Thailand - Tigers, Elephants, and Monkey Brains

My son Joseph is a fine young man, and I’m very proud of him.  He has a sweet, sensitive spirit with an an ever-present, easy smile.  He’s an Eagle Scout who makes good grades, and at almost eighteen years of age, has no problem giving his old daddy a hug and a kiss and saying, “I love you.”  So, as any other proud and loving dad would do with a son like that, I plunked down some Thai baht so I could watch him walk into a cage containing three huge, unrestrained tigers.  Ever since we’ve been in Thailand, he’s wanted to see tigers up close, so upon settling in Chiang Mai, we investigated how to accomplish such a feat.  The answer lay with Tiger Kingdom, a preserve located in the Mae Rim district about thirty kilometers west of our village.  The cats living there are grouped into sizes like giant, really big, kinda big, and so on, and visitors pay according to the size of tigers with which they choose to interact.  They have cubs there too, and they command the largest price due to the cuteness factor, but Joseph chose the big ones.  There once were tigers all over Thailand through the centuries, but due to poaching and shrinking habitat, they’re almost extinct in the wild.  The animals at Tiger Kingdom are born and raised in the preserve, where they are trained to mix with humans. The sanctuary also has the reputation of treating the tigers well.  I’m thankful these magnificent creatures are protected in the preserve where there’s no chance they’ll end up as a rug on some poacher’s den floor.

We stood at the village crossroads for a while trying to summon an Uber to no avail until a friendly guy in a tuk tuk sensed our growing desperation and pulled over ready to negotiate.  After a little back and forth, he agreed to take us to Tiger Kingdom and hang out during our visit so he could transport us back home all for a reasonable fee.  We hadn’t traveled in a tuk tuk since Bangkok, and it was great fun to view the countryside of the San Sai district riding in an untethered roller-coaster car piloted by an insane human.  Upon arrival at the preserve, we negotiated our admission based on Joseph’s choice of maneater size, and Deveny and I purchased “walk around” tickets, which allowed unlimited viewing with no interaction with the animals—fine with me.  Deena chose to hang out in the reception bungalow under the cooling blades of the plantation fans rather than see her son approach a massive, toothy, orange-and-black striped beast.

We entered the preserve, which was cool and shady under a canopy of trees with broad, glossy leaves, and quickly found the cage containing the three tigers which would soon be very close to my son.  The docent slid the door open and Joseph boldly walked in and was greeted by one of the handlers who are present during the encounter to make sure no one gets chewed.  I had to sign a waiver when I bought Joseph's ticket stating that he was able to get up under his own power and move very quickly if necessary, and I hoped my signature bore witness to the truth.  We chose to visit the preserve later in the afternoon when the brochure said the tigers were most active, and they were certainly ready for sport as they lumbered about the enclosure on paws the size of throw pillows with muscles rippling under their colorful hides.  Joseph had no problem approaching these beautiful animals, and he walked with them, stroked their backs, and posed for numerous pictures until his time in the cage expired, and he walked out with a huge grin on his face.  We spent some time walking the paths of the preserve to view the rest of the tigers that were as playful as housecats and seemed to enjoy showing off to the fascinated visitors.  I presented Joseph to his mother in one piece, and after enjoying some delicious frozen beverages, we took another wild tuk tuk ride back to our village just in time for dinner.

We’ve made several meals at home to practice the skills we learned in the Thai cooking class, and we’ve been extremely pleased with the results.  The stir-fried morning glories were particularly good, and the chicken and rice with coconut milk and hot peppers was restaurant-quality fare.  We’re on more familiar terms with the villagers who greet us with pleasant smiles, and we’ve enjoyed buying vegetables and herbs in the market from the no-nonsense vendors.  Both Deena and Deveny both had their hair done at the local beauty shop, and the coffee guy on the corner has my order memorized, “Americano hot, two sugar, ok!”  We’ve continued to dine at the small restaurant we found on our first day in the village, and the proprietor makes a big fuss over us when we come to eat his delicious food.  Our entire meals cost four dollars there, and I’ve tried to tip him several times, but he won’t take the extra money.  Our house is roomy and comfortable and a welcome sanctuary for study and rest after days spent exploring.  The next door neighbors are friendly people, and they love bringing their little grandchildren to the door to wave at us as we strike out every day, and their snaggle-toothed dog acts less and less like he wants to kill us.  

As is our custom on Sundays, we like to locate a local church in which to worship, and we had discovered the Chiang Mai Community Church just outside the Old City across from the Nawarat Bridge.  The worship service was listed to start at 4:20 PM, a curious time, but one that appealed mightily to my long-slumbering crew, and we spent a lazy Sunday morning and afternoon before successfully securing an Uber to take us into the city.  The church was located at the corner of a major intersection, but we could barely see it from the road because it was set back in the midst of thick stands of live oaks, bamboo, and banana trees.  The modern triangle-shaped building was elevated slightly from the surrounding gardens, and there were people everywhere greeting each other and making their way inside.  

