Happy New Years

This evening David and I walked over to the Tha Phae gate in Chiang Mai to take in some of the New Years festivities. They were selling huge paper lanterns to float in the air. The coil on the inside of the lantern was lit, then the lantern was held down until the air inside heated up. Once the air inside was hot the lanterns floated like hot air balloons. It was really beautiful. You can do some really neat things when there are no safety regulations.


There were also fireworks. Some of them seemed to be a part of the city's organized New Years celebration, but many others were set off in various corners of the city. I wonder if there is much of a problem with things catching fire during celebrations like this.

At home I love it when I see mixed ethnicity couples because in those couples I can see hope for a future without racism. Here it is a whole different thing. Prostitution for tourists is a big part of the economy. Prostitution must work differently here than it does at home. Couples walk down the street holding hands and go out for dinner together. It seems very bold. Often if you see a couple here where the man is white and the woman is Asian, the man has hired the woman as a prostitute. This is particularly true if they are holding hands. Few Thai couples would hold hands in public. It seems that New Years may be a very busy time of year for such activities. We saw quite a few couples tonight. It makes me feel angry and helpless. I wish there was something that I could do that would change things. I also recognize that not every couple that fits my description is necessarily involved in prostitution, but it is difficult not to judge people. What a strange and awful thing for people to think is OK.

We just stood on the balcony of our hotel room at midnight and watched fireworks and lanterns rise into the sky from many parts of the city. It is a beautiful, spontaneous, and charming celebration of the New Year.

Caroling in Lisu Villages

Although it was dark and it was difficult to get a good video, here is a sample of the nearly twenty hours of caroling that we did over two nights. The banging in the background is fire crackers being set off by the kids. This was a great experience and a chance to be invited into the homes of some of the Lisu tribe members. Most of the villages are located up in the hills or mountains which made for some interesting walking between homes at four o'clock in the morning (at least the Mormons come during the day time). Both nights were quite cool and the second night we dressed more appropriately for riding in the back of a pickup truck in the cool nighttime hours. We will definitely remember the exhausting nature of this experience, but, as with most things that are difficult, we will also remember the beauty of these villages being lit by the clear night sky and the joy of those who we spent the night with.

Merry Christmas From Chiang Mai

We returned to Chiang Mai and plan to spend Christmas and New Years here. Toilet paper and hot showers for Christmas; what luxury! On Christmas Eve we went out for coffee at a coffee shop named Coffee Cat. We had very delicious coffee and bun. It was the first good coffees that we had had in a couple of weeks (mostly Nescafe or Birdy packs in rural Thailand).


While we were at the coffee shop, we witnessed this cat being dressed in a Santa suit. Surprisingly, the cat did not seem to mind this procedure. However, I think the staff was very amused by our picture taking. As you may have guessed the whole coffee shop was cat themed.



Merry Christmas to All. We hope you have a wonderful day.

You Need Stamina to Celebrate With the Lisu

Many of the Lisu people are Christian. On Sunday we were invited to go to church with the Lisu family that works here on the farm. Their church is a house church that meets in the nearest village to here. They are a very welcoming group of people. The church invited us to join them for some Christmas caroling on Monday and Tuesday evening. They go caroling each year to raise money for their Christmas festivities. We were happy to have the opportunity to participate in some of the local Christmas celebrations, and we agreed to join them. We had no idea what we were getting in to. We caroled from seven pm to four am two nights in a row. We are exhausted. The girl who is WWOOFing here with us just described the experience in an email to her friend as "Silent Night, Holy Crap". It was a good experience. We were able to see how the Lisu live. Many of their homes have walls made from woven bamboo and roofs made from elephant grass. We were able to go inside some of the houses. They use very little furniture or decoration. It was nice to be able to spend time with the church members who were caroling with us.

We are invited to the Christmas party tonight. Who knows how late that will go, but at least this time we will be able to catch a taxi back to the farm when we start to feel ready for bed.

