Chapter 36

Wow, I have been so busy, that I haven’t blogged in like 2 weeks AGAIN!! Gosh, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be one of those bloggers who just sorta gave up, I promised myself I would stick through it and blog this WHOLE EXPERIENCE! I promise you that I am trying my best, seriously, but with traveling all over the place and having limited packing space and limited strength ( laptops are heavy), its HARD! I will try and do my best though.

Ok so where did we leave off in this story? Oh yes, right before I left for the Chang Rai Conference.

Ahheemmm…

“ Chapter 36: Chang Mai, Mae Sai and a whole lotta Bus. So our story continues with our beloved Chantel boarding a night bus for Chang Mai, ( Not Chang Rai as expected), with her second host mom, and second host brother Junior, at 5pm on Thursday, December 8th. As she sits down and looks around, her host mom, comes and insists she sits by herself on the opposite side of the aisle and not with her host brother Junior. Chantel was extremely confused, she had just sat down in the first available seat, she didn’t mean to cause any drama, so she picked up her stuff and shuffled across the aisle to the lone seat. While she settled in and got comfortable she realized she forgot her Ipod. So she grabs her computer and flips it open to turn on Itunes, but then realizes her laptop is at 12% battery and she has no earphones. So she shoves her laptop back in her bag and looks out the window, waiting for the 13 hour bus ride to be over.

Around three am she is woken up by her head smashing off the window as the bus rounded a sharp turn. She was wide awake and had no interest in trying to sleep in such rough terrain, it would just leave her with a head ache. So she sat up and watched the mountains pass. It was one of those serene moments you never forget. When you realize that you are seeing and experiencing something so beautiful. Picture it from her perspective, driving through the huge tropical mountains on a dark night bus, being the only foreigner on the bus and the only person awake, the perfect silence letting your thoughts wander as you marvel on the fact that you at sixteen are in the mountains of Thailand on a night bus headed to Chang Mai. How many people can say that. It’s one of those moments when Chantel truly realizes why she is here, doing what she does.

Around six am, the bus pulled into the Chang Mai Bus Station. Chantel was so excited to get on the bus to Chang Rai. She was so excited to see her exchange student family again, the last time officially until  April. It was going to be such an awesome weekend. Unfortunately, it is the Thai way to never follow plans and kinda, in western opinion make things more complicated. So Chantel found herself in some strangers apartment at 6am in Chang Mai, no where near her friends. First off she was upset because she found out a) the conference wasn’t even in Chang Rai but Mae Sai, a small town on the border of Burma and B) because Chang Mai was five hours from Mae Sai. She was so confused as to why her host mom made her travel all the way to Chang Mai and not straight to Mae Sai, it could have saved them five hours of driving. But as Chantel and every exchange student on earth has learned its best not to argue or question your host parents, just smile and nod and pretend you are the happiest person in the world.

It wasn’t all bad, later in the morning  Chantel and her host family went and visited three different temples and Museum, before boarding a bus to Mae Sai. Once again on the bus, she found her mom segregating her and host brother. This made Chantel uncomfortable because she felt as though her host mom thought badly of her. She wanted to say, “ look, I am not going to try and corrupt your son with my crazy foreign ways or anything weird like that, ok? I am a normal person, I have no interest in him other than a friend and sibling.” But that would come off as highly rude and inappropriate so she kept her mouth closed and sat the five hour bus ride in silence. Her lovely, host mom even insisted that Chantel keep the AC blowing on her in full even though she was freezing cold. Every time Chantel would try and close the little vent her host mom would reopen it and say” Mai Chai, you need cold air.” Once again, this made Chantel feel insanely uncomfortable because now she was cold and her host mom was forcing her to have the AC on.

When they arrived in Mae Sai, Chantel wanted to run and find her friends, her host mom was starting to drive her a little insane as you can imagine. When they got off the bus, Chantel spotted another young foreigner and asked where she was from and if she was here for the Rotary Conference. It turns out the girls name was, Stephanie, and she was indeed her for the conference but she was a day early and needed someone to hang out. Perfect, thought Chantel, I need someone to distract me from my host mother. So Stephanie came back to the hotel Chantel and her host family were staying at and got her self a room. That leads to  the bedroom situation. Chantel found out she would be staying with her host family instead of rooming with other exchange students and she wasn’t even in the same hotel as the other exchange students. As you can imagine, Chantel, was upset by this and decided once she found the other exchange students, they would figure something out. That night she went out with Stephanie and her host family, for dinner and to wander around.

The next morning, Chantel woke up at 8 am and got dressed in a pair of black shorts and a white and black t-shirt. Her host mom walks in and says, “you need to shower.” Chantel was offended because she didn’t feel that her host mom had the right to tell her to bathe especially since she had bathed the night before. So she jumped in  and showered quickly, keeping her hair dry, because it was freezing cold out. Then she walked out of the bathroom and her host mom said, “ I don’t like what you are wearing , its not pretty, put on the dress you had on yesterday.” Chantel was pissed, who was her host mom to tell her what to wear and she had worn that dress yesterday, it was gross, smelly it had been sat in for five hours on a bus, she didn’t want to wear that. But she did, yep she went and put on her dress and basically ran to the conference hall. On the way down, she passed a hotel with some exchange students outside, when she found out her friends were inside she took off running. To say the least Chantel, might have a difficult time with her second host mom.

