I have been trying, to no avail, to get some photos on the blog, but I'm throwing in the towel for today. I have better internet access here than i did in India, so hopefully I'll be able to get photos up regularly once I figure thigns out!
Love,
~Alice
Thursday, February 28, 2008
My Brush With Angelina
At this point I’ve spent more time in Cambodia than Thailand, but Thailand is about to make a comeback!
Thailand 101:
There are two things I was told to avoid during my first day in Thailand; insulting the King, and doing offensive things with my feet. After two days in Chiang Mai, I was able to join the whole Weeks family in Bangkok for an afternoon and evening. They had been doing a tour of Thailand with Flora during Mitch’s February break. They saw many, many of the big Bangkok sites during the day and took me on a night boat-ride to see some of the famous temples and the Royal Palace lit up at night – Wat Arun (a large temple) was particularly splendid at night!
The King is revered in Thailand and everyone loves him, so it’s not hard to avoid insulting him, but one also must not insult his family…..if you are foolish enough to insult the royal family and get caught you can be thrown out of the country! (this is so very different from India, but falls in with what I’ve heard about other Asian countries like China, Cambodia, and Vietnam…..though Thailand seems to be the most touchy.) Unless I am real stupid I shouldn’t have trouble refraining from insulting a family that has done nothing wrong to me.
FEET. Feet are the lowest part of the body in Thai/Buddhist culture, and so shouldn’t be pointed at the Buddha, at any person, or waved around in the air. I don’t often wave my feet in the air. But, naturally, I waved them around a bit the first time Liz took me out in public. I was trying to help out with her English class (vocab word: sandals). Instead I offended her students to the core. Thumbs down! Mitchell Weeks apparently had his own brush with bi-ped-debauchery….he really felt like stretching while in a giant and culturally significant Temple in Bangkok. Flora tried to convince him to keep his feet under him, but he insisted that Thais like yoga, so it’s okay! He was wrong. But that’s okay, Mitch is wonderful and you’ve got to love him.
The complexity of the Thai language is depressing….especially after attempting Tamil for a few months. I’ll obviously try to learn some Thai, but first I’ll have to get past the fact that “caw” is a polite affirmation whereas in Tamil it’s a playful “up-yours!” Oh No! Last night, the four of us (Me, Tom, Flora, and Liz) played 9 holes of night-golf (a cultural experience I probably would have never experienced but for the Weeks influence). In Thailand, you are required to hire a caddy from the club when you play. (We kept our on the move by playing a rotating-two-person-scramble…) My first two big Thai language accomplishments were Hello (sao dee caw) and Thank You (cup coon caw). I thanked my caddy when she handed me clubs and cheerfully screamed hello when she replaced my divot…..whoops. But it worked out….at the end of the round she told me I was “gang mak!” or “very proficient!” She’s mistaken; I am not very proficient at either golf or Thai, but I appreciated the vote of confidence.
Cambodian Sojourn
I’m jumping ahead…..before I experience Asian golf, I experienced Cambodia. The morning after I met the Weeks family in Bangkok, Tom, Flora, and I flew off to Cambodia while Mitch and Deb had to fly home…..Mitch still has school, imagine that! The obvious attraction in Siem Reap, Cambodia is Angkor Wat – the largest temple complex in the world and one of the Ancient Wonders……we, however, took our own sweet time before we actually saw Angkor. Sure, there’s plenty else to do in the area….but I imagine few other tour groups go three days without actually going inside the Wat.
On our first day we took a boat ride to the mouth of Cambodia’s largest lake – and the center of its fishing economy. There are 160 floating villages on this vast lake, and we toured one of them. It was like Lake Union except the water’s incredibly dirty, the houses are falling apart, children jumped onto our boat every once in a while to sell bananas, the village is segregated between the poor Vietnamese immigrants and the slightly less poor local Cambodians, the houses are anchored by reeds and rope, there is a two-tiered elementary school/gymnasium, and lots of tourists have a look around every day. I’ve never seen a thing like it – pretty incredible!
