10,000 Monks
by matt
After much deliberation, we decided to extend our stay in Chiang Mai. The primary reason for this decision was an event called 10,000 monks. This was clearly hyperbole, but the pictures on the posters looked cool, so we decided to see what this was all about.
Monks Accept Offerings in Their Bowls
The idea is simple. 10,000 monks line up and the people of the city donate food and drink to them. There are a few complications:
1. It starts at 6 AM. We have not woken up this early aside from the night we stayed in a hill tribe village and were awoken to the sounds of farm animals.
Farm Animals That Woke Us Up
2. There is a lot of traffic. We had scooters, which normally circumvents this problem, but it was still hard to weave around all of the cars.
3. There is 1 1/2 hours of chanting prayers and various speeches in Thai. We don't speak Thai.
4. Westerners stick out like a sore thumb, especially if they stand up the whole time and have massive cameras around their necks. We had massive cameras around our necks, and we wanted to get a good view of the line of soldiers and monks.
We really enjoyed the whole thing, and the highlight was watching the monks go down the offering line. They were all dressed in amazing robes of various shades of red and orange. We were told that they came from all over, including neighboring countries like Burma and Cambodia. People dressed in white lined up in four rows with offerings, leaving two aisles with red carpets on them. Soldiers them lined up in the middle of the aisles and knelt while the speeches, ect were being made. Then, the monks walked down the inner aisles, came to the end, and walked down the aisles. They held large silver bowls, which the villagers put offerings in. These offerings were then placed in bags that the soldiers held, and more offerings were put in the bowls. The offerings, as well as cash offerings made at booths, were donated to monasteries as well as schools in remote villages.
The Ceremony
The best part of the whole thing was that there were 10,000 monks. It gave us a profound respect for Buddhism and the monks who dovote their lives to it to see them perform this magnificent ceremony.
The Monks!
Banana please.
by Ben
TREK!!!
We got to Chiang Mai on the 23rd, and the next morning our guides picked us up for a three day trek through the forests around the city. On this trek we learnt many things about Thai custom, the merits of correctly sized blankets, waterfalls, and the feeding of elephants.
Day 1
Our journey to the start of the trek involved some truly, truly insane driving. We were piled in the back of a Chevrolet Colorado, a vehicle designed for transporting shopping bags between districts of suburbia. At one point we were overtaken on a blind corner by an equally insane, non discript, people carrier. At this point a car met us travelling the opposite direction. None of the drivers were phased by what appeared to be an inevitable collision- instead, the approaching car moved into our lane, passed the people carrier, then squeezed diagonally through the gap between us and the people carrier, putting it back in it's own lane. The people carrier then completed the overtake. I have prepared a diagram to explain this maneuver.
I should point out that no brakes were used in the making of this diagram
Later, we did some walking. It was fun. We stayed the night in a village on top of a hill, inhabited by Thai farmers. They were very friendly, and it was really interesting to be somewhere that was 'authentically' Thai, where people were living more or less as they had been before the invention of tourism, rather than centering their efforts around extracting money from tourists, as has been the case in the cities we've visited.
Camp site in the village
Local people
On the second day, we continued to wander through the forest. At one point we stopped next to a lookout tree, which was a tree that had a ladder up the side so you could climb to the top and see stuff. Ladder is a slight exaggeration.
DC scales tree
On the second night, we camped down river from a waterfall. It was a good waterfall.
Waterfall!
On the third day, we were done walking. This was good news for Marvin! who is still suffering slightly from the time his foot almost had to be amputated. Instead, we employed two unusual forms of transport.
First we rode elephants. In the museum we visited in Bangkok, they explained that elephants were effective as military mounts. This is clearly false. First of all, elephants are extremely hungry- all the time. We were given some bananas for the elephant. Within about 2 seconds of being on its back, the trunk was up in Nathan's face, asking for a banana. Naively, we fed it a banana. In less time than it takes Marvin! to eat a three course meal, the trunk was up again. We fed it another banana. The third time, we thought we would trick it by feeding it two bananas at once, but this backfired because somehow it managed to eat them even quicker in tandem. By this point we had moved less than four meters from the start of the walk, which brings me to my next point; elephants are very very slow. In the museum there were paintings of Thai princes dueling their enemies on the backs of elephants, which would never happen, because some foot soldier would just walk up beside them and push them off while the elephant was asking for a banana. If, of course, the elephant had even made it to the battlefield. This leads on to the third point, which is that elephants are extremely hungry, all the time! Every now and then it would give up on us trying to separate a banana from the bunch, and go off and pull a small tree out of the ground and eat that instead. This became an issue when it tried to eat a tree that was on the other side of a deep crevice. It inched closer and closer to the edge, while the three of us inched further and further towards the back of the elephant. Apparently they occasionally fall off cliffs around here. This, also, would not be helpful in a combat situation.
