3:36

That's not my official time, but that's what was on the clock when I crossed the finish line.

Ps. If there's anyone in group 122 that's reading this, what up? You got questions? Ask away and I'll post the answers. Might be kinda fun.

Dedicating Miles for the Marathon

A month ago, my friend Catherine and I were sharing running stories and she told one about a friend of hers who dedicated every mile of his Ironman race to someone he knew. I though this would be a great idea to keep motivated during the race because if I don't finish "this" mile, I'm letting down "this person." On my bus ride into Bangkok, I wrote down the people I wanted to dedicate my miles to and then I put them in order. Here's the list:

1. Mom - She created me. I mean, come on.
2. Uncle Mike - He's always been close.
3. Paul & Cara Jacobson - They've earned their fair share of karma by sending me the trifecta of magazines.
4. Geography - I know it's not a person but it's my favorite thing in the world!
5. Gary and Kylie Rafaelli - They helped make my experience in New Zealand amazing.
6. Co-teacher Wassana - She's been by my side this whole time I've been in Thailand.
7. Co-teacher Dtieu and family - They've been more than generous.
8. Dtak and family - My best Thai friend and his family.
9. Wuttiya - She taught me Thai, and put up with me; incredible!
10. Jared Diamond - He's the best geographer the world around.
11. Anna - She's my sis.
12. Phil - He's my bro.
13. Myself - Half way. Run that same distance, one more time.
14. Uncle Jim, Auntie Claire, and family - They've always supported me.
15. Uncle Tom, Auntie Mary, and family - They seem to be growing but I'm including them all.
16. Grandma and Grandpa Barnes/Beauparland - I miss them.
17. Jeremy Hare - My best friend.
18. The House on College St., Marquette - I spent a large percentage of college here.
19. The Red House - I spent the remaining percentage of college here.
20. Benny, his girlfriend Norah, and their unborn baby - For health.
21. Every other one of my friends - You've influenced me in ways you'll never imagine.
22. Peace Corps volunteers - Some of the smartest people I've ever met.
23. Max, Kran, and family - Hands down, the most giving people I know.
24. Dtong, Nit, Frame, View, and Wan - They are my Thai family.
25. Dad - Thanks for the genes.
26. My future - The last .3 miles are dedicated to everything I've got ahead of me.

I won't let any of you down.

Nearing the End

11/11/09

Tucker finished teaching around 4:00 and we didn't get back to his house until 4:30 which means we didn't start running until 5:00. The sun was just barely setting over the bubbly hillside as we began our run down the dirt road that connects everyone's farmland. The trail took us through a valley, but even the valley was full of highs and lows. Both sides of the path were surrounded in the distance by monolith hills covered by jungle and just inside of those were wave-like mounds half the size of the panoramic mountains. Corn is the main crop near Tucker and the mounds are almost all treeless to make room for agriculture.

By the time we hit the half way point it was already dark. We didn't care though. We walked and jogged the final six kilometers home, all the while talking and telling stories. The stars were out, brighter than I had seen in months and had we not gotten stuck in the dark, we may not have spotted them from Tucker's brightly lit village.

11/12/09

Today is the last day of my, "volunteer visit trip." My original goal was to only stay with other volunteers, in order to save on accommodation, to see some other sites, and to get to know my peers better. Over a span of almost two weeks, I was able to stay with volunteers all but two nights. I left Tucker's village this morning and right now I am in Nan. My bus for Utaradit leaves at 1:45 where I'll meet my friend Jeff and in his village for the night. Tomorrow I am going to the American Women's Club English Camp, which will pretty much signify the end of my trip.

Its been great being able to see some of my friend's villages and to share their experience with them. I often caught myself comparing my own experience to theirs but I realize this is unfair because every single person is dealt a different hand. A couple of times on this trip, I had to remind myself that even though another volunteer may have it better in so many ways, I played the hand I was dealt, not the hand they were dealt. Everyone's experience is unique. Your own experience is what you make it.

I don't know if anyone is reading this blog besides my parents, so I was planning on stopping after I get to Jeff's. If you are following along and you want me to keep writing, please comment or email me (mrtonybones@gmail.com) and it will motivate me to continue posting my experience. Otherwise, I'm going to get lazy if no one is interested in what I'm doing.

Northern Extent

11/9/09

Eli and his "father" - Eli is dating his co-teacher's daughter - picked me up in Payao and drove me the final 45 minutes to Eli's village in the dark. He's the only person on this entire trip that I'm visiting that isn't in my Peace Corps group. I'm in group 120 and Eli is in group 121, but as you've already read, Peace Corps love spreads far and wide. We got to Eli's and played Super Nintendo games until I was too tired to keep my eyes open. He was an excellent host.

