Abroad in Thailand: Onto a New Block

Finally, what we’ve all been waiting for, we’re about to embark on our first field expedition: fields! We’ll be splitting our time between two separate locations, and the two smaller field groups will swap locations half way through. But first, a little about the last week or so.

We moved out of our host families’ houses and into our apartments last weekend. Our instructors keep reminding us to remember that it is not college and that people actually live here, but honestly, it just feels like a dorm! I have a roommate and we share a little room with a bathroom and balcony. And plus, almost our entire group lives on the same floor. Either way, it’s nice being on our own and having some independence for a change. We’re just up the road from Chiang Mai University so the area has a large focus on students; there are tons of little cafes and restaurants, and even a huge student market each night with food, snacks, clothes, and wares. We’ve also been exploring the larger area where we live, trying out new restaurants (The Salad Concept, in particular, is a favorite after eating cooked vegetables for so long, not to mention their peanut butter banana bran smoothies!), going to markets and the mall, and exploring CMU on morning runs.

Aside from having independence, life hasn’t changed too much. We still have Thai class in the mornings, though we walk to school and class now starts at 9am, and lecture in the afternoons. This week was reading-heavy, so most nights we had a fair amount of reading/papers to complete, not to mention trying to absorb all the Thai. We did have a couple field trips though!

Our ajaan for fields, Ajaan Jeff, has an organic and natural systems farm just outside of the city called Fair Earth Farms. We visited on Thursday morning, where we learned how all the various plants and animals interact and took a walking tour of the property, which mainly consisted of trying every single type of edible leaf and fruit! We also had a really great lunch of sticky rice with banana, fruit, chicken, cassava cakes, and eggs with tomato and onion!

Friday afternoon we went to CP, a massive company in Thailand that produces animal feed from corn (or at least that’s the main ingredient). CP is basically the polar opposite from all the organic and sustainable farming methods we have been discussing this week, but it was interesting to see the “other side” of the story.

This weekend is shaping up to be pretty low-key. Getting in some quality running, hopefully some good food, maybe yoga tomorrow morning, packing, and errands to buy all those last-minute items that you always need before a big trip. Check back for news of our expedition in a couple weeks!