TIA

After quite possibly the longest travel day(s) I have ever had we have finally arrived and settled in to Mae Sai. We will spend the next two weeks here working at DEPDC (www.depdc.org), more to come on that. But for now the journey:

I had no idea how long it would take to fly to Thailand, I figured we would cut over the Pacific and be here nonstop in somewhere between 12-15 hours. Boy was I wrong. It was broken up into a 12 hour flight to Seoul then another 6 hours from there to Bangkok. To get there we followed the west coast all the way up from LA, over OR, WA, BC and AK then across the Bering Straight and down past Russia/China. An interesting route to have the window seat for, at one point I looked down and saw Mt. Hood in OR, then probably the Sea to Sky highway in BC, then fell asleep until some place in Siberia. But being a little homesick and lonely already I was a little sad knowing I was flying over Seattle and Vancouver.

This was only made worse by the mere fact that I hate flying. And I get airsick, so normally a few dramamines and I am out like a light. Not this time however. Instead I had to resort to watching a handful of movies, but nothing too great. I did start an old one called the Big Night simply because the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld was in it. That was pretty funny, and I only mention it here as a reminder that I need to finish it when i get home.

When we finally arrived in Bangkok it was almost 2am Thai time (noon the previous day PST) and the airport was buzzing with activity. That was my first little taste of Asia, people and lights everywhere. We met our project leader and all together took a bus 5min down the road to our hotel for the night. I say night liberally, because it really was staying there from 2am-5:30am, at which time we needed to head back to the airport for our next flight north. I took a [cold] shower, checked some email and went to sleep for about 3 hours, a cat nap really. All this midday PST so my body clock is all over the place. We had a few discussions about what day it was, both here and in the states, no one was really sure.

Also let me just quickly say that the beds here (all 2 that I've felt so far) are rocks. No joke, I did not know they even made beds this firm. No give whatsoever. It's going to be a long 4 weeks...

Thankfully our next and final flight up north to Chiang Rai was only an hour. I am so done flying, you have no idea. I got through the whole Head and the Heart album on my ipod just in time for it to die and us to land. It is beautiful up here, so incredibly lush. Immediately it reminded me of Kauai. It rains like it too, a strong downpour out of nowhere for 10 or so minutes, then sun again. Later on it got so hot and humid (90+degrees and 60% humidity) that we were thankful for the rain.

We arrived at our hotel in the hills of Mae Sai, which is just a 10 min walk from our volunteering at DEPDC. This place is incredible, it completely surprised me. A handful of buildings and bungalows are set in this lush tropical jungle. There are bright butterflies and geckos everywhere. And our view, though it may not photograph well, is amazing; simply a valley of brightly colored Thai roofs. I may not leave.

The view from our balcony

The view from our door, jungle-esque right?

Following a lunch of pretty simple Thai food (still waiting on phad thai, which you can get here for 75 cents) we walked over to DEPDC for an orientation. Our project leader pointed out points of interest like an internet cafe (but THANK GOD our hotel has free wifi  after all) and corner store, as well as warned us about wild animals and bugs. According to Molly and some survival show she watched about Asia, "never pet anything furry" here. Duly noted.

DEPDC explained that we'll be teaching English to kindergarten classes and building a wall for their play yard. As soon as we got back to the hotel we all sat around the lunch table and started brainstorming games and English words we could teach them. What makes this incredibly difficult is that we speak no Thai, they speak no English, and there will be no one to translate. So explaining anything, even instructions, will be difficult/impossible. Everything will have to be demonstration. And they're kindergarteners...... It brings me right back to teaching 1st grade in Italy. Hopefully this ends up more fun.

To wrap up the night we had another Thai meal of unidentifiable meat. One particularly bony dish we finally asked about and were dismayed to hear that they were chicken joints... We worked around those. Our plan was to walk down to the Saturday market to buy fisherman's pants for pj's, but then the rain started. And I mean real, thunderous, torrential rain. You literally could not see through it past the balcony. It was great to watch while we ate under the covered veranda, but would be unpleasant or downright painful to walk through.
And so began the new TIA: This is Asia.