11/10/09

In the morning, I woke up to the loud speakers announcing someone in the village had died, so that was pleasant. Eli and I drank coffee and ate oatmeal before heading out at around 7:30. I was informed that a bus would take me half way from Eli's village to my next destination, my friend David's village about an hour away. Just as I was sitting down on the bus stop bench, watching Eli turn the corner towards his school, an old man walked by and said, "You just missed the bus." Now it wasn't like this road was desolate, in fact the traffic was quite regular so I was certain another bus would pass by.

To pass the time I made some phone calls. I called my dad, my uncle mike, my friend Benny, and a friend of mine in Bangkok. I watched the road intently, planning on waving down the next available public transportation. Before I knew it, it was 10:30 and I realized all hope was lost. So, I started walking. The next intersection where the traffic would be heavier was only 9km away and I decided to hitch while walking. About two kilometers down the road, a man picked me up and gave me a ride the final seven kilometers. I only had to wait about ten minutes for the next bus.

Two hours later, I was in the town of Bpong! I add an exclamation point to the sentence because that's how you must say the name of David's town or the Thais wont understand what you are saying. You literally must exclaim the name. Bpong! is located in a flat plain with mountains and rolling hills surrounding the outer limits. My plan was to visit a couple of volunteers even more northern than David, but I was two days behind on my original itinerary and had to cut a good portion of my trip short. David's town would be the extent of my northern Thailand bumble.

I met David at his office and played on the internet while I waited for him to finish work for the day. Once he got off work we went for a run because David was originally planning on running the marathon too but has run out of money and can't afford the entry fee. After our run, we rode bikes over to a house where he tutors twin girls and ate dinner with their family. I enjoyed talking and playing games after dinner, but I especially enjoyed the desserts the girls made for David and I in their brand new oven. On our way home, we stopped at the house of a counterpart David brought to the youth conference I mention in an earlier entry who remembered me and wanted to see me again. We stopped by her house and watched a movie while helping her put fresh passion fruit juice in containers she sells in the local market. I had never eaten passion fruit before, so it was nice to have a taste and drink some juice. Once it got late, we rode home and crashed hard.

11/11/09

David and I woke up to the sound of his neighbor smashing food up in a mortar. We decided to go for a run, just as the sun was coming up over the hills. We ran through forests, fields, and pasture. Once we got back, David's neighbor, the one bashing food with a pestle, prepared a breakfast for us of traditional northern Thai food. The food was amazing. It wasn't spicy, but maybe I'm bias because Isaan food is some of the spiciest food I've ever eaten.

I caught a bus out of David's site towards my next destination, Nan province. My friend Tucker is nestled in the mountains of northern Nan. The ride from David's to Tucker's is only about 100 kilometers, but it takes almost three hours because of the switchbacks that climb and descend the hills. The views along the route more than make up for the road-sick inducing bus ride with mountain vistas that rival that of Guatemala and New Zealand.

I got off at the post office in Song Kwae and Tucker rolled up five minutes later. I ate lunch and now here I am at his school. I helped him with two lessons this morning because we both agree, our students get too used to our own accents and it is good to hear another foreigner speak sometimes to break that habit. I can't wait for our run tonight - Tucker was also going to run the marathon but has since decided to just do the 10k - because we'll be able to run mountain trails to peaks overlooking shallow valleys and jungle laden hillsides.

We All Work for the Government

11/7/09

Just before we parted ways, Michael told me he'd call me around 7:00 if he was going to head to Sukothai since I was interested in tagging along with his refugee officer team. I woke up the following morning around 9:00 and no one had called. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to know more about him, his friends, and their job but I didn't sweat it. After I took a shower, I checked my phone once again and noticed a text message. It was Michael. They were going to leave for Sukothai around 1:00 if I wanted to join them for the weekend. This is the nice thing about open ended travel, you're not tied down by itineraries, schedules, and other business. If you wanna go north, you go north. If you wanna go east, you go east. I went east.

They picked me up a little after 1:30 and we drove the two hours to Sukothai, or rather we were driven to Sukothai, in an American embassy issued minivan - one of the nicest minivan's I've ever been in. Once in Sukothai we were dropped off at our guest house to check in and snag a quick shower before hitting the town for dinner and drinks.

Michael's team consists of five people. Michael and Jaquet, an African American Native American who served in Peace Corps Haiti, and who can still speak creole, are the two "senior" officers - both of whom are only 30 years old. They do all the interviewing, case review, and managing. Claire, an American born ethnically Belg (both her parents immigrated from Belgium) and Dianna, who served in Peace Corps Ukraine, are interviewer trainee's right below Michael and Jaquet. Finally, Anna does all the fingerprinting and processing. Together, they make an excellent team, nearing a family. We went to bed that night, after hours together talking and getting to know one another, and they made me feel like I was part of that family.

