yangshou pictures

are finally here.

yangshou, china

i arrived in guilin to rain and cold. bangkok was stifling hot when i left and the south of china is just plain cold at the moment. i haven't seemed to acclimate to any sort of weather probably because i rarely stay put.

i took a ferry down the Li River to Yangshou. The river snakes its way through enormous limestone mountains. These are the same mountains that inspire all of those ink scroll paintings you see everywhere. Many of the mountains are named after objects they evoke: elephant trunk, apple, 9 horses, camel, dragon. It was like picking objects out of clouds. Dreamy.

Towards the end of the cruise, some older chinese gentlemen took a liking to me and proceeded to get me drunk on the local beer. Being that i didn't speak a word of chinese nor they a word of english, i drank what they gave me, not wanting to offend them. it was a lot of beer.

i found a guesthouse, Hotel California, and took a big nap.

waking, i went to find food. and find it i did. the street food here is pretty fresh and varied. snails, rabbits, snakes, chickens, fish, bamboo, dog, pork, EVERYTHING. i hope to try a little bit of everything while i was here, so i started in on some snails and vegetables. i need to learn how to say, "no MSG" though as it seems to be in everything. i had some cuhrazy dreams.

the next day i took a calligraphy class and climbed one of the limestone mountains. i got nearly to the top before deciding that i probably wasn't supposed to be up there. i didn't want to piss off any officials. i was using trees and small foot/hand holds to get that high. i got some good pictures though.

i decided to go live the remaining sunny days in yangshou with my calligraphy teacher. he had some extra rooms he rents out and is trying to get an actual hostel off the ground. he and his family are wonderfully kind people. i was able to eat 3 meals a day with them and their son. i hiked to the top of moon hill - this amazing limestone bridge at the top of one of the many pinnacles. i also got to practice a bit more calligraphy, some cheng-style tai chi, and do my first actual rock climbing (note: i suck).

soon i will board a train and in 27 hours arrive in beijing. i'll hopefully post some pictures when i get there.

against the grain

by richard manning. the subtitle to this book is "how argirculture has hijacked civilization" and the book is just that. although i was put off by manning's manic style, i do like the message and the argument that he delivers. in short, it is a must read.

this book is a logical extension of Ishmael in that it discusses precisely what the last 10,000 years of agriculture has grown: poverty, hunger, famine, slavery, corruption, imperialism, war, diabetes, obesity, disease, poisoned drinking water, extinction of species, etc. its a pretty damning account, but the argument is pretty sound. in the modern day, by subsidizing and supporting industrial agriculture and encouraging surpluses, the USDA has encouraged and enabled the growth of what is known as the farming of commodity goods made from wheat, rice, and corn. these grains are then processed into things like flour, high fructose corn syrup, and the like consituting nearly 66% of our caloric intake (add sugar and you nearly have the complete picture of what we eat). because they are commodities they can and are traded in markets just as currecy is. what farms grow is no food, but money. and we are fooled into eating it, pretending that it nourishes us (because we feel full).

in regards to production:

virtually all of the increases in total food production ... [in the US] ... were achieved by expansion of the arable land base ... eventually, though, expansion ran up against the limits of the planet's supply of plowable land.

we have nearly exhausted this strategy [of making a plant the most productive as possible] in a bout forty years, a period in which the world's population has doubled. There is an odd proportionality to that. It took ten thousand years to exhaust the old expansionist strategy of claiming more arable land [to increase total food production].

the farm subsidy itself encourages surplus. whatever the farmer doesn't sell, he cashes a check from the government. the surplus food is typically exported to undeveloped, famine stricken areas, which encourages further population growth, bankrupts local farmers, and adds a resource to parasitic governemnts.

in surplus, we end up with worthless products like Jell-O, "a tasteless blob of reconstituted cow's hooves artificially colored, sweetened [by corn syrup], and flavored."