Farm Experiances Near Chiang Dao

Our time here at Amee Doyer's organic farm has been quite enjoyable. During our stay we have worked on cobbing dried corn. The dried corn is going to be used for pig feed and the left over cobs we mixed with rice haul for a compost layer. Next we started pruning banana trees which consists of cutting the leaves that have started to turn color and cutting any trees that have produced fruit and are dying or dead. Now that we have the ingredients for the compost we have been starting to layer banana leaves and banana trees, corn mixed with rice haul and water, pig poop and repeat.


It has been amazing to see how much work we have been able to accomplish with the energetic group of WWOOFers staying at the farm even if some of the work seems redundant. As of Saturday most of the WWOOFers have left the farm and there is now only Marina, one other girl and I staying here so it's much quieter than before. This has created more of a chance to work and hang out with the Lisu family that is living here and operating the farm. This has been fun and a good way to experience their culture even though we sometimes have trouble understanding each other as they mostly all only speak Lisu. Often we don't know the intent of a project until it's nearly complete but they are very nice to work with and seem to have relaxed a bit now that the group is a smaller size.

On Thursday Alia killed a pig. This was a major event with all the WWOOFers wanting to take in the experience. I have never really seen anything like this before and I felt like it was good to witness. After the pig had been killed they used dry grass to burn off the hair of the pig. During the butchering of the pig we were told that the Lisu eat almost all parts of the pig raw. I arrived as they were finishing the butchering and tried what seemed to be some sort of skin and part of the pig's ear which one of the children cut off as an after school snack (moments like these make me realize how different of a world we live in). These surprisingly tasted like a pretty normal pork product. The next few days for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner consisted of strange pig organs which we assume were lungs and liver. Both tasted alright but it was difficult to get over eating the unusual parts with their associated unusual textures. Eventually they stopped putting out these dishes and moved us back to the vegetables and rice diet that we were on before as the meat dishes were not going very fast.


The Lisu live very simply in small brick or straw houses with one or two rooms that are empty except a TV in most of houses that I have been in. They usually sleep on a mat on the floor or a raised wooden bed. They cook all their food over the fire. Here at the farm they also have a gas burner fueled by the biodigester and electric rice cookers.


Clement the French Canadian owner of the farm tells the story of when he installed counters for the Lisu to prepare food on and they climbed up on the counter and squatted preparing food as we have seen them do here. This must be something that takes some getting used to because after about two minutes of doing dishes in this position I am ready to fall over. Maybe more flexibility would help also. The Lisu are a very beautiful people group with lots of big smiles which we are told can have many different meanings.

Mutany on the Farm

A couple of days ago, we found out that due to miscommunication or poor organisation we needed to redo two days worth of hard work. We had moved several tonnes of compost materials by hand in a combination that would not result in compost and it all needed to be moved into proper compost piles with an appropriate mix of ingredients. All of the volunteers took this information very hard. Everyone was very down and grumbly on Thursday. Many people made plans to leave. On Thursday there were eleven volunteers on the farm; today (Saturday) there are only three. We are nearly done reorganizing the compost. It will probably be one more day of work. It will be nice to move on to something different.

Yesterday the owner of the farm took us all to a nearby village's Friday market (possibly as a way of apologising for the mix-up). The market was a short walk from the Burmese border. Many different ethnic groups come together at this market. It was a lot of fun. We ate some very yummy noodles and bought some goodies. We got a kilogram of mandarins for the equivalent of 50 cents Canadian. We would have liked to see more traditional crafts for sale. Many of the people at the market were dressed in traditional costumes, so that was neat to see.

We are both well. We are looking forward to relaxing tomorrow on our day off. We bought ingredients to make a nice breakfast. The owner of the farm is currently making bread so we can have toast with our breakfast. The kitchen is smelling great. Good bread is pretty hard to find in Asia (at least in the parts of it that we have seen so far).

Bananas

We spent this morning pruning banana trees. They are quite different from what I expected. The trees hold a lot of liquid. Sticky water splashes (or sometimes pours) out when the tree is cut. Banana trees are very soft; they are not woody at all. They cut more like flowers than like other trees. Pruning the banana trees was a fun way to spend a few hours. We were working mostly in the shade and cool liquid frequently splashed us. The only thing that was not so great was the ants. Ants apparently like to live in banana trees. Sometimes I would cut a branch and hundreds of ants would swarm out of it. Once ants ran off the leaf and all over me. They bit me. A few ran inside my clothes to bite me later when I was no longer expecting it.

