Author: rrainefiore

Sapa Trekking

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The fog cleared a little.  It was still overcast, but warmer and everything looked less dire than it did yesterday.  I was able to book the last room at the Cat Cat hotel.  It was a family room with three beds for $25 a night.  Deal!  The view from the deck was stunning.  It was clean and had a heater in it.

The tour was wonderful.  We hiked through villages.  It didn’t look like it did in pictures because we were here before planting season.  They plant the rice in May so I imagine June and later is stunning.  They taught us a little about the different tribes in the area and we walked through some of the villages.  We walked through a bamboo forest, along top of the rice fields and to a waterfall.  Our guide and bunch of other women dressed in their traditional clothes walked with us.  The waterfall had almost no water, but it was still pretty.  At some point, we saw two water buffalo locking horns.  I thought that was a good point to throw some of Scott’s ashes over the rice fields.  So, in the future when you eat rice, imagine it might have come from Sapa and carries the joyous energy of that beautiful man.  I also left some of his ashes in the waterfall.

Of course, at the end of the tour, the ladies that were walking with us unpacked all their handmade wares and tried to get us to buy stuff for having “helped” us along the trek.  We got back in town and wandered around some more.  The town is much bigger than it felt yesterday and I like it a whole lot more than I did yesterday.  All the restaurants we have tried so far have been real good and everyone is nice.  The tribe ladies in the streets trying to sell you stuff or get you to sign up for tours is annoying though.

I’m still feeling horrible and today was great to get out and do some exercise, but now I feel worse.  It was a little too much activity.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Scott Rice Terraces

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My trekkin budy (she’s one year younger than me)

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Waterfall with no water

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Foggy Sapa

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We arrived at the train station at 6:00am.  What’s my name?  A sweet lady shows up with sticky rice.  So I bought some thinking it would be like Thai sticky rice.  Oh no, it wasn’t.  It was tasteless patties of white goo that I was supposed to buy sausage to go with.  You make a rice goo sausage sandwich.  I ate one and decided I never needed to eat that again.  We waited out front of the train station for our shuttle.  It was a zoo of taxi drivers hassling us and backpackers everywhere.  Later it turns out one of the taxi drivers that was bugging us actually was our shuttle.  If he had a sign with our name or the hostel’s name on it, we would have gone with him sooner.  He finally showed us a confirmation email.  The ride to Sapa was at least an hour from the train station, maybe more.  It’s wet and foggy and everything is damp.  Omg, the streets of Sapa are so narrow and steep.  There were buses, motorbikes and hikers everywhere barely missing each other by inches.  I’m not sure how you even get a motorbike up the steepness of these roads.  It’s very cold and everything is wet and muddy.

We got to the hostel and didn’t have the private room we were promised.  Annalise took the last bottom bunk and the shower was cold.  There were no lockers or any way to lock up our valuables.  I felt very flustered and unhappy.  So, I decided I could just feel unhappy or I could change my situation so I asked if there was a private room I could upgrade to.  There was so I did that.

We set out in the cold foggy weather to see Sapa.  They sold “North Face” jackets, hiking boots, backpacks and other gear in every other store.  I didn’t want to buy more clothes, but I was freezing so I got leggings, a hat and gloves.  The North Face jackets were $15-$25.  I ended up buying one of those, not because I needed one, but because I have a jacket problem.

We went to the pharmacy because both Erin and I are sick.  In Thailand, you often skip the doctor and go straight to the pharmacy and the pharmacists speak English so we figured it might be the same in Vietnam.  She didn’t speak English and I doubt she was a pharmacist, but after a short game of guess this illness charades, we both had a pile of drugs.  Mine were sinus drainage drugs and an antibiotic.  So, if I have a sinus infection, that should work.  Fingers crossed.

We holed up most of the afternoon in a restaurant that had a fireplace and fabulous ginger tea.  We wandered around town a little, but it wasn’t really pleasant.  We signed up for a tour that included a waterfall and trekking through the tribal villages and rice fields for tomorrow.  Hopefully the fog clears enough to see something.  After dinner, I had a massage.  It was in a cold room and the massage was mediocre at best.  I miss Thai massage already.  She did do a lot of work on my face and head which felt great on my sinuses and hopefully helped!  The fog is creepy, but in a fabulous way at night.  I enjoyed walking back to the hostel in it.