The sanctuary was bright and breezy with large fans placed strategically around the pews to compliment the natural zephyrs blowing in from the glass doors which were opened around the entire perimeter of the building.  It felt like we were gathered at an outdoor pavilion in the jungle, and the mood was cheerful in anticipation of the time of worship, which was being led by the youth of the church that day.  I always enjoy seeing the young people in a church take part in worship, and I’m thankful for congregations that are willing to allow the youth to use their gifts in the services.  There were several hundred people in attendance that afternoon, and we had an opportunity to stand with the other visitors and introduce ourselves along with folks from New Zealand, The Netherlands, Canada, China, and the United States.  The youth worship team led us in a lively time of singing and praise, and the youth pastor preached a compelling sermon about the numerous covenants in the Bible.  After the service, we stayed for a while and talked with a couple in their seventies from Iowa who have relocated to Thailand for mission work and to teach English, and they wanted to hear all about our trip.  They had spent a lot of time traveling in some of the former communist countries we had visited earlier in our journey, and we enjoyed talking about our shared experiences.  We have one more Sunday to spend in the Chiang Mai area, and I have a feeling we’ll be back at the Chiang Mai Community Church.

Chiang Mai Community Church

My daughter Deveny is a breathtakingly beautiful young lady inside and out who also makes good grades and has a sly sense of humor and an understanding of life and human behavior that belies her young age—not that I'm prejudiced. All she has to do is look at me with her blue-green eyes framed by impossibly long lashes, and she can have just about anything she wants, including a day spent with elephants in the Thai jungle.  Her mother, of whom I’m also very fond, was keen for this activity as well, so its occurrence was a surety in our itinerary.  Elephants have been linked with with the history of Thailand deep into antiquity, and they remain a royal symbol to this day.  On the extremely rare occasion of a white elephant discovery, the animal is typically donated immediately to the royal family.  Elephants in Thailand have been used for war, work, and royal transport, and their likenesses grace currency, crests, and seals everywhere in modern Thai culture.  They are fascinating animals, and to the uninitiated like us, big and scary.

We booked a half-day excursion with an elephant camp about one hundred kilometers out of Chiang Mai, and we had to be waiting at a McDonalds outside a large mall thirty minutes from our village at 8:30 in the morning for pickup.  After an early wake up, we started with the transportation process and flagged down a songthaew after a search for an Uber yielded no results.  I did my best to describe our destination to the songthaew driver, and he gave me a smile and a thumbs-up, but I could see in his eyes he had no clue where we wanted to go.  His truck was pointed in the right direction, so we squeezed in with ten other people in the back and held on as we joined the morning rush.  I monitored Google Maps as we drove, and once I determined the driver was going a different way, we signaled to stop and bailed out.  We were a little more than halfway to our destination, but it still meant a thirty-minute walk, and the clock was ticking; so we tried Uber again and got a hit.  Our driver dropped us off at the McDonalds at 8:40, and our ride to the elephant camp pulled in a few minutes later—whew!

We shared the large van with a young French couple, the driver in his twenties, a young female guide in her twenties, and another guide named Charlie who was in his fifties and a real character.  While we navigated the busy streets of the Mae Rim district on our way out of town, Charlie showed us the sights of the city and suggested many things to do while we were still in Chiang Mai.  He talked about the elephants and the jungle, and he showed us the tattoos on his arms and hands that were applied by monks who used the old bamboo needle method and guaranteed protection against snakes and crocodiles and even gave him the ability to pick up scorpions with no fear of a sting.  Given my strong fear of snakes, I may look up those monks before we leave Thailand.

The terrain changed dramatically after we left the city limits. Patches of rice paddies already green with fresh growth stretched several hundred yards from the road and ended in a long row of tall coconut palms in front of the blue silhouetted mountains in the distance.  The blocks of rice paddies were edged by muddy irrigation channels, and we could see water buffalo wallowing in the murky water seeking relief from the sun that was already hot even in the early morning.  Rice is grass seed cultivated from the oryza sativa species of grass which grows well in steamy climates with plenty of rainfall like Thailand, and here’s a fun fact that I know to be true because I found it on the internet:  genetic evidence shows that rice can be traced to a single cultivation in the Pearl River Valley in China as far back as thirteen-thousand years ago.  I sincerely hope all the research it took to trace grass seed DNA through the millennia resulted in a few master's degrees for some smart people and that they are currently gainfully employed.

As we neared the edge of the jungle, we had to stop as a large pack of wild dogs crossed the road, and Charlie made the comment, “Hmmm, many dogs, make good barbecue.”  He waited a split second as we all glanced at each other then broke out in maniacal laughter.  We asked him if he had really eaten dog, and he said, “Yes, one time, is ok taste for me.  Monkey much better.  Monkey brain very good, very good.”  Another split second and more maniacal laughter.  We weren’t sure whether to believe him or not, but at least he was entertaining.  A few minutes later, Charlie asked if we wanted to see a picture of his wife, and of course we said we surely would.  He held up a big picture of a smiling, extremely well-endowed young woman who had forgotten to put on a shirt before the picture was snapped.  “Every night I sleep, no need pillow!”  exclaimed our merry trickster as he melted down into more crazy laughter, and we smiled and laughed politely. We’ve learned that Thai humor generally borders on the bawdy side, and the locals go for the punchline no matter if grandma, little kids, or the King of Thailand might be in the audience—all part of the kids’ education, I suppose.

