Long Necks!

After our rather wet and restless night at our Home Stay, we got up bright and early and set out to see the local hill tribes.  While we saw several different tribes, none were as memorable as the Long-neck Karen.

As told by the long-necked Karen leader, the Padaung tribal people only began wearing neck rings when they began being attacked by tigers.  They devised these rings to prevent death – mainly because tribe members were killed when tigers mauled their necks.  This worried the tribe so much that they ordered tribal girls and unmarried women to wear neck rings to prevent themselves from “bad luck.”  Golden rings were originally worn, but when gold became too expensive, brass was substituted and is still used today.

It might be hard to read - but that says 4.5 kilos!

 

The longest neck brass has been recorded as 25 loops weighing around 8 kilograms.  Padaung people start putting neck rings on their girls at 5 years of age.   At the first time, the girl wears around 8 neck rings.  In general, the first set of rings weighs approximately 1 kilogram.  Every three years, another 3 rings are added until the woman becomes 25 or gets married.  Once the neck rings have been put on, they will be there through the wearer’s life – without taking them off.  This is due to the fact that because the women wear neck rings, their neck muscles are not used – taking off the neck rings can be extremely dangerous, which is why Karen women do not take the rings off until death. 

In addition to neck rings, the women of the Karen tribe display their status as married women by wearing carved elephant tusks in their ears. When a woman is married, her ears are pierced and an elephant tusk of one to four centimeters in length is inserted. 

Karen kids in school

During the early stages the ear pieces are quite small, especially for younger women. The weight of the tusks gradually weighs down on the ear lobe and the ear gets larger and larger, and longer and longer. Then larger tusks are inserted and the process repeats itself until the woman's ears become extremely elongated and floppy. The married woman wears these ear pieces for life.

Originally I joked that my strategy would be to get married at age 10 to avoid having so many neck rings, but I think that would only mean that my ear lobes are a lot longer…yikes!

Mosquito Repellent is the New Perfume

Cooling off in the waterfall!

After our visit to the White Temple, we drove another hour or so, saw more sights and scenery, and hiked to a waterfall where we got to go swimming. 

  

 
























After that, we trekked to our home stay, and set up camp for the night.  I was extremely excited to stay with a hill tribe, and was trying to contain my excitement, when all of a sudden, when being introduced to our host family, two puppies came rolling out from under a table playing, and I was in heaven.  After 24 hours in transit with less than 5 hours of sleep, there is nothing like an adorable puppy (let alone TWO!) to cheer you up.  

Playing with a new friend in the village

We spent all evening running around the village, playing with everything from puppies to pigs.  We got to meet several of the villagers and practiced our international sign language (as they did not speak Thai) and had a very delicious and romantic candlelit dinner.  

It cannot go without mention however, that the mosquitoes here are bigger than life-size.  I am fairly certain that these bloodsuckers are on steroids because they are more than twice the size of a normal mosquito.  Furthermore, I’m extremely popular with mosquitoes, which is NOT the kind of popularity one should hope for.  As a result, mosquito repellent has become my new scent, and I happily spray it around every chance I get.  It still is no defense from these monsters, which manage to bite at every ample opportunity.

Candlelit dinner :)

After an exhausting day, the four of us were fighting to keep our eyes open past 8:00pm which of course, is difficult to do when you are living with a hill tribe and rely on natural light.  By 6:00pm it was dark, and after guzzling down a delicious traditional Northern Thai meal, we were hit with food coma and exhaustion.  Suba and I curled up in our mosquito net, ready to call it a night.  

Our room for the night...

At about 2am, I was woken up to the sound of intense thunder, lightning, and pounding rain.  Suba was also wide awake.  We quickly realized our grass hut was NOT as waterproof as one might hope, and we scrambled to keep our blanket dry as all of our belongings were soaked.  In the beginning, we were laughing, and saying how thankful we were that we had a warm meal, a semi-decent roof over our head, and a place to sleep.  But heaping puddles, soaking wet clothes and two hours later – we were not as enthusiastic about our situation.  

 

Yet I still could not get this woman’s face out of my mind from our volunteering at Chula two days before – and I still knew, despite the rain, despite the mosquitoes, and despite the spiders in the bathroom that had a leg span the size of my HAND, we were lucky.

George W. Bush and WMDs at Temple in Chiang Rai

16 long hours later and one long night without sleep or food, we arrived in Chiang Rai.  After searching for cheap accommodation and food and winding up with little options due to the fact that we were not the only ones who had evacuated North and most accommodation was booked, we decided to negotiate a two-day, one-night adventure and homestay with a hill tribe.  It provided all meals and accommodation for us (which finding food and fresh drinking water, even this far North, was still a challenge), it cost less than the hotel alone, and it gave us a private tour of whatever we wanted to see.

Walking through the impurities in life...

We giddily picked out an entire week’s worth of activities and sights and crammed it all into our two-day, one-night itinerary.  The owner was nice enough to let us shower in his hostel upstairs (which after a 16 hour bus ride…is amazing), before we headed out for our new adventure. 