11/8/09

We woke up early to tour the old city of Sukothai which gives the city it's notoriety. The old city is beautiful, but a bit sterile. I felt like at any moment some anamatronic monks were going to pop out and start chanting in an ancient language; like Disneyland Thailand or something. You can tell that the money that the old city brings in is used to keep it looking nice but it's all just a bit too nice I feel.

I was the tour guide. My family watched in awe as I communicated with the Thais without hesitation or confusion. They were all impressed with my ability to engage the Thais. I had a lot of fun playing host.

We left the temple complex around 3:00 and headed back west towards Mae Sot. I got dropped off in Tak and said goodbye to the people who have been the highlight of my trip thus far. We exchanged emails, hugs, and pleasantries until the van motored away. I got on the next bus heading north to a small village called Baan Tak where my friend Stoney lives. The ride only took about 20 minutes.

Now, I just want to say, I find it incredibly interesting how the smallest factors during travel can have such large implications. Once I arrived at Stoney's house, I told him I wanted to do laundry. By this time, it was already almost dark and although I knew my clothes wouldn't dry over night, I figured they would be dry by noon the next day (the time in which I had to catch my next bus). So I proceed to do my laundry. I was ecstatic to finally get it all done - you know the feeling, when you've got five pounds of dirty clothes in your backpack just taking up room and making everything else stink and finally you relieve the pressure by washing them. I hung the clothes, Stoney and I watched some T.V., and then we went to bed.

11/9/09

The next morning, my clothes were almost as wet as they were the night before. I assumed because Thailand is so hot, even at night, that they'd dry at least a little bit. No, still wet. 10:00 rolls around and my clothes are only beginning to dry. At this point, I'm getting nervous because I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to catch my bus, so I start looking at other volunteers who live closer than the next one on my list six hours away. I'm frantically making phone calls trying to find someone who's around who will let me stay - plan B sort of stuff.

At 11:00, the temperature rose a good 15 degrees. It got so hot, my underwear became stiff like chip board. Had my clothes not dried, I'd be in a totally different part of Thailand right now, typing up a similar story. As it is, my clothes dried and I caught my bus. Right now I'm in Payao, waiting for my friend Eli to come pick me up from the bus station which was pretty much my original plan. Funny how things work, or don't work, out eh?

Along the Boarder

Yesterday was turning out to be unpromising until we hit the piss. I didn't even want to drink a whole lot but when you go to four different bars, the chances of you buying a drink greatly increases. Again, the day was very dull with not much happening - laundry, coffee, crossword puzzles - and even the evening was looking like it was going to be uneventful until we got to the last bar. I rolled up and sat down to order a drink. Next to me was a man in his early to mid thirties wearing a wool shirt and corduroy pants. "Look, they've got Bombay," I said to my friend, pointing at the bottle of gin. The guy next to me who was obviously drinking gin and tonics overhears my comment, turns and says, "You're right. They do have Bombay, and they know how to make a good drink with it."

His name was Michael. After serving in Peace Corps Samoa, he landed a job with the US government using his noncompetitive status he earned by serving in the Peace Corps. He works for the department of homeland security as a refugee officer, traveling to refugee camps around the world interviewing potential American citizens that will relocate in the United States. I sat with Michael and fired question after question at him for more than an hour. At one point, I had to ask if anything we were discussing was sensitive information and he said, "I wouldn't answer your questions if I was divulging sensitive information." Apparently the United States is the largest relief country, taking over 10,000 refugees last year and possibly even more this year, followed by Australia and I think Switzerland if I remember correctly.

Michael has been working for the the department of homeland security, interviewing refugees in countries all over the world for about three years now. Can you imagine the kinds of things people have told him (or told his interpreter rather, who then relays the information into English)? I don't even want to imagine the horror stories he must have heard in the past three years. I was absolutely awestruck by his occupation. That's the kind of job that makes a person understand. The understanding that the world is not a fair place. The understanding that you can read books, watch movies, or even hear stories, but until you experience these atrocities first hand you will never know what it is like for the have-not's. The understanding that people all over the world, people just like you, people just like me, live at levels that are far more grave than our own. It makes me feel greedy. I realize opportunity is unfair, dependent on countless variables from the moment you are born but I can't help but think, "What if?" Ask yourself, what if you were the refugee Michael was interviewing?

What if?