We drove deeper into the jungle and the road became narrow with sharp curves as we began to traverse the hills.  The tree canopy closed in, and huge stands of bamboo and banana trees full of fruit blocked our view of the mountains for a while.  As we passed openings in the bamboo, we could see small huts with roofs thatched with bark and teams of oxen pulling wagons overloaded with sugar cane up steep trails from the farmland below.  The jungle canopy opened up to hazy blue sky as we entered the river valley, and we could see small herds of elephants in the distance crossing the water, and the excitement level in the van ramped up a notch or two.  A few kilometers later, Charlie got out with the French couple as they prepared to spend the day rafting on the river, and we drove on to the elephant camp, where our guide helped us store our bags and change into the heavy denim clothing of the mahout, the word ascribed to one who tends to elephants.  

Learning to speak elephant

We hopped back into the van and drove a little farther down river to an area shaded by huge flowering trees and then walked downhill to become acquainted with our elephants that were happily munching stalks of sugarcane while we were educated in their commands.  After elephant grammar school, we spent a delightful half hour feeding the elephants chunks of pumpkin and mango and receiving gentle hugs and wet kisses from these sweet, playful pachyderms.  We took turns individually climbing on the elephants and riding them around the compound, getting used to commanding them and to the way they lumbered along.  We all loved this relaxed fun time with these huge animals, and after a short while, we were completely comfortable with them.  It came time for our jungle trek, and Deveny joined me, and Deena and Joseph rode the elephant behind us as we crossed the river and followed a narrow path into the thick foliage.  Every so often, our guide tossed us pieces of fruit to reward our elephants, and they lifted their trunks high to snatch it from our hands.  The elephant’s thick, dry skin felt rough and warm on our bare feet and I steadied myself by placing my hands on top of her head which bristled with wiry black hair.   We spent the better part of an hour walking through the jungle and finished by splashing in the cool water of the river as we gave our trusty mounts a refreshing bath.  Sitting on top of an elephant in the middle of a river in Thailand looking out to the jungle and mountains beyond was an incredible thrill.

We returned to the camp where we changed clothes and joined some other groups under a large pavilion that was draped with a huge vine covered with bright orange blossoms that looked like melting wax.  A buffet lunch was served, and we talked about the fun time we had with the elephants as we relaxed and enjoyed plates of fresh fruit and fried rice.  The French couple was still out on the river; so our guide took us to a nearby waterfall which had a natural rock slide into a deep pool that was very popular with the young people there, and Joseph was brave enough to slide down a few times and loved it.  On the hike back to the van, our guide pointed out some coffee plants and then plucked a few beans for us to check out. I enjoyed seeing the source of my daily moments of pleasure in its natural habitat.  The ride back to Chiang Mai was quiet since everyone was worn out from all of the fun activity, and even Charlie skipped the jokes and nodded off a few times.  Two hours and another Uber later, we were back at the house ready for showers and another home-cooked Thai meal still in a state of unbelief that we actually got to ride elephants through the jungle in Thailand.  I silently figured that if I could coax a stubborn elephant to climb a steep, muddy riverbank, then surely I can do a better job persuading a sleepy, stubborn teenager to get out of bed to do school work.

Why We Decided to Take this Trip

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.       Matthew 6:19-21

Instruction manuals have always been a stumbling block for me, and even the simplest tasks of assembly, whether it be a bookshelf or a child’s playset, typically melt down into wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Thankfully in the age of the internet, there are Youtube videos and numerous other sources to help amplify instructions or display them from another perspective that make matters clearer.  

We consider the Bible to be an instruction manual for life, and while it generally speaks for itself, sometimes concepts that we might consider simple can become life changing when another perspective provides enough insight to make things click.  Such is the case with the verse I listed above from Matthew’s gospel.  From a quick reading makes sense in that humans need not spend their lives chasing after material goods that eventually end up in the dump or money, which certainly can’t be forwarded to the hereafter.  But what does storing up treasure in heaven really mean, and how does one train his heart to be present with treasure that matters?  

About six years ago, Deena and I read a book by Randy Alcorn called Money, Possessions, and Eternity that changed our perspective on life and altered the direction of our family.  Reading that book gave us a fresh perspective on some simple verses and truth that had been there in front of us all along, but going a little deeper helped us resolve some major issues that helped refine the purpose of our marriage and the way we were raising our children.  Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good,” and western society tends to apply that thought to anyone placing more value on the treasures in heaven than those found on earth, and I couldn’t disagree more.  If valuable treasure in heaven can be gained by actions like raising children to love God, passionately serving our spouses, freely giving money to those in need, building God’s kingdom and increasing His fame, how much more will our efforts be performed with love and excellence considering they have eternal value and are not motivated by just a sense of duty or the desire to look good in front of others.

But we still have to pay the bills, right?  The kids need new shoes, the car has 200,000 miles on it, the dog needs shots, what about the six months of salary savings everyone says we need, what about college?  There’s no easy answer for any of that stuff, and thinking about it keeps a lot of people up at night.  Consider this:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.          Matthew 6:25-34

Again, these verses are comforting and offer reassurance that God cares about us and doesn’t want us to be concerned about tomorrow, but what does it all really mean?  Jesus says that we shouldn’t be worried or fearful about the things we need right away or in the future because he knows the things we need and gives them to us as we seek his kingdom and righteousness.  What does that mean?  For me, it means that when I wake up to a new day, I will do my best to bring honor and fame to God by loving and serving my wife to the best of my ability, loving and serving my children to the best of my ability, loving and serving my customers to the best of my ability and performing any other task set before me that day to the best of my ability—then be a content and good steward of the things to which I’ve been entrusted. That’s it.  Armed with those verses, one has to choose to use them for partial reassurance during a sleepless night or believe them and stand on them as a solemn promise from the creator of the universe.  We’re all in.

