First Full Day in Chaing Mai...

After being pleasantly woken up by some friend who got into town this morning, I had my first (of three) juice shakes of the day at an adorable little restaurant. I had one of their detox juices (carrot, apple, and celery) and felt pretty great afterwards. We took a walk to the area of town where I'll be staying after my elephant adventure and decided to indulge and get a massage...for 150 baht (approximately 5 USD) an hour.

The massage was at this place that is run by a community of blind men and women. They do all of the logistics of running the place and also all the massages. The man working on me cracked my back harder but less painfully than it ever has before. He also made me aware of parts of my body that I didn't even know were in pain. I was told that it wasn't true Thai massage, but more a hybrid of pressure-point acupuncture and Thai massage. Whatever it was, it was a fabulous hour and my body felt very renewed afterward.

On top of the great massage, it was an incredible experience. When we walked in, they immediately felt our presence and jumped up to help us. As they worked on the three of us, they chatted and laughed. There was another woman in the corner doing intricate beaded sculptures. There were some examples of her work for sale and it was phenomenal work.

After two more juice, much more exploring, and a night market that could have easily made me clear my bank account had I not resisted, I'm off to bed to get some quality sleep before leaving for the elephant park in the morning.

I'm ecstatic, to say the least. I love this place, despite its oddities, which I'll discus later.

B(ee)

Swaritka Chiang Mai!

First impressions? Laid back, happy-go-lucky, delicious...wonderful things!

In fact, Thailand is so laid back, that on the bus ride from the airport to the train station (that was already 30 minutes late because of traffic) with ten minutes until our train was scheduled to leave, our driver stopped on the side of the road, talked with a street vendor, went into 7/11 to get change, and walked back out to the bus, picking up food from the vendor on the way. We ended up making our train still, but would have had a fight to pick if we hadn't because of the short pit stop.

We took an overnight train to Chiang Mai and I had the pleasure of waking up to a Thai sunrise! Windows!!! How I love you!!!

After cramming 9 people into a red truck, baggage and all, we arrived at our guesthouse, which is a pretty nice place. A very different kind of "nice" from our last place...bright colors, lounge areas, a pool table, and backpackers galore! It should be a great weekend.

From what I can tell so far, Chiang Mai is about half foreign people (including residents and tourists) and half ethnic Thai. It gives an interested flavor to the city. But so far, I'm absolutely in love! I could not be happier with my new location! Did I mention there are pictures and statues of elephants everywhere?!?!

Blissfilled,
B(ee)

In Love With The World...

So I hit the 2,000 word count on my final paper today and decided to take most of the day off to "reflect" on it...aka come up with 500 more words to add to it...

My time in Taiwan is almost up and I think I'm ready to move on. The bar of soap I started when I got here is almost nonexistent, just another sign that I'm ready to move and go somewhere else, get new experiences and start all over again.

Although I really should be looking back at the last six weeks right now, all I can do is think about the future. I'm yearning for the place that I fell for immediately when I saw it for the first time just over a year ago --- Chiang Mai. I'm trying not to anticipate love, but it's hard to fight instinct. Even looking for hostels for next weekend made me happy, knowing the environment I'll be apart of this time next week.

And then there's the whole week with elephants thing. How could I not look forward right now?

Although I've always enjoyed traveling and being abroad, I've never felt that the travel bug bit me so hard as it has right now. Home is a reminder of unconditional love and comfort, but the beauty of strange things becoming familiar is too distracting right now.

Strongly bitten,
B(ee)

Ask Me If There Is An Article of Dry Clothing in My Bag...

For the last five days, dry clothing has been harder to come across than water in the desert.

After a three-day meditation retreat at Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Education Center in a beautiful setting on the side of a mountain in a surprisingly expansive retreat center and monastery, we came back to Sinjuhang for a day of classes before heading off to Hualien, a beautiful nestled between sea and mountains in Eastern Taiwan.

Beautiful it was; rained it did. In fact, it rained so much that the road back to Taipei was blocked by rocks and mud and most of the exciting activities our guides had planned for us, which involved white water rafting and visiting the Toroko marble gorge, were cancelled so we had to rearrange our entire intinerary and trip route. In the end, we drove around the entire island of Taiwan. The entire island! Accumulating way too many hours in a bus along the way. At least the seats were nice to nap in...

But it was amazing to be among trees again. And more than just the ones in the park next door. The whole ride to Hualien, we took the road that hugged the coast. Looking out the left window, it was all sea; you had to angle your head down to see the road or dramatic cliff beneath. And to the right was all mountains, straight up. We wound around hairpin turns like I've never felt a bus wind before. It was fantastic!

The whole trip was filled with encounters with different types of healing. From aboriginal shaman women blessing us and ridding our souls of evil spirits, to hours spent in hot spring pools and showers, letting the sulfer seep into our skin and massage our muscles, to realizing how much this group of 20-odds has truly become a loving, supportive, cuddle-friendly family over the last five weeks: I was healed in every way.

One of the notable healing experience I had was a night we spent with some practicers of Tibetan singing bowls in Hualien. Although they were novices who assumed the roles of professions, cauing some inner controversy in me, the community of sounds that was formed as we sat among these practicers was moving, to say the least. It was different than the meditation we learned at Dharma Drum; I tried that type of meditation, and it didn't work.

