Surprise

About a month ago, I was sitting at my desk and my counterpart turned to me and told me that I had to go to Chaing Mai on the 8th of June for a meeting with Peace Corps. Now I thought this was a little strange because I had not heard a word about this from Peace Corps and they are usually very good about telling us things. But I saw the letter that they were sent (it was in Thai so I couldn't read what it said, but it was on Peace Corps letterhead). I figured that they would tell us about it soon, so I decided to wait.

About a week later, I still hadn't heard anything so I called another volunteer to see if she had heard anything. Well, she hadn't...and I started to panic. I mean was I about to get into trouble for something?!? So I sent an email to my project manager asking her about it...and she replied and told me that there was NOT a meeting in Chaing Mai. What in the world is going on??? Is my counterpart lying to me? Is she extremely confused about a different meeting?

That weekend was when I met up with some other volunteers in Chaing Mai. When I got to the hotel, one of the main topics of conversation was the "secret" meeting that Peace Corps had planned. Peace Corps was planning a test of our EAP (Emergency Action Plan - if there is an emergency & they have to evacuate us we all have to meet in a central location). They had sent a letter to our counterparts to warn them and told them that the meeting was supposed to be secret & to not tell us...whoops! For weeks leading up to the meeting my counterpart kept asking me when I was going to Chaing Mai. I tried to explain to her that I didn't know...that I wouldn't know until Peace Corps called me to tell me to leave. I don't think she understood because she kept asking me when I was going to leave.

On Wednesday, I was sitting at home talking on the phone with another volunteer when we both got text messages. We decided to hang up because we knew that that was how Peace Corps was going to contact us. Sure enough, we were told to get to Chaing Mai first thing in the morning (they played it off like there was a bird flue epidemic - and even though we knew the test was coming, a few volunteers started to panic at the bird flu thing). I immediately contacted my counterpart...you see, it is kind of difficult for me to get into/out of my village. I can't drive a car or ride on a motorcycle. The nearest song tao (a truck with two benches in the back to take passengers) stop was 5 k away and the nearest bus station was 40 k away. I at least needed a ride to the song tao stop as I couldn't ride my bike there and leave it for 4 days and I couldn't walk it with the bags that I had to take. It took them about an hour to figure out how they were going to get me there - and much confusion on my part because first they told me that they would take me into Nan (where the bus station is - about 45 min away), then to Pua (where another volunteer lives & a bus stops there to pick people up - but it is still 45 min away), they finally decided that they would take me to the song tao stop and I would take the song tao into Nan and then catch the bus from there to Chaing Mai.

I got packed and cleaned the house (if you leave ANY food out the animals will invade your home...I have even heard horror stories about mice & lizards having babies/laying eggs in people's beds while they were gone. I left the house at 7:30 in the morning, and got to Chaing Mai at about 2:30. The hotel that Peace Corps was putting us up in was pretty nice, but as soon as we got there, we had a meeting about the whole process (really boring). We then went out to a Mexican restaurant...and it was delicious! And then we found this rasta bar that was serving bucket drinks for 200 baht (that is about $7 and they poured 2 bottles of coke and an entire bottle of rum into the bucket). It is very entertaining to see Thais with dreads sing Bob Marley.
After a while we went to another bar (the same one that had the awesome cover bands the first time)...and they got one of the bands to sing me Happy Birthday (and they even sang my name which they don't do in Thailand).

The next day, we had another meeting (horrible when you are hungover) and then we had to check out of the hotel and we went to our "usual" spot which is this really cool guest house. After dropping off our stuff, we went and got some Italian for lunch and then headed to the mall to see Shrek 3. After the movie, we decided to head over to the night market. They had some fast food restaurants nearby so we stopped and got some Subway (I usually get the roasted chicken breast & I ordered it this time but changed that order as soon as they pulled out the "chicken breast" which was this slab of processed meat that looked like a really thick slice of bologna...so I ended up with a turkey sandwich). We then walked through the market...the most prevalent booths are the ones that sell bootlegged DVD's - you can actually buy Oceans 13, Shrek 3, and other current releases although you do run the risk of having a black head pop up in the middle of the screen as a person in front of the theater gets up to go to the bathroom.

On Saturday, we got up and went to a cafe that serves "American" food and ironically I had French toast. Then we stopped at a book store (I picked up some language books) and then hung out at the guest house for a little while. We went back to the mall and saw Oceans 13 and then the boys and girls separated and we went to this restaurant/bar that is owned by a guy from Texas. I had a wonderful hamburger & fries. Then we went back to the rasta bar for some more buckets.

On Sunday, we got up and headed to the bus station at 9:00...the bus that we wanted to take left at 10:00 but by the time we got there, it was full. So we ended up taking one the left at 11:30 and I will never take that bus again! Most of the buses in Thailand are pretty nice (think nice tour buses), but this one was barely a step up from a school bus. The air con didn't work & they had taken out the "nice" seats and put in benches so they could crowd in more people (which didn't help with the heating thing). And we were stuck on it for 7 hours (usually it takes 6 but this drive was going VERY slow & was stopping every 5 minutes to let someone off). I got home at 7:00 and luckily I didn't have lizard eggs in my bed so it was a good "surprise" trip.