I Spy...

Some pictures to accompany my last post
(slightly out of order...) :

Cute Spartans on their way to work (Jordan and Sarah)

A favorite spot behind the office

The people I keep on my desk (more to be added soon!)

Relaxing our city-beaten feet

Snakes to be bought and released into the river as a part of the holiday

Crossing the Chao Praya

The sun setting on Kohkred

Your typical merchandise at the Chatuchak Market

Sarah posing outside of our favorite coffee shop, Passport

On the balcony of the hostel

In front of... a cool building in our neighborhood

Victory Monument- center of life for all commuters

Our first bicycle taxi

New office friends

moving up to a different room for the next week... looks like more than 2 peoples' stuff!

We can do a lot of hostel damage in a weekend

Sarah goes crazy at work.

Off to the South for a week! If I don't get an entry in beforehand, I'll let you know how it went when I get back!!

Love to America,

Rosie

How you say...

One of my much-anticipated events of being in the tropics for a semester is finally happening (a thunderstorm!) It is actually the first time it has rained since being here… go figure. I’m hoping the storm will continue into the night because we are on the top floor of our hostel, and I would love to fall asleep to it. Ahhh.

Last week work was relatively uneventful. Sarah gave our presentation on tourism and agriculture in Michigan and the people in our office couldn’t get over the fact that the Great Lakes aren’t salty. Blew their minds. Pretty sure that’s the only thing they took away from it, but that’s ok.

Sarah and I decided to stay in the hostel for the weekend instead of heading back to AIT. Our plans to hit an island for a Full Moon Party fell through, but we did some fun stuff instead. We got to sleep in a bit on Friday and we met the gang on Kohkred- an island in the middle of the Chao Praya (the river that runs through BKK.) Was very cool- a jammed packed market with lots of goodies and then we walked around the island. It was a neat walk but super exhausting and hot. We were pretty dead by the end of it.

Highlights include:

Walking through people’s backyards

Lots of dogs at the temples

Almost being demolished by speeding motorbikes (on several occasions)

Sitting on a random dock as the sun set over the river

Fearing a random anaconda attack

On Saturday Sarah and I mustered up the bravery to hit the Chatuchak market (and the buses- sketch)… have you noticed that we go to a lot of markets? It was huge and massive and I got a fake Jimmy Choo bag (Sarah got a coach) and we spent a couple hours oohing and awing over the puppies and kittens and bunnies and squirrels (yes, Sloan, squirrels with berets and everything). I went to take a picture of the squirrels and the lady freaked out at me- and then I saw about 100 signs saying "NO PICTURES!!" Felt like a dummy, but she shouldn't be doing things that you can't take pictures of!  Never found the reptile aisle, guess that’s a good thing. I could have done some serious damage at the market, but it was SOOoo passé :) Been there, done that.

Saturday night was bomber- we went on a “club crawl” organized by our favorite Mexican restaurant… nothing better than being able to get back with the group (minus Ben, sorry!) and dance the night away while collecting some pretty memorable stories. It was hat-themed and so we all looked like goobers as we made our way through Patpong. Favorite part of the night was Chad dancing- I’ll just have to take a video of it because it is seriously indescribable.

Here are some other things I should tell you about.

We have a serious MOVIE ADDICTION. So far I’ve seen  (in order of liking) The Fighter, The Rite, Sanctum, and I Am Number 4. I Am Number 4 was garbage, sadly. Had high hopes. Anyways, the movie theater at Siam Paragon is incredibly comfortable, bathrooms are phenom, and the theaters are beautiful. Oh yeah, and its cheap. Like 6 bucks. But don’t get a hotdog there (I guess no one should ever get a movie hotdog, that’s embarrassing) but they come with cheese on them. Thai cheese is not up to par.

We also got PEDIS. That was nice.