We first went to the White Temple in a town near Chiang Rai.  The White Temple, known as Wat Rong Khun in Thai, is different from any other temple in Thailand.  The temple is entirely white.  The white color stands for Lord Buddha’s purity; while the white glass stands for Lord Buddha’s wisdom that "shines brightly all over the Earth and the Universe."

Yes - that is Kung Fu Panda and Neo painted in a temple!

There is a bridge leading to the temple which represents the crossing over and the cycle of rebirth to the Abode of Buddha. You cross over the human world, similar to a Christian hell, which demonstrates the impurities in the mind and suffering.

The temple itself was beautiful.  I couldn’t wait to walk across the beautiful bridge to enter the actual temple, to see how lush and elaborate the inside was.  To my shock and awe (ha), it had very bizarre images painted on the walls.  When I say bizarre, I mean really modern images one would not expect to find in a temple – images of Spiderman, Batman, Morpheus in the Matrix, and Paris Hilton, etc. It also had paintings of the two towers and President Bush riding a WMD with Osama Bin Laden…
  

George W. and Osama Bin Laden painted inside the Temple!

Today, Wat Rong Khun is still being constructed.  I am afraid it is similar to the Sagrada Familia Gaudi piece in Barcelona, where construction has continued to this day since 1877 – it looks like it may be an everlasting project.  I hope to one day come back and see what other pivotal moments in Hollywood or history this artist choses to paint on the remaining walls inside the temple…

Evacuation 2554

Where do we GO?!

We went to class as usual on Wednesday…but you could sense the nerves in the classroom from everyone – including our professors and program coordinators.  Some students were missing from class already as they lived on the outskirts of Bangkok, and their houses were underwater.  Our student Facebook group page was covered with links to the most recent flood updates and pictures of areas with massive amounts of damage and people trying to collect what was left of their little belongings.

With all the news and technology these days, you would think it would be easy to tell what was going on.  Yet, due to the varied political parties and governments, it has been nearly impossible to tell what is going on.  Some report that the floods are due any minute in Bangkok with massive amounts of destruction, other reports say the water won’t even breach the city walls (which we now know is not true because water is already inside the city!).  It is very frustrating and difficult to determine what is going on and certainly adds to the mysteriousness and panicked frenzy of this natural disaster.

At the end of class it was announced, it was time to go.  Evacuations were underway for several areas in the city – and we needed to get out.  Having lost power the night before and taken a shower in the pitch black because I was told the water was to be turned off the following morning, I was not about to argue against leaving.  The only problem was – where the heck to we go?!

What we saw upon arriving at the Bus Terminal - thousands of people stranded with all of their belongings...waiting

A few friends from class and I decided, after consulting many people, that heading to the North would be best.  The flooding had already hit this area a few months ago, and the water was heading further south, so we figured that the roads further north would be clear.

All flights were booked, and all buses going to Chiang Mai (the big city up North) were also booked, so we did what everyone else was doing – we waited, patiently, and we were flexible.  After waiting several hours on standby at the bus station, we were able to get a bus to Chiang Rai.

The lines for STANDBY for bus tickets...

WAIT...they have COBRAS here?!

I woke up with my normal Sunday morning routine as per usual; went to the gym, showered, got dressed and was on my way to try to find more food from the mini marts and supermarkets several Skytrain stations over as there were rumors in my building that this area had received new shipments of drinking water and I had been on a hunt for several days.  I went out the elevator in my lobby and there were a bunch of people surrounding a post on the bulletin board.  My condo building always keeps us informed about ANY changes – there was a bulletin announcement when a new Thai Soap Opera station was added to our standard cable package, and another that due to popular demand we had new dryers installed in our building (dryers are a very “Western” thing and are not common in Thailand AT ALL).  But this one seemed to be attracting a lot more attention than previous announcements.  I was excited – I thought perhaps it was another treadmill for the gym or something.

I inched closer to see what it said.  The bulletins are always written in Thai and then translated into broken or what I would call “working” English – meaning it gets the point across and is understandable, but perhaps not grammatically perfect.  The sign read:

Please don’t go outside.  Canal flood and snake come.  Snake on property.  Three people bit in last two day.  Do not go outside unless emergency.

Ok, well that wasn’t what I expected.  I watched as everyone turned around and got back IN the elevator to go back to their rooms and didn’t go outside.  I guess this was pretty serious! 

No this isn't the one I saw...but YES it did look just like it!

I was doubting the severity of the situation and couldn’t help hanging around the lobby for the rest of the afternoon to see...perhaps secretly hoping I could see something or confirm it was just overcautious and I could be on my way to find water.  I didn’t have to wait long before our security guard/doorman, equip with only a small fishing net and rubber flip flops, came back with a few dark things moving in his net.  I squealed at the realization that #1 there really WERE snakes in my parking lot and #2 despite that, I still desperately wanted to see what they looked like, what kind they were, how big etc.  The doorman could see how excited I was and brought over his net.  They were MUCH bigger than I mentally had prepared myself for.  I was hoping for small garden snakes.  In hindsight, I now realize Thai people deal with snakes so much, they wouldn’t bother to post anything about snakes unless they were THIS kind – big AND poisonous.  I am no expert in snakes, and unless they rattle or are bright green mambas like the ones I remember from Africa, they all look pretty similar to me.  But my doorman told me to stay back which helped me understand they were bad snakes whatever they were. 

