We don't want any, but right before we leave, I motion and ask about bracelets. The woman goes inside and retrieves a small bag with just 3-4 bracelets in it. Mel and I choose matching bracelets to remember our time through the rice fields and villages. We buy them, tie them, and venture on through. Eventually after more ups and downs outside of the tree coverings, and in the brutal sun, we have found our way to Nui's friend with a boat. We hop on the long-tail and sit on the river as we speed through the valley of the mountains.
These moments are priceless. Nui has led us to amazement.
We continue to enjoy the breeze, the view, and the hot springs that we arrive to next, then head back tot he bungalow.
Amazing curry dinner, the couple, and the fire pit are occurrences of the evening once more. We are tired though, and don't stay out as late as before.
The next morning the couple leaves early in the morning. We leave in the next morning as well and head for our flight from Chiang Rai to Krabi (with a connection in Bangkok).
Nui was a very wise and small Thai man. Thank you for your hospitality, the adventure, and the kindness in your heart along our journey. (Nui actually confessed later that he was very worried that we would be mad because we got lost. We confirmed with him that we actually appreciated it, and loved the adventure.)
Upcoming: so much I don't know where to start. But I'm still going..
The Venture on..
