The View from Thailand

Today I walked along a long and hot and bumpy path, past rice paddies looking like ryegrass fields in April, red-tile-roofed houses with blue-green awnings, motorcycles, and a Dunlop tire shop.

A rice paddy

I carried two small bags of groceries, and just as I was wishing for a cup of iced coffee, there was a little kiosk growing out of the side of a white van, and a friendly gentleman obligingly fixed me a refreshing cup.  "Soo-gah?" he asked.  "Nit noy," I said, happy that my slim Thai vocabulary could actually be useful.  So he put in "a little bit" of sugar, and the drink was delicious, with just a hint of a strange smoky flavor.

The plastic cup was slid into a handy little carrier, and I sipped it all the way back to the house, a half-hour's walk.

Amy has been in Thailand for almost 10 months, learning Thai and teaching English.  Paul and I decided to combine a visit with her and also a trip to Nepal for Paul, where he was asked to speak at a youth conference put on by an Anabaptist group that goes out in the far corners of the earth to teach pastors and also, at times, young people.

 So Paul is off to some desolate place in the mountains of Nepal, a several-hour ride on a crowded bus from Kathmandu.

The Nepal group.

And I am once again in Chiang Mai, thinking, "Who would ever have thought I'd be here three times in 2 1/2 years?"

So since it's my third time in Chiang Mai I know which fabric store is my favorite and I know I want iced coffee and not cha yen, the Thai iced tea, at the happy little coffee stands.  I know where the hopper of ice is in the Bible school dining hall, and the lifesaving fresh cold water.  I know that I need to take off my shoes before I go indoors, that the exchange rate is about 30 baht to the dollar, and that I need to steeple my hands and bow my head a lot.

October in Thailand is very hot but not as hot as June. Think 93 and very humid and no breeze vs. 100 degrees and very very humid and no breeze. So I've perspired a lot and found fans to park myself in front of, but it's just enough degrees less insufferable that I haven't yet felt like I was suffocating.

That is a mercy.

Amy's roommate, Kimberly,  is from Georgia.  She has less tolerance for heat than Amy does.  Amy keeps the A/C in her room at 30 degrees Celcius and would set it higher if she could.  Kimberly is happy at about 25 degrees.

Fancy that.

Amy with her bike.

My verse for this week: "Come ye apart, and rest a while."