back in the u s of a

from saigon, we took a way too long bus across cambodia. but cambodia is a very different, amazing place. the temples were huge and so were the trees. the fish are delicious. last two days in bangkok were relaxing and easy and hot, but we got to go swimming for free in our friend's building. the flight home was long, but not too bad. luke's mom surprised us at the airport!

luke and i have been hanging out at my parent's house for a week. the weather is warming up to temperatures that we are used to, which is exciting everyone. tomorrow we will venture north to see luke's family and vermont people, and then it is to boston we go a week later. never stop moving. hopefully we can find jobs. keep your fingers crossed.

see you in the usa, or wherever we end up next!

hello from vietnam

we are now about halfway done with the vietnam leg of the trip. so far, it has been crazy and intense. here is the past 6 days in a nutshell:

hanoi:
good food
the most insane traffic ever
so many motorbikes
so much beeping
no traffic lights, gas stations, rules, or anything that resembles order or the suggestion of order
way fewer dogs than thailand (because they eat them)
way colder than i anticipated (but i bought an amazing coat)
way rainier than i anticipated (i am mad at myself for not packing my raincoat)
some good sightseeing
super cool water puppets (wonky wooden puppets dancing around in the water accompanied by live vietnamese folk music)
crazy taxi drivers

to cat ba island:
train, bus, boat, bus - all the most insanely crowded public transport you could ever imagine

one day at the beach (it was almost sunny)

the boat ride in the limestone bay:
found some rock climbers who wanted to go out and share the cost of the boat
the boat was not a sailboat
tide was too low to climb
it was chilly and cloudy
amazing delicious lunch
kayaking and swimming and freezing
tons of amazing giant limestone islets
water washing away the bottom of the rocks and housing lots of black crabs
cool beaches, collecting seashells
we finally saw one junk rig sailboat on the bay
rain
partial refund for everyone because the climbers didn't get to climb
seafood hot pot deliciousness for dinner
leaving one day earlier than we thought because it is too cold for the beach

overnight bus to hue:
15 hours instead of 11
smelly gross bathroom
small beds made for tiny asian women (about 1 foot too short for luke)
bus did not look like the picture we saw
crazy beeping bus driver
feeling disgusting upon our arrival in hue
bombarded by taxi drivers
everyone wants to "help" you and is super persistent
we pretended to do sign language and be deaf in order to avoid people
finally found a room
things are more peaceful now
taking a break this afternoon, sleeping in tomorrow

vietnam is an interesting, intense, beautiful place. but let's just say i am glad to have lived in thailand and not here!

travel time!

it is almost time to come home. i am ready to travel and do new things. chiang mai has been great and we have made some really cool friends. i will miss many things about thailand, but i think i am ready. here is the agenda:
today: move out in one hour, train to BKK in 4 hours.
tomorrow: leave bags at our friend's house in BKK, fly to hanoi.
next while: do lots of amazing things in vietnam, then go to cambodia for a few days to see a giant amazing temple.
april 18: fly from BKK to tokyo to chicago to cleveland! then eat salmon at great lakes brewery. then go to bed in erie, pa.
after that: well, no idea really. find a job in boston.

i will miss this:

see you soon.
xo

relaxation (and antics) at the floating cabins

last week, luke and i spent 2 days and 2 nights at a place called the floating cottages on a man made lake (they built a dam in a valley) one hour north of town. the lake is in a national park, so it is nice and quiet, unlike many other parts of thailand. there are about 15 different house boat clusters on the lake. some are long, being a series of cabins on bamboo floats, a restaurant or 2, and maybe karaoke. our place was the cabin the furthest out, and therefore the quietest. no karaoke, just reading, swimming, and hammocks. but there were some characters and some antics along the way.


we arrived at the shore and met a man named tom, who with the addition of an eye patch could be a very convincing pirate. he escorted us to our long-tailed boat that was going to take us on the 20 minute ride to the cabins. also in the boat with us was "daisy," our very own thai lady boy, who would be at our service for the weekend!

the ride is beautiful. we are surrounded by mountains and the lake has lots of nooks and crannies, because after all it was a valley before it was filled with water. the cabins are made entirely of bamboo. they are constructed of a series of floats with long, whole bamboo stalks on the bottom, boards on top, and bamboo mats on top of that. there are lots of outside places to sit, including several hammocks! the cabins are 2 separate structures. one is the outdoor kitchen, outdoor living room, and 2 enclosed bedrooms for the care taker and whoever else. we stayed in the other part that had many twin beds and one double bed. all had mosquito nets and half wall bamboo structures in between. there was a bathroom and a sink in the back, but no shower. all of the floats are connected by little wooden bridges. the place is eco-friendly and the water has been tested and is perfectly clean, although we didn't drink it. there is no running water and only a bit of electricity on the caretaker's side. basically it was a lot like camping without the fire pit, but just as cool. even though they are still burning the fields, it was only a little hazy. there was lots of fish jumping to eat bugs, which included bright red dragon flies and huge jungle cicadas.


character number one approaches.
alex, the caretaker, arrives. he is a very tan, older guy from the french speaking part switzerland. one part hippie, one part bad-ass (he was sharpening machetes to cut down more bamboo), he is a pretty nice and chill guy. he tells us that his friend is coming for a week, and is wondering why his boat is not here yet.

character number two arrives, kasse, a masseuse/health professional from holland. also an older, chill guy. he speaks german, amongst other languages, so luke talks to him in german a lot throughout the weekend.

in the quite of the lake, and our swimming/reading/lounging routine that has already begun, we can hear a jet ski approaching. alex informs us that it is kevin, the loud american, a vietnam vet. on the jet ski are characters three through five. first we have kevin, a man who is whole-heartedly still living in the 70's. next we have bubba (or whatever her actual name is), the thai wife of kevin, who is just as loud and blind in one eye. and last, but certainly not least, we have rainbow, the large and colorful macaw parrot, who rides in on the jet ski on the arm of the thai wife! truly a sight to behold. this trio came over a few different times to visit, chatting a lot. we tried to give them the hint several times by reading books and doing quiet things, but it took them quite a long time to realize that we were just chilling. multiple times we heard stories about how the last rambo movie was shot on this very lake, their condo in park city, the new jet ski and what colors they are thinking of painting it, how to tie a bowline, and that we should bbq rainbow for dinner. although we did share our gin and tonics with them, and in return they brought us fresh fish for lunch and some whiskey to share. kevin was convinced that luke and i were "newlyweds," and kept referring to us as that. here is rainbow, wings spread but apparently he does not know how to fly.


we swam about every 10 minutes, ate fish fresh out of the cabin's fish farm that were bbq-ed whole, read a lot, and played cards by candlelight while drinking red wine. not a bad life. the next morning i got my first bee sting ever. i stepped on the bugger out by the bathroom, which resulted in 2 chubby, painful red toes (he got me twice and i had to pull him out of my foot!). but i swam and kayaked it off. after all there was not a lot of walking to be done, mostly lounging and swimming.

the second night there was lots of swirly wind and lightning in the distance. we were pretty convinced it was going to storm (which it never did), so i went back into our room to put everything in the backpacks and tuck it away, since i did not trust the integrity of the bamboo leaf roof. it was dark so all i had was a flashlight. as i was tucking the bags into a corner, i noticed a rather large jungle spider on the floor. it's body was about the size of a nickel or quarter with decent sized legs. i went back out to inform luke that we had a friend, but he did not seem concerned about killing it at the moment. after all, nothing is urgent in thailand. when we finally went to bed, i suggested we search for the spider first, then search the bed and tuck the mosquito net in really well. luke starts searching with the flashlight, and as i am looking the other way, he grabs me by the arm, and says, "you didn't tell me it was that big!" turns out we had 2 jungle spiders, and i had found the baby! this one was the mothership, pretty much the size of a tarantula without the fur. so luke goes out to the tool shelf and i keep an eye on the spider. he comes back and smashed the monster with the back end of a hatchet! we also found the little innocent jungle spider that i had seen before and got that one as well. needless to say, we tucked the mosquito net really well, i did not get up to go to the bathroom in the night, and i had dreams about giant spiders. sorry that i did not get a picture, but it was an emergency situation.

i love swimming.

the next morning we left. on the way home i saw a terrifying sight - a young thai child, maybe 3-5 years old was riding in the front BASKET of a MOTORBIKE! oh amazing thailand, so safe.

