Trip to Phrae/Patron of the Arts

So it has been a long time since I last posted.  The short explanation is that I have been exceptionally busy.  The proverbial shit has hit the fan.  Basically I got a ton of work piled on me at once, and then there were a bunch of unreasonable expectations.  We're working on that one.  Also, I suddenly discovered (through a passing conversation with a coworker) that the dates of our October break had been changed.  Now this was a big issue, since I had gotten the dates for the break months ago and confirmed/reconfirmed several times. The reason for this is that Andrew's job requires a detailed itinerary (including hotels) 2 months in advance of any travel, meaning that everything was booked and paid for over a month ago.  Which means that changing the dates of the vacation with 5 weeks to go is sort of a problem.

And I lost it.  Keeping your cool under pressure is highly valued in Thai culture, but everyone who knows me will realize that this is something that I struggle with.  Combined with the random other crap that had been thrown my way, this sudden change in vacation schedule (and they shortened it too, by the way) made me totally lose my shit.  When I brought up the fact that I had already planned my vacation based on the old dates, my coordinator was like "Well, can't you just reschedule it?"  I was downright livid.  In the end I said no, I can't.  And she said well, ok, then go with your original plan.

This turned out to be a smaller issue than originally anticipated.  I will only actually miss one day of classes by staying with Andrew through the end of our planned trip.  However, I had also planned to do a dive trip after he left (he leaves on a Tuesday morning, and I wasn't supposed to go back to work until the following Monday).  That plan is obviously now gone, and since they changed the break and shortened it, it isn't even possible to do the dive trip at the beginning of the break. So ridiculous.

Anyway, enough with the bitching.  To get away from all this nonsense, my friends and I decided to take a short weekend trip out of town.  So Lydia, Danielle, Abby, and I went to Phrae this past Saturday and Sunday.  Phrae is handy because it is just a 2 hour bus ride away, and buses leave about every half hour.  So we just showed up at the bus station and grabbed a bus.  Once in Phrae we found a nice little guesthouse in a big old teak building--Phrae is known for its teak.  The place was simple, but it was clean, cheap, and had A/C.  What more can you ask for?

Our hotel

We spent Saturday morning just wandering around the old town.  We saw a few of the random wat and perused the town.  There was supposed to be a museum, but it was closed apparently.  Not much to see in town, it is smaller than Nan and definitely not as busy (if you can call Nan busy).  Kind of peaceful.  Definitely not many foreigners in town!

Wat Luang--built back in 829!

Our big trip was out to Wat Phra That Cho Hae, a beautiful temple on a hill about 10 km outside of town.  My friend Ping Pong had told us to visit, so we got a songtaew to drive us out to the temple.  It was spectacular.  Honestly, it is easily one of the most beautiful temples I have seen in Thailand.  While I have enjoyed most of the temples I have seen, this one was amazing partially because it was understated.  Many Thai wat are decorated so much that they almost become gaudy--not so in this case.  The temple actually had white space, areas left empty.  And instead of seeming bare, this made the decorated areas seem all the more stunning.  I was very impressed.

As a side note, the wat is rumored to have  a relic of the Buddha--I think some hair.  Unfortunately, I don't know where the relic was supposed to be located.  Interesting anyway.

Our trip out to the wat was lovely, but our trip back turned out to be slightly more eventful.  We had planned to get a songtaew back and head to a national park with odd geological formations in the shape of mushrooms.  However, there were no songtaew to be found.  Upon asking, we were directed to the main road, so we decided to wait there for a bit.  After 10 minutes with no luck, the executive decision was to begin walking back to town and if we found a songtaew along the way we would grab it. That way we would at least be making some progress in the right direction if a ride never came along.

So we began the long walk back.  And believe me, it was long.  We had already walked about 5 km earlier that morning around town, and this was another 10 km back to town.  We walked and walked, but no luck finding a songtaew.  Luckily, the views along the way were nice--lots of verdant rice fields with mountains in the background.  So at least it was pretty to look at.  But I was getting some pretty bad blisters from not having worn those particular shoes in many months, and Danielle was breaking in a new pair of Chacos--we hadn't anticipated such a long walk.  So it was a bit rough.

As it turns out, we did eventually find a songtaew, but Abby and Lydia wanted to keep walking, so we did.  We stopped for a drink at one of the cafes, then finished our long walk.  All I can say is that we definitely earned our dinner that night!  As for dinner, we ended up going to Phrae's night market.  The cool thing about their market is that they set up along one of the main streets and have a big area set up for seating and a lot of cooked food.  We shared a few dishes, the highlight of which was oysters battered with egg and fried.  Yum!

Oyster man

Delicious oysters!

After dinner we stumbled back to our hotel and passed out after a very long day.  A very good night's sleep!  The next morning our plan was to go to the national park we had missed the day before, but later we decided that we would rather just spend the morning in Phrae and head back to Nan a bit early.  So the first part of our morning was spent buying mua hom shirts.  These are indigo colored shirts, which are famous for being made in Phrae.  We spent quite some time shopping for them--like everywhere else in Thailand, finding appropriate Western sizes was an issue.  However, I think we all found shirts we were happy with (pictures to come later), so that is a plus.

We also stopped by an art gallery.  We saw it the day before, and went first thing in the morning on Sunday.  It was quite lovely, and we found much of the artwork to be very interesting.  I was instantly drawn to a pen/ink drawing of an elephant.  Although hesitant to leave, I decided that if I still loved it after buying my shirt then I would get it.  Well, after getting my shirt I did still love it, so we returned to the gallery and I am the proud new owner of an elephant drawing.  Maybe a bit extravagant, but at $50 I felt I couldn't say no.

After our gallery trip, we made the bus trip home--it was long, and I was ready to be back.  But we got back early enough for me to get some chores done, so that was nice.

And now we are back to school again.  It is a busy week, but a lot of classes are cancelled this week for various camps so I have some time to catch up on grading...a definite plus!  I also have started an art class as of today.  Danielle and Lydia go to it each week (Lydia only once a week, Danielle about 3 times a week).  It is near school, and encompasses drawing, watercolor, and oil paintings.  As the teacher puts it, 1500 baht until you can "draw everything!"  So basically it's $50 for lessons between now and when I leave Thailand.  I am terrible at art, but I felt that I needed to do something different and find some creative outlet.  And at $50, even with being terrible I can just do it as much as I want!

So today was the first class.  I had no clue what I was doing, but Arjan Kong had me copy a still life (sort of).  He had me draw a few fruits and then practice shading.  Then he would grab the pencil from me and do parts of it.  The girls weren't lying when they said that the efforts were 70/30--70% him and 30% them.  As time passes he begins to trust them more, so hopefully my skills will develop enough that I can do some on my own in the future too.

Anyway, that is all for today.  I have some big blog posts I am working on (uggh, I still haven't finished the one about the flood, and then I have Science Day), so hopefully those will be up soon.  Plus all the work.  Hope everything is going well for you guys back at home!