So what does all that have to do with traveling around the world?  Everything.  Deena and I have always done our best to try and live debt free, and we’ve worked hard to be good stewards of our money and resources.  Have we made mistakes?  Yes.  Have we made some bad decisions along the way?  You betcha.  However, in the midst of making a living and making our way in this life, we’ve done our best to do it with eternity in mind and with no regrets.  At some point in their lives, people with kids are confronted with the marble jar.  That's the big glass jar that the pastor places on a stool during a sermon and points at the orange marbles inside and then proclaims:  “These marbles represent the number of Saturdays you have with your children from the time they’re born until the time they typically leave at age eighteen.”  That’s about 940 marbles worth of Saturdays for each kid, and in my daughter’s case, we’re down to 176, and the number for my son is 22—yikes.  When you see a tangible representation of a time-worn concept such as, “When you’re on your deathbed, you won’t regret spending more time at home than you did at the office,” this concept becomes more of an important reality instead of something fun to say at parties.

Deena and I altered our lives many years ago so that we could spend as much time with our children as possible, and it was partly due to my heart disease and the prospect of no Saturdays left if we didn’t change things.  We realized that we wanted to make every day count for something no matter how small, and we wanted no regrets as the sun went down every evening.  Deena and I always enjoyed traveling before we had kids, and we started taking trips with Joseph and Deveny when they were very young, and we’ve had some lively times over the years.  We have wonderful memories of trips in the RV, trips to national parks from Florida to Alaska and everywhere in between, and waking up in tents on camping trips with family and dear friends.  Our family travels very well together, and as a result, we’ve learned how to reach some difficult but worthy destinations, meet challenges on the road, and teach our children about life while their confidence has grown.  

Many people have a goal of traveling after they retire and spend a large part of their lives saving for things like cruises and lengthy trips to Europe, and while these goals are certainly worthy, there’s no guarantee of good health and stamina needed for traveling at any age.  Deena has received much advice from older patients who have told her to travel while our family is young and we have the energy.  As we became more aware of our marble jar draining faster every year, Deena and I decided to take our traveling to the next level and go with our children on a year-long trip around the world.  We knew we would be leaving much behind like church, loved ones, jobs, school, and everything else that provides comfort and identity in a world that is daily growing more unstable.  However, we also knew that we would be removing our children from the pressures and expectations of the American dream for a while.   One the other other hand, we would be beside them to watch their eyes as they beheld Stonehenge, the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, the Sea of Galilee, the pyramids, and many other wonderful places.  We knew that we would have many hours of time with no distractions to teach them about the things that are most important in life while seeing real world examples in other cultures.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been on the road for six months, and it’s amazing to look back on the things we’ve seen and done and the challenges we’ve faced and overcome together.  The marbles may be disappearing rapidly, but we’re making the days together as a family count big time.

We’ve always expected our kids to do well in school in order to honor the Lord with their best work without the pressure of college looming over them during their young lives.  We’ve tried our best to rear them to look for people who are lonely and need help because Lord knows there are a lot of them.  Deena and I worked hard over the years to reduce our debt and going into more big-time debt late in life to pay for college didn’t sit well with us considering that might not even be the path the Lord has for our children.  With the money we made together over the years, we knew if we worked and slaved for hours and saved and invested every penny, there still wouldn’t be enough left over to finance two college educations without going back into debt, so we’ve explored other ways to pull off higher education if one or both children choose to go that route, and we’re using money that we have now to enjoy each other while we have the time together.

So now we’re traveling around the world for a year exploring God’s creation and sharing with our children everything we know about living a life built on trusting the promises of God.  Am I sharing all this to suggest the ultimate blueprint for the life of every family?  By all means no!  In his book, Randy Alcorn talks about the tension that exists daily in every life between deciding how much money to keep for living and how much to give away for the sake of the kingdom.  All of those individual and family decisions are based on determining the path that honors God and brings Him fame in the course of a life devoted to Him and trusting Him to add the things needed to survive in a world that desperately needs Him.  While I don’t know the exact form my treasure in heaven will have, the prospect of seeking it daily is exciting and makes the perceived treasures of this world pale in comparison.  We pray that going around the world with our children for a year will help them on their quest for eternal treasure and that their precious hearts will be there with it also.

Thailand - Chiang Mai

There’s a lot to like about Thailand such as the warm weather, lush scenery, friendly people, and spicy cuisine, and my daughter has started asking questions like, “How long does it take to fly to Thailand from where we live?" and “How much is a ticket to Thailand?”  I can see the thoughts churning behind her blue-green eyes as she contemplates future travel when she’s older and her parents aren’t twenty feet away, twenty-four hours a day—good for her.  Thailand has that kind of effect on people as thousands of expats living in the country can attest. Many westerners relocate or retire here to enjoy the low cost of living, year-round tropical weather, welcoming locals, and quality health care.  One of the most popular destinations for expats is the city of Chiang Mai at the base of the mountains in the north, and it’s our home for the next couple of weeks unless we give in to the urge to sell everything and find a small condo with banana trees in the backyard full of colorful birds and a market down the street with fresh red peppers for sale every day—I’m sure there are lots of things that need painting around here.

