My time in Thailand as usual has been & continues to be wonderful. After my 2 back to back over night trains to get to Chiang Mai, I headed to the nearest hotel to the station, to try & get a cheap room to do some yoga & get a shower for a couple of hours ( having arrived at 6am) before heading to the meeting point for Sunshine network massage school to go up to Lahu village, 1 hour north of Chiang mai. I couldn’t get a room for a couple of hours without paying for the night so being in traveller budget mode I didn’t want to pay! They were kind though & let me practice in their court yard & shower for free! So no need for a room.
At the meeting point I met a lot of the people who were joining the course, all nationalities from all walks of life. We were packed into the back of 2 Toyota hylux style trucks, rather squashed but it wasn’t too far & it meant we got to see the landscape whilst feeling the wind in our hair & sun on faces!
Izaac the main teacher for the thai yoga massage course said that it would take about 2 days to get used to the village then we would feel right at home, its in our nature to go back to basics. I don’t know why but I felt right at home straight away, I loved the dirt tracks, dogs & chickens etc running around everywhere, pigs & their piglets blocking the path ways. The simplicity of life there was very calming.
Me, Michelle, Catherine & Brit were very lucky with accommodation & got a house to ourselves with our own bathroom. Most other people had to share the showers which were not attached to their buildings, never mind rooms. Me & Brit even had our own rooms. The house was not painted & just breeze blocks but had a nice feel about it, until we heard that apparently it wasn’t used as somebody had died in it. Thai people are very superstitious about death in houses. That might explain the deep breathing sound I kept hearing. I thought I was going mad at one point as it seemed to happen every time the cock cocked! A deep breath could be heard afterwards. One morning I hadn’t slept very well & I said to Brit were you doing some breathing exercises to get to sleep? She said know but I thought you were? Hhaaha so we had a mystery deep breather around the house!!
Brit is lovely & had pretty much done exactly the same as me, quit a job in the corporate world & then went to India & was teaching yoga the next beach along from me. Actually its funny the amount of people on the massage course that had quit their jobs & life at home to look to do something more fulfilling. At least 6,7 people out of 25. It was so nice to be with lots of like minded people.
10 days went so quickly, I would get up at 4.45am then walk up the hill to an open space with a beautiful view of the valley around where we would meditate for 30mins & then we would practice yoga until 7, 7.30am. It was amazing meditating in the dark & by the time you opened your eyes the sun was rising & you had the most beautiful view. I felt really honored after a few days of practicing with Isaac teaching, as he asked me if I wanted to teach, obviously I jumped at the chance as I had been dying to teach since finishing my last training in Bali, although it will definitely be the earliest class I have ever taught. I had about 16 people in my first class which was fab & although I felt a little rusty I had really nice feedback from people who told me I have to find somewhere to teach. I felt that I need to be teaching more as the only way you learn & improve is by teaching, teaching & teaching. We were lucky that we also had a couple of Thai chi classes & Brit taught some yin yoga. I got to teach again & we had a really playful class.
Breakfast at Lahu village consisted of cooked pumpkin & rice & some chilli. There were oats as well, so I found a good combo was oats with pumpkin & juice & banana, pineapple & spirilina! Then I used to take it to the coffee shop, which was someone’s house with a few stools & a table outside. I once again got into coffee, my excuse been it was grown, picked etc etc in the village so I was supporting the local economy, haha. Also it was a nice social activity to sit with the your breaky & drink coffee & chat with the guys on the course. Everyone got on so well, despite it been a very large group.
We would start our massage classes at 9am & begin with a Buddhist chant either Om Mani Padme om or the Buddha chant. Isaac would then demonstrate the section of the body we would be working on & then we would go off & practice on either other, first with a led instruction, then on our own. The early days I felt like it was bliss been massaged continuously, then maybe the end of the 10 days you did start to feel a little bit massaged out! I realized it would take a long time & a lot of practice to become really in tune with the person your massaging & feel really comfortable & confident. I was enjoying it though, some sections of the body more than others. I liked the positions that were more like yoga positions. Everybody got on really well, a good job really as we were swapping partners every day!
Lunch & tea (dinner) consisted of pretty much rice & veg, occasionally with some variations. I enjoyed it, so simple but nice. By 8pm I was pretty tired, a couple of nights we had a mini kirtan or chanting session. One eve it was one of the girls b.day & so we had a little party, Daria (Italian girl) had made an amazing chocolate cake, with biscuits & choc sauce, was delic!! Then we had a mini disco, it was funny because their were a lot of latin people on the course & so of course they were always up for a fiesta. Me & James an English guy joked about how the latin0s were so alive & the first ones to dance whilst the English would never get up & dance without alcohol! It turns out me & James were both on the same Uni course in Hull on the same year. We had a feeling we may have met before but as that was in 1995 we were not sure. Small world!
On day 6 in the afternoon we were taken to a very mini waterfall. It was a nice break from massaging & we got to jump off quite high rocks into a fresh water springs. I have to say when we arrived I was like ‘wheres the waterfall’, it was more of a dribble than a fall! Still we had fun & then the locals cooked us food out in the open & served it in bamboo trays they had made by chopping down some bamboo! We even had bamboo tea, served in bamboo cups. It was a lovely afternoon & it finished with the latinos singing & dancing, v.funny but I supposed you would have to be there!
I ended up leaving Lahu village with a netbook! Daria decided to sell hers as she was skint & so I finally gave in to my netbook envy & bought it off her! Its pink! My fav colour & she named her! Now I have no excuses to study & type up my notes from all my courses I have been doing!