In the next couple of days we saw a bunch of ancient temples in the greater Siem Reap area, went to a Kymer Rouge war museum, took a balloon ride to view Angkor from on high, got a Cambodian massage, and ate a lot. Highlights: (Mae Rice, this first one is for you!) Angelina Jolie not only adopted a child from Cambodia, but she also made a movie in one of the temples that we visited! We looked for her, and Tom tried to get our guide to arrange a date with Angie-babe, as we called her, but it fell threw. Giant trees were growing out of the walls make the Angie-Temple look pretty exotic and wild. The complex includes one temple that washes away your bad luck if you create a sonorous echo by pounding your chest. Tom caught me washing away my bad luck on film….he caught a lot of things on film including about 35 photos of the balloon we rode from various artistic positions. I’m really not exaggerating, ask Flora! We had to sit him down on several occasions to delete 25 or so blatant repeats. The Great Mystery of the whole experience was that of the identity of the fearless Cambodian guide, Janny. For the first few days we joked around, heard all about Cambodian culture and history, and got to be friends of sorts. You should know: Janny spoke with a clear but Australian accent (?!?), exclaimed, “Oh, Tom!” every third sentence, partied every night, had moments of raunchy humor, said things like, “Let’s Rock and Roll!”, never got lost or missed a beat on what we wanted to do, complained of illness on our second to last day, and has an identical twin. None of this was true on our last day, except, presumable, that our guide was Janny’s identical twin! I ran a casual exit poll as our plain left Cambodia. Three out of four respondents were convinced that we had met Janny’s “double trouble” (as Janny referred to him).
Flora and I have a lot to think about in these next few days. She spent five weeks in Chiang Mai living with Liz and trying to get some traction in the city….it was a trying five weeks. She was looking for jobs and volunteer work while getting to know the city and getting used to a new culture, and the work was extremely difficult to come by. Several weeks ago, she visited Mae Hong Son, a gorgeous 8,000 person town north of Chiang Mai that houses many NGOs. She was with the head of one NGO which works against domestic abuse in tribal communities, and fell in love with the area and the work being done there. We both feel that living in a smaller community would give us the chance to feel more connected and involved after just a few months, so if we can find meaningful work in the area, we’re thinking of renting an apartment there instead of in Chiang Mai. We’ll be working on that in the next couple of days!
I’m very, very happy to be here; I love traveling and I missed Flora this fall, so it’s been marvelous to spend time with her. I do miss India rather a lot……and go through the pictures of the kids, Deepa, and Kate that I brought whenever I have downtime. Thailand reminds me of India in some ways but is so completely different in most ways that it makes me miss all the things that make India intoxicatingly distinct. Right now I’m reading In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India and loving it. I tried to read it before my trip to India and it made no sense, but now it’s relevant, and I’m rapt. Being in Thailand has made me realize how bizarre India really is. It’s so loud, contradictory, and chaotic (the obvious example being traffic, the less obvious being things like the bureaucracy). I took it for granted that I would always be stared at, and that anyone selling me something would be incredibly aggressive. I even began to take the poverty for granted – meaning – I didn’t realize that it really is more extreme than most places in the world. I also loved seeing the many faces of Hinduism wherever I turned. I am more and more certain that I will have to return to India soon; India has me in her grip and I’m glad of it. Of course I’ve also thought about Kate and Deepa quite a lot – they were a family to me this fall and it’s strange to be traveling without them. (Don’t worry mom, I love my home, too.)
Keep your emails headed my way – I love getting random little notes or big notes about whatever it is that’s going on in your lives.
Love,
~Alice
Thailand 101:
There are two things I was told to avoid during my first day in Thailand; insulting the King, and doing offensive things with my feet. After two days in Chiang Mai, I was able to join the whole Weeks family in Bangkok for an afternoon and evening. They had been doing a tour of Thailand with Flora during Mitch’s February break. They saw many, many of the big Bangkok sites during the day and took me on a night boat-ride to see some of the famous temples and the Royal Palace lit up at night – Wat Arun (a large temple) was particularly splendid at night!