A few hours later, I came back down and my doorman came over to me incredibly excited.  I peeked in his net thinking maybe he caught some kind of bunny or kitten – something cuter and less deadly perhaps?  To my horror, and utter shock, I came face to face with my first wild cobra.  Obviously I knew they existed in the wild, but I sincerely believed my only encounter with a cobra would be when I traveled to India (still on my bucket list!) and saw one in a basket that only came out to the sound of a flute!  I didn’t hang around long enough to see if it spit, but went straight back to my room and thanked Buddha that no one taught snakes how to take the elevator to the 10^th floor. 

In case you can't get enough of snakes...here is the more recent article on the 15 escaped green mambas in Bangkok...http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Deadly-green-mambas-escape-30169105.html

Eyes of Expression: Volunteering for Flood Relief at Chula

Sandbags line the shops in my neighborhood...

After class today, I went to Chula with a few classmates to help package supplies for flood victims.  Unlike the Red Cross, which had an abundance of volunteers and specific schedules of shipments, Chula was a giant warehouse full of supplies and in dire need of volunteers.  

Phoo and I pausing for a picture with all the stuffed rucksacks in the background!

Like I mentioned in my earlier volunteering efforts with the Red Cross – it amazes me how a language barrier can almost disappear, just for a moment, in a time of crisis.  Students eagerly grabbed our hands, pointed to various piles of supplies, handed us plastic bags and said “Help.”  For the first two hours, we “waterproofed” medical kits – by wrapping them in plastic bags and securing them with rubber bands.  Every group of volunteers in the room was focused on preparing one item – whether it was packing soup cans together, weighing rice, or counting life jackets.  After successfully packing 16 large boxes of over 1,000 medical kits, we then rearranged the entire gymnasium so that each pile of goods was laid out in one section.  Volunteers then were given a rucksack and went around the room, taking one item from each pile, and placing it into the bag.  It was amazing all the goods that went into one bag – food, water, large bags of rice and canned goods, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, medical kits, a pack of playing cards, etc.  It was also amazing how quick that rucksack got heavy!

Successful waterproofing of medical kits with all my classmates!

The Thai Navy was there to load all of the rucksacks onto a massive flatbed truck, and as soon as one truck was loaded, it immediately left for distribution.  As we were leaving, I noticed there was a section outside around the corner where people were also bringing rucksacks.  I was a little confused why they were going somewhere else besides the flatbed trucks with hunky men in uniform, so I nosily decided to get closer to see what this special side unit was for…

What I failed to realize, is that while Chula was at the forefront of sending supplies to those affected by the floods, it was also denoted as one of the main campsites for refugees from the floods.  Flood victims are taken to this gymnasium for housing, supplies, and a hot meal, after everything they had has been taken away from them.  I cannot begin to describe the emotions that these people wore.  While it is painful to watch the news and reports on TV, I was not prepared to see these flood victims face to face.  I caught the glance of one mother’s eyes and the pain, sadness and desolation of everything, I could see it all right there in her exhausted, defeated face.  I was so upset; I looked straight at the floor and could feel my face flush with embarrassment.

I cannot get her face out of my mind.  I cannot imagine losing everything.

Evacuation Site in Bangkok

FLOODS UPDATE

Due to the flooding in Bangkok, I was not able to post to this blog for several weeks.  The floods are still ongoing in Bangkok at the moment, and the situation continues to be very serious, with many of my classmates apartment’s underwater, including my own.  I have chosen not to focus on all of the difficulties in the past few weeks mainly because I think my poor grandmother would faint if she heard about all of the snakes, mosquitoes, yellow rafts and grass huts.  Instead, I have focused on various portions of the flooding, my evacuation, and adventures along the way.

Don Muang Airport in Bangkok

I returned to Bangkok this morning from the North after an eleven-day evacuation on an overnight bus and spent all day trying to obtain food and drinking water.  The city is deserted, all restaurants and shops are boarded up, and it is creepy wandering around the mall by yourself without the feeling of a salmon, battling the large currents of people – now, it is just…quiet.  Empty.

The next few days will be crucial to see where the path of the water will go.  While the newspapers have been paying a lot of attention to the crocodiles and snakes that are in the waters (most recently, 15 green mambas…yikes!), for me, the greatest concern is the disease that comes with the waters and of course, access to drinking water and food.

At this point in time, over 500 people have been killed and the floods are nowhere near over.  Please continue to pray for Thailand.

Flooded Market in Bangkok; October 24th, 2011.

***As many of you know my love for photography, while these photos are certainly hard to stomach, I think they accurately and artistically depict what is currently going on here in Thailand:   

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/bangkok-underwater/100178/