The North: Elephants; The South: Water

I am part of the lucky minority of foreign teachers that had time off for Christmas and New Year! Today I returned the 1000 or so kilometers from Northern Thailand back to my home in Southern Thailand after a week and a half of traveling.  The events of my journey home are the main reason I was so inclined to write a blog right now but I suppose I will tell some stories about my trip first.

On December 23 I worked an exciting half-day. My school is a Christian school so for weeks we had been learning about Christmas and preparing for a Christmas show. That Friday my students and I danced on an outdoor stage (after a twenty minute rain recess) to Jackson Five’s Up on the Housetop. My students looked absolutely adorable in their matching costumes dancing to the simple but cute moves I made up to go along with our class Christmas song. After a posing for a picture with each of my students, requested by their awesome parents and watching the other class's dances I was free to go home.

I rushed home to grab my bag then Andrew and I headed to a mini bus station to find a ride South to Hat Yai. We had to travel three hours South in order to fly North to Chiang Mai. We chose to fly because if we hadn’t, we would have spent 24 plus hours on a bus or train to get to the awesome city in Northern Thailand we have heard so much about.

Once we arrived in Chiang Mai, we walked into the center of town partly to save money and partly for the adventure. Our goal was to walk the entire way to the bus station but after realizing how far it was we broke down and took a tuk tuk so we didn’t miss the last bus out of Chiang Mai to Pai. The three-hour journey to Pai was a windy, sickening one but once we got there I was so distracted by the cuteness of the town that I forgot all about the less than fun journey getting there.

I’ll never get to the stories about today if I continue in this detail about our trip.  Let me focus on highlights.

Christmas Day was wonderful. After skypeing with family in the morning (on their Christmas Eve) we decided to sign up for an elephant ride. We jumped at the chance to go on the next tour. We figured riding an elephant was a pretty cool thing to do on Christmas day. I will never forget that Christmas Day! We rode 19-year-old Bomb Bam for two hours through the mountain and river. The mountain ride was beautiful; we enjoyed our scenery and singing along to a cheap music player repeating four English songs. Once we got to the river we saw our friends being thrown off an elephant into the thigh-high water. I was a bit nervous about that and told our mahout (elephant trainer) “mai ao” that translates to “I don’t want”. It didn’t look safe although everyone else I was with survived just fine. I had fun being sprayed with water from the elephant’s trunk and watching the elephants “len nahm” aka “play in the water”.

After the elephant ride we soaked in hot springs then got ready for dinner. I requested foreign food and wine for this holiday meal. Although Thai food is delicious I still enjoy mixing in some foreign food and indulging in the expensive imported wines. Thailand has it’s own affordable beers and hard alcohols but in a country with the wrong climate and no Charles Shaw, I miss my wine. Andrew and I had a very nice Christmas dinner to conclude a great second Christmas away from home. That being said, I look forward to spending the holidays with family in California next year or wait that’s this year now!

We spent a couple days in Pai then headed back to Chiang Mai because Andrew’s Mom was flying there from California for a short visit in Thailand! Andrew and I spent a day exploring Chiang Mai’s national park and hill temples. The next day Mary Lou arrived. After 36 hours and four plane flights we expected her to be sleepy and I’m sure she was but she was also excited to see Thailand and Andrew and I. Her excitement is how we convinced her to make the journey back up to Pai that very day. At first we were going to stay in Chiang Mai with Mary Lou but after seeing Pai we had to take her back there. So again we endured the “curviest road” Mary Lou has ever been on.

Back in Pai with Mary Lou we explored local waterfalls where we watched the locals jump into cold pools of water from high cliffs. And Andrew slide down a rock-slide into a pool of water.  We also signed up for a second elephant ride so Mary Lou could experience it. She was an awesome elephant rider. She climbed up and enjoyed the ride despite sitting on the elephant’s uncomfortable backbone and reaching across me to hold the rope for half of the ride. Elephants are amazing creatures. We climbed up her leg while holding onto her ear wondering if we were hurting her. But after she picked a whole mango tree to eat and we read that elephants eat hundreds of kilos worth of food each day we realized carrying three people is probably like humans carrying a backpack with a couple meals of food in it! 

We started the our New Year celebration early with a BBQ at our resort. I love how laid-back Thailand is. The owner of the resort, Aqua, (resort and owner’s name) decided to BBQ a whole pig for his guests to enjoy as well as provide side dishes at no charge or even asking us to bring anything other than our own alcohol. If we had been in America we would have been asked to pay for the BBQ and maybe even asked not to bring our own alcohol so we’d have to buy the resort’s stuff. But instead this was super relaxed. Because we did not want to take advantage of such kindness, we decided we should bring some fruit for dessert just to contribute. After cutting up the fresh, delicious, tropical fruit, we enjoyed the fire and the BBQ and the company. At midnight the sky was lit with hundreds, maybe thousands, of sky lanterns and dangerous, loud fireworks. It was beautiful as well as something a camera could not capture. The lanterns are not so beautiful the next day. We found them grey from the fire and wilted in fields, trees and in the streets. I can see why they are illegal in most countries.