Our villa is located in the San Sai district north of Chiang Mai proper, and it’s about a thirty-minute ride away in a songthaew, a tricked-out pickup truck used for ride sharing at a cheap cost.  The neighborhood is small and fairly new with a main avenue curving around a large grove of banana trees and smaller streets branching out lined with three-bedroom patio homes.  The houses were built Florida-style with stucco exteriors and tiled roofs, and each villa has a small carport with a rolling security gate operated by a remote control fob.  The corners of the properties are planted with large, leafy bushes covered with pink and orange flowers, and hummingbirds zip back and forth between the fragrant blossoms.  The neighborhood is bordered by a stucco wall that’s high enough for security but low enough to view the fronds of the coconut trees swaying in the ever-present light breeze in front of the hazy blue mountains in the distance.  Did I mention we were considering selling everything?  Deena and I have a large master bedroom suite, the kids have their own bedrooms, and there’s another full bathroom just off the living room.  We have a full kitchen and a washing machine on the patio out back, and the whole place has tiled floors with textured coverings on the walls and fresh glossy cream paint on the trim and doors.  We secured this place for twenty-nine dollars a day, and we still can't believe our good fortune.

We arrived in San Sai on Monday afternoon after an early morning flight from Bangkok, and it took a while for the young people working at the taxi stand to figure out where our house was located.  We’ve learned that the locals rely more on landmarks for directions instead of maps full of street names, and it helps to have a few pictures of neighborhood indicators stored on the phones.  We were worn out from traveling back from Beijing, and once we reached our new home, we threw the bags in the corners and retreated to our rooms for long naps.  The Duchess espresso machine, my new best friend and latest Gift From the Lord, helped me out of my travel fog that afternoon, and we set out walking to the nearby village square to explore and find provisions for the next several days.  We stuck close to the roadsides as scooters zoomed by on the narrow lane weaving around larger vehicles moving slowly toward the town crossroads.  

We got a lot of curious stares but just as many friendly smiles, and we immediately felt accepted in this small community with streets lined with small shops, and a large meat and produce market situated right in the middle of the action.  We found the grocery store and stocked up on breakfast items and a few other necessities then spent some time wandering the streets scoping out possible places for dinner. We happened upon a small, open-air restaurant just off the sidewalk where the smiling proprietor and his young daughter still dressed in her crisp school uniform welcomed us for a meal.  We sat around a small wooden plank table on pink plastic chairs and watched people walk by as we ate big steaming bowls of noodles with pork, beef, and vegetables flavored with fresh sprigs of spring onions and basil leaves.  The food was nourishing and energizing, and the whole meal cost a whopping three dollars leaving us plenty of money for chocolate and vanilla ice cream bars at the 7-Eleven on the way home.

We stayed close to home the next day so we could rest and the kids could catch up on school assignments since they got a long break during our trip to China. I also wanted to have time to write about our adventures in Beijing before the images started escaping from my travel-jumbled brain.  After several cups of espresso throughout the day and an afternoon nap, I finally started feeling somewhat normal again, and we agreed that another evening meal at our new favorite restaurant down the street was in order. After dinner, we spent some time exploring the village market and discovered that we could purchase anything from flip-flops to whole salted frogs and huge ginseng roots.  We also found a lady and her young son sitting behind a stand selling the Thai version of crepes, and she fried up a couple for us topping them with evaporated milk and a generous shake of sugar crystals—they didn’t make it home.

The next day, we were ready to do a little exploring; so we went to the village square, hopped a songthaew, squeezed in with a bunch of ladies also headed to town, and somehow managed to communicate well enough with the driver to get dropped off at the Wat Chedi Luang, a historic Buddhist Temple in the center of the Old District in Chiang Mai.  We were wearing shorts, but only Deena and Deveny had to wear loaner sarongs to cover their bare legs. Joseph and I got a pass since men are obviously already well-grounded and spiritually secure enough to enter temple grounds in the garb of their choosing.  The streets around the temple were lively with pedestrians darting in and out of shops and restaurants, and the blue sky and warm sunshine appeared to have set a cheerful countenance on everyone in town.  The old stone temple of Chedi Luang was built in the thirteenth century, and it’s still remarkably intact after suffering centuries of erosion and earthquakes, and it’s the focal point of a huge complex of smaller temples decorated in typical gilded fashion.  We removed our shoes and visited a few temples containing giant golden Buddhas, some several centuries old before heading to the covered picnic tables out back for the main purpose of our visit:  the daily monk chat.  Every morning and afternoon, one or two of the resident temple monks spends a couple of hours sitting in the shade talking with visitors about their lives as monks and the Buddhist philosophy.  The event is helpful to the monks, who are looking to improve their English skills, and fascinating to travelers seeking insight into the mystery of the smiling Buddha statues and the orange-robed cenobites with shaved heads that study the tenets set forth by Siddhartha Gautama twenty-five hundred years ago.