When she arrived in side she ran and jumped into her friends arms, she was so excited to see them all again. Immediately they started figuring out where everyone was staying and who had rooms to themselves. The last thing they wanted was to stay with their host families. Chantel found out her friend Jacquie had a room to herself, so they decided to have Chantel move in with her. They rushed to find Chantel’s Host mom and ask for her permission. They didn’t see a problem with it, the town was tiny and there were Rotarians everywhere. There had to be at least 50 in Jacquie’s hotel including her Host father and councellor. So I went and asked my host mom and she was very worried. She had to meet my friends host father, had to call my current host mom and then sit and think about it for a while. It was ridiculous. Chantel was so frustrated, It’s only one night, she thought, and there are Rotarians everywhere. For God’s Sake Jacquie’s host dad is looking at you like your insane, your making such a big deal about this. After consulting with Jacquie’s Host Dad about if my dress was nice enough, the poor guy just nodded and quietly slipped away, she finally said yes. So Jacquie and Chantel, ran legitimately ran, back to Chantel’s hotel to grab all her stuff and move in to Jacquie’s room. For the record all the other exchange students were wearing ripped jean short shorts and t-shirts, normal clothing.

That day Rotary had nothing planned for the exchange students so they wandered around Mae Sai taking advantage of the incredibly cheap prices and marveling about how they were only a few steps from BURMA!! One of the memorable quotes was when giving directions and people would say,” Just walk away from Burma and you’ll see me.” Its not very often that one can say that. That night was equally exciting for the exchange students, they had a banquet dinner to attend with the Rotarians but their tables weren’t even in the banquet hall they were outside. So the exchange students, couldn’t see any of the presentations or shows. Of course, the exchange students, just left, especially after reading the menu. Shark fin soup? No, Thanks.

They decided they wanted to go out for the night with the other district exchange students, who were staying in a hotel about a kilometer and a half outside of town. So thirty some odd exchange students wandered out to this hotel with all these other exchange students.  Little did they know this would be one of the biggest mistakes they could make. The other district’s rotary was strict, they had guards and weren’t allowed to go out. So Chantel and the exchange student’s snuck into their hotel. Once they realized how serious their Rotary was, Chantel and her friends left and found a club down the road. The thing is Chantel’s Rotary is really laid back and they are allowed to go out to clubs and stuff but if another Rotary district gets involved who knows what could happen. So Chantel and her friends realized this and took off. Eventually almost all the exchange students ended up at the club. They had a good time dancing and teaching Thai people Western Music and dance styles. After the club closed Chantel and her friend L.J walked back to the hotel. When Chantel arrived back in her room she found that her friends, Annie and Ashlee had also joined in Rooming with Jacquie. For the record every single time there had been a Rotary event these four ladies had roomed together, it was now tradition. They had mastered the sleeping two people in a single bed technique and even had a good little morning ritual knowing that Chantel usually woke up first and Jacquie last. They all squished into the single beds and fell asleep instantaneously.

The next morning Annie had to leave at 7 am so, she left silently, while the other three slept. Around 11 am they all woke up, showered and packed up. They ended up having to run down to make the twelve check out. The rest of the day was spent wandering around town, shopping and sitting in this cute little coffee and cake shop. Around three pm, Chantel met up with her host mom and headed to Chang Mai again. Chantel was excited to get on the night bus and wake up the next morning home in Maha Sarakham. Unfortunately her host mom had other plans. They were to spend the night in Chang Mai at her host mom’s sisters house. Then leave the next night.

So when they arrived in Chang Mai, Chantel was exhausted. She figured she would get back to the house crawl in bed and read. Once again, there were different plans, Chantel’s host family decided to bring her to the famous Chang Mai night bazaar. The bazaar was really awesome and had really cool, north east tribal crafts, but Chantel had barely any money so she bought, an earring, a head band, a journal and a sleep mask. Her host mom bought her this awesome poncho, tribal style crop top thing. Chantel was super happy with the bazaar trip but exhausted and excited to crawl in bed.  Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, I mean it was 10 pm who goes to bed at 10 pm? Thai people don’t they dragged Chantel’s exhausted butt to diner, at this cute little restaurant were you sat on the edge of the roof with your feet sticking off the sides and ate at a little ledge. After dinner they finally headed home.

To Chantel’s excitement, she would not only be sharing a room with her beloved host mom but a bed too. Trust me, I don’t think Chantel could have slept any closer to the edge of the bed. Half her body was hanging off, but she just wasn’t feeling comfortable with sharing a bed with her host mom, it was just awkward.

The next morning Chantel woke up late and had breakfast, then headed out to go ride an elephant. Yes, you read that right, RIDE AN ELEPHANT. After driving around picking up and dropping off random people  for three hours, they ended up at the elephant park. Chantel was asked to ride the elephant with this random lady and little girl. Which was fine with her, she was just so psyched to be riding an elephant. So she went for a surprisingly slow elephant ride for half an hour . She was surprised at how slow elephants, walked and felt really bad for riding the elephant. She didn’t like to see him get poked in order to move and didn’t like to be supporting a company the exploited animals, but she also knew it was one of those things you have to do in Thailand, so she admired the beauty of the animal and tried to quiet her animal activist mind. After the ride was over she sat and waited with the lady for two hours until her host mom came back and got her.

Then they headed over to the bus station to head home. While boarding the bus Chantel made sure to choose the seat farthest from her host brother and settled in with her sleep mask and ear plugs for a peaceful journey. Unfortunately, Chantel found herself unable to sleep that whole night. So once again she looked out the window for 13 hours and enjoyed the view of the mountains.”

Well kiddies, that’s all for today, I know you want to hear more, but this post is already overwhelmingly long as it is. There is much more to come I promise.

Xoxox Chantel <3

PS Happy Holidays Everyone and Thank You So Much for the gifts!!!