The King is revered in Thailand and everyone loves him, so it’s not hard to avoid insulting him, but one also must not insult his family…..if you are foolish enough to insult the royal family and get caught you can be thrown out of the country! (this is so very different from India, but falls in with what I’ve heard about other Asian countries like China, Cambodia, and Vietnam…..though Thailand seems to be the most touchy.) Unless I am real stupid I shouldn’t have trouble refraining from insulting a family that has done nothing wrong to me.
FEET. Feet are the lowest part of the body in Thai/Buddhist culture, and so shouldn’t be pointed at the Buddha, at any person, or waved around in the air. I don’t often wave my feet in the air. But, naturally, I waved them around a bit the first time Liz took me out in public. I was trying to help out with her English class (vocab word: sandals). Instead I offended her students to the core. Thumbs down! Mitchell Weeks apparently had his own brush with bi-ped-debauchery….he really felt like stretching while in a giant and culturally significant Temple in Bangkok. Flora tried to convince him to keep his feet under him, but he insisted that Thais like yoga, so it’s okay! He was wrong. But that’s okay, Mitch is wonderful and you’ve got to love him.
The complexity of the Thai language is depressing….especially after attempting Tamil for a few months. I’ll obviously try to learn some Thai, but first I’ll have to get past the fact that “caw” is a polite affirmation whereas in Tamil it’s a playful “up-yours!” Oh No! Last night, the four of us (Me, Tom, Flora, and Liz) played 9 holes of night-golf (a cultural experience I probably would have never experienced but for the Weeks influence). In Thailand, you are required to hire a caddy from the club when you play. (We kept our on the move by playing a rotating-two-person-scramble…) My first two big Thai language accomplishments were Hello (sao dee caw) and Thank You (cup coon caw). I thanked my caddy when she handed me clubs and cheerfully screamed hello when she replaced my divot…..whoops. But it worked out….at the end of the round she told me I was “gang mak!” or “very proficient!” She’s mistaken; I am not very proficient at either golf or Thai, but I appreciated the vote of confidence.
Cambodian Sojourn
I’m jumping ahead…..before I experience Asian golf, I experienced Cambodia. The morning after I met the Weeks family in Bangkok, Tom, Flora, and I flew off to Cambodia while Mitch and Deb had to fly home…..Mitch still has school, imagine that! The obvious attraction in Siem Reap, Cambodia is Angkor Wat – the largest temple complex in the world and one of the Ancient Wonders……we, however, took our own sweet time before we actually saw Angkor. Sure, there’s plenty else to do in the area….but I imagine few other tour groups go three days without actually going inside the Wat.
On our first day we took a boat ride to the mouth of Cambodia’s largest lake – and the center of its fishing economy. There are 160 floating villages on this vast lake, and we toured one of them. It was like Lake Union except the water’s incredibly dirty, the houses are falling apart, children jumped onto our boat every once in a while to sell bananas, the village is segregated between the poor Vietnamese immigrants and the slightly less poor local Cambodians, the houses are anchored by reeds and rope, there is a two-tiered elementary school/gymnasium, and lots of tourists have a look around every day. I’ve never seen a thing like it – pretty incredible!
In the next couple of days we saw a bunch of ancient temples in the greater Siem Reap area, went to a Kymer Rouge war museum, took a balloon ride to view Angkor from on high, got a Cambodian massage, and ate a lot. Highlights: (Mae Rice, this first one is for you!) Angelina Jolie not only adopted a child from Cambodia, but she also made a movie in one of the temples that we visited! We looked for her, and Tom tried to get our guide to arrange a date with Angie-babe, as we called her, but it fell threw. Giant trees were growing out of the walls make the Angie-Temple look pretty exotic and wild. The complex includes one temple that washes away your bad luck if you create a sonorous echo by pounding your chest. Tom caught me washing away my bad luck on film….he caught a lot of things on film including about 35 photos of the balloon we rode from various artistic positions. I’m really not exaggerating, ask Flora! We had to sit him down on several occasions to delete 25 or so blatant repeats. The Great Mystery of the whole experience was that of the identity of the fearless Cambodian guide, Janny. For the first few days we joked around, heard all about Cambodian culture and history, and got to be friends of sorts. You should know: Janny spoke with a clear but Australian accent (?!?), exclaimed, “Oh, Tom!” every third sentence, partied every night, had moments of raunchy humor, said things like, “Let’s Rock and Roll!”, never got lost or missed a beat on what we wanted to do, complained of illness on our second to last day, and has an identical twin. None of this was true on our last day, except, presumable, that our guide was Janny’s identical twin! I ran a casual exit poll as our plain left Cambodia. Three out of four respondents were convinced that we had met Janny’s “double trouble” (as Janny referred to him).
