Chiang Mai High School Trip, November 5-9, 2007

I am a lucky guy!  As part of our curriculum at my school, each high school grade goes for a week-long trip somewhere in Thailand.  This year I got to visit Chiang Mai with the 10th grade class, along with two other chaperones, Kris Fering and Diego Wells.  The trip started out on a Sunday with a van ride to the Bangkok train station.  There we met two guides from the Magic Eyes Barge Program (They run educational field trips.) to board the overnight train to Chiang Mai.  I had no idea what to expect, but the train was very comfortable, with one exception.  I'm a lot taller than most Thais, so the bed was way too short.  But we got to relax on the train, playing card games, etc.  At about 8 PM, the attendants start putting the bunk beds down to allow people to sleep.  (There's a picture below.)  Even though I wasn't all that comfortable, I actually slept alright. 

We woke up the next morning while arriving in Chiang Mai.  Our first stop was the "Girl Guides" headquarters for breakfast and cold showers.  This was followed by some team-building activities and discussion about Chiang Mai history.  All quite fun.  Later, we headed to the Prem Center International School where we were bunked for two nights to drop our gear and have lunch.  We grabbed some bicycles and went on a tour of the local neighborhood.  Our first stop was a local Buddhist temple.  The murals on the front of the temple tell many stories and are very beautiful.  Inside, the five Buddha statues adorn the back of the temple, with more murals all over.  After the temple, we split into two groups to visit two local businesses.  For my group, the next stop was a clay pot manufacturer.  The woman that runs the business hires locals to form the clay pots, which sit outside for a few days to dry out.  Then they are fired in the kiln, which is a huge wood-burning kiln that can hold hundreds of pots.  The clay is made onsite by mixing soil from farms with sand and a few other things in a big machine.  And out comes big sausages of clay ready to form pots.  The guys that turn the pots can take a lump of clay and turn it into a pot in about 45 seconds.  Wow.  It'd take me 40 minutes, and not look nearly as nice.

Our next business was a bamboo basket-maker.  This was truly amazing to watch, as he held a conversation with us (well...with my students that speak Thai...) while working on a basket.  I figure he could do it with his eyes closed, he was so skilled at his craft.  The baskets sell for about THB 30, which is about $1.  I can't remember how many baskets he makes in a day, but it's not very many.  He has a lot of steps in the process that require extra time. 

Then we went back to our bunkhouse for some free-time, followed by diner and another team-building activity.  The students had to build a "flying craft" to safely carry three eggs from the third story to the ground, while flying the farthest.  Out of the twelve eggs carried to the ground, only one broke.  An impressive display of engineering, obviously influenced greatly by their wonderful science teachers.  (Some important details omitted, such as the fact that none of the "flying craft" went very far.)

We woke up Tuesday morning to a good breakfast followed by a van ride to a water-buffalo training center.  Yes, you read that right.  Water buffalo have been used to plow rice paddies for a long time in Thailand.  This facility trains water buffalos to be used in traditional farming methods.  Some of our students got to "ride the plow" with the water buffalo pulling them along.  Then we got to learn the technique for planting rice.  First, rice is grown very close together, simply to get things started.  Then it is pulled and replanted spaced out so that it can grow to full height with lots of room.  Two to four months later it is harvested.  (More on harvesting later.)  After planting rice in the mud, we watched the traditional mortar-pestle crush the husks off the rice seed, then the rice is sorted to separate from the broken husks.  Quite a lot of work goes into this process.  Before we left, students got the opportunity to ride the water buffaloes.  Giddy up!

After visiting the buffalos, we headed to Mae Taeng Elephant Park to ride the elephants and get a bamboo raft trip down the river.  I've had the opportunity to ride an elephant before (Nong Nooch Tropical Garden), but this ride was much better.  We rode through the forest, with our elephants traversing steep terrain, down a fairly steep trail into the river, then up the other side and all over.  It's still a bumpy ride, but it was fantastic!  This was followed by the obligatory elephant show.  The coolest part of the show was seeing the elephants perform traditional tasks based on how the elephants have been used for farming in Thailand.  And as always, they had some elephants paint for the audience. 

Lunch was a nice buffet at the elephant park, followed by a trip down the river on a bamboo raft.  Yes, the bamboo raft actually held me and six other students, along with two guides that steered the raft from the front and back.  The ride was more relaxing than exhilarating, with no rapids but lots of great scenery.  At one point, I got to steer the raft from the front.  Kind of fun, but I think I'll keep my day job.  We all crowded back into the vans for the two-hour ride back to the Prem Center for some free time, dinner and a debate about eco-tourism.  (If you haven't already figured this out...eco-tourism and its impact on the environment and local culture was the focus of the trip for our students.) 