We had the privilege of chatting with Phra Wattayah, a bright-eyed young man who joined the monastic order at age eleven. Six months ago at the age of twenty one, he passed his nerve-wracking oral examination and became a full-fledged monk.  Since he is not allowed to work, he sits with the other monks in front of the temple and receives alms in the form of food and money from fellow Buddhists showing respect to the Buddha and the monks that perpetuate the ancient philosophy.  Wattayah is allowed to spend the money he receives from alms on food at the local university which he attends for free while majoring in English. He must be a good student based on his command of the language that he said was difficult to learn.  His family lives two-hundred kilometers away, and he spends one week with them every year.  At some point, he will have to decide if he wants to remain a monk or enter a life outside the temple, but in the meantime, he wants to maintain his current level of happiness through enjoyment of his studies and daily meditation practices.  He’s also not allowed to play sports or exercise—a rule which would certainly contribute to my happiness.  We talked with Wattayah for a long time and enjoyed every minute spent with this mature young man with a playful gleam in his eye. We thanked him for his time as we left the shade of the temple grounds and headed back to the streets of Chiang Mai.  

Wattayah

The Old City is bordered by canals lined with green paths and the ancient walls, which are still mostly intact, and within the walls, there are temples, various forms of housing, restaurants large and small, and many places to spend the Thai baht, the local currency which stretches a long way in this country.  We stopped at a shophouse restaurant for a quick lunch and had crispy-fried chicken filets that put the Colonel to shame and chunks of fresh mango for dessert.  Fortified for the afternoon, we walked to a meeting point and got picked up by the delightful Fonnie, owner of the Siam Garden Cooking School, and hung on in the back of her truck as she zoomed around town picking up other culinary contenders anticipating an afternoon spent studying the intricacies of food preparation Thai-style.  We shared the truck bed with Tareesha, a young saleswoman on holiday from England, and Juliano, a massage therapist from Canada hoping to learn Thai massage techniques to enhance his business back home.  We had great fun sharing travel stories with these two, and by the time we ended up at a large outdoor market, we were joined by another one of Fonnie’s trucks carrying a couple from Hong Kong and a family of four from China.

Fonnie spent a long time with our group showing us around the market and how to identify and purchase the various herbs and vegetables particular to Thai cuisine, and we had great fun sniffing everything from lemongrass to Chinese celery, and we learned which tiny peppers added flavor to a dish and which ones were the equivalent of Thai dynamite.  Fonnie, to paraphrase Shakespeare, was little, but she was fierce as she exploded with excitement during her explanation of the basis of Thai cooking. Flush with our new knowledge, we boarded the trucks and drove out to her house in the countryside.  The cooking school was set up in a large covered patio with sections dedicated for meeting, food prep, cooking, and most importantly, eating.  The back of the patio opened up to Fonnie’s immense backyard with rosebushes full of pink blooms by the walls and mammoth banana trees bordering her herb garden with their leathery leaves flapping in the breeze - the only thing missing was a hammock.

Fonnie in her element

Each student picked dishes to prepare and cook from a card listing a curry paste, curry dish, soup, appetizer, entree, and dessert.  Between the four members of my family, we cooked twenty-four dishes over four hours of class time that seemed to whiz by like it was fifteen minutes. We were led by a young lady named Ploy and a young man named Camp, and they were experts at cheerfully encouraging novices to chop herbs and veggies and use them with meats and sauces to create masterpieces of Thai cuisine.  After completing each course, we left our cooking stations and carried our fresh, steaming dishes to low tables in a room off the patio and ate our creations washing down the heat of the peppers with cold water from metal cups sweating with condensation.  Joseph and Deveny did everything on their own, and they were pleased with every dish they prepared.  Each of us had command of our own cutting board and knives, mortar and pestle, prep station, and gas burner with sets of pans, spatulas, and a giant wok for cooking.  Over the course of the afternoon, we got to know our classmates well, and we enjoyed eating our fantastic food with them as the mysteries of Thai cooking unfolded before our eyes and pepper-stained fingers.  At the end of class, we received recipe books and encouragement from Fonnie, who personally drove us home—her house turned out to be just ten minutes down the road from ours.  Needless to say, we didn’t require dinner that evening, and we all got a little sleepy listening to our economics lesson (no surprise there either) before turning in for the night. If we didn’t have flights and apartments booked for the next three months, we would surely be expats in the making.

China - Beijing

Last summer we found out that our friends, Matt and Jana and their six children, would be moving to Beijing, China, for a year and leaving about the same time we were planning to depart for our trip.  We got together and spent a fun evening talking about the details of our trips and agreed we would try to meet up somehow while we were overseas, even though it looked like it might be difficult to find a good halfway location.  We were in Italy in October when out of the blue, Matt and Jana invited us to Beijing to stay with their family for a few days, and Deena immediately went into planning mode as we headed to Greece.  While in Athens for a few days, we managed to score our visas at the Chinese embassy over the course of several days, and we were set to book flights and travel to Beijing after spending a week in Bangkok, Thailand.  We had been under budget for the majority of our trip up to that point, and we were thankful that we had the money to add this extra excursion to the itinerary.  The temperatures in Bangkok were in the nineties the week before we traveled to Beijing; so we were less than prepared for the arctic conditions in the Orient, but we hardly noticed the frigid air in China because we were so warmly received by this amazing family.  

The twelve hours to travel from Bangkok to Beijing included two flights and a long layover, but our excitement level helped the time pass quickly, and we finally spotted Matt and Jana’s smiling faces in the crowd at baggage claim, and they gave us all big hugs before we piled into a van piloted by their friend Mark.  Man, it was really good to see them, and the floodgates of conversation opened while we drove, and they didn’t close until we left four days later.  Their kids were in bed when we arrived at their home, but we got a quick tour before bedding down for the night.  Their two girls gave their room to Deena and me, and Joseph and Deveny got the bunk room. That night we slept the deep sleep of the traveler, weary from the road but safe and warm in a friendly bed.