................

in other news, we did a cooking class the day after we came back with our friends lucy and natalie. it was delicious and we were stuffed. cooking is fun and i miss it! i will have a kitchen soon!

outrageous

here is a listing of some of the more outrageous observations and events of the past couple days. i won't go into extensive detail or it might take you hours to read, but you get the picture.

wednesday:
-morning trip to the royal flora. kind of like the disney world of botanical gardens, but with no one there. seriously, there were about 7 cars in the giant amusement park-sized parking lot. there were more people watering flowers than visitors. but it was free and nice to be in a quite place, even if it was a little over groomed.
-last day of teaching my private lesson japanese student, Yu the 5 year old. Present from her mom: toothpaste. yes, a tube of herbal toothpaste from the thai royal projects.
-flat tire#1 on the way home.
-bought a plane ticket to vietnam.

next day:
-trip to chiang dao caves on our motorbike with danny (he was on his own motorbike).
-long, long drive on the motorbike. scary construction zones. stupid dogs in the middle of the road.
-arrive at caves. butt hurts from motorbike.
-most amazing sign in thailand: totlet for lamer = handicapped bathroom.
-girl with incredibly crossed eyes gets us lunch.
-caves were really big and really cool. lady led us through with a gas lantern. big huge cave rooms with dripping stalactites and stalagmites. also TONS of bats! a little bit of creepy crawling in between some of the big rooms.
-met a girl from maine who went to uvm and had an italian friend.
-giant fish in pond.
-danny calls his climbing friend who tells us about a cool wat.
-we are tired, but the wat was really cool and worth walking up about 500 steps. on a hill in the jungle. really quiet. lots of bugs.
-time to ride home. danny goes first and ends up ahead of us.
-flat tire #2 in 2 days. luckily it happened in an area that actually had life and there was a mechanic across the street.
-while they fix the tire, we witness 2 school boys trying to balance 2 large boxes, 2 soccer balls, and the 2 of them on one bicycle.
-man fixes tire. changed tube. insists that we can get home with the same tire even though there is a hole ripped in the rubber. are you sure? yes, can go to chiang mai, he says.
-after pulling out of the place, tire feels wobbly. we plan to check it if it continues to be weird. luke is driving slow.
-not even 5 minutes later the thing goes flat and ends its life with a loud pop. luckily, luke was watching out for mechanics on the way and there is one near us. i keep luke from destroying the bike and/or his helmet.
-on the walk to fix flat tire #3 we see a boy riding a bicycle with a young man on the back seat of the bike. the man on the back is holding a full grown chicken in each arm. of course, of course he is.
-we have 6 mechanics to fix our tire. after a long series of miscommunications in thai, they all realize that we want a new tire at any price and we will not leave without one. man takes tube off and we find out that our last mechanic had used our old tube, cut in half, as a buffer for our shit tire that did not make it.
-very drunk cambodian man with long hair and long beard is hanging out at the mechanic. he wants us to drink his beer with him. we say no. he brings us a chang anyway. luke opens it with his pocket knife and breaks the glass. shows crazy drunk man and asks for a glass. instead we get a new bottle. luke and i proceed to drink a warm chang beer (not the best even when cold) while they fix our tire. drunk man speaks really close to luke's face. asks us things about how long are we here and where are we going and where are we from. tells us he is cambodian. keeps repeating "handsome," beautiful," and "happy" amongst other english words. after each "happy" we must cheers. one of the 6 mechanics comes over to check on the drunk man and translate a bit. all is well so he goes back to supervising. luke and i are in hysterics. good thing the tire popped. it cost us about $15 to meet this crazy dude.
-finally make it home. dinner and shower. i was literally covered in pollution and soot and helmet hair after nearly 4 hours on the bike.
-poker game. luke wins 600 baht, which cancels out our tire debts for the day.

future excitement

this is, quite possibly the best sentence i have ever read. out of my book on vietnam, on bai tu long bay in the north:

"Most can arrange an excursion into Ha Long's sibling [bay] on a sailboat, including one overnight on the boat and one on Quan Lan Island, in a bungalow on the gorgeous white-sand beach."

yes, i am going to do this. and yes, i love life.

stories of visitors and points south

on the 5th luke and i began our mini trip by taking the sleeper train down to bangkok. although longer than the night bus, the ride was beautifully scenic and much more roomy and comfortable. the train is pretty old and has lovely shades of mint green and navy blue amidst the metal framework. when we arrived in bangkok, our taxi driver misunderstood us and dropped us off on the wrong soi, but we just got out and walked to our guesthouse. we arrived at about 7 am and ate breakfast while waiting for bill and charlotte. they had arrived around midnight. so we had three days to show them around the chaotic scene that is bangkok.

day 1: walking bonanza around the glitzy mall district, up to the top of the tallest building in thailand, the art and culture center had a new show up, and then we went to china town. china town is pretty cramped and interesting. we were definitely the only farang there. there was a really neat chinese temple - i had not been in one yet. then we headed back to our super cool guesthouse restaurant and drank a beer - only one though because luke had to wake up early to take the foreign service officer test at the embassy the next day! (which he thinks he did well on!) bangkok is a tiring place. charlotte and i got amazing foot massages after dinner.

day 2: luke left early to make his way to the embassy, and i got an early start with bill and charlotte to do a morning sightseeing whirlwind tour. we took the river taxi to the grand palace, wat pho with a huge huge giant reclining buddha, and the temple of the dawn. i think i sufficiently wore them out! after that we went over to lumpini park (the little haven within bangkok) and saw the giant dragon lizards. i love that park. we went back to our neighborhood and had some beers before dinner. then we went about the task of finding thai food in an international city...not the easiest thing to do. it seems that most of the thai food in bangkok is from street vendors and all the restaurants are international. we finally found a thai place in the back side of this hotel. no one was there but the lady was nice and was chatting to luke and i in thai a lot. i got green curry, which is usually not hot, but turned out to be the spiciest food i have eaten thus far! i needed an extra beer and i was crying and snotting uncontrollably after i accidentally ate a pepper! but hey, i did it!

day 3: bill and charlotte started the day checking out jim thompson's teak house while luke and i went to hang out in the hip university area (we had been to the house already last time). we ended up buying some really cool tshirts for ourselves and as presents. my shirt has a chandelier on it! we also went into this crazy mall/market indoor place to find an internet cafe. it was a crazy maze booby trap of consumerism and chaos. then we met them over by the giant chatuchak weekend market. we checked it out a little bit and i bought a straw hat that makes me feel like i should be at a pool party from the great gatsby.

