5 Days of gorgeously serene mountain views... and no wifi :)
...no phone service either, nor electricity! But wow what a cool trip!
Village of Hin Lad Nai. Chiang Rai Province, Northern Thailand.I went with the Environmental Management Dept. (1 of 3 in my Faculty), and I think there were 91 students, 7 professors including myself. We took sleeping bags and mosquito nets, and in groups of 2, 3, or 4, we stayed in different houses right along with the people living there. Very fun time - Take a look!
This week I was finally able to join one of my department's trips for on-site research.
While all of you 42 people who occasionally read my blog know that I do love my time here in Thailand, I also have traveled a lot in my time here, it is still NOT normal for me to be off doing things like this. While I do cycle into some pretty remote places, it is usually already getting late by the time I arrive, I enjoy a chat with a local while chomping down bananas at warp speed, and a half hour later I am back on the way to wherever I came from that day. For 99% of the time on almost all my trips, I am alone. I have loved (almost) every minute of my time here, but this trip was unique. I am enjoying the memories still...
My normal day is much like yours in that I have a job and most of my life is oriented around it. I talk a lot about cycling, but just like all the 'normal' people of the world, most of my waking hours are either preparing my body/mind for work, sitting at my desk/standing in front of a classroom, or eating/sleeping so that I have enough energy for the next day (to do more of the same).
Lately I have been cherishing my bike trips because work has been more boring than ever. I have been doing longer distances, but less frequent, I just haven't had the time these past few months. I have been waiting though for the small chances to open, the small times that are almost the only reason that I came here, am still here (in Maha Sarakam), the chances to show love to my co-workers and fellow people on a day to day basis - just so happens that I feel the need in my heart to go and do this in a country that I did not happen to know of before I came. I have tried to become more involved at work, spend more time building relationships (like I did in Chumpuang, and was hesitant to do here so far, just because my position here is less tenuous)But! Finally! After months of hearing the students talk about an upcoming trip, some with excitement, many others with obvious feelings of dread (they knew it might get a bit rough after 5 days of small village life)... I managed to get my name on the list! I politely inquired of this and that professor, knocked on this and that office door, finally just said "the heck with this!" and went straight to the Dean's office - got the thumbs up :) - and I got to relax for a few days before it was time to pack.
I always like to be prepared for everything, so I brought quite a few things that I didn't even come close to using (fire-starter, wind-up flashlight, my own cup/plate/spoon/coffee cup/coffee-maker/oatmeal (lots and lots of oatmeal :) ). In the end though, this trip was mostly comprised of students who had not only never been to Chiang Rai before, but had never even left their own region of Thailand! Some had not even been out of the bordering province... but that turned out to be my favorite part of the trip :) So it was a real hiking trip, tents, rain gear, and sleeping bags, but just not as rough as the one I was prepping for, remembering the trips that I took myself at age 15-18 with my school (these students are 20 and 21 years old, but the Thai system is a little bit easy on them, so this is about the same age of maturity I would say, the same mental readiness for a trip without many creature comforts as it were)...
Selfishly, the first day I was so excited to be in the glorious hill atmosphere of Northern Thailand (Chiang Rai is actually my favorite province, if its even possible to pick just one), I immediately went for a long walk, taking several hours of me-time right off the bat... Of course the views were lovely, I got to hear my favorite sounds in the world (birds, bugs, the wind, any sounds devoid of traffic or large machinery) - but after coming back into town with a big smile on my face, I realized that I had tested some limits already. Personal limits really, because of course no one was going to tell me off, ask where I had been, but I mean my own limits regarding Why I am Here. On the trip of course, but I also mean the big picture.I was not invited on this trip in order to get my nature fix (although by the end of the trip I far and away did get my fill), as far as my job I was here to be a guide, and a patient one at that, introducing the students gently to an outdoor life which was (hilariously but in the end so interestingly) foreign to many of them (even though their parents, well, definitely their grandparents anyways, led exactly the same type of life as do the people in who's village we stayed). Finally, as far as my own ideas are concerned, I came with the students to be with the students. After a bit of self-correction, I had a blast. Tons of great conversation with students whom I had never talked to before (100% of which was in Thai, probably why I had never talked to them before, they avoid my English Class because they are nervous to speak :) ), but this trip was a perfect opportunity to not care about things back in Sarakam at all!.