Elephant gives up and eats a tree
DC tames elephant with crocs
The last item on the agenda was bamboo rafting. After that, we slept. More to follow... very shortly!
Welcome to the Jungle
by dcposch
We're in Chiang Mai now, the center of northern Thailand and gateway to the madness that is the Golden Triangle jungle. We trundled in a few hours ago on a sleeper train. It smelled strongly of grease and chunked its way relatively slowly over a rough track. Nevertheless, I slept well after walking around Bangkok all of yesterday.
Tomorrow morning, we're going on a three-day jungle trek. Of all the places we've been on this trip, this is the least beaten path. According to those storytelling history bubbles in Lonely Planet, Northern Thailand only became reasonably stable in the 1980s. Before that, it was torn between Burmese, Chinese, and, during the Vietnam War, even CIA influence. It was home to a vicious drug trade, a lot of the world's opium production, and to some colorful personalities like this guy.
then...
That's Khun Sa, the Burmese warlord who got his start with the Kuomintang, amassed a personal army big enough to have territorial feuds with the governments of Thailand and Burma, and trafficked more than 1000 tons of heroin to America. The party, it seems, has since moved to Afghanistan, and the indigenous people now cultivate rice paddies where the poppy fields used to be.
...and now
The plan is to ride some elephants, go bamboo rafting, and hang out with some hill tribes. Peace!
Bienvenido, Thailand
by Ben
We're in Thailand! We landed around 3:30 local time, and arrived at the hostel just three hours and four dark alleys later. So far our Thai experience has been limited to the airport (which has a crazy steel exoskeleton), the bus ride (which was almost as quick as our crossing of Australia by solarcar), and the FOOD!!! of which there is a lot. And it is cheap. It has already received the highest honour we have to offer, math team approval*.
*This may or may not be an inside joke... I'm not sure if we've mentioned it on the blog, but Marvin! is the new solarcar math team. When he approves something, you know it must be awesome to a high degree of accuracy.
Anyway, there is one question I know you must be asking.
What happened to Sydney??!
Sydney was awesome. Two main things happened in Sydney.
1) OPERA HOUSE!!!
Indisputable evidence that we were in Sydney
2) CSIRO
Our last observer on the race was a guy called Colin who works for CSIRO, which is this ridiculous Australian entity that is effectively a government owned science think-tank. Apparently they invented Wi-Fi. Their building had gold in the windows. They have a measuring machine that is accurate to 0.1 micrometers. It's made out of granite. If more governments had these we'd be building solar spaceships instead of solar cars.
Unfortunately all the stuff inside CSIRO was top secret so I don't have any photos. Imagine something s0 futuristic that it has blue glowy lights and makes a whirring sound.
Anyway, it is now (very early) on day 2 of Thailand. Our plan of action for today is to rescue DC from Kuala Lumpur and then make a plan. And then eat. As is not said in Thailand, adiós!
airborne again
by dcposch
...so we spent two relaxing days in the lovely town of Wellington, and are now sitting in the international terminal of its airport. On Saturday night, the All Whites beat Bahrain at "football" and the city filled with load people in white jumpsuits and live music and generally turned into a giant seaside party. The atmosphere of revelry continued well into Sunday, which saw some major streets cordoned off and lined with flag-waving kids for the Santa Day Parade. I said goodbye to Wellington's palatial Burger King, complete with an extravagant neo-Baroque ceiling and an espresso machine, by getting a giant pancake breakfast. Yes, even the fast food here is pretty extreme.
...almost like this
In a few hours, we'll be Down Under again. Next stop: Thailand. I spent this morning reading a bit about that country's history--an elaborate fugue of warlords, farmers, clashing ethnic groups and abortive attempts at democracy. The country has 17 different constitutions since they first tried that sort of thing in 1932. Their most recent PM was kicked out after the Royal Thai Army walked into Bangkok with lots of guns and accused him of having a "conflict of interest" because he was also a host on a TV cooking show. Apparently this sort of thing happens every few years. Thailand is a very peaceful country in spite of everything--it's mostly Buddhist and hasn't had a real war or particularly violent coup since WWII.