the next paragraph will be an account of my downfall for the day - food poisoning! baa! so after the market we went back to the hostel and drank some cheap beer. my lunch was small and after i drank the beer i felt really bloated and tired. so i took a short nap. when i woke up we were going to meet our friend nick for dinner at this place nearby called cabbages and condoms. i woke up feeling nauseous and thought maybe i was just really hungry. i ate a couple crackers and we started walking. halfway there, i felt horrible, like i was going to puke. and then i did. i tried to make it over the garden wall but with no success. i got some on my dress too, so i need to go back and change. i felt better after the puke and thought maybe i just needed to get the beer out. so off to dinner round two. charlotte got me an apple juice box that i sipped on for the walk there. cabbages and condoms is actually really cool. they promote family planning and aids awareness and prevention. there were all these statues decorated with colored condoms. too bad i felt like shit. so i just ordered rice. and then before the food came, i ran to the bathroom and puked apple juice tasting food all over the toilet - that god for the sprayer! i ate half my rice and headed home early with charlotte. halfway there i had to go to the bathroom (now this is food poisoning, so obviously an emergency number 2) so we stopped at this italian restaurant. i asked for the bathroom and ran upstairs - three flights of them in fact. as i am sitting on the toilet i feel more puke coming on....and of course the garbage can has a lid that i cannot get off in time. so i puked rice all over the bathroom of some nice italian restaurant.....and there was no sprayer. but at that point i did not care about anything. so i made it home and proceeded to puke and poop about 10 times total that night. oh joy. let's just say my system completely emptied out and rebooted. the thing is though all i ate for lunch was rice and an omelet at a nice, crowded thai restaurant.

off to the beach (cha-am)
luckily i stopped puking at about 7 am. luke and i were not sure during the night if i was going to be able to get to the beach. i decided that we should take the train instead of the bus because then i will have a bathroom handy. luckily i did not need it on the train. i just sipped lots of gatorade and water and even managed to eat some watermelon! the train ride was beautiful once again, going through super green fields and rural neighborhoods and marshes. the train took a little longer than we thought, but we got to the beach in 4 hours.

charlotte and i sat in some comfy lounge chairs with all our bags on the beach while the boys went off to find a room. there was a big group of thai guys that said "hello" and giggled everytime we walked by. i had on my zebra tshirt and they also kept saying "zebra!" and giggling. once we got all settled i changed into my bathing suit and went in the water! it was so warm. hooray for not puking anymore! i still did not eat dinner, but at least i could swim.
the next day we had the whole day just to lounge on the beach in comfy chairs under beach umbrellas! ahhh, relaxation. i could have stayed a few more days. there were not many people there so it was pretty quiet. the beach is pretty long but not very wide because of the tide. there are lots of chairs and tables and umbrellas and you can sit in them all day for less than a dollar a piece. they also had big black inner tubes you can rent for the same price, which we did. there were people walking around selling you snacks, squid pressed in a squid press, sarongs, massages, and banana boat rides. this consisted of a really makeshift jet ski (with bmx bike handle bars and an outboard motor) with a long skinny raft tied to it. then the thai's climb on fully clothed - but amazingly with life jackets! - and get pulled around and scream until they get knocked off. all the thai's swim fully clothed. some boys take their shirts off, but most don't. it is quite the scene. there were a few other farang there, who were definitely not swimming in their clothes, but i wish they were. fat old ladies should not wear bikinis. or sunbathe topless in thailand - this is not europe people!

we saw a couple of huge huge barges in the distance. no sailboats though, but some fishing boats. lots of seashells. and we even saw jellyfish! there were a few tiny ones, and we captured on in a glass for a few minutes (the non-sick were drinking gin and tonics. i had one sip but was just glad to actually be swimming! anyway that is why we had glasses.) it was really cool and kind of looked like a mushroom.

we also saw a 7" brown mushroom jelly swimming around. that is the first time i ever saw a jellyfish and also the first time luke and i ever swam in salt water together! that night after dinner (yes, i actually ate food!), luke and i went for a walk. the moon was full and super bright! the tide had gone out really far and the beach was about 4 times the width that it had been in the afternoon. we saw all kinds of crazy sea creatures that had washed up on the sand when the tide went out, including a huge jellyfish! it must have been two feet wide! (see picture) and it was super dense - i kicked it with my shoe and it felt really heavy.

unfortunately bill did not eat dinner that night because he was sick too! he thinks he had a bad egg at lunch, but he had "katie light" and was able to get it out in 3 pukes instead of 12. luckily he felt ok for the trip up to bangkok (by minibus, 2 hours). we then took a taxi to the train station and hopped on the sleeper train to chiang mai. really scenic, but this time quite depressing because we went through all the slums outside of bangkok on our way out. the countryside was beautiful though, and we got to watch the sunset behind some small mountains as we approached the north.

bill and charlotte got to see all the cool things in chiang mai in there 5 days here, including riding elephants on valentine's day, an afternoon at the waterfall, beer towers, and the sunday walking street market. on valentine's day luke and i got massages and then ate dinner at a place we have never been to on the river. we got some new and interesting food - including a polynesian seafood dish that had "8 special ingredients" such as jellyfish! it was really good. we got some drinks with our friends after.

yesterday we went to the zoo with bill and charlotte for their last thailand sight! it was really fun because we got to see the pandas! the male was really active the whole time we were there and the female came out for a bit. i also got to see a peacock with its feathers out! i love peacocks. at lunch i felt something prickly on my had and looked over to see a praying mantis had landed on me! i grabbed the map and put him onto it and then onto the table. it was bright green. the thing was super mad though. it was walking around really fast and punching the air. when luke finished his food he put the little guy on his plate and transported him to the bushes. that was our wild animal sighting for the day.

after the zoo, bill and charlotte flew to bangkok. they are on their flight home as i type this. we are glad that they came out and i think they had a good time! it was a nice break from chiang mai for luke and i, and it was also good to see people we know. today is our 5 month mark. we are going to try and do all the cool stuff around town that we haven't seen yet in our last month and a half here and then it is off to vietnam, cambodia, and home! check shutterfly for new pictures.

visitors

as a vacation from our stressful life in chiang mai (haha, yea right), we will be going to bangkok tomorrow. the reason being we have visitors! bill (luke's roomate from college) and charlotte are flying from VT to visit for 10 days or so. we will be in bangkok, the beach 3 hours south of bangkok, and then up to chiang mai. i am so excited to make a sand castle and drink a fancy drink on the beach! hooray! pictures and blogs in a week or so.

haircut!

so i got a haircut in thailand! yay! i really needed one, and after a few days of debating if i wanted to go super short - i did! i printed a photo out from the internet and went to this swanky salon in our neighborhood. for $6 i got my hair washed with 4 different concoctions and 4 head massages, cut and styled! and the lady called my beautiful (in thai) and sexy lady (in english). pretty sweet deal.

in other news cam is here! ally's older brother is on a monumental tour of asia, and he has made his way to chiang mai. since october (i think) he has been to japan, korea, malaysia, and southern thailand - starting at the beach and working his way up here. today we took him to the waterfall. he will be here for at least a few more days. then it is off to laos, vietnam, and cambodia.


some life goals:
be really good at yoga
learn to tap dance
grow vegetables and lots of garlic
own a sweet sailboat (duh!)

how to do a visa run

luke and i have one year visas for thailand. logic would say that that means we are allowed to stay in thailand for 365 days. not the case. every three months you must leave and get a new stamp. why? i have no idea. the thai government does not make any money off of us because we do not have to pay an exit or entry fee on these trips. bizarre, yes. but welcome to thailand.

so, on our trip to laos with chris, we got the necessary stamp. but that stamp was going to run out on february 1st, so we needed to leave again. the shortest and easiest trip to do this is to go to the burmese border 4 hours north of here. this trip can be done in one day, but i do not recommend it! we did some proofreading (for our booming business!) for a tour company's website, so we got a deal on a minibus through them. this is where the story begins.

friday morning we go downstairs at 7:20 to get picked up by the minibus. but the minibus gets lost and arrives at 7:55, and in the meanwhile we have been freezing in the morning mountain air waiting. the minibus is a 15 passenger van, and, lucky us, we are the last ones to be picked up! so that means that luke and i got to sit on the back bench 4-seater, in the middle! the "bitch" seats, if you will. oh joy. 4 hours. now for you erie people, imagine the road that goes down to the yacht club. twisty and turny and hilly. now imagine this for 4 hours, at high speeds around every corner, with nothing to hold onto and no seat belts! yes, very fun. luke and i had packed a whole bag of things to read, etc, and my ipod. of course, due to the wonderful twisty road we did not read a thing! but we had music. ok.

