Minus the last two Laos trip delaying days of pounding fever headaches and temperature swings like a menopausal woman, we spent our last week at Dokmai Garden. This "farm" was another misleading WWOOF host. There was no farm. There was nothing WWOOF about it. There was only a tropical gardening class that you could take for roughly $15 per day. The classes were taught by a Swedish biologist with a PhD and took place in a botanical garden with 975 species of tropical plants, many of which were native to Thailand. So despite the fact that it would not be free and we would not farm, we did it. Well worth the money. It just so happened that Folbert and Corienne, friends of Eric (the Swedish biologist) spontaneously visited during the first day of our stay. Folbert, a Dutch seed technologist with a side passion of orchids, suggested taking a trip the next day to Doi Inthanon National Park, commonly known as the home of Thailand'd highest point. So for a short time we had two authorities teaching us more than we could want to know. Folbert about orchids, and Eric about most everything else. That was some of my most proud bumming hospitality. It wasn't all learning, but even the learning was fun. We:uncovered a scarab beetle larvae (that shit was gross,) spent over an hour with a Swedish mad scientist trying to burn things with his hand lens, forced sex upon a few orchids, sucked on a white, fleshy cacao seed, gritted my teeth and bared a poorly parented three yr. old, pruned bamboo, watched Mimosa pudica leaves fold inward upon being touched, dug up cassava root, pulled up taro root, cooked casava root, cooked tara root, ate cassava root, ate taro root, walked a huge golden retriever named Reuben, among other things.
After the gardening school, we headed back to Veechai's for one night before planning to take an early morning bus to Chiang Khong at the Thai-Laos border. But my fever that began at the end of our stay at Dokmai peaked and I made the decision to postpone for what ended up being two days. Tomorow we leave no matter how I feel, but I feel fine. At Veechai's we: watched a seven yr. old boy run an extension cord outside the house and into his small tent to power two fans, went swimming in a community pool (legally this time,) had pool experience ruined by a boisterous herd of Chiang Mai youth, ate a grilled ham and cheese, drank a juice box of honey-flavored soy milk, designed and constructed a mini gold course on a house lawn, taught wheel-barrow racing to two seven yr. olds, taught jump roping to to seven yr. olds using a string of tied together rubber bands--real ghetto. Fun times.
Tomorrow it is off to Laos or bust. The fever has passed.
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