These students were all from the area of Thailand in which I live, known as Esaan, except for a few who come from cities in Southern Thailand (even further away and even more different than the North). Thailand is not so big on a map, but remember - people have lived here for a LONG long time. The area is incredibly diverse, the 11-hour bus ride followed by a 3-hour pickup truck ride took us up and into the hills, to a place where the people spoke an entirely different language, even looked different in terms of skin color, facial structure, they ate different food, and although they may have been born in the same country (as defined by border lines from somewhere between the 1st and 2nd World Wars), these people were definitely "foreigners" to my students.
Ok, I just got back, I am trying to write while the memories are still fresh, but I will catch my breath while you can have a chance to see a few photos.
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| Setting out on the first morning. You can see that a few students carried a bit more than they might want to carry back, for many of them it was their first real forest hike ever. First time to the North, first time to leave home for anything besides visiting relatives, many, many firsts! I was lucky to be part of it! |
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| One of the other professors in charge of the trip, the gun is as much for fun as it is for protection. He wanted to shoot a bird for dinner... (gun ownership is fairly strict here, but we were far from any city) |
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| Our friend for the 1st day's hike, I won't say guide because the students had to find our way using GPS co-ordinates. I guess he would have stopped us from running into danger, but other than that he was just there to enjoy the hike as was I... |
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| Many opportunities for stops like this, and I didn't know this at the time but Professor Ae here enjoys taking photos from the first day's first few hours, and then giving the students in such photos a hard time when they look slightly less bright-eyed as the trip goes on :) |
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| I love spiders, you can imagine there were a few. This one has such beautiful coloring! |
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| The forest paths might not see any cars, any traffic besides people on foot, but they are quite well-used. Nearly every kilometer had some small place to sit and rest, take a nap in the mid-day breeze... |
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| This guy was our leader for all 3 hikes. By the end he definitely earned his friends' respect, I think he only got lost twice. Pretty good considering it was his first time putting what he knew into practice, nearly half of our walking was straight through the woods with little or no trail (the other half being on easy to follow dirt paths like this). |
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| I was happy to see how much the students were willing to help each other. By the end of each day, these two students in particular could be seen carrying the packs of at least 4 friends each. Never complained! |
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| Our friend P'Sak (guide) climbing to find a surprise - you will see in the pictures below!! |
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| The P'ka Kayaw people plant colorful flowers all the way back from their fields to their home, all along the trail, in order to bring good luck for growing season both to and from their towns. Look for this flower in other photos below, so pretty, added a lot to the atmosphere, reminded us of the higher altitude's vegetation. |
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| Super cool tree, no branches at all until the very top, and then exploding in every direction! |
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| Vertical panorama shot (now on the 2nd day's hike), this was the lowest elevation for the day. We had to cross a very small river here, and the water was so cool and pure! Filled our water bottles, splashed faces (splashed each other enough as well :) ), started up the other side... |
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| More gentle beauty in the vegetation at 3,500 feet above sea level (the highest we reached as a group was 4,100 feet, and on the final day I went alone all the way up to 5,200 feet (see the last 2 photos for that view!) |
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| I always seem to make friends with dogs, I mean I do really like a good and obedient dog, but it seems I always manage to have a friend like this whenever there is a dog pack around. The 1st day, I figured he was just lost, (this photo may be from the 2nd day), and by the 3rd day I was very happy to see him still following me. This was far too, like really far. He would stop and pant, catch naps, but always surprise me bursting through the bushes whenever I thought he had enough and turned back for home. Naem Neuang (name of a food), very normal name for a Thai dog. Very nice to see a dog who does more than lay around and wait to be fed. |
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| Look at that color! |
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| Stopping for lunch - Tired, but still smiling :) |
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| Fallen bamboo everywhere, people keeping the walking pathways clear. I used this one to make several bamboo cups, borrowed our friend's machete and managed to make 6 clean ones after breaking at least 6 before I figured out how to cleanly cut the grain. Bamboo is so light yet so strong! Amazing. |
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| 2nd site for Biodiversity. They marked off 20mx50m, 10 sections, and took turns collecting soil samples, leaf samples, and then a small competition of who could find the highest number of edible plants in their own section. (Two of the professors were very good at species identification, and together with our village friend P'Sak they knew pretty much everything that we could find already, this wasn't dangerous and the students had fun) |
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| Panorama of the 50m length. |
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| And now its time for lunch - can you see the surprise he found in the bamboo grove from a few photos back? |
