The Life of Chiang Mai

We just returned from studying forest ecology in the Northern Mountains and living with real hill tribe people. It was one of the most amazing experiences—to be able to be live with people of real culture and heritage. It is also nice to turn on the TV and sit down for a day or two. As soon as I arrived I went straight for the noodle shop on the first floor and after some pad thai, headed upstairs.

The feeling of security that you can glean from a simple apartment room is quite surprising. Since were only living there a couple weeks at a time, we haven’t bothered to put up posters, pictures, or anything to hide the bad white paint job. There is tape holding in the batteries to our remote and there is only one uncomfortable pleather couch. Since I travel every week, the only permanent object is a slack line to hang clothes and an unmade bed. It’s not like coming home to teddy bears and mommas’ homemade pie, but after a while on the road, stopping anywhere for a while is comforting.

Our apartment and school is located in the once quite and pristine town of Chiang Mai Thailand. There are twelve students that live on the eight floor of one of the worst painted buildings I’ve ever seen. Here at the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute(ISDSI), we take the stairs. We take the stairs because the elevator obviously emits carbon through the excess use of energy. Since we can walk up perfectly fine we can save just a little bit of the environment, one stair at a time—take a step for the polar bear. I actually don’t take the stairs for the polar bear, I lost my key and the lock to the stairs is broken. After breaking into the building and going up a flight, I take the elevator from the second floor to the eighth floor. I do my share to try to cut back on carbon usage, but breathing is so tempting that I just can’t hold the carbon in.

The biggest problem with the apartment building is that there is a noodle shop on the first floor. This means, that if all you want to do is eat and watch TV, you don’t have to leave the building. It is to depressing to waste an entire day in the same building, So I generally try to venture outside and find something cheap to do outside. Yesterday, I got stuck. I ventured outside and found myself inside a tailored suit shop and ended up talking about suits, then looking to buy a dark grey-black pinstripe, and a light khaki summer suit, and a wool jacket. Since I’m young, and plan on living longer, and hoping for reasons to look good in the future, I filed the expenses under longterm investment—What, it’s better than investing in real estate.