A little over a week ago I left the Philippines for Thailand. After a short day in Bangkok, we hopped onto a 14 hour train to Chiang Mai. I’ve been on an overnight train in China, but never in Thailand. I’m not sure which is worse haha. In China there are 6 beds in a room. In Thailand, there are no rooms, just seats that convert to beds with curtains to seperate from the other people. But the worst part about Thailand trains… they never turned the light out! All night, as I slept on the top bunk, the light poured into my bed and woke me up every 30minutes. It was a LONG night to say the least.
We arrived 930am on Wednesday the 7th. We had a driver for the day, which we had to pay a big chunk of money for, so we had him take us to China Embassy, to the gueshouse we stayed at, out to lunch, around the city, and to the night market. A busy first day! Since then we’ve been working in Doi Saket area, about 30min drive outside of Chiang Mai city.
In the mornings, I wake up and workout. It’s the PERFECT area for working out. A nice, clean, paved road residential area about a quarter-mile to the main road. Then the main road is a highway technically, but it’s not too busy in the morning and there is a bike lane for me to run in 🙂 It stretches on and on so I was able to run for as long as I wanted without needing to run in small laps to create more distance. The only drawback to my morning runs were my three little friends across the street…. two litle pugs (which I named Dee and Dum) and their bigger, slightly more intimidating friend (which we’ll call Duke). These dogs somehow made it out of their gate each morning and were waiting outside of our gate, drooling everywhere, jumping up on the gate in expectation. I managed to trick them into going back inside their yard one morning (all except Dee, she’s the smart one). By my last morning they got a little smarter though, and I spent my first 5 minutes jogging around the neighborhood with Dee, Dum, and Duke nipping at my heels the whole way. After 5 minutes they became tired enough that they finally went back into their yard and layed down 🙂
Then I would come home, get cleaned up a bit, and have breakfast with Marilyn, Kim, Daisy, and our host Bud, as well as another guest here Jeremy. After that we headed to the work site, which is the children’s home here. We spent our working time hacking away with hedge clippers, rake, and saw. We worked along the barbed-wire fence to get rid of overgrowth and weeds to actually be able to see the fence. There were plenty of prickly plants and red ants to make the process a little more difficult! We worked for a couple hours a day, not being able to take much longer with the heat. It’s even hotter than Manila here!
We’d come home and get cleaned up and eat some lunch. Afternoons were more of a restful time. laying in an air conditioned room reading does a lot to rejuvinate a body! We also went out a few afternoons downtown. Walked all around Chiang Mai. And on Sunday went to church, out to a bottomless salad bar at Sizzler (thanks Bud!), and even got a foot massage (thanks again Bud!)
Today we are getting things together, doing some laundry, maybe going down the street to get some lunch, and then packing up and taking a taxi to the train station. Bangkok here we come. Laos 2 days later. And then Cambodia. Keep you updated as I can!