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| He took the entire section of bamboo in which these little animals lived, cut two holes and roasted the whole thing right on the open flame. The bamboo holds a lot of moisture, and so it basically steam cooked and sterilized the contents, a rush of steam and smoke as he poured them into another bamboo section cut lengthwise. A forest snack, a natural plate, and yet another new dish for me in Thailand... Do you know what they are? |
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| With some added hot pepper flakes, Wild Silk Worms were a special treat!! Not many of the students went for them, so I got to enjoy much more than a 1/32 portion of the three hundred or so silk worms he found. |
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| Back in the village, a group of local students (the local school had 19 students (and 2 teachers) prepared our lunches each day. Wrapped in banana leaves, these were simple, perfectly packed chunks of rice and herbs to then go with another single dish which each student would carry themselves each day. Today it was a tomato and eggplant curry, with bird's eye chilies on the side. |
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| With the addition of the Silk Worms, I had quite the awesome forest lunch!! I made a spoon from some of the leftover pieces of my attempts to make bamboo drinking vessels... |
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| P'Sak was hilarious, just like a kid! His climbing made me want to do so as well (see next photo) |
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| A higher view of our survey site. |
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| No I did not climb this tree... but look at that natural defense! |
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| Walking back now (6km out, worked for 3 hours, then walked 7km back (Boss got lost :) ) You can see how thick some of the bamboo can get on the trail. |
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| This area actually borders the Kun Jae National Park (Chiang Mai Province). |
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| I was walking ahead with P'Sak when it started to sprinkle... he picked up the pace and I joined with him. Made it back in the beautiful downpour that can only happen when you are far off in the woods, you think you can make it back in time but then the sky just opens up, and you can either duck for shelter or enjoy the fact that you are alive (hopefully you remembered to bring a rain coat :) ) I probably walked alone, jumping over puddles and downed branches for 15 minutes before coming into town to see this view. Fog up on the hillside, a river of brown water running down the village's main street... Joys of a long day in the woods (hard walking up/down/up/down, but with very light packs). |
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| The second day we got to ride in a truck all the way to the next village (9km by road), and then walk back stopping to collect samples along the way (almost 14km, almost none of which was flat, and none at all of which was dry. The hard rain of the previous day made today a bit more tough :) you will see in a bit...) |
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| A sign for sale of re-usable items, but I took this shot because that is the P'ka Kayaw language underneath! The only time (that I saw anyways) where I saw their written language on this whole trip. The children all learn Thai in school of course, and so they just find it easier to use the Thai characters to write both languages. I guess the need to ever write their own language is rare, it is mainly spoken like many tribe languages the world over, so I was lucky to catch this sign here (the language looks very similar to Burmese, I wonder how similar it sounds...). |
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| This is the truck that took us (20 students fit in there, as well as myself, I and one of the older students had the privilege of 'riding' on that motorcycle as the truck bounced through muddy spots like this one). |
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| The second truck, not so overloaded, not a bad time at all :) |
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| Coming into Baan Hin Lad Nok (Outer Lad Hin Village, we stayed in Hin Lad Nai, Inner Lad Hin Village) |
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| This village seemed to be about half the size as ours. Besides what you can see in this photo, there were just a few more houses to the right, and then the road just went off into the fields (we walked all the way to the end, about 500m on, and then just kept walking into the fields, all the way back to our spot). |
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| Our 'guide' for the second day, P'Tot, this was his house and his buffalo |
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| Reminded me very much of Kenya, just cows instead of buffalo, and fever trees instead of bamboo... |
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| The Professor specializing in aquatic life, she and another professor were the leaders for today |
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| The mornings here were amazingly cool. I think today was around 17C, lovely weather for a morning walk of any distance! |
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| First of many, many water crossings for today. Some of the students took their shoes off, when I noticed P'Tot trying not to laugh I realized it may be futile... He was right. Wet shoes the whole day. |
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| One of the few students with camping/hiking/outdoor experience, hilarious hiking companion as well. Perfect example of one cool student that I have not had the chance to meet due to his nervousness to speak English. He is just as much a member of the faculty of students, but he has not shown his face once in my class due to (his opinion) embarrassingly low English proficiency. A perfect example of why I was so happy to join this trip, getting the chance to meet several students who have been avoiding me now for over 12 months :) :) !! Haha |
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| I only take Self-Photos when my happiness is too much to contain. This early morning was just AWESOME. Perfect weather, great walk, great talks, good fun just hanging out with the students not needing to worry if they address me as Mr. Joel, Teacher Joel, Prof. Joel, not needing to worry about English at all for that matter. I have not had many chances like this with students of such large groups being together for such extended periods of time. Great, great experience this trip. |
