We're Fixin To Take This Hootinanny to Another Barn

This is the last blog entry on our Asia trip. Please refrain from crying. After our awesome snorkeling boat trip through the Similan Islands, we spent one rainy day on the mainland and decided to head back out asap to another island chain north of the Similans called the Surin Islands. We don't have any pictures to add because of camera issues that forced us to buy a disposable underwater one. Hopefully we can get those on cd and treat you shortly. After all the people we met who have been really nice to email us some of their pictures along the way (mostly European/Asian/Australian save the Boulder group in Chiang Mai--hoo rah), we didn't meet anyone who took an abundance of digital pictures at the Surin Islands. Besides day travelers and a few campers, the "island hippies," or folks who somehow find a way to sustain themselves while living in arguably the most beautiful, primitive yet habitable set of islands this side of the Mississippi (which side is up to you), are the camera-less people we got to know. Alas, I can use my skilled, Tom Robbins-esque prose to paint you readers a picture of the paradise where we left our pale skin and work ethic for the reef sharks to feast.

The only way to reach the Surin Islands is by speed boat which normally takes an hour unless you're battling the two meter swells that claimed the excited smiles of half the snorkelers on board within twenty minutes. We took it surprisingly well considering my history with seasickness...nasty. Anyway, two bumpy hours later we arrived at our first snorkel spot filled with coral gardens that rolled and peaked and fanned with about every color possible, and under these corals were usually a grouper or two, a box fish, a puffer fish, a moray eel, giant clams, lobsters, or Nemo, or all of them together. I saw two reef sharks, one on each of the first two dives, from a distance further than at the Similan Islands where two meters between you and a shark is going to ruin your breath holding even if they don't have huge teeth. Our underwater digital couldn't hack it with the sharks, so you'll just have to believe me. They were HUGE adolescent sharks...

Everyone saw a banded sea snake except for me. I'm not terribly upset about that except that I have FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, disorder (as quoted by the Boulder folk Vicky) when it comes to seeing things in the ocean. Banded sea snakes can kill you in about five minutes if you get bit between the fingers, toes, or ear lobe. The Thai guys said they would just start digging a hole for me if I encountered one. Speaking of snakes, we were having a birthday celebration with some British guys while playing Whist with a Twist and came about two feet from stepping on a 3.5 meter python. For those of you who don't speak metric system, that's 11.5 feet. Enough to take me down as an appetizer.

Julia and I did about 8 snorkel trips on the local longtail boats. We started out planning to stay at the Surins for three days and two nights, but after one day we knew it was too awesome to leave in under five days. That happens to some folks, the island hippies, who, ten years later, are still addicted to the islands and think there are still places to see and animals to find underwater. It ended up being cheaper to stay there in our tent on a peninsula waking up to clear water, a long white sand beach in the middle of a bay surrounded by monkey, snake, eagle-inhabiting jungles than it was to stay on the mainland of Khao Lak with a half decent beach and overpriced bungalows. However, if you are going to either the Similans or the Surin Islands, you leave for both places from Khao Lak and you should stay at the Happy Lagoon Bungalows.

After five days of snorkeling all day and eating too much curry and fish, we had to leave. But we befriended the local Thai guys who kept us entertained with an amateur fire show or two and constant jokes and smiles. I HIGHLY suggest going to the Surin Islands if you are looking for a slightly low-budget getaway and have any interest in snorkeling or diving.

We're back in loud Bangkok now getting ready for the flight tomorrow, which will officially end our Asia Adventure. This has been the greatest trip and most rewarding experience I've ever had, especially with such an incredibly responsible, fun, and adventurous traveling partner without whom I'd probably still be looking for half of my lost items. I'm looking forward to getting back to the States but it will most likely be like taking a jack hammer to my stomach trying to adjust back to American food during Thanksgiving. It will be worth it. I love cranberry sauce. I dream about it. And oysters....and turkey.....and stuffing.....and ham... and post Thanksgiving sammiches....