I got back to my private hostel room and was met by the smell of mildew.  In the dark, it’s creepy.  There are cobwebs everywhere and it just feels gross, cold and wet.  It’s too late to do anything now, but first thing tomorrow, I’m going to book a room at the hotel next door which got good reviews.  It’s more expensive, but at this point I don’t care.  It’s official, I’m too old for hostels.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Look carefully, those are dead squirrels as decoration

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Ha!
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Tiny coffee with candle to keep it warm
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Disco Lights in my scary hostle room

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Vietnam

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We left in the morning and flew from Chaing Mai to Bangkok and then from Bangkok to Hanoi.  Switching planes in Bangkok was a challenge.  I wasn’t sure I had a long enough lay over, but it worked out well.  Had to get my luggage, then go check in for my international flight and check my bag.  Some people need a visa to go to Vietnam or at least an intent to get a visa letter.  USA is one of the countries that needs that.  I had applied for my letter and had no problem checking in, but the people in front of me were not prepared and got turned away for the flight.  Getting in to Vietnam, we had to hand in our letter and then wait for the visa and pay for the visa which took quite a while.  We were supposed to pay the fee in US$ or VND, but all I had was Baht and there was no place to exchange money.  They let us pay in baht – yay!  Louise is from Scottland and didn’t need a visa at all.

Erin was already at the airport and Louise, Annalise and I were all on the same flight.  We exchanged money and headed out to find a taxi.  There was a taxi stand with a line of taxis.  I figured, as in most places, we just go to the first taxi.  Some guy kept asking if we needed a taxi and telling us $20 to the train station.  We just had to wait 3 minutes.  At some point when I figured we had missed the front of the line, I decided I wasn’t going wait for him when there was a line of taxis already.  He was livid and started screaming at us and the taxi driver whose car we got in.  Welcome to Vietnam.

It was a long drive to the train station, but since our train didn’t leave until late, that was ok.  We got dropped off and went in to find Gate 6 which is where we were supposed to pick up our tickets.  There was no gate 6, just a door 2.  Nothing looked right at the station.  Something was very off, but of course I have no idea, just the knowledge that this isn’t right.  Someone directed us to Track 6, but that wasn’t it either.  No one spoke English, no one.  By now, I’ve figured out that there are two stations and the other station should be on the other side of the tracks, but I can’t see a station anywhere.  Finally, a lady motioned me to walk to the end of the platform and turn left.  I turn around to find my friends and almost get run over as about 20 motorbikes come tearing down the platform.  What a strange place to drive a motorbike.  I guess they came off a train.  We walked to the end of the platform and crossed a bunch of tracks and headed toward what looked like an abandoned warehouse, but right around the corner was another train station.  There were only 2 people in the station, but we found gate 6.  So then we headed out to find some food.

I wouldn’t think that Vietnam could feel, look, sound and smell so different from Thailand, but it is so completely different.  It doesn’t even feel real.  And all we have seen is the airport and the train station and it’s already vastly different.  There are more motorbikes here than I’ve seen anywhere, ever.  The driving was insane.  Dinner was ok – small hole in the wall local restaurant.  A bunch of people were having what looked like Korean BBQ where you grill the food yourself on a table top grill.  We wanted that.  An old lady had us point at food in a window and fixed us plates of rice with the food we pointed at.  There was no menu and having the grill did not appear to be an option for us.  At this point, it was too much work to do anything else so we ate the already cooked food.  It was pretty good, nothing special.

By the time we got back to the train station, there were a lot more people there and we were able to get our tickets (we had already paid for them, but had to exchange an emailed voucher for the actual ticket).  We still had over an hour before we could get on the train, but at least we were positive we were in the right place now.

