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Published: July 15th 2015
Wednesday 7/8/15:
Slept great last night and woke up with a lot of energy. Apparently the clouds did as well. During breakfast it ended up absolutely pouring down rain. Due to the weather, we were not going to the pre-school for the morning session. Kate said that Thais don't like the rain. I interpreted this as, they don't like to drive in the rain. So, as an alternative we loaded up into the back of Aum's pick up truck, rain coat on and drove to the White Cup Coffee shop. This was quite a treat! We settled in on the patio and I ordered an espresso and chocolate mouse cake. I'm definitely a girl that can't resist cake! As we ate and chatted we enjoyed the laid back atmosphere. I wrote in blog, some read, some chatted...it was a fun little trip. Kate told me that the place across the street, called Mr. Cake Shop, had better cake. With a name like that I would hope so! So even though I had 1/2 a piece of cake left, I scurried across the road (highway in this part of the country) and took a look see. Of course I was going to get something. They had a cake I had never seen before. It was a thinly layered rainbow cake. The top started with red and the last layer was purple. From what I could tell, in between was icing. Sold! Kate picked up a cake as well, we got them to go and ran back across the road. Once we pulled everything out, I realized I ended up with a little container of strawberry sauce. Nice! I ordered another espresso, because it goes so well with cake, and dug in. Although the cake was fun looking the taste was just ok. Turns out the layers were gel like and after awhile even the sweetness of this cake was too much for me. However, the strawberry sauce was amazing with chocolate mouse cake so I went ahead and finished off that one! Perfectly full and on a sugar high, we piled back into the pick up truck. For the return trip it wasn't raining and it was quite fun!
Once back, we took a short break and then headed out to lunch at the local little noodle shop. I wasn't actually hungry but knew I would be coming down from this sugar high soon and would need some solid food in me. The noodle shop is really a kitchen in the front drive way at this ladies house. She and her mother work it. You have 3 noodle type choices, 2 broth choices and 2 meat choices. And it's amzing food! I got the pork in red broth with skinny noodles this time. It was good but I decided I liked the clear broth better.
From here we road our bikes on to the afternoon school. This is the school by the temple and giant buddha. When we arrived we were greeted by the children and a few that I had taught on Monday came out to say hi! We talked to the teacher and she took us jnto the library building so that we could work with one group of students. This school is the poorest school we work with. The library was so sad. One small wall of books. One table and one white board. The rest of the room is used for storage. This is definitely not like our libraries at home. These are the small moments that remind me how fortunate we are. The main library in Fort Lauderdale takes up an entire city block and is several stories tall. It has art exhibits and resources galore. We have so many things to help us succeed. These children might never go past 9th grade. They don't see the value in education or need help on their farms. And in our class today of 6 students, there are 2 girls so smart and so eager to learn. Watching them as we taught was incredible. They would pause and think. They were trying to sound out the words. They actively wrote down examples. They wanted to answer every question. Think of their success if they were in the US or another country like Australia. We. Class ended I took the time to tell them both how smart they are and to keep working hard and to study and practice and stay in school. Our teaching schedule is sporadic and all I can do is hope these 2 can make their way to University here in Chiang Mai.
After class ends, we decide to take the long way home a bike a little around the village again. These bike rides are so great! Through the rice paddies we go and past all the little farms. Riding my bike here is one of my great pleasures. Bad for us on this trip though...we ended up caught in another rain storm. And when it comes down here its no joke! I got under and tree and through on rain coat but the rest of me ended up soaked!
Back at the camp we had a lot of time to kill. So we decided to lay out bamboo mats and workout. The rain was pouring down on the metal roof and it seemed like the perfect chance to do some yoga. We ended up doing an intro type of yoga via wifi and YouTube. Amber had never done it before and it has been forever since I have. It felt so good!!! Then we moved on to some isolation workouts and did a 4 min squat challenge followed by a 4 min bridge challenge. After all this we were sufficiently worn out.
I showered up and then enjoyed some ti.e sitting and listening to the rain while I read and wrote. It was the perfect way to roll I to dinner. After dinner was more reading and then to bed early I went! All in all a pretty fun day considering all the rain!
*please see my instagram account for photos... Her Sole Abroad.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Can you provide a link to your Instagram account....
I would love to see your pictures but don't know how to do so. I'm enjoying reading about your time in Chiang Mai. I lived there in 1974-75 when I was building the road to the top of Doi Inthanon and the radar station. I hope you have time to go there...the highest mountain in Thailand and you can drive to the top!