Political ridiculosity aside, Thailand sounds like a promised land of teak temples and spicy street food, where a dollar will get you 33 Baht and a couple Baht will get you really good tea. Updates forthcoming!
for a country that doesn’t let in mud, they sure have a lot of it here
by Nathan
This post wraps up our third day in the small coastal town of Raglan. It's been a very relaxing few days among the surf, mountains, and peaceful people that make up this community. Let's do a quick rundown of the past couple days.
Day 1 in Raglan
Rain and wind caused us to spend the afternoon on the beach playing with Ben's failboard (he insisted on calling it a skimboard). Before that we checked into "Sunscape," a small eco-community/campsite/hostel/experimental living/hippy haven up on a hill above the ocean. Some relevant pictures:
we're living in a train car...it's awesome
marvin struggles with the laws of physics for the first time
Day 1's dinner was delicious. There might have been lamb. The rosemary plant outside the kitchen might have been involved. The local police are still sorting through the details.
Day 2 in Raglan
Sunshine! Glorious sunshine meant that it was time to surf. Or as Matt said, "Surf's up, but DC is not." Once we all woke up, we headed to the beach, rented surfboards and the required wetsuits, and headed for the beach. Before we break into surfing photos, it's worth mentioning how awesome this beach was. Ngarunui Beach, a black sand beach, consisted of several miles of perfectly(unnaturally, we think) flat sand. So flat, in fact, that most of Ben's pictures seem mirrored. This isn't just water, the ground was probably cut by lasers....
Anyways, pictures of the beach:
nathan getting his TRON on
Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. This does not make sense. There are horses on this beach. Again, this does not make sense.
why is this not an album cover?
And now, moving on to day three, lovingly entitled: "THE BRITISH ARE COMING." Here we go!
THE BRITISH ARE COMING*
*they're not. We were going to meet up with some members of the Cambridge Solar Car Team, but they were waylaid in Auckland by administrative details including but not limited to lost wallets and persnickety rental car companies. Very sad. Hopefully we'll see them around at some point in the future (NASC hint hint nudge nudge).
Anyways, we spent a third day in anticipation of meeting the Cambridge team for dinner in Raglan. In order to pass the time, Matt, DC, and myself did what we usually do the pass the time...climb a mountain! This hike was amazing, and involved lots and lots of mud. I felt like a good hippy with my feet:
finger-lickin' good...
Anyways, pictures of the hike:
hike
the view from about 3/4 of the way up. We're currently staying in the closest spot of civilization.
The others went into town to do laundry and get kebabs, which were supposedly really really good. Upon hearing this, the first thing both Matt and I asked was "what was the place named?" Over the past several weeks, we've realized that the kebab quality is proportional to the quality of the pun in their name:
Abrakebabra: 9/10
Mecca Kebab: 6/10
Ali Kebab: 5/10
Wrap-Up: 9/10
We've gotten to know a few of the characters around the hostel over the last couple days. I talked to a guy from Germany for a bit today and ended up asking him what brought him to New Zealand. He said: "In Germany...everything has its place....is exact. This is not for me. New Zealand is....different." This is the most insightful description I've yet heard of this awesome country. It's a shame we're leaving so soon.
I leave you, as always*, with a picture of Marvin!
what is there to say?
*it's a lofty ideal...we don't always make it, but we try.
EXTREME Sports
by matt
After destroying The Ring, we experienced peace and prosperity at levels previously unknown in The Shire.
Therefore, we decided to do something EXTREME. If there is one place in New Zealand that is extreme, it is Rotorua. This town has taken upon itself the enormous task of subjecting people to extreme risks and hazards without killing them. Activities such as bungee jumping, zorbing, downhill luge, and jet boating are just a few of the things that you can do.
In Rotorua, we stayed at a nice little holiday park with access to geothermal hot tubs and the hot sands of the beach. All you have to do is dig into the sand a bit and you find warm/hot water, just waiting for you to bask in it. We also visited some hot springs and refined our abilities to jump over said hot springs, which happened without incident.
Little did we know, we would soon be sucked into the EXTREME activities. We arrived at the poorly named Agrodome and first saw the Zorbing hill, which is much too small. Ben, Marvin!, and Nathan' decided to Zorb down the hill, and they were left dizzy with big smiles on their faces.
Marvin! walking away from the Zorb, dizzy and smiling
Matt, Nathan, and DC decided to search for something more extreme, so they chose to find the trails that Gary Fisher himself said had "the best singletrack ever." We rented bikes from a cool guy named Ed at Planet Bike, just at the trailhead. He was very interested in our solar car exploits, so we fed him lies about how fast, light, and strong our solar car was, they ran away with three of his best hardtails.
