I, too, Have Returned to America

I am back in the good old US of A. Interestingly enough, on the same day of my departure, a more high-profile individual also left Thailand from the same airport on the same airline, though bound for L.A. and then Colorado (where he would be facing charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and child sexual assault). I've never really been interested in the case or the individual until I compared our Thai Airways flight experiences. Keeping in mind my own criminal record (or lack thereof), let's compare my flight with that of John Karr (JK for short):

Time allotted for check-in

JK: Left Bangkok Immigration Detention Center (IDC) at 3 PM for a 7:10 PM flight.

MG: Left Walking Streets Sunday Market at 6:15 PM for a 6:30 airport departure for a 9 PM flight to Bangkok with a connection at 12:40 AM.

Who wins: Draw. Walking Streets Sunday Market and a ride from a friend trumps IDC and a ride with immigration officials, though JK has a far less complicated departure at a more reasonable hour.

Scheduled Time of Departure vs. Actual Time of Take-off

JK: 7:10 PM, plane left at 8 PM.

MG: 12:40 AM, plane left at 1:20 AM.

Who wins: MG, narrowly, by 10 minutes.

At the Gate

JK: chats amiably with fellow passengers.

MG: exchanges sympathetic half-smiles with exhausted-looking fellow passengers forced to be patted down after surrendering their bottles of water, tubes of chapstick, travel-sized toothpastes, and other harmful liquids.

Who wins: JK.

Pre-Flight Services

JK: a glass of champagne from a cabin attendant; clinked glasses with Mark Spray (investigator with Boulder DA's office), who had orange juice.

MG: A room-temperature bottle of Singha drinking water placed in my seat pocket.

Who wins: Karr; hands down.

Seat buddy

JK: Mr. Spray and two other US officials.

MG: A nice 14-year-old Thai girl returning to her home in America after living in Bangkok for the past three years.

Who wins: Draw. Karr has more of an entourage (good for image), whereas MG has quality (not a lot of unnecessary chatter, friendly). Note- Due to his past, probably good that JK did NOT have MG's seat buddy.

Freedom of Movement

JK: Business Class window seat, no handcuffs.

MG: Economy Class aisle seat, no handcuffs.

Who wins: JK.

Dining

JK: Dinner was served on a starched white tablecloth. Karr started with a pate, then had a green salad with walnut dressing. The main course was fried king prawn with steamed rice and broccoli. Karr drank a beer, crushing the can with his hands when it was empty, then moved on to a glass of French chardonnay with his main course.

MG: Dinner was served on a plastic tray. MG started with a cup of (again) room-temperature pre-poured water, then had a green salad with gloppy Italian dressing from a packet. The main course was stir-fried pork and noodles. MG drank another cup of room-temperature water and placed the cup into the smaller cup intended for coffee or tea when it was empty (as there was not space anywhere else on the plastic tray), then moved onto more room temperature water (which needed to be requested from the exasperated-looking flight attendant) with the main course.

Who wins: JK, obviously.

On-board Demeanor

JK: Relaxed, smiling and chatting nonstop with the U.S. officials next to him -- until television news crews on the flight turned their cameras on. Then he stopped smiling, clutched the armrests of his seat and stared at his lap.

MG: Tired, but chatting occasionally with her seat buddy (in a "Have you seen Akeelah and the Bee?" "No?" "I heard it's good" kind of way) until the flight attendants turned off all of the lights, when she stared into space due to her inability to sleep.

Who wins: JK.

In-flight Entertainment

JK: Mission Impossible III.

MG: The Sentinel, Akeelah and the Bee (wonderful), Stick It (terrible), Inside Man, Law and Order.

Who wins: MG on the surface, though upon further consideration, perhaps JK (less movies = more shut-eye.

Reading

JK: The Secret Garden (wtf?).

MG: The Bangkok Post (which featured a lengthy article on JK).

Who wins: MG (The Secret Garden is a reasonable choice... for an 8 year old).

Flight Payment

JK: You paid for JK's business-class flight.

MG: Columbia paid for MG's economy-class flight (After MG paid dearly for Columbia).

Who wins: Draw. Though you clearly loose.

Island Vacation (Tough Life)

After leaving the south on Friday, I headed up to Bangkok on the overnight bus to celebrate Mother's Day (the Queen's birthday) with my colleague who'd organized a big gathering for his ethnic group, the Pao people, in Bangkok. It was a great day filled with singing and dancing. I stood out like a foreign sore thumb, but everyone was quite nice.

