Tiana in ASIA!

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Ni Hao, Sawasdee ka, Saludos, and Alooohhhhaaa!

Just a quick update for those who may not know... I'm in Asia! Right now I am doing a Wildlands Conservation and Ecology Study program thorugh UC Santa Barbara through Northern Thailand, Southern China, and Tibet. In June I'll be traveling around Southeast Asia and from July until December I will be studying at East Cultural Normal University and Fudan University in Shang Hai...

and now the update!

After more than a month of traveling, here I am in Lijiang, China utilizing fromk borken chinese to buy extra warm clothes, chocoloate, and liquor in preparation from our 18 day trek in TIBET!
To say the least, I am having the best time of my life (and getting college credit for it! Of course I'm learning at the same time!)

April 1st:
1:30 am, Mumbai airport, India, a sign with our name KAMEN held up-side-down disguised in the sea of chaos, and the greatest surprise of it all... Zachary Kamen, greeting us among the homogeneous croud of local people, in his purple Aladdin poofy pants, a huge hippie beard, lei'ing us with gigantic carnation leis (made for temple blessings!) Beyond the delerium of 3 days of traveling, I knew I was in for a wild 9 months!

As usual, every trip with my family is wild and crazy, but traveling thorugh India with my family may be described as out of this world! Like entering the 7th dimension into a steaming sauna (over 100 F) melting together colorful saris, tantilizing foods and spices, grotesque smells, endless desert, poverty, chaos, and of course... cows!

Being with our first nanny Jeanette (originally from Denmark and now living in Mumbai for 15 years with her wonderful family) was definetly the highlight of our trip to India. Although I didn't want to be with out my most amazing family, I left India 10 days later and arrived in Chiangmai ready to start my 9 month adventure on my own.

The day the wildlands group met (15 students mostly from the west coast) was the 1st day of Songkran - The Thai New Year - Sawadee pi mai kha - Happy New Year! With all of our backpacks and students stuffed in the back of a Songtao (a truck with horizontal benches in the bed) from the airport, buckets of water from people lining the streets washed away our sweat from the heat and blessed/soaked us into the new year! I love Thailand!

Watching the parade later that day of dancers and golden buddahs passing by on trucks blasting traditional music followed by an entire day long waterfight where everyone participated from the young to the old and even including the foreigners- waterguns, buckets, ice water, bars blasting music while transvestites strutted down their imaginary walkways and more water pouring from all directions "blessing everyone." During all the chaos and fun I was pushed into the brown stenching canal about 7 times while I was restocking on water! It was so much fun until I choked on a huge gulp of gnarly water and got sick for a few days... but soooo worth it!
For a moment during the festivities the clouds finally cleared, the sun shone upon us, and we were all blessed with a light sprinkling rain - I felt so rejuvinated and ready for the new year - truley one of the best days of my life!

After a week in Chiangmai, classes in the morning and chilling nightly at the local bars with live reggae music on reggae row, buckets ( litterally a bucket of coke and rum with 10 straws to share) we were finally off to our first trek into the hill tribes of Bang ma pa, Northern Thailand.

Over 4 days we treked about 27 miles, 7 hours daily over mountains and through the valleys, and stayed in the homes in 3 different hill tribes. Since the husband of our Thai teacher is a social worker for the hill tribe people, our wildlands groups are the only white people they have ever seen in their lives! ( wildlands have visited only 1 or 2 times before!)

Each village was quite distinct in language... I can know say hello, bye, thank you, shower, eat, sleep and toilet in thai, lahu, shantai, and lua). On the contrary, the villages shared many similarities as they all had bamboo houses with daylight creeping through the cracks, wood fire "stoves" in their main rooms making it very difficult to breath and see through the smokey houses, basic foods (mostly rice, pumpkin, fishies, fruit, and more rice), outhouses with a hole in the ground and buckets of water for showering, and strangely, although these people lived a very simple lifestyle, the TV was on everynihgt at each home I stayed in! I watched the most TV I had seen in years in these villages!

My favorite and the craziest village was the Lahu (Yahoo!). Once we arrived we all sat on the bamboo floor of the headman's house that was on stilts. THe craziness is difficult to describe... as the headman welcomed us to the village (translated by our teacher - we were the 2nd white people they have seen)... the grandma - with one tooth smooked us out as she burned a fire for the teakettle which she proceeded to drink boiling water strait out of the spout, while the man next to me with 4 teeth and the look of rotting meat in his mouth from chewing beatlenut, lifted up the bamboo slotted floor to spit his bright red goopy saliva on the screaming kids below us to quite them down! great parenting tactic! We couldn't help but crack up and he thought it was quite halarious too! Beer was served with everymeal (breakfast too) nice and warm... amazing to realize how privilideged we are to have ice! The dogs were feroucious! I realized why once I had to doge a huge broom being thrown from a house as we walked with our host mom (rotting tabacco teeth!) to her stilted house on the edge of the village.
The kids were also extreemely aggressive screaming and jumping and kicking us which I understood why after I recognized their POwer ranger moves! Ontop of many bamboo roofs rested an unstable sattelite dish and the glow of the tv was the only sounds echoling thorugh thte village through the night that honed out the crazy chikens and pigs. After the village performed their traditional dances and songs for them we entertained them with a round of row row row your boat, did the electric slide, and the chiken dance! QUite a hit! THe villageers did the chicken dance everywhere all day long until the momemnt we left the town!

After our treck we flew to Kunming, China for quite a culture shock going from these villages of 25 houses to a city of millions! After the frightening experience of riding our bikes thourhg the city (i saw 5 accidents in 1 hour!), visiting the Minority People Theme Park (as wierd as it sounds) , drikjing with many random chinese old man at every restaurent we went to (they love foreigners and they love to party!), and meeting our new good friend "Charlee" who worked at the restaurent near our hostel/hotel - who took us out to karaoke - oh and our course after the 2 day long Communism Celebration Parade, we were ready to get out of the city!

HOurs of bus rides and we were heading our way Northwest. So far I have seen our chickens for dinner be brought in and slaughthered, a fish "killed", gutted, and still flopping around right before it was cooked, squirming eels pouredd into the pot of sizzling oil, and a pig tourched and then gutted while we were eating breakfast in preparation for our dinner! PS: the coagulated blood soup was delicious!

On the way west we stayed at Zixishan (purple stream mountain) and camped at Li ming township with its beautiful landscape of limestone mountians. Wonderful minority people, the LIsu, hosted us and cooked us the most exquisite meals while at night played music and dan ced abouhnt the fire with us. who ever thoughyt they would love learning the MACARENA! The saddest part of being here was listening to the headman tell us they were going to turn the area into a land for ecotourism and relocate a majority of the famers and minority poeple who still havnt been notivfied they will be foreced to particitpate in this new tourism economy.

So now we are in Lijian and oh yeah! It was great to take a shower and sleep on a bed! 2 more days and w are off to Dequin where we will begin out trek. 18 of us, two pony porters for each person, guides, cooks, 18 days, below freezing nights in TIBET!! Quite an adventure awaits!!

I hope to find everyone happy and in great health!
please send me your home addresses and updates on the beauty of your lives!
much love to you and everyone in your famillies!

Love and Aloha,

Tiana

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