Flora and I have a lot to think about in these next few days. She spent five weeks in Chiang Mai living with Liz and trying to get some traction in the city….it was a trying five weeks. She was looking for jobs and volunteer work while getting to know the city and getting used to a new culture, and the work was extremely difficult to come by. Several weeks ago, she visited Mae Hong Son, a gorgeous 8,000 person town north of Chiang Mai that houses many NGOs. She was with the head of one NGO which works against domestic abuse in tribal communities, and fell in love with the area and the work being done there. We both feel that living in a smaller community would give us the chance to feel more connected and involved after just a few months, so if we can find meaningful work in the area, we’re thinking of renting an apartment there instead of in Chiang Mai. We’ll be working on that in the next couple of days!
I’m very, very happy to be here; I love traveling and I missed Flora this fall, so it’s been marvelous to spend time with her. I do miss India rather a lot……and go through the pictures of the kids, Deepa, and Kate that I brought whenever I have downtime. Thailand reminds me of India in some ways but is so completely different in most ways that it makes me miss all the things that make India intoxicatingly distinct. Right now I’m reading In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India and loving it. I tried to read it before my trip to India and it made no sense, but now it’s relevant, and I’m rapt. Being in Thailand has made me realize how bizarre India really is. It’s so loud, contradictory, and chaotic (the obvious example being traffic, the less obvious being things like the bureaucracy). I took it for granted that I would always be stared at, and that anyone selling me something would be incredibly aggressive. I even began to take the poverty for granted – meaning – I didn’t realize that it really is more extreme than most places in the world. I also loved seeing the many faces of Hinduism wherever I turned. I am more and more certain that I will have to return to India soon; India has me in her grip and I’m glad of it. Of course I’ve also thought about Kate and Deepa quite a lot – they were a family to me this fall and it’s strange to be traveling without them. (Don’t worry mom, I love my home, too.)
Keep your emails headed my way – I love getting random little notes or big notes about whatever it is that’s going on in your lives.
Love,
~Alice
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I'm back in Asia!
I was home for three weeks but never really had it in my to "summarize my experience" so it's only now, once I've just flown into Chiang Mai, that I'm going to blog again. I want to talk about my last week or so in India, and ruminate a bit on the trip as a whole before I move on.
We spent our last week of travel in Sikkim; a tiny state sandwiched between Nepal, China, and Bhutan in Northeast India. (We flew from Chennai to Kolkata - formerly known as Calcutta - and then took a train and a bus to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim.) It's a predominantly Nepalese Buddhist state - essentially it was a whole other India to see just before we left. I was particularly excited to have the chance to see Buddhism in India because Thailand is a Buddhist nation and it will be neat to compare the two. Sikkim is also chalk full of jaw-dropping views; both of vibrant Gompas (Buddhist monasteries) and natural grandeur. After spending time in Gangtok's largest Gompa, several tea shops, side-streets, and a handicrafts bizarre, we took a Jeep ride through slightly mountainous terrain to a tiny Village called Tashiding. The next day we took an hour-long trek to a nearby peak where the Tashiding Monastery is situated. The views......can't be described - 360 degree hilly/mountainous beauty from the vantage point of a peaceful, prayer-flag full Monastery. We stayed for several hours to journal, draw in my case, and take in the Monastery. The next day we trekked about 20 kilometers to Yuksom.....of course it was beautiful and the trekking company couldn't be beat - especially since two friendly dogs followed us all 20 kilometers without so much as a bread-crumb of encouragement (for the first 12 km....until we knew they were really loyal.) We christened them Ravi and Puri (the name of an Indian bread). Other Sikkim highlights include; a grueling trek to Kechapuri Lake - a Holy lake surrounded in prayer flags and silence, listening to monks chant and play music (horns, gongs, percussion) in a Gompa in Pelling, and seeing Kanchenjunga - the third highest peak in the world. Sikkim was a travel highlight for all three of us - we recommend it!