On Sunday, I met up with one of my oldest (longest known) friends, who lives in Korea. He'd been visiting friends in BKK, so we decided to hit the island of Koh Chang for a couple of days. We saw pretty much everything there was to see, swam in waterfalls, checked out stilt villages, randomly ran into one of my public health school friends, crashed our motorbike (that was all me, though I blame the slick roads and the stupid dog that couldn't decide which way to cross the street... though the nicest family took us into their home, let us wash up, and helped dress our wounds... all 12 of them (4 generations) were actively involved... it was so kind and again restored my faith in humanity... though it was their dog), watched Fox News, complained about Fox News, recounted numerous high school stories, chatted with other tourists and locals, and tried to dodge the rain. I was so thrilled to have a travel buddy and fellow English speaker that I didn't even read much I was so busy running my mouth. The weather wasn't super, but we certainly made the best of it and had a great time.









Fun with Bikes!
Matt pre-crash
How American!

Then back to Bangkok for a day before I returned to Chiang Mai for goodbyes and my night flight on the 20th!





Note the contrasts

Leaving Home

My last week in Phang-nga Province was filled with meetings, library openings, motorbike riding, football games, beach-going, crazed finishing up of projects, and goodbyes (always a bit sad to leave places, especially when finally getting the hang of things!)

A rainy season sunset on the Sea

My Room (on the far right)

The Office

The restaurant (aka our kitchen)

My Going Away Shindig

Welcome to the Jungle

I only have one more week of work remaining in Phang-nga (actually, I've been calling it Phang-nga, but it's actually Laem Pakarang... the province is Phang-nga... now you can rest easier). I decided on Wednesday that I haven't seen nearly enough of the area to be leaving it. I've done the beach thing, but there's a huge National Park that's only about an hour away. It's home to the oldest rainforest in the world (they claim) as well as a rare flower, Raffleasia, which is the biggest in the world and is also a parasite. It lives off other plants, blooms for 3 or 4 day, during which it emits the smell of rotting meat (apparently attracts pollinators), then shrivels up and dies. Unfortunately the visible and smelly stage of Raffleasia is in January and February. But the thought of real jungle was pleasant. There are apparently tigers and bears and cobras and pythons or something, too, but I'm not that into chasing around animals in their natural habitats. I don't like it when dogs stand next to the table when I eat.

So I was looking forward to a solo adventure, so I could do what I wanted. But when I mentioned I was thinking of going, one of my co-workers got really excited about a girls' weekend at the national park. I was sort of irked, knowing that instead of hiking we would now be going to the visitor's center, walking to a nearby waterfall, taking a picture, then sitting around for the remainder of the time. Plans changed, however, when I mentioned my 6 AM departure on Saturday morning. I was on my own!



I arrived at my hut, left my stuff and changed into proper hiking attire. The owner of the huts, however, suggested shorts, as it was hot, saying "There are some leeches (which I'd read about), but not so many... You'll be able to climb easier in shorts." (Note: This is foreshadowing)

Off I went, rigging the top of my backpack with my camera strap to make a little backpack. I got a map and set off for a 10K round trip hike to a 6-tiered waterfall. The day was sunny, the jungle was beautiful and I was thrilled to be off on my own. I took a zillion pictures of interesting trees and fungi.



After about 1 K into the hike, the official park trail ended, and I set off on a narrower trail, which was steeper, but easy enough to navigate.
A bit damp, however, and I noticed a leech on my leg. This brought to mind the movie "Stand by Me," which I've never seen as at the time of its popularity, I was not even permitted to see PG-rated movies, as they use words that are not only impolite, but also take the Lord's name in vain. I've seen the leech scene, though. Never having had a leech on me before, I took a picture before pulling it off.

I continued on my way, noting that the trail was beginning to erode, causing it to be quite narrow in certain places, but still easy to navigate by holding onto vines. As I walked further and further it, the number of leeches increased and I was stopping every 10 minutes or so to scrape 5 or 6 from my sneakers. The hike traversed the river numerous times, and involved some interesting scaling, which added to the initial excitement. It began to rain, but only a bit and due to the natural canopy of the rainforest, wasn't too bad. I had been walking for about 2 hours and felt I should be close to the waterfall. As I reached the river, a lone arrow indicated that I should walk upcurrent in the river. I figured I'd come this far. I took off my shoes and found about 30 leeches sucking my feet. It pulled them off (which is a nuisance, as they then suck your fingers... I found flicking worked best). Still in good spirits, I took another picture of my bloody feet (I'll spare you) and set off against the current. It started to pour, but I was determined to reach the waterfall. After another hour of walking in the river and along the bank, I reached a series of tiered rapids. Hardly a waterfall, and still not sure this was the main attraction. As the rain had been pretty torrential, I was drenched and thought it time to head back.

