Seismology and Stretches

Last Wednesday we had a 6.3 richter scale earthquake! Definitely felt it, but more along the line of "wow, an earthquake" than "get out of the office" panic stations. And just as well - I don't think our 1960's concrete box-style building would have been built with earthquakes in mind (or in the budget). No major damage reported anywhere.

It's been a week of mixing it with the locals.
I've been the odd one out in large Tai Chi and Yoga classes on campus. Strange but fun. Unique.
On Saturday I headed by train to Lampang, a large town 2 hours away. I didn't see any other westerners for hours. It's evidently not on the tourist trail like Chiang Mai. I've been having some very random "I'm going to practise my English on you" moments. The Lampang ones involved an elderly monk, and a station master dressed in military-like attire. He quickly whipped out his English cheat sheet to extend the conversation. My Thai workmates want to have Thai days and English days. My progress continues to be slow, very slow.

view from the train in the Chiang Mai valley

Rentals, Work Ethics and Refugees

Well, I've been in Thailand 2 months this Wednesday. Time seems to be flying along. As have I: I won't be letting on to the program about the amount of driving and pillioning on motorcycles I've been doing.....

On Wednesday a workmate and I hired a car for a morning's school program, and then spent the afternoon touring the mountain-top winter palace of the royal family (it was about the 10th public holiday since I've arrived). Nice gardens, with extraordinarily large insects...... they make them big here.

While I'm on this subject, I've solved the mystery of where those annoying cuckoo birds head to after an Aussie Christmas - I think they reside here for the rest of the year, and boy are they annoying! Almost as bad as the local cicadas on steroids (the rain seems to shut them up). Frogs have now come out in force, and the geckos continue to bellow throughout the night whatever the weather.

I also managed to drive around Chiang Mai a fair bit without having any problems. Having so many motorcyclists darting in and out in all directions requires a lot of extra attention.

I've been going to some evening studies hosted by friends I've made at church, and I've met up with the OMF Serve Asia team at their offices. I'll probably get involved by helping out with kids programs at conferences as I'd anticipated, but also might get involved a few afternoons a week teaching english to Thai children in an urban slum area. All this travelling around town has resulted in a few motorcycle lifts, and I'm now keen to make progress on the scooter (and helmet, and extra insurance) purchase in the next few weeks, so I can get around town easier.

On Saturday I rode a bicycle (am allowed to ride those!) out to the town reservior, where swimming is permitted, but only in full attire. The picnic hut set up there is extensive, very elaborate and scenic.

A perspective on Thai work ethics
Lots of Thais work extremely long, hard hours. On closer inspection though, most of the hardest workers are the Shan state labourers - once-refugees from Myanmar (Burma). They seem to work 6-7 days a week on building sites and live onsite in temporary, crude structures or crowd onto the back of utes to commute. Definitely there is a division of labour and financial status here depending on your ethnicity.
Lots of central Thai's seem to have very menial tasks and basically get paid to watch the clock tick. I'm surprised that many of them aren't more enterprising in finding ways to increase their earnings, but hey, I'm still a tourist and my knowledge about how things work here is pretty limited.

More details about the plight of the Burmese refugees
Some fellow Thailand volunteers are working for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Just as a snapshot, in Thailand there around 140,000 mostly Myanmar (Burma) refugees from a number of ethnic groups who live in nine government-run camps along the border. Myanmar has long been plagued by an oppressive militarised government, internal ethnic insurgencies, and refugee harassment.


The UNHCR has an interesting webpage I'd recommend having a look at:
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/photos?set=thailand

A view of part of Mae La Oon Refugee Camp, home to approximately 14,000 people. The camp, which straddles a river flanked by steep hillsides, is plagued by landslides during the rainy season.© UNHCR/J.Redfern

Rainy Ramblings

Well, the rainy season came early this year. 76 hours of basically continuous rain so far. I was about ready to build a boat in our 5m sq tiled backyard, but it's cleared up now. Temperature is much cooler & pleasant. It should hot up with afternoon storms for the next 6 months. August usually has 22 wet days and 225mm of rain. Really looking forward to that month. Sorry Goulburnites - would love to send some down to you. As yet I haven't been able to find real-time local radar imagery. HNCMA living has made me a meteorological nut. I'll confess to heading to the BOM website occasionally to keep track with how you are faring.

With all this rain I've been trying to find things to do and to get lots of my "to do" things done (though language classes will be next week!).

On (rainy) Friday night I met up with Alison Doughty whose mum attends Toonie Anglican. Alison teaches year 5/6 at Chiang Mai International School - originally established to teach missionary kids about 60 years ago. We went to the same high school, proving the world is small and getting smaller.

I spent (rainy) Sunday afternoon at a local Children's Home about 20km east of town. Cute kids, from 4-9 yrs old. I'd met the teacher, Averil at the ANZAC service. She's from NZ. There's a very good chance I'll help with their gardening and environmental syllabus while I'm over here.

There are some really good opportunities in Chiang Mai for me to seek out volunteer gigs and mission-related travel. I hope to use my time here to gain a lot of these experiences.

I've been reading a book about South East Asia's recent environmental history that leaves me very sad. It was written by an environmental reporter for one of the English newspapers in Bangkok. I'm part way through and up to the armpits in tales of mass species extinctions, government corruption, westerner arrogance and social inequality. I've read about Bangkok pollution, dam building, tourism encroachment in coastal areas and the now-illegal timber trade. Western cultures seem to have imparted technologies without the benefit of hindsight of the problems they can cause. The book is very useful in understanding what is happening up here, but leaves me feeling sad and unsettled.

Doi Inthanon weekend

Last weekend I travelled to Doi Inthanon with a work mate and two of her friends. It's Thailand's highest mountain, at 2590m, and is about 100km from Changers.
We hired a red jeep with squeaky brakes and no power steering. I ended up driving up near the top - mostly in 1st gear, despite the good roads.
What an adventure we had. Started with having to pay 400 baht entry - the locals pay 40 baht. There is a fair bit of foreigner discrimination when it comes to paying for some things in Thailand...
Anyway, shook that off and headed to some great waterfalls, before heading to the summit, which in itself is a bit of anticlimax, requiring a 20m walk from the carpark. My workmate loves bird watching, so most of the weekend involved the use of binoculars, and for me, a camera.
I particularly liked the unique cloud forest, sphagnam moss and alpine savannah vegetation types near the top. We had fresh rainbow trout for dinner and stayed overnight in a very cute bamboo/palm leaf 3mby3m cabin on the edge of a Karen hilltribe village, surrounded by rice fields (currently empty). You just don't get that kind of experience anywhere in Australia.....

karen hill tribers gardening at a tourist stop off; The roof of Thailand