Long Journey Into the Night

I recently arrived back in my village after two weeks on the lamb and had only been back for three days when I got a phone call from a friend of mine living in the south. She was trying to talk me into going up to Chiang Mai for Halloween because heaps of our friends were meeting there to dress up and celebrate the great American holiday. I was certain she wasn't going to be able to convince me after having just gotten back from an excellent trip but near the end of our conversation she said something that entered my brain like an earthworm buries itself in the dirt. She goes, "You'll regret it if you don't go." Two days later I found myself on a city bus heading down to Ubon Ratchathani. Here starts my journey.

10/30/09

At about 9:30am, I jumped on the rickety, always noisy, wooden floor bus from the main city in my area down to the biggest city in my province, Ubon Ratchathani. A friend of mine who lives in the city reserved me a ticket on what is apparently the longest bus in Thailand. I arrived in Ubon around noon and waited only a half hour for my bus to arrive.

Now, I know what it must seem like, the longest bus in Thailand, 18 hours in a chair, rough rural roads, but I'm so used to it now after almost two years of living here, all the buses are the same. Whether I take a two hour pick-up truck, a five hour tour bus, a ten hour minivan, an 18 hour over-night, the variables associated with traveling through Thailand even all rides out in the end. For example, I'm tall here, like...megatron tall, so no matter what I ride in, it's almost always going to feel tight.

I read and slept the 18 hours away and arrived in Chiang Mai at about 6:30 am, Halloween morning.

10/31/09

Chiang Mai is beautiful city, save for the air pollution. It sits at the crossroads of all major antiquity caravan routes originating in China and ending in Myanmar. Because of it's strategic location in the hills of northern Thailand, ancient Chiang Mai was completely surrounded by a moat and city wall. The moat remains but only remnants of the wall still stand. Nonetheless, Chiang Mai retains a character unlike any other city I've seen in Thailand, save for the air pollution.

I checked into my guest house on the east side of the city wall and set off for breakfast. One nice thing about Chiang Mai is how easily walkable the city is, save for the air pollution. You can get anywhere in and around the walled city center by foot, which garners it extra points on my personal "Cool City" scale (to give you some comparison, Sydney, Australia has the highest score on my Cool City scale).

I set up shop at a place called Art Cafe just south of my guest house but still near the east wall. Art Cafe sits on a corner of a busy intersection across the street from one of the main city gates, making it an excellent location for people watching. Now, I've been to Bangkok countless times and I've also visited other tourist destinations within Thailand but nothing prepared me for the alienness of Chiang Mai. It's like I entered a different country - and I very well could have with how long my bus ride was - but I was definitely still in Thailand. Back in my village, I am the only white person for miles and all of my communication is in Thai or Laos. I saw more white faces on that particular street corner than I have anywhere else in my time here in Thailand. The languages they were speaking were also indiscernible. I could feel myself beginning to breathe heavy, my temperature was rising, and I felt very jittery. I was experiencing what I would describe as "inverse culture shock." What I mean by this is, I have been living here so long that, even though I'm not Thai, I feel more like a local than I do a foreigner. Once I started seeing the influx of tourists, my anxiety level rose dramatically and I had to calm myself down with a little controlled breathing. After about an hour, I was able to convince myself that it was still Thailand and that the whole city would be the same; enjoy it for what it is.

Volunteers showed up in pairs and by night fall, we numbered in the twenties. Everyone dressed up and we held a party in the courtyard of the guest house I was staying at before hitting the night scene. My costume was Where's Waldo, red and white striped shirt, red and white hat, black rimmed glasses, and sneaky hiding places in pictures - my friends have a bunch of pictures with me poking my head out in the background. The other costumes were all very well done. We had a tree, a masquerade, Lady Gaga, a pumpkin, and other random things. After pre-gaming at the guest house we moved on to a bar in the city called Cafe Del Sol. All I can say is, I don't remember much after grabbing the microphone from the stage to sing, "Billy Jean." We had a great Halloween.

11/1/09

Art Cafe, I was soon to find out, is the most popular breakfast spot for the volunteers. A group of us met up there to recuperate over cups of coffee and breakfast burritos. After breakfast, a few of us decided to get a massage. This was however, not your typical massage. I followed the group to the Chiang Mai Woman's Correctional Facility. Yeah, we got convict massages! The story goes, these women have served almost their entire sentence and so to better prepare them for the outside world, the Thai government lets them practice a trade, in this case Thai massage, before being released. I got one of the best massages I've ever had but unfortunately didn't land any phone numbers.

I slept the day away in my room and woke up with time for a run. My friend and I ran laps around a stadium north of the city - I'm currently training for a marathon which I will run on November 22nd. In the evening the same friend and I went shopping at the night market outside the city. I picked up a couple shirts and a wool hat that would have cost me $30 in the states but only cost me $2.50 here. I crashed hard once we made it back.

