1st Asia Update from Peg and College Group

Greetings friends and parents

I'm forwarding an update that Colin wrote and sent out already to a good number of his friends, since we have all been busy and haven't had the chance yet to send a group mail that covers all the ground we have so far. I know John is planning another update soon, and he will catch you all up to where he and the college group are now, spending a couple more days in Chiang Mai pursuing individual projects, before leaving Friday for E Wi Jo and the microhydro project. And I promise to send one myself in two days, after the high school group is here, at least to confirm their safe arrival. Colin and I returned to Bangkok just now, to be here to welcome them and get their adventures going. For those who didn't get the first email John sent, it's below the one I am forwarding of Colin's. I hope you find some time to read all of this, as you will certainly see that we are off to an incredibly good start with this year's sojourn.

Love and peace,
Peg

And now from Colin:

Good day, Sawadee Kap, Buenos Dias, Whats Happenin?

I'm back on the road with the Institute for Village Studies once again. For about a week and a half now a handful of the most talented people I know have been introducing the ins and outs of the culture, history, cuisine, and countryside of Thailand to another group of eager students from WWU. We arrived on the 15th into Bangkok pumped to get things going. We were in Thailand after all; who wants to wait around for things to happen?

My initial experience with this group was back on San Juan Island watching them begin the formative process of becoming a tribe through a two day orientation in the cold damp beauty of our northwest home. There is a Russian word, samochustvie, used to describe the initial impression of someone's physical, mental, and emotional state. I use it almost as a scale with groups and the students whose education, safety, and health become our staff's prerogative for the months we are with them. And this group from the beginning had an impressively strong samochustvie.

On our first day in Bangkok we took them down to The Royal Palace, Wat Phra Quew, and Wat Po, three of the largest and most spectacular temple complexes in all of Thailand. It was a Saturday, so there were people swarming everywhere as we made our way around seeking out every nook and cranny to see the elegant craftsmanship that went into the construction of marvelously inlaid towering chedis, pillars, statues, and railings. Almost every inch of these temples is adorned with art, be it gold, mirrors, and colored glass composing the outer shell of sacred temples, or the intricate paintings describing the Ramayana that line the entirety of the wall surrounding Wat Phra Quew. A centerpiece of this temple is the Emerald Buddha; a two foot tall jade figure of a seated Buddha that wears immaculate golden robes atop a mountain of golden statues, pillars, flowers, and incense. The building that houses it is likewise painted from floor to ceiling with historical scenes from the life of the Buddha and surrounded on its exterior by an army of golden deities that perch below a rainbow spectrum of colored glass that forms the scaley armor around this precious piece of Thai culture and history.

The long day pounding through the boiling streets of Bangkok had little noticeable effect on our group, aside from building their enthusiasm for what lay ahead. The next day we made a quick escape from the metropolis of Bangkok to Ban Phra Tat and the home of our dear friends Wan Pen and Mr. He. There are a hundred different ways to get about in this country, from bicycles, tuk-tuks, taxis, vans, buses, trains and planes; we decided to use the local train to Kanchanaburi. We were told that it ran every hour, so we made a leisurely departure from the Shanti Lodge and got to the Thonburi train station with plenty of time to get snacks and board the train. We found out however that the train only ran three times a day, once at 7:45 am, then at 1:55 pm and sometime later in the evening. It didn't soak in as I was peeling my jaw off the ticket counter, but suddenly we had four hours to kill. With an authentic Thai market nearby and no other traveler or tourist in sight a cultural experience was born.

We boarded the train and were off through the rice paddies and jungles of Thailand at a steady chug that only a small diesel passenger train can provide. With the windows open and the balmy wind the only way to cool our skin from the burning tropical sun, we were on our way to what I know as some of the best home cooking and peaceful surrounds on the face of this earth.

For three nights I finally found that little bit of peace I have been looking forward to from the couches of my generous friends back in Bellingham. I felt like I had come home once again. We filled our first day with a trip to Phra Tat Cave, admiring the beauty of the bamboo forest that borders the winding staircase to the mouth of the cave where a gallery of limestone and quartz art, ever-changing and growing in a world of complete darkness, awaited the curious caress of our headlamps twitching to and fro so as to see all that the small beams of light would allow. We returned to Wan Pen's, growing ever more excited for the picnic lunch of her famous Pad Thai at the even more famous Erawan Waterfalls. We crammed into song taews and carefully plodded down the mountain to the falls, where we left our drivers and dove headfirst into spicy food and crystal blue waters.

