Thailand

Dear Family and Friends,

Now that I am sure I will be in Thailand for the rest of the summer I think it is about time that I update you all on my time here. The events of the last couple of weeks have been interesting, invigorating, and 100% exciting.

I first arrived in Thailand on May 11th at approximately 11:00 PM. I stayed in a hotel with another BYU student for the night. The kid was in the room with the AC off, windows open, and no fan! He made some comment about it being ridiculously hot before falling asleep again. I took a shower and laid in bed for about two minutes before I decided that Steven (the kid sharing the room with me) had to be out of his mind; there was no way a hotel this nice didn’t have AC. It took me all of one second to find the vent and turn on the blessed gift that is air-conditioning.

In the morning Steven was all complaint and no fun. Granted he had taken the most laborious trip from Salt Lake to Chiang Mai, but the complaining level was a bit much. We meet another BYU student at breakfast and set out a plan to explore the city before we had to be back at the airport to meet our host families.

I met my host family that evening. They are a couple who live out of Chiang Mai city about 10 kilometers in a small city called Sankampang. They both work for the government; he works in the national forestry department and she works as a supervisor for the local educational system. They are pretty well off financially. There are four students staying with them; Briana, Daniel, Jenessa, and I. Briana, Daniel and I are all working on the King’s development projects research while Jenessa is working with local HIV orphanages in conjunction with her Honors Thesis. The girls live in a separate house within the same compound while Daniel and I live in another house and our host family live in the air-conditioned house in between the two. They are rather particular about their house and have only let me in when it was absolutely necessary… ie when I had to fix their daughter’s internet service, and set up a Lan network so we could pick up the internet in our house. They’ve have been very closed off but they’re starting to open up now.

The violence in Bangkok began to spread across the nation about two weeks back, consequently we were put under house arrest by BYU. In Chiang Mai they burned down a few military banks, blew up a few ATMs at Bangkok Bank locations (this was intentionally done at 3:00 AM so no one would be hurt and the bombings would be a sign more than a threat), barricaded the City Hall and the main bridge to Sankampang with burning tires, and finally burned down a government officials house. All in all I saw a lot more military presence in town and was subjected to a strict shot on site curfew for about a week.

On a lighter note this past Friday was Buddha’s birthday, this is also the celebration of his enlightenment and death; thousands upon thousands of people came into Chiang Mai from the surrounding provenances to hike up to Wat Doi Sutep Thursday night and give their oblations. A group of us joined in the procession with what I would estimate to be somewhere around 20,000 people. We made the 8 mile hike in about three hours. I have never seen so many people together in one place, doing the same thing, in all of my life. When we made it to the temple I was amazed by the rituals that were in place to remind the people of Dharma and the importance of peace. I sat through a prayer session and listened to the monks chant. Then outside I sat on the balcony overlooking the city listening to the melodic bells being rung up the people passing by.

On the way back down the mountain the road was packed with even more people hiking up to the Wat. The rotdang, a taxi like pickup truck with a modified bed for seating arrangements, we were in literally didn’t move for over an hour and a half at one point in the descent as people pushed on past us… We were not the only truck trying to make it down the mountain either. There were numerous rotdangs loaded with people. By this time it was 2:00 AM and most of us were pretty tired. I decide to take a nap on the top of the cab in the cool air, which was much more tolerable than sitting in the bed with the other passengers dying of heat.

Other than that I have been working on my research as much as possible. We have been doing mostly background research and defining our theoretical models. We have had two interviews so far; one with the head of the Royal Foundation Projects in Chiang Mai and the other with the head of agricultural research at Mae Joo University. They were extremely helpful and have provided us with a number of leads that we have planned to follow up on this week. Other than that the only news is that we will be taking a 13 hour bus ride to Cambodia on June 9th. We will spend about six days in Cambodia visiting the students over there and a few national sites, including Ankor Wat! I am really excited. Plus for the bus trip out I plan on taking all three Lord of the Rings movies (extended editions) so we can have a marathon.

As for now I am off to bed. I love you all and pray that you are well.

David