Monsoon Season

Before I came to Thailand I did research. After I received my letter of acceptance into this program, I decided that it might be wise to do a little research on the country I was shortly to visit. I knew that I enjoyed the food, so the next logical step seemed to be research online. I looked at a variety of sources including my generations’ personal favorite, Wikipedia (which is actually a good place to start with your general information research on a topic), and the CDC (in an effort to learn what could potentially kill me, the list is long). Next, I went to a variety of bookstores and read travel guide books about the country and what to expect. One of the main pieces of information I gleaned from all of these sources: I am visiting Thailand during what is termed, Monsoon Season.

As you may have noticed from my previous entries, there has not been a whole lot of rain here. I was told it rained the day before I arrived and since then it has rained about twice (heavy rain worth mentioning, not the stupid sprinkling rain that reminds me of Portland, pathetic). Well, today that has all changed. During the final portion of our day of orientation today it started to rain. Now, this seemed like a good thing as the usual course of rain here is about 45 minutes to 1 hour of torrential downpour, then the clouds part, the sun comes out, and the water covering the streets evaporates in a few hours, which makes the entire city feel muggier than usual. When we were released from our class we all walked downstairs and stood under the overhang looking at the wet ground and the delicate drops still falling. The assumption at that time was that the worst of the rain had passed. Thus, we set off walking toward our apartments, stepping carefully to avoid splashing any mud or residual water up on our legs. Well…that was useless. After about three minutes of walking the sprinkles got a little harder. We still weren’t worried as it still wasn’t coming down too hard and the drops actually felt a bit refreshing in the heat. As we were walking, Bobby (another American law student) said that he had also read about the “Monsoon Season” of Thailand and that if this was it, he was a little disappointed. What a jinxer. Evidently the great Buddha has a sense of humor and thought it would be hilarious to give us a taste of a true Thailand downpour as we were walking since we had openly doubted the lands ability to produce monsoon-ish rain. At this point we had gone too far to turn back and by the time we reached the main road where we could conceivably catch a red truck it was too late, we were completely soaked. Now, “completely soaked” here means that within 2 minutes of the rain starting my t-shirt was soaked through, even my underwear was wet, the streets ran like rivers, and my hair acted as a waterfall, cascading water down around me. At first, it is very easy to be upset, but after about 3 minutes I saw the humor of the situation and began to enjoy it all. I mean, here I am in Thailand, caught in a monsoon rain without my umbrella and raincoat, the way no self-respecting Thai person would be caught. It was quite the experience and I’m glad it happened, although from now on I will be smart enough to keep either my umbrella or raincoat with me at all times. :)

The time before the rain and the rest of the day were very good too. Orientation focused on practicing pieces of our lesson plan presentations we have been working on for the last day and a half, with the entire class participating in the activities we would include in the lesson plan. Our group went first this morning and it all went very well. In these long days of presentations I am finding it best to go as close to first as possible as the group is still fresh at that time and willing to actually pay attention (although only to a limited degree) and today we were lucky enough to go first and then had to simply listen and participate in the rest of the presentations.

After getting soaked through, I finally made it back to the apartment where I quickly dried off and changed clothes. Unfortunately, the rain meant the death of my “monk chat” plans I prepped you for yesterday. You see, at the Wat Phra Singh there is an amazing program where you go the temple between the times of 5:30 and 7 pm on certain days and you can “chat with a monk.” In Buddhist culture women are not allowed near the monks in normal day-to-day situations (obviously they can pray in front of a monk when visiting the temples), but out of respect to the vows monks take regarding celibacy, etc., women are not allowed to give anything directly to a monk (to give a donation a monk takes the money from the woman in a special cloth, no hand-to-hand contact), they cannot initiate conversation with a monk, and they should really walk widely around a monk so as not to accidentally have contact. In fact, buses in Thailand are built with a special “Monk Section” so that monks do not come near any women. The monk chat at the temple is meant to make monks and their ways of life more understandable and accessible to the non-Buddhist. They allow an individual (man or woman) to have a long chat with a monk, asking any questions they can think of to the monk. In return, the monks are able to practice their English language skills (which means I can count the “monk chat” as community service!). To me this sounds like an amazing opportunity! I have a hundred questions for those monks, including: do you own other clothes besides the orange robes, why did you decide to become a monk, why did you decide to become a monk, what do you do all day, what are your special duties, how do you become the head monk, what was your education like, do you only study Buddhist religion or traditional school subjects too, etc. I was very disappointed that the rain canceled our “monk chat” (but it is held outside and is canceled if it rains). However, I have great plans to participate in this later, either on Saturday here in Thailand or at one of the temples in Laos (since they have the program as well).

