My pictures are finally back up and running. I had fun time trying to navigate through picassaweb in order to upload my pictures. Uploading the pictured proved to be quite difficult because the entire picassaweb website comes up in Thai characters. Pookie, at ISDSI, was able to navigate through picassaweb, and she helped me upload the pictures even after I accidentally deleted the whole album while I was trying to add captions the first time. I think I know which tabs I have to click on now in picassaweb, so pictures should be easier to upload from now on – hopefully…
For the past two weeks, I have been living in Chiang Mai learning the Thai language. I’ve been staying in this great little apartment with a really nice view of the city, and it’s only a 20 minute walk from my place to ISDSI, which is where I’m taking my Thai class. My class doesn’t start until 1:00 pm, so I spend most of my mornings studying my notes from the previous day of class while I enjoy a nice breakfast. I head over to ISDSI around 11:30 so that I can eat lunch with people at ISDSI and practice speaking some Thai before my class starts. I have really been enjoying learning the language thus far, and one of the reasons that I have been enjoying learning the language is because my teacher at ISDSI, Ajaan Wilasinee, keeps the class simple and entertaining enough so that my three hours with her every day doesn’t seem like forever, but that doesn’t mean learning the language hasn’t been a challenge. I spend a large part of the lesson just learning new vocabulary words which she makes me sound out by reading the word that she wrote in Thai letters.
Once I have learned a decent amount of words for the day, she shows me how the words can be used in a sentence, and we spend some time talking back in forth using the words that I just learned. It’s similar to any other language course I guess, but I really enjoy the one on one time that I have with Ajaan Wilasinee because she forces me to talk in Thai with her. The only other language I have learned is Spanish, but I never got good at it because I would only use it once a week for a half hour during what Calvin called conversation groups. I still find the structure of the Thai language to be confusing and Ajaan Wilasinee is constantly correcting my grammar as well as my pronunciation. In the Thai language, words have different meanings depending on the tone in which they are spoken, which can make things quite difficult. Even when I manage to come up with the right word for a sentence, I often pronounce it wrong or a little bit funny. The one nice thing about the language is that there are no verb conjugations like there are in Spanish and English, which allows me to focus on getting the pronunciation of the words correct. Lately, I have been spending the first half hour or so of my lesson just talking with Ajaan Wilasinee in Thai about random things and what I did the day before. I often don’t know how to say what I want to say, but Ajaan Wilasinee helps me along and is really patient with me, and I have really been enjoying that part of the lesson. I still have a long ways to go with the language, but it is cool to think that two weeks ago I only knew a few Thai phrases, and now, I can carry on a broken conversation in Thai.
When I am not in class at ISDSI, I am often out wandering around the city of Chiang Mai. The city itself is not that big so I am able to cover a lot of distance in the city just by walking around. When I need to go somewhere that is a little further away, I just flag down a sawng tauw and tell the driver where I need to go. Sawng tauw’s are the public transportation in Chiang Mai and they are everywhere. It only costs 20 baht (75 cents) to go anywhere in the city, but the drivers often try and get more money out of me because they can see that I’m a foreigner. There area in which I’m staying does not have a lot of foreigners living in the area which is kind of nice, but there are still a lot of great places to eat nearby as well as a mall where I can get some basic groceries. I often go to eat at a small noodle shop each day where they serve amazing dishes like khau soy or phad thai for only a few dollars, and even when I go to a nicer restaurant, I only end up spending 5 to 8 dollars on a full coarse meal. One of my most favorite dishes so far has been a deep-fried morning glory dish with cashews and a spicy shrimp sauce on top. I have found that restaurants are a great place to study my Thai notes because it is perfectly fine to sit around in a restaurant for hours without buying anything. Towards the more touristy area of Chiang Mai, there are a lot of markets to walk around in, which have been fun to explore. There are the typical souvenir shops, artistic shops, clothing shops, as well as a lot of food stalls. I have been careful with what I buy at the food stalls because it is hard to tell how sanitary some of them are, but I have enjoyed trying things like deep-fried bananas and insects that they have for sale. I really like going to the fruit stalls (even more than I did before) because now I know a lot of the Thai words for the different kinds of fruit available. Going to the market is a good way for me to practice my Thai outside of class even though I often get funny looks because my Thai is not very good yet. Even if I do manage to say the right thing, my accent alone is enough to make someone laugh at me.
As great as Chiang Mai has been the last couple of weeks, I am looking forward to going back to UHDP. I’m looking forward to practicing my Thai with the staff at UHDP, but it’s definitely a good thing that I have a few weeks left in Chiang Mai to improve my Thai. I am nowhere near close to understanding conversations that Thai people have with one another because what they are saying just sounds like one big word to me. I really miss being around the people at UHDP and the daily life that comes with living up there, but right now I’m enjoying what comes with living in the city because I know I will have plenty of time to be up at UHDP.
Last weekend I made it up to Doi Suthep, which is the Buddhist temple up on the mountain 15 kilometers outside of Chiang Mai. The spot for the temple was chosen by letting an elephant strapped with Buddhist relics wander up the mountain until it died. It died about halfway up the mountain, conveniently, in a spot with a great view of Chiang Mai. I took the trip alone, but I got to talking with one of the Thai’s riding in the sawng tauw with me, and when we were climbing the steps up to Doi Suthep, I was able to gather that he wanted to jump off the edge of the lookout point because his girlfriend broke his heart. He didn’t speak any English so I wasn’t sure if I understood him correctly, but he started scaring me when he threw his atm card and credit card down the ledge, and he also showed me the goodbye letter that he wrote to his family. Needless to say, he didn’t end up jumping and he rode the sawng tauw back in to Chaing Mai with me that night so I hope he is doing alright. I wasn’t able to enjoy learning about the temple like I was planning on doing, but I was still able to take a few pictures. 
Posts
