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Published: April 1st 2009
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So here we are again up in far northern Thailand during the Thai summer vacations, for yet another round of English classes for the kids in the Sem Pringpuangkeo Foundation. This is the third such summer vacation cycle that I have come up here to assist the Foundation, which basically looks after the educational needs of children orphaned through AIDS to one or both parents. I do a week’s class in Chiang Mai then next week travel further north, just short of the Laos and Myanmar borders to Chiang Rai for a further week.
Once again, the classes were held in the Dhamma Raj Saksa School, a school specifically designed for training monks, which is attached to the very impressive temple, Wat Phrasingh. Different from last year is that I decided to stay in an apartment instead of a guesthouse, albeit in a similar area to the north west of Chiang Mai, whereas all the touristy areas are in the East near the river. So I was pretty much able to get through the week without seeing any other foreigners, restaurants had no western food, and the shops around the apartment contained no English scripts, so it was easy to
feel part of the Thai community
The classes appear to have concluded with the students feeling they have progressed with their skills in each of reading, spelling and writing. Certainly, I was better prepared this year as I had downloaded a lot of material beforehand from the internet, which made my task easier. The general observations that I made on my blog of this time last year (qv) would appear to have been reinforced at this years class. The class comprised 15 students, of age ranges 14-17, with nicknames respectively: May, Ying, Nok, Gun, Nui, Nook, Film, Palm, Pay, Yam, Zai, Praew, Kae, Mud and Kriang. Of these, poor old Kriang was the lone male! All of them came with a good basic knowledge of English, except ironically, for Mud, for whom it was far from clear, if you’ll pardon the pun!
An interesting sidelight to my visit was an overnight stay at one of the hilltribe villages during the week. I was invited to stay at a Pralong village, several kms out of Chiang Dao, not that far from the Myanmar border. As you can see from the pics, it wasn’t exactly 5 star accommodation (or banquet),
and I was very thankful to a couple of Normison tabs for getting me through the night. It is some years since I have slept on a thin mattress on a hard floor (I was probably pissed the last time it happened!) and even more years since I’ve slept under the protection of a mosquito net.
I had a bit of a scare that evening when the local pastor took me on the back of his motorbike to visit a homeless Burmese kids refuge further up in the mountains. On the way back, on a very windy and potholey road, all of a sudden his headlight just died, and we were left miles from anywhere in the pitch black, where you couldn’t see your hand in front of you, let alone the road. I had visions of the pastor totally converting me over during the next several hours, but fortunately around 5 minutes later another bike came along and we followed him out and back to the highway. See, there is a God after all!
My weekend activities, sandwiched between my stints in Chiangs Mai and Rai, didn’t produce quite the same excitement as my equivalent weekend last
year in Luang Prabang (Laos) and my trip back to Thailand down the Mekong, but this year financial constraints kept me closer to base. I satisfied myself with a day long, organised ‘adventure’ trip out of Chiang Mai. This comprised a session each of white-water rafting, trekking, elephant riding, bamboo rafting and visit to two different hilltribe villages, so it was a pretty full day. We had a very cosmopolitan group on the tour, which made for some lively conversation, and I particularly aligned myself with a delightful French couple, Antoine and Aurelia, and a very sociable Canadian Mountie, Dean, for a day that ended well after midnight with a viewing of the Brumbies Super 14 game in a British-theme pub.
So now it is off to Chiang Rai for week 2 of my English summer school assignment.
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Jill Fitzhenry
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Neil, Hello lovley! I always look forward to your Travel Blog entries and have never been disappointed at your commentary and accompanying pics which are informative and quirky. Travel safe and I look forward to further adventures - Jill :-)