so when we first got on the bus, luke said that he could smell beer. i smelled it too. maybe someone had some dirty clothes that had beer spilled on them the night before? umm, no actually. at 9 am we discovered the answer. in the row in front of us was a rather greasy, skinny, scruffy, old european man. and he was drinking a liter bottle of chang beer, wrapped in some ads from the newspaper at 9 AM! of course that was where the beer smell was coming from! i tried hard not to crack up at the sight of this.

so one rest stop and four hours later we arrive. our driver lets us out and tells us to come back to the bus in one hour! yes, not much time for our lovely little trip into burma! so the place is pretty packed. there are lots of shops lining the street on the thai side (mae sai) with the border crossing right in the middle of the road. we walk up, get our stamp to exit thailand and then cross a little river that is no mans land. we go into the little room on the burmese immigration side that is packed with people. first we are supposed to pay the visa fee for entering the town. no matter how long you stay, the fee is $10 US or 500 Baht. 500 Baht = $15 US, so logic would say to pay in US$ to get a better deal. and that was our plan. i had a $5 and some 1's with me from home, which wasn't enough, so before we came we changed our money in chiang mai for a $20 US. well all money is not created equal, apparently. luke tried to give the guy our $20 in exchange for the forms we needed. he was not interested and was pointing at it. at first we did not know why he didn't want it and tried explaining to him that is was for 2 of us and we didn't need change. then i finally figured out what he was saying. he was pointing at a small spot of black marker in the upper left hand corner of the bill and saying "dirty"...aka he didn't want to take it. what!?!?! it's money! that was outrageous, but luke had to pay in baht (luckily we had enough with us!). then i tried to pay with my $5 and 5 $1's. well the $5 had a dog-ear crease in one corner and one of my $1's was too wrinkley and another had a tear. so much for that. i paid in baht too. ugh. then they take your passport (because the military junta does not want you wandering anywhere outside of the one town you are allowed into) and give you a card for your receipt.

this is the "dirty" $20, can you spy the marker above the 0?

so yay, we made it into burma. ugh. this poor little town exists because of people doing visa runs. it is basically a huge market. the one thing they have that you can't get in thailand is cheap dvd's of everything. we had plans to buy planet earth, but of course we had to pay in baht to get in so now we only have 73 baht, which is barely enough for lunch. so no shopping, unless we wanted to try and use our dirty $20 and get ripped off! so we cross over and are bombarded by begging children and a whole clan of guys with laminated sheets of paper with pictures of the town's "sights" that they want to show us. no thank you, people. plus luke has to pee and there are no bathrooms in burma. so finally i ask one of these guys (who had really gross teeth) if there was a toilet. he told us to go down the stairs and walk to the chinese temple, where it costs 5 baht to use the wonderful facilities (where this money is going, i have no idea - it is not like the bathrooms - in thailand too - are ever clean or provide toliet paper!). when we got to a place that had some dragons on the roof and looked a little chinese, we stopped to see if we could find the bathroom. but we didn't have to look hard because the creeper with bad teeth followed us there and assured us it was the right place! luckily he was gone when we came out.

ok, time to go back to thailand! yes, we were in burma long enough to go pee. the immigraton line magically got longer right before we got our papers filled out, but luckily our minibus mates made up half the line, so no worries if we are a bit late back to the bus. in the meantime though we have not had any lunch! and now we have 63 baht. once we made it through the line (mo troubles other than being followed by small, poor children after we left the office), i tried to scope out lunch but all that was near us was some fruit vendors. we had some of our own snacks with us, but i went into 7-11 and bought all i could for 60 baht! which was not much by the way, and definitely not a proper lunch! so once the stragglers finally returned (no surprise it was the 9 am beer guy and his friend who were last!), we hopped back in the van for another 4 hours - yay!

the best part of the trip was the last rest stop, which had real toilets, a sprayer, and soap! luxurious! of course we couldn't buy anything here because we had some useless american money and about 3 baht, so we watched everyone eat ice cream and the beer guy bought another cold one for the ride home.

of course we were the last ones dropped off. after grabbing some more money we got ourselves some beers and went out for pizza! hooray, food! luckily we don't have to do another border run.

oh and that night at the market i bought a wool sweater. yes, it's true. thailand is freezing! haha, and by freezing i mean 50 at night - which is really cold when no one has heat or insulation!

luxuries

it is funny that normal everyday stuff can become luxury items when you move to another country with only one bag, limited funds, for a limited amount of time (so it is not worth buying everything). the following are considered luxury items and are things that i do not have in thailand, but i am proud to say that i can live without them!

a toaster, stove, or cooking device other than boiling water
a hairdryer
regular haircuts
a pillow that maintains its proper shape
a couch, or any sort of comfortable seating arrangement
a motorized vehicle (at least not at the moment...or one that i know how to drive!)
a proper blanket
tap water to drink
television other than the news
a proper computer (notice i have adopted the british use of the word proper...it makes so much sense!)
affordable chocolate candy bars
really good wine
beer that is not pilsner
salads
multiple rooms in a house that serve multiple purposes with a variety of furniture
new music
going to the movies, for an actual good movie (sorry thai comedy)
ordering food with ease
carpeted floors
comfortable park benches
a sink large enough to wash dishes in
a coffeemaker
more than one plate

in other news, our charlie brown christmas tree, that we thought was dead, has come back to life! after it served its purpose for christmas, it decided to lose all of its leaves and flowers. we still watered it though. but now it has lots of little baby leaves growing! i think it must have been participating in fall and winter for 2 weeks and now it is spring again in charlie brown tree land!

since it is "winter" and was 83 degrees the other day, luke and i decided to go to the pool. luke got water in his ear, and of course we have no rubbing alcohol (also a luxury item). so i decided that we should try to get the water out with some whiskey. i poured a little bit into the cap and then into his ear - and it worked! hooray for ingenuity!

hello 2009!

happy new year everyone! we had a good new year here. since our friend lucy was house sitting, we had the opportunity to cook! luke made the food for us while i had fun setting the table and taking pictures of it! we also made delicious mulled wine...yum! then we went out on the town for a bit, missed the countdown because of the thick dense crowd, and saw lots of fireworks. there were lots of lanterns lighting up the sky again, but not as many as the loy krathong fest. luke and i helped our friend danny light a lantern because he was not here for loy krathong. lots of crazy fireworks again everywhere in true thai style.

on new year's morning we went with a couple people from work to visit a group home for abused girls. they take care of girls from the thai government orphanage that have special and difficult cases. they have space for 14 in their home, and this couple raises them like a family with their own two children. we went and took them snacks, played games, and checked out some of the crafts they made - we bought a few things to support them. after our visit we went to a secret fancy buffet lunch at this really cool place in the mountains overlooking the mae sa valley. it would be the perfect place for a wedding. they have 9 cute cottages on the grounds too. the food was delicious.

check out all the new pictures on shutterfly! happy new year!

rest in peace grandma

early in the morning on december 23, grandma marie passed away in her sleep. after a long battle with lung cancer and lots of medicines and oxygen, she is finally in a better place. i feel bad that i cannot be at home right now, but i am thinking about everyone, especially mom and grandpa. i think it will be quite a relief once everything is said and done. the last couple weeks were especially hard because grandma was so out of it and couldn't talk or barely eat. the funeral was on the 26th, and was apparently quite nice. lots of people were there and a procession of about 25 cars went to the church. i will miss you grandma!