Goodbye Asia. You have taken my wallet, three cameras, my ipod, Julia's ipod, my driver's license (why did I have that anyway??), Harry Potter 7, an inflatable pillow, a dry bag, countless umbrellas, and a large quantity of blood via mosquitoes, but you gave us the best memories, introduced us to the coolest of cool people and spared us Dengue fever. Thank you and goodnight.

Paradise

Just a quick blog post with some pictures from our latest adventure, a three day "liveaboard" trip to the Similan Islands- one of the top snorkeling/diving sites in the world. As the name suggests, we live on the boat and snorkeled pretty much all day every day and saw the most amazing corals/fish/sea creatures... Pictures below! (due to multiple camera issues on this trip, these pictures were taken by other trip members...)

sunset on a beach stop

crystal clear water
fishes
swam with sea turtles... a lifelong dream come true

Hope this doesn't make those of you in the cold northlands too jealous... we'll be back there in one short week. Until then!

When I Get Married I Want... A Moving Platform Stage.

Being back in Viet Nam has been an absolute blast. For those of you who didn't know, I studied here four years ago in a city called Can Tho, which is the largest city in the Mekong Delta in southern Viet Nam. Out of our two short weeks visiting Viet Nam, one was spent in Can Tho visiting friends and my host family and we were fortunate enough to be invited to my host sister's wedding which was last weekend.

The week leading up to the wedding was spent doing what is best to do in Can Tho: Sitting by the river, eating delicious food, drinking coffee with friends, and going to karaoke at 10 in the morning (yes, complete with beer). This final activity was a little unexpected as we were helping out with my host mother's english class at 8 am and her students wanted to take us around. To karaoke. At 10 in the morning. When in Viet Nam?

Can Tho seems a lot bigger than it did four years ago, but many of my favorite places are still there, which is nice to know. Had my pho from my favorite restaurant, found my old apartment, ate com tam with my friend Thao, it was awesome.

Phil is taking over here and talk about the wedding...

I love weddings. I've only been to a few in my life but this one was something I've been waiting to see ever since I saw The Wedding Singer and experienced those '80s weddings on film. Start with the 1980's, throw in a fashion show, an Irish drinking team, and just a pinch of figure skating and you have yourself a Vietnamese wedding. It's amazing. The three to five days-long celebration starts with the real ceremony, which Julia's family did in their church because the bride is Catholic with mainly just family, so we didn't see that. We saw the bride in about six different dresses during the course of ceremonies. Hopefully some of them were rentals, but they were all very bright and original. The ao yai dresses are the traditional ones with a combination of dress and pants, each designed individually and accompanied with a circular hat. Very nice looking. Julia can explain more about these if she likes.

The rehearsal dinner at their house the night before the first "wedding party" was the bride's family and friends taking pictures, people talking on a microphone and making us drink. The bride has something like 8 uncles on her mother's side, 5 or 6 on her father's side and when I introduced myself as Phil they heard "Beer" so my name was Beer for the rest of the weekend. They took that to mean I liked beer and every one of them would fill my glass and say "100 percent", one of the few things I learned to say in Vietnamese. After a few glasses of culturally ceremonial drink, which I couldn't turn down without appearing culturally insensitive of course, we prepared ourselves for the next morning.

The following morning was surprisingly more of the same as the previous night. As the three hundred plus people herded inside we experienced the rushed and frenetic course of a wedding ceremony. I have no idea what happened in what order it all happened so quickly. Around 10 AM we were sitting then we were drinking beer and shouting "YO!" and then there was an MC on a bright stage leading the music to which six hotel dancers/servers dressed up in faux wedding dresses and tuxes cut like back up dancers to a Brittney Spears concert danced as an intro for the bride and groom. Here comes the fashion show side. The stage starts moving. Out of the stage comes a moving platform with a red carpet and it extends to the middle of the room and the parents of the bride and groom come through the giant, veiled heart adorned with flowers and confetti to the cheers of the crowd. Then the parents of the groom do the same. The bride's father says some words on the mic and people cheer more. The bride and groom come out after and everyone goes wild like they were at a Snoop Dogg show, except no one danced except for the hired dancers. The bride and groom stepped onto the moving platform and it carried them to the stage while The Final Countdown (American 80's song) played. Confetti guns were shooting over them. Pink and white balloon columns were rising into the ceiling and popping like fireworks. Smoke machines filled the stage with mist. The bride and groom poured some wine in a tower of glasses, said some more words, and cut their fake cake before moving around to the hundred different tables to receive the toasts of each table. Uproars of "Mo, hai, ba, YO!" (one, two, three, CHEERS!) were all I really heard the rest of the time over the music and piles of food cooking at the centerpiece hot pot. The uncles found me and Julia and shoved the glasses of Tiger beer in my face with "Beer, drink beer, one hundred percent.."

