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Other entries in Chiang Mai

i'm outty

tho not exactly where I thought I was headed. more on that in a sec....

yesterday was myanmar (burma) border run from hell. our driver was THE fastest on the road (as in no one passed us, we passed everyone). (and...ummmm....for everyone I subjected this driving style to back in the states, my sincere appologies). the roads were sooo bumpy and curvy, he jerked the bus around every car we passed, he clearly had no clue what "feather the brakes" means.... so sleep was out of the question, couldn't even read. 4 hours of torture later, we get to the border to learn on 1 aug, myanmar raised their day-visa rate from $5US to $10US - argh! but I got to step over the line, only to then get hassled by beggar kids (haven't since cambodia), hustled by street vendors, sold over-ripe rambutans (fruit) by what looked like a nice old lady but really wasn't. geez - get me back to chiang mai!!

today's agenda was to get my stitches out and confirm I don't have skin cancer (check and check - whew!) after that, no 'plans', just wander the city - what's turning out to be my favorite kind of day cause something always seems to happen. doc told me I'm still a week away from any ocean time (argh!) so unexpectedly faced with too much time to kill doing....???? first thought was head north to pai - that seems to be a backpacker magnet, and have heard its tranquil....but wasn't totally feeling it. no need to decide now tho, so started up with that wandering.

had a sketchy map but managed to find lara and chadwick's studio (remember the artists I met a few days ago?) - basically they rent a huge garage with loads of work space for $200US/mo  (sweet!) and they're renting half (hmmmmm....). was cool to see what they're working on, got more info on the local art scene, met mary, a woman taking art classes from them. within 10 minutes of meeting her, she was giving me a lift, telling me pai wasn't so good, asked if I'd like to do volunteer work instead (hell yeah) and was making a call to a friend of hers that runs School for Life. they basically teach work skills to orphans and give them an employable future. in the past it's been AIDS-related, but sounds like they have a fair share of tsunami kids now too. (http://www.school-for-life.org/en/school-for-life.html )

took me 5 seconds to know this was a perfect match. and funny, she also knows folks who let you volunteer care for elephants in exchange for a place to stay. but when faced with the choice - smiling kids over shitting elephants - I learned something new about myself, I guess - the choice was easy :) so tomorrow I head to the center for I'm-not-sure-how-long.

and as if I needed more positive vibes about this city, I was trying to find the post office (oh yeah, I did have one other thing to do today) and this falang (tourist) guy heard me asking for directions, stepped in to help and personally walked me to the PO. along the way he said he'd traveled all over the world but chiang mai was his favorite place and he's lived here 4 years with no plans to leave.... it's like there are loads of these little messengers trying to tell me something....

next, I found myself in a real supermaket (with aisles and shelves and bright lights and AC and LOADS of stuff wrapped in plastic) and just wandered staring at familiar foods. I wasn't really craving them, it was just bizarre to see. (tho I did buy a jug of milk :) but I can tell there's a shift happening in my travel karma. I'm still not ready to stop, but I can feel me imagining what it's like TO be stopped.

the timing of it all seems to be perfect.

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