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| One of Three rice varieties these people grow between both 'normal' flat rice paddy fields, and amazingly steep hill-side fields. I think this is white sticky rice in the photo here. |
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| Jumping over some mud, not very successfully. Most of us carried from this very spot til the end of the day. |
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| I am standing in the middle of the river snapping photos and avoiding leeches. Many students were not so lucky, but at least the leeches were very small, and the weather really was glorious! |
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| I climbed up a bit to get a panorama of the first water study site. |
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| After sitting and chatting with P'Tot for over an hour, we started on ahead to make sure the area was passable. This was one of three conversations I will remember for a long time to come, he was not afraid to express both positive and negative opinions on anything and everything, just a very honest and awesome conversation, let me not forget to mention how lucky I was the he spoke VERY good Thai, and we did not have to mix body language, English, Thai, and P'ka Kayaw (of which I managed a total of 12 words (it is a tough language, but I guess I would also need to stay for more than 96 hours). I would say he ended up being the person I spoke with most, but this was our first convo walking through this wonderfully gloomy and (mostly imagined) snake filled wet forest. |
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| Someone made this two-pole device to make water bottle filling much more convenient. It is very hard to fill a bottle from a stream without getting little bits of leaf matter and/or dirt floating in as well (any obvious tips that I am missing?) |
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| Lunch from the second day. No special ingredients today, but I would say it tasted even better than yesterday's meal (the walking today was harder, good food is made even better when you're working (somewhat) hard) |
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| Getting to the really tough spot for today's hike. This is where the girl fell, the part I mention in the rest of the article below. |
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| Finally finished securing the rope, proceeding onwards, just about to get to the really steep bit... |
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| I already had my phone out taking photos of the trees when I heard the commotion, its not very clear but you can at least see how the steep slope, the very dense foliage, the heat beginning to build (this was about 1pm), combined to make things a bit less-comfortable, especially if you were one of the students who does not particularly enjoy walking an entire day with wet shoes through mosquitoes, bees/hornets, leeches, red ants, stinging nettles and/or mud. |
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| Finally reached the fast-water site, the colored balls are for measuring flow rate, the sticks for water depth, the nets to catch any and all critters within a 60 minute time-limit, and the professor in the back is very much wondering how much longer she will have to correct the 4th year students' technique before dragging them back up the quite steep and muddy slope you see there on the left... |
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| We found some surprisingly large insects, many of which I had never seen before, many of which I was glad to hear were non-poisonous because wow - they looked pretty gnarly after viewing through a magnifying lens. |
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| Two students who really enjoyed the day's activities. Very cool! :) |
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| I tried a long time to get a clear shot, but this butterfly would not keep still (iPhone 4 camera in the gloomy lighting may not be the optimal technology for insect photogropahy :) but you can still see how beautiful that blue color is! |
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| Finally starting for home, the light was just glorious. So green, so quiet, such lush vegetation. We are actually being led astray here, we don't know it yet :) this would add around another 1km to our hike, sort of a make-or-break point for many student's morale, and the group split into several parts right about here. |
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| It was a pretty obvious trail once we found it, and I walked on ahead to enjoy the gentle light flowing through the trees. The sound of insect life here was almost deafening. Very cool. |
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| Debating over which path was the 'right' one. You can see that none of them are very clear, but at least the more open tree cover kept the bug irritation to a minimum. |
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| I have never seen a termite mound like this before, so cool! |
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| Second chat with P'Tot. |
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| This was his area of responsibility come April/May every year. He would stay here for up to 6 weeks, sleeping here every night, on duty starting around 6pm to be on the lookout for forest fires. The tree cover was thick enough that not much can be seen right now, but after the cool season enough trees have dropped their leaves that most fires are easily seen from this high lookout point while in the dark. |
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| This path is actually a fire-trail, the mud and rocks put here to try and prevent fires from bridging this gap. |
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| Almost back to the village now, this is one of many fish ponds (I think they raise snake-head fish in this one) |
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| Each night, the students would present a bit about the day's experience. Both to show the Profs that they understood the point of each experiment and sampling, and also to advise the following day's group on how to work efficiently. The students took turns between the forest, field, and river sites over the 3 days, but each of the 3 sites, as well as each of the 3 days hiking routes, were changed so that every group had a fresh location to survey. Very well-planned out trip considering these are only 6 Professors and 3 local Tribe Leaders co-ordinating this every year. |
