Come on and join your fellow man...

Just a quick update from me... I arrived in Chiang Mai Saturday morning. It's great here, much more my speed than Bangkok. I found a cheap guest house (less than $5/night!) and spent yesterday and the day before visiting temples and wandering around the city; there is a moat around the entire old part of the city so you can walk around in a loop. Last night I checked out the night bazaar, and the Sunday walking street, where they close down one of the main roads and set up booths with food and souveniers and such. Lots of pretty things, but as usual no room in my backpack! :)

I met with Mandy's dad, Dan, on Saturday to talk about volunteer opportunities at the school he and Rebecca are teaching at. I am going to go up with Rebecca on Tuesday morning to spend 3 days at the school (about 65 miles from here, in the mountains) and decide if I'd like to do some more extensive volunteering there. It takes about 3 hours to get to the school due to it's remote location and the road conditions. Dan & Rebecca normally take their motorcycle up there but this week Dan has some consultation work to do here in Chiang Mai, so Rebecca & I will take a sawngthaew (a pickup-truck with benches in the back) up early tomorrow morning and come back Thursday afternoon. This is the normal schedule that Dan & Rebecca keep up there. This will give me 3 days to check out the school and decide if I'd like to go up and stay for a couple of weeks. I was able to see some pictures of the school and things definitely look pretty rustic... my accomodations will be a thatched roof hut. The village is called Baan Kiew Sua (but don't look for it on a map... you won't find it), and it is the home of Karen (pronounced Ga-rian) hill-tribe people. You can read a little more about the Karen people here if you're interested.

I'll tell you all about it when I get back to Chiang Mai, for now I have to run... gotta go track down a mosquito net so I don't get eaten alive up there.