The first night of the New Year was spent at the Sunday Walking Street back in Chiang Mai. Here we found wonderful crafty, unique gifts for friends and family members at home as well as goodies for ourselves. My favorite find was a wooden journal with a map of Thailand to follow my almost finished wooden journal with a map of New Zealand on it. I feel so lucky to have had to opportunity to live in those two countries; journals I write my life into are perfect ways to remember those places.

This brings me to the last day of my trip in Chiang Mai walking around with Andrew and Mary Lou awing at 700 year old temples then having nice conversation with wine/Thai beer and pizza, then to the events of traveling home to Nakhon by myself today. I booked my flight out of Chiang Mai a day before Andrew and his mom so I would make it home to work on time. They don’t have to be back yet because Andrew is still on vacation.

This morning Andrew rented a motorbike to drive me to the airport in Chiang Mai. I couldn’t walk this time because I volunteered to take all the goodies acquired at the Sunday Walking Street back with me so they can enjoy their trip better. I walked through the airport worried about being asked to check my large bag of goodies for a price I don’t want to pay on my cheap Air Asia flight. But Thailand is not like other places I have been were they weigh your every bag to make every cent off of you.  

Waiting at the gate, I was intently reading To Kill a Mockingbird (a book I grudgingly read in high school and ten years later can’t put it down) and ignoring every announcement.  After a chapter, I look up and see the screen now has a different flight’s information and the time is 10:20 am, the time I clearly remember my gate was meant to close. I thought I read through the whole boarding and jumped up to find out what happened. I found the first man I figured would speak English and he happened to be from America and on the same flight as me, they switched the gates and it was boarding late. With that figured out, he, his Thai girlfriend and I started chatting. Eventually our conversation led to me discussing my worry about how to go find a bus to Nakhon from the airport in Hat Yai. They offered to help me.

After reading through the entire two hour flight and while I waited for them off the plane, I got into a car with them that was apparently a taxi that you have to know how to find. They told the driver to take me to the bus station. Once we got there I offered money and they wouldn’t accept it. I found it very friendly of them to pay for my cab from the airport! I wish more people could be that nice. I jumped straight on a mini bus to Nakhon. I planned on having to wait an hour and getting back when it was dark but boarding right away got me to the city during daylight hours. Luckily I got to Nakhon while it was light because getting to my house was an adventure.

My mini bus driver said “don’t worry I take care you” when I told him where I live in the city, only to have a horrified look when he couldn’t drive the company van through a flooded street just a mile or so down the main road to my house. I told him “mai bien rai” (no worries, never mind) I’ll just walk. From the view I had it looked as though the sidewalks were unaffected by the water. I walked for a block completely dry while people tried to push their bikes through the ankle high water on the street. Soon the sidewalk was covered as well and before I knew it, I was walking through ankle deep water until I came to the end of the sidewalk. Here I realized there has to be a step down but sadly the water was not the beautiful clear water I see at the lakes and oceans in Thailand. It was murky and I could not see down to make sure I was stepping over the gutter. The last thing I wanted was to hurt my self or fall over in the gross water. This thought process of how to continue forward lasted for a couple seconds until a family of six walked by and I decided I was going to follow them. The dad carrying the baby walked confidently down onto the street were the water was thigh high. I linked on with the mother and her older daughters to brave the deep water. I walked for a block holding the mom’s hand then over a dry bridge with dirtier water almost over top of it then through another block holding the mom’s hand again, all the while saying “Mai chawp/mai chawp nahm” (I don’t like/I don’t like water) and laughing. We parted ways after our wade through the deep water by saying “chock dee” (good luck)!

On dry land again I was left to decide what to do next. I found a man on a motorbike and tried to ask him for a ride only to realize he broke his bike by trying to ride it through the flood. Then I saw food and remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and better eat before I get home to no food/where I’ll possibly be stranded. While eating I called a fellow teacher who lives near me and heard good and bad news. The bad news: her house was flooded. The good news: school is canceled until Monday! This means my week and a half of vacation is now two full weeks and tomorrow I get to met Andrew and his mom on the dry, sunny side of the Southern peninsula to spend the weekend on beaches and islands!

With this good news I still figured I should get home since I was so close. I found the nearest market, stocked up on water and started walking home. The family I bought water from must have felt my stress in the brief interaction they had with me and ran after me to offer me a beer. I accepted thanking them and started to walk again then they called me back to offer me a ride home. I jumped on a motorbike with a man and he drove me fast all the while water spraying my face. But I arrived in one piece to my new neighborhood, I again offered money and he said no. Aww, I was finally home to a dry house on a dry street! I nearly forgot about my fear of finding a million cockroaches in our new house. Andrew and I moved out of the mansion into a big cool house with cockroach roommates. Of course I found, I kid you not, fourteen upturned cockroaches, some still wiggling their legs, downstairs. But after my eventful journey home I didn’t let it bother me.

Now I am showered, enjoying my free beer upstairs away from the creepy roaches and reflecting my day. I love how willing people were to help me today. It makes me have restored faith in the human race after reading to Kill a Mockingbird all day, which is a book about how black people were treated in Alabama in the 1930’s. With that being said I’m off to finish the last few pages of the book and relax at home before I set back off for more traveling in Thailand! These flood days couldn’t have happened at a better time! Now I get to go with Andrew and Mary Lou on their fun adventures instead of working while they have fun! Although, I was looking forward to seeing my adorable students again!