In New Zealand, they have a rating system for MTB (mountain bike) trails. They range from 1, which is for tots, to 6, which means death. We rode mostly 3's and 4's, which are "intermediate." We soon learned once again that New Zealand is very EXTREME, because the trails we were on were full of ridiculously steep terrain and crazy jumps. There were 100 miles of trails, and we ended up lost many times, the worst of which resulted in using the iPhone compass, which was a crazy idea, just crazy enough to work. DC managed to ride faster the more lost we got, and eventually Nathan hit a tree, did a flip, and got a grease tatoo. Nathan is fine, all he got was a bruise and a sprocket-shaped series of punctures on the back of his leg that he can show off to girls.
DC charging up a fireroad to get to the most EXTREME trails
Meanwhile, Marvin!, Nathan', and Ben found "actually quite serious" cars and raced them around a very short track. To everyone's suprise, Nathan' had the fastest lap. This is interesting for those longtime readers out there, because Ben beat Michigan in the hot lap at Hidden Valley Raceway (to be fair, Michigan uses MTB brakes and sometimes has trouble slowing down for corners).
After getting our fill of EXTREME, we decided to hit the surf. According to the Interwebs, the best surf is in a little town called Raglan on the western coast of the north Island, about 2 hours south of Auckland. We were disappointed by cloudy weather at first, but the clouds cleared, and we tested the waters with a skimboard that caused us all to faceplant into the sand.
In conclusion, Surf's Up!
it must be destroyed.
by Nathan
So yesterday we hiked Mount Doom! Doom! Doom!
this Ben climbing up the last 50m of Mt. Mount Ngauruhoe. He really, really needs a haircut.
It's not actually mount doom, it's only the mountain they used as a base for the CGI confection that served as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings series. That being said, we hiked the Tongariro Crossing, a 19km day hike involving volcanoes, steam vents, fire (water), brimstone (sulfur vents). The hike only around a thousand meters of vertical gain, but what they don't tell you is that it involved at least 3000000 m vertical gain AND drop. It was intense.
Mt. Doom
That being said, that didn't stop DC from running up at at least three times our speed.
DC climbs a bit faster than we do. This is about 30 seconds into the hike.
Anyways, we encountered some spectacular views that had us all humming LOTR themes. At some point, we realized that we had actually left the ring at the hostel (silly, we know, especially considering it will continue the hold evil has on this planet). Oh well.
Anyways, that didn't stop us from re-enacting the movies in as many ways as possible. First up, we have:
Gollum fishes for fishies.
Also,
matt contemplates the enormity of the task of destroying the ring. while wearing sunglasses.
We were thoroughly surprised by this signpost in the middle of Mordor (Mt. Ngauruhoe is in the background. We were on top of the crater earlier that day):
you would think that evil would not be nearly this helpful. you might be surprised.
Anyways, the fellowship remains unbroken:
Hey look! Marvin! is in this picture. He was there over the course of the whole hike, RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!!
We drive to Rotorua today for some zorbing, biking, hot springs, and EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME(sp?)
In the shadow of Mt Doom
by Ben
Yesterday we picked up two cars in Wellington, and today we arrived at a camp ground near the base of the volcano used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before I talk about that, however, I must talk about the cars.
We wanted to get two manual transmission cars. This was unsuccessful because the car rental place had extremely limited stock. What they did have was a Nissan Sunny. The only place I have ever heard about a Nissan Sunny before is the show Top Gear. This is how Nissan Sunnys are treated on Top Gear:
Nissan Sunny
The other car is a Daihatsu, which I believe is some kind of Toyota, and is actually kind of nice, considering it has a 1.3 liter engine. I'm pretty sure cars with engines that small are considered unpatriotic in the US.
Anyway, the drive was exciting, and we've now seen some small fraction of the sheep in New Zealand. Around two thirds of the way through we could see Mount Ruapehu, which is (according to Wikipedia) one of the mountains filmed for Lord of the Rings, but (according to Nathan) not the real one. At this point we stopped to look at it and so Matt could graze.
The Sunny isn't on fire... yet
Later, we were far enough around Mount Ruapehu that we could see Mount Ngauruhoe, which is apparently the real Mount Doom.
It didn't look as scary as I was worried it might
Better photos to follow tomorrow when we actually climb it! (Assuming Sauron doesn't find us)
P.S. I don't think I've ever actually seen the third Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty sure that's the one that Mount Doom appears in, so any references I make come from wikipedia.
Concerning Hobbits
by Marvin!
So. We finished the solarcar race, and now ve are in new zealand!
The customs people took my toothpaste, and I must buy more now. Which I just remembered. I should go buy toothpaste.
Goodbye. I will finish this post later.