My first day in Trang- done! We had a great day of orientation for our volunteer placement and overall stay in southern Thailand and then visited a local Chinese temple called Meunram. Jack did a great job explaining how to light the incense we were given and pray to the gods. You first light four candles, leaving them in different places in the room. Afterwards you place three incense sticks in about 10 bowls of sand. At each bowl we made a wish, some wishes themed for different things in life such as health, wealth, and happiness. I remember what I wished for and still hope they come true.
After our wishes and prayers we were given a large metal cup full of numbered turquoise sticks similar to chopsticks and shown how to shake the container until one of the sticks falls out. The number that falls out represents the number you need to receive a unique premonition. We walked to the wall of numbered boxes and were each given our fortune written in Chinese and Thai on a piece of paper (Trang has a very strong Chinese influence). Jack read each out loud once we’d returned to the bus, mine said something to the affect of, “your time is not quite right now...you are ready for love and your soulmate is very close by- just an arms-length branch away. You’ll be with your soulmate in a very short time, but not quite yet.” Interesting....
Post premonition we drove about 45 minutes through Hat Chao Mai national park and took a boat to plant mangrove trees in a nearby river forest. The Queen of Thailand has called for this project as a way to protect the surrounding area from tsunamis and other natural disasters. Trang was not affected by the 2004 Tsunami partly because it was far enough away from the epicenter and partly because of the natural protection provided by trees.
After planting the mangrove trees we went down a side river and stopped just short of a rocky inlet to see 2 limestone caves. These caves were dramatically different than those I saw in Halong Bay. While they weren’t as large, they were more untouched and not as frequented as Halong Bay. Our group was the sole visitor in this moisture infused, muddy, and slippery place. We crawled up natural water pools deep into the cave and saw hundreds of stalagmite formations and limestone walls. At the entrance to the second cave we also found 10 or so abandoned bee hives way up above our heads. I really felt with nature and was appreciative of the visit.
The last part of our activities today was the beach. Once again I got to treasure the natural beauty of southern Thailand without the interruption of tourism. The sand was white as can be and overtaken by tiny crabs. I was really curious about where the pattern in the sand came from, but once I laid down to read my book I saw the thousands of crabs all coming out of their holes to eat the salt and spit out the leftovers. Each were different size ranging from a few centimeters to a few inches, but all were doing the same thing, eating and spitting out little balls of sand. They would create paths of balls and I wished I’d had an SLR camera to capture their activity. If today was anything of a representation of the rest of the cultural activities provided by CCS I knew I would be in for an experience of my lifetime.
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