After a few (not so short) flights.....we were home. It was, indeed disorienting to be in a place that was once so ordinary and have it seem extreme in many some ways; extremely uncrowded/unchaotic/uncolorful...and extremely orderly. I'm glad I got to see my family and I know my mother couldn't have stomached another three and half months of me traveling without some maternal respite. Of course I was asked a slew of questions about my time in India when I was home....and I probably didn't answer any of them properly. I love talking about India though I'm always wary of getting caught up in my own recollections about the kids and becoming unintelligible. Actual concrete examples of "how I changed" or "how this affected what I'll do with my life" are fairly difficult to produce. (The more concrete change in myself I can offer up is a 2 milimeter thick callous on the inner joint of my right middle finger that is a byproduct of giving the children a whole lot of mehendi cone (henna).)
Still, I'm continuing to notice little changes in myself and my tastes that are pointing me along towards conclusions. It is clear to me that my time at the Children's Home was by far the most impacting experience I had. I could have predicted that before ever leaving Everett, but it has manifested itself differently than I would have expected. Because we traveled for the month after leaving the Children's Home, I forced myself to move on and live in the moment, not wanting to miss out on our travel experiences. Once I was home and beginning to share stories and photos with family and friends I found myself thinking and wanting to talk about the children more and more every day. My thoughts aren't necessarily that complicated; I'm usually thinking something along the lines of, "Pavithra is mischievous and wonderful - I love her!". I've always loved listening to people and learning how they see the world. That held true with the children; I was fascinated by how they related to each other, wanted to know who felt left out and who was a leader, tried to look out for the kids who seemed lonely - I was essentially obsessed with what Kate termed "Kid politics". I'm fascinated by essentially the same general trends in adults as well. The difference with kids is their freshness; they aren't yet complete slaves to their own habits which makes them both mystifying and rewarding to work with. Mystifying because they're always surprising you with a ridiculous and hilarious comment or erratic behavior problem. Rewarding because they are impressionable; that gives me the privilege and responsibility of actually affecting them; both emotionally and academically. All this leads me to believe that I should spend my life around children in some capacity; I love being around kids and they seemed to benefit from me as well.
On a completely separate note, I have the travel bug! By the end of our travels in India I was loving the daily barrage of colors, smells, and tastes so much that I couldn't wait to go back. When I do return to India, I will doubtless spend time at the Children's Home, but I also hope to travel more in Northern India and see Varanasi, Amritsar, Dharamsala, and Ladakh. I adore Kate and Deepa and will miss them dearly; they made my time in India exactly what it was. They are such strong personalities, and I learned about myself by defining the boundaries of my friendships with two such unique, intelligent, and strong-willed people. Thank you Deepa and Kate- I love you both very much.
So now it's on to Thailand! I've been here only an afternoon and already I can't stop thinking about the differences between India and Thailand...I'm sure that will continue for a while while I try to get my footing. I haven't actually seen Flora yet! I will be meeting her and her visiting family in Bangkok in just two days. From there, she, her dad, and Liz (a friend of the Weeks family who I am living with right now) are going to Angkkor Wat in Cambodia! That's a lot of action for a first week living in Thailand, but I'm excited!
Thanks for reading!
