Chiang Mai, Thailand

After Jaipur, I flew to Chiang Mai to hang out with Emma who is studying abroad. A few snapshots from the two weeks...


We visited a wealthy public school for an afternoon. The students reminded me of Woodstock students, except that they were all wearing pink uniforms!


For the first weekend, we headed outside the city to an organic farm run by an ex-pat and his Thai wife. We learned how to harvest rice and throw thai fishing nets. A very nice break from the city.


We spent a lot of time shopping. This is the indoor bazaar downtown - it has everything.


Doi Suthep - a wat (Buddhist temple) at the top of a hill outside of the city.


Monk house at Wat U Mong. It was the most peaceful place. And outside of the houses was monk laundry - all orange!


Emma and I happy after eating at an incredibly delicious vegetarian restaurant.


Emma and Pung (Yee's friend). Motorbikes are the vehicle of choice in Chiang Mai.


Fun pictures with Yee on the Iron Bridge.


Yee invited us to her apartment for "Hot Pot" - a vegetable soup. It was delicious.


Chiang Mai's most popular public transportation - the rotdheng! Emma's negotiating with the driver.


Teaching English to a group of Burmese people who are in Thailand to train for economic development and women's rights advocacy in Burma.


My last night in Chiang Mai - dinner with Emma and her host brother Pae, who is proudly wearing his new Obama shirt!

Triumphant Return Home! (aka The Travel Experience from Hell)

Stranded in Thailand, I stayed with the St. Olaf group in Chiang Mai for an extra 5 days. After a relaxing weekend, I spent Monday morning on the phone trying to deal with frustrating airline reps to see if there was any possible way to leave the country. "Airport closed, ma'am. Call again tomorrow." Oh, really? The airport is closed? Nothing looked hopeful, so I decided rather quickly to take matters into my own hands.

I hopped on an overnight bus (with four months worth of my belongings) from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. I had the address to the Jet Airways office in hand, and that was the extent of my plan. I reached Bangkok at 5am. Not sure when the office opened, I hung out at the bus station for a few hours before catching a cab to the office. (Note: Hauling 4 months worth of luggage everywhere you go gets old pretty fast. Especially into Thai bathrooms complete with flooded floors, tiny stalls, and turnstiles at the entrance.) The Jet Air office was packed with stranded tourists. Thankfully, there were two flights leaving for India that day. I was put on one for Calcutta (even though I needed to go to Delhi) leaving at midnight. Apparently only 30 flights were leaving Bangkok each day, so I was happy to be on one! Not wanting to carry my luggage around the streets of Bangkok, I hung out in the office until 3pm when we were herded onto a bus for the military airport. With main highways closed due to protesters, the bus took a three-hour detour. As we approached the military airport, we got a police escort to the most bizarre airport experience I've ever had. The airport itself is very small since it only serves the military. Outside of it, however, the Thais had created a sort of carnival. Complete with massage stations, a live band, food vendors, and, my favorite, dancers in sequins outfits! After getting hand-written boarding passes, I chatted with some other stranded tourists for a few hours before boarding.



Food vendors outside the airport.


Massage stations.


Dancers in sequins!


Low technology airport operations: megaphone and hand written cardboard signs.

I landed in Calcutta at 1am only to find the domestic airport shut down for the night. Not having a real ticket, I had to argue my way past the guards so that I could hang out in the international airport for the night. Two nights of no sleep was wearing on me, so I invested in a Coke to keep me awake and aware. Around 3am I gave my passport to an airport worker wearing a neon vest. When he walked away, I realized that I had no assurance that he would come back. Luckily, he did and at 6:30am, I took off on a flight to Delhi.

