Going Places

I spend two hours every day commuting between home, school, and work. Except this commute is a lot more fun to write about than other commutes. It's absolutely ridiculous how people get around this country.

[Note: People drive very differently here. Things that would be insane in the US are actually quite safe here. Why? Because of the widespread chaos, people actually focus when they drive. They don't talk on the phone, read the paper, drink coffee, fall asleep, or do any of those other insane things that we do in the US when we “drive.” Thai drivers understand traffic flow, anticipate people around them, don't speed, and give each other space. In some ways, complete disregard for lanes, laws, or lights actually encourages better driving. And with that...]

Every morning I jump on the back of my Thai Mom's motorbike for a short ride out to the main road. It is beautiful: you can see across rice paddies to Doi Saket (the hill for which the town is named), and even the 300+ stair staircase (like when licking a Tootsie Roll Pop, I lost count. It was too hot to start over.) cutting through the trees on the side of the hill leading up to Wat Doi Saket.


At the main road, I flag down one of the many yellow songtaews, which are like local buses that run a straight route. Except they're not buses, they're pickup trucks with converted beds. A songtaew should carry about 16 people. I've been on one with 27: 3 in the cab of the pickup, 7 on a bench down each side of the bed, 2 sitting on the floor between the benches, 5 hanging off the back, and 3 on the roof.

It's hard to explain how this feels normal or safe, but it actually does. I vividly remember my first ride on a crowded songtaew: it was my very first day on the way to school, and Taw, the head guide at CMRCA, was riding with me to show me the ropes. On the way into town, the songtaew started to fill up, and Taw explained: “When the truck gets full, the men have to stand on the back, so that the women and nawng (children) have a place to sit.” At the next stop, he stood up to let a girl have his seat, stepped onto the grate welded to the back of the pickup, and held on to a couple of the many steel bars that are welded into the back of the truck.

I was terrified. Taw is a very, very strong guy, but I could see the muscles in his forearm bulge a bit as the truck accelerated back onto the highway. What if we hit a pothole and he slips off? What if we get rear ended? The songtaew slowed and another man hopped on the back. The grate flexed slightly under the extra weight. The welds look rusty. What if the grate breaks off? I think I should warn him. Should I warn him? I think I should. It started to rain a little. He's going to slip. He's going to slip off and get run over and everyone at work is going to hate me because I killed Taw. My eyes were practically bulging out of my sockets and my shoulders started to ache from the stress. I felt about ready to pass out by the time we made it to my stop.

I ride on the back of a songtaew every single day – it has become just as comfortable a part of my routine as eating with a spoon or using a squat toilet. Standing can actually be quite nice and refreshing sometimes – it's good to stretch the legs a little (songtaews are made for Thai-sized people) and get some fresh air in the morning (relatively – the pollution is horrendous). For some reason, songtaew riders are predominantly female, and tend to be considerably older or quite young – I guess everybody else rides a motorbike around. After five weeks, there are a lot of familiar faces, and they always treat me very kindly.

I've only ridden on the roof once. It was on the return trip, from Chiang Mai back home to Doi Saket. As we pulled out of Gat Luang, the bus was already quite crowded. I left work late that day, and I think it may have been the last songtaew for the night, so I think the driver felt bad about leaving anyone behind. The bus was full when it started its journey, and, to my amazement, entertainment, and incredulity, we continued to stop and pick up people. To make room for an old lady, a 12 year-old boy gave up his seat. Rather than join us on the back (he would have been the 7th), he scrambled up the side and onto the roof, which I'd never seen anyone else do. I figured I'd be better off up there with him than continuing to be squeezed on the back, so I joined him. We both sat cross-legged and I put on my new motorcycle helmet. I snapped a couple of pictures:



In a few minutes, we were joined by a third man, who was quite talkative, and found it hysterical that I was wearing a helmet on the songtaew. We talked about America, and about how gas costs just as much here in Thailand. I really liked that guy.