Julia and the bride, her host sister, Tu

After the wedding, Julia's host mom's English students, whom we taught once, took us out to Karaoke again. Another American showed up with opera-like skills singing a popular Vietnamese song that got the English class hootin and hollerin quite a bit. The students ordered fruit (pomellos, green mango eated with salt and pepper for the ying yang effect), french fries (served with chili sauce and sugar), noodles, and Heineken. They never once let us pay for something when we hung out with them. We ate more ban xeo that night, the pancake dish with minced pork and veggies inside, eaten with fish sauce and peppers. It's addictive.

All of Julia's host sistersKaraoke with the students

The following morning was the groom's ceremony. We were told to get to the bride's family's house at 5:30 AM to await the groom's family arrival, but they were late. So at 7:00 they came in the flowered bus and car and commenced the traditional giving of gifts to the bride's family in return for, well, their daughter. The picture shows the gift receiving by the bride's side (Julia was included in the receiving line), who eventually gave back half of them as a further way of thanking them - perhaps for driving to their house. Everyone jumped in the tour bus and we made our way an hour and a half outside the city to the groom's family's house in a rural area with a path far too narrow for a bus or car, only motorbikes. So the party jumped into two boats which took us down the serene creek to their house. One of my most memorable moments will be the groom's father, probably about sixty or so, standing on the bow of the boat in his nicest gray suit guiding the boat through trees and bushes and docking the long boat perfectly on the shore of their house without getting dirty or wet.

The gift giving by the groom's family to the bride's family

This party was much more laid back without moving stages and dancers. Just a quick Buddhist ceremony, a few pictures, and binge eating/drinking for an hour and a half. Everyone in the family made a certain dish for the party and it was all incredible, including fried venison, which I hadn't had since the US. The eating and frequent visits from the uncles with more 100% chants went by so fast I really didn't even touch the final course of the meal before being guided back into the boat, but not before another uncle jumped in the boat with more rice wine just to make the boat ride go more smoothly. The tour bus back was rowdy to say the least. I just wish I knew what the uncles were saying while they were rolling on the floor laughing (rofl in AIM lingo).

On the way to the grooms house. Notice the groom's father standing in the front. The grandmother behind me was my favorite by far. She downed a 100% like a college student.

The groom's aunt cooking venison over a hot pot. Not enough time to cook even half the plate of venison, which in my family is a sin.

Julia's host mother.

About Can Tho: Our guest house had a dog named Cool Beans, or at least it sounded like Cool Beans, and I came to like him a lot. He came into our room often and always played when we got home. We tried to go rollerskating once with one of Julia's friends and found ourselves in the middle of a punk rocker skater club where people just run into other people at full speed on purpose. The also didn't have bigger than a size 9 skate so I didn't last long. Walking around Can Tho and Soc Trang was interesting considering the lack of foreigners so we were often looked at frequently. Actually, it was just Julia who was gawked at constantly with her blond hair. I got the best hair cut I've ever had and a straight razor shave for the first time. I never knew how many places on my head I could grow hair that someone could see.. I went back for a second shave before the wedding and a different person shaved me against the grain. PAIN!

Cool Beans

I'm going to stop there and Julia will talk more about the rest of Vietnam from here on.

