Day 5: The Official Last Day of Fun in Chiang Mai

This is a photo of the beautiful lake in Chiang Mai University – the view in this photo remains fascinating despite having the photo rotated 180 degrees.

To begin the morning, we headed over to Chiang Mai University (again) to conduct an interview with two professors, one from the Department of Veterinary Science, and the other from the Department of Tourism. It was quite an engaging session, where we had our queries answered and gaps filled. Hopefully, our Team Sustainability would be able to come up with something useful to spread the message about protecting the elephants in Chiang Mai.

Next, we proceeded for the Leadership Training that had been planned for us by the seniors. At the start of the Amazing Race, my group tried to decipher the clues but to no avail. We sought help from the hotel receptionist, and immediately rushed to a location without much careful planning. As we carried out the various missions along the way and figured out our next location, we realised the mistakes that we had made. 🙁

Firstly, our 3 locations were on one straight route, with the first clue pointing to the location that was the furthest away and the last clue referring to the location that was somewhat nearest to our hotel. However, as we were too anxious to complete the race, we did not stop to plan initially. Thus, we ended up taking the longer route by going to the location nearest to our hotel, then to the 2^nd nearest location. As we were running out of time, we decided to give our last station a miss. It was quite a distance away from our 2^nd location to the hotel, such that the professors believed we would not make it back on time.

Thankfully, my group mates were really cooperative. When I asked them if they were fine with walking at x1000 speed and running when necessarily, they went along with me. We managed to reach back at the hotel, not just on time but even before our time was up. ^^(Y)

I found it a little pity that we did not manage to get to the last station. Nevertheless, like what David Archuleta mentioned before, “I made up my mind not to care so much about the destination, and simply enjoy the journey.” After all, we were in a race, and could not restart it. The only way left was to make the best out of the remaining journey, and enjoy the simplicity along the streets of Chiang Mai. 🙂

This activity seemed to highlight to me the importance of planning ahead, and that I should never rush or act rashly before devising a plan. It may not be an ultimate successful plan, but at least it will lead me a step closer towards success. Steve Maraboli once said before that “When you establish a destination by defining what you want, then take physical action by making choices that move you towards that destination, the possibility for success is limitless and arrival at the destination is inevitable.” With detailed strategies and careful time management, I am pretty sure that everyone be able to complete all kinds of races in their lives successfully.

 

This activity also highlighted to me the kind of leader that I want to be. As I dislike being the centre of attraction, I prefer flexible roles that would enable me to support my peers in all ways. For instance, I enjoyed taking the initiative to ask locals for directions when we were unsure of our location, and grabbing every opportunity to carry out the extra missions. In my daily life, I take delight in listening to others and observing the way they demonstrate their leadership qualities, and offer my viewpoints when there is a need to. Standing in front of the crowd all the time intimidates me because I am afraid that any wrong decisions of mine will lead to the downfall of the entire group. I guess in life, it is never smooth-sailing, and there will always be a room for mistakes to be made. It occurs to me that, what is more important is to create another room to learn from my mistakes. 🙂

Quoting Lawrence Block, “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.”

To sum up, throughout the week in Chiang Mai, I am really thankful to the seniors and professors that have put in their best effort to plan for this trip, as I cannot imagine myself carrying this huge responsibility and executing the programmes so efficiently. Besides, I am super grateful to our friend from CMU, Pro, who has been such a wonderful facilitator, helping us translate interviews from Thai to English and bringing us to so many beautiful places to explore. Lastly, not forgetting my wonderful group members who has provided so much fun and laughter to make this trip more enriching, more fulfilling.