http://www.legacy.com/ErieTimesNews/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=121778551


in other sad news, luke called me this morning because our motorbike was stolen! it happened in the parking lot at work, so one of our thai co-workers was able to call the police right away, but who knows if they can do anything. hopefully they will be able to get another with insurance or something. we shall see. i don't know any details right now. quite a bummer though.

pre-christmas trip to sukothai

as our christmas present to each other, luke and i went on an adventure to sukothai. it is a 5 hour bus ride south of here. the main attraction is a huge historical park with 700 year old ruins from the old 'golden age' capital of the north. other than that the town of new sukothai is just a river and guesthouses. on our first full day we traveled from our guesthouse in new sukothai to old sukothai by a strange form of "bus" unique to thailand. kind of a pickup truck, kind of wooden in the back, interesting as always with thai transit.
once in the park area, we rented a couple old cruiser bikes to ride around the area. my bike had an amazing lack of brakes, that i realized once we got going. the bike rental people directed us to the ticket area. the prices had just increased in december 08, which was kind of a bummer because it cost more than double what we thought, but oh well, it is christmas and it was really cool and worth it. the place is quite big, with a little road through it. there were lots of big old trees, grassy well kept lawns, and moats and ponds everywhere (this was their source of water for the kingdom back in the glory days). except for the occasional tour van of german tourists, it was quiet and nice - very park-like, especially for thailand! the ruins are really big and really really old. it is amazing that some things can be standing for that long. a few in particular were mostly whole and there were several large buddhas in tack. lots of photo opportunities.
some of the old bricks looked like meteorites because they had lots of swiss cheese holes in them. in other parts there were rock stacks all over - kind of like the trail markers you see when hiking. i am not sure of the significance of these. at one point i was within a little ruin area and i wanted to take a picture of some nearby stacks. luke was sitting down inspecting something on his foot, and i was backing away from him. of course we are in a field of rocks, so i backed into a giant rock that i proceeded to fall backwards over, caught the back of my knees on it, and landed flat on my back in a pile of mungy grass. i think luke was worried that i might get up and start crying, but actually i was laughing at myself for being so stupid! the only thing i took away was a few scrapes on the backs of my legs.

it got really hot in the afternoon sun - probably about 90 degrees - so we took a couple breaks because we were feeling sluggish. on one of these breaks we saw the most horrible, sad dog ever! it was walking on 3 legs because one appeared to be really really badly broken. it was bent at the knee and twisted inside and it looked like he had no thigh muscle from not walking on it! eww. poor thing. i don't think he was in pain though, and he was getting around alright on 3 legs.

after lunch, we decided to explore more ruins outside the confides of the actual park. there were some on the map, so we took off on a southerly road. this turned out to be the coolest part of the day! we saw a couple really big ruins that were in fields between neighborhoods on this cute and quiet rural road. it was hot and sunny and peaceful! and it contained a huge field of my new favorite plant that looks like a feather! they are similar to cattails in that they grow in marshy places. they are on a tall green stem and at the top is this huge feathery wheat-like growth. very cool. i picked one that became the tail on my bike. this was the last part of our day with the bikes.
we took another "bus" the 12 km back to our guesthouse in new sukothai, which proved to be a more treacherous ride than in the morning. there were about 5 of us in this thing, and a large dog up the road. it was a main road and there was no one to pick up, so the driver was barreling down pretty fast. the dog was in the middle of the road and decided to cross our lane just as we approached. i was sure he was a gonner. the driver did not even slow down one bit. in some places there are as many stray dogs as there are squirrels at home, so people don't seem to care too much. anyhow this dog made it past our wheel by the skin of his teeth - we must have brushed his tail. i was braced for a big thump that luckily didn't happen. then we proceeded to stop at a school on the main road where gobs of middle school kids stood, just getting out for the day. after a long wait and lots of lollygagging for no reason, they finally started getting into our bus, and getting in and getting in....at least 50 kids must have piled into that thing - up front with the driver, shoulder to shoulder on the seats and hanging off the back! they only had to pay 5 baht each, where we had to pay 20 (which is still less than a dollar!)

that night we "explored" new sukothai, which involved sitting by the river for a bit, unsuccessfully searching for bubble tea, and then playing cards with some german girls at our guesthouse (not much to do in this town!). the previous night involved playing cards with some guys from belgium.

after some debate what to do the next day, we had the great idea to rent a motorbike (instead of taking the local bus) to get to another park of ruins 60 km north. this turned out to be a great idea. it took one hour to get there along a beautifully scenic and sunny route. farms fields, some giant wats. after driving through a rural part of a developing or emerging country, you can really understand why natural disasters are so devastating in places like thailand. some of the houses we saw appeared to be barely standing! since it is never winter, they are not airtight and don't require special materials. some places we saw along the way were an amazing patchwork of 13 pieces of recycled tin roof, random mismatched pieces of wood and other bits. anything they can afford, reuse, or get their hands on. most have a really amazing setup that i like. the bottom floor is open air - a workshop, food stall, chicken coop, kitchen, motorbike garage, or any other use you could imagine. upstairs is enclosed and where the family lives.

we found the entrance to the second park (it was not really marked well...) and went to the information building. here we got a map and found out that our other ticket was not good here and we had to pay another admission charge! (this went along with the recent price hike!). it was less than the other park though. this place was a little quieter and really nice. wonderful park atmosphere and lots of ruins in mostly the same style. we even saw a crab! it was just in the middle of the grass, walking all sideways and far from water! the coolest place at this part was a pair of wats at the top of a hill. they were completely engulfed in the forest and you had to climb a big stone staircase to get there. it smelled like fall here because there were sooooo many leaves on the ground! it looked and smelled like fall but was actually a hot summer day - and christmas eve at that! we hung around here and ate a snack enjoying the view down the hill and the smell of fall. we made it back to return the bike in time to catch the 3 pm bus back to chiang mai. we arrived home at 8 pm on christmas eve.

our friend lucy is house sitting for a couple weeks while her friends are on vacation. se we went over to the house and hung out with them and did a secret santa gift exchange for christmas! yay! it was fun and felt very festive. i got a cute and colorful scarf and necklace - thanks loz! on christmas day we watched the movie elf and went out for a thanksgiving style dinner. luke and i are staying at the house with lucy, and 3 of our other friends went to bangkok for new years.

it's christmas in thailand

merry christmas! we miss you and the snow!
here are some pictures to show that there really is christmas in thailand - decorations and all!
xoxo

merry christmas

merry christmas! in order to feel more festive, we have been making paper snowflakes to feel more...cold! haha. it is funny to be decorating in warm weather. here is a giant 3d paper snowflake that i made (thanks for the link Lee!)


and drum roll....here is our "christmas tree!" we have been meaning to buy some plants, so the fact that we needed a christmas tree seemed like a good excuse. we got a spider plant that had 2 babies on it for about 30 cents and then we also got this 2 foot tree with lots of purple flowers, which cost about $1.25. it has little twiggy branches, so we made snowflakes for ornaments.

it was truly a thai adventure though, because we had the tree and the spider plant in the basket of the moped, bungee-d down, with a plastic bag protecting the leaves of the tree. i also had to hold all the terra cotta pots in my lap.

the tree is sitting on our new yellow bookshelf, which we magically brought home on the moped too! it is about 3 feet tall and one foot wide. luke sat up on the very front of the bike seat and i was all the way to the back with the shelf lengthwise on my lap. we are a well balanced thai pickup truck!