Back to my daily grind: In order to get to school, I meet a motorbike taxi at an intersection where the songtaew drops me off. This taxi is driven by Joe, who I call 'Pee' Joe, because he's older than me and it's Thailand, and you do that sort of thing here.


I'm finding it hard to express with words the affection I feel for P' Joe. He picks me up every morning and greets we with the kindest "Hi! How are you!" that you can imagine (Joe speaks exactly five words of English: 'hi', 'how', 'are', 'you', 'bye bye'). He often brings his 3-year old child with him (who sits on the kid's seat you can kind of see folded out in front of Joe in the picture). P' Joe and his kid wear matching helmets. I love them I love them. It breaks my heart that in a week I will buy a bike of my own and no longer need Joe's services. Seriously - if I could afford to just keep P' Joe on permanent retainer instead of buying my own bike, I would.

P' Joe drops me off at school, where I learn Thai. I say goodbye to Joe and his kid. My heart wants to jump out of its chest.

I'll post about class at some point.

I leave school on a "Red Truck" taxi. They have a monopoly over the campus, and it's expensive. Nothing too interesting here.

The red truck takes me to work. More on work in a later post, I'm sure.

After work, it's another red truck ("rote dehng") to Wororot Market ("gat luang"), where I catch a yellow songtaew home. If I time it right, I get to enjoy glorious sunsets over Doi Suthep. Now you get to enjoy one (poorly photographed):


I call Noi, and she picks me up on her motorbike. We go home, drink, eat, and make merry.

Thai People, Dear Reader

Loyal friends and (let's be honest, mostly) family:

Thanks for hanging in there. It's been a crazy two weeks, and I haven't had enough time or internet access to keep you all in the loop. According to Google, I've gotten many, many more visits than I expected, so I really do promise to most more often. Starting now.

A quick overview of things that have happened since last time:

• Went to a super-cheezy and totally lame 4th-of-July party at the Consulate. There was a Watermelon eating contest and the beer wasn't free. Apparently there are a lot of Mennonites in Chiang Mai. I think those two sentences pretty much do the party justice.

• Went caving the next day. It was pretty darn cool, and very, very muddy. I guess that's what you get for crawling around underground in the rainy season. The best pictures are here. (Pictures are captioned in Picasa, too)
  
  

• Went to the Buatong Waterfall with the family. It's about an hour outside of Chiang Mai, and apparently a popular spot with the locals. It's set up like a state park, so you just drive right in, and there's a nice picnic spot at the top of the waterfall. It's not the highest or largest waterfall ever, but it's really cool, because the whole waterfall is a flowstone that you can actually walk up. Pictures are here. More on the picnic below.
• Work has been really busy. We had two big meetings with school-group travel agents/vendors, and we needed to set our new season's prices and make a new catalog. Hence the no blogging at work. However, I'm taking on an alarming amount of responsibility here, which is fun and makes the job worthwhile.
• I've been hanging out a lot with my New Thai Family. My Thai has really been picking up, and it's really fun to try to talk with them... sometimes it ends up being a game of found poetry: how to describe this idea with the 300 or so words that I know? I am officially supposed to move out on Sunday, but I'm going to stay with them for a few extra days because 1) they like me and have offered to host me for the year, 2) they're free, and 3) I can't move into an apartment until the 1st anyway.
• Went for a bike ride around my neighborhood on Saturday. It was hot, but there was this river/irrigation canal and a Thai Gazebo next to it, so I sat in the shade for a bit, watching a waterbuffalo flick his tail while lying in a rice paddy. It was a good day.

Okay, so here it is, the best picture I've ever taken:

Let me explain. We arrive at Buatong at 11:30 in the morning and unroll a big mat for a Thai Family Picnic. Forty minutes later, we've all eaten our fill, and Uncle Tao and Brother Gaw have housed half a bottle of whiskey. Then Tao pulls out this bowie knife that he bought a few days ago. They admire its heft and its serrated edge's ability to cut small sticks. They pose, unwittingly framing their half-empty bottle of whiskey. They don't understand my bliss... it's noon.