So, after Can Tho, we headed to Soc Trang to visit my friend Dao who has moved there with her husband and they showed us around this little, awesome city where we didn't see another foreigner. It was awesome. She took us to visit both her husbands family and her family and then took us to one of my most favorite restaurants that I remember from studying abroad. I couldn't remember where the restaurant was and given the difficulty in finding it, I thought that I would never see it again, but Dao remembered how much I liked it and led us back there again through the alleys and over little bridges. It was an awesome restaurant where you cook your own beef on a pot of coals at the table and then make mini spring rolls out of them. It was so awesome to be there again.

Dao and her husband in Soc Trang eating coal-pan-fried beef rolled into a spring role. HOT DANG it was good!

After Soc Trang, we headed to Vung Tao, which is a beach city about 60 km south of Ho Chi Minh City. There, we stayed with my friend Diu (pronounced 'you') who is also recently married and her and her husband have an awesome house on top of a hill. We only met the husband for a minute before he was off on a business trip, but Diu showed us the most wonderful time cooking us delicious meals, showing us the way to the beach, and lending us bicycles so we could have a look around town. It was a great intro beach vacation and a good way to work on our base tans before heading to the beaches of Thailand.

Vung Tao beach at sunset. You might be able to see a gigantic Jesus tower on the hill in the distance.

Julia's friend Diu was a great host, along with her aunt

Then from Vung Tao to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where we met up for an awesome buffet dinner with my old program director and the current abroad students from my old program. Then we -amazingly- met up with two of my really good friends from CC, Nancy and Maura, who were heading down Viet Nam and were in the same city for the same two days we were. Spent the day with them going to the war remnants museum and the market and some other sights. Also coinciding with our trip to HCM, the Asia Indoor Games were being hosted by Viet Nam so that night we were able to find out where a Futsal (essentially a mini version of indoor soccer) game was being played. Japan played Tajikistan and gave them a whoopin. We also ate some M&Ms, it being Halloween after all, and went out to enjoy some of the festivities. A great way to wrap up our fantastic time in Viet Nam.

Now, it's back to Chiang Mai for a week to enjoy Loi Krathong (the river/lantern festival) and visit friends before heading south. We hope to be able to post a few more times in the three short weeks left!

Mot, hai, ba, YO!

Vientiene -> 4,000 Islands -> Siem Reap -> Phnom Penh -> Can Tho

Yikes this trip is going by fast! Not sure if it's all the travel or the amount of countries or how much we do every day but either way, time is flying and we have seen a ton. I will do my best to recap, but my end up putting in the picture highlights.

We spent a relaxing two days in Vientiane- there's not a lot to do in Vientiane besides visit some beautiful Wats and wander around and eat delicious French food, which we treated ourselves to and it was amazing. We couldn't get over eating with a knife! And cloth napkins! It was really fun.

Wat Sisaket in Vientiane where we lit some incense for my late step Grandma MelWat Mikai at sunset

Then, we hopped on a bus around 8 pm on our last day to head overnight to the islands. The sleeper bus was suprisingly comfortable, but then, we weren't paired up with the large, smelly, snoring man like a friend of ours was. As a nice break up to our trip we stopped for a day in 4,000 Islands, an area in the South of Laos where the Mekong gets very wide and is scattered with -you guessed it- about 4,000 Islands. We easily found a little bungalow along the river, complete with hammocks, for less than two dollars and spent the afternoon biking around the islands to a waterfall. The waterfall was nice, but my favorite part was the bike ride because these islands are seemingly not to corrupted by tourism and many people are going about their daily lives living along the river. It was really neat to see.

our not-too-shabby view from the bungalow in 4,000 Islands

From 4,000 Islands, we headed to the border with Cambodia and hopped on another all day bus to Siem Reap to spend time visiting the Temples of Angkor Wat. We bought a three-day pass to the temples. The first day we rented bikes and visited the main temple of Angkor Wat (which is the largest religious building in the world), and started to see Angkor Thom before a big storm rolled in and we had to head home, but not before we snapped these shots:

Angkor Wat at sunset

The second day, we hired a tuk tuk (a motorbike with a cart on the back) to take us to some of the temples that were further away. We had an amazing time visiting some of the more remote temples and took a hike up to Kbai Spean, where the ancients actually carved the bottom of one of the rivers to bless the waters heading into their cities. Unfortunately, the storms made the water a little too murky to see much, but it was a beautiful hike all the same. Then more temples.

