"Plant a seed in the hearts of the villagers"

Last week, we had a great opportunity to go stay in another one of the tribal villages of the mountains. This time, we went to a people group known as the Lahu. One of Ajarn Mike's friends, whose name is Witoon, is from the village and is working on a sustainable agriculture project for the people there.

This is Witoon explaining something to us about banana trees.
He was a really funny guy and it was great to get to know
him over the course of the week.

Right now, the people of the village mainly earn a living through growing corn using a slash and burn agricultural method. Each year they cut down and burn more and more of the forest on the hillside in order to plant and harvest corn or other cash crops. The problem with this is that the mountainsides are steadily beginning to erode as the forest is burnt down. Each year during the rainy season, much of the good topsoil is lost from the land, and the villagers must continue to cut down more trees as the existing fields become barren. Additionally, all of the burning leaves a black haze in the air and the corn is extremely difficult to harvest on the hillsides.

Here is what Witoon is trying to stop.

Witoon's vision for the village is to create a sustainable agricultural income through planting banana trees, coffee, tea, and nuts on the hillsides around the village. Not only will this prevent the forst from being further cut down, but it will also stop topsoil erosion and hopefully allow the farmers to achieve a better standard of living. Witoon told us that he cannot change the village by himself, but he only wishes to "plant a seed in the hearts of the villagers" so that they will begin to catch his vision.

Hope for the future:)

The biggest problem for most of the villagers is just having the capital to buy trees and begin to plant them. Most farmers barely make enough in one year to live off of and buy seed for next year. As a result, Witoon has a matching funds program set up through Ajarn Mike's church in America where the farmers can put forward money to buy trees and the church will match whatever the farmers put up. The best trees to start out with are banana trees and many of the villagers have already began to plant them on the hillsides around their houses.


Each day in the morning we would go out with Witoon and help one of the farmers plant trees on his land. It was really hard work digging the holes and carrying banana trees up and down the hillsides, but it was also really rewarding. In the afternoon, we would usually go swimming in the river or hang out with some of the kids of the village who were on summer recess from school.

This is what the inside of our house looked where we slept.

The entire week we stayed in homestays with one of the village families. They didn't really speak Thai or English very well, but we had a good time laughing at our inability to communicate. Overall, it was a great trip and a really good change of pace from the beautiful beaches of Koh Chang. The lifestyle really was rustic and I felt like we definitely got to experience how daily life is for the people there. It was great to get in some good manual labor and even though we weren't very good at planting compared to the seasoned villagers, I think that they really appreciated the gesture.

Many of the houses are still made out of wood and have
thatched roofs.

Others have began to become more modern and have
a stucco exterior.

This is what a typical kitchen in one of the houses looked like.

Here is the local blacksmith working on a machete.

This is an arial view of the village from the Catholic church
which is up on the hill.

It was an amazing experience to be able to live in a village and one that I think very few people get to have. I came away from our time here feeling incredibly blessed by the villagers and hoping that we were able to encourage them both in their faith (most of the villagers were Christian or Catholic) and in their struggle to maintain their way of life in the midst of a changing world.

Koh Chang (Elephant Island)

After our tour of southern Thailand, we had five days to travel to one of the nearby beaches before returning to Chiang Mai. Most of our group, including myself decided to go to and Island near Cambodia known as Koh Chang which means elephant island in Thai. We took a bus down from Bangkok, barely made it onto the ferry in the nick of time, and before we knew it we were in a whole new world of beautiful tropical forests and white sand beaches.

Koh Chang is a little more off of the beaten path as far as tourism goes, so everything was actually quite cheap. I think that I only spent $212 for all five days including transportation, food, hotels, and even some souvenir purchases. A couple of nights I stayed in a nicer hotel with air conditioning and running water, but the last two nights I tried out one of the beachside bungalows right on the water. Most days we went swimming in the ocean, explored the beaches, or just relaxed on the beautiful sand. The water was incredibly warm, and most of the time, I would only get out to reapply sunscreen.

At night, we would usually get some cheap fried rice off the street and then go swimming again out in the water. We saw a lot of jellyfish, but they turned out to be a variety which didn't sting very much so it wasn't a problem. One of my friends even licked one. Additionally, there was bioluminescence in the water, which was beautiful. Every time you would move your hand, the microorganisms in the water would glow green. It was not extremely strong, but I never got tired of watching it.

My favorite day in Koh Chang was when we went on a snorkeling tour to some surrounding reefs for a day. The entire trip cost just over $20 a person and we had an entire boat to ourselves. In addition, they gave us lunch and even provided all of the snorkeling gear. The water around the reefs was beautifully clear and we saw all kinds of cool fish. My favorite were the parrot fish and trumpet fish. We also saw a couple of octopi. Overall, it was an incredible trip and the entire experience seemed surreal.

Here are some pictures that hopefully give you a little taste of what our time was like:

This is the dock which we took our snorkeling tour from.

Here is the boat that we went on for our snorkeling trip.
I think it was supposed to look like a pirate ship or something haha.
The best part was that they let sit up on the prow while the ship was
moving and do flips off of the top deck into the water. 

