The team and myself are now in Bangkok and we only have two days left here in Thailand. Its a surreal feeling.
The last few days went as followed.
Saturday and Sunday made for teary and emotional goodbyes as we spent the last two nights hanging out with our friends in Pattaya. It wasn't until about 2:30 Sunday night that the last goodbyes were made and we put ourselves to sleep only to awake at 5:30 for a 14 hour trip up to the village of Ruamit(spelling?).
Ruamit is a village North of Chang Rai that's about hour away from the Border. Along with being an elephant village, Ruamit is considered a hilltribe center and on the street where we were staying there were over five different tribes present selling various wears in peace and harmony.
In the earlier part of the journey north, Sonja got sick and decided to stay in Bangkok. At midnight, when we finally arrived, the nine members left were invited into the pastors house where we would be staying for the next few days. In the morning we awoke late and were introduced to the town and surrounding country side via an amazing elephant trek.
The trek started not to far from the pastors house, just down the street the river brought the concrete to an end where the elephants would bathe and lounge about inbetween treks. Down the river the muddy shores seemed to be bordered by large green hills and boats occasionally passed by with a load of tourists. We boarded our elephants via a large weathered platform and made our way through the small village into the hills under the direction of our friendly guides and elephant commanders.
Even though we were in the end of the dry season the hills were very green and contrasted beautifully with the clear blue sky bordering at the horizen. In the valleys the villagers had terraced off numerous rice fields and nearby cows grazed lazely in their pastures. Slowely our elephants lumbered there way through the hills, along streams and up and down dusty trails where the trees grew high and thick. After an hour of stunning beauty and sore backsides we arrived at a small tribal village tucked away in the trees. There a taxi was waiting along with our friend Buey from Pattaya(the village pastors son and also a pastor from Pattaya who was the one to hook us up with the Ruamit visit). After some photos and bartering with the local people we travelled by narrow road through the hills to a waterfall. The next few hours were then spent relaxing in the afternoon sun, jumping off cliffs and swimming behind and around the falls as we enjoyed the small paradise.
The next day was spent working with children at a world vision child development center. Fun and games until the children sat down for lunch and then we were off. Later on in the afternoon I hunted down a lychee tree I had spotted from atop the elephant the day before. The locals were nice enough not only to let me pick lychee but taught me how to break off branches using a split peice of bamboo. After filling a bag we went home and relaxed while filling our faces with the delicious fruit.
That evening we perfomed our production for the last time at a mid-week church service. Something crazy about the village is that the karen people who populate it were converted many years ago and are basically all Christian. In Thai villages the buddist temple is the center of the town but in this village the Christian chruch was the center. The church even had a loud speaker like most temples that would play at six every morning with the news and music, only here the message wasn't buddist, it was Christian. This of course didn't matter to much to us since we couldn't understand it anyways and really, who likes being woke up at six in the morning against their will?
The service ended and we retired that evening with high spirits despite colds that team members were struggeling with. Later in the evening I myself awoke and found myself in bed with a feeling that I recognized from a previous village trip. I layed and prayed and begged the Lord not to let it be true, but to my dismay I eventually made my way out to the balcony where I would hurl at three in the morning. I eventually fell back asleep and was woke later on by Joel who, just as he had in the other village was following suit with his head hung over the railing. The next day everyone but two or three people were down for the count. It was disappointing because the Pastor and his family had been so good to us and that day we had been planning to get down to some serious work. Those who were able went up to clean the church but some returned not so well.
Joel ended up going to the hospital that day he was needled had fluids pumped into him since he couldn't hold anything down and was severely dehydrated. The rest of us rested and tryed to regain our strength, Buey took us to a natural hot springs which I almost felt guilty for going to but it helped quite a bit and was, as everything else in the area is, beautiful.
The next day was friday which turns out to be yesterday and everyone was feeling quite a bit better. Breakfasts stayed down and we decided to head out in the morning for Bangkok. After parting ways with the Pastor and his family and started our twelve hour journey.
Last night we arrived at about midnight and crashed at Angels family home in Bangkok. In the morning we moved ourselves and are now hotelling it close to the airport where we will be for the next two days until we fly out.