on industrial ag:

the richest 2% of all farmers - 2% of 1.6% of the nation's population - account for 35% of total farm sales. At the same time, they receive 27% of federal subsidies. As many as 76% of the farms in some Colorado counties would lose money were it not for subsidies.

on fast food:

Americans spent $6 billion on fast food in 1970 and more than $110 billion in 2000. This latter figure exceeds what Americans spend annually on higher education, personal computers, or cars. It's also more than they spend on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined.

he even quotes my heroine, Alice Waters, "Every choice you make has consequences for the quality of your own life and good health, but also for agriculture and culture. If you buy food from people who take care of the land, you are supporting a while way of life."

its not all doom and gloom, as manning points to the recent surge in organic farm and farmer's markets as ways to turn the system around. from organic farming leads to sustainable agriculture, to the development of a permaculture. encapsulating the essence of nature in a farm would be ideal. closing the loop and letting the land produce. when people start caring what they eat, and learning about what they eat, they will begin to connect with people of their community and therefore lead happier, healthier lives.

the economy of cities

by jane jacobs. i didn't like this nearly as well as The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (which is fantastic) but maybe its because i know shit about economics. her basic thesis is that it is cities that allow rural land and agriculture to develop rather than the other way around. cities invent and towns and farms implement. i guess this wasn't terribly surprising to me, but, again, i've engaged in little reading on economic theory. she mentions only in passing that

The effects of economic stagnation upon nature are veiled when populations are so scanty and so primitive in their technologies that anything they do has relatively little effect upon the rest of the natural world. But once a society has developed its economy appreciably, and thus has increased its population appreciably too, any serious stagnation becomes appallingly destructive to the environment. Common sequels in the past have been deforestation, complete destruction of wild life, loss of soil fertility and the lowering of water tables.

but this is all she says about it. its not clear to me what she means by stagnation, which made me frustrated for a more telling account. this statement to me seems counter to the theory in Ishmael where she believes technological progress will right a wrong world. but i had to guess because, again, that's all she said about it.

some other nuggets.

one of the social preconditions for economic development is not so much the opportunity for a person to change his work (and his class) from that of his father, as if often supposed, but rather the possibility of changing radically his own work and his own place in society during his own working life.

so, just when i thought i wasn't contributing to the economy by leaving engineering, according to JJ, i am. neat.

and:

When organizations that are already large decide to embark on a program of adding new goods and services, they seldom start by adding onto the divisions of labor they already have. They buy up others, to provide parent work for the new purposes they have in mind.

in other words, actual R&D typically does not (and will not) come from large companies. they can't afford the risk of development costs not paying off (something like 9 of 10 ideas fail). so big companies buy small ones. this is exactly what i saw while working. new exciting work done by the start-ups whereas the larger companies work on their quarterly profits ensuring the bread will be on the table. this is what drove me mad. the tendency of the masses to participate in maintenence, not innovation.

bali

would you believe, more pictures than ever!


wowie. bali is truly a magical place. after ditching singapore i arrived late on a weekend night in bali - knowing i couldn't get to the dive location so late i decided to party it up in kuta and see what it was all about. many australians and many balineese girls looking for australians. not a very good scene but met some nice australian couples. the vibe was bad so after dealing with my stolen wallet problem (ick), i bolted for jemeluk beach on the north-east coast to get down to diving business.

i wanted to do a rescue course so i tagged along with some open water divers and helped the instructor roger. the dives were incredible. the water is even warmer in bali than in thailand and it was much clearer and the coral was in amazing shape. the variety of fish was outstanding.

i did a total of eight dives over four days including a night dive and a 39m (130 feet) dive at Gili Selang where i saw 4 (that's right 4!) Great Hammerhead sharks! they were just out there lurking off in the distance for about 10 seconds. even roger was pumped (only the second time he had ever seen them)! so i was obviously very lucky and stoked.