(please note, luke's awesome coffee maker invention is next to the tree, he will gladly explain it to you if you are interested. it's quite clever.)

a strange sight

i was just at the mall, going to tops to buy groceries (ahh globalization!), and i saw a strange sight. on a field right by the mall parking garage, behind this amazing hand made 'merry xmas happy new year' sign (it is pretty sweet, i need to take a picture) i saw a herd of dogs. this is not unusual (there are barking mutts everywhere), but the thing was that this herd of dogs consisted of 8 golden retrievers who appeared well groomed and were wearing leashes! there was even a guy with them who was herding/babysitting/training them.

to see a clean dog here is a rare sight, to see a dog on a leash is a rarer sight, but to see 8 purebred dogs together is unheard of!

unfortunately, i did not have my camera.

i have seen an overabundance of mutts in tshirts lately. i guess it is winter after all and they have to keep warm! so weird. there also appears to be a trend that involves carrying around your tiny, dirty toy dog to the market dressed in a weird shirt with bows in its hair!

i did see the tiniest puppy of all time the other day and it was quite cute and clean...and not wearing any weird clothes.

i think i'll stick to the very small lizard that has been hanging out in our room.

smiling sky

last night on our way to dinner, we saw a smile in the sky. the moon was a skinny little crescent and above it were two bright 'stars' (at least that is what we thought they were at the time.)

it turns out that we saw jupiter and venus as the eyes with the moon mouth! how cool. and according to bbc news photo submissions, over here in our slice of the world we had the best view! some of the other smiling faces looked a little wonky. this photo below was taken last night in bangkok.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7759643.stm

thaiglish and neighborhood cows

thaiglish (pronounced ting-glish) refers to the amazing translations you see around of thai to english. with no standardized method of translating the sanskrit letters, it can be quite fun! some of these mistakes even appear on really professional looking banners and neon signs! it is amazing that no one catches these things.

this one is a little different though - hand painted. it is my favorite neighborhood sign. this is where you go to do your laundry in the washing machines.....but here they just mash it for you, perhaps like potatoes?

(if you can see behind it, next door is the love code studio. not quite sure, but i think it is a printing place, probably where they make misspelled signs. curious name.)

here is another neighborhood favorite of mine. these are what i like to call the city cows. these cow-like creature can be seen next to a rather busy road grazing in a field! right next to the mall and apartment buildings. they even have a farmer guy in one of the sloped straw hats that takes care of them. urban sprawl can't stop them! they also recently erected a giant billboard size shrine to the king in the middle of their field.

quiet days

now that the crazy festival is over, i have not had much to report, but i wanted to say hi. luke and i have not had many students lately, so we have had many quiet days of reading books, drawing, taking walks, and drinking bubble tea. we also started our thai class at the ymca. the pace is a little slow for us, but we didn't want to pay double to get one on one lessons.

a couple funny things happened in terms of people sighting. one night when we were walking in laos, this guy was alone and asked me which way the mekong was. i pointed him in the right direction (it was a good thing he asked!) and since we were also going that way we chatted. he was from israel and really nice. during the festival i saw him here in chiang mai! he had really distinct features, so i recognized him immediately! small world sighting #1.

on tuesday we went to this british pub for quiz night. we did horribly compared to the seasoned veterans in the room, but it was something to do anyway. there was a guy sitting at the bar with a sigur ros shirt on, which is a band i like. i thought about going to talk to him after the quiz. it turns out that he was sitting at the same table as us during the monk chat we went to in our first days in chiang mai! he was also from israel. small world sighting #2.

the other day luke and i walked around our neighborhood scoping out guesthouses for bill and charlotte when they come in february. we found this super cute and hip one next to an ice cream shop. in the window are all these polaroids of people. one of the pictures was of Aek and MM, 2 thai kids from bangkok that we met when hanging out with kyle (who lives in our building). ok, we know about 20 people in this whole country and we found a random picture of 2 of them! small world sighting #3.

when luke and i were driving across town on the moped the other day, luke spotted "cold beer guy". "cold beer guy" was a guy we saw in laos (we crossed paths with him several times in luang prabang too!). he is a british guy who was eating at the same restaurant as us one night. the reason he stuck out was because he ordered a beer and then was being high maintenance about the temperature - it was not cold enough for him. i mean, come on, we are in laos. the people there are too poor to even order beer, and he was complaining about it. so anyway, he is in chiang mai now, probably drinking beer with ice (because they always give you ice in your beer here, but not in laos.) small world sighting #4.

then there was also a sad sight the other night. luke and i found this really great restaurant near our house and we finished and were about to leave. there was an elephant walking up to the side of the restaurant! (it was open air, like most places here.) the 3 mahouts (trainers) were trying to get people to pay to feed this poor baby elephant. this is apparently a big problem in thailand. elephants used to be quite useful in the logging industry and with other rural tasks until recently. logging is not allowed in most places and they use machines for other things now. so many of the elephants live in elephant camps where you can help train them and feed them and ride them as a tourist. they usually take good care of them there. but some mahouts bring their elephants into the city to basically beg for money. this is bad for the elephant for obvious reasons. so this baby elephant was walking around chiang mai all night (chris saw it too, and we saw it at another location later on), while the trainers used it as a freak show to make money. an amazing yet sad sight.

a synopsis of the festivities

the loy krathong festival is now officially over so here are some of the sights and sounds of the festival.

a parade happened at night on each of the three festival days. of course, doing this at night requires lights for the floats. so they have big cables attached to car batteries or to generator 'floats' that go along with the parade. the last night the floats were huge and elaborate. they were so tall that sometimes the huge tangle of power lines proved to be an obstacle. the solution to this problem was to have 2 bamboo-sticked assistants with little u shaped hook thingys on the ends. these people used this device to push up the wires so the float could go through! so crazy! shouldnt these people be getting electrocuted? oh, thai safety rules...i mean what safety?

over by the river is were most of the chaos goes down....if you can get over there. lots of streets were closed due to the parade so you really had to snake your way through. and the road by the river was a total traffic jam each night. the river was packed with people on all the bridges, especially the foot bridge which was ground zero for the massive amounts of fireworks - which sounded like we were in a war zone! bang bang bang all night long - and day too. there were people selling all sorts of roman candles and cherry bombs from tables on the side of the road! explosives for all ages! hooray!

there was also an area on a closed off road where people were launching balloons again. lots on the full moon night especially. but definitely not as many as we saw last saturday!!! that was way more peaceful and amazing than the river chaos.

everyone was also launching off little boats made of banana leaves and flowers with incense and candles. this was cool but not as cool as the balloons. there were lots floating down the river, but not all them were lit at the same time because the candles ran out.

on one of the nights we were at the river, we were strolling down the street and came across a vendor we wanted to try but had only seen one other time. ready? it was a bbq-ed BUG VENDOR!!! yes we all ate bugs and i have photo proof! we tried little crickets (salty), huge crickets (2 inches long and a little more gross, especially if you got a leg!), and meal worms (puffy and airy but a weird texture when you mushed them up). it was really not that gross. the little crickets were the least bad, and i ate quite a few of those. let's just say i was glad that i bought a bottle of water too!

last night we had dinner at a pretty fancy place for luke's birthday. it was called the antique house and was inside one (hence the name). the food was really good and we sat on the floor on fancy pillows. one thing we ordered was curry soup with frog! the legs were tiny and you had to eat them like a chicken wing because they still had a bone. pretty much just tasted like meat, nothing weird. getting home was quite crazy because of all the fireworks in the road and lots of traffic, but now we have lights for our bicycles! i wear my head lamp too for a front light and the tuk-tuk drivers by our house laugh at me! but i need the crazy drivers to see me - thank you very much!

tonight we are going bowling and some people we know are meeting us there. yes, we have a regular old bowling alley here!

we also went back to wat umong because luke wanted to feed the giant freak catfish for his birthday. here they are:

fireworks galore

loy krathong festival = everyone setting off really, really loud intense fireworks at all hours of the day (including 10 am), causing all the neighborhood dogs freak out for at least 5 minutes after the blast. (including this big beefy boxer/pitbull-like dog that is always roaming near our building and is really loud anyway, minus the fireworks.)

my new favorite holiday

last night we saw the opening of the loy krathong festival, the lantern portion known as yee peng in chiang mai. here is a bit about the holiday:

"Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In the western calendar this usually falls in November. "Loi" means "to float". "Krathong" is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk (although modern-day versions use specially made bread 'flowers' and may use styrofoam), decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river. Governmental offices, corporations and other organizations also build much bigger and more elaborate rafts, and these are often judged in contests. In addition, fireworks and beauty contests take place during the festival."