Delhi, as I should have predicted, was a nightmare. When I landed, I tried to get on a shuttle to the International Terminal which was a few miles away. Once again, the guards didn't understand my situation and told me that I needed a real ticket (mine was expired, obviously). So, I had to pay for a taxi. Thankfully, it was within my budget. I had only 150 rupees left and it was 140. When I arrived at the International airport, I tried to get in to talk to an American Airlines rep to reissue my ticket. The guards, yet again, told me I didn't have a valid ticket (I soon realized that no one had any idea what had happened in Bangkok) so told me to go to the AA office. Well, turns out that no one had any idea where the actual office was and so for about an hour I ran around (with all of my bags) asking guard after guard. I finally found it (of course, it was unmarked) in a very obscure location - under the road, in a random dead-end hallway. I tried to go in but a man who was "guarding" the door stopped me saying that no one was working, even though it had been open for almost an hour. Against his wishes, I plopped down right outside the door to wait. When he left for a bathroom break, I ran in to the office. Of course, there WERE people working, well, semi-working. The office looked quasi-professional except that it was packed with lost luggage. The man helped me and things looked hopeful. UNTIL, a woman came out to explain to me that their office can't reissue tickets and I would have to go to downtown Delhi (probably an hour drive in morning traffic). WHAT!?!? First, let's remember that I only have 10 rupees (about 25cents) and the only ATM and money exchange is INSIDE the airport, which they won't let me enter. Second, let's think about this...at Delhi International Airport (the capital of India) there is no where to reissue a ticket. I asked if I could call the downtown office instead of going there. "No ma'am. Must go yourself." At this point, I was incredibly mad. More importantly, I was visibly mad, which doesn't happen very often. I demanded that the woman call the downtown office and ask. She did so, reluctantly. And, what do you know, everything worked out! The woman on the phone was incredibly nice and helpful and booked me a flight leaving at 1am that night.

Incredibly relieved, and with a ticket in hand (an unbelievably sketchy one that I could duplicate myself in Microsoft Word if I wanted to), I headed to enter the airport. Of course, the guards stopped me again and told me that I couldn't enter until 3 hours before my flight, which was about 12 hours away. They directed me across the street to the waiting area. With my luck, the waiting area was unexpectedly closed for the day. Why? Who knows. In India, you don't ask questions. There was a room that I probably could have waited in, but it cost 80 rupees per entry and I only had 10. So, I went back to the incompetent guards and told them my situation. They were perplexed. They had no idea that the waiting area was closed for the day and didn't know what to do with me. Finally, I got a police escort to take me into the waiting area. Success! So I had a nice place to sit. But there were no bathrooms and I couldn't afford any food. So, I sat for 12 hours trying not to drink the 8oz of water I had and rationing my mentos and trail mix. Mostly, I slept at the table with my limbs draped over my luggage while plenty of Indians stared at me.

Once I got in the airport, I attempted to contact my parents, who hadn't heard anything for 2 days on my whereabouts. Plan A failed when I didn't have enough Indian coins to make a call and the ATM that was INSIDE the airport I had heard so much about was not anywhere to be seen. Plan B emerged when I noticed information about wireless internet service. I went up to the table and asked if I could get service for a half hour. They said, "Yes, what's your mobile number?" Apparently, the only way you can create an account is by having the service company text you your account number on your cell phone. Same with the land-line phone service they offer. What?!? That makes no sense! I asked if they could just give me an account number since we were face-to-face, but no luck. Oh, India. Defeated, I decided to hunt down my favorite Indian soda for one last refreshing hurrah. Well, of course prices are jacked up at airports, so my 10 rupees wouldn't cut it. But, hallelujah, some vendors took USD! I whipped out the coins I'd been carrying around for 4 months, excited to at last have something go smoothly. I got to the counter, double checked with the vendor to see if USD was okay, excitedly handed him my money, and...got rejected. "No coins, ma'am, only dollar." I wanted to scream.

I sat down, completely exhausted, to wait for boarding and was shocked when an Indian woman handed me a cold can of Fanta. I recognized her as the woman behind me in line. She said nothing, just smiled. It wasn't the Limca I had hoped for, but it was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits.