The train wasn’t luxury by any means, but is was very nice for how cheap it was.  Our room had 4 bunk beds in it and nice thick comforters.  It was three of us and a random guy in our room.  Louise was on another car because she had bought her ticket later.  The guy in our room was very nice, spoke great English and was very respectful.  He owned one of the first guide companies in the area we are going to and goes back and forth between Hanoi and Sapa often.  I don’t sleep well in new places so I didn’t get a ton of sleep, but it was pretty comfortable overall.  This is the first time I’ve taken a sleeper train anywhere so that was cool.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Mae Rim

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Today Annalise and I did a tour.  Our driver took us up to Mae Rim, an area North of Chaing Mai.  The first place we went to was an elephant camp where you can ride elephants.  There is big controversy about animals used for tourist purposes and I have very mixed feelings about it myself.  Annalise is against it so we decided to do the bamboo raft ride.  It was wonderful.  It was beautiful and relaxing and just what I needed after being sick.  We got to see the elephants with riders in the water which was magical.  After that we did a zip line tour.  This was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  We zipped over an amazing river and never saw any signs of civilization other than the zip course.  The next stop was an orchid farm.  A lot of the world’s orchids are grown in Thailand so it was neat to see a farm.  I took so many photos that I will post them in a separate blog that you only have to look at if you are into orchids.  The next stop was Tiger Kingdom where you can pet tigers.  I really want to pet a tiger, but if they really are drugged or mistreated, I’m going to feel that and I don’t want to feel that.  So, I went back and forth and finally decided to tell the driver not to stop.  So, we went to the snake farm.  They rushed us into the snake show.  The audience was made up of about 20 Thai women.  The snake guy had a king cobra out and there was loud rock music playing and a lady on the microphone telling us to come up and take a picture.  There was no getting out of it.  We had to take pictures with the snake behind us and if I wasn’t close enough I had to scooch closer and take the picture again.  The show went on with Thai cobras and other snakes.  The lady on the microphone was so funny and with everything the snakes did the Thai audience squealed, screamed, and ran to higher seats.  All of it was extremely entertaining.  The next stop was the monkey school.  The second we walked in I felt horrible.  There was a monkey show where the monkey swam for money, rode a bike, picked coconuts and did other stuff.  The place had a horrible feel to it and I couldn’t wait to leave.  Now I’m real glad I didn’t do the Tiger thing.  I think it would have upset me as much if not more.

Later I went to a night market by myself.  It was like I remembered Chaing Mai from years ago, but with way more people.  I wandered through back streets looking at tons of hand made goods.  I stopped at a row of chairs and got a leg/foot massage.  Of in the distance I could hear drums being played.  There were pretty lights in the trees and I just watched the people go by. It was very peaceful.  After my massage, I followed the sound of the drums and found a temple all lit up.  There were a lot of people at the temple and the drummers were out front.  The ordination hall of this temple was all in silver metal which I haven’t seen before.  They had color changing lights shining on it so it kept changing it’s color.  Then they announced that the candle lite ceremony would start in 5 minutes so I bought a pack (candle, incense and offering flower).  They turned off all the lights, the drumming stopped and the monks came out and lit candles.  Then everyone walked around the ordination hall 3 times in silent meditation.  Then you put the candles in holders and put the incense, flower and any further donation you wanted to at the altar.  It was mostly foreigners, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a special occasion, but something they do to make money making the foreigners feel like they happened on something special.  But, it worked, it was a unique experience and I’m glad I happened upon it.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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On By rrainefioreIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I really like the feel of Chaing Mai and I could see myself living here for a while.  I keep thinking back to my meeting with the placement person at Xploreasia and wondering why when I told her I wanted to live in Chaing Mai, she said “No you don’t”.  I remember liking this city when I was here in 2006.  It’s gotten busier and waaaaaaay more touristy, but I like it.  I think I would have liked being placed here.  I think I had an idea in my head before moving to Thailand and it was to experience living in a different culture, but to also be an xpat doing xpat things.  But, in Sam Ngao, I don’t feel like an xpat.  I feel like that odd, tall foreign woman.  Just wandering around Chaing Mai I realize, this is what I pictured in my head before coming here.  I wonder if I would like living here or I just think so because it seems to match the picture I had in my head.

I went to the 3D Art Museum with Annalise and a girl she met on the train.  So there are a ton of photos from that.  A lot of them came out kinda blurry, but I posted some of the fun ones below anyway.

Tonight we went to a dance and dinner show at the Chaing Mai Old City Cultural District.  It was a pretty evening.  The dancing went on a little longer than I would have liked, but the food and the atmosphere were both great.  They had traditional Thai dancing as well as traditional Hill Tribe dancing.  The dresses for most of the Thai dancing were so beautiful.  The dances were all pretty slow and included movement of the feet and arms, but little else.  It was fascinating to see how little the heads moved.  Their smiles all looked fake and there was no change of expression through out the dance.  It was as if their heads were not part of them or they were vacant.  It looked like they were dolls.  I found this fascinating and disturbing all at the same time.  The hill tribe dances were similar except there was no smiling which made them look bored.  I wonder what this cultural thing is where the head is not present.

