It's Me Again/France/Lisbon

Back from the deeeaaaad! Did you miss me? Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but life has been busy. When I talked to you last, I was staying in Switzerland with Louise, Clemence, and Pascale. I had dinner with them, and they took me to les Bains de Gruyere (a cool swimming pool) and the European women's volleyball championship (Neuchatel, their team, won). After visiting them, I went to Chamonix and stayed with the Silitch's, some family friends. This was pretty mellow; I just babysat their kids, Birken and Anders, for a few days, and helped out with Birken's birthday party. After this, it was off to Val d'Isere! The three weeks there were really fun - my skiing improved a lot, and I got to meet my dad's old hockey pals (he was the hockey coach there in the late 70's/early 80's). I discovered that European ski areas are way better, or at least more diverse than North American ones. Val d'Isere has miles and miles of piste, even connecting to another resort, and exploring the mountains was half of the fun. I also got to watch snow polo, which is as entertaining as it sounds, and enjoyed lots of fine dinners (oxtail, anyone?) and French conversation. The only low point was having to briefly fly back to the states to see my grandma, who has a brain tumor; however, this ended up being a fun little trip, and a good chance to see the family. After Val d'Isere, on the 30th, I flew out to Lisbon, to wait for word from some Spanish organic farms I had applied to WWOOF (work in exchange for room and board) on. I still haven't heard from them, but going to Lisbon was a great decision; I landed at the Lisbon Chillout Hostel, which is the nicest place I've stayed so far. There was a really fun crowd there at the beginning of the week, including another guitarist, and we got to enjoy a fun mix of seeing the town during the day and partying at night. I got back in touch with some Portuguese friends I met in Thailand, and, after some footwork, managed to meet up with them for coffee. I also got invited on a surfing trip by two of the Austrian girls who work at the hostel, Mira and Sonja. We went to Peniche, an amazing surf place, with three other Austrians, and stayed a night. The waves were a bit big for me, but I managed to have a good time anyway, and gave the Austrians some basic surf lessons. Yesterday, I took the train to Sintra, an amazingly scenic little town a ways outside of Lisbon, and walked around, seeing a cool, overgrown old Moorish castle and a former Portuguese royal palace. This second one was notable for it's amazing opulence, and the sheer number of colors in the facade; if you want to see a truly gaudy place, google Pena Palace. These two ruins were situated close to one another, in a pleasant park that smelled like home. After seeing Pena Palace, I spent a very long time wandering through the park, and found myself walking the three kilometers into town in the dark, through a spooky woods. It was a bit creepy, but the ambience was actually kind of nice, and I had a great jog for the last two kilometres. It wasn't the last jog I had that day either; when I got back to Lisbon, the Austrians invited me out to Bairro Alto, the party district, and I ended up making a four a.m. jog back to the hostel. My legs felt surprisingly ok this morning. Today, I've been trying to figure out where to go next. I don't have anything figured out yet, but I've got plenty of time...LYA

Greece 1

I'm sorry Oliver. I know it's been a long time, but aren't I allowed to have a vacation? There's no need for the belligerent whining or threatening messages or disturbing videos you've beens sending me. But if the only way to make you stop is to start writing again, I guess I will. First of all, I'm not in South-East Asia anymore, a fact which I think deserves some recognition. So here is my list of things I will and will not miss about SEA.
Things I will miss:

• Rice
• Cheap food
• Cheap everything else
• Friendly people
• Warmth
• Crazy backpackers
• Elephants
• Paul and Nikko
• The Sawatdipongs
• Joe and co.
• Songtaews
• Mopeds
• Stir fry
• Curry
• Interesting roofs
• Hilarious English
• People waving frantically from the wrist with both hands
• Gratuitous fireworks
• Bad Asian TV
• Roti
• Interesting birds
• The odd monkey
• ...and much more

Things I won't miss:

• Rice
• Smog
• Humidity
• Litter
• Hawkers
• Staggering poverty
• Being looked at like a human ATM
• The gap between rich and poor
• Novelty t-shirts
• Bad Asian pop music
• Australians in Bintang tank tops 
• Overcrowding

