More Chronicles of a Summer Told

Amazingly enough, a mere four days separates me from the end of my internship. Work days, that is. What has been most rewarding is teaching English to the younger students - no question. Sharing breakfast and lunch with them - and, since moving in with them, dinner, as well - has been rewarding in more ways than I can really describe here and now. All I can really say at this point is that there is work to be done, and I'm not sure it's getting done. What this town needs, most likely, is not two-month vacationers like myself, but people committed long-term. I hope I can become one of those latter people, sooner rather than later. I hope and even do actually think that I will return here at some point, but I don't know in what capacity. For now, it is more or less enough to know I've done what I could over the past few weeks, and I will take this fight to the United States with renewed strength in the fall.


I'm still going to refrain from saying too much about my internship work in an open forum like this. In lieu of any deeper commentary, then, I will say that Chiang Mai was definitely a good time, and possibly even beautiful. Our pre-game (turned game and then post-game) session at a Thai bar-cum-disco made it more than a little difficult to really, you know, see, but I'm going to go ahead and assume Chiang Mai is as scenic as everyone claims it is. Also, the lack of rain was great.

The most recent weekend was spent trekking in Umphang, which is about 5 hours south of Mae Sot via sawngthaew (Lonely Planet's spelling, not mine). A sawngthaew is a pick-up truck, with the bed outfitted with benches and a roof. Our ride maxed out at 19 people, including two in the cab, four on the roof (myself included), two holding on the sides, and five people on one bench and six on the other. Cozy. The views from the roof - when I was not cowering from the rain under the tarp - were breathtaking, as the road from Mae Sot to Umphant has (again, according to LP) 1190 turns. Mountains, valleys, mountains. Beautiful ones not obscured by disco pre-game goggles. The windy road, unfortunately, left several Thais in the sawngthaew sick to their stomach. Let's just say there was puking. On the tarp. While I was under it. Unawares. ("What's the coughing sound?")

The trekking itself was pretty solid. The rafting would have been better if the water weren't so damn high, a condition which served to hide any and all rapids-spawning rocks. The cliffs along the river - not to mention the impromptu rainy-season waterfalls cascading over them at every possible point, were simply spectacular. We camped that night beneath an over-hanging cliff. The next day we hiked to Teelorsu, the biggest - an imprecise adjective, I know - waterfall in SE Asia. It was, well, big. Apparently it's actually possible to swim at the bottom of it in the dry season. Not when we were there - the force of the water pounding down created really wild swirls and currents that would not have been survivable by any means. The guides said there are 90 different cascades in the waterfall.


Then we hiked another few miles to a Karen village, where we spent the night before boarding elephants that took us back to the trucks (which returned us to the town of Umphang). Staying in the village was a very uncomfortable experience. My anthro experiences were not down with that bit of the trip. The elephants were kitschy but still, really, kind of amazing. We rode them for three hours - long enough to find out that they're actually quite uncomfortable forms of transportation, despite their Hummers-got-nothin'-on-our-4WD traveling capabilities.


This weekend I'm doing some stuff that I'll have to relate at some later point. In case I haven't made it clear yet, Thailand rules. I could stay for much, much longer. Indeed, I basically just arrived. To be honest, the bucket showers and squat toilets at my current abode are a little challenging. I want to embrace them, but they're just not really...comfortable. I guess they just remind me of the fact that I'm an outsider here, which bothers me. I won't miss them, though I wish I could say I will.


(The obvious pictures go with the obvious comments. Otherwise, the Buddha shot is from the pagoda on the mountainside outside of Mae Sot and the shot of the woman with the baby - I'll decline to explain that one for now. The one up top is from Umphang, where we camped beneath the cliff. I tried to post a video, but I was unsuccessful. Ah well. Anyway, as you can see, my camera is back, though I won't say better than ever.)

(Extra credit for whoever picks up on my title of this post. Leave it in the comments. Which reminds me! I've been getting no comments lately. You are bad, bad people. I should say, though, that several people - "hipsters" all - have tried unsuccessfully to post comments. Blogspot discriminates. I swear it's not my settings.)