The falls at Erawan are one of a kind. Seven steps, as they call the series of waterfalls, strewn along a kilometer and a half of earth part carved by the water and part built by the calcium rich sediment that encases everything in its path. Sticks, rocks, and trees rather quickly turn to stone, building these falls and constantly changing the path of the water as it pours down the hillside. Some are gradual steps, leading from pool to pool, creating terraces of stone and water, while others of the seven steps are gargantuan cascading falls that pour down 60 ft or across a wide swath of stone, concealing caves and hidden pools behind their solid facade of pounding water. Always worthy of note are the fish that inhabit the pools who happily encircle anyone who enters their home to clean all the dead skin off their body. Usually people allow them to nibble on their toes as long as they can stand the tickle of a dozen fish upon their feet. This year I found a pool all to myself where i could submerge myself up to my neck and let them clean my entire body. As if my skin wasn't already responding well enough to the moist Thai air after such cold dry back in Washington, getting the full exfoliating fish treatment made me feel like a bazillion dollars.

When it came time to leave Erawan we called our friendly song taew driver, Mr. Taum, and got a ride back down to Kanchanaburi to board, instead of the slow train, a bus bound for Bangkok. Our timing couldn't have been better; literally as we stepped out of the song taews, we walked directly onto a bus bound for Bangkok, and as soon as we were aboard, off we went.

When we reached Bangkok we had to deal with one of the oldest tricks in the book: meter taxis not turning on their meters. I really don't care myself; I'll still pay what the meter says even if it says zero. Jared, in his cab, turned on the meter himself only to have the cabbie turn it off again. Their loss. We had agreed on meters and they didn't use them, so I paid half the outrageous price they wanted and proceeded to eat a fantastic lunch at the Shanti.

That night we departed via train for Chiang Mai -- Thailand's third largest city and, as John put it, a remarkably bustling international hub tucked away in what looks from afar like an obscure point on a map that should be lush with jungle and mountains, not oozing with culture and swirling with activity the way only Chiang Mai does.

But, even though that's where i am now as I write this, it's not where I've been for the last few days and there is much to tell still about climbing mountains, sitting and meditating on the sunrise at temples, and so much yet to come... but this computer I am using is off to bigger and better things than I need it for.

Until next time -- very much love and best wishes to all who read this.
Colin

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010
We're here, and well!

The Pacific Northwest sent us off with typical weather for the time of year. Those with window seats enjoyed some of the views offered by chasing the sun into the west, the Bering Sea, the Kamchatka peninsula, the Sea of Okhotsk, .... Others had fascinating conversations with passengers beginning their own adventures, or caught some of the many films offered. Before the sun finally set on our very long day, about an 11 hour flight, we could see that the ground at Incheon Airport near Seoul was covered with a few inches, centimeters, of snow. For a couple of hours of wandering the mall like airport, some email, some push-ups, some yoga, we continued on towards Bangkok. Although it was dark we could see on the flight track map that we did not take a direct route but stayed out over the sea avoiding mainland China. We flew over Taiwan and into Southeast Asia over Danang, Vietnam.

The relatively new Sunvarnabhumi Airport north of Bangkok is quite enormous yet was a fairly easy transition from plane to ground transportation, which was good for our glassy eyed group. We arrived at the Shanti Lodge around 1 AM Bangkok time. There we met up with Alex Martin, our Thailand based staff member. Some of the group headed to bed immediately, others were fairly wired and excited to chat and explore a bit with Alex until the early hours.

Those of us who have been to the Shanti before all dream of the delicious food. After the group finished breakfast withe expected smiles on their faces we headed through the nearby market with various meats, live fish, eels, toads, and less exotic kitchen wares, to cross the canal and out to the stop for the water taxi along the Chao Phraya River to head South to the Grand Palace complex. Much of it is administrative and reserved for the royal family, but the northeast corner is an assortment of temples and stupas, including the central temple housing the Emerald Buddha surrounded by galleries depicting the Ramayana and early Thai history. Many of the gallery paintings were being restored. Seeing the artists and conservationists at work added to the sense of continuity of the culture here. It is a lot to take in and the masses of tourists, monks, nuns, and devotees were all contributions to the experience.

Next, we walked to south to the temple complex, Wat Po. This is a small compound where many of the ornate roofs were were being restored. The elaborate shapes of wood were mostly installed and were then being smeared with adhesive into which mosaics of mirrors were being pieced together. All of the crew on the ground pushing wheel barrows or up on staging were in common blue jacket uniforms, and the majority doing the delicate mosaic work were women. Wat Po is home to an enormous gilded statue of the Buddha reclining. The awe on the students faces was a delight to see as well as the Buddha itself. There was an odd sound of metal on metal which when rounding to Buddha's back side we saw was many people depositing small coins into a series of 40 or so large, say two gallons, metal bowls. The necessary change was available there and supposedly goes to the up keep of the big guy while offering the devoted an opportunity to give.

In the hot sun and still dragging a bit from the flights that was enough to lead us back to the Shanti for lunch and rest, followed by the first assignment in reflection.

Today we head for Erawan to the west of Bangkok where we will stay with long time friends of the Institute Wan Pen and Mr. Hai. They grow organic food the Shanti Lodge.

Hope all of you are well. We appreciate your support of this adventure.

John Calogero