More Fun with Hilary's Fam!

I love our driver Koonak! He has been our personal chauffer (sp?) since we've been here. So my big news is that hilary and I bought a motorcycle together. Our friend Brian was moving back to the states and he gave us a good deal. I really think i will need it to drive to my new job since it's a bit out of town. So i will really miss my daily trips with Koonak. He was the one who basically taught me to speak Thai since he doesn't speak any english. Sometimes i will be walking around town and he will just pick me up and we will drive around and talk. What a cool guy! He also told my mom that he would be sure to take me to a doctor if i was sick. I call him my Thai father.
I love that you can read BLISS on hilary's face. She is the best roommate and i love her to bits!
When Hilary's family was here, we had a get-together at our house. As you can see, it was a pretty good turnout. I think everyone had a great time enjoying the market food and good company. This last picture i stole from hilary. i think she must have taken it near Pai which is also very polluted nowadays. I just thought it was interesting.

More Photos

So for those of you who don't know, I have a photobucket site that i just started. If you want to see more pictures, go here:
http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u316/jenspearie/


Here is me with the sunset on Koh Phangan

More Island Adventures

Well Hilary and I survived our time in Koh Tao. We had some crazy days. We both got extremely burnt the first few days. And I met a friendly seahorse swimming near me. I've never seen one close up but it was cute like this:

The next day, we decided to rent a sea kayak and managed to make it all the way around this small island called Koh NangYuan seen here:
We also noticed flying fish while we were kayaking. As much of the coral was too shallow to swim on, we could easily see it on the kayak without harming it. So we explored little ocean ecosystems for awhile. We found out that most restaurants showed movies everynight so we would wander around and decide which flick to take in each day.

Our last day, we decided to do a mountain trek. Hey, it's a pretty small island and the trail seems small and well-marked on the map. Well, it was nearly unbearable walking up that mountain. I thought I was going to fall over from the heat and hard work. We finally got up to near the top and didn't find much of anything. There were spectacular veiws but we weren't sure how to get back so we just pressed on. After awhile, it became apparent that few people had walked this trail in the past decade or so. The trail was becoming increasingly overgrown and all we could hear were the deafining sound of bugs and monkeys in the distance. We started to get pretty spooked out. We hadn't seen anyone in awhile and I began thinking of what we could do if we were suddenly attacked by a python or island pirates. We got to a point where we were pretty paralyzed and unsure about what to do next. Should we go on and possibly get even more lost? Should we turn back and hike back up the mountain? We psyched ourselves up and just kept going. Finally, the path opened up into a spectacular view of this bay:

We became giddy and happy once we heard the sound of a motorcycle which meant we were by a main road. We started shouting and singing and laughing at how silly we'd been, feeling triumphant that we'd climbed this mountain by ourselves and were brave enough to blaze a trail through the jungle.

This is the mountain we climbed:


So Koh Tao was fun but i think we both are glad that we are living in the mountains rather than on the beach. It was nice to live the island life for a couple of weeks. I was just glad to see my cosy little home in Lampang last night. Next on the agenda: party in Mae rim, songkran in chiang mai and then it's off to Issan and Laos!

Island fun with the Disch crew

yup. we have been in the water non-stop it seems. i feel like a big salt-ball. we snorkeled the day away yesterday and today rented a longtailed boat to take us to all the sweet spots around the island. we're having so much fun. hilary's family is great and remind me a lot of my own family in fact. sadly, they are leaving in two days. but luckily, hil and i will be staying for endless days. oh and i just found out that i definitely got the job at Yonok University in Lampang. i will be teaching college again. hooray!

Checkin' In

My dear friends and family...so sorry for not posting. Things have been hectic as the school year was winding down. I went for an interview at Yonok University, thought it went terribly but heard from a friend that they loved me. Still awaiting their confirmation but it will be a better job with more perks (ie transportation stipend, less teaching hours, beautiful campus). I went to meet up with a friend Amy from springfield. We met in chiang mai where she was taking a yoga massage course. She's a friend of my friends and we'd never met before but we had a good time. I took her up to Doi Suthep which was a bust because of all the pollution. I was feeling so sick after spending 2 days in Chiang Mai. Hopefully now the situation is under control. They are also going to have Songkran (thai new years) early this year. They think that having people throwing water will help bring down the dust in the air...haven't yet been able to seed the clouds.

Anyways, Hilary's parents and aunt came to Lampang and they were so great. It was nice to see Thailand through their eyes..so excited about everything and very interested in our lives. We had a lot of fun on Monday taking them to temples and a mausoleum of a dead monk, which is quite uncommon in thailand as folks are generally cremated. Monday night we had a nice potluck and we got to watch a DVD of Hilary's grandma playing accordion. it was so cute that we decided to write her a thank-you card from all of us. then amy said that it was her grandma's birthday so we made a birthday card for her. This week i said goodbye to many of the teachers at LCCT who are either going home or moving to chiang mai. it was a tough week.

And so last night, i ventured onto the overnight train with karen and we woke up in bangkok this morning. i'm taking another overnight train south and meeting hilary and fam on koh pangyan tomorrow. i can't wait for more island time...it will be good for me after all the pollution. so my next blog will be from the islands. horray!

It's getting worse

The air pollution here has been getting worse for quite awhile. I was sick on and off last month and have been having these strange headaches. Well, this weekend I was in Chiang Mai and the air pollution was so terrible. It has been declared a state of emergency. I hope that something can be done because everyone is getting sick and flights are being cancelled. Here is a story from the Bangkok Post:

Provinces declare haze disaster areasBy Post ReportersChiang Mai

Chai Prakan and Phrao districts of Chiang Mai have been declared haze disaster areas and airlines have cancelled most flights because thick smoke from forest fires and traditional slash-and-burn farming has shrouded northern provinces and raised fears of increasing levels of harmful dust.

Chiang Mai, along with nearby Chiang Rai, Lampang and Mae Hong Son provinces, has been encountering heavy haze. The smoke also comes from bush fires in the Burmese town of Tachilek opposite Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai, officials said. "The thick smoke is seen all over the sky," said Chai Prakan district chief Chokedee Amornwat. The disaster zone announcement follows bad weather conditions caused by the haze for the past two weeks.

The smoke has hindered the visibility of airplane pilots and caused flight delays and cancellations. Poor visibility has also blocked an effort to make artificial rain aimed at reducing the amount of dust, which is posing serious health risks to people. The dust particles, technically called particulate matter (PM-10), have a diameter of not more than 10 microns, around one-seventh the width of a human hair. The tiny size allows them to easily lodge in lungs and cause respiratory problems. To reduce their exposure to the harmful dust, the Public Health Ministry has distributed 130,000 masks to people in eight northern provinces - Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Lampang, Lamphun, Phrae, Nan and Phayao. "The ministry has also given out leaflets telling people how to take care of their health in the face of thick smoke from burning activities," said permanent secretary for public health Prat Boonyawongvirote.

Yesterday, the level of PM-10 dust in Chiang Mai and Lampang was found to be beyond an acceptable standard. It was measured at 250.9 microgrammes per cubic metre in Chiang Mai and 154.8 in Lampang, against a health standard of 120 ug/cu m, according to the Pollution Control Department. Chalermsak Vanitsombat, chief of the Natural Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, said forest fires were not only to blame for the air pollution. "The haze largely comes from weed-burning in farms," said Mr Chalermsak, who supervises forest fire control operations. Mr Chalermsak said his department has no power to stop the farmers and could only ask for their cooperation in stopping the burning. The high price of maize has driven some farmers to encroach on forest and set fire to it to clear land for farming. Mr Chalermsak said this was a "main cause of thick smoke" in Chiang Mai. This has intensified air pollution in the province, where household bonfires are also common.

The level of humidity in the air is also less than that of last year, causing more severe fires this year, according to the department. Officials yesterday started making artificial rain in Chiang Mai. The mission aims to increase humidity in the forest, thus reducing the chance of forest fires. Meanwhile, Thai Airways International (THAI) cancelled flights between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son for the second day yesterday due to poor weather conditions. However, Weerapong Kranlert, THAI manager for Chiang Mai airport, said it was common practice to do so due to haze in the dry season and mist in the cold season. The thick smoke has also caused flight delays between Bangkok and Chiang Rai, but there have been no reports of flight cancellations on this route. In Chiang Rai, 700 officials and volunteers have been ordered to be on alert for forest fires in areas near the border with Burma. Farmers are also prohibited from burning farm residues. Violators will be fined 2,000 baht, according to the Environmental Quality Act.

Camping!

Role Call: Davide, Jeab, Hilary, Ilona, Tony and Nick
The ever-frightening cows...

The Ladies rocking out the camp kitchen...
The guys also contributed to the work....
La cooking on the fire. Looks pretty intense!

Last weekend we had the opportunity to go camping for the first time in Thailand. Our friend La is from a village outside of Lampang and his family has some land. It was mostly soy bean and rice fields with a little stream flowing through it. Hilary and I managed to find a tent on sale and we set up camp as well as a couple of hammocks. In the afternoon we sat around chopping veggies for dinner and asking each other questions from these conversation books that Nadine has. Meanwhile the guys were supposed to be gathering wood for the fire but ended up getting into a log-throwing contest. Some of La's friends came out for dinner and we taught the Thais how to make smores. They showed us a Thai fireside treat which consists of balls of sticky rice dipped in egg and salt and then roasted in the fire. Quite nice! We played Mad Libs and told stories. Not really ghost stories but just funny stories. La told us a story about some crows and a scarecrow which was interesting. I lounged quite a bit in the hammock and then decided to practice some poi, which is fire twirling/dancing. La and a couple of our other friends are amazing at this. They had the "practice poi" which are tennis balls on the end of chains. You twirl them in patterns around your body and you know what? It is not easy. I thought it would be a breeze but i ended up hitting myself with those stupid balls a million times. I hope to practice more on Koh Tao...fire dancing is such an island thing here. So we went to bed only to discover that it was freezing cold and hilary and I had only brought one blanket apiece. We barely slept at all just chattering our teeth and trying to maximize body heat. I couldn't believe how different it was being just outside the city!

In the morning we made breakfast and Nadine went down to wash the dishes in the creek only to be met by a cow-herd and his herd. One cow started approaching Nadine and she started shrieking and running away. We all laughed so hard because that cow was definitely spooking Nadine out. We hope that we can make this a regular outing because it was the perfect chill activity for a 3-day weekend.

Acrobats!

Sorry these pictures are so far away. Still, I had an amazing time with my 6-year old student who stood on her chair and said "Oh my god!" after every new trick. I was constantly moved and astounded by what the human body can do. The acrobats were so strong and flexible....it's like yoga x 10!