the fishing village i stayed in was real bali. every morning the people would wake early (at about 5:30) because it gets so hot there in the middle of the day. they had these brightly painted teak boats they use for fishing and carting tourists around. they are simple but functional - i even did a dive off of one.

after i passed my rescue test i set off for the very small village of sidemen. it is located at the base of an active volcano mt. agung. i stayed in a retreat-style bungalow. i was definately living it up. the view of the valley with rice-terraced fields and a river was almost too much. even on the third day i was pinching myself.

the day before i left i went to the biggest temple in bali on the side of mt agung. my guide, gusti, had me put on a sarong and headband so i would be properly dressed for the ceremonies that were going on. i was surprised to find thousands of people at the temple praying at this ceremony that occurs once every 5 years. they were bussing people in from all over bali to pray. gusti showed me how to pray with flowers in your hands and to drink the holy water. there was music and food all the while looking out over the beautiful bali landscape. i'll never forget it.

the balineese were really cool. so helpful and smiling all the time (even more so than the thai). all the bali boys i met always asked me if i had been in love. i had no less than 3 conversations wherein they expressed their desire to fall in love with a western woman. they asked me lots of questions about my past loves. apparently, they think bali women are only after status and money. the few bali girls i talked to seemed to confirm this as they always asked 1) where i was from and 2) what my job was. you could imagine their reaction when i told them i didn't have one. ha!

at any rate, bali wowed me. its one of those places that i will definately return to soon.

singabore

new pictures!

so, as you can tell by the nature of the last few posts, i've been hanging low for awhile. i was sick for a bit in chiang mai which allowed me ample time to read (note book reports below) and enjoy some food. and then to bangkok for some "same same". i've really been lounging. but when my visa needed renewing (every 30-days in thailand) i jumped on a cheap flight to singapore. the food was the best i was told and thai food was becoming tiresome (can you imagine?).

singapore is a strange place. basically only 40 years old, what once was a fishing village of 160 people is now a thriving commercialized metropolis. there is some excellent architecture around; namely the esplanade arts center ("durian" as its called here because it looks like the treasured spiky fruit) that is really strikingly (i.e. spikingly) beautiful as well as a new 16 story library.

its so clean here its spooky. i think like most crimes here, littering must be heavily punished because there isn't a scrap or cigarette butt or anything on the ground. no graffiti either. Anywhere! its bizarre. chinatown is clean! what the hell? who ever heard of clean chineese? and everyone is tidy and clean and there isn't any poverty to be seen. its like one big social science experiment that i'm not sure i like. in fact, there's very little for me to do here since i don't shop and that seems to be what everyone does here. its really hot though and the best way to avoid the heat are the malls.

oh yeah, and everyone speaks english! everyone! whether they are thai, chineese, malay, indian, or arab. spooky. this is clearly what the global culture is becoming: everyone still looks different, they all speak english, and they seem to exist to consume material goods.

but the singaporeans eat. and that i can do. at the hawker stalls its common to eat with strangers and for them to offer you some of their food. in fact, the common greeting here is "have you eaten?" here is an example of what i ate yesterday:

char siew bao (steamed pork buns), grass jelly drink, pork innard soup, kaya toast with coconut jam, fishball soup, carrot cake (which is actually made of radishes and isn't sweet), rice porridge with fish, coconut juice (twice), and mee chong (an indian dish of spicy fried noodles with pork).

whew!

so not being able to take the mall scene and my (surely) expanding gut any longer, i'm off to bali. i've heard that they like littering so it will at least feel homey.

p.s. this is awesome

ishmael

by daniel quinn. this book is so amazing i'm having a hard time coming up with the right things to say about it. i'm not sure how to even start. its about our global culture, and why its wrong, or why it might be. how there are messages everywhere that "Mother Culture" dictates the way we think the world operates. it deals with sustainability and living in harmony with nature and how we haven't been doing either for 10,000 years. it takes a novel look at the biblical stories of adam and eve and cain and abel. sean had recommended it to me years ago and i've just gotten around to reading it. everyone should read this book and give it a thought.