As you can see, and as I've often written, Thailand and Bali were something of a mixed bag for me - valuable and fun, but also tiring and difficult. So it was with some relief that I boarded the plane to Athens and the developed world. The journey over was great - I had three dinners, got to stretch out in my empty row of seats, and watched "2001" at 4 am and 20,000 feet. I arrived in Athens early in the morning of a crisp, clear day, greeted by views of rocky, scrubby hills and a landscape uncrowded by hawkers - more boring, perhaps, but a lot easier. Up until this point, I've either been met by friends or made my own arrangements to get to a cheap, basic room. This time, my mom had planned everything, so the travel agency picked me up and shuttled me to my five-star hotel, where I relaxed with room service and a steam sauna before watching atrocious Greek television on a flat-screen TV while reclining in my large, comfortable bed. I love parents with disposable income. The nice room was especially convenient for me to get over whatever lingering, beer-and-nasi campur-induced illness I'd been suffering from, and I didn't really do anything for the first two days, apart from taking one short walk and playing a lot of iPod solitaire. Mom was supposed to show up around 2 pm on the 19th, but, unfortunately, her flight came through Charles de Gaulle, so she actually ended up arriving at 3 am, waking me up. We got a bit more sleep, then woke up at seven to get on our bus tour of Greece. I had been snobbishly dreading the tour, but it actually ended up being pleasant and relaxing. We saw several of the major archaeological sites in Greece: the ampitheatre at Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, Thermopylae (that's where 300 happened), and the mountaintop monasteries of Meteora. The people on the tour were pleasant, the ruins, apart from being spectacular monuments to both the ambition and transience of human endeavor, were cool and uncrowded, the landscape was the most beautiful I'd seen on the trip, and not having to think was great. The only bad part was returning to Athens; because of transport strikes, a drive that should have taken twenty minutes took three hours. But even that wasn't too bad, and it made dinner taste a lot better. The next day, we saw the Acropolis, another spectacular monument to both the ambition and transience blah blah, and enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve dinner in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near our hotel. Christmas Day was equally mellow, and on the 26th we flew to Crete, for a six day horse ride. I went in with memories of my epic Icelandic trip fresh in my mind; sadly, the riding wasn't nearly as fun, and everyone else on the ride was above forty. But riding was still an interesting way to experience the island. The terrain alternated between steep, rocky mountains, which my horse, Diamond, had a bit of trouble negotiating, and flatter, populated olive country, where we occasionally got to canter. The villages were duly picturesque and maze-like; riding through them, I always felt like part of a gang in a Western film, as the locals would turn out to stare and everything would go quiet apart from the steady footfalls of our horses. It was a good thing that we were riding all day; the food was delicious, heavy, and endless, with five- or six-course dinners of tzatziki, bread, dakos, stuffed veggies, lamb, and much more every night. There's much more to tell about the ride, but brevity and laziness are going to keep me from writing it; maybe I'll go into more detail in a later blog entry. Basically, it was fun. After the ride, Mom went home and I flew to Milan, in order to catch a train to Switzerland. I had half a day to see a bit of Milan; after finding my hostel, I took the subway downtown, where I reveled in my return to Western culture. I saw the beautiful Duomo cathedral, proof that occasionally religion can be a good thing, along with various other picturesque old buildings and extremely well-dressed Italians. That night, I hung out with a Brazilian and a Korean from the hostel; the next morning, I just managed to catch my train to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a town in north-west Switzerland where I am now, visiting my friends Louise, Clemence, and Pascale and trying to speak only French. Yesterday, I hung out with Louise and some of her friends and understood nothing, then had dinner with Pascale's boyfriend and some family friends, and understood a little. Today, I saw their horse, the town of Neuchatel, and a distant view of the Alps. It's snowy, and I'm happy to be back in the cold. LYA