Topics for upcoming posts include: The house, my commute, the office, etc. All will be wonderful, eloquent, and fun. Stay tuned. Miss you all dearly! More from me soon.

A Good Weekend

Sorry if this is poorly written and kind of long, but I've been exhausted, and I just really needed to post something before I accrue more to write about this upcoming weekend. Also, blogger is being really annoying, so not many embedding pictures in this one. Click through to Picasa for pictures. Sorry.

I had a pretty darn good weekend last week. Things started on Friday night, when I came home to the Thai version of grilling out back... there was a charcoal fire in a small bucket, on top of which was a slotted metal plate for grilling pork, chicken, and buffalo, and surrounding the grill was a trough of broth for boiling mushrooms, noodles, and other unidentified tasty things.

Small kids were there doing adorable things. One of my little Thai cousins speaks two phrases of English: “shake hands” and “happy birthday to you.” Actually, he knows the Happy Birthday Song. It might be the cutest thing ever. His parents make him shake my hand every time to say hello, but then he runs right back to his dad, because I think he's afraid of my pale skin. Anyway, it's adorable, and it's just so nice to be around little kids after 4 years of living in a dorm.

On Saturday I headed into Chiang Mai and met up with PiAers Nick and Ali. We rode motorbikes up Doi Suthep (actually, they drove and I rode), which is the perfect way to see a beautiful mountain. I, like an idiot, forgot my camera in Nick's apartment, and have no pictures. Will steal some from him when he posts, or I'll just take twice as many next time I go, which is likely to be soon.

Spent Saturday night in the city, and met up for dinner to celebrate PiAer Lexi's birthday. There was much rejoicing.

Sunday morning I met up with the Chiang Mai Rock Climbing crew for a totally different celebration. Marshall, an old friend of Josh's (and of the company) is leaving Thailand to go back to the States semi-permanently, so we threw him a going-away party. Except for outdoorsy types, that means doing something really really cool outdoors.

So we got up pretty early and set out for Mae On, where there was this cave that supposedly had amazing crystals inside. I say “supposedly,” because this cave was on private property, and the owner didn't appreciate people stealing crystals from his cave, and generally was very hostile to anybody interested in exploring.

Anyway, after a lot of hard work, someone found someone who knew how to get to the place and would take us there for a small fee, so six of us were able to spend most of Sunday in this super-secret/illegal/beautiful crystal cave. I have a few pictures, but they really don't do anything justice, especially because none of my pictures from inside the cave turned out at all – all of the ones here are just from the entrance. One member of our group is a real photographer, and took a few hundred photos, so if I can get my hands on any, I'll be sure to pass them along (although he's understandably nervous about posting any, because he's kind of a big deal, and needs to keep the locals happy).

Anyway, here's Marshall explaining how these things form (it's a geothermal cave with calcium carbonate and argonite crystals, for those interested). Marshall's really into caves, and did a lot to develop CMRCA's caving programs. Plus, he's a cool guy, and loves rocks. We are all sad that he's leaving us.

And here's my best effort at documenting what this place looked like. It's really unbelievable – inside there were crystals on every single surface. Some looked like huge cauliflower; others were dusted with red dirt and looked like roasted marshmallows. Some were like icicles sticking in every direction, and other formations looked exactly like freezer burn. The crystals are rock, but are pretty fragile, and now that the cave is opened, they have stopped growing – that means that the crystals are in better shape now than they ever will be again, and I feel extremely lucky to have seen them.

Anyway, this coming week(end) promises more fun. There's a 4^th of July BBQ at the US Consulate in Chiang Mai that should be fun, and then I think I have above-ground outdoor fun lined up for Saturday, so all-in-all, there should be plenty more material for next week's posts.

Sorry again for the half-assed post.