p.s. i'm in singapore.

the fountainhead

by ayn rand. my first ayn read. it was brilliant. i devoured it in just over a week (it helped that i was sick). she puts forth her theory of objectivism wherein the individual's happiness is a result of their productive achievements. as she states it:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

it is secondarily about architecture, which tickled me pink. the main character is a true modernist in his designs and his arguments against classical architecture are, in my view, dead-on. i'm definately going after atlas shrugged soon.

corrupted incorporated

shall i say it?
do i need to?

it appears that the insurance giant AIG's chairman participated in a deal that "may have been aimed at artificially bolstering the company's financial position."

doesn't this sound a tad familiar? haven't we been through all this before? weren't the new "transparent accounting" principles supposed to curtail such acts?

i'm shocked. and not because people of questionable ethics in high places exist. i know they do. sadly, its more the rule than the exception. when will we re-invent capitalism so we don't reward people for their bullshit behavior?

i'm not shocked because this exists. i'm shocked that it will be brushed under the rug tomorrow and the machine will keep on polluting and nobody will bother to make a change.

is AIG in your portfolio?
i bet it is.

skinny legs and all

by tom robbins. i can't say enough about this writer. why haven't i been reading him my whole life? he's a poetic genius. this one's about peeling back the illusions (or veils) of life. its about everything. although i'm tempted to buy all his books and read them back-to-back next up is some ayn rand.

elephant nature park (part two)

new pictures!

i've just concluded my second week at the elephant nature park, and the amazingness just kept on coming. i was finally able to meet Lek, the park owner. She is so kind and sweet and has such a huge heart. I was able to learn most of the elephants by name and even some of the 35 dogs.

later in the week we went on what's called a "Jumbo Express" - we drove out to a remote karen hill tribe village. before arriving to the village we went into the forest and tied blessed monk scarves around trees to protect them from illegal logging. it would be nearly unthinkable for a thai to cut down a blessed tree. i chose some really big trees off in the distance that i thought needed a little extra karma.

when we got to the village we administered medicine to the children and a few residents. the kids happily lined up for their shots and we would give them sweets and balloons. they loved those balloons. i'm not sure they had ever seen one before.

the next day we bamboo-rafted down the river to an elephant camp that had some sick elephants. upon arriving we were ushered into the back - as it turns out they would allow us to treat the elephants (for free mind you) but we had to do it out of sight of the tourists. we treated about 5 elephants for cracked feet. because of over-working and extra dry conditions, their feet were cracking. some were worse than others, but you could see that they were very tenuous when it came to going up or downhill. we squirted this milky solution on their feet and coated their nails with iodine. they were'nt too happy about it.

another elephant had a huge hole in its head. their mahout said he didn't know what it was from but Pom, the one running the Jumbo Express, said the mahout probably hit him with his metal hook. the final treatment involved putting anasceptic on a gash on the side of an elephant, clearly from the harness used to carry toursists. it was deep and bleeding.

the hardest thing about this trip was that we couldn't say anything to the tourists. these elephants needed to rest for about a week with no work, but instead were going to be carrying more people in about 45 minutes. i'm sure, if the tourists had known, they wouldn't have ridden the elephants. besides, elephants are slow and terribly uncomfortable to ride on for any length of time. but if we had told the tourists what was going on, the park would not allow Lek and her group to treat the elephants at all, and they would be far worse off without treatment.

sigh.

i hope to return to the park if i can find a substantial project to work on. i feel like i've cleaned up my fair share of elephant shit. still looking for an apartment here with a kitchen - you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find one.

p.s. as far as those huge spiders are concerned, they're totally harmless (although still fast as lightning). i ran into enough of them at the park that i can now expertly shoo them away. a moment of silence for the poor guy who met his demise on the bottom of my shoe the other week.