Bali 3

Hello, dear readers. I'm sorry to have left you hanging for a while, but I just haven't felt like writing. Maybe the rice is starting to get to me. Anyway, after my disappointment in Sanur, I decided to go to the countryside. However, Paul suggested that I first check out some of the breaks on Nusa Lembongan peninsula, so I headed down there with Tankas (the driver) and Paul's son Nikko, an excruciatingly nice 20-year-old from Java. The southern peninsula is a beautiful, (relatively) sparsely populated thicket of low coastal forest, and it would have been a lovely place to stay. Unfortunately, the surf wasn't happening there either, so I headed up to Ubud, an artsy town in the middle of Bali. When I got there, after passing through countless miles of craft shops, it was drizzling. I followed a tout to a surprisingly lovely losmen (homestay), and, after settling in, wandered the streets for a little while. Ubud reminded me in many ways of Port Townsend, or Ashland; it's full of small galleries and nice restaurants, with well-off couples strolling serenely down the streets, looking for furnishings for their loft. The difference is that, this being Bali, everybody is trying a lot harder to sell you stuff. I had planned on visiting a few shops to find Christmas presents, but the overwhelming expectation that greeted me whenever I so much as turned my head towards a storefront was too intimidating, especially since I never like shopping alone (except for books). Instead, I aimlessly walked down the same street several times, had a too-expensive dinner alone, got rained on, and went to bed. The next day I decided to take a walk in the rice fields. The area around Ubud is undeniably beautiful, rice paddies interspersed with small farms and decent-looking houses. There was a very pleasant view from my losmen, and the walk was absolutely gorgeous. I had a nice lunch at a reasonably cheap organic farm and restaurant in the middle of the field, which made me nostalgic for Nash's. Everything was going great, until it started raining again. I was soaked within minutes, and didn't especially care, except that I also couldn't figure out where the trail went next. I ended up wandering through a residential neighborhood in a steep creek valley, making some exploratory ventures onto the margins of rice paddies, and, finally, finding a concrete path that lead me, mysteriously, back onto the trail I had already been on, going in the opposite direction. I don't think my sense of direction has ever failed me this thoroughly before, but at this point I was getting raw spots on my feet from the fine, wet gravel of the trail, so I was happy to get back. I didn't do much more until that evening, when I went to a traditional Balinese dance performance. These performances exemplify the conflict between tradition and profit present in many developing countries: traditionally performed as part of temple ceremonies, they are now presented nightly, in condensed form, to a crowd of generally rather bored foreigners. The show opened with some gamelan (traditional Indonesian metal xylophone) music, which is fabulously intricate and challenging, and sounds, to the casual Western listener, like clanking frenetic noise. I enjoyed watching the musicians wielding their metal hammers at high speed, and occasionally enjoyed a passage of the music, but the repetitive and foreign nature of the music kept me from really appreciating it. After a few minutes of this, the first dance began. Balinese dance involves a lot of slow hand movements and head twitches; this dance was pretty much exclusively that, and not very exciting. Luckily, all the dancers were women, so I was able to get through it by using standard dance-performance watch-the-hot-one strategy. The next dance was somewhat more interesting; a quite probably gay (although it could have just been the pancake makeup) male dancer did some intricate steps involving a fan, his coat, and a row of metal bells. Following this was a dance involving the witch Rangda. I was expecting it to be at least a bit exciting, but it was more twist-and-twitch stuff, and Rangda was quite the disappointment. This was followed by another  comparatively good one, called the bumblebee dance, which showed a courtship ritual between a male and female dancer. After this was a supposedly emotional dance, about an old man; emotional it may have been, but I was pretty tired of dance at this point, and I zoned out for most of it. The final dance was a battle scene from the Hindu epic, the "Mahabharata". This was quite well done, especially the part where the warriors used their giant umbrellas to simulate a chariot; however, I was pretty glad for the dance to be over so I could get back to bed. All I do is party...
The next day, I decided to climb Gunung Agung, the highest volcano on Bali. Typically, the climb is done at night, in order to arrive at the summit for the sunrise, so I planned on taking the day to see a few sights. I contacted a guide, arranged to meet him in a mountain town called Muncan, and tried to catch a bemo to the town of Gianyar. I ended up hiring a driver instead; it was sort of expensive, but very good value compared to a taxi back home, since I had him for the whole day. I started with a visit to the temple and cave Goa Gajah. The cave mouth is intricately carved, but the interior is pretty unspectacular; however, there was a nice waterfall, and the jungle nearby had a trail going through it. After making a much too large donation at the entrance to the jungle section, I started off for a jungle temple way back in the woods. On the way I passed a real, wild cave, and walked a little way in; it seemed to go pretty far back, but I didn't have my headlamp, plus it looked like the kind of place that Rangda might live, so I went in a manly twenty feet, took a picture of a bat, and carried on. The temple itself was unspectacular, but I had an interesting adventure trying to find my way back. I went up some steps, as the man at the entrance had instructed me to do, but instead of reaching the parking lot, I found myself in a random village. At first, I assumed that I had just come out a little further down the main road, but pretty soon, after getting some bemused looks from Balinese people (whose help I refused on the assumption that they were trying to sell me transport), I realized I was lost. I wandered around a bit, trying to enjoy the lovely stone walls and terraced roofs while simultaneously finding my way out, until I found what looked like a trail, absolutely covered with trash. (Litter, as I've already said, is an appallingly huge problem in Bali.) I walked