Day 1

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Day one in Thailand was spent wandering the streets of Chiang Rai in the rain (literally has been raining buckets since our arrival) for hours. We had drifted aimlessly, finding we had been walking in complete circles until we resorted to cabbing home. Unfortunately, this language barrier is causing major confusion. After lunch at the Hostel we took a cab out of the city to go to the Rong Khun Temple, which is supposedly the most extravagant buddhist temple in Chiang Rai. We were NOT dissapointed, the temple was fantastic. They requested we wear white wraps over our shorts out of respect. When we entered the temple (with our bare feet) there was some confusion as to whether the monk was actually a human or a very realistic statue. He sat still, in complete silence, without blinking, legs folded over, staring. Kirstie (Scottish Roomie), Alyssa and I, tried our very hardest to kneel and meditate along with him, but continued snikering and shooting eachother confused glances as to what it was we were supposed to be doing. Thai families entered the room and surrounded us in deep prayer, unable to pray to the large gold buddah statue we left. We then got stranded at the temple, there were no cabs that went that far out of the city, again with the language barrier we had no idea how we were going to get back. Luckily we met a man who had lived in Portland, Oregon previously, and spoke both English and Thai. We got back to our Hostel followed it up with a very lush dinner, for a very affordable price. It consisted of fruit served in a pineapple, coconut, mango milkshakes, and very delicious thai cuisine. We then went to this intense night market, which was full of vendors, authentic thai performances, thai food, and MORE rain.

We have one more day to ourselves before we head up to the Hill Tribe Village, where our real work begins!
We have been informed that this weekend will be spent exploring the jungles, with our assigned host families.
Consistently stoked,
-Brooke & Alyssa

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