Asparas, the goddess-nymphs decorating almost all of the temples at Angkor

The third day we were back on our bikes to visit some more of the famous ones. It was hot, but it was another great full day of temple-ing and being awed by these stone creations. Each temple was unique and absolutely beautiful. Our pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. Siem Reap is also a really great city to hang out in for a few days and we had a surprise meet-up with some of our friends from the spicy hostel. Good times all around. (We have a million amazing pics and there's just not enough web space for them all...)

a sample of the intricate carvings on the walls

say cheese

From Siem Reap we hopped on another bus to Phnom Penh. There, we had a sobering day visiting the Killing Fields and the S-21 genocide museum where people were tortured under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. We were exposed to the horrendous recent events in the countries history and did our best to pay respect to the victims.

That night, we had the famous Me Cha (no idea how to spell this one... but it's a delicious noodle dish with meat and egg and veggie made differently all over) and Phil invited a kid begging to eat with us. Given the voracity of his appetite, we hoped that was the best thing for him and were left feeling good about that small effort but daunted by how many kids in Cambodia need a good meal in them.

The day after Phenom Penh, we hopped on yet another bus which took us to a boat, which took us to another boat and we were in Viet Nam! We were dropped off in Chau Doc, got a little ripped off for the first time on a bus ticket, and made it to Can Tho, where I studied abroad four years ago. We've already been to my host families house where we had a delicious lunch and time with them. It's SO good to see them again, and it's such a good time to be here because they are all home for the wedding of my oldest host sister, which we will be attending on Saturday. It feels good to be back in Viet Nam and Can Tho, although it's taking a little while to figure out where everything is again, but it's really fun.

I want to give a quick props to Phil for his knack for languages, well, at least South East Asian languages. He knows Thai very well and because he knew a little of the northern Thai dialect, he was able to pick up the essential Laos phrases as well. Then, after two days in Cambodia he was able to compliment people on their cooking and say some other conversational phrases. (Now that we're in Viet Nam, I've realized how much of the language I've forgotten and I'm pretty sure Phil will be even with me in a few days.) It's been awesome traveling with him.

Ok, more after my host sister's wedding!

(check below for more pics from Laos!)

Laos Laos, rao rao!

We just made it to Vientiane from Vangvieng! The past three days have seemed like an entire year, full of activities and being outdoors. In Luong Prabang, we stayed in a hostel called “Spicylaos”, which is currently managed by my friend from ISDSI (she was a Chiang Mai student working with ISDSI, same year). There is a Spicythai also in Chiang Mai, which I never saw but we may stay there when we go back to CM. Another CM graduate, who is an incredible guy, started the Spicy hostels. So I haven’t told you everything about Luong Phabang yet:

LP is supposed to be the ethnic center of Laos because it is situated right on the Mae Kong river, and it’s a smaller town. We were there for the end of Buddhist Lent, so there was a parade and ceremony of floating these boats and these little banana trunk flower floater things. The fireworks were out of control, literally. My friend, who was guiding everyone from the hostel around all night, got burned on her arm from one of those small exploding ones that people were just throwing into the street during the parade. My ears were ringing from a few going off near me. It was fun regardless. Good beer here. Beer Laos is the monopoly of brands in Laos, and it tastes much better than Thai beer. We all went to a waterfall outside of the city that was by far the prettiest waterfall I’ve ever been to. The limestone rocks make the normally muddy looking river water look crystal clear, and it formed some of the coolest shelves to explore, caves under the water fall, etc. Most tourists there went down to this jumping spot at the bottom, but three of us went to an upper waterfall jumping area where no one was because it’s hidden. I couldn’t take any pictures with Julia’s camera because you had to climb under a scarily gigantic waterfall to get there. So Luong Phabang was very nice and relaxing. Of the three whole days we spent there, one of them was spent walking around the city looking at these incredible temples built into rocks and caves and the National Museum, which is the old palace. We met a large group of English, Irish, and Australians who have been staying in the same hostels and when we went down to Vangvieng they were already at the hostel again.