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| Setting off on Day 3, we were lucky to have done the harder days back to back. Today was the 'easy' day, the field site being less than 4km away. Just 2 big climbs there, 2 back, it was great :) And the location... I didn't want to leave. Wait for the photos! |
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| We arrived quickly, everyone still smiling, the weather just gorgeous... and that view! |
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| The professor in charge actually decided to move to another field quite nearby. It turned out to have less stones in the soil, less stumps to work around, so no complaints there, but I wanted to snap a photo before we left this awesome little spot... |
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| The first view of the next field over... |
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| Panorama. I just couldn't get enough of that view. What a place to spend the morning and afternoon. |
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| This was so interesting, can you tell what it is from the single photo? Much like a Thai spirit house, this was meant to be an offering the Fire Spirit, and the one next to it to the Rice Spirit. Bringing both safety and good Fortune through the entire growing season. They will all burn the fields to clear away debris, but it also affects the fertility of the soil. They pray to the Fire Spirit however, to only burn the refuse, and not let the fire grow to dangerous size. |
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| The professor in charge of this final day's location, research, and he also happens to be the one who invited me on this trip. It was a great chance to get to know him better, and hang out in a much-less-than-formal atmosphere. Although most professors are hesitant to speak with me, their English is really much better than they let on. I had some great talks this afternoon with Prof. Mann here. |
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| We made use of the hut, even though we did not even know the owner of the land, it didn't seem to matter. As long as the place was used in a respectful way, and anything we used replaced and cleaned before leaving, none of the people of this culture minded the use of each other's belongings. This wasn't small either, these fields are their very livelihood! Now how cool of a society is that?! |
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| My dog again. Haha, "My" dog :) 3 days having fun together! |
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| I love this device here. Can you see what it is used for? The rain runs off the grass roofing, into the channel, it even has a covered mouthpiece to pull water from! Rainy season has ended, and so the little bit of water in there didn't look too nice to drink, but in the rainy season I am sure it would be fine! |
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| This is the trunk of that tree dominating the panorama view from a few shots ago. It looks so healthy from above, I wonder what happened, or how many more years it will stand. |
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| View from the bottom of our site. Now that is a pretty steep incline, I had no idea how they farmed rice on such a hill... they told us their secret, but it is still so impressive! |
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| Yet again, you notice the colorful flowers there, but do you know the plant on the right? My first time to see a sesame plant! Awesome! |
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| Different tree, but a very cool view just the same. |
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| The students found over 40 edible plants on this site in all, of course most of them were planted on purpose, and our lunch included several of them as you see below. This was my favorite, and wow they were small but significantly more spicy than the standard Thai chili that I was expecting. |
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| He found 7 of the ingredients for this "Yam Tua Plu" Salad in the area around the hut. 4 others he brought in his sack, boiled eggs, garlic, fish sauce, and salt, but the Wing Bean (Tua Plu, for which this salad is named), 2 kinds of onions (red and green), chilies, lemon grass, cilantro, and basil, he found in and around the area. I was very happy that they kept the grilled meat out of the salad on my behalf, they did it without even asking!, but it was still cool that they brought the meat intending to cook it AND share with the students too. My teachers were nice too, of course, but I went to a Christian school, I guess I would expect them to take care of us :) These Professors though let the students squeeze right into 'our' hut as well. It was an awesome day. |
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| Enjoying some tea grown in the village, drinking it out of a bamboo cup that they cut so quickly, cleanly, and easily along the morning walk. |
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| Sesame. It will begin the drying process on its own, you notice the pods start to get fat, take them off, open the pod, shake them out, let them dry further, and then they are ready to use. |
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| Might look simple now, but man when you are in a field, sipping tea with a cool breeze on your face, in Thailand but actually feeling cold having not moved for awhile, this simple meal still tasted incredible due to the circumstances in which it was partaken. |
In the pictures above, you can see that at one part of the second day's hike, the path was so steep that we needed to use a rope to descend safely. I guess we could have just slid on our rear-ends like young kids, but... :) Ok, so it was very steep. Right at the toughest bit, hard to walk and also nearly enclosed by bamboo branches at all angles, two of the least-appreciative-of-nature students slid off the rope, into each other, and into one of the anchor trees. I started to laugh, but then noticed the faces of the girls' friends who were a bit closer to her at the time. The one girl had given up, she was crying, and her friend was not doing much better.
