Day 9, 10 & 11- Chiang Rai

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After a restful sleep, we woke up to have breakfast with our host family. They prepared rice, pork and vegetables along with some cereal and bananas. Then we made our way over to the community center where we would practice using the 7 tools as a group. We were taken by tractor to the center! Since we arrived in the dark the night before, we hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at the village. In the daylight, it was so beautiful! This particular village was directly on the border of Northern Thailand and Laos. The only thing separating the two countries was a fast-moving river.



We started using our 7 tools for community assessment by splitting up into groups and dividing the questions among the groups. Then we interviewed community health volunteers by asking questions about Thai traditional medicine and Western medicine use. We discovered that the members of this village highly value the use of traditional Thai medicine over Western medicine but aren’t afraid to use modern medicine in times of dire need. After we interviewed the community members, we visited the local school where we were greeted with more beautiful Thai dancing. We even presented one of our own American dances which was the Cotton Eyed Joe! While we may have ended up breaking the stage, we had a lot of fun! Additionally, we visited a chrysanthemum field and a weaving shop. I bought a beautiful handmade blanket which I am very excited about!! For dinner, we had a beautiful feast by the river with a bonfire in the middle. We danced and set off lanterns into the sky. The people of this Thai village were so accommodating and friendly. They also made sure that we had plenty of food and were having a lot of fun!



On Saturday morning, we thanked our host families for their hospitality and left the village for a day full of sight-seeing and slowly traveling back to Chiang Mai. Our first stop was the Royal Gardens. It was extremely beautiful!! We walked around and saw stunning flowers, rode carts down a hill, walked on bamboo stilts, ate some bamboo worms and spent some time in a Thai royal museum. I got a bit of a sunburn on my face and arms but I wasn’t too upset JAfter the gardens, we left for the Choui Fong Tea Plantation. I loved this place!!! It was so fancy and beautiful. There were fields and fields of various kinds of tea plants. I spent close to 1500 bahts on tea and a few other souvenirs while I was there and I have no regrets. I am a huge tea drinker so I HAD to buy as much as I could while I was there. After dinner, we shopped at a market and checked into our hotel.



I was able to sleep very well in the hotel, and I ate a delicious breakfast of eggs and toast with a banana. This day was full of Temple visits! We visited the blue and white temples along with the largest Buddha in the world. It was quite shocking to recognize the large following of the Buddhist religion in Thailand. In my personal life, I am surrounded by mostly Christians so I don’t get a lot of interaction with those who practice a different religion. The large Buddha was the most memorable part of the day! I have never seen a larger statue. For dinner, we ate at a restaurant that reminded me of the melting pot. Basically, we had a pot of broth in the middle of the table, and we ordered chicken, pork and various vegetable to cook in the broth. It was so delicious!! We then left the restaurant to finally make our way back to BCNC! Thankfully, Greg led us in a wonderful devotion to debrief after a long day of Temple visits. It was so emotional to talk about the observations we have all made while in Thailand.

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