small small world

I know I said I would write my next update from the south, but I wanted to put in some words about our great day here in Chiang Mai. Laura and I got up not so early and bid farewell to her friends, Laura and Kevin. They headed north near the Burma border to work on an engineering service project. They were kind enough to leave us their Lonely Planet guide to Cambodia and let me know that if I decide to go to Laos after Laura and I part ways, that I should be sure to let them know.

After a hearty and super cheap breakfast of sticky rice with mango, rice soup, ginger tea, and freshly squeezed mandarin orange juice, Laura (yes, there are two Lauras, and from now on I'll only be referring to my travel partner, Laura Szabo-Kubitz) and I decided to follow the advice of my Bryn Mawr classmate, Brent Scharschmidt, and go just west of the city center to Wat U Mong. Called the "forest temple," this Wat is less touristy and tucked away just south of Chiang Mai Univeristy. For 10 THB, we bought some cat fish food, and then wandered around the beautiful grounds. Monks adorned in bright orange robes were all around, and the occasional sign translated into English gave some sage advice, including, "Cut yourself some slack; In one hundred years, all new people." We walked through the temple's tunnel and then found our way to the fish pond where the catfish were at least as long as my leg. A man next to us threw whole pieces of bread into the pond whereupon another type of fish (maybe a catfish, but no visible whiskers made me think it was something else) would eat the whole thing in one bite. Not a place I'll be swimming anytime soon.

After our time at the temple, Laura and I got back into the tuk-tuk that had waited for us. Jaran, our very friendly and English proficient tuk-tuk driver, dropped us off at the city's south gate and said he would be happy to pick us up in the morning to go the airport. We accepted his offer and look forward to seeing him tomorrow. At the south gate we found a quick bite to eat and then made a call to Moshiko Kobayashi. Moshiko is a woman that works for an organization called the Starfish Country Home School Foundation. Starfish, which runs different programs, including this orphanage in Chiang Mai, was founded by a friend of a friend of Laura's mother. Laura had contacted the founder, Richard Haugland, before our arrival, and he set it up so that we could tour the facility and meet some of the kids. The school and home are situated in an old hotel that has been converted to a beautiful facility with 9 teachers, including 2 English teachers (one being a volunteer from New Zealand). It houses 26 residents and has about 25 or 30 other students that come to the center for their programs. Many of the students are from the hill tribes and are either orphans, or the children of women who are in the women's prison, or children who were abandoned when their mothers remarried. It's hard to think that anyone would want to leave these beautiful children behind, but Starfish really seems to be a very loving place for them.

We spent just a couple of hours there, but Laura dove right into it and participated in a relay race with some of the kids and then we helped out in one of the English classes. After a few rounds of "Head Shoulder Knees and Toes" and asking everyone "How are you?" (Response: "I'm find, thank you. How are you?") we introduced the small group of 4 year olds to "Duck Duck Goose" and "Simon Says."

On our walk back to our guesthouse, I kept commenting to Laura that I kept thinking I saw people I recognized. Then, as we were back on our street, we walked by a pizza place and I saw yet another face that seemed familiar. Only this time I thought that I knew him for sure. I walked inside and the familiar face smiled at me as he probably thought I was going to ask him the time.

"Hi. Sorry to bother you, but are you Dave Wilson?" I obviously caught him off guard when I didn't ask him what time it was. Sure enough, it was Dave Wilson. Dave and I used to work together at Concord Academy Summer Camp a number of years ago. He's currently living in Japan, teaching English with the JET program, and he and two of his co-teachers are traveling around for a few weeks on their winter break. We agreed that we would all go to our respective guest houses, take a little nap, and then meet again for dinner at 7:30 at another of Brent's recommendations, the Blue Diamond ("the best restaurant in town" according to Brent, who lived in Chiang Mai before coming to Bryn Mawr). Unfortunately the Blue Diamond had closed early today because of the impending New Year holiday, but we found a nice enough place around the corner. Greg, who has been teaching in Japan for over two years, said it had been quite some time since he heard English spoken so quickly. Even though the restaurant was out of panang curry and coconut, we had a lovely dinner and when we parted ways and agreed that if we ran into each other in Chiang Mai, then we'd probably see each other again and hopefully somewhere more exciting than Concord, MA. And to think, all of this reconnecting happened without the aid of Facebook.