Yesterday I left Bangkok and arrived in the northern city of Chiang Mai. What a difference a few hundred miles makes! Where Bangkok is huge, noisy, often dirty, and yet stunningly beautiful in places, Chiang Mai feels like a college town. Rachel and Kevin compare it to Berkeley (though with better Thai food).
Some of the kids at the VCDF drop-in center making Valentine Cards.
Despite the allure of the town, our first stop yesterday broke some of the charm. Chiang Mai has a large and growing prostitution industry. We went to the Volunteers for Children Development Foundation’s drop-in center for street children. These children are homeless and without families, and they work the streets begging or selling flowers. VCDF has kids as young as three years old come through their doors. It is simply tragic to think about and deeply sad to see.
It's tragic that such a poster even has to be made.
VCDF offers a host of services, including modest health care, simple education, counseling, etc. Many of the kids get caught up in drugs, prostitution, or other horrors, so the center is really like a triage unit … they see and deal with everything, and they have to live with the reality that they can’t help every child.
The kids themselves come from all over, many from Burma. The parents send them to Thailand thinking they’ll find work or live a better life. Of course, many of the parents are simply negligent.
The SOLD Project partners with VCDF. It’s a healthy situation where two non-profits support and encourage each other.
From the drop-in center we headed to (of all things) a wine bar. A glass of South African chardonnay and a few handfuls of popcorn was a nice “back to a safe reality” step for us.
Later we had dinner at a wonderful restaurant, and one of the key volunteers from VCDF joined us. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with him. He helped deepen my understanding of what they face.
Today was more touristy. Our first stop was an elephant sanctuary outside of town. What a kick to see the elephants bathe, steal our bananas, give us hugs, do tricks, and of course give us a ride. It was touristy, but it was a lot of fun. And the elephants seem so ridiculously happy with it all. They truly enjoy people!
My daughter Rachel being hugged by an elephant.
The end of the elephant ride dropped us in a small village of four hill tribes. We walked through the villages and saw the Kayan Lahwi, more commonly known as the “long neck” tribe. Fascinating to see the women with the brass coils around their necks, pushing their shoulders down and their necks up.
From here we went to the RCP program in Chiang Mai. Run by my daughter Rachel’s good friend, the RCP works with teenage boys who sell their bodies to the gay tourists. We visited the drop-in center for these boys. Watching these kids laugh, mess around, and generally act like teenage boys made me shake my head in sadness. So difficult for them to live through this, yet they are so much like all the other teenage boys I’ve met. Alex, who runs the program, is a saint.
Tonight we have dinner with my great friends Bill and Renee, who happen to be in Thailand at the same time. I will also get to meet Tawee, who is the primary Thai leader of The SOLD Project. I’m looking forward to that.