Sawadee Crap - I’m not complaining, just saying hello in Thai…
Wow…what a busy, interesting, and emotional 5 days. Sorry for not posting earlier but we have been on the go from early morning to late evening every day and honestly, given the schedule and the jet lag I am now just getting to it. After my last posting, I flew 14+ hours from LA to Taipei and immediately caught my next 3 1/2 hour flight to Bangkok. I arrived in Bangkok at 2am and took a room at the airport hotel. My flight to Chang Rai was the next day (or technically the same day) at 1PM. Unfortunately, sleep did not really come at all so I stared at the ceiling until about 6am and finally fell asleep. My cell phone rang at 8:15am and that’s “all she wrote” as far as sleep is concerned. In any event, I caught the flight and arrived in the Chang Rai airport at about 3PM. Unbeknownst to me, there were 4 other study tour participants on the same flight. We were picked up by our AJWS tour service and then drove to a beautiful hotel about 1 hour away that sits right at the Golden Triangle. For you geography buffs, the Golden Triangle sits at the intersection of Thailand, Burma (Myannmar), and Laos and is on the Mekong River. This used to be the source for the majority of opium and heroin production and there is actually quite a fine museum close to our hotel…the Opium Museum. My room overlooked the Mekong River, Burma and Laos. The area is extremely mountainous and rugged and is composed of very dense rain forest. After arriving, we had a welcome dinner where I met the other 12 tour participants and 4 AJWS staff members. I was fortunate to sit at dinner with our speaker for the next morning, Christina Fink. She is an American author married to a Burmese activist and lives in Thailand. I read her book, “Living Silence” prior to the trip and found both the book and the author very enlightening about the history and current events of Burma. The area is just beautiful. As I was to learn in the upcoming days, underlying the outward beauty of this area is a human rights and social justice crisis that has existed continuously since 1949 with additional significant events occuring in 1962, 1988, and again this month. This week has been a first hand and up close look at the complex history, politics, and issues as well as the people and organizations working for change.