J with her birthday Buddah (the one for the day she was born)

Banana trunk flower floater things. We attached sparklers and incense

Bravery from the one afraid of heights.

Spicylaos opened another hostel in Vangvieng the day before we got there, so their opening party was the night we arrived. A monk blessing ceremony for an hour and a half was followed by free food and drink. It’s weird how you somehow join these hostel communities, but it has been extremely entertaining so far. Yesterday everyone (about fifteen of us) went tubing down a river bordering Vangvieng, which is the main attraction for the town. I wasn’t such a big fan of the city just because there were more tourists than citizens it seemed, but the tubing was something out of a dream. The starting place is a bar that has a giant swing and you just go from one activity area to another activity area doing whatever activity they have if you want. These swings swung you by your hands thirty or forty yards out and you could drop whenever you wanted. There was mud volleyball at one place; mud up to your shins. That was the most painful thing of the day. Another place had a giant slide, the biggest swing, and an extremely long zipline. The slide may have been as painful because it launches you thirty or so feet into the water. The zipline was fast and dropped you about fifteen feet at fifteen miles per hour I’m guessing. The swing was amazing although we saw a girl hurt herself pretty bad because she didn’t know what she was doing and she dropped from the highest point possible instead of swinging two or three times to get lower.

This giant slide launches you too high, too far, and too fast, forcing perfect form. Though it appears so, I do not have said perfect form.

The first giant swing

So yesterday was a lot of fun but we are resting tonight. Today we traveled from Vangvieng to Vientiane by kayak half of the way through some rapids and calm parts of the river. We stopped for lunch of a baguette, fried rice, and chicken kabobs at a place with a “10” meter cliff jumping spot, although I think it was smaller than that.

Cliff jumping

Lunch spot kayaking from Vangvieng to Vientiane

Now we are thinking about what we’re going to do tomorrow in the city and whether we’ll stay for two nights or just one before heading South on the bus to Four Thousand Islands, which are islands on the MaeKong river on the border of Cambodia. We may or may not do this depending on how long it will take to get to Siem Riep for Ankor Wat.

Not too well written I know but we’re on a tight schedule! More to come, and more pictures to come too when we have faster internet!

It's our last day in Chiang Mai, so I thought I'd throw one out there. If you like it, right on, if you don't, throw it right back at me.

Two weeks ago...(sorry)... we went down to a farming town called Mae Ta, which is about an hour and a half South of Chiang Mai by truck. On my study abroad two years ago we studied Agroecology there for two weeks and another week in a town called Phang. My host parents in Mae Ta were kind of like Cheese on Cheese crackers. That's how awesome they were (and all you Wisconsin folk know what I'm sayin). My Mae Ta host mom's name is Mae Boasai, and I just this time found out my pop's name was Poh Sorn, who recently showed up in a farming magazine for having top-of-the-line organic pumpkins or some vegetable. Their situation is pretty dreamy for anyone with a farming interest..

About 10 years ago, Mae Boasai and Poh Sorn were farming their three "rie" (about half an acre) of land Mae Boasai inherited from her father. They used the standard amount of chemicals in their farming practices, fertilizers, a few pesticides, herbicides, etc. One rie was devoted to vegetable farming, and two were rice paddy fields.. She was in debt up to her eye balls and decided to make the switch, knowing the first few years were going be as successful as the Lion's last two years. So she stopped using all chemicals, started making compost from her rice stalks, animal manure, and fruit juice, and avoided the bank for a while. The first year she produced "less than half" of her normal amount of produce, from what I understood, so she had to buy more food, further herself in debt. The second year she produced maybe three quarters of the normal amount of food because the soil was so reliant on the input of chemicals that it couldn't function well on its own, even with a little compost help. The good part about this year though was that she saved a lot of money not buying those chemicals so she wasn't really putting herself in debt more. The third year she produced about the same amount of veggies, fruit, and rice as she had previously with fertilizers and chemicals (and this is the two late forty-year olds working by themselves). She was able to start paying off her debt and looking into organic markets to sell her stuff. There are two markets in Chiang Mai to which she and a few of her town friends commute twice a week to sell their organic certified food. Now she has 7 rie of land and is in the process of buying more. Movin on up!

