Arriving in Thailand and UHDP by Mary Gilliland

We have been in Thailand for less than 48 hours, and our trip is off to a great start! Our flight to Chiang Mai arrived late Tuesday night but without Rick Burnett. He didn’t make his connection in Seoul, so he spent the night with a friend and caught the same flight on Wednesday. Since it was so late when we arrived, we stayed in the Riverside House Hotel. We all fell into our beds, but not before we walked around Chiang Mai for awhile.

Wah, from the Upland Holistic Development Project (UHDP), met us at the hotel at 10:30 Wednesday morning with a driver and a very large van. We stowed our luggage, climbed in, and prepared for our three-hour ride to UHDP. At about noon, we stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere, and we were immensely impressed with the food! With full bellies, we continued on the winding road until we reached UHDP. Wah showed us to our lodgings, and we settled in and rested until dinner was ready. With Rick still in Seoul, it was just Wah and the five of us eating dinner in the meeting hall.

Thursday morning dawned by taking a long walk with Bill Gossett along trails remembered from his earlier trip two years ago. After breakfast, we met the UHDP team for the first time since our arrival, and we went around the circle introducing ourselves. We began our work in the plant nursery, sitting around a pile of dirt with spades in our hands, and we scooped the dirt into dozens of small bags. Steve Hemphill, Bill, and Karen Trischler dug up seedlings, being very careful not to damage the roots. Mary Gilliland and Karen Rogers transplanted the seedlings into the small bags. Bill and Karen also placed “sticks” into bags of dirt. These sticks will root and grow into trees of their own in due time. After lunch, Bill, Mary, and Karen took a walk on some trails with Bill as the guide.

In the afternoon, we worked on preparing an older building on the grounds to be the new office. The current office is getting too small. We worked side by side with the UHDP team, painting every room. We had rollers and paintbrushes going everywhere! We stopped when we ran out of paint a couple of hours later, and Wah told us to go rest. She and her team continued working on cleaning up all the supplies; their work ethic has been second to none! Bill and Rick went for a long walk, and Rick took Bill on some trails he had never seen before. Rick was so excited to see all the flora that had been planted years ago, reaching such heights: 20 feet or more! Dinner concluded our day once again with wonderful food, which is why the walks have been needed. The frogs, insects, and other critters are lulling me to sleep with their lullabies, so this is a good place to end for tonight. Stay tuned for more!

CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF THE TEAM