Finally, I left Delhi at 1am and arrived in Chicago at 4:30 am (a 15 hour non-stop flight). I have never been so happy to reach American turf. Chicago was a dream, complete with smiling people and pay phones. From there, it was smooth sailing onto Minneapolis. I arrived home in WI Thursday morning, after 80 hours of traveling alone.

stuck in Chiang Mai

To round out my time abroad, I hopped over to Thailand to visit some friends for a week. Well, the week has quickly passed but still I remain in Chiang Mai! As I'm sure most of you know, the land of smiles is going through a period of feisty politics and it has built up to the occupation of both Bangkok airports by political demonstrators. News Report. Bangkok closed on Wednesday (my flights were on Thursday) and will remain closed until Saturday evening at the earliest. It seems like the situation could either dissolve smoothly or escalate quickly. I am incredibly thankful to be in Chiang Mai with friends rather than in an airport or unfamiliar city. And, instead of eating Thanksgiving dinner on a plane (meaning it would have been thai or indian food), I was thankful to share turkey, potatoes, pie, etc with other St. Olaf students.

My plans are to stay in Chiang Mai until the airports re-open. Right now I am guessing that I will not get out until Monday or Tuesday.

Jaipur (and a bit of Delhi)

I left Woodstock on Saturday and headed to Delhi with Megan and Saahil. We met up with another student teacher from Olaf who has been teaching at Kodai. Early Sunday morning, we headed southwest of Delhi to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Highlights from the trip:

-Stopping at a McDonalds and, upon reading some literature about how healthy it is to eat there, I discovered that they offer guided tours per request of the kitchen. It was all young Indian men working there, and if we hadn't gotten enough stares by just being female and white, we certainly did when we were wearing hairnets and pretending to be super interested in the difference between how they store plain buns and sesame buns.

-Meeting up with one of my drawing students and his family, pardon me, his royal family. I'm not really sure what their status is, but they are part of the Rajasthani royal family and the were very eager to welcome us to Jaipur. We met them at the Polo Club, which turned out to be a very exclusive, members only club. Then they brought us to a 5 star hotel for dinner. The dinner wasn't terribly fancy, as it was traditional Indian cuisine (which you eat with your fingers), but it was definitely pricey and delicious. Among many, having connections to wealthy families all over Asia is one of the benefit of working at Woodstock.

-Sight seeing old forts and palaces. Jaipur is called the "Pink City" because all of its old buidings (which it has plenty of) are pink. Everything is very beautiful.

-Chokidani: A tourist trap catered to middle-class Indians. It is a "reinacted Indian village" complete with a fake dinosaur, a HUGE game of snakes and ladders, and other more typical village things. We rode camels and elephants (camels are way more exciting!) We also ate dinner, village-style (this part was actually authentic), and by the end of the meal we had a wall of Indian men watching us eat...they quickly became fascinated after hearing us speak Hindi.

-Shopping! Jaipur is the best place for shopping. I had to work extremely hard to control myself. They are known for their beautiful textiles and jootis (camel leather slippers). Everything is so gorgeous and, if you excell at bartering, you can get it really cheaply. We spent hours walking up and down the streets.


The terrifying camel ride at Chokidani.


Bangles galore!


Juuti shopping.


Beautiful wall paintings at the City Palace.


We were excited to be tourists...complete with headsets, maps, and cameras.


One of the many gardens at Amber Fort.


Women outside of Amber Fort

Last week at Woodstock

Today I leave Woodstock! I'm not ready to be done in India yet, so maybe I will wander back this way in the future. But, for now at least, I am heading off.

It has been a crazy week tieing up loose ends, packing, and saying goodbyes. The farewell has been uplifting, though. Almost everyday this week we have done something special. Tuesday, a group of friends spent hours up at Char Dukan having a very greasy (but delicious) dinner with lots of overdue gossip. Thursday, Megan and I were treated to a fancy dinner at the Carlton by our host teachers. Friday, we had a party in our sculpture class that entailed parading around campus to take photos of the collaborative sculpture that we had just finished. And eating lots of cookies, of course. Then I met with my Activity Week ninth graders one last time and we celebrated with fake tears, group hugs, and one last riddle. In the evening, Christina hosted a bonfire farewell party which was perfect. Today, we are heading into the bazaar one last time and then leaving for Delhi this afternoon.


Fancy dinner with the host teachers.


The place was full of stuffed tigers...


Parading our sculpture. It's not meant to be a hat.