uncertainly down it, and found myself back at the main temple. After that adventure, I moved on to Semerapura, where I saw another temple. Yippee. From Semerapura it was a long and beautiful drive through mountainous country to the town of Tirtagangga, which is home to an impressive water palace. This was by far the best ruin I've seen on the entire trip; not only were there awesome stepping stones and giant carp, but there was a swimming pool. I spent a good hour splashing around, with vacationing Balinese, in the same stone pool rajas had used a thousand years ago. The Balinese kids thought I was hilarious, probably because of how ridiculously pale I looked, but they were friendly, and I met some nice vacationers who weren't trying to sell anything to me! The water was a perfect, refreshing temperature; it was by far the highlight of my time in Bali. After this, we proceeded to Muncan, where I discharged Made (my driver) and went to the guide's house. Ketut Uriada is a veteran guide; he is also a welcoming, kind, and humble man, and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with him. Muncan was equally nice; it's virtually untouched by tourists, and I took a great evening walk, absorbing the relaxed rhythms of a Balinese village. Unfortunately, no tourism doesn't mean no poverty, and I was asked for money several times, but all in all it was pretty easy to relax. Even though the rain prevented me from climbing Gunung Agung, I got a peaceful night in a nice village, and Ketut helped me get a cheap bemo back to Denpasar the next day. That afternoon, I went to visit the Green School, a place that's been getting a lot of attention lately due to a TED talk given by the founder. As the name suggests, it's an alternative school that teaches students holistically, and emphasizes fun, hands-on learning about topical subjects; in other words, it's Five Acre, but with really awesome bamboo architecture, a vortex generator, and a farm, in Bali. I was officially there as a representative of Five Acre, and I talked to the admissions director about a sister-school type program; he seemed interested, but the school is in it's third year, so he and the rest of the administration are also monstrously stressed from trying to deal with all the problems that a new business, and especially a new school, experiences. However, I do think something could end up happening, and I also encourage you to check out the school and help them get off the ground. It really is a phenomenal project; I don't have the energy to describe it here, but the website gives a pretty good idea: http://www.greenschool.org/ Of course, if you really want to donate to a school, the Five Acre scholarship fund can always use some help too...Also at the Green School, I met an interesting French woman who is planning, with a partner, to start a similar school in Columbia. I gave her a ride into Denpasar and we chatted for quite a while, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. I stayed in Kuta again that night (not quite sure why...), and went out clubbing, but didn't have much fun, and ended up missing the bemo to Gunung Batur, the other volcano, the next day. Instead, I stayed in Sanur, where the highlight of my day was reading an article in a 1997 National Geographic about Queen Maude's Land, in Antarctica, and imagining myself in a place with absolutely no people. That brings us to this morning, when Nikko and Tankas came and picked me up for a tour of the island. Our first stop was a Barong-Rangda dance performance. This dance is particularly famous; it features a battle between the Barong, a mythical animal representing good, and the Rangda, a mythical witch representing evil. The initial dancing, with the Barong being pestered by a monkey, was quite well done; the plot following this, however, was rather campy, although well executed, and sung (sometimes atonally) in Balinese. A bizarre touch was the repeated use of bundles of leafy branches as weapons. However, the quality was quite high, and overall I enjoyed it more than the first performance I saw. After this, we drove up to Gunung Batur, a beautiful summit surrounded by a larger crater and crater lake. We had a buffet lunch on the rim, taking in the view and talking about Age of Mythology; when we descended into the crater, however, things got worse. I wanted to take some sort of walk (I had really wanted to summit, but the price for completely unnecessary guides was exorbitant), so Tankas drove us to a parking lot in the middle of town, where we were immediately mobbed by women from the "Seller's Association". I humored them by looking at some bracelets; however, Nikko abruptly decided to buy one I was looking at, paying way too much money for a shoddy, uncomfortable bracelet. The women continued to hassle us, while I explained to Nikko the concept of walking away. We didn't get far on our walk, either; an angry dog made us turn around and go back to the car. Tankas took us out of town, in continued search of a walk, but there didn't seem to be a good trail anywhere. Combine this with the litter, the flies that infested our car, and the severely crippled women we saw and gave money to who appeared to be living in the woods, and it was a pretty unpleasant experience. It was sad that such a beautiful place had so many problems, and I left with a feeling of discomfort and depression. This was only reinforced by the temples we visited next, crowded with tourists and surrounded by hawkers selling cheap shirts and penis-shaped bottle openers. A monkey forest was slightly more fun (monkeys are always fun!), but still depressing, especially because of the man holding a flying fox up by it's wings and charging tourists to take a photo of themselves doing the same. Our last stop was Pura Tanah Lot, formerly one of the most sacred temples on Bali, and now the most congested. To reach the temple overlook (the actual temple is on a small island), we had to walk past hundreds of identical, cheap-crap stalls, and through mobs of tourists; the moneychangers have invaded the temple, and I couldn't believe, when Nikko mentioned that evening prayers were taking place, that anyone could pray in such a place. The only thing that made me want to linger was a few local surfers, desperate for waves, trying out the hairy shorebreak by the temple. I will be posting an extended rant on tourism in my next entry; for now, I was relieved to go to a nice Japanese restaurant for a cheerful farewell dinner with Paul, Nikko, Paul's wife Ellie, and Tankas. Tomorrow the surf is supposed to be good; hopefully I'll be able to end this enlightening trip on a physical high note. LYA