The ride to Mae Ta with Mae Boasai

We met Mae Boasai at one of the markets on a Wednesday morning because our volunteer schools got canceled for a few days, unfortunately, courtesy of the Bangkok police. Usually I help her sell if she's not already sold out, which happens a lot, eat some Northern Thai food ("nam preek nam boo" super spicy chili paste with crushed crab, bamboo shoots, sauteed veggies with pork...), and peace out. But since we didn't know how else to get back to Mae Ta from the market, we just hitched a ride with the group, all six of whom were riding back in a single truck. This truck was loaded completely with their empty crates, and the front cab was full of people, so Julia, Mae Boasai and I sat in the back on two very skinny wooden slates basically on the edge of the bed. However uncomfortable the hour and a half long ride along and through mountains was, it allowed us to experience yet another local means of traveling. Mae Boasai somehow fell asleep while bumping along with her head banging on crates in front of her.

Through the mountains.Naptime

Remember to honk when you turn the corner!

Last time I was in Mae Ta it was the rice harvesting season, so helping on the farm was the most back aching labor I've ever done. You spend the whole day hunched over cutting rice with your scythe, and, if you're lucky, you know someone in the village who brews homemade rice whiskey to relieve said aches. This time of year is just veggie harvesting and planting so Julia and I helped spread seeds and manure and compost, pick a few veggies just for dinner, and went fishing for cat fish and brim in one of their ponds. That was a new type of fishing for me too; you thrown the grain and food into the pond, and drop a hooked worm directly into the fish's mouth. We caught a bucket full and fried them for dinner. That night and all through the next day torrential rain flooded the town and the river going through it to triple the river's size causing multiple base levels of houses to be flooded and taking out tens of rie of rice. Luckily all of Mae Boasai's land was flood proof (of course, she's a genius). When we checked out the river in the morning, all the bugs and critters were climbing to the top of rice stalks for dear life, a few of which were scorpions. Most people were immersed in the flooding water with their nets catching crabs. Julia and I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon shoveling out sand that had flown from driveways into the gutter, clogging it. We helped the next door neighbor shuck their baby corn heap for another hour, but huge rain storms mean no work for most.

Supper, arroy
Mae Ta, bordered by rolling mountains. Looks like the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia, don't it?On this road to the farm, the river is straight ahead, but it shouldn't be.
Some of the flooding on the main roadFlies and insects flee the flash flood, this is a scorpion
Poh Sorn and IBaby Corn
Moving sand back into the driveway

Mae Boasai's recent developments since two years ago consist of a new large screen t-v, two new bathrooms with showers (big step considering last time I showered out of a bucket), and a methane biodigester. She and Poh Sorn put the poo into this hole, you see, and then they have free fuel. It's so easy. Later Julia and I went to the local school to check it out and a group of students were playing a game similar to bowling where they throw a ball into a stack of tops and if they knock it over, one team scatters and the other team tries to tag them with the ball before they can build the tops back up. I gotta say it looked really entertaining. We ate more grilled fish and Mae Boasai killed one of her chickens for us that night. I won't get into how she killed it but I've never seen it done like that before. We took a songtow (truck taxi) back through Lampun and into Chiang Mai for work on Friday. In all, Mae Ta is really awesome, and the town has developed somewhat since a higher percentage has turned organic. It's real proof that organic farming lessens your dependence on others and, when done correctly, can be extremely profitable.