elephant nature park

so i had heard a lot about elephant abuse in thailand but didn't really know that much about it. turns out there is an excellent elephant hospital/sanctuary/park an hour north of chiang mai. you can pay them a fee and you can volunteer there for one day up to two weeks. all housing and meals are provided and you help the permanent volunteers with their daily chores.

there are about 15 elephants in the park. most of them had been abused and come to the hospital sick, and some have been purchased by the amazing park owner, Lek. some of the stories of the elephants are truly horrific. one of the elephants, Jokia, used to work in a tourist camp. she was pregnant and probably because of the harness used to carry tourists on her back, she mis-carried. she became depressed and refused to work. so, her owner took a slingshot and blinded her in one eye. still not working (obviously) the owner sold her. the new owner, unhappy that she wouldn't work, blinded her other eye. so now she is completely blind and wanders around only by aid of another elephant. this is just one story. there are 14 others with equally horrific tales.

we also learned about the way the elephants are trained using the pedjan, or "crush". when an elephant is about 3 years old they are put into this bamboo contraption that totally immobilizes them. then they are beaten for many days and nights (usually 3 days for females and 7 for males) without food or water until they are able to do some rudimentary skills. this is commonly known as "breaking the will of the elephant." the videos we saw of this ritual are awful. the elephant screams and screams and is beaten constantly while men shout at it from all directions. The thing is, all domestic elephants in thailand go through this. This is likely why you sometimes hear of elepghants going on rampages and killing people later in their lives. Lek, the park owner, rightly objects to this treatment and is working to inform the Thais, and tourists about proper elephant care. In fact, there are two babies at the park that will never go through the pedjan, proving that elephants can be trained without it.

so after a week of volunteering, its been really great. we spend most our time feeding and cleaning up dung. but we also wash and ride the elephants (the proper way, along their neck) on occasion. i learned some thai commands for driving the elephants around. they eat constantly: pinneaple, cucumber, banana (trees, leaves, fruit, and stalks), papaya, figs, grass, corn. it never ends! i've taken care of an 80 year old elephant, named Mae Tong Bai. She is a real sweetheart.

Pictures here.
More info here.

i have a week left at the camp (unless they want me to stay longer), and then its on to a new adventure. i'm not sure yet what that will be.

night of the spider

so i recently had to change guesthouses. when you tell the thais that you expect to stay for "around 3 days" they take you literally. so, unable to extend my stay, i moved down the road to this semi-swanky place (i.e., $6/night instead of $2.50).

i immediately took advantage of the hot shower and went out for a bite to eat. when i returned, i found in the bathroom a very large spider. i'm not typically afraid of spiders. but then again california spiders had nothing on this guy. he was the size of my hand.

remembering that things like to kill you in asia, i took a .picture and went to show the receptionist to see if my life was in danger. the conversation went like this:

me: "is this spider poisonous?"
receptionist: {shakes head in the negative}
me: "good spider?"
receptionist: {shakes head in the affirmative}
me: "not bad?"
receptionist: {continues shaking head} "where you find?"
me: "bathroom"
receptionist: {laughs}

so i return to my room %30 confident that the spider will not kill me. besides, he'd have to crawl a long way out of the bathroom to get to the bed, and that seemed unlikely. he seemed happy sitting there doing what spiders that size do. eat water-buffaloes i thought to myself. i didn't want to kill him, so i fell asleep after some reading.

maybe because of this, i have a nightmare. think shaun of the dead without the comedy. i was killing (or at least running away from) zombies in some crappy suburban town. it was a bit freaky. i wake up and go to the bathroom.

i notice the spider is nowhere to be seen.

hmm

as i walk back to the dark room i sleep in, i'm spooked just enough to turn the light on and have a look around. sure enough, not 3 feet from my pillow is my new buddy. maybe because of my nightmare i wasn't super freaked out. i actually took some time considering my options:

1) pick spider up on paper and shoo him outside
2) leave him there and go to sleep (yeah right!)
3) shoo him away from bed and go to sleep (maybe)
4) kill him

i didn't want to kill him. really. mosquitos, yes - dead in an instant. maybe it ain't buddha nature to kill them but i hate those little bloodsuckers. this was a big, hairy, spider who probably ate mosquitos and, like i said, waterbuffaloes. but probably wouldn't bite me. 30% sure of that. so i attempt some combination of 1 & 3.

i approach him with some paper. he sees me move and twitches very quickly - closer to the pillow. wow, he's really fast. this makes me think he can jump and i'm suddenly reliving arachnaphobia with john goodman in my mind. that's it, i thought. the little, i mean big, guy has to go.

so after another hesitation - i really didn't want to do this - i smashed him with my shoe. picked him up with some tissue and threw his twitching lifeless body in the trash. i should mention that as he hit the bottom of the bin his heavy body landed with a thump. that's how big he was.

i fell asleep in about 5 minutes, despite learning that i now have a fear (or atleast dislike) of spiders.

welcome to thailand.

chiang mai (take 2)

ahh, chiang mai. cool(er) weather and awesome classes and markets. it was good to be back. i spent the first week mostly cooking - i continued the week long class i had started previously and made some really awesome (i mean really awesome kick-ass thai food). here are some highlights:

tom yum khung (clear hot and sour soup with prawns)
tom kha gai (coconut hot and sour soup with chicken)
gaeng phed pet yang (roast duck in red curry)
chiang mai curry with pork
som tum (green papaya salad)
cashew chicken sirfry
mango sticky rice

still, though there was something missing about the class. i guess i'll have to keep looking. shucks.

for now, i'm off to the elephant nature park where i will be volunteering for at least two weeks. picking up dung will consume the majority of my days i'm guessing.

pictures

i've posted more pictures of koh tao and chiang mai. unfortunately flickr isn't letting me create new groups unless i pay them money, so you'll have to live with the disorganization. ahh, entropy.

lying liars and the lies they tell

by al franken. this was a fun, and at times maddening, book. al franken is a funny guy and he spends the majority of this book going after the right wing media like bill o'rielly and sean hannity. these guys are idiots, but that's nothing new. what was new was learning about how john mccain got push polled, details about fox trying to sue franken, and how bush, although claiming to be a man of faith, really probably isn't. another interesting question franken asks is, why is john walker lindh such a big deal when there have been far more treacherous traitors in our past - they're called confederates, and they killed more americans than lindh.

ko tao

the island of ko tao is a mecca for scuba diving. i met sean and his friend rachel at the airport in bangkok. we spent a day hanging out and then we were island bound.

the island is pretty touristy in spots, and quiet in others. we chose the quiet southern beach to base ourselves at and got a failry decent room near the beach. the weather was pleasant and the water was as warm as a bath. sean got his open water certification, and i got my advanced. the dives on the advanced were really cool. we did a deep dive (30m = 100ft!) and a night dive that was absolutely surreal. we saw stingrays, batfish, damsel fish, urchins, moray eels, crabs, shrimp, and even an enormous puffer fish! i loved the diving there so much i'm considering going back to get my divemaster. in late march the whale sharks are supposed to be migrating and its supposed to be a life changing experience to swim next to those giants. getting my divemaster would require 4 weeks of diving, but after the certification i could lead dives and get paid to do so!

anyway, i hope to post some more pictures soon. sean and i are heading to chiang mai in a few days where i'll finally get to settle for a bit and take some of the classes i;ve been wanting to do.

radiant cool

by dan lloyd. i think this book may have been written specifically for me. i had just finished a conversation with someone that i had been reading too much non-fiction lately and what i really was hungry for was a good romp with my imagination. this book delivered in a big way, and is the first fiction/non-fiction hybrid i can remember reading.

the book has two parts. first is a fictional account of a philosophy graduate student trying to uncover the mystery of consciousness as well as her advisor's mysterious disappearance. it is a delightfully playful quest for knowledge where point and counter-point allowed me to recall nearlyevery lecture of my cognitive science undergrad career. mmm, nummy nostalgia.

the second part is dan lloyd's own manuscript, putting forth his novel (get it?) theory. this part was more technical, and probably not as much fun if you're not familiar with the history of philosophy of mind. however, i loved it.

secret's out: i'm a nerd.

escaping reason

most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these [skeptical] clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with friends; and when after three or four hours' amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my heart to enter into them any farther.

-- David Hume

chiang mai

first, i've posted pictures! you can check them out here and let me know what you think.

scott and i took the luxury option to chiang mai - we flew. bangkok airways is really cool. very short flights and very tasty treats along the way. we arrived and everything was so pleasant, the weather, the prices, the town - wonderful. the old city of chiang mai is surrounded by a moat that is actually somewhat clean and not stinky. this was shocking because a lot of the water in thailand (and generally asia) is polluted and stinky. i was finally happy to be in a city that did not smell like feces.

the first day scott and i rented a motor-scooter and scooted our way around town checking out the various wats (buddhist temples) in the area. every town has its own wat and each was generally built in a different era, for a different king, and for a different purpose. so even though they're all kinda similar, they're all uniquely different. chiang mai has about 3 wats in the city center and a very popular one on top of a mountain overlooking the entire city. brilliant views when the haze/smog isn't terrible, and it wasn't. after the flatness of cambodia, it was refreshing to be around mountains again. at the center of the wat a huge stuppa (spire) was coated in gold foil (real gold!). it shone brilliantly as the setting sun cast its final glows on its terraced pointyness.

the next day we did an introductory cooking class (the main reason i decided to go to thailand in the first place) that did not dissapoint. a thai man and his english wife runa class out of their home out in the burbs. they are well setup and the class is well organized so even novices can feel successful. we cooked thom yum kheung (hot and sour shrimp soup), green curry with chicken, pad thai (noodles with egg and shrimp), minced chicken on cucumber, and a water chestnut desert with sweet coconut cream. it was a lot of fun. i hope to be back to complete the week-long series course where they cover the curries in greater depth.

the next three days we went on a trek to a hill tribe in northeastern thialand. despite a horrible pickup truck taxi ride that took 3 hours, we were tramped our way about an hour to a village stocked with elephants. i was a bit nervous about riding the elephants after hearing horror stories about how they can sometimes be treated, but this hill tribe (the Karen hill tribe) treated them very very well. it was a blast. a bit uncomfortable after 1.5 hours on their backs, but well worth it.

after leaving the elephants we walked another hour to the Karen village. their language is not thai but sounds softer and more polynesian. we learned how to say thank you, "dub loo". it was amazing to see how simply these people lived. very basic huts and a diet of mostly rice. they all kept pigs and chickens but it was explained to us that those were only for special occasions. mostly they ate small fish, birds, frogs, and vegetables. we got a tour of the village and got to sit in some of their huts. each hut was the most basic bamboo flooring and siding with banana leaf roofs. at the center of each hut was the fire used for cooking and warmth. it gets very cold in the mountains at night. during the day it would be in the 90s, but at night it would be near 40!

the next day was spent walking through the jungle and across riverbeds. our lunches were noodles with egg bundled in banana leaf packets and we ate fresh pineapple often. another night in a hut, this time without a surounding village. the following day we took bamboo rafts about 2 hours down river. very quickly and expertly constructed and pilotes by some karen boys, these rafts were flexible enough to get us through some rapids and shallow enough to skim across the falling river line.

the trek was awesome. i could have gone for many more days, but it was time to get back to bangkok and say goodbye to scotty and get ready for sean. he'll be here tomorrow night and i'm island bound again! more diving, sand, and sun!