It's our last day in Chiang Mai, so I thought I'd throw one out there. If you like it, right on, if you don't, throw it right back at me.

Two weeks ago...(sorry)... we went down to a farming town called Mae Ta, which is about an hour and a half South of Chiang Mai by truck. On my study abroad two years ago we studied Agroecology there for two weeks and another week in a town called Phang. My host parents in Mae Ta were kind of like Cheese on Cheese crackers. That's how awesome they were (and all you Wisconsin folk know what I'm sayin). My Mae Ta host mom's name is Mae Boasai, and I just this time found out my pop's name was Poh Sorn, who recently showed up in a farming magazine for having top-of-the-line organic pumpkins or some vegetable. Their situation is pretty dreamy for anyone with a farming interest..

About 10 years ago, Mae Boasai and Poh Sorn were farming their three "rie" (about half an acre) of land Mae Boasai inherited from her father. They used the standard amount of chemicals in their farming practices, fertilizers, a few pesticides, herbicides, etc. One rie was devoted to vegetable farming, and two were rice paddy fields.. She was in debt up to her eye balls and decided to make the switch, knowing the first few years were going be as successful as the Lion's last two years. So she stopped using all chemicals, started making compost from her rice stalks, animal manure, and fruit juice, and avoided the bank for a while. The first year she produced "less than half" of her normal amount of produce, from what I understood, so she had to buy more food, further herself in debt. The second year she produced maybe three quarters of the normal amount of food because the soil was so reliant on the input of chemicals that it couldn't function well on its own, even with a little compost help. The good part about this year though was that she saved a lot of money not buying those chemicals so she wasn't really putting herself in debt more. The third year she produced about the same amount of veggies, fruit, and rice as she had previously with fertilizers and chemicals (and this is the two late forty-year olds working by themselves). She was able to start paying off her debt and looking into organic markets to sell her stuff. There are two markets in Chiang Mai to which she and a few of her town friends commute twice a week to sell their organic certified food. Now she has 7 rie of land and is in the process of buying more. Movin on up!

The ride to Mae Ta with Mae Boasai

We met Mae Boasai at one of the markets on a Wednesday morning because our volunteer schools got canceled for a few days, unfortunately, courtesy of the Bangkok police. Usually I help her sell if she's not already sold out, which happens a lot, eat some Northern Thai food ("nam preek nam boo" super spicy chili paste with crushed crab, bamboo shoots, sauteed veggies with pork...), and peace out. But since we didn't know how else to get back to Mae Ta from the market, we just hitched a ride with the group, all six of whom were riding back in a single truck. This truck was loaded completely with their empty crates, and the front cab was full of people, so Julia, Mae Boasai and I sat in the back on two very skinny wooden slates basically on the edge of the bed. However uncomfortable the hour and a half long ride along and through mountains was, it allowed us to experience yet another local means of traveling. Mae Boasai somehow fell asleep while bumping along with her head banging on crates in front of her.

Through the mountains.Naptime

Remember to honk when you turn the corner!

Last time I was in Mae Ta it was the rice harvesting season, so helping on the farm was the most back aching labor I've ever done. You spend the whole day hunched over cutting rice with your scythe, and, if you're lucky, you know someone in the village who brews homemade rice whiskey to relieve said aches. This time of year is just veggie harvesting and planting so Julia and I helped spread seeds and manure and compost, pick a few veggies just for dinner, and went fishing for cat fish and brim in one of their ponds. That was a new type of fishing for me too; you thrown the grain and food into the pond, and drop a hooked worm directly into the fish's mouth. We caught a bucket full and fried them for dinner. That night and all through the next day torrential rain flooded the town and the river going through it to triple the river's size causing multiple base levels of houses to be flooded and taking out tens of rie of rice. Luckily all of Mae Boasai's land was flood proof (of course, she's a genius). When we checked out the river in the morning, all the bugs and critters were climbing to the top of rice stalks for dear life, a few of which were scorpions. Most people were immersed in the flooding water with their nets catching crabs. Julia and I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon shoveling out sand that had flown from driveways into the gutter, clogging it. We helped the next door neighbor shuck their baby corn heap for another hour, but huge rain storms mean no work for most.

Supper, arroy
Mae Ta, bordered by rolling mountains. Looks like the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia, don't it?On this road to the farm, the river is straight ahead, but it shouldn't be.
Some of the flooding on the main roadFlies and insects flee the flash flood, this is a scorpion
Poh Sorn and IBaby Corn
Moving sand back into the driveway

Mae Boasai's recent developments since two years ago consist of a new large screen t-v, two new bathrooms with showers (big step considering last time I showered out of a bucket), and a methane biodigester. She and Poh Sorn put the poo into this hole, you see, and then they have free fuel. It's so easy. Later Julia and I went to the local school to check it out and a group of students were playing a game similar to bowling where they throw a ball into a stack of tops and if they knock it over, one team scatters and the other team tries to tag them with the ball before they can build the tops back up. I gotta say it looked really entertaining. We ate more grilled fish and Mae Boasai killed one of her chickens for us that night. I won't get into how she killed it but I've never seen it done like that before. We took a songtow (truck taxi) back through Lampun and into Chiang Mai for work on Friday. In all, Mae Ta is really awesome, and the town has developed somewhat since a higher percentage has turned organic. It's real proof that organic farming lessens your dependence on others and, when done correctly, can be extremely profitable.

School Kids playing

Methane biodigester: put the poo in the little blue part, the gas rises and they cook with it.

Now it's our last day in Chiang Mai, and, though it's supposed to be the exact day ending the rainy season, it's been pouring for two days and looks like the typhoon that hit the Philippines and the new one that is heading towards South East China is finally catching up with us. Could put in for a rainy next month to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We're leaving tomorrow for Laos! We'll be there for a little while, then head to Ankor Wat in Cambodia, then towards Southern Vietnam for a few weeks. Should be interesting so we'll do our best to keep up the blog! Peace in the SE...