Cloud 9

“The cool thing about being famous is travelling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.” – Britney Spears

Last weekend I went up to Chiang Rai, which is the one of the northernmost provinces in Thailand. Two of my good friends from ASP, Meg and Kyle, are teaching there with the same program I’m in. With a three day weekend begging for fun, conditions were perfect.

I left Thursday after work to head to the bus station. Normally the ride is about a half hour. But with the traffic being bad because of the protests, I figured I’d give it a two and half hour buffer. After sitting in the cab for an hour and half I started to get a little nervous. I pulled up google maps and decided to give it ten more minutes. We went about half a kilo and still had six to go. I hopped out of the cab and flagged a motorbike. Ten minutes later I was there. This is happening way too often.

The 11-hour bus ride was fairly uneventful and I slept through most of the ride. During the last three hours of the drive, the topography changed dynamically. Empty plains were replaced with rolling mountains and countless rice patties. Pretty cool stuff. I got in around 9 AM and headed out with Meg and Kyle to see the sights.

We started off with a local Chiang Rai specialty- coffee. The beans are harvested in the nearby mountains so the coffee is fantastic. I think I’d be guzzling six cups a day if I lived there.

Later that afternoon we stopped by their school. I am always surprised just how different the school and living situation is for all the teachers here. They live on the campus of the school, which is fairly isolated in a small neighborhood. We biked around the area and it’s absolutely beautiful. While the area around me is pretty green, Chiang Rai is just bursting with nature. Meg and Kyle admitted that their school can sometimes be a bubble since it’s about 15 minutes away from town. But for a guy who lives on a highway, it was a great change of pace.

For dinner, we ate near the clock tower in the center of town. The clock tower lights up every night and blasts an anthem about Chiang Rai. People flocked to the intersection to watch and take pictures.

We headed to our hotel in the city and called it an early night around 10:30 PM. Our alarms blared at 3:15 AM and we stumbled bleary-eyed into a minibus for our first stop of the day.

After assembling with a few other teachers in town, we headed to the mountain of Pu Chi Fa. This is one of the highest mountains in Thailand and is famous for its sunrise that peaks over the clouds. The drive was about two hours long before we arrived near the summit. The area was already filled with people making the climb. We picked our spot after a short trek to the top. It was awesome. Check the pix.

If you look near the bottom left, you can see Frodo.

Trademark of Kyle Ducharme photography, 2014.

We wandered around the mountain for a little while before making our way back to the minibus. Easily the most productive morning I’ve had in Thailand. But as Gandhi once said, “You can sleep when you’re dead.” Coffee powered us up and we headed to our next destination- Wat Rung Khun, or “The White Temple.” This temple was unlike anything I’ve seen in Thailand. It mixes contemporary art with traditional Buddhist images. With Thais being fairly conservative, this is very unusual.

Just the guy from Predator, trapped in the ground.

This is actually bathroom. What?

I couldn’t take a photo of it but there was one painting of George Bush and Osama Bin Laden riding a spaceship. The guy has quite a mind.

Exhaustion caught up with us and we caved to a one hour power nap. After that we checked out the Chiang Rai nightlife. In the middle of the town there was a night market with a huge crowd of Thais line dancing in the center. We joined in and had a few nice Thai women teach us the moves. One of the dances was literally just the chicken dance. Have you ever done the chicken dance for three minutes straight? My abs were killing me afterwards.

After a few hours of sleep I plopped on my bus back. 15 hours later, I was home and completely dead. But it was absolutely worth it- it was one of my favorite weekends here so far. Mountains rock. See what I did there? 555.

Mark

P.S. Davis was recently chosen to be an RA next year for the Alpha Zahm Alpha dormitory at Notre Dame. Congrats big guy!