Bali 2

My first full day was pretty uneventful. I almost caught a bemo (minibus) into Denpasar (capital of Bali), but decided against it, instead renting a boogie board. As soon as I hit the water, I wished I had gone for a surfboard instead, but the waves were kind of ok and I had good fun. I came back to the beach a bit later to rent a proper longboard, but at this point the already-mediocre swell had gone as flat as an anorexic fourth grader. Not that there weren't waves; they just essentially amounted to glorified shorebreak, and each ride would last maybe five exhilarating seconds before the board literally hit bottom. Compounding the general suckiness of the conditions was the trash floating absolutely everywhere, wrapping itself around my leash or bumping ominously into my foot like a synthetic jellyfish. So it wasn't exactly a banner day for surfing, but still some fun. That evening, I walked all the way to Seminyak trying to find an outdoor food court that turned out to be right next to my street corner, although this was more pleasant than frustrating. After dinner, I resolved to actually go in to a club, and so, after psyching myself up on Fela Kuti and Public Enemy, I walked on over to the Bounty Discotheque. And boy, did I have a great time! I spent approximately the first forty-five minutes sitting in a bar out front of the place, nursing a beer and splitting my attention between soccer highlights and a flashing light on the dance floor whilst composing, in my head, a cynical essay regarding modern dance music. When the fun got to be too much, I strolled inside, pausing briefly to watch a bunch of drunk Australians mangle "Bohemian Rhapsody" as two poor Balinese musicians tried desperately to save it. I then armed myself with a cocktail and proceeded upstairs to the main dancefloor. This was insane. There were hundreds of people, the majority of them Australians in their uniform (Guys: Bintang or VonZipper tank top, boardshorts, flip flops, backwards ballcap (optional). Girls: ridiculously short cutoffs, ridiculously small/tattered/altered in some way top, backwards ballcap, preferably stolen from cute guy (optional)). I don't need to tell you that half of the guys were shirtless, regardless of body type and composition; nor do I need to describe the general amount of writhing, grinding, and fist-pumping going on. Basically, it was a giant, clothed orgy, and I've never really known what to make of that kind of situation. I decided to hit the floor after I looked around my table and realized that I was sitting with two middle-aged, clumsily bobbing Japanese dudes, but I basically spent the night moving around, trying to divine if any girl was at all interested in me and, if so, what I should do about it. I had fun observing all the mini-dramas that unfolded, and ultimately it was a pretty good time, but it was still excruciatingly awkward, and the line of hookers and drug dealers outside the club as I left didn't help things. So this morning I moved over to the calmer town of Sanur, where the surf was supposed to be better. It wasn't; it was actually worse, with maybe a foot of swell waaay offshore. I then decided to go into Denpasar, for real this time. The bemo ride in was fun and cheap, but it turned out that everything was closed for a Hindu holiday. All I managed to do was get swindled out of 50,000 rupiah by a "tour guide" who walked me around the exterior of the Bali Museum and explained some rudimentary facts in poor English. So, another fun day. There were a few highlights, however; the homestay I found is amazingly cheap and beautifully atmospheric, and I had a nice evening swim on the pristine Sanur beach. Tomorrow, I plan to set off for the countryside; hopefully, a little bit of rural life will do me good. LYA