So many reactions passed through my head, first of course, laughter, which stemmed from pride, I laughed as I immediately passed judgement over how "someone could be such a baby, just a little dirt on the hands." Next came a bit of sympathy, because she was still of course my student, I did have some responsibility to make sure that she was ok, but the real lesson I learned (not the first time, but many of life's great lessons take a few hours (haha, or years?) to sink in) didn't come until we had to climb back up this same steep trail. After we had collected the water/bio samples in the stream below, we climbed back up, and these two girls were far from being the last two out of the water-bed area. They had done their work, managed as best they could I would say, considering their overall interest in what we were doing (almost none), and I was able to enjoy some serious food for thought.
My favorite thing to notice - relevant to all humans, at all times, no matter how big or small the action - is how we can at NO time at all judge someone's actions without first giving at least some consideration to where that person is coming from. I do think of this as my own idea, my own version anyways, but I'm sure I am nowhere near the first person to think of it - but the idea of blame-worthiness interests me to no end.
This girl may well have been on her first ever trip into the forest. The previous night might have been the first night she ever slept on the floor, first time ever having to shower without being able to control the temperature of the water, first time to ever have a school grade attached to the actions involved in climbing up a dirt hill, catching insects in glass jars, so many new experiences all at one time... it only makes sense that she would have a tough time handling what we set out to do that day. I on the other hand, love getting dirt on my hands, love having sore shoulders from using a stick to carry my weight as we trudge through head-height grass towards GPS co-ordinates that may or may not be on the wrong side of a gorge, I love spending nights in a tent... all that is to say, I have so absolutely little right to laugh at this girl for crying, because she really is doing SO much work than I am, holding onto that rope, sliding in the dirt, testing her own body's limits... really living!
Not only should I shut my mouth, but I should be giving her the biggest Thumbs Up ever for pushing on! She didn't ask a friend to carry her bag, she didn't ask for sympathy from anyone, she wiped her tears and pressed on. Although I got bit by the same mosquitoes, had to avoid the same bee-hives as she, had my legs abraded by the same stinging grass and slipped down the same muddy slopes, she deserves immensely more praise than I do, even though we walked down the exact same path that day. Is this making sense? So. In the end, she is much more praise-worthy than I, because where she came from had not prepared her for this experience in pretty much any way at all. She was awesome for making it through, while for me, it only made sense that I shouldn't cry, should not ask for help, shouldn't bother complaining about the muscle pain resulting from a 12-hour hike through the woods - because I actually want to experience such things. I don't deserve anyone to give me verbal encouragement because my own life experiences have more than prepared me for what we went through that day. This is why I love the idea of "blame-worthiness" (or Praise-Worthiness), and of course it extends well and beautifully into the spiritual realm as well :) (a Biblical example I am thinking of is Jesus commending the Women with the 2 Small Coins) It perfectly smacks us in the face with the truth of how we can not judge books by their cover. I love it.
Ok, thanks for reading, please leave me some comment about a cool trip you have taken into the woods recently, but much more interesting would be a situation in which you enjoyed noticing really how Praise-Worthy someone's actions were, even though they may have seemed absolutely tiny at the time. Be well, enjoy the day! - Joel
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| Here you can see a view from where I went up to the top - yes it was worth it :) |
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| Finally, one of my favorite parts of traveling, is having a single visual reminder of how lucky I am to have lived here, and lived successfully!, for as long as I have. The area in blue is the home of the Esaan people, and you can tell by the dense area of squares as to the 2 places I have called home in the past 5 years (4 in Korat, 1 now in Sarakam). You can also see just how far away we traveled! My pen is hovering over the district where we spent these 5 days... A final comment, I will only draw a square around a place if I have either slept a night there, cycled through and explored, OR in some rare cases, didn't spend a night, didn't cycle, but had a good long chat with someone in some market or bus stop, a long enough conversation where I felt that I knew at least something about that place, learned enough from talking with whomever it may have been that I could honestly say, yes I know enough about such and such district that I can distinguish it from other surrounding districts, have some clear memory of that town specifically, etc. My goal is to make it to every single district in all of Esaan (I think there are about 310? I am around half-way as of October 2016), and make it to half of all the districts in Thailand (which has over 900 in total, and I think I am between 1/4 and 1/3 of the way there :) ). |