Just trying out the underwater camera.

Many of the hotels were tucked away in beautiful little coves like this one.

Some variety of starfish. 

Chaco Tan

This was my favorite place that we went snorkeling. We could stand in most
places and the water was incredibly clear.

Two octopi and a really cool fish that I don't know the name of.
I will get back to you after I take Marine Biology next year.

Underneath the misty mountains. This was our first day in Koh Chang
when it was a little bit rainy.

This is the Bungalow that I stayed in the last
two nights. It cost me $7.

Lonely beach where we spent our last two days. There were usually
more hippie European tourists on the beach, but I think they were
all still asleep when I took this picture.

Koh Chang was an incredible place and we had a ton of fun together. It was also great to be able to speak with all of the locals in Thai and they really loved us compared to all of the other tourists . I left the island tired and sunburnt, but definitely planning on coming back sometime.

Tour of Southern Thaialnd

Two weeks ago, we finished up our main classes for the semester, said goodbye to our Thai families and hopped on a bus to begin our week long tour of southern Thailand. Although the trip was only 6 days long, we saw so many interesting things that they have already began to blur together in my head. Mostly, we visited different museums, historical sites and temple ruins. It was extremely hot during the day, above 100 degrees, but in the evenings we would all go swimming at our hotel swimming pools. We stayed at some really nice hotels and they all had great Thai breakfast buffets which I definitely got my money out of.

Below is a map of Thailand showing our general path of travel:

The first place we went was Lampang. We did not stay there very long, but we visited several museums and temples. I think that my favorite part of Lampang was actually just swimming in the pool because it was exceptionally hot. I also forgot my camera on the bus so I don't really have any pictures.

The next place we went was Sukhothai. I think that Sukhothai was actually my favorite place that we visited. There are thousands of old ruins which date back to the 1400s and we spent an entire day riding bikes around and looking at them.

This temple ruin shows the influence of the Khmer Empire
which was based in what is present day Cambodia. The
Khmer Empire exerted influence in present day
Thailand through the early 1400's, suggesting that
these ruins are over 600 years old.

Some of the Buddha images have been later reconstructed by
historians.

When we got tired of History lessons, the temple ruins
were a great place for pictures.

Here was our bike gang for a fun day of temple exploring.

I never thought I would be caught dead in a fanny
pack, but it actually turned out to be quite useful
for biking.

The next place we visited was Lopburi, the city of monkeys. It was quite an interesting place and the monkeys would jump all over you if you let them.

This little guy really liked my hat, but he later
proceeded to poop on me which wasn't the
best for our bus ride.

We also went to visit a museum of King Rama V's summer
palace. He was one of the main kings responsible for
Thailand's push toward Westernization.

The museum was really interesting, but we weren't allowed to
take pictures. This is the only one I got, but I though it
was definitely a keeper.

The next place we went to is a city called Ayudhya. It was once the capital of one of the most important empires in Thai history, known as the Ayudhya Empire from 1351 to 1767. I learned all about it in History class so it was really fun to get to see all of the ruins.

This is me and my buddy Ryan who I will be travelling with
next month.

It felt kind of like I was standing in the middle of a National
Geographic magazine. 

This is Peter, my other buddy from Westmont.

This is a famous site in Thailand where a Buddha head
somehow got suspended in the roots of a giant tree.

The last place we went was the capital city of Thailand, Bangkok. Bangkok is often referred to lovingly as the Venice of the east. For us, it definitely lived up to that name. We stayed in an amazing hotel on the water, took a sunset cruise through the canals of the city, and saw some spectacular temples. The next day we went to the royal palace which was incredibly ornate and beautiful.

Here is our dinner cruise ship.

We all ate dinner first and then we even had some dancing
and karaoke.

Westmont pals.

We also visited a royal garden of the King. Everything was
very westernized and there was even a European style
cathedral. 

I don't know if you can see it, but it had a
bunch of buddha images in it and pictures of the
king in the stained glass windows. It felt almost as if I was
somewhere in Europe before I actually walked into the
cathedral

The garden was beautiful and the architecture was very
modern and westernized. This was one of the king's
tricks to help keep Siam free from European
colonization.

The flowers were beautiful too.

This is the view from my hotel window. Bangkok is a
sprawling metropolis and has all kinds of interconnected
waterways. One day we rode the water taxi around the city
because it is sometimes faster than driving.

The Royal River Hotel.

One of the beautiful old temples in Bangkok lit up at night.

This was one of the pagodas at the royal palace. It is
hard to get a feel for the full beauty of the place, but
everything was gold plated and elaborately decorated.

Another part of the Palace was fairly westernized. To me
it felt almost like it should be in Disney Land.

Overall, our 6 days of travelling were an amazing time. We were able to see so many different things and really get a feel for the diversity of Thailand from the stunningly modern palace in Bangkok to the ancient ruins of Sukhothai. More than that, it was a great time to travel with friends and some of our best times were spent singing songs on the back of the bus or swimming in the pools at the hotel.

Sawadee krap!