Bali 1

Hey, it's my 20th post! Sweet! I don't know what significance that might have (probably none), but it's still kind of cool. Maybe I'll buy cake.
Anyway, not much has happened since my arrival in Bali. I was met by Paul Edmundus, a friend of my grandmother's, who operates a tour company. He is a bubbly, constantly beaming guy, and we chatted avidly on our drive to Kuta, where I stayed the first night (and currently am located). Kuta is not so nice. It's hugely touristy, filled with drunken Australians in Bintang tank tops and hassling street vendors. I was pretty tired on arrival, due to my early morning flight, so I napped for a little while, then walked down to the monstrously crowded beach. I wanted to go swimming, but when I got to the edge of the water there was a line of washed-up trash, and I decided against it. Luckily, an atmospheric rain storm came in from the ocean, driving everyone off the beach, so I got to enjoy a natural shower and watch the lightning. Later on, I threw on a raincoat and forced myself to walk maybe half a kilometre to a big club; when I got there, however, I saw a bunch of drunken Ozzies and heard bad pop blasting and I couldn't deal at all. Maybe if I was with someone it would have been different, but on my own I'm like an anti- struggling alcoholic, forcing myself to go to bars and taking small steps towards being able to freely party. So that's all that's really happened so far...culturally speaking, it's been an interesting shift to leave Thailand. By now, I'm really used to the currency, and even speak a little Thai, but it's completely useless now, as I have to use rupiah and try and speak Indonesian (which I basically haven't bothered with). When I first arrived, I kept catching myself saying "sawadee krap" and "kob kun krap" to Balinese people, who generally looked at me with mild confusion and amusement. I've broken the habit now, but rupiah, which operates in increments of 1,000, is still throwing me off. I'll get it figured out soon, though...LYA

Pailand/Hua Hin/Byeland

This is *sniff* my final post before I leave Thailand. It's been five interesting weeks, where I've had to come to grips both with a foreign culture and with aspects of myself blah blah blah. Anyway, here's how I finished off my trip. The last blog entry found me having just arrived in Pai. That afternoon, I walked over to a temple, for a highly overrated view of the valley, then wandered the touristy but soothingly relaxed streets of Pai. While strolling about, I ran into Torge, a Norwegian guy I met on the bamboo rafting trip. We chatted for a bit, and I mentioned to him that I was hoping to run into Anna, another friend I had met on the meditation retreat. Just as I said this, Anna drove past on a motorbike. So that was all very convenient. That evening, after drinks with Torge and his girlfriend Renate, I headed up to an organic farm in the jungle, for a half-moon party. I'll forego describing the party in any detail, except to say that it was reeeeaaaally cool, and to mention the hilariously weird ride home I got from a gay Thai man (I honestly didn't know until after I got on the back of the bike) who tried to convince me to go to a room he "had for me". Luckily, he was short and pudgy and not very intimidating, so I was able to make him take me back to Pai, and not to the love bungalow. The next day I was stricken with dysentery, which layed me up for a while. Luckily, Thai prescription drugs are super cheap, so I was able to get over it pretty fast, but it still cost me two days of the trip. Upon recovery, I rented a motorbike and started exploring the Pai area. It was beautiful, the prettiest part of Thailand I've seen, and about the same temperature as a Victoria summer. The traffic isn't too bad either, so riding a bike was more exhilerating than terrifying. I often found myself humming the theme song to "The Darjeeling Limited" as I zipped through villages and past rice fields. At night, I got to check out the chill bar scene. I learned pretty quickly that the jungle party had been atypically wild; the bars are generally pretty relaxed, but it was still fun to chat with other travellers. Unfortunately, I didn't get to stay much longer; the Sawatdipongs invited me to visit them in the seaside resort town of Hua Hin, so I left the north a few days earlier than I had planned. Next time...
The trip to Hua Hin was also pretty relaxing. It's a beachside town, but the weather was such that I didn't do any swimming. Instead, I got to rest quite a bit, and also to reflect on my experiences. The sudden lack of responsibility also helped amplify the homesickness I'd been feeling in Pai. One extremely important thing I've learnt about myself is that I need four seasons. The thought of winter at home, of sledding up in the mountains or walking around Victoria or Seattle at night, makes me desperate to get back to high latitudes. But I was able to surpress that, and instead enjoy my last few days in Thailand. Being on holiday with an actual Thai family was a very different experience from the rest of my trip. Rather than culture-spotting and going to bars, I spent a lot of time with the extended family, chatting in Thai and eating large meals both in Jessada's apartment and in assorted local restaurants. It was, in short, essentially the same as an American family vacation, and it was good for me to remember that Thailand isn't all culture and sights and tourist-industry workers. As usual, everyone was very hospitable, and although the language barrier curtailed much conversation we still managed to have a good time. On our way back from Hua Hin, I bought some new pants, to replace my fertilizer- and paint-smeared old ones, and I've purged some of the excess stuff from my backpack, so I'm ready for Bali! I'll miss Thailand, though - the cheap, delicious food, the endearing squalor, the heat, the droves of interesting people, both foreign and Thai, and all the opportunities to explore. Back again someday! LYA