The whole warm thing ended the next morning as Deena and I walked with Matt and his next-to-youngest son to register our family at the local police station at 7:30. We trudged ahead through a bracing, biting wind thankful that we had packed all those layers in our bags for so long.  The air quality in Beijing is famously poor, but the predicted smog levels were low for the duration of our stay, but they replaced by the coldest temperatures of the winter so far. It was hard to believe that we were sweating in shorts and t-shirts two days before.  The neighborhood police station attendant was absent that morning, so we ended up at the district station about a kilometer away, where we were told that no one would be there to help us until later that morning.  The only way we knew this fact was due to the interpreting expertise displayed by Matt’s son, who speaks Mandarin skillfully.  We headed back out into the cold and walked back home dodging scooters piloted by drivers covered with heavy, snuggie-type blankets to ward off the wind, and I was dismayed watching people with no gloves or scarves riding bikes into the stiff breeze.  I also witnessed another Chinese cultural phenomenon which involves the citizens’ inherent need to boldly extricate even the smallest trace of phlegm from the body as loudly as possible and projecting it to the most obvious place for all to see.  I guess enduring all that smog provides entitlement to this ritual and all of it's privileges.

We were welcomed back with heaping plates of steaming French toast and cups of hot coffee, which we devoured while making plans for the day, but all of our strategies hinged upon our registration, a strict requirement for visitors.  Having endured months of their parents’ constant presence, Joseph and Deveny were already enjoying the company of Matt and Jana’s kids, and we were thankful to be in a comfortable house with familiar food and good friends.  Our whole family headed out again with Matt and his son after lunch determined to achieve registration, and we made the familiar walk back to the district police station, where we waited for a long time with no results.  The Chinese New Year celebration is on January 28, and many people had already left Beijing to be with their families, so some of the bureaucracy cogs were missing, causing the whole machine to run a bit less efficiently.  Without going into all the details, we were finally registered at the neighborhood police station after several hours of haunting Chinese waiting rooms.  The kids were patient, and I was blown away by the skill of Matt’s son who was not intimidated by the adults or the situations and translated with consummate confidence.  Due to the time it took to register our family, we were not able to take in any sights that day, but we got a good look at the neighborhood. We were rewarded for our efforts with big bowls of delicious taco soup and chicken sandwiches, which we ate while watching a movie together.  The kids went off to do their thing, and Deena and I spent the first of three evenings talking long into the night with Matt and Jana about life on the road.

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 the next morning to join Matt as he made the weekly trip to McDonalds to have breakfast with a small group of men who are his good friends in Beijing.  I was pleased to be invited, and I enjoyed riding the express train, which was not crowded at that early hour mainly due to the New Year evacuation.  According to the people who keep up with population sizes and other sleep-inducing facts, there are a whole lotta people in China, and Beijing is a tightly packed metropolis.  As I munched my egg mcmuffin and drank excellent coffee with these cool guys, I learned that just in the three-square-mile area in which we were patronizing McDonalds, five million people live and work.  I was fascinated listening to these men talk about how they adjust with their families to another culture vastly different from the United States, and I appreciated the glimpse into their lives as they encouraged each other.  The sun was up by the time Matt and I boarded the bus back home, and we rallied the troops for a road trip north of the city.

Growing up in the 1970’s, the only big time Chinese restaurant in my southern U.S. city was named The Great Wall of China, and figured that eating egg rolls there was as close as I would ever get to this ancient testament to Chinese civilization.  The Great Wall in its entirety stretches out over twenty-one-thousand kilometers, and its construction began as early as 700 BC with ramparts made from tamped earth and wood.  The most complete sections of the wall are left from the Ming Dynasty beginning in the twelfth century. It oversaw the building of twenty-five-thousand watchtowers and major brick and stone fortifications in the region of Beijing.  Keeping Mongols and other tribes from crossing the historic border of China was the purpose of the Great Wall, and these groups must have been particularly nasty to have inspired such a massive national project.  Matt and Jana’s friend Mark drove our group of twelve about an hour north of Beijing to an accessible section of the wall that is similar to an American national park.  The sun was bright and its rays shone easily through clear, crisp air as we traveled, and we enjoyed views of the countryside with frozen streams and waterfalls becoming prominent the closer we came to the wall.

We paid a very reasonable fee for our tickets and hiked up to the chair lift that whisked us up and set us off at the base of a stairwell, which was conquered with a brief climb, and just like that, my little family was standing on the Great Wall of China.  It was cold, but even though we were in the mountains, there was hardly any wind, and after hiking for a while along the ramparts, we had worked up a good sweat.  The Chinese didn’t dynamite their way through the mountains in order to create a perfectly level wall that most first-world citizens would expect today.  Instead, they built along the contours of the terrain, resulting in a wall that meanders through valleys and snakes along ridgelines with watchtowers placed on sharp peaks giving the whole setting a slightly cartoonish look that is altogether spectacular.  The hundreds of surrounding mountain slopes and summits were brown with winter, but no less compelling as we hiked the pavers and climbed steep, irregular stairs that required concentration to ascend.  Halfway through our hike, we propped up against the parapets and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and talked about the resources and skill level it would have taken in antiquity to construct a wall of this magnitude in such a desolate location.  

