Yesterday I took a long long day trip to Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle. It was my earliest morning in weeks. A Thai woman who works here was my alarm clock. She banged with all her might on my door at 6 am. Talk about a wake up call.
Seeing the Golden Triangle was cool. And now I know why it has its name. And no I am not going to tell you slackers. Figure it out yourselves.
In all the trip wasn’t earth shattering but I had to go to Mae Saem, the border town to get a Burma stamp. My Thai VISA runs out in a few days. And since I have a couple weeks left here I didn’t want to get fined for overstaying my tourist VISA. It was freaky having the poor kids beg for money as we walked across the border. They reminded me of those children of the corn that I met in Beijing. Definitely a highlight of my day.
We went on and had two brief stops at a couple of the Hill tribe villages but it was more like a day out shopping. Every stop involved shopping of some sort. I made friends with a german brother and sister pair. They’re here in Thailand to help promote her clothing line. We had a few drinks and I was a bit tipsy when I got back to my guesthouse at 1 am.
So that leaves me to today. The weather was gorgeous. Lots of sun. Lately it has been raining on and off so sunshine was a welcomed surprise. My first stop of the day was the Chiang Mai National museum. It’s the main regional museum of the north. It’s about 3 or 4 km outside of the city centre so I took a tuk tuk. It was worth it as the museum was so interesting. Now I finally understand more about Buddhism and Thailand. I’m now so much smarter.
Next stop was Wat Jet Yod. Now this morning I wasn’t planning on going temple hopping or I would not have worn my short shorts. But this one temple looked so compelling that I went in anyway. And as luck would have it, there was a Monk Chat taking place. This is where novice monks can practice their English with foreigners. I remember reading this in my LP and thinking I want to do this. As most of you will know, I am shy so I was hesistant to just go in the opened walled building and plunk myself down next to a monk and start rambling on about my life. Instead I just walked around the grounds of the temple. Besides there were no other foreigners or visitors for that matter in the temple.
As luck would have it, at one point a big group of kids were walking towards me in a big line. Obviously they were going to the temple for some sort of lesson. They were going to study some Buddhism stuff and their teacher was an older monk. I know because once he saw me, he pounced over and asked me a few questions. I tried to be conversational but just what do you say to a monk?
When I was leaving several novice monks came out of hiding to say hello to me from the balcony in their quarters. They were so young and cute.