Chiang Mai 4

I started Week 3 out with a mini volunteer project. David and Porn came up to the sanctuary, and we went out into the jungle with some hilltribesmen to cut bamboo. David and Nayok, the tribal leader, plan to get some of the locals building bamboo furniture, and we were going to get the ball rolling by cutting the bamboo for the first piece they would make. We trekked up a steep hillside and cut some decent-sized bamboo logs, then, after a lunch break, hauled them back down the mountain to our truck. On the first trip down, David and I had carried a log together, but on the second we decided to speed things up (and not look like wimps compared to the locals) by each taking a log. This was surprisingly easy - bamboo is very light, and the only real challenge was maneuvering the 5-meter logs through some of the more dense clusters of trees - so we managed to get the logs down in about ten minutes. As I walked out of the jungle, a group of backpack-laden tourists came trundling up a path on the other side of the truck. At this point, I was carrying the log balanced on one shoulder, with a machete in my free hand. They did a double-take; I nodded at them in a knowing manner, and kept sauntering along. One woman was looking bemusedly back at me until they disappeared around a corner. So that was entertaining. Apart from that, the week wasn't too eventful, just more tree maintenance, English teaching, and swimming with elephants (as I said, nothing special). One interesting thing that did happen was a housewarming party in Maetaman village, which Joe invited me to. I was a bit lost at the party, speaking hardly any Thai, but the locals seemed very pleased that a farang had made an appearance (at one point, a man actually kissed me on the cheek), so I just smiled and nodded at pretty much whatever they said. I also got to watch some fireworks that they set off in a typically suicidal Thai manner. The other somewhat interesting event was my farewell party, on Thursday night. Joe and I went out and bought a dozen large bottles of beer, which, when I brought them out after class, disappeared in about ten minutes. The mahouts borrowed my guitar and started belting Thai pop songs at the top of their lungs, causing O-Ishi, Joe's son, to dance around and look cute. Meanwhile, Joe, Prida (one of the non-mahout employees) and I got a hundred-baht poker game going. I was doing alright until two men from the village showed up with a bottle of Thai whiskey. The game switched from poker to a Thai version of rummy, and I managed to lose 160 baht, which would have been a lot more upsetting if 160 baht didn't work out to be about $5. As it was, the money was well worth the experience of gambling and drinking with Thai villagers, although I do wonder if they might have been cheating me. The next day, I said goodbye to the elephant home. I had a really fun time there, and it was a truly unique experience. If any of you are ever in Thailand, I would highly recommend visiting Thai Elephant Home and blah dee blah blah. Sorry if this blog entry is unusually prosaic, but I'm kind of tired and hungry...anyway, I hung out in Chiang Mai for a few days, said goodbye to David and Porn, and, this morning, caught a bus up to the small town of Pai. Pai is a pretty major tourist place, but it's in a pleasant mountain valley (there were actually pine trees on the way up!) and I'm hoping to meet a few people. I've got the next week to explore, so we'll see what happens. LYA