merry christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, and blessings for 2008. I hope you have the opportunity to spend the day with family and friends.Here's a Thai decoration, made by HIV-AIDs sufferers at some friends' handicrafts store:








celebrating with the short term mission team,
in the traditional sala of friends Lee & Lyn

The leadup to Christmas

Yep, the leadup to Christmas has been quite strange this year.

I'm sure out in the rural areas of Thailand it would be very easy to miss.

However I am living in the 2nd largest city, with a huge western expat population and a similar-sized tourism market, so this has not been the case. Most larger shops have decorations, the american children christmas singalong soundtracks (arrhhhh!!) and in the big chains such as Tescos, all the servers wear santa hats. All the Thai kids here seem to know about Santa and presents.

I've been to a few christian christmas celebrations over here though, which have been fantastic. A 200+ person interactive nativity re-enactment was great: as too, some Christmas interactions I've had with students in the urban slum I've been teaching in. The Sunday School pageant was darling and we are going carolling tonight.

The biggest event to have happened in the last week has the arrival of some friends from Sydney, who are leading a short term mission group from Chatswood Baptist church, to visit their supported missionaries, to help run Christmas activities, and to understand Thailand culture better. The photos below are from Friday, when we organised a tour to cover all of the important local tourist activities:

bathtime in the river at an elephant centre

my first bamboo rafting experience =sedate; on the Mae Taeng

my weekender out in the bush (do they sell floorplans?) and oxcart riding

New and old friends from Chatswood Baptist Church, and local friend Emily and her mum from the U.S.A. both in pink

Christmas for me will involve taking the day off, midnight and morning services at the church, lunch with some lovely new friends from Australia, and running a special Christmas broadcast on the local Thai radio in the evening.

Let's compare election leadups

If you are still feeling a bit sore about the annoyance of Australian election campaigns, this comparison with Thailand's may help give a bit of perspective.....

There were Chiang Mai mayoral elections a few months back, with the numbers of the candidates on posters, COVERING the city.
Thailand is having parliamentary elections on the 23rd of December (finally they are moving on from military rule since the coup).
- There are more than 17 candidates. Our mailbox overflows each day with advertising material.
- You can't travel very far without being deafened by a ute with massive speakers, cruising around town blasting out campaign promises.
- Everyone must return to their home town to vote - kind of like the first Christmas census!
- Corruption is rampant. The ethnic minority community that we work with has been bought off by a candidate. Apparently if anyone in the community does not vote for that candidate, they lose all of the money (what happened to a secret ballot?!?).
- And possibly the most interesting: no alcohol can be sold during the weekend of the election, or for the weekend BEFORE the election.

They are a pretty tolerant bunch over here!
Here is an interesting report about the elections: http://au.news.yahoo.com/071218/19/15au2.html

I can now report that there are at least 23 candidates for prime minister, and during the last election there were heavy floods, so some votes from remote villages were transported on elephants through the flooded waters to be counted :)

Motorcycling to Mae Hong Son

I've earned my motorcycling stripes this week! I travelled over the mountains in north west Thailand with a group of friends to visit a buddy who lives in beautiful Mae Hong Son and works in refugee camps on the border.

The road to Mae Hong Son has some notoriety - more than 1600 bends. It's a very challenging ride, but much pleasanter and scenic on a motorbike cutting the bends than trying to keep breakfast down, on a bus. I spent a lot of time chugging up hills in 2nd gear, but can't report on the downhill sections because the speedo wasn't working ;o)

Took this pic on the way back; buddy Zach kept me company on the road

Our first overnight stay was in Pai, a backpacking paradise. Unfortunately the Constitution long weekend attracted lots of Thai travellers as well (mega amounts of Bangkok yuppies with big cameras and gray minivans), so after 2 hours of fruitless accomodation searching, we "resorted" to an out of town resort and shared a 6 bed dorm. Major school days flashback.

Friends Leonie, Dave, Zach, Quynh and Ian, at Pai

On the way to Mae Hong Son we stopped in at Tham Lot - one of the longest known caves in caves in mainland Southeast Asia (2km). Hordes of tourists were there and all of the bamboo rafts were booked up, so feeling adventurous we headed in with an inadequate torch, and paid an enterprising local lad to show us around. The caverns were massive, and so active, with huge stalactites all over the ceilings. This area probably contains more caves than any other region in the world.

Tham Lot entrance - found the mud in the dark, no worries

After some wonderfully windy mountain & forest roads we arrived in Mae Hong Son near the Burmese border - the nicest town in the country, by my reckoning. The population is predominantly Shan (Shan state is adjacent in Burma), but as with the surrounding region, there is a huge diversity of ethnic minority (hilltribe) groups, with lots of traditional dress worn on the streets, adding to the interest factor.

Mae Hong Son lake in the afternoon and alfresco eating at night

We spent a rest day in Mae Hong Son, enjoying a massage, having a soak at the local hot springs, visiting the lookout at the nearby temple and spending time at a residential school for young Burmese students.

View of Mae Hong Son town from Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu in the late afternoon and early morning (enforced exercise=excellent)

The Wat stupas pre-dawn; unwinding at the local hot springs

We also drove west in search of nice rice paddy vistas, and ended up a km or 2 from the (occasionally dangerous) border zone.

Typical rice paddy view; crisp winter mornings and beautiful deciduous views

The 6 hour trip back to Chiang Mai was long, and my muscles aren't behaving very well today, but I'm champing at the bit to "hit the road" again for some more country riding - the northern mountains are on the wish list, maybe in January.