I’d like to write more, but I can barely stay awake.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Thai Cooking

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Annaliese wanted to take a Thai cooking class while in Chaing Mai and I really enjoyed the one I took in Mae Sot.  I didn’t realize it was an all day class until last night.  That seems like a little too much, but I was already signed up.  It was a fun day.  They picked us up from our hotels and took us to a market and showed us some of the most common sauces we would need. They taught us the difference between sticky rice and non sticky rice.  Then the took us to the cooking school which is on an organic farm.  That was delightful.  The place was beautiful.  We each made 5 different typical dishes.  The teacher was so high energy and funny.  It was a little too long, but I’m glad we did this class instead of a shorter one somewhere else.  Not a long blog today – sooooo tired.  Here, look at the pretty pictures.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Coconut Milk Soup

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Spring Rolls
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Red Curry
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Chicken with Basil
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Bananas in Coconut Milk

To Chaing Mai

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So school is over and I plan to travel for the next two months.  My first stop is Chaing Mai.  This is the second largest city in Thailand and I remember when I was here in 2006 I love it.  This is the town I asked to be placed in, but was told “you don’t want to live there”.  By car, Chaing Mai is probably 3 hours from Sam Ngao, but by bus, longer.

So, my instructions for travel were to come to the school at 7:30 and get on a bus.  A certain student would meet me there to tell me which bus to get on.  Then that bus would take me to Baa tan cuen which is the bust stop on the side of the highway.  I then had to walk past the police box and find the lady that sells bus tickets.  Then get on the bus to Chaing Mai.  Well, that sounds like a solid plan.  What could go wrong?

I showed up at school at 7:30 towing a suitcase and answered “Teacher, where you go?” about 15 times.  The student showed up and pointed to a bus.  She walked over to it with me and said something to the driver.  15 minutes later, the bus took off with me and a monk.  It drove so slow I could have walked faster, but considering I had a suitcase and no real time agenda, who cares?  It drove through both villages and picked up a few people along the way.  It dropped me off at Baa tan cuen.  I looked up and directly in front of me was a lady sitting at a tiny table (on the side of the highway).  I said “bus to Chaing Mai?”.  She made a phone call, told me 9:30 and I paid her.  At 9:25 she said “Chaing Mai” and motioned me and two other people to stand near the median.  A minute later she grabbed my suitcase, said “Chaing Mai”, and took my suitcase 20 feet down the median.  We followed her.  The bus came at 9:30 and took me to Chaing Mai.  I can’t imagine any of that going smoothly in the US.

Tonight I met Rob who lives in Chaing Mai and Annaliese for dinner.  They were both in my TESOL class.  Some of Rob’s coworkers joined us.  I had pizza and it tasted like pizza and it was wonderful.  Another teacher, Adi, and her mother joined us later.  Let vacation begin!

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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They named a motorbike after me
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No, wait for the bus over here
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Waiting in the median for a bus
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Baa tan cuen
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Ticket sales center (table)
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My cute hotel in Chaing Mai
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Itty Bitty Hotel pool

Spiritual Stuff

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As I’m adjusting to life in Thailand, changes in how I see the world and myself in it are happening.  These changes started long before Thailand.  These are results of many many years of hard work and investigation into what is real.  So the rest of this blog is going to be about things that are spiritual in nature and difficult to explain because they can only be experienced.  So, if this is not your cup of tea, this blog post is not for you.