I think this was the most magical amazing beautiful thing i have ever seen. it is the coolest holiday. and also the biggest fire hazard i have ever seen - only in thailand! the lantern portion is a bit different than the description above. the festival is to celebrate the end of the rainy season, thank the rain, and to make a wish when you send off your lantern or boat. it was absolutely the clearest night we have had since we have been in thailand, so it was perfect.

we had a vague idea of where to go, up north behind this university. so we just headed that way. we followed a big line of cars and then took a turn to chase down and follow a truck taxi, which turned out to be a good idea. we parked the bike and walked down a little road full of food vendors, lantern vendors, and banna leaf boat vendors (there was a small creek where they did a little boat celebration, but that celebration happens more next week on the big river). there was a parade lineup and tons of people. then the road lead to a big grassy field, with a buddha shrine at the front, and tons of candle sticks in the ground all lined up in a perfect grid. the only thing i can think of to compare it to is a giant 4th of july celebration. it reminded me of being at mercyhurst (for all you erie-ites) because of the huge amount of people all sitting on the lawn waiting for lights in the sky. they asked everyone to wait until the cue to send their lanterns off, but from the moment we got there we started to see lanterns off in the distance, first only 3, then 10, 20. we were inpressed with this and the festival hadnt even started yet!

the night started out with a small parade that went up to the shrine. then there was a buddhist ceremony where all these monks were up in the front and they did many prayers and chants. it was really interesting and peaceful and everyone in the crowd was chanting too.

after all the college age girls in charge had properly doused the candles in lighter fluid, there was a candle lighting ceremony. let the flames begin!!! beautiful, magical, chaos. let me explain these lanterns to you. they are made from a bamboo or wooden hoop that varies in size from 2 feet in diameter to 4 feet. in the hoop there are 4 wires all pointing toward the center that are tied to a donut like thing made of coconut covered in wax. this is the part you light on fire. then the whole lantern is made of paper and is shaped like a big cylinder. it is made of several square sheets of tissue like paper glued together, fragile yet sturdy. the pink thing is the waxy coconut. ours was the small size.

so once the candles were lit, the lantern lighting started on the far side of the field and it seemed like everyone on our side was waiting. oh my god soooooo amazing. you hold up your lantern over the candle flame until your coconut catches. then you have to hold up the paper until the hot air inflates it enough to hold its own weight. then eventually the thing takes off! they all started going! so many little orange fireflies in the sky. then the chaos started. some lanterns got stuck in the trees! they would either escape eventually or just catch on fire! and sometimes catch the tree on fire a little too! then it got really nuts because some people attached fireworks to their lantern so that when it floated up it would literally be raining fire! and sometime these got stuck in trees too. oh my the most amazing fire hazard i have ever seen! then in addition to lanterns and fireworks on lanterns there were random fireworks going off everywhere! some big, some loud, some really really big. and with no organization at all. wow.

so then the lighting moved to our side of the field. chris was off taking pictures and it was me, luke, and natalie with our two lanterns. the one luke and i got was the small size, so we lit it ourselves while natalie took pictures. even though it was small we almost caught it on fire since we didnt know what were were doing! another group of white kids near us caught theirs on fire! such chaos. so then we get it inflated and everything and we are just balancing it to try and get it to fly. it finally flies away but goes sideways instead of up! a flaming coconut heading for people's heads! luckily someone caught it and held it up until it could properly float away, so our wish could come true!
meanwhile, these thai ladies next to us were in a conundrum. their coconut wick wire had gotten tangled into the candle holder! it was on fire and hot so they were trying to knock them apart with shoes and other objects, to no avail. they ended up having to ditch it and stomp out the fire because it was too heavy to send it up with the candle.
then we worked on natalie's lantern. she got the big one and this was more tricky. the three of us were holding it in as many areas as we could to try and keep it out of the fire. luckily, two thai ladies that had a great technique came to our rescue! we most definitely would have caught it on fire without them! we shook it and tapped it to keep it inflated and away from the flame. it was almost 5 feet tall inflated! it worked!!!!! so amazing!! we just sat back and watched the beautiful amazingness for a while longer. our neighbors were experts and this is the big size.

then we heard there were some banana boats on the creek, so we went to check it out. it was not nearly as exciting as the lanterns, but it things were dying down so we decided to leave. it was pretty chaotic trying to get out of a place with so many people, but having a motorbike instead of a car makes it much easier.

i think that may have been the most magical thing i have ever seen. i am going to try and get a couple small lanterns to bring home so we can have a demonstration.

tonight will be magic

tonight we are venturing to the north of town for a festival made for me. for the opening of loy krathong (which extends into next week and ends on luke's birthday!) there will be a mass release of paper lanterns - aka baby hot air balloons - into the night! i am so excited for this.

it starts with paper balloons and follows with banana leaf boats on the river! ahh all my favorite forms of transport. i can't wait to tell you all about it! parades, beauty contests - it should be a spectacle around here into next week!

chiang rai to luang prabang via the mighty mekong

ok everyone, brace yourself. this is going to be a long one, and there are lots of new pictures on shutterfly too.

part 1: so our journey started out last week with a scenic 3 hour van ride to chiang rai, thailand for work. but i did not have to work at all! luke did a couple presentations, while chris and i got to explore the city. it is a pretty small place, so we managed to see most everything in the day and a half we spent there. there was an amazing gold clock tower, workers hanging up lanterns for the loy krathong festival, and a cool park by the river. at the river we saw some crazy elephant statues, a sand digging expedition of crazy thai proportions, and a cute little thai boy in a batman costume! on the way to the river and back we walked down a perfect, quiet little southeast asian neighborhood road.
later that night we found out that we all were invited to a party put on by the u.s. consulate at the swanky brand new la meridian hotel. mom, you would have freaked out to see this place. first off, the party was hosted by a california wine company so we got free wine and fancy appetizers. the place is brand new and right on the river. they have a swanky bar and restaurant with really cool modern furniture. then we walked around outside through the jungle, fountian, swimming pool, bondfire, outdoor bar, riverside paradise. there is a sidewalk that walks over the fountain too. it was too dark to take pictures, but just picture the fanciest hotel you have ever imagined, and put it in a tropical paradise, and you've got it.
after going out to dinner we explored the night market in town.

the next day chris and i went on a wat tour. the coolest one we saw out of the bunch was wat phra kaew. there was a big beautiful teak building that was more like a museum than place of worship. it had these really amazing acordian books made from palm leaves with wooden covers. they were really long and skinny and contained prayers and spells. one larger one had numerology charts and formulas. inside the temple that was up a steep staircase was a series of amazing paintings. they depicted the story of the emerald buddha and how they had to fight off those trying to steal it and all the parades and celebrations they held for it. the paintings were very flat, but depicted many layers of people and activities and amazingly decorated elephants. they are my favorite paintings so far in thailand.
at the bottom of the temple staircase was a little pond, and in it were about 10 species of turtles! including these crazy looking prehistoric dino turtles that had soft shells and really long necks!