On the way back, the erosion had worsened, the paths were flooded and slippery, the ledges less defined, and the streams overflowing. With the rain it was difficult to see. I now had visions of Bridge to Teribithia when the boy dies by heading out along the stream in the rain. I ran into a man and woman in ponchos as I was leaping from rock to rock. I told them about walking in the river for an hour, and they continued on to the waterfall. I encountered them an hour later as I reached a dead end and was turning around. Apparently they'd decided against the waterfall and had been following my lead. We set off together for the last bit. The woman said I was "a brave young lady" for hiking by myself. I replied that I was a stupid young lady (people continue to think I'm 18 and treat me as such... These two couldn't have been older than 35). They kept falling, their ponchos and backpacks putting them off-balance, I pulled down a piece of bamboo that almost clocked the woman on the head, the man was grumbling in French about how he didn't really want to go on a long hike in the first place and how the park map was poorly drawn and not to scale. It was fun to secretly listen to foreign language I understood. It was nice to be with people, as it really wasn't too safe for any of us. When we got to the final stretch, I told them to go ahead while I de-leeched (I could feel them in my shoes and saw some had reached my knees). The woman kindly offered to burn them off, but it didn't seem to work. I thanked them and sent them on their way. My leech situation was foul. At least 50, and I couldn't take them off fast enough. I finished the hike as quickly as I could, terribly excited about my upcoming shower. It had been 5 hours of blood, sweat, and dirt.

I realized on my walk back to the hut that there was blood streaming down my legs. I took off my socks and shoes to go inside and trekked blood all over the floor. After the shower I was bleeding worse than before. It seemed like nothing would clot (I later learned that leeches secrete an anti-clotting enzyme into their victim's bloodstream). I waited an hour in the shower, bleeding through band-aids. I continued to bleed all evening. I had to mop my room twice. It looked like someone had been eaten by one of those tigers and bears. I went to dinner, the hut guy apologized for recommending shorts, though he said he doesn't really advocate hiking in the rainy season anyway (little late, eh?) I ended up having a nice time reading, chatting to some other tourists. I discovered my cell phone is no longer working, perhaps due to the monsoon it encountered while in my bag.

This morning I did a short waterfall hike, but on the park trail with the Thais wearing pressed khakis and polo shirts. That seemed safe. The ride home was fairly uneventful. All in all, exciting weekend and good me-time. A nice event to remember when stressed out about work or annoyed to be waiting in line, in a "I was lost in the jungle with leeches sucking my blood- I can certainly handle this" kind of way.

Just Another Day (Featuring the Back of My Head)

Warming-Up with the Women's Sports Program in Ban Nam Khem. I was given the task of leading on this day. At the time of this photo, we were walking like Egyptians.


Trying to convince everyone that football (soccer) is more fun than volleyball (my co-worker loves volleyball, so we are always lobbying for our individual causes)

And football it is! Looks like my little "spread out and pass" pep talk went over really well.

Facilitating a network meeting. And by facilitate, I mean writing down key ideas, looking pensive and asking if anyone has anything to add.

Nightly dinner with the neighbors. Some people can't EVER leave the office.

Slow Boat to Burma

Last weekend I needed to extend my visa by going to Burma. In Thailand, you are given a month long tourist visa each time you enter the country. Therefore, monthly "visa runs" comprised of exiting and promptly reentering the country are quite common for people staying for awhile. Since my two month visa had expired, I needed to get myself an extra month, so I took the bus to Ranong (where I've spent a lot of time for work, too... I think I've been there almost weekly for one thing or another), which is the closest point to access Burma. In chatting with foreigners in the past, I had a hazy idea about how things should go, and I knew NOT to pay more than 100 baht ($2.50) for my round-trip boat ticket. I arrived at Thai immigration, surrounded by an interesting mix of beach bums and sex tourists, got my stamp to leave, walked down the road to the dock, where I encountered a guy trying to get me to take his friend's boat. We argued about the price for awhile, and I shimmied down the rope ladder to the awaiting long boats. There was some arguing about the price that was agreed to and they told me that I had to pay 200 if I wanted to take the boat by myself. I replied that I never said that I wanted my own boat and to go find people. So after 30 minutes of moving between two boats (I wasn't certain of why, I just kept jumping across boats each time I was told to do so), we had 7 people, which was deemed sufficient to depart. Everyone was Burmese, so we chatted (as far as I can go in Burmese, which isn't far). The motor is actually on a long wooden pole which is placed in the water. As we bobbed along, water kept coming in from the side and splashing from the motor. The woman next to me was kindly trying to use her umbrella to shield the both of us from the splashing. We had to stop at numerous check-points out of Thailand. Once in Burmese water (Myanmar water, if you prefer), my passport was stamped and I paid 5 dollars (US) for a day pass to Myanmar. They like dollars and charge more if you want to pay in Thai currency. I had a 10. They gave me change. This highly impressed me. I've become a major cheapskate here and the thought of loosing $5 had been disturbing me all morning. So, way to go, Myanmar- you violently oppress your people and stifle open thought, but you've got a great system when it comes to dispensing change on your borders in currency that is not even your own. Then we went back to Thailand. The Thai police with a big dog stopped us to make sure we weren't smuggling cigarettes, drugs, or people back to Thailand. Everyone smiled. I said "Hi" in Thai, they let us go quickly. About 5 minutes later, the women in front of me pulled 2 cases of cigarettes (which are much cheaper on the Burmese side) out from inside her oversized windbreaker. It's good they hadn't unleashed the dog on us. When we got back to the dock, I bid adieu to my new traveling friends (including the American father and daughter duo who I'd joined on the return trip), and went back to immigration, where I encountered the same people from before, who'd paid a great deal more to take fancy, air-conditioned boats that didn't have "holes in the bottom" as one Brit put it. Afterwards, I was chatting with 2 women from the Netherlands. We had lunch together. They were so surprised that I was here on my own. Somedays I'm surprised that I'm here on my own.

