Visit to Thailand

On March 17 we flew to Thailand after a two-month break in our Asia/Africa travels. As you know, we returned to Canada at the beginning of the year after Kathleen broke her wrist in Kenya. Her surgery went well and after two months of recuperation we were ready to resume our travels.

We spent two days in Bangkok and then took the overnight train to the northern city of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a popular tourist destination with great food (including mango and sweet sticky rice!) and lots of fun things to do.

(Click on photos to enlarge them.)

One of our favorite experiences in Chiang Mai was visiting the Patara Elephant Farm (http://www.pataraelephantfarm.com/), whose mission is to combat the declining number of Thai elephants through a breeding program and to develop a safe tourism model. As “elephant owners for a day,” we spent the day learning about the elephants, their habitat, their domestication and the threats to their survival. Elephants have a matriarchal society and are very social. Used for working and in war and celebrated for centuries, these majestic animals have historically played a big part in the lives and lore of the Southeast Asian people. Feeding, bathing and riding the elephants was an amazing experience. A special treat was wading in the stream with twins that were just months old. It was with some sadness that we watched the elephants and our “mahout” trainers return to the forest at the end of the day.

After a week in Chiang Mai, we took an overnight van to Northeast Thailand where Scott spent two years in the Peace Corps in the 70’s. At 4:45 am, while we and the 11 other passengers (all of us foreigners) slept, the van slammed into a slow-moving truck. We awoke to the sound of a loud impact and being thrown forward (we had no seatbelts). The front of the vehicle was destroyed. A young British man sitting in the front seat had to be cut out of the vehicle by the rescue team that arrived 20 minutes later. He was the most seriously injured with a cracked vertebra in his neck and broken facial bones. The rest of us managed to climb out of the van. All of us were taken to the hospital in the nearby city (Udon Thani). We were lucky to have been seated in the middle of the van and, amazingly, escaped without serious injury – just some significant bruises and scrapes.

A little worse for wear, we made it to the town, Tha Bo (pronounced “tah-baw”), where Scott lived during his two years of Peace Corps service. Tha Bo is located across the Mekong River from Vientiane, Laos (the Mekong serves as the Thai-Lao border). Staying in a local hotel and using bicycles to get around town, we spent four remarkable days visiting with Scott’s old friends, including his best friend and former coworker, Thawatchai, and his wife, Nang. Scott hadn’t visited Tha Bo since he left 32 years ago, but it was remarkable how the old friendships were quickly rekindled. We shared stories and laughs and also sorrows over the passing of old friends and family members.

It was particularly gratifying and heart-warming to see how Thawatchai (pronounced “tah-what-chai”) and Nang’s children had grown up into delightful adults. We spent quite a bit of time with their daughter, Ao (pronounced “Oh”). She’s married to a good husband, has two teenage children, and owns a small dress shop in town. Ao was just two-three years old when Scott was in the Peace Corps. Scott used to drive her and her older sister around on his motorcycle in the evenings.

With our Tha Bo friends we visited several Buddhist temples, including the forest monastery (Wat Hin Mak Beng) on the Mekong River where Scott got his first exposure to Vipassana meditation. From time to time during his Peace Corps days, Scott would visit the monastery to practice meditation and to hear the resident meditation master, Ajahn Thet, talk about the Buddha’s teachings. Ajahn Thet, who passed away many years ago, is now a revered figure in Thailand. It was moving for Scott to revisit the place where he first got a “taste of Dhamma.”

After a very full four days of visiting, Thawatchai, Nang, and several other friends escorted us across the river to Vientiane, the next destination on our journey. It was sad to say goodbye, but we were grateful for the very special time we had visiting with Scott’s old friends. We appreciated the unique experience that the Peace Corps offers – to develop relationships with people from other cultures on their terms. We were able to go beyond being tourists to instead relating as friends with these fine and generous people in Thailand.