part 2: after lunch we were ready to leave chiang rai for chaing kong thailand, on the laos border. the only way to get there other than hiring a taxi, was to take the local bus. so we did. no ac and all thai people except for us. i thought it might be uncomfortable and sketchy, but it turned out to be super cool. we stopped at a bunch of little village neighborhoods to drop off and pick up people. and it was not as hot as i anticipated with all the windows down. the scenic ride lasted 3 hours. thailand is so green! it was dark when we got to chiang kong, but we walked up the one road town to find a guesthouse. we found a cheap half decent one and then got some dinner. after dinner, we walked to the river - yes, the mekong! crazy! - and looked to laos at night. i could tell that it was different than thailand even from across the river in the dark.

part 3: journey to laos
after a delicious breakfast at a wonderful little restaurant - i has museli with yogurt and fruit! - we set out for the ferry to laos. our wonderful waiter told us that the departure dock was not too far up the road so we decided to hoof it there. this is where the adventure starts and anyone who needs constant cozy creature comforts should turn back.
at the departure dock we had to wait in a rather slow line to get an exit stamp. i impressed the customs guy with my thai and a respectful 'wai' or bow, so i had it easy. then we made our way down the sandy slope of a dock to the 'ferry'. i use this term loosely, because we actually took the skinniest, longest, hard wooden seat boat across the mekong to laos. this is were we met our first friend of the journey, garreth from wales. we then got out, and headed for customs. we paid our fee, got stamps, showed our passports to 45 different people, bought some overpriced snacks and drinks for the boat, bought cushions (thanks for the tip garreth!!), and walked down the one road town of huay xai laos to the slow boat dock.

i use the term boat dock loosely too. you see, laos has had a rough history and is still really really poor. no western stores, no seven elevens, just families with stacks of stuff on their porches to sell with chickens running around alongside. the simplicity of it all is kind of beautiful. and everything, everything is done by hand. so the boat 'dock' was actually just a road that lead to a sandy slope that slid right into the mekong. we bought our ticket and waited around a bit. there was a slew of long skinny boats all tied up next to each other on the edge of the river. the 'dock' had a skinny little plank of wood to climb over onto the boat. so we got on the boat early and sat in the front - on a tip we overheard at dinner the night before. up front is it much less noisy and there is 'leg room'. bear in mind the slow boats were built for cargo not people...so wooden benches it is. we waited and waited at the dock and saw lots of busy lao workers unloading all sorts and sizes of packages off of 'cargo' ships, which were just actually the same skinny motorboats that we ferried across on. skinny little boats everywhere! truely a sight, i hope you can get a little sense of it from the pictures. so as we are sitting there for about an hour and a half waiting, we nearly start melting in the sun because it is about 11:20 before we take off. but once we get going there is an instant breeze. and there were not really any mosquitoes. here are the slowboats. grandpa, i am not sure if you would approve of their seaworthyness, but then again we made it!
part 4: slow boating down the mekong
you know the feeling when you learn about the rainforest in third grade and imagine it being the most amazing place on earth, or when you watch a special on tv about the most fascinating places on earth to visit, like the pyramids or stonehenge? well i think that the mekong river is one of those places. even after hour 14 on day 2 of the ride (7 hours the first day and 8 hours the second day), i was still amazed by the constant jungle everywhere and mountains and green and green and green and rocks in the river and little villages of 6 houses every half hour. there was a bit of rain and also these crazy whirl pools that sucked the boat around a bit. we stopped at a couple villages to drop off and pick up locals. at one of them, about 10 little kids ran onto the boat trying to sell us beer and pop and chips and pineapple.

after the first 7 hours we got to the town of pakbeng. this strange little town only exists to house the people who come by on the slowboat. the minust we got out and walked on the snad hill we were bombarded with kids trying to carry our bags and people trying to sell us their guesthouses. ahh!!! we successfully ignored them and wandered up the hill with our new boat friends - garreth, bry and sean from vancouver and miles and ville from finland. we spent our one night in the one night town. one weird thing about the town - actually it is so weird in general - is that the place is in the jungle so it has to run on a generator. so the power in the whole town goes out from 10 pm to 6 am! luckily i brought my headlamp and garreth bought candles, so we could hang out after the blackout.

the second day we managed to get the good front seats on the boat again! although this time our 'seats' were actually on the floor and our cushions were a little more squished, but it wasnt too bad. we played lots of cards with our new friends. we heard it might be 10 hours but it was only 8! two exciting events happened on the second day first we got some new passengers at one stop - in the form of chickens and turkeys and ducks in basket cages that were tossed onto the roof! at a second stop, our captain pulled over onto a desolate beach (not a village in sight), jumped out of the boat and started running. at first i thought maybe he had a bathroom emergency. but then he stripped down to his undies and jumped into the river! everyone got out to watch. turns out some bamboo got stuck to the rudder and he was down there ripping it off!

these were our seatmates in the front of the boat.
one other sight on the mekong is the appearance of fast boats. and they are just that - fast. and apparently pretty dangerous because of all the rocks in the mekong. and soooo loud! they buzz by and all the passengers are wearing helmets and life jackets (unless of course they are locals!) and their luggage is strapped to the front of the cockpit. this form of transport is not recommended, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to lose your luggage...or hearing....or a passenger!

part 5: luang prabang, laos
everyone was quite excited at the sight of luang prabang. yes we were quite ready to get off the boat! we walked up the hill with our new crew of friends and started looking at guesthouses. there are many in LP because it is a world heritage site and gets a fair amount of visitors. we ended up splitting up the group because it was a bit complicated with so many, but we agreed to meet the next day for lunch. we walked quite far but found a nice place that was only available one night but took it anyway. we then proceeded to eat a most delicious dinner - lao bbq!!! so good! the tables all have these pull our tiles in the middle where they bring you a bucket of hot coals and then a little bbq pan to put on top of that. then they bring meat, veggies, noodles, and broth. the waiter cooks the first round and then you are on your own to cook the rest. we did this two nights in a row because it was so delicious and fun!
we walked around a lot on the first day just exploring. there was supposed to be a bamboo bridge across the mekong tributary, but it turned out that the monks were just beginning the building process! over near there there are tons of little farms scattered along the rich silty soil. they have little ramshackle bamboo fences around them and huts made of bamboo and banana leaves. it was so beautiful and perfect, just how you would imagine rural southeast asia from a history book or a postcard. there were some chickens roaming around too, just like everywhere else in laos! we then walked up the hill/mountain in the middle of the old town and explored the wat and little temples all the way up to the top that are scattered about amongst huge rocks. there was a great view of the little farms and the rivers and a big bridge and a golden chedi across on the opposite hill. mmmm.
the second day we though about going on a boat trip to the nearby cave temples. but it poured and poured for the first half of the day. so instead we went to this weaving center that i saw a flyer on. it was quite far in the rain but worth it. the place is really beautiful and right on the mekong. we were given a tour and the guy explained to us everything about silk making. they harvest the silk worms and then take their cocoons, which are really just a long line of silk. by boiling a bunch of cocoons in water, they are able to turn it into a string to use for weaving. before they weave they dye the silk with all natural dyes that they grow right there on the grounds. then the 22 villagers that they employ weave the silk into beautiful things. they are paid per piece so they can work at their own pace and they are also paid a fair wage. the prices are higher here than at the markets, but it is so cool that they do it all at the center. they also have classes.

on our last day we ventured to the airport on a tuk-tuk truck-truck hybrid. it is only 4 km from town but really out in the sticks. we ended up getting their way early because we had seen it all in LP, so we played lots of cards at the restaurant across the way. then we ventured into the one gate airport, walked outside and into our propeller powered lao air plane, and flew back to chiang mai. the ride was only and hour and the plane was only 1/3 full, but we still got lunch! what service!

tidbits: all the women and girls in laos wear traditional skirts with regular old tshirts. it is an interesting mix of new and old, which is what is seems laos is becoming.

i think that americans are the only ones who say laos in a way that rhymes with mouse. everyone else we met calls it lao which rhymes with cow. i guess it is a french name after all. lao also refers to the language and the people.