Mae Rim

On March 12, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

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On March 11, 2016July 26, 2016 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.

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Thai Cooking

On March 10, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

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20160310_154052 — Bananas in Coconut Milk

To Chaing Mai

On March 9, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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!

20160309_084025 — They named a motorbike after me

20160309_092444 — No, wait for the bus over here

20160309_092134 — Waiting in the median for a bus

20160309_085323 — Ticket sales center (table)

20160310_083007 — My cute hotel in Chaing Mai

Spiritual Stuff

On March 8, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

Better

On March 8, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

Tokay

On March 7, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today I still felt sick. I tried to pack for the two months off. Noi came and got me for lunch which was nice. It’s too hot to be in my house and too hot to be outside. The restaurant offered no relief – it was hot. After lunch I finished packing and went to the coffee shop. I met with Laura one more time before she takes off on sabbatical. I stayed at the coffee shop until it closed because it’s the only place with air conditioning. After I came home, I tried to do more of my turbotax when I looked up and saw a large head and eyeball looking down at me. That is either the biggest gecko I’ve ever seen or a snake. It’s head was about 2″ long and I couldn’t see a body. I’m not ok with either one hanging out in my kitchen above my head. I called my next door neighbor over since it was sitting on top of the wall between our houses. He couldn’t see it from his side so he came over. “I’ve seen it before, maybe gecko, not dangerous”. That was it. It just stared down at me most of the rest of the night and then disappeared. So, not much useful got done the rest of the night. I didn’t feel like cooking, it’s hot so how do I sleep, and I tried to do stuff on the internet, but was quite preoccupied with the gecko on my wall. So, the question of the day to ponder is why is this ok for other people and no big deal and why do I want it to be different. How can I be one with everything if I can’t be one with this mystery housemate? I think once I’m no longer sick, it will be better.

Today I woke up at some 0 dark 30 to the monks broadcasting the good word of the day or whatever that is that sometimes happens at way too early in the morning. It was still dark out. I feel like death. I’m so sick and it’s hot. I don’t care too much about the gecko anymore. I just am ready to not be sick. I get it, when I get sick, I ate too much sugar and need downtime.

I only had one class to teach today so I mostly sat at school with my computer open looking like I was doing something, but just zoning out. I showed Pat a picture of the head and eyeball on the top of my wall and asked what it was. She said it was a main power switch. Then I said what about the thing sitting on the power switch. She got all grossed out and passed my phone to one of the students. Then within seconds there was thirty 14 year olds squeeling “tokay, tokay” while passing my phone around. So, by unanimous squeeling vote, it’s a tokay, which is a large gecko. Even though she was absolutely horrified by it, she told me that it’s normal and they aren’t dangerous. If they chased it out, another would just come in. So, the tokay stays. He better start eating way more bugs. If he eats the rat, I’ll give him a name.

By the end of the day my head feels like it might explode. I have to do taxes and book hotels for my trip, finish packing and eat the food I have before it goes bad. Instead, I decided to lock myself in the pretend safety of my bug netted bed. The fan is in no way mistakable for cool, but better than no fan. I’m going to watch Game of Thrones because I downloaded it on my computer and then try to sleep. I think that is the perfect plan. Now you all go look up tokay on google and sleep tight!

Low Key Day

On March 5, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today I slept in until 8:00am. I would have slept later, but, the roosters won. Still sick, but I did some work for my old engineering company while sitting in the air conditioned coffee shop. Also did some laundry. My new friends Ging and Tip asked me to go to dinner. Even though I felt bad, I think I got the cold from Ging’s daughter so I figured I couldn’t infect them more. And sitting in my hot house by my self sounds less fun. We went to the sunflower garden, but the sunflowers were all gone. Still, the farm had strawberries and a bunch of other interesting things so we wandered around for awhile and then drove up to the dam for a picnic dinner. The video was from the other night when I watched frozen – forgot to post it.

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21 Hour Field Trip

On March 5, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Friday each grade had a different field trip. I was told to be at the school at 1:30am as I was going on the M3 field trip. What? Sure enough, 1:30 am and most of the class and a bunch of teachers were there. We loaded onto two buses and headed to near Suphan Buri. I tried to sleep on the bus, but these are not the greatest buses in the world and the roads were horrible. It was quite difficult to sleep while being tossed around with every bump in the road. I had no idea where we were going. Pat isn’t real good at filling me in on stuff. We stopped for breakfast at a rest stop around 8:00am. They have a lot of rest stops here, kind of like in America except with a much more elaborate food situation. Then back on the road. At some point we passed a zoo and I was excited because I liked the idea of a zoo. Nope. We drove a little farther, parked and started walking away from the zoo. Finally, someone filled me in. We were going to an aquarium. It was a pretty decent aquarium. After that we went to a market that is supposed to be over 100 years old. It was pretty neat to see. The old shop fronts lined the streets and the awnings from the shops opened up to touch those across the street, giving it the feel of a typical Thai market, but not as temporary. It had a lot of different things you could buy, but we’ll call it the fish, sweets and restaurant market. I assumed after that we’d be heading back to the school since it was such a long drive, but since no one had filled me in, I had no idea. The next stop was a buffalo park and history museum. They had old houses and equipment they use to use with the buffalo for farming. They also had close to 30 buffalo and a buffalo show. Then we headed home. The heat had taken it’s toll and I’ve caught a cold. Add that combo to the fact that I got up at 1:00am and I was hurting. We stopped at another rest stop for dinner and I found some coconut juice which I think made the difference between just feeling sick and having heat exhaustion. I love the coconut. We got back to the school around 10:30pm. Wow. Hard core field trippin.

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20160304_153246 — The 4 food groups? Dairy, Sugar, Fruit and Sugar?

Pictures

On March 3, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized2 Comments

Here are the pictures from yesterday’s blog and some videos. It seems they didn’t upload yesterday.

20160301_175212 — Overseeing me doing laundry

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20160301_152445 — Counting votes for something

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20160301_174330 — More laundromat chickens

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20160302_213331 — XploreAsia sent me this for doing a write up of my town

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20160229_202545 — Like a grapefruit, but not sour? Wonderful

	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Icebergs
	delicately4f6d967f14 on ATV Tour
	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Kluane

Rraine Drops

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