BUT, my travels are not over! I stay in India until Tuesday - mostly in Jaipur (capital of Rajasthan...yippee!) and a bit in Delhi. Late Tuesday night, I hop on a plane to Thailand to visit friends for 8 days in Chiang Mai. Then a ridiculously long day (more like two) of travel (4 flights...yuck) and I am home Nov 28.

Politics, Politics, Politics: School Closing #2

At the end of August, Woodstock unexpectedly closed for a day after religious riots broke out in Orissa (a state near Calcutta, far from Mussoorie). Christian schools were asked to close primarily to take a stand against the violence, but also just in case more religious riots broke out.

On Wednesday, we started school as usual but during second period an assembly was called to cancel school for the remainder of the day. This marks the second time school has been closed this semester. In fact, these are the only two instances where school has been closed unexpectedly like this in years. The decision was made, like Orissa, for solidarity as well as safety. It has been difficult to sort through the information and news as there is little national coverage of the events and Woodstock has to speak lightly in the best interests of the students.

From what I have gathered, the BJP (conservative political party) has called for a nation-wide closing of educational institutions. Their reasoning for the bandh (strike) is to protest recent violence, particularly the unusual number of bomb blasts that have occured in the last few months. They have labeled undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants as the source of the bomb blasts and so are blaming the INC (political party in power) for the presence of these Bangladeshis in India. Along with the closing of schools, there are some marches, one of which was rumored to be going through Mussoorie and passing through campus. Some Woodstock staff members have no fears about this, but others were concerned that violence could result. Woodstock is put in a difficult position. By closing the school, it is in some ways acting in solidarity with the conservative political party against Bangladeshi immigrants (which there are a good number of at Woodstock). If it doesn't close, it is isolating itself and potentially could become a target. Turns out, as I had guessed, nothing happened except the enjoyment of skipping classes for the day!

Grade Nine Activity Week: Khaas Kudoan

Woodstock is just returning back to campus after Activity Week, a week where all students and staff take a break from classes and go off on different adventures around northern India. Some are service trips, some are treks and outdoor adventures, and others are tourism in major cities. I was placed on a grade nine village trip to Khaas Kudoan, which is near Mussoorie, but it takes almost two hours to get there. We arrived on Sunday and hiked 6km into the village. The village has only about 17 families living in it, but nearly 250 people (those are some huge families!). We set up tents on the outskirts of the village. Each day we had a different activity, usually away from the village but then each night we would go visit the village families and ask them questions. The villagers only know very very basic english, so we had to rely on Hindi speaking students to translate. We learned some very cool things in these conversations. The village is Hindu and predominantly vegetarian. They raise nearly 100% of the food that they eat (they buy salt and sometimes buy oil). (They fed us all week and it was very tasty!) It is typical to have 20 or more family members living in one house. They have phones and mobiles and usually one lightbulb per room, but they have no tap water or water storage. They walk about 10min up the hillside everytime they need water and fill their container from a spring.
The group I was with consisted of 15 students and 2 other chaperones. The kids were absolutely phenomenal. Hands down the best group of high school students I have ever spent a week with. I had known a few of them from my classes, but most of them were new faces. I pulled out some camp counselor tricks, and soon the whole group was obsessed with riddles and mini-mysteries. I have never played such a rowdy game of "Who's in the Middle" in my life. It was fabulous.


View of our camp from the village.

Day 1: After all the kids were sick from the van ride and then incredibly drowsy from motion sickness meds, we hiked into the village, set up camp, and crashed for the afternoon.


Village kids helping us carry our tents...they loved it. On the rights, those are chili peppers drying on the roofs of the houses.

Day 2: We woke up early and hiked to the very top of the mountain (it took about 3 hours to get there). It was very steep and there is little vegetation on the hillsides, so we were hot and exhausted. At the top, there is the temple that the villagers go to on special occasions. We had lunch and then hiked down.


The Woodstock kids on the top of the mountain in front of the temple.

Day 3 and 4: We visited three different village schools. The Woodstock students had to teach the village kids, which turned out to be a good challenge for them and very entertaining for the chaperones. I was almost in hysterics watching some of the woodstock kids struggling with teaching the letter "F" for about a half hour. They couldn't get the village kids to stop saying "yef."



