Volunteers to Chiang Rai and back
Trip Start
Jan 08, 2004
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38
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Trip End
Ongoing
Chiang Rai,
Thailand
Monday, July 11, 2005
Firstly I want to mention my friend Alex who is in West-Sumatra, Indonesia, at the moment. Alex is about 21 years old and a University student in Australia, but she has volunteered to do some Tsunami relief work with an organization called The Electric Lamb Mission (ELM) www.electriclamb.org. From what she has said ELM sounds like it is doing good work and the aid they are supplying is reaching people who would have otherwise have missed out. Alex has asked me to mention ELM as they now need more donors, supporters, volunteers, media attention and promoters. Most of you have probably heard that much of the money promised by the richer nations' governments will now not get to the people in need in South East Asia but it instead will go the Armies of the rich nations, Western contractors and in long term loans on projects that will have strings attached by the donors. If you do actually want to help the people who suffered and are still suffering from the Tsunami perhaps this is one organization that may be able to assist you to help people
3 very large moths in Chiang Rai
. As for me, I have just recently finished working with this year's "Antipodeans Year Out" volunteers. The volunteers are 8 young Australians (Anna, Emma, Madeline, Joe, Drew, Jeremy, Will and Blair) that are on their way to India and Vietnam (4 to India and 4 to Vietnam) to live and do volunteer work for 3 months. They firstly come to Thailand to spend some acclimatization time here, have fun and prepare themselves, with my help, for life in Asia.
They arrived a bit over two weeks ago and I showed them a little around Bangkok before we headed to Chiang Rai where we met up with volunteers from Mirror Art Group (MAG) http://www.mirrorartgroup.org/. Lek and Apa were to be our leader and guide for the 7 days we would work with MAG. MAG is a Thai NGO that works in an area close to Chiang Rai helping the hill tribe people in that area. Lek is a Thai volunteer with MAG and Apa is a volunteer from one of the local Akha villages. Both were superb.
We had a quick look around Chiang Rai town before heading out to MAG HQ. In Chiang Rai we visited the King Menrai statue. It is customary in Thailand, that when arriving in a new town, people go to the local monument of someone who is important to that town to pay their respects and thanks to that person
80 kg Python at Mae Kok River
. In this case King Menrai was the founder of Chiang Rai. We also visited Wat Phra Keow (same name as the one in Bangkok). Wat Phra Keow is a beautiful old temple in central Chiang Rai that was actually a forest temple before the town existed here. In this temple, about 600 years ago a lightening strike hit and split open a large chedi / stupa. Inside the stupa was found the statue of the Emerald Buddha. The Emerald Buddha is Thailand's holiest relic. It is believed that it was carved in India and over its long life it has been kept in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. It now sits in Wat Phra Keow, in the Grand Palace in Bangkok. From MAG HQ we trekked out to some small villages, at first staying in an Akha village for two nights. Each day (almost) we swam in a beautiful waterfall near a Lahu village and each night we split up and stayed in local homes of both Akha and Lahu people. The volunteers spent two days teaching English at one of the local schools, so as to help the community and to develop their teaching skills. Each afternoon we would play with the kids in the main village area and hang out with the local people.
I think I must have mentioned that some people in this area occasionally eat dog and the volunteers joked that they wanted to try it. One afternoon, Apa asked me if they were serious about eating dog. I checked with them and at first they said yes, but when I mentioned that a dog would be killed especially for them, they all said they were joking and did not want to eat dog. Arriving back at my home after the afternoon swim in the waterfall, I found that it was too late. A dog had been hunted in the forest and was being chopped up and prepared for cooking at my place. All the volunteers tried the dog and most quite liked it. I found much of it grizzly and rubbery, but the good pieces of meat were very tasty
Afternoon beer in Akha village
. I wanted more. The Akha people were very happy that we shared eating dog with them. They normally are quite shy of the practice as they feel other people; including Thais, look down on them for eating dog. So normally if they have visitors and they are eating dog, they keep it for themselves and eat it in a separate room. We also had a night dancing with the Akha. The Akha not long ago, danced together every night, after a day of farming and after eating in their family homes. Now, enough homes have radio or television or electric lighting and so the community rarely dances together. Also many of the Akha have been converted to Christianity and so many of their other traditions are also dying out. It was good that this village we were in still has its customs and still occasionally danced, even if it was to show the visitors, it could be seen that the people very much enjoyed it. Another custom that this village kept was the giant swing that is used in a festival once a year. The village had spirit gates and fences and many other things that are too complicated to explain.The hill tribe people in this area have previously been nomadic, moving villages often to better farming lands. They have only recently moved to locations that will be permanent (or will they?) and they are adjusting to this new life. On this trip I met an Akha man that had walked from Burma when he was younger and I have previously met a Lahu man that had walked from China to settle in the Thai mountains
Akha dancing
. The treatment of refugees in Thailand is not always perfect and the people in these villages are quite poor and are not a normal part of Thai society, but it is a far better situation than that I saw in Villawood detention centre. We finished our time walking and teaching in the hill tribes by riding elephants to the Mae Kok River. Here, in a Karen village, in amongst the other market goods were two pythons that the locals had taken from the forest. One was 80 kg and the other was 100 kg. The snakes eat twice a week and eat a chicken at each of those meals. We headed back to MAG HQ from there and finished up this part of the trek. It was a shame to go and I have almost decided that I would like to live in Chiang Rai. Kanjana is open to that idea but she wants a bit more time in Bangkok first. Hmmm, OK, but perhaps I will start working towards that idea. Chiang Rai is a nice town, but 15 km outside of it, I can be in the jungle, with waterfalls, hill tribe people, etc. It is clean, has fresh air and the weather occasionally gets cool. Housing is affordable. Seems pretty good. Lek has sold it to me pretty well and our next stop helped.