Our HOSTEL is becoming so fun. It is like our little home. Rooms are clean (except for the occasional centipede in the sink) and the staff usually knows where we are/where we are going. It is run by an American ex-pat John (a.k.a. Big Lebowski) and everyone who works there is very nice and knows our names. John has been extremely helpful- he has helped us figure out the bus system and where to eat and pretty much everything. Plus we have been meeting people from all over the world (mostly Europe), and its cool to have breakfast with the French guys, plan a trip to the market with a German couple, and then meet a teacher from Boston. Plus there is a grumpy cat named Pete who sits at the receptionist’s desk and seems to appreciate it when I scratch his ears. Makes me miss Eli and Tess and Little Lena Li-Li.

You can now consider me a MOTORBIKER CHICK. We rode motorbikes to and from work a couple times and it is awesome. Took a video while riding one today, just to make me look extra farangy. It is such a thrill… they duck into the lane of oncoming traffic until the last possible second and then pull back into the left lane, they squeeze between cars and trucks, and they get us to work pretty darn fast.

SKYPING with my MSU family last week was amazing. I couldn’t believe how fun it was to see their faces, plus Sara was cracking me up as usual and I was trying to keep composure while in the office. (Nod once if …) It made me miss them and my home so much!! Love you guys.

Along the same lines, I have been filling out WORK CREW letters of rec for Emily, Hannah, and Katie and I just love being able to tell people about how great they are and how well they will do on work crew. I’m so lucky that I have girls that I can write stellar things about and be honest at the same time :) Makes me miss all of those Mason girls…

Sorry I do not have pictures with this post. Once I find my camera cord (I think I left it at AIT) I’ll upload pics. Also, I have been in the slow process of uploading pics to my picasa, and I am putting all of my pictures on there (I only put a selection on facebook). So far I only have the first week’s worth of pictures up, but I’m workin at it. So check that out here if you wish.

Love to America,

Rosie

Where in the Wang Dang are we?

Production level is low, obligation to blog is high, thus here I am.

Past few days have been fairly uneventful, in a good way. Well, kind of.

You may recall my excitement about sleeping in on Friday, a statement in which I completely jinxed myself. Thursday afternoon Pi Yod requests our presence at the office at 7:30AM to leave for a field trip. Good thing our field trip was fun, or I would have been pretty dang upset!

So Friday we went to a province on the east side near Cambodia.

If your reaction is “oooh, Cambodia!!” you need to be reading more CNN.

If your reaction was “oh I hope you didn’t go in the area of tense international conflict,” good job.

That was a test.

Anyway, we truck over there for about 2 hours, (Pi Spider took a picture of me sleeping)  and the first stop was an agricultural learning center. Villages usually have a “local wisdom”—a man or woman who is educated and can help farmers become more resourceful and solve crop problems. They had hundreds of different plants for medicines and Pi Chad bought us some virgin coconut oil. Yummy- still don’t know what to use it for.

FDA Approved?

Nature steals ideas from Dr. Suess' The Lorax

Pi Yod picks a snack for us

Jackfruit + Ant Colony

"That's either a tiny seed or a chubby hand" -Sarah

For lunch we had wild boar. It was so tough that neither Sarah nor I could chew it. We just gave each other the “what the crap am I eating?” look and swallowed it as best as possible. Phew.

Next stop was a buffalo farm. This woman had learned about the nutritional qualities of buffalo milk and wanted to start a market for it in Thailand. And brace yourselves…

We had real cheese.

She made us a fresh caprese salad with her buffalo mozzarella and it was so nice. I miss cheese. A lot.

She toured us around and we got to kiss some buffalo and see a newborn blink his big ol eyes at us. Pretty presh. What wasn’t so presh? Her annoying goofy dogs that ran around with us. Little yappers, I tell you. One had a broken leg in a cast. Because it didn’t seem to be in pain, I felt ok laughing at it.

interspecies snorgling

Pi Spider with a young'n

Newborns say "bleeeeat."

Glad to be back in the company of civil society

Spazzy McGee w/ cast

Last stop was a mango farm. The man who was to talk with us was late, so what did we do? EAT THOUSANDS OF MANGOES. Real mangoes, people. The farmