Alki in Thailand/ Beth not working!! (Part 1)

June 19th – July 6th – Home! A little weird, but weather under 90 degrees, Nathan’s Hotdogs, YouTube, Boston Market, Arkansas, Christian bluegrass gospel services, carpeted ranch suburban houses, Cracker Barrel, $7 microbrews, sports bras, Hanes’ tank tops, Danny, Christi, Laura, Zach, Zach, Hayes and brothers, sisters, nieces, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and gradnmas are things you just can’t get in Thailand, so it was nice to be home. One thing that was strange was that Starbucks is now associated with Chiang Mai more than America in my head. Starbucks is supposed to remind Westerns of home, but since I was never a huge Starbucks fan pre-Thailand and just before leaving Jeff and I were going there a lot, when I walked into the Starbucks in the Westchester mall I got teary eyed and started missing Jeff and the Chiang Mai Starbucks at Tha Phae Gate on Sunday afternoons watching the walking street market.

July 6th - sat in seat 34F for about 17 hours. I sat next to a French guy who runs a restaurant in New York, but takes a couple of weeks off every year travel around Southeast Asia and was really excited because this year he was going to be volunteering at an orphanage in Cambodia.

July 7th – arrive in Bangkok. Take a van to Khao San Road to stay for the night. It takes 2 hours. It took about 40 minteus to get back the next morning. I hate Bangkok and its stupid traffic.

July 8th – back to the airport to meet Alki!!!!!!!!!! The party began immediately. We boarded a plane for Chiang Mai, arrived in Chiang Mai and went to the mall. Woo hoo! Am I a good tour guide or what? It was a special day. The big Northern Thailand battle for my, yes “my”, breakdancing group. But first, the food court! I got kow man gai and savoured every bite. Alki got some vegetarian food but overestimated her spicy tolerance and started crying in the food court. Then we watched my boys practice for a bit and then went downstairs to the competition. There was actually a point when we were all standing by the elevators together and I freaked out, grabbed Alki and we took the escalator instead. I decided I never want to talk to them. Only watch them breakdance. Because first, they’re probably really young and I don’t want the question to even come up and second, they probably don’t speak English and after an awkward English/Thai conversation thing can never be the same. So I’ve decided I will watch and support, smile occasionally, but never talk. As far as the competition, it was really crowded and we couldn’t see too much, so I got to see my group perform and they were good, but I didn’t stick around to see if they won. Next stop: Mad Dog Pizza. Not my favorite place, but we went to meet the Chiang Mai crew: Lee, Tai, Jeff, Nong and Poom. Alki got a $1 beer but was more impressed with my $1 mango shake. Then the Sunday Market! I’ve been here almost a year and I never get sick of it. Alki had been awake for 2 days straight, but she is a trooper and was up for it. We didn’t last long, but long enough for foot massages.

July 9th – July 15th – Elephant Nature Park! So I counted it out and this was my 6th visit to ENP. That’s kind of weird. Not many do that. It was slightly embarressing and I felt really awkward at first. It got better. So even though this was my 6th visit, this was the first time I was “volunteering” since January 2006. Things have really changed! There are people in charge who have lists of project and put together schedules to get those projects done! Totally new. Last time I “volunteered” I sat on the deck and played Sudoku for 80% of the time. I’m going to do my best to remember the schedule…

Monday – day tour, no work

Tuesday – planted trees in the morning, did something with bamboo rafts in the afternoon. That was weird. We took a cattle truck to some middle of nowhere area, put these huge, bamboo rafts in/on the truck, climbed on them to get back in/on the truck, drove back ½ way to the park, took them out, and rode them back to the park. Strange, and I don’t think anyone knew why we were doing it, but it was fun to stand in the truck, sit on the rafts on top of the truck and ride them back in the water, so we didn’t really care.

Wednesday – planting grass, collecting grass. Planting grass wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t what we think of grass, it was some big plant that elephants eat that we were told is “grass”. Alki tried to make it a stretching exercise, but ended up pulling her hamstring. I worked on my Asian squatting skills. Collecting grass was actually really painful because the whole area was covered with these prickly plants that stick in your skin and clothes and are really painful but are too small to get out. I decided to be on wheelbarrow patrol so I only to wheelbarrow (can this be a verb?) the grass from the prickly area to the grass truck. There was construction on the road so there was a group of about 20 people who laughed/smiled/stared when I had trouble getting my wheelbarrow through rocks, sand and mud.

Thursday – went to the local school, went to the Haven. The school trip was weird. We could pick between sports, art, English, and kindergarten. I went with kindergarten but so did the Mormon mom with 4 kids who had worked at a preschool. But they spoke English in her old school. She was talking to them like they knew English and then was getting frustruated when they weren’t paying attention to her. If I were in their position I wouldn’t have paid attention either. Then the Haven! The Haven trip is a hike up a mountain with the elephants and then you get to the middle of nowhere, eat an amazing meal cooked by Pom and hang out by way of candle light, while the elephants are free to go wherever and eat whatever until the morning when you head out with the mahouts and try to find them. It’s a really nice trip. Jeff was also getting ready to go home and wanted to spend some more time with his mahout buddies, so he came up from Chiang Mai and he had a photoshoot with his elephant boyfriend Boo Pa. He said even though he’s worked with ENP for 2 ½ years he didn’t have any pictures of him with an elephant. So I took care of that. That night the mahouts did a little concert with all these recycled instruments. The flutes were made out of different gauged pipes and drums from plastic buckets. They played some really interesting (maybe Karen hill tribe? maybe Burmese?) music and then Christmas carols and hymes.

Friday - walked back from the haven, and painted a wheelbarrow. I think other people went to do other, more labor-intensive things, but with some well-reasoned logic or maybe just some puppydog faces, Alki, Jamie and I got the wheelbarrow job. Unfotunately, the day after we finished, they were used once and went back to looking like they did before we started. It was fun though. And I got to paint my fake Crocs!

*** Yes, I know I’ve been a Crocs hater for a while, but I’ve got to admit, they are comfortable, and I was doing planting and shit shoveling, both activities where you want your feet covered, but also be able to wash your footwear easily afterwards. And my fake Crocs really came through for me. And furthermore, I’ve decided that it’s cool that a really ugly style is popular based on the fact that they’re comfortable and useful. So now I’m not a hater anymore. But I’ll still never wear Uggs. They're stupid. ***

Saturday – Kitchen help, and mudfight! Once again, Alki and I figured out how to not do grass planting or collecting. I peeled potatoes and watched them turn into french fries, cut zucchini, onions, tomatoes and some other vegetables I didn’t recognize, rolled (and ate fresh) spring rolls and spoke really terrible Thai with the kitchen staff. It was great. In the afternoon I was really scared I was going to have to do planting. Luckily it started to rain and everyone decided that we couldn’t possibly plant in the rain. But then this 12-year-old German boy who had been to the park before pointed out that it would be a great time to have a mud fight. Boy was he right! There’s a mud pit that the elephants roll around in during the dry season and when it rains it gets pretty muddy! I don’t think I’ve ever been in a full on mud fight before. It was so much fun. I did get hit in the eye once, but nothing too bad.

Saturday night was something kind of weird. The son of one of the contruction workers at the park killed his wife and then killed himself and we (the volunteers) were invited to the funeral. We were told that the townspeople wanted us there and it wouldn’t be weird. I personally thought that other staff members from the park would be there but they weren’t. It was weird. First stop was the living room where the casket was with a little 6th grade science fair type display of his life through pictures. We walked in, sat down, were totally freaked out and then out came someone with a video camera to film us. Weird, weird weird. Then we went upstairs where there were a bunch of monks praying and some people. We came in, awkwardly sat down, tried to copy the people who were actually praying, and after about 7 minutes, awkwardly climbed out of the tiny room. Then we went to the house of one of the park’s kitchen ladies. We were served hot chocolate and water. Her 15-year-old son was ironing his school shirt. I think everyone felt weird. The other volunteers realized that there were more pictures of the King and his family than the woman’s own family. I talked (in Thai!) to the woman’s 24-year-old daughter and had a slightly less awkward time than the rest of the volunteers who mostly just sat and admiring pictures of the King’s and his family. After the house experience, we were shuffled back into the truck and feeling almost normal, but then the driver ran over a cat so when we got back to the park we were all back to being freaked out and feeling weird.

Sunday – Elephant walk, Elephant watching. Sunday was our day off. The walk was just around the park grounds. It was nice. My 6-year-old Austrian friend Lucas came with us. After I listened to him tell me about all the different elephants, I asked him how many languages he spoke.
“One.”
“Really? Only one? And what language is that?”
”German.”
“Really? Only German? But I don’t speak German, and I understand everything you say. Do you speak English too?”
“Nine.”
Funny kid. He was traveling with his mom.

Sunday afternoon we did absolutely nothing. There were different vans that were going back to Chiang Mai at different times. Alki, Jamie, Wendy, Helen and I decided to go on the last one at 5:00pm. And at 1:00 (when the first people left) we set a mission to sit and watch elephants for the following 4 hours. We accomplished our goal. It was great. All week Alki had been saying, “Let’s do yoga!” and Sunday afternoon we finally did it. We even got some of the mahouts to join us! The mahouts are so cool. I got to see my buddy Kopi again. He's really come a long way with his English and his hair styling. My other little buddy Mongkhun was visiting his family or something so he wasn't there but I told his friend to tell him I said hi. Alki and I taught Kopi and friends how to play Halvzies, but changed the name to "Slap slap!" Alki also taught him useful English expressions like, "Your mama's too slow!"

Sunday night we got back to Chiang Mai and headed to the shower and then the Sunday market for another foot massage. I love the Sunday market. Alki loves it more.

Phew! So that was Alki’s first week in Thailand. Three more to come!