As our planned event had to be abandoned, Zenia, Sam and I joined some other people for an early dinner at a small bakery near the apartments. I am ashamed to say that I have finally caved and eaten some non-Thai food. Today, at approximately 5:30 pm I ate a hamburger with French fries. I am so disappointed in myself. It didn’t taste like a traditional American hamburger; it was definitely a Thai variety. Unfortunately, this bakery had more American food on the menu than Thai and by the time I realized that (I had been told there was a decent amount of Thai food on the menu before agreeing to go) I was starving and decided to give in and order some Western food. One of the other girls there, Laura, did make a very persuasive argument though. You see, at home I never stick with one type/region of food 100% of the time, instead I am constantly mixing it up with American, Thai, Mexican, Chinese, etc. It is, in fact, crazier for me to only eat one type of food here than to mix it up now and again with another type of food. Therefore, my “little slip” of eating Western food is actually more natural than I had been previously acting/eating. While this is a good argument, I am not sure I fully buy it. After all…the real reason I came here was for the food! :) Don’t worry, in the future I will stick with my Thai food! We cannot have this argument changing my plans of eating Thai food all the time.

After eating, we headed out to the daily night bazaar in the old city to look for some souvenirs that Zenia needed to buy. I didn’t find much although I did buy myself a Chiang Mai t-shirt (with an elephant), a smurf shirt for immersion week (the smurfs are awesome by the way), and a pair of crop pants that are very popular here. In addition I bought what has to be the best souvenir ever and it was only 20 Baht (under a dollar). It’s a little pink crab creature about the size of a dime made out of palm leaves! Doesn’t that sound amazing?! I’m sure all of you are sitting there, reading this and thinking, “No, Lauren. That sounds silly.” And for some reason that is what everyone else has been saying too. To that I reply, “You lack all scope of the imagination and you need to start letting yourselves be amused by the simpler things in life.” Life can be all too serious and it is very easy to get caught up all the negative aspects. A good way I have found to combat this problem is to constantly look for the little amusing things in life that bring tiny bursts of pleasure. If you keep focusing on those things, you start to see them everywhere and soon your life is filled with tiny moments of happiness and laughter, which I consider a great way to live life. Give it a try and see what you think…

We came home early from the market as it wasn’t quite as fun as the Sunday night market. As I mentioned, this market occurs daily and is largely for the tourist population in Chiang Mai. Therefore, most of the stalls there are semi-permanent and are filled with what I consider debris, but some people consider souvenirs (ex. Small Buddha statues, mini temples, etc.). In addition, there are fewer people at this market and it simply lacks the energy and vitality of the Sunday Waling Market.

In any event, the market was fun to visit and a good thing to have seen. I have now showered and am ready to go to bed. Tomorrow should be an interesting day as the entire city of Chiang Mai is shutting down for a Buddhist religious festival (and if I had managed to go to “monk chat” I would know which one it is, but as I was unable to attend, I am completely in the dark as to the purpose of this celebration) and we are going to learn where we will be placed for our Immersion Week (either in Wildflower, a camp for in-crisis women, Kings Project, a forestry center, or with a family in a rural community). I’ll give you the scoop soon! Until then, good morning!