11/2/09

It's a Full moon: Thais are celebrating. Loi Kratong is a holiday in Thailand, my favorite holiday as a matter of fact, in which the Thai people make little boats out of banana tree trunks and leaves, flowers, candles, and inscents and float them down rivers or in canals, really anywhere there's water. From what I understand, the symbolism is that the person doing the floating is appeasing the water spirits and asking for "mother water" to cleanse the body of bad karma. This may not be the academic definition, but it's close. The reason I like Loi Kratong is simply because it doesn't involve copious amounts of alcohol. Thai holidays can get crazy but Loi Kratong is much more laid back, chill, and relaxed than most.

Specifically in Chiang Mai the Thai's float lanterns made of paper into the sky for the same reason mentioned above. The sight is truly amazing, watching the sky fill with hundreds of glowing orbs. The only word I can use to describe the scene is, magical. A group of about ten friends and I sat up on the rooftop of a bar that overlooks the city. We were able to watch the sky fill with lanterns for about three hours while listening to reggae, drum and bass, and dub music. After the bar, some people split up to watch the chaotic scene down by the river and the rest of us ate burgers before crashing out.

11/3/09

In the morning I went straight to the bus station where I boarded a bus that terminated in a rural town where my friend Cameron lives. He's about three hours southwest of Chiang Mai (Lii). He lives in a high, flat valley surrounded on all sides by mountains. We walked around his village, went for a run, and relaxed with a couple glasses of whiskey before eating dinner and crashing out. Nothing crazy.

11/4/09

I left Cameron's village early in the morning just as the morning rain let up. My next stop was farther west yet, near the boarder of Burma. In the main city of Lii, I met two Monks that were headed in the same direction I was headed and so for the next four hours, I proceeded to hitchhike with these monks until our paths no longer continued in the same direction. One thing to note about our on again off again transportation: while walking down a desolate but beautiful mountain pass, I asked the older monk if he thought we should hail a car. Prior to this we had just allowed the vehicles to pass. His answer was simple, "If someone wants to stop, then we will take the ride." I thought that a very Buddhist thing to say and I allowed my inner spirits to absorb the idea for...oh...about five more cars, until finally I waved one down and we were picked up. Patience Tony, patience.

I finally made it to Mae Sariang by about 3:00 and checked into my guest house. I changed my clothes and went for a run up a big hill to check out the view, which overlooked rice fields, rivers, cityscape, and mountains. It was very pleasant indeed. That night I talked to some NGO workers helping with Burmese refugees but they were uninteresting and actually very dull so I hit the sack early.

11/5/09

The pickup truck ride from Mae Sariang to my friend Peter's village is a five hour snake, up and down, left and right, near upside down ride between two mountain ranges which separate Burma from Thailand. I passed the time by watching the view weave it's way by. I finally reached his place but nothing could prepare me for what it looked like.

The Karen people are ethnically mountain folk who live in the hills which straddle Burma and Thailand. To make a long story short, the Burmese Junta and Karen people don't get along. Thailand has lent support for these people but only as refugees. As a result, the boarder between these two countries is littered with refugee camps (a total of seven in all from what I've been told). The largest refugee camp, which contains approximately 40,000+ people - there's no real way to count - is only about 10 kilometers from Peter's village. The site is incredible. Words, nor pictures, cannot do this Swiss Family Robinson-style land grab justice. The Karen people have built their houses on rolling valley hills out of bamboo and tree leaves, sunk in behind a mountain vista of sheer cliffs that loom over the people like a barrier to freedom. The west side is guarded by the main road that connects Mae Sot and Mae Hong Son and the east side is blocked off by impassable mountains that seem to reach the sky. We walked along the road and I couldn't help but stare in awe of the huts that litter the landscape.

Within Peter's village are Karen people who are nationally Thai. They smoke these huge cigarettes that look like stogie cigars and wear colorfully decorated clothes with tassels and fringes. They are short people, even shorter than Thais, but smile just as often. After dark, Peter and I had a couple of beers with his neighbor and I was able to learn a little about the history of Karen clothing. Once it got late, Peter and I headed back home and went to bed.

11/6/09

TODAY! I'm caught up with my blog. Well, at least until tomorrow, right?

I'm currently sitting at an internet cafe in Mae Sot, a boarder town near the southwestern part of northern Thailand. I came down here to shop for souvenirs and eat foreign food - there's a strong foreign community all along this boarder due to the refugee camps. Who knows what's next, but I'll be sure to blog it all.