Day 5: We spent the day in Khaas Kudoan. First we learned how to plow and "cow surf" (which is another form of plowing where you stand on a board and hold onto the cow's tail...very fun.) Then we pulled out an invasive plant from the hillside and then learned how to make bamboo baskets. In the evening, I took a few students with me to go cook pasta for dinner. It was an incredible cultural interaction, as villagers were also cooking in the room. They had never seen pasta before and we were equally intrigued watching them make roti (flat bread). They were pretty wide-eyed when I started stabbing the tomato puree cans with my leatherman to open them (and of course I was wearing my headlamp too)...I'm pretty sure they thought I was crazy.



Day 6: We hiked down to the bottom of the mountain to spend the day at the river. The hike was pretty treacherous (and adventurous!) - lots of "landslide" areas and jumping over rapids. In the evening, we learned some more dances from the villagers.





Day 7: We packed up and hiked back out. Now I am gearing up for my last week at Woodstock :(

Family

My parents and Al are on a 20-day India trip. They spent a week in Mussoorie visiting me, enjoying good food, hamming it up with the local tailors, and seeing the beautiful foothills and Himalayas. Mussoorie was their first stop. Now they are heading to Rishikesh for the weekend and then on to Delhi and Agra.


Breakfast at the hotel. This turned into a 2 hour morning ritual.


Atop Gun HIll (highest point in Mussoorie)


Mom and Dad in front of the snow capped Himalayas.


Sunday brunch up at Char Dukan. Delicious banana pancakes, lassis, and a jolly cake (pancake with a candy bar!)...not very traditional, but indian nonetheless!


Hiking Benog Tibba.


Picnic atop Benog TIbba. The Himalayas had just disappeared into the clouds.


View from the Hindu Temple atop Benog Tibba.


Afternoon trip to Himalaya weavers (in a village past Woodstock). Looking at the beautiful colors of the natural dyes.


Seeing where and how the wool is dyed.


Getting a tour of Faiz tailor's house.


Al getting fitted by Islam for a vest at Inam's.

Diwali

Here in Mussoorie, the streets have been transformed. Lights and sparkly streamers are hanging and Indians cram the streets as they shop for gifts and fireworks. It's the week of Diwali, the most important festival for Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains. It is six days long and, as I have easily found out, is very loud and full of firecrackers. To explain it very basically, it celebrates the triumph of good over evil in everyone. The stores in town have catered to the holiday shoppers. On Sunday, the second day of Diwali, it was the auspicious day to buy metal. So, all of the store owners brought any metal products they had to the front of the shop. It was also amusing to see some shops that were selling only fireworks. At first I thought that I had never seen these shops before, but then I realized that the shopowners had just thrown all of their regular merchandise into some back room (actually probably their bedrooms or somewhere) so they could sell lots and lots of firecrackers. They will do anything to please their customers...

Decorations in front of a shop in the Landour Bazaar.

Shopping for metal on the 2nd day of Diwali. I didn't buy anything, so if I am all of a sudden plagued with bad luck, I guess I will know why!

Shopping in the bazaar. I have noticed that oranges, reds, yellows, and pinks are popular clothing colors. Maybe this is because Diwali is associated with the harvest?


Although Woodstock, unlike nearly all Indian schools, is not taking time off to celebrate, there have been a few events here. On Saturday, there was a Diwali dance for the High School. It started off with a choreographed dance and then turned into a fairly typical high school dance, except with all hindi music. Needless to say, there was a lot of "pulling the rope" and "twisting the lightbulb" bollywood dance moves. Tuesday marked the fourth (and most important) day of Diwali. This is the day for fireworks and lights. Woodstock celebrated with fireworks down at the dorms...about 10 yards from my house, actually. It was a little terrifying. Please don't think that the fourth day is the only day for fireworks. As I've learned, the locals hold no restraint for when and where they should shoot off firecrackers. I've been hearing them pretty constantly for the last week, during the middle of the day and at 3am. They particularly like the ones that you chuck at the ground (preferrably in the middle of the street where people are walking). The firecrackers make a horribly loud gunshot noise and the explosion looks dangerous. I won't be terribly sad when firework season is over.

