Daily Life – some details of the trivial.......

THE WEATHER
It’s been about 36-40 degrees & really humid all week. Pretty much dripping with sweat 24/7. Not long till the six month monsoon season, and we had a taste of it last night. When it rains here it pours. Luckily we have good drainage in our street.

THE COMMUTE TO WORK
I travel most places in red Songtaews. These are little red trucks with 2 rows of seats in the back. Songtaews are not metered, and the drivers have no fixed destination. And often not much English. The 5-20 minute trip to work (depending on the traffic and the routes taken for other passengers) generally costs about 75 cents. Songtaews are everywhere, but it sometimes takes around 6 attempts to get one willing to go to the destination. Amusing at times, but I have always arrived where I’d intended.

I’ve mentioned before that it is very rare to see a Thai person walking anywhere. Generally they travel in Chiang Mai by motorcycle, or too often by huge 4WDs. The cost of petrol and electricity here is on par with Australian costs – hugely expensive for the average Thai. I’ve seen plenty of motorcycles with 3-4 people on them –today I saw a girl holding an umbrella, talking on a mobile and negotiating puddles on her motorcycle in a short skirt/high heels get up. Good luck to her.

EATING
The closest I have come to cooking a meal since I’ve been here is adding the boiled water to a pack of 2 minute noodles (which incidentally taste heaps better over here with the Thai spice sachets). It is such a convenience culture – costs a lot more to buy kitchen ingredients from the supermarket than to eat in restaurants. There are vendors and little open air eating areas every 10 paces. I'm hating the excessive packaging and rubbish. There's good recycling though - both times we've put bottles outside they've been collected by salvagers within 2 minutes.

I’ve heard that Thais consume more sugar per capita than any other country and I could easily believe it. Chiang Mai dentists do well. Sometimes I reach for a Pepsi as a low-sugar option, which is a real shocker. Wasn’t happy when I saw the quantity of sugar syrup added to my favourite drink – fresh pineapple ice shake. I found a small western supermarket that does not add sugar to it's bread - so good! Have been drinking about 4 litres of water a day in the heat.

CONFESSION
I headed to my “first in living memory” dawn ANZAC service on Wednesday. Oops for every other year I’ve missed. The service was great, and Chiang Mai is remarkably pleasant at 5:30 in the morning.

WORK THIS WEEK
This week I’ve headed up the mountain every day to run school environmental education modules at the research nursery and to conduct forest walks. It’s been great to spend so much time bush in this placement – so far at least. The 15km of intensely winding road to get there is not so exciting though. Best on an empty stomach.

WORK MATES
I work with a group of education and research ex-students, around my age group. They have fun nicknames (Thai names are really long) such as Dear, Joy and Gai (translation: chicken). My boss is English and has been here for 20 years. It's interesting to hear his views of the changing culture over that time period. 40% of Thailand forests have been cleared in the last 50 years. Not a nice legacy.

I'M JUST THAT KINDA PERSON.....
I made a 5 year old Thai girl cry this week. Just be being a farang. She was squealing loudly and her mother sent her off in disgrace. My workmate siddled up to me and told me what the problem was. I would have liked to have the opportunity to tell the mum that I'm much scarier to look at first thing in the morning.....