My week has been filled with very long and ineffective meetings. One on Friday was particularly annoying, as it lasted for 4 hours, but nobody could answer any of the questions that were being asked (mostly by me... We have a new HIV program, and it's really difficult to determine how it should be run without knowing what other organizations are already doing... I've been asking this question for weeks to various people and the answer is never clear and never the same). There's a Japanese American who works for a partner organization nearby who was also at the meeting. We had a nice time commiserating. It's been really interesting being here, in the rural south, without expat friends for the most part. I feel like I'm seeing a side of the country, the local NGO world, that I would not have had I come with another westerner. I think it's also revealed to me how people from the outside are often seen by Thai people (not always so positively) and how little most westerners accomplish in the time that they are here, as they surround themselves with other people who think and act as they do. That being said, communication and sense of humor remain different, and that is really trying at times. When a co-worker thinks that a meeting is good and effective because it lasted for 4 hours, it's hard to explain how it feels to mourn 4 hours of your life that you will never regain. You can't really. And during those rare moments when I've had someone nearby with whom I can chuckle about feeling out of place or ineffective despite great time and effort, I begin to see why people seek out others who are like them, why local people perceive visitors as snooty or irritating, and why the cycle continues.

Still very little global concern about the situation in Burma. I had hoped that it would be addressed during the Asean summit, but seemed very much overshadowed by N. Korea and Lebanon. So sadly reactive. It's really frustrating and difficult to be constantly hearing from people about the atrocities from which they are fleeing (the usual forced military, forced portering for the military, stealing, beating, raping) knowing that nothing is being done to change it or draw international attention to it.

Our migrant women's football (soccer) program has been quite successful in a couple of communities. I've been playing a lot of football with the women, who are not at all adverse to slide tackling or just charging at one another. It's not a far cry from American football in some ways. It's been great and is making me seriously think about joining some kind of very non-competitive soccer team when I get back home. Non-competitive being key. My very competitive high school soccer team has permanently scarred me.

Three more weeks in Thailand, a little less than two more weeks at my office in the south. It's amazing how time flies!

Mohinga and Other Thoughts

Observations:

1.) Mohinga: Mohinga (I have no idea how to spell it; there likely isn't a proper English written way anyhow) is a Burmese dish. Noodle-based, with this broth comprised of fish and onions and stuff. It's sort of like a make-your-own sundae event, except it's make your own Mohinga. You can add green beans, cilantro, fish sauce, fried garlic, chili, etc. I've written about it before. Because it seems to be analogous to pizza in the US. People devour it. Every time it seems to be a competition of how quickly it can be shoveled into one's gullet. This does not happen with other foods, only Mohinga.

2.) I eat slower than everybody. My love for Mohinga is usually questioned because of it.

3.) Popular cell phone rings: We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Jingle Bells.

4.) Side cars on motorcycles: Can be used as a mobile noodle shop, a place for people to sit, a place to carry fish that you are going to sell. They are, however, frustrating to pass on the road as they move slowly and jut out into traffic. Did I mention that my latest and greatest side responsibility is driving the office pick-up truck? I have to use my left hand to shift gears, sit on the right, and drive on the left side of the road.

5.) A snobby church group from Texas: They are visiting for a week or so. My boss is obsessed with showing them around, as he feels they do not understand the situation for Burmese migrants in Thailand (they don't. I tried to explain). They are NOT nice. Always have a look on their faces like they smell something bad. I was my very nicest with them and they still were aloof. And I keep running into them. As a cynical east-coaster, I certainly do my fair share of Texas-mocking (particularly since the current administration assumed power). That being said, some of the nicest people I know are from Texas. Until these guys came along. Folks, we're in a foreign country on the other side of the world, far from our homeland. WE SHARE THAT HOMELAND. For crying out loud, just crack a smile for me.

6.) The symmetry of rubber plantations is amazing. The trees are spaced the same distance away from the trees next to them, as well as the trees in front and behind them. Multiply that by thousands. It's most fascinating to observe.

Women's Meeting