Rising Celebrity Status

The celebrity status of teachers definitely shot up after the staff talent show last week. There were maybe 10-12 performances with a grand finale at the end. I participated in a small dance number based on youtube's "Evolution of Dance" and then was in the grand finale bollywood dance. The students were SCREAMING. It was unreal. They loved seeing their teachers and dorm parents making fools out of themselves. They particularly liked our evolution of dance (which is a medly of American dances such as the twist, thriller, cotton eye joe, bye bye bye, big butts, etc). A week later, students are still coming up to me saying how good our dance was. And some long-time Woodstockers have even said it was the best thing they've seen in years...no big deal. The bollywood dance was equally entertaining since about half of the staff (including myself) had no previous bollywood skills. Bollywood is an Indian film genre that is sort of like an American musical in the sense that there is a lot of singing and corresponding dancing. If you understand Hindi, it is easy to make it look like you know what you are doing since you basically act out whatever they are singing about. However, if you don't know Hindi, it is really easy to look like a fool!


Evolution of dance (I'm in the middle). This was the brady bunch song :)


My spotlight dance during the bollywood with friends Darab and Mandy. Mandy and I always thought that our song was about wiping your face, but it is really about a "white, white face," or something.

Rishikesh and Rajpur

RISHIKESH:
I spent last weekend in Rishikesh, which is about 2.5 hours south of Mussoorie. With the Ganga (Ganges) River running through, it is a sacred city filled with religious pilgrims (usually dressed in orange), yoga followers, and hippie tourists. In line with other sacred cities, Rishikesh doesn't sell alcohol and is almost 100% vegetarian. While there is a part of Rishikesh that is more or less an average Indian city, the part to go to is set on either side of the Ganga with two suspension bridges connecting the sides. The bridges are only about 5 ft wide and thus are "pedestrian only" (which includes motorbikes, cargo pushcarts, cows plopped in inconvenient places, and monkeys ready to pounce on unsuspecting people with fruit).

Set at a lower altitude than Mussoorie, it was very hot and humid. We spent the weekend perusing the many shops and then sitting in cafes to escape the heat. Many of the cafes and restaurants cater to the unusually large number of young Israeli tourists, so we indulged in great hummus and pita. And I had my fair share of cold coffees, which are sold everywhere. I also tried a delicious drink made with fresh lemon juice and a whole lot of chopped up mint plant (enough to turn the whole drink a solid green color) - very refreshing! On Sunday morning I got up early and headed to the Ganga to sketch and just have some alone time. It was so wonderful to watch the city come alive.
The locals were out running errands in the cool morning weather. Sitting by the river, I also saw many Indians bathing and performing rituals. Overall, I really enjoyed the city. The biggest disappointment was not being able to fit a whitewater rafting trip into the weekend!


RAJPUR: Today I was the lead chaperone (ah! the responsibility!) for a Saturday field trip to Sharp Memorial Blind School in Rajpur (which is very close to Dehradun). Once a month the high school students have a "Closed Bazaar" weekend which means that they can't go into town. They are encouraged to either do a hike/camping trip or a CARE trip (I'm not sure what the acronym means, but it is basically a community outreach program). This is the third CARE trip I've gone one (treeplanting and Tibetan Homes were the others) so apparently that makes me qualified to be the lead chaperone! We took a school bus down and spent a few hours at the school. It is a boarding school that, along with blind children, also takes in a few orphans. We brought some play-dough to share with them. They loved it! It was really cool to see how the Woodstock kids quickly got over their hesitancy and were soon fully interacting with the kids. We only had two Hindi speakers in the group, so not only were we crossing a vision barrier but also a language barrier. Everything basically revolved around communication through touch, which was a valuable experience. Afterwards, we headed to Dehradun for lunch at McDonald's and Nirula's (Indian fast food chain) and then headed back up the hill. I'm very relieved that everyone survived the trip without any major catastrophes!


Sahil (the trouble-maker) creating a pretty amazing person flying a kite...or something.


Woodstock students and Sharp Memorial kids playing with clay.