After lunch, we hiked to a watchtower that offered an incredible view of the wall beyond the peaks we had earlier ascended. We took a lot of family pictures before turning around and hiking back the way we came—an easier hike because we were going mostly downhill.  As if the experience couldn’t get any better, to descend from the wall back to the welcome area, we boarded individual toboggans and shot down the mountain in an aluminum trough gathering speed along the sharply curving route ending in a rush of adrenaline at the bottom.  The kids had a great time, and the adults were able to keep up for most of the hike. We spent a fun day in one of the coolest places I’ve ever been a long way from the Great Wall buffet of my youth.  Everyone zonked out on the ride back to Beijing, and we ended up at a Starbucks for coffee before heading to a hot pot restaurant for dinner.  The residential areas of the city are interspersed with huge malls and shopping centers with many western franchises like KFC and McDonalds populating the collection of shops.  

We had a huge crowd for dinner as many of Matt and Jana’s friends joined us at the hot pot restaurant which was the Chinese version of the fondue concept.  We were seated down the length of long tables with a burner at each place setting in which a pot of savory broth was situated.  The broth began boiling rapidly and we selected many varieties of food items from iced bins passing slowly in front of us on a serpentine conveyor belt snaking through the entire restaurant.  The whole experience was fun, and we cooked up all kinds of stuff like noodles, sliced beef, pork balls, wontons, corn on the cob, and gelatinous tree fungus.  There were many choices of seafood, and fruits and vegetables as well, and the kids enjoyed free refills of soft drinks and bowls of ice cream for dessert.  After dinner, the adults hung around and talked for a while as the kids left for a youth activity, and we picked up several boxes of Dunkin Donuts for breakfast the next day.  Back home, Deena and I waited up for the kids with Matt and Jana, and once again, spent the evening talking long and deep about our lives and families, and we enjoyed this time together immensely.

Our last full day in Beijing was cold.  It was Jack London cold.  Weapons-grade coffee and hot chocolate were no remedy for this cold.  We were all bundled up and standing in the security line waiting to enter Tiananmen Square. As I watched the limber, winter-stripped willow branches trace the undulating gusts of wind against a watery blue sky, I knew we were in for a test of endurance.  Tiananmen Square is the site of the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.  Most westerners know the name of the square from the infamous protests of 1989 that are still not widely discussed within the borders of the country today.  Due to the intense cold, we completed a quick, perfunctory inspection of the square before heading to the underground passage to the Forbidden City across the street.  

For five-hundred years, Chinese emperors and their families called the Forbidden City home, and the 180 acre complex surrounded by an eight-meter high wall is spectacular and certainly worthy of royalty.  We purposed in our hearts to walk the length of the city from gate to gate; so we braced for the wind and mushed on through the Gate of Supreme Harmony making our way past buildings with names like The Hall of Mental Cultivation and The Palace of Tranquil Longevity.  The ancient wooden structures retain their original gilded beauty, and we managed to force our hands out or our gloves in order to snap some pictures.  Outside the far gate, we surrendered to the cold and called it an afternoon with the kids once again showing remarkable perseverance and positive attitudes.  A couple of taxis and a long subway ride brought us back to the neighborhood and the White Deer restaurant, home of the much revered pineapple chicken, a favorite dish consumed weekly by our host family.

It felt great to be out of the cold, and we sat in high anticipation of the food, which began arriving in steaming bowls and was immediately set upon by our hungry crew.  We’ve been to the Chinatown section of several major cities and enjoyed some excellent food, but the cuisine originating in the homeland trumped them all.  This was a top-ten all time greatest meal in the world...ever...amen.  There was beef and potatoes, kung pao chicken, cumin lamb, vegetables, rice, all prepared with tiny peppers that created just enough heat to make the taste buds come alive. A reverent silence blanketed the room as the waiter delivered the pineapple chicken with curls of steam rising from the delicate golden chunks of tender chicken with a light crispy layer that melted on the palate.  Matt ordered a ton of food, but there was very little left over, when we donned our jackets once more for the walk home after a meal to remember.

The kids joined in the late evening discussion on our last night, and we had a great time listening to their perspectives of “Mom and Dad on the road freak outs” and other funny stories from both families’ experiences living far away from home.  We didn’t want the night to end, but the adults finally conked out and went to bed while the older kids stayed up talking until two in the morning.  This late-night discussion was fun for our kids but also unfortunate since we had to get up at 3:30 AM for an early flight out of Beijing.  Somehow we pulled it off, and Matt gave us all hugs before we loaded up and headed to the airport courtesy of Mark the driver.  Two flights and a long layover later, we reached our hotel in Bangkok around 7:00 that night.  We were up again early the next day for a trip back to the airport and a flight to Chiang Mai, our home in the mountains of Thailand for the next two weeks.  We anticipated our trip to China for a long time, and now that it’s over, it almost seems like a dream.  Matt and Jana were gracious and showed us an amazing time, and their children are a delight.  

It was completely refreshing to talk to a family in similar circumstances far from home and learn more about their lives and their dreams.  Humans were knit together for the purpose of enjoying relationships with their Creator and each other, and while the comforts of home and familiar circumstances create a longing, it’s the desire to spend time with others that generates the heart’s most yearning.  As we sat at the airport in Bangkok waiting for our next flight, we talked about our experience in China, and we already missed our friends in Beijing.