Chiang Mai

Today was my last day of taking Thai lessons at ISDSI and I’m heading back to UHDP tomorrow. I could spend the next couple of months studying the Thai language and still have a lot more to learn, but now I have a good base to work off of and I can work on improving my language skills as needed at UHDP. I still need a lot of practice listening to people talk because I still find it very hard to separate individual words that are said in a sentence. I’m looking forward to improving my Thai with the staff at UHDP as well as starting up some projects there and getting more involved with the daily work. Some of the ISDSI students are at UHDP right now, so when I go back, I will be able to help out with some of the activities that they have planned for the students.

The past couple of weeks have just been a lot more of the same except my class has been in the morning instead of the afternoon. I was nice to have the lesson done in the morning so I could have more of the afternoon to explore the city. I talked all about different parts of Chiang Mai in my last post, but I figured I would give you more of a visual with this post.

CHIANG MAI ZOO

A few weekends ago I was able to make it to the Chiang Mai Zoo.

INSECT MUSEUM

There is this really cool insect museum just behind my apartment, so of course I had to make a visit. The guy who runs the museum has worked with mosquitoes and the various diseases that they spread for the last fifty years of his life, and has discovered 26 or so new species of mosquito throughout his career. I wanted to talk to him about his experience with insects, but when I talked with him, he was more interested in telling me about his philosophy on life and that I should take trips to mars when trouble arises in my life. I really enjoyed his museum, but I was a little disappointed that he didn’t want to talk about insects like I had hoped.

DOI SUTHEP

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.

CITY LIFE

Here are some pictures of where I spend a lot of my time during the week: ISDSI and the various markets in Chiang Mai.