~Alice
We spent our last week of travel in Sikkim; a tiny state sandwiched between Nepal, China, and Bhutan in Northeast India. (We flew from Chennai to Kolkata - formerly known as Calcutta - and then took a train and a bus to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim.) It's a predominantly Nepalese Buddhist state - essentially it was a whole other India to see just before we left. I was particularly excited to have the chance to see Buddhism in India because Thailand is a Buddhist nation and it will be neat to compare the two. Sikkim is also chalk full of jaw-dropping views; both of vibrant Gompas (Buddhist monasteries) and natural grandeur. After spending time in Gangtok's largest Gompa, several tea shops, side-streets, and a handicrafts bizarre, we took a Jeep ride through slightly mountainous terrain to a tiny Village called Tashiding. The next day we took an hour-long trek to a nearby peak where the Tashiding Monastery is situated. The views......can't be described - 360 degree hilly/mountainous beauty from the vantage point of a peaceful, prayer-flag full Monastery. We stayed for several hours to journal, draw in my case, and take in the Monastery. The next day we trekked about 20 kilometers to Yuksom.....of course it was beautiful and the trekking company couldn't be beat - especially since two friendly dogs followed us all 20 kilometers without so much as a bread-crumb of encouragement (for the first 12 km....until we knew they were really loyal.) We christened them Ravi and Puri (the name of an Indian bread). Other Sikkim highlights include; a grueling trek to Kechapuri Lake - a Holy lake surrounded in prayer flags and silence, listening to monks chant and play music (horns, gongs, percussion) in a Gompa in Pelling, and seeing Kanchenjunga - the third highest peak in the world. Sikkim was a travel highlight for all three of us - we recommend it!
After a few (not so short) flights.....we were home. It was, indeed disorienting to be in a place that was once so ordinary and have it seem extreme in many some ways; extremely uncrowded/unchaotic/uncolorful...and extremely orderly. I'm glad I got to see my family and I know my mother couldn't have stomached another three and half months of me traveling without some maternal respite. Of course I was asked a slew of questions about my time in India when I was home....and I probably didn't answer any of them properly. I love talking about India though I'm always wary of getting caught up in my own recollections about the kids and becoming unintelligible. Actual concrete examples of "how I changed" or "how this affected what I'll do with my life" are fairly difficult to produce. (The more concrete change in myself I can offer up is a 2 milimeter thick callous on the inner joint of my right middle finger that is a byproduct of giving the children a whole lot of mehendi cone (henna).)
Still, I'm continuing to notice little changes in myself and my tastes that are pointing me along towards conclusions. It is clear to me that my time at the Children's Home was by far the most impacting experience I had. I could have predicted that before ever leaving Everett, but it has manifested itself differently than I would have expected. Because we traveled for the month after leaving the Children's Home, I forced myself to move on and live in the moment, not wanting to miss out on our travel experiences. Once I was home and beginning to share stories and photos with family and friends I found myself thinking and wanting to talk about the children more and more every day. My thoughts aren't necessarily that complicated; I'm usually thinking something along the lines of, "Pavithra is mischievous and wonderful - I love her!". I've always loved listening to people and learning how they see the world. That held true with the children; I was fascinated by how they related to each other, wanted to know who felt left out and who was a leader, tried to look out for the kids who seemed lonely - I was essentially obsessed with what Kate termed "Kid politics". I'm fascinated by essentially the same general trends in adults as well. The difference with kids is their freshness; they aren't yet complete slaves to their own habits which makes them both mystifying and rewarding to work with. Mystifying because they're always surprising you with a ridiculous and hilarious comment or erratic behavior problem. Rewarding because they are impressionable; that gives me the privilege and responsibility of actually affecting them; both emotionally and academically. All this leads me to believe that I should spend my life around children in some capacity; I love being around kids and they seemed to benefit from me as well.
On a completely separate note, I have the travel bug! By the end of our travels in India I was loving the daily barrage of colors, smells, and tastes so much that I couldn't wait to go back. When I do return to India, I will doubtless spend time at the Children's Home, but I also hope to travel more in Northern India and see Varanasi, Amritsar, Dharamsala, and Ladakh. I adore Kate and Deepa and will miss them dearly; they made my time in India exactly what it was. They are such strong personalities, and I learned about myself by defining the boundaries of my friendships with two such unique, intelligent, and strong-willed people. Thank you Deepa and Kate- I love you both very much.
So now it's on to Thailand! I've been here only an afternoon and already I can't stop thinking about the differences between India and Thailand...I'm sure that will continue for a while while I try to get my footing. I haven't actually seen Flora yet! I will be meeting her and her visiting family in Bangkok in just two days. From there, she, her dad, and Liz (a friend of the Weeks family who I am living with right now) are going to Angkkor Wat in Cambodia! That's a lot of action for a first week living in Thailand, but I'm excited!
Thanks for reading!
~Alice
Monday, February 18, 2008
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