School Kids playing

Methane biodigester: put the poo in the little blue part, the gas rises and they cook with it.

Now it's our last day in Chiang Mai, and, though it's supposed to be the exact day ending the rainy season, it's been pouring for two days and looks like the typhoon that hit the Philippines and the new one that is heading towards South East China is finally catching up with us. Could put in for a rainy next month to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We're leaving tomorrow for Laos! We'll be there for a little while, then head to Ankor Wat in Cambodia, then towards Southern Vietnam for a few weeks. Should be interesting so we'll do our best to keep up the blog! Peace in the SE...

"Words want to be free"

Well, this week was our last week teaching! I would say it was very bittersweet. It was fine leaving the Thai school where we worked part time, but it was very very hard to say goodbye to our students at the organizations where we were volunteering. We have both grown really attached to our students there and it was very hard to say goodbye to them, especially because their situation here in Thailand is precarious. But, we can't say too much more about that here... so I'll talk about English teaching in general:

My Saturday classes (at GEE, which Phil has talked about previously) were crazy- I had one class of 7-9 year olds and one class of 4-6 year olds. So, needless to say, it took a lot of energy. The 7-9 year old class was pretty good. We usually worked from the book and then played some games at the end of class, which they liked. They were always askin "Teacher, Teacher, play game!?!" and so I liked to indulge them once and a while. But the 4-6 year old class was pure chaos. I haven't learned nearly enough Thai to tell them to "sit down, sush your mouths, and listen for five minutes and then we can run around like crazy". Nope, never learned that. So, instead it was just running around like crazy time all the time. Which was fine, I just got a little worried when the running got a little out of hand and they started biting and kicking each other. That's when Teacher had to put on her mean face and, luckily, that is understood in all languages. I also teach a few other classes- one of which is a private class to a 6 year old girl who is off her rocker. Crazy and wild, but we have a pretty good time together.

the front of our GEE shirts say "words want to be free"
and that is exactly what we were doing-freeing words like 'over' and 'family'

This week I also finished up another class for GEE which was a class of 30 10-12 year olds. I would go there for two hours almost every afternoon for three weeks. It was pretty fun because they were relatively well behaved and we got to do a lot of silly games and drawing. Then, on the last day I was presented with a big fake orchid flower arrangement and gifts from the kids which included jelly sandwiches and my favorite- a huge piece of notebook paper which I unfolded and unfolded to reveal, in very small writing: "I Love teacher Julia". Oh it made my day.

Teacher Phil and Teacher Julia on a field trip with some of the hooligans from GEE

Aside from teaching for GEE, I also taught Interns and staff at a non-profit organization which is totally run by women. They are amazing and, if you would like to know more about the organization and the awesome work they do, shoot me an e-mail. But I loved teaching these classes. They are all very eager to learn and we have a lot of fun together. The classes are pretty intense, but when we take breaks we head outside and pick star fruit or sugar fruit right off the trees and munch and chat. Plus they invite me to lunch every day and a lot of times teach me to cook with them. It's really great, and I can't get over how wonderful they are. I wish that there was more I could do for them besides teaching and editing their reports and funding proposals.

adorable

I like teaching there the most because it is a very rewarding experience, but it also makes me think that teaching is something I would like to maybe do for real someday. I honestly never thought I'd be teaching English, but there are some things that I really like about it. Like how it's rewarding. And how, for the first time in my life, I am learning English grammar. And how the students can totally surprise you and make you laugh so hard. For example the other day I was reviewing body parts so we could start a health unit about illnesses and health care. When I pointed to my elbow one of the girls shouted out "bus station!" and then shook her head, probably thinking 'oh, no no no, that was wayyyy off'... Or another time I was playing hang man with my 7-9 year olds and most of them chose words like 'cat' or 'dog' and then one busted out the word 'dictionary'. I also really liked writing on the white boards. Especially with new markers...

So, that portion of our trip is now complete... we have a few more days in Chiang Mai, this wonderful city that has become our home, and then we are off onto more adventures! We will definitely keep you posted!