Come With Nothing

Sunrise on the top of a mountain

A monk teaching one of my students

Our storage shed building project

Me and the head of the village at Baan Mai

Karen Woman

I am currently driving back to Chiang Mai from Chiang Rai after dropping off my students at the airport. My Come With Nothing trip is now over and I have to start a new trip. These last 3 weeks have been so much fun. Some of the most memorable weeks of my life. It feels so weird to leave this group that had become so close because of the experiences that we had together. I feel so lucky to have been able to lead these amazing high school students through the beautiful and cultural rich areas of Northern Thailand. We got to experience parts of Thailand that foreigners never get to see. By going to these places, we learned so much about respect for culture and what irresponsible tourism can do to places. All of us leave this trip more aware of our actions as we travel around the world. We have also learned so much from each other as we all come from different places and very different backgrounds.

So, we started off the trip with some great times. The second night of our trip happened to be the 4th of July, so we had a big party at our house in Chiang Mai which included lots of big fireworks. Obviously, this did not go over so well with the neighbors and the party ended early when the police showed up. What a great start to the trip though. We also started off the trip with establishing leaders of the day and assigning leader of the day duties. They were to change everyday and leaders of the day were responsible for coming up with thoughts of the day, which would be discussed every night over dinner. This turned out to be one of the best parts of our trips. The students were excited to get into really deep cultural issues and the discussions always lasted well past dinner. Our minds were definitely stretched by the discussions we had and these thoughts caused us to really keep our eyes open and observe what was going on around us where ever we happened to be.

After this, we headed to our first village about an hour south of Chiang Mai. It is a Karen village called Baan Mai outside of the town of Hot. This is a special village to us because our local staff on the trip was from this village. Having him back in his home village allowed us privileges that we could not experience elsewhere. To get to this village, we had to hire 3 4Wheel Drive trucks to get us up the 45 minute long dirt road to the village. This drive is spectacular. It goes up a very narrow canyon with huge mountains and cliffs all around. It has a mountain that looks like half of it just fell off, so there are amazing cliffs all the way up. It reminds me of Half Dome in Yosemite, and I even call this place the Yosemite Valley of Thailand. Several mornings in this village, we did sunrise mountain climbs to take in the amazing scenery of this place. Standing on top of these mountains, watching the sunrise and looking down at the valley floor covered in rice patties such an amazing way to start the day. The people in this village are equally as beautiful as the nature that surrounds them,. Through my time in Thailand this year, I have spent a lot of time with Karen people and really grown to love them. They are friendly, peaceful, easy going and fun. I cherish any opportunities I have to spend time in Karen villages. At this village, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my house parents and other villagers talking and eating great food. These nights, sitting around the cooking fire in the kitchen are some of my best memories of the whole trip. As for the project at this village, we continued working on a storage building that had been started by the previous group. The village need a community storage building to store stuff that the government gives them that they don’t need all the time. They also need it to store corn and rice after the harvest. When we got there, the posts and roof were already up, so we had to pour a concrete floor and building walls out of concrete blocks. We had to do all of this in 3 days and not spend more than $250. The project went well, and we had some great times working with the locals on this project. Many of the men of the village helped out with the work and it was an interesting time trying to get them and the students to work together. It all turned out fine though and we finished what we set out to. It was really interesting to learn about building practices in the hill tribes for me. Everything is so simple. We needed stones and sand to mix with the cement, so we headed down to the river to gather it. We needed a frame in the floor to make the concrete stronger, so we chopped down some bamboo, cut it up and wove it together into a strong grid frame. I wish that construction could be so simple back in the US. No building codes to worry about here. Another great aspect of this village was our time with the local monk. This village happened to be Buddhist and the monk that resides at the local temple is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. We spent a lot of time with this monk, learning how to meditate and listening to him teach about how we can change the world into a better place for everyone through learning about ourselves and serving others. He is a very wise man and has a great sense of humor as well. I never saw him without a smile on his face. One day, we got to help him with planting trees on a hillside where all the trees had been cleared. This was a great opportunity for us because when talking to the head of the village, he said if he could have anything in the world, He would want the forests around his village to be replanted. I am so happy that we were able to help him accomplish his dream. Each of us planted on tree. The monk and I were also able to have some religious conversations about Christianity and Buddhism. He was very accepting of my religion and so happy that people of different religions could work together to make this world a better place. It is so nice to meet people in this world are willing to work with people who may be different than them. It was so nice to work closely with someone who was very religious but at the same time accepting of people with other religious beliefs. I wish that more people could be this way. We are all working towards the same goal and we can accomplish it so much faster if we all work together. My friendship with this monk was very encouraging for me and I will always remember him and the conversations that we had. Many of the students also became close with this monk. The last night in this village was an especially good time, the villagers threw us a party and had a string ceremony for us. The string ceremony consists of the villages tying white string on our wrist and send blessings of good luck into the string. The strings must then not be removed until they fall off. They will offer protection and good luck for as long as they are on your wrist. We also had a bonfire and lots of tradition singing and music. It was such a great way to end our time in the first village.

After the first village, we had a great break time. Right after leaving the village, we drove to a grove of pine trees at the top of a mountain and had a picnic in the cool air. The environment there reminded us all of America and we had such a relaxing picnic and nap there. It was just what we all need after a week in the village. We also brought out the speakers and iPods for this after not having them in the village. This made it so much better. That night we spent the night at the orphanage and had a great discussion about the situation in Burma. This was great after having just spent time in a Karen village and then learning about how bad the Karen people are being treated just across the border in Burma. The next day, we drove to Mae Hong Son and rode elephants. We stayed in a guesthouse here and prepared to go to our next village. Most groups go see the Karen longneck village here as well. These are the people that stretch out their necks by putting brass rings on. We decided as a group not to go through. This village is extremely touristy and I would compare it more to a zoo for human beings. Not really the kind of place I want to be supporting by paying lots of money to o there. It is such a tourist trap and a great example of how tourism can ruin a place and its culture. It makes me sad every time I have to go there. Before going into our second village, we also spent an evening in Pai shopping and eating western food. Pai is the hippie town of northern Thailand. It is filled with foreigners and has a huge hippie vibe to it. It is like putting a Colorado mountain town right in the middle of Thailand. It is a great place and the students love going here. It is a beautiful place and a relaxing town to spend an evening in.

To be continued…………

written by  jasonreevesmiller on July 27, 2008 from Chiang Mai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Thailand Summer 2008
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