But after I had found my place and settled in with the sound and the community, I got in touch with myself, through thinking about other people important to me, and realized how poorly I have treated my body over the last few months. My brief return into carnivorism has left my body full of toxins that make it harder for me to breath, sleep, and wake. I concluded, after coming face-to-face with the horrible way I'm treating my body, to return to my own eating habits after Taiwan and fade out of putting meat in my body for the rest of my stay here.

It will be very different, going back and explaining my habit as a health reason. Not "health" in the Western-sense, as an all-encompassing, universal state of the body, but a personal health.

In love and health,
B(ee)

This One Time, I Ate A Bagel from the Gods...

After only vaguely recognizing an earthquake that measured 6.3 on the Richter while slipping into dreams last night, the group went on a field trip to the northern coast today. Keep in mind, storms are a comin' our way; that typhoon that hit the northern Phillippines last night is headed towards Taiwan right now. We were shooed away from a cliff overlooking the turbulent waters by the police and then headed into the city of Keelung to see a procession of the gods at one of the bigger temples there.

The procession was such an experience. We got there, worked our way to the front of the umbrella-populated, poncho-toting crowd only to have a large firework explode in our faces and float up our nostrils. Smaller, higher-pitched sparklers went off for about 30 seconds. A series of shrines came and went in front of the crowd with policemen directing traffic around the path of the people carrying the shrines. I was without an umbrella and had given my rainjacket to someone else, so I was drenched by this point.

It finally came time for the big shrine to be carried out of the temple! About 10 men wearing elaborate facepaint carried the shrine, covered in plastic wrap, out of the temple and between the lines of the crowd. As they were affiting themselves with ponchos, I started taking pictures of two men in front of me. They noticed me and one of the men reach under his poncho, ripped a bagel-like bread off of a chain of bagel-like breads around his neck and handed it to me.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the best bagel I've ever had, but it was at the time. I'm not sure whether it was because I knew that it was food from the gods or whether I was just in pure ecstacy after having been recognized in a ritual that I barely understood.

As the procession started its slow, stagnant march around the city block, a Taiwanese man, seeing me drenched to the bone, grabbed me and pulled me under his rainbow colored umbrella with him. He collected more and more of us until there must have been 5 of us squeezed under a cover meant for no more than 2. Huddled together, we started walking with the crowd. Out of nowhere a woman jumped in front of us and handed us her umbrella, insisting we take it from her. This was no dinky umbrella; it had room for at least 4 and a nice, solid wooden handle. She disappeared, leaving her umbrella with us.

Rituals. They are something I have come to love about Taiwanese culture that I don't feel have had a great presence in my life. At least, not in the way that they would had I grown up in Taiwan. Everyday, I see people giving offerings and lighting incense at a corner shrine down the street. Yesterday, when they celebrated the Autumn Moon Festival, the shrine was packed every time I walked by, fire so mighty it made me wonder about the safety of the burning tower in the middle of the sidewalk.

It was a great day in the rain. But it is nice to be showered and in the comfort of a dry sweatshirt.

B(ee)

How Many People Can Fit in a Temple Without Burning Each Other With Their Incense?

The other day, with sky threatening rain but thankfully hiding the sun, we took a field trip over to Longshan Temple, one of the largest temples in Taipei (and a Grade 2 Historical Site...whatever that means...). It was originally an unaffiliated Buddhist temple, but has become a site for all Chinese religions over time.

It was mad there. People everywhere. Tables were filled with plates of: fruit, flowers, candies, cookies, bottled water, Lays chips. The burning of incense made the air inside the top-open enclosure a little bit muskier, but pleasant feeling.

It was a true worship, to me. Everyone was included and did so in whatever capacity they felt necessary. Parents directed their little girls and boys around the alters to different gods, but didn't have to show them what to do when they got there. Along one side of the temple, about 20 elderly people sat and stood with prayer beads and what appeared to be Buddhist scriptures in their hands. Most chatted, laughed, and joked. A few were obviously praying, but snapped out of it when they heard a friend say something funny. At the front main alter, one woman was praying so ferociously, she was sweating visibly. A woman next to her was quietly kneeling, one hand against her chest, tears streaming down her face. Near the exit of the temple, a young monk in light blue robes sat perfectly straight with a set of prayer beads in each hand and an earbud in each ear. As I was watch him, slowly rolling the beads through his fingers, he completed his exercise, opened his eyes, sat still for a minute, then took our a thermos of tea and shared it with the boy next to him.

You could almost see the growth of a life sitting watch the people in the temple. From a young age, these people came to temples regularly for all different kinds of worship and prayer. This was routine for most, but also a place of comfort place to purposefully direct personal prayers and receive blessings.

I purchased some incense and walked around the alters with a few of my group mates. At first, I imitated the motions of the practiced worshipers. Then, as I began moving between the huge golden incense offering structures I took in my surroundings at each place, then closed my eyes and listened to the soft music that was hidden beneath the intense visuals with open eyes. Over the sounds of the crowd and busy street, I could hear myself grow closer to something sacred there. After I was content with my surroundings, I would move on and continue exploring the different parts of the sacred held in that one temple.

I'm not sure I would call it prayer, and I definitely wouldn't call it worship, but I connected to that place and something happened that resembled sacredness to me.

B