I’ve been talking about foggy brain since I got to Thailand.  After a session with my teacher and a friend confirming what I was suspecting, I don’t think it’s just too much sugar or too much rice although those things might contribute.  I think things are rewiring in my brain.  I’ve spent my whole life thinking the world worked a certain way and that things I was taught were true, things we were all taught were true.  My childhood helped me create an ego, a story of how life is and I believed it completely.  I’ve spent a long time digging into those stories and finding how believing the world is unsafe makes it unsafe and it’s a story not a truth.  Finding that I’m my own biggest judge and the judgments are not true, but I believed that’s who I was.  But, if I’m not who I thought I was, if I’m not my ego story, who am I?  Sorry to tell you, I don’t have that answer quite yet.  I have glimpses of it, but it’s still presenting itself and the ego is still trying to put it in terms it understands and make it fit in the old story.  But, it appears to me that a lot of the foggy brain is my ego dissolving.  Up to now, I had just been able to expose the lies and discover the truth.  I became healthier and changed my posture and continue to see life with very little judgement, but some of my identity remained with my story. Now enough of my story has been proven wrong and the rest is just dissolving without me having to work through it.  My brain doesn’t know what to do without the story so it just goes blank and fuzzy.  In a place that is so foreign, where I’m lost and alone, the ego is having trouble finding familiar things to hold on to and it’s grip on my identity was already severely undermined with all the years of investigation.

I had someone make the comment that how can I have gone through this much work and graduated from Awakening to Presence class and still be suffering so much.  I immediately was confused by the question.  I don’t feel like I’m suffering.  So, I thought maybe others reading my blog don’t see the fine differentiation that seems to not be there, but in reality is giant.  Most of what I’m experiencing is challenging and entertaining, but not suffering.  It’s not suffering because I chose this and because I’m not believing it should be another way.  The travel from the US to Thailand were suffering, I’ll give you that.  The challenges here have brought up feelings of wanting to go home, being overwhelmed and other stresses.  Most of that is culture shock and I know that so I’m just holding on waiting for it to work it’s way through.  Just because I’ve done all this spiritual work doesn’t make me immune to culture shock any more than it makes me immune to feeling horrible when I’m sick.  I think maybe I haven’t portrayed that well in my blogs.  I don’t think awakening means bliss, peacefulness and lack of discomfort for the rest of your life.  Sorry to those of you who are seeking that. That is why I signed up for Awakening to Presence class 9 years ago.  And when I finally fully got it that it was impossible, I was crushed.   I also think that spiritual leaders that are portraying their lives as without challenge are not telling you the whole story.  Then again, if I had gotten that in the beginning, I might not have signed up.  But on this side I understand fully that Truth is what I want, not perfect happy all the time.

I have written this blog and many others several times.  Half way through my thoughts no longer can be put in words and gibberish comes out of the keyboard as I realize that this is so hard to explain because it has to be experienced.  So, I ask in the future that if you read a blog and think I’m suffering or “poor Rraine”, ask yourself if that is your story.  Can you see it from a different angle, one with humor and lack of the thought it should be different.  Discomfort, pain, exhaustion, crying and other feelings still exist, but if I don’t judge them as “it shouldn’t be” they are just feelings that come and go.  If I judge them, it isn’t for long before I realize I’m doing it and then I can let the judgement go.  I will try to paint this side of the picture more clearly.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

Better

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Well, last night I didn’t watch Game of Thrones.  After posting my blog I just felt so miserable that I looked up symptoms of Dengue Fever and Malaria.  I don’t think I have either one of those.  If it is Dengue, it’ll pass in a few more days.  I am not sure if I had a fever or it was just hot.  I had the achy joints and giant headache, but it didn’t mention anything about cold symptoms.  I did debate a trip to the hospital.  I decided that if I still felt this bad in the morning or if it got worse in the night, I’d make the hospital call.  I had the thought that in other things in life if we resist what is, we just make the issue worse or at least believe it’s worse.  I’m hoping I will feel better in the morning or trying to figure out what I did wrong to get to this point.  As I’m doing that, I’m rejecting how horrible I feel now.  Am I prolonging being sick by wishing it away?  On some small level am I contracting muscles, restricting blood flow and further stressing the immune system?  So I laid there and tried to just be miserable with no thought that I shouldn’t be.  I just sweat and whimpered until at some point it cooled down enough to sleep.  I slept until 8:30am which I think is a record here.  I stayed in bed until 9:30 with very little thought.  I feel much better, not great, but better.  I stayed home until it got too hot and now I’m sitting at the air conditioned coffee shop.  Pat’s husband came in earlier with a bunch of other Dam employees.  He bought me cheesecake even though I said I didn’t want one.  It was fairly close to cheescake, just not as dense or rich.  I’m trying to book hotels for my upcoming travels, but mostly just watching the wind blow the plants outside.  I’m glad I didn’t plan to start traveling today.  Now I have the day to sit still and take it slow.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore20160308_12492920160308_143238