From Chiang Rai we went to Chiang Mai, which seemed overrun with tourists. One night there and then one night in Bangkok and the volunteers left for their destinations
Akha dancing around the fire
. They were a very good group with a good attitude and fun to work with. But they drank and smoked a lot and we had lots of late nights and early mornings. Interestingly the ideas that drinking and smoking are bad for you haven't reached these people and yet the anti-communist propaganda from the cold war still affected their thoughts and expectations about Vietnam - strange I think. Since they have left I have been fairly tired and suffering from a cold that won't go away. Hmmm, annoying - I really want to get fit, but it just doesn't seem to happen. Two other annoying things have happened since they left: I took lots of good pictures of our travels through Bangkok and in the villages and those pictures were put on a CD which does not work. Bugger. The pictures are gone.
The other thing was that I checked my Commonwealth Bank account. Antipodeans had paid me into my Commonwealth Bank account. Previously I have taken the money from there via ATMs. But I can only take out so much at each transaction and the bank charges me about $5 per transaction. Why, I am not sure, they are not doing any work, it is getting done electronically. This time, I decided to transfer the money via internet banking to my MasterCard account and then I went into my Thai bank branch and withdrew all the money for the trip
Akha grandmum rocking the baby
. My Thai bank did the paperwork for this and did not charge me any fee; it is a service the bank provides. At first when I checked my Australian bank account they also did not charge me anything, in fact for a while they did not acknowledge the transaction. But I looked a few days ago and they (the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (or read Arseholes)) have charged me fees of about $260 for taking that money from my account. ?!?!?!? Why? That was a fair % of that transaction and almost 3% of my annual income. Theft! What can I do? Nothing. If any terrorists are reading this, please feel free to blow up the Commonwealth Bank (not while there are people in there though (unless they are the company directors or major shareholders or John Howard)). Oh, also, the other day we went to Sa Keow to visit a sick relative of Kanjana, also saw a cave and an enormous swarm of bats coming out of it at dusk, also read in the paper of a giant catfish was caught in Chiang Rai, it was over 260 kg and also Kanjana tripped and badly sprained her ankle and is now in a plaster cast.
OK, that is it, better go, I hope Kanjana and I are both feeing better soon and I hope everyone reading this is good.
Paul
Oh, just remembered two more events worth mentioning
Akha headress and man with flute
. While we were in Chiang Mai, Monk Boun Savat traveled to meet up with us. We took the volunteers to monk chat (http://www.monkchat.net/) which is held at Wat Suan Dok in the Buddhist University every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5pm to 7pm. It is a chance for the monks to practice their language skills and a chance for foreigners to come and informally talk to the monks about Thailand, Buddhism, a monk's life, the weather, or whatever they want. The next day about half of the volunteers also learnt a little about meditation from Monk Boun Savat and his Abbott. Monk Boun Savat is about 30 years old and has been a monk since he was about 12 I think. He is now planning on finishing being a monk and starting a new life. It must be a big move for him.After Monk Chat and dinner, most of us meet up and went to the Muay Thai boxing near Tharpae Gate. There were a couple of quite good fights before the main advertised event which was a fight between a U.S.American and a Thai fighter. When the American got into the ring he was a tall, strong and fit looking guy and he walked around the ring arrogantly. The Thai fighter was an older guy, perhaps too old to be fighting, he was quite a bit shorter than the American and didn't look in very good shape. He politely paid his respects and did the Wai Khru dance which is traditional before the start of a Muay Thai fight. It looked fairly clear that the American would win and it didn't seem a fair contest
Apa at MAG HQ
. When the fight started the American threw a few good punches and kicks and it was apparent that he'd been training for a while, but the Thai boxer avoided them all. Then the Thai boxer threw a few punches and kicks all of which connected with the American and caused him great pain. Before the end of the first round the fight had to be stopped and the American helped out of the ring. From the look of his very bruised ribs and his head, I suspect he had some broken ribs and minor concussion. It was interesting to watch and made it quite clear how hard some of the blows that the other Thai fighters had been absorbing actually are. (Any similarities between the above fight and real recent world events is purely a coincidence).
OK, that is it. Bye
