I finally got my camp pass but won’t actually visit the camp until Tuesday. This is now becoming a combination of questionable Thai bureaucracy and NGO planning. I have been using my days in the office to, among other random things, learn some Thai and a little Karen ... Ka Pow Mu ... this is the pork dish, featured in the picture which I have been eating everyday for lunch simply because it is delivered to the door by a man who comes around on his motorbike selling it. One day it also had a fried egg which was a nice addition. I am getting pretty tired of it already, but for 30 baht (or $1) I can’t really complain. Or A Knee Tow Lie (how much is this one) a phrase I used to buy this tiny cute little broom for my room (also $1) and in buying the broom, the man at my local neighbourhood store, finally warmed up to me (buying yogurt, beer or juice didn’t cut it). I guess seeing a farang (foreigner) buying a broom is funny and endearing – whatever works. It kinda looks like I should ride around on it – you know fly over the town at night casting spells. Also I decided that I needed to get busy in the evenings so I have joined my local aerobics class. As if I am not sweating enough already – but it is outside and it is FREE! So how could I resist. Even for a long time aerobics maniac like myself, the pace was pretty fast. You remember when you were a kid and you turned the record player to the wrong speed and it got really fast and sounded like chipmunks – that is the pace and sound I am struggling with.
There is not much else to do in Mae Hong Son. The one big thing to do is climb “the hill with the temple on top” which I already did last weekend. Unfortunately I forgot my camera. I am guessing I’ll probably do it about 20 more times before I leave, so I’ll post some nice pics of the town from above, when I have them. I am posting a couple of pics of the lake in town, Nong Jong Kham and the temples Wat Jong Kham and Wat Jon Klan that sit on one side of the lake.
I had to post of picture of the roosters who live next door to me. Needless to say, the racket they make at 5:00 AM in not welcomed and I have resorted to using the trusty backpacker earplugs. I think they are new ones – special for this trip – but I can’t be sure. I remember our friend Anne being disgusted by the fact that James and I used the same earplugs for a year on our last trip. We didn’t even have your plugs and my plugs, just communal ones – you just used whichever ones you got for the night. Ah the joys of travel.
This morning, while enjoying a western breakfast, I was really feeling the contrast between being a traveller versus living in a place. This becomes so evident to me when I go down to the “tourist” restaurant by the lake. There is a fun, exciting energy there with people from all over the world drinking coffee and eating toast, discussing what their activities for the day are going to be. It is also just such a contrast to the reality of life going on behind and around that isolated area. When I get back out to where I live, I am just back in living mode, like everyone else, doing laundry (in a pail in the shower), scrubbing the bathroom, eating noodles at a street stand etc. Since we are/I am most often in the traveling camp, it is weird to straddle both worlds, which is so evident in a town the size of Mae Hong Son.
No comments:
Post a Comment