Hi everyone!
I arrived in Chiang Mai four days ago and have spent my first few days in Thailand adventuring, eating lots of noodles and bonding with the incredible other nine people in my group. After almost 24 hours of travel, I had the best sleep of my life at the Diva 3 Hostel. The woman who runs Diva 3, Na, is the sweetest woman and made sure to get us all settled in and laughs at our struggles to say thank you in Thai. These last few days have been jam packed with team bonding and orientation, I don’t remember being so excited and exhausted at once. It would take way too much time to list everything I have done so far so I will just list the highlights. I went to a outdoor museum that displayed beautiful terracotas (no idea how to spell that). Despite the mosquitoes landing on me every two seconds it was incredible to see the ancient carves stone and it has been inspiring me to draw while i am here. Yesterday we took a song thao, basically a janky bus, to a mountain overlooking chiang mai and hiked in pouring rain to the bottom of a waterfall. I think I left my rain jacket at home so i got completely soaked but it was so crazy pretty i didn’t even care. We also went to a temple near the waterfall that was incredibly peaceful and made me speechless. There are a lot of customs that you have to practice, especially in religious places. You never point your feet towards a monk or a statue of the Buddha. At temples your clothes must be loose and cover your shoulders and legs and you must remove your shoes. I am constantly surprised by the generosity in Thai culture; Thai people almost always leave donations at temples and are so helpful without asking for anything in return. Today I think was my favorite day so far. We were paired up and went on a scavenger hunt all over chiang mai. Navigating without a smart phone is very difficult never mind not speaking the language. After searching out a thai temple, petting a python snake, getting a full body massage for less than $10 and finding a place to get passport photos, me and Rachel made it to this internet cafe as the last part of the hunt. I have to be back at the hostel in 5 minutes but I will blog as much as I can over my trip.
Thanks for reading!
Sa wa di kah
Amby