Wednesday morning we got an early start and went into Chiang Mai to visit the Hill Tribe Museum.  It's filled with information and artifacts from the local hill tribes of northern Thailand.  Pictures aren't allowed inside the museum, so I don't have any to share.  After learning about the hill tribes, we hopped back in the vans for the long drive to Siribhum Waterfall and the Royal Project Garden.  His Majesty the King established the Royal Project Garden as a place for sustainable agriculture.  It is one of many projects he started to help the Hill Tribe people.  After a nice lunch, we drove to Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand.  Doi Inthanon is 2565 meters (about 8700 feet) tall, and the rainforest is reminiscent of the Olympic National Forest in Washington.  We drove to within about 100 meters of the actual summit, then took a short hike to the peak and through the forest to observe the wildlife.  Quite beautiful, actually.  Doi Inthanon is names after a king from the 13th century that recognized its beauty.  He is actually buried at the summit.  (My facts here are from my memory, but I think they're relatively accurate.)

After visiting the summit, we made a short drive to meet our guides that were ready to escort us to the Karen Hill Tribe Village we were going to stay at for the night.  This would prove to be the highlight of the trip on many levels.  First, the hike in was spectacular.  We crossed beneath and above many waterfalls on bamboo bridges built by the Karen people.  Being larger than any local I've ever seen, I occasionally wondered about the efficacy of these bridges.  But every time, they held strong, even with me on them.  Every single waterfall was breathtaking.  And on the way in, the guide near me pointed out a small green snake near the trail.  My broken Thai wasn't good enough to find out if the snake was venomous, but I didn't get close enough to find out.  The hike moved away from the waterfalls and more toward the rice paddies of the Karen Village.  Soon we were walking between huge expanses of rice, almost all of it planted and harvested by hand by the members of the village.  They work cooperatively on the rice, so that all of the landowners have help with the planting and harvesting.  The selflessness of the people I met was something I rarely witness much of anymore in "modern" society.  Finally, we arrived at the coffee shop of the village.  The tribe grows coffee and makes their own roast.  I'm not a coffee drinker, but those that are said the coffee tasted great. 

We formed groups to meet our host families.  After we talked to the host families (well, after my students talked to the host families and translated for me...), it was quite clear that we were expected to take a shower before dinner.  So we were shown the bathroom/shower.  I must say, I don't get cold very often, but this "shower" was a bit frigid.  But after the first few buckets of water over my head, I actually felt invigorated.  Then we sat down for dinner in the kitchen/dining room house of the host family.  Dinner was actually VERY good.  It consisted of rice, omelet, and a pork-cabbage soup.  After dinner, we asked our host family about 500 questions as we sat under the single fluorescent light in their house.  (Electricity arrived at this village about a month ago.  Our host family only had a single light in each house.  Other families already had TVs, etc.)  They were very gracious in answering everything we asked.  We also learned a few phrases in the traditional Karen language.  My favorite phrase was learning how to say, "Big white guy [foreigner]" in Karen.  Gola pado.  Gola means foreigner,and pado means very big.  So I'm now the gola pado.  Since we were at a few thousand feet elevation, it got quite cool at night.  My students were freezing, but I actually enjoyed being cold for the first time since I moved to Thailand.  We slept on the floor on sleeping mats with blankets covering us.  Considering the circumstances, we all slept quite well. 

In the morning, we were woken up by the barking dogs, cock-a-doodling chickens and the morning news bulletin blaring through a huge loud-speaker.  The young boy of the family, Losay (again, probably a poor transliteration), took us on a tour of the farming projects run by the village.  They have a rabbit farm to raise rabbits to sell at the Royal Project Garden to folks as pets.  They also have a pretty extensive fish farm.  They raise two different kinds of fish to sell at the market.  In previous years, the hill tribes often raised Opium as a cash crop.  For quite obvious reasons, this has been discouraged of late.  Quite a few years ago, His Majesty the King established the "Royal Project" to help sustain the tribes with other cash crops.  The rabbit and fish farming are great examples of this. 

We walked back up the hill to our host family's house for a breakfast of rice, pork soup and tuna noodles.  (I'm not a big fish eater, but the pork soup was quite good.  My students reported that the tuna noodles were tasty also.  All of our fears about not getting enough food were completely unfulfilled.)  We gathered at the local coffee shop again for our hike out of the village to our awaiting vans.  At the bottom of the valley, we got to spend some time learning about rice harvesting.  The guides showed us how to hold a bunch of rice and cut the stalks, gathering a big handful.  Then this handful is set to dry for a few days before it will be collected and processed.  This village still use traditional methods to process the rice.  All quite fun to learn, but incredibly hard work.  My respect for these people, already very high, only grew on this last part of the trip.

Back into the vans for a ride back to the Chiang Mai to visit the local artist market.  I spent far too much money on wood carvings for our house and Christmas presents to send home.  Then we went to the Girl Guides headquarters again for showers and lunch before going to the local mall for a relaxing afternoon.  After the mall, we were dropped off at the train station for the ride home.  We didn't want the trip to end, but we were all kind of tired.  The rhythmic sounds of the train put us all to sleep pretty early for our morning arrival in Bangkok.

Some pictures are included below.  Click on the image to see a larger version.