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Published: March 23rd 2006
Hello my Furry Fans,
What a painfully dramatic title, eh? Not to worry though, the insurance should cover it and, as you will see in the below it proved for some good comment fillers. Indeed, this blog is a little lacking in terms of my incredible comedic wit and is really just to update those that care. I'm sorry that i have'nt published a blog in so long, but regretably we've been in the sicks/traveling or some other problem that has prevented such a possibility.
We have now finished our time in Thabom and have commenced our traveling. To conclude our time there was truly worthwhile because while it wasn't crazy partying we really saw a deep insight into North Eastern Thai culture. At this poist your probably thinking you've heard it all before, but not exageration we've been lucky. From talking to and obseving other backpackers it has become clear that unless you really truly make the effort in South East Asia the most you can see of the way of life is the fake tours on offer, for which you pay a large amount to go hill tribe/elephannt trekking. Sounds good but then you realise that the villagers are visited daily by groups of farang. They will smile at you but purely because they know its expected and their being paid. Contrast this to our time in Thabom were we were welcomed into the community, invited to meals, relaxed with children and adults alike and saw their way of living day to day all for nothing except allowing them to exhibit their excellent hospitatlity and you see what I mean. Becaue of Thabom we really have been able to experiance the real deal.
What was even nicer about the experiance, though, were the people we met. I never really thought I would live with a group of nuns, but I'd recomend it to anybody. It was literally like having 4 mother figures who cared for us 24/7 as well providing some cool company. Sister Deana, the head of the house, was really professional when in came to the school as well as really caring (for all not just us) while the other three Sisters (Sister Mercedes, Kat and Marina) all had their nice traits (for example the touching closeness between the Sister Kat and Mercedes, who often could be seen waliking around gigling to themselves).
Indeed it would be a crime not to mention one of the priests who befriended us. Fr Prasong (who we called Fr Hat owing to his habit of wearing some hat attire whether in mass or not) litterally would appear on a saturday morning or a weekday afternoon and propose (well you couldn't really turn it down as he had already arranged everything) an adventure, ranging from a trek into the hills followed by a meal in one of the hill huts to going up to the Mekong River (which marks the border between Laos and that part of Thailand) for a quite beer and a chat about Narnia and Harry Potter. He has also introduced us to meditation, which works a treat when trying to get to sleep at night.
After staying in Thabom we have visited Khon Khen the principle North eastern city to collect our Loation visas, before heading up to Chaing Mai, the place you go if your a backpacker after Bangkok. Chaing Mai was really wierd and not that great after visiting Thabom. When in Thabom we saw a westerner ('Farang!' as we were called) every couple of weeks and whom were all in their forties and had a Thai wife in tow. In Chaing Mai they litterally outnumber the Thais, unless you walk for five minutes out of the backpacker enclave, and all is centered on catering to Western tastes. You'd think this was quite cool as everybody would have one big party but bizarely enough this was not the case (I know, Jackson, just wierd). Because there are so many the whole backpacker fratenity thing is'nt as strong as you'd think. Furhter more there are loads of reseturants with menus in English, which is fine for your first meal, but after that it becomes quite sickening. This is because firstly, its ridiculously hard to find the Thai style resturants (thus stopping a huge amount of the cultural experiance) and secondly the prices are three or four times as much!
We stayed for quite some time in Chaing Mai and so were able to see quite a bit and settle in. We visited some temples (or Wats) and walked around the markets (those that were for the Westerners and those that were for the Thais, you can guess which was the cheaper) as well as visting a Thai art gallery (for those of you who are intrested it was kind of like a cross between the Tate Modern and the Sunley Centre, some ok art, but some was a little undeveloped)
Regretably, I left my bag in a bar by accident one evening and though the bag was still there the following morning, my camera was not. This is a shocker of course, but when looking at the big picture I can claim back on insurance and I had already backed up my photos. What was great was that it prompted me to visist the British Consulate (for advice) and I was able to step back onto a little bit of England for half an hour. I must complain that as a tax payer I was dissappointed at not being able to see the resident British Diplomat. I was paricularly pleased to have met 'Yo' the security guard who commiserated my loss and advised me to visit the police station. For those of you who are wondering, yes, I did announce that I was a British citizen and then promptly demanded to see the Consular General.
My visit to the Thai police station was also a little bizzare as, on discovering I spoke English I was attended to by a female officer (who spoke the lingo), Jack a member of the volunteer corps and the tourist policeman, who took my details. What you may well ask is the voluteer corps? Well from talking to Jack, a civilian at home in France, one comes out and talks to tourist while being aloud to wear a hard core uniform and gets to play police man. The female officer, if your interested, thought I was very beautiful (in a manly, none-ladyboy fashion). Who knows how the claims handler at the insurance agency will understand the report, but there we are.
After Chaing Mai and reporting my loss to a various forms of the Thai police, we went Noth to the border, sped across the river and settled down for the night. Regretably, we were grounded for the day as Liz was sick all day and indeed I felt pretty bad. However we soon recoverd and promptly went down the river on a two day boat journey to were we are now.
We've met some pretty nice backpackers including a couple who have recently graduated from Oxford, Larance and Amy, as well as a couple of Aussies, Mick and Jess. Jess works for lonely planet in a way and accordingly has the new unpublished version of Liz' guide to South East Asia. We pretty much travelling with Larry and Amy at the mo.
Oh, and well done to all of you for adding a comment. (if you could occassionally log into my blog even if not to read, I would be very grateful, as I really need to beat Dylan and get more readers).
All my Love,
Christian (also known as Macca, from time to time)
P.s I hope that you and yours are in the best of health and that life is going just swimingly!
Pps Sorry about the pretentious comment about the art gallery
Pps Dylan was offered weed by a Buhdist monk. Yep, the man who is littereally worshipped by the populous of Pak Bang as a demi-god, is also a shady drug dealer!
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Paddy
non-member comment
Hey Macca. Sounds like your still having fun in out there. I, however, am still working on the farm, getting up at 6:30 every morning and all that. No social life whatso ever but got my first day off in three weeks last week when i got ill and decided to stay in bed, much to my brothers annoyance. hes not very sympathetic. However, I am going to an Ampleforth old boys dinner next weekend and Gandi might be going which would be cool. Also, the ampleforth choir is coming to my house the day before or after. the are doing a tour over here and my mum rashly offered to cook a meal for the lot of them. then she roped me in to work as an usher at one of the concerts. lucky me! ANyway, had best be off as you should have loads of comments to read by now. All the best Paddy P.S. Please say thank you very much to Lizzie for sending me that picture of myself and ryan. I hear it arrived at my house some months ago but it only made its way to me the other day. cheers lad.