Hello family and friends! Our week with the Mirror Art Group has been amazing! The Mirror Art Group is a NGO that works with various hill tribes in Northern Thailand alleviate some of the problems they face including poverty, education, and Thai citizenship. Our role here has been to help build a wall to protect their road from flooding as well as experience some of Chiang Rai’s attractions and get a firsthand experience in the hill tribe lifestyle. After a morning of work on Wednesday afternoon we had the opportunity to two of the biggest attractions in Chiang Rai; the White Temple and the Black House. They are both art installments though once the White Temple completed it will be a fully functioning monastery including an art gallery and living quarters for the monks. It represents the journey to heaven while the Black House, filled with haunting arrangements of animal skins and bones, symbolizes hell. We all enjoyed taking time to take in the sights and take photos and enjoy ice cream outside of the Black House. Saturday was our last morning of work. In the afternoon we went to a waterfall and had a chance to swim and cool off.
On Friday morning we departed for our three day trek through the nearby Lahu hill tribes. Our first day proved to be a challenging six hour hike on mostly uphill terrain but we persevered through the heat, inspired by our guides (who hiked in flip flops) and energized by our delicious packed lunches consisting of sticky rice, fried pork, and veggies wrapped in banana leaves. We reached the village around 3:30 drenched in sweat and rather tired. Never has sleeping on the floor of a bamboo hut with twelve roommates seemed so inviting. After a delicious dinner cooked by our hosts we all headed for bed at the reasonable hour of about 7:30. The next day we learned how to make crafts including bamboo rings and hand woven bracelets and played with the local children who seemed to have incredible amounts of energy considering their relatively low-sugar diet. On our final day we had a short downhill hike through photogenic rice fields to our pick up point about two kilometers away. We then spent the remainder of the day paying a visit to an elephant tourist attraction that proved to be quite disappointing considering the chains, hooks, and poor living conditions for these poor friendly giants. After we briefly visited a local artificial hot spring despite the heat and finally checked out a Chinese temple and the largest Buddha statue in all the land. Today is our last day here in Chiang Rai and tomorrow we will begin our long voyage to the ancient city of Ayuthaya. Until next time (when we’ll be spreading the word from Cambodia!), Ari and Cal.