The afternoon was not nearly as much fun as the morning. We carried both the leaves that we had cut and all the dead fall from the banana trees and put them into a big pile. The freshly cut leaves weren't too bad. They were sometimes heavy. Some of the dead fall had begun to rot. The branches and tree trunks were wet, heavy, and slimy. Sometimes I would pick some up and slimy goo would run down my arm and soak into my clothing. The slime was also very stinky.

We do get to eat bananas straight from the trees. They are delicious. I think that the bananas we have here are different than the ones that we get at home. They are shorter, wider, and a firmer texture. At the end of the day one of the Lisu people that works here at the farm knocked some coconuts from a tree and cut them open so we could drink the juice. It was very refreshing.

The owner of this farm is from Quebec and his wife is a Lisu woman originally from Burma. Her brother and his family is hired to work here on the farm. They are very sweet people. A little mischievous. They do not speak much English. On Sunday one of their relatives came to the farm to sell her handicrafts. She made some very lovely things. Mostly very complex quilted bags and hats and weaving that reminded me of the bags that Jill gets from her Karen friends. The Karen are another group of people who have been displaced from Burma.

After work today the owner of the farm piled us all into the back of his truck and drove us to a nearby hot spring. We must have looked ridiculous. Twelve Farang (foreigners) and 2 Lisu children packed into the back of a pickup truck. The hot springs were wonderful. We had our first hot showers since arriving here (the showers at the farm have only cold water) then we soaked in beautiful outdoor hot springs. I feel very clean and relaxed right now.

On the Farm

On Friday David and I found our way to the first farm that we will be WWOOFing on. On the way here, overly helpful staff on the bus convinced us to get off a little too early and we ended up walking three or four kilometers with all our stuff to the spot where we needed to catch a sangteuw. We tried to use the handy phrasebook that Calvin & Michelle lent us to explain where we wanted to get off the bus, but no one understood us. Oh well, I guess walking is good for us. Carrying all that stuff should help us to figure out which things are important enough to keep and which we should get rid of.

David and I and another girl who we met in the sangteuw arrived at the farm in the middle of a very messy hectic day. They had rented a machine for one day only to get dried corn off the cobs. We were told that we could relax for the afternoon, but with all the other volunteers working so hard we did not feel that it would be very nice to do that. We pitched in for the last couple hours of the day, and by the time we finished we were filthy and exhausted.

Our meals on the farm are provided. It is very yummy food. It is strange to us that we eat the same kind of foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every meal is rice and several different vegetable dishes (many of them are quite spicy). We eat with the other volunteers, the owner of the farm, and some of the staff. It is interesting that we never really seem to know what we are eating. The food is very good, but I don't know what it is.

Yesterday after we finished working for the day, we walked into the nearest town Ban Lo Pahan with some of the other volunteers to buy some treats. It is a very small town with only a few shops and restaurants. We cause quite a stir with the locals. They all stop to watch all the foreigners go by. Many of them wave and smile.

Today is our day off. Even though we only worked one and a half days, we both felt quite ready for the break. Working on the farm is very tiring. We sleep very well each night. It is interesting to work with so many different people. Everyone has very different ways of approaching the work. So far we are enjoying our time here, but it is a lot of work. This afternoon we might walk over to a nearby national park where there is a waterfall and hot springs.

Arrived in Chiang Mai

After an uneventful day of flying and waiting in airports we have arrived at our hotel in Chiang Mai. We didn't see much of Chiang Mai on our way through as it was dark when we arrived but we passed some of the narrowest streets we have ever seen - full of motorbikes, scooters and, at one point tables for a road side restaurant. Off to bed for now tomorrow we leave to find the farm.

Day Trips from Sai Kung

There are many beautiful aspects to Hong Kong. The mountainous country side is covered with lush green forests or maybe it's closer towards jungle. Where Dave and Debbi live just outside of Sai Kung we visited a nearby park with a historical village and a short hike with views overlooking the ocean. As part of this walk there were many abandoned dwellings in various states of repair along the way left by people that had a one time set up their village along the ocean. One of the things that has been different than I expected about visiting here is the contrast between a small abandoned village and the crowded markets in central Hong Kong. I guess I expected to find more of the latter in a city of seven million but there are lots quiet places to enjoy Hong Kong's beauty. I have also found there to be an interesting mix of western versus traditional culture. One neighborhood will be covered with small shops selling local fabrics, dried fish products or other unknown products. The next neighborhood selling all the latest electronic devices, fashion, and normal western mall paraphernalia.

Transit has been very useful in Hong Kong we have used it often to get around and see the different things that Hong Kong has to offer. Most of these trips have been toward the central part of Hong Kong. One of the days this week we went to an interesting Chinese art museum which had some very nice Chinese drawings and calligraphy. Another day we took the peak tram up to the top of the Victoria Peak for some great views of the City of Hong Kong and surrounding area. There is definitely a lot of interesting history and culture in Hong Kong which I hope can withstand the pressure of modern culture which seems to destroy some aspects of traditional culture in it's effort to make everything the same.

Exploring Hong Kong

Dave and Debbi live in a small village called Tso Wo Hang. It is very quiet and right by the ocean. If you sit in just the right spot on Debbi and Dave's patio you can sip tea and watch the ocean. On weekends people from the city descend on Tso Wo Hang and neighbouring villages for barbecue on the beaches.


Tso Wo Hang is entirely residential. The nearest town with shops and restaurants is Sai Kung. It is a quick bus ride away. Sai Kung has a small town feel. People bump into people they know and stop to chat in the streets. Dave and I decided to take the first couple days easy, and we spent the time exploring Sai Kung. Sai Kung is on a pier. The whole place is permeated with the salty, fishy smell of the sea. Laundry sways in the breeze. Fish are drying in big flat baskets on the street corners. Along the waterfront there are many restaurants where you can choose your seafood still living in big tanks at the front of the restaurant. It is quite a sight. Many of the fish do not even look familiar to me.


Hong Kong is surprisingly green, particularly in smaller towns like Sai Kung and Tso Wo Hang. Every break between the concrete is packed with lush plant life. All the things that barely survive as a house plant in Calgary thrive outdoors here. People must value all these plants because in the places where there is too much pavement for the plants to encroach, there are rows of beautiful potted plants.


On the weekend we went into the city with Dave and Debbi. We went to the ladies' market in Mong Kok. Mong Kok is one of the most highly populated places in the world. We were there in the quiet early afternoon on a Saturday, so the crowds were not too bad. Debbi is very good at bartering. Her drama skills definitely come into play here. After lunch in Mong Kok we took the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour. This is one of the things to do if you are a tourist in Hong Kong. The ferry is old and lovely, and you get a beautiful view of the city as you cross the harbour. Saturday evening we celebrated American Thanksgiving with some of Debbi & Dave's friends. We sat on a roof top patio overlooking the traffic of Sai Kung. It was a beautiful evening to share a meal outdoors.

On Sunday we went for dim sum. Dave and I had never had dim sum. It was very interesting. The food was unfamiliar both in taste and texture. Some things I really enjoyed; others seemed pretty weird. I'm sure that once you have had it a few times and it felt more familiar this could quickly become a favourite. It was a fun experience, and it was good to go with people who knew what was going on.

Yesterday Dave and I went into the city on our own for the first time (and we didn't get lost or anything). We went to Central and saw some huge bank buildings. We enjoyed the Hong Kong Park. It is a very orderly park with many amazing plants. I really liked the walk-through aviary where you could see some really neat, brightly coloured birds up close. I did worry a little bit that one of the lovely birds would poop on my head. After Hong Kong Park we went to see St John's Cathedral. It is a modestly sized and beautiful church. The stained glass was amazing.

So far I have found Hong Kong to be a very interesting mix of familiar and unfamiliar things. 7 elevens and Starbucks are right beside little shops selling dried out things that I can't figure out what they are. Most people speak English, but sometimes they pronounce things differently enough that it does not seem like that same language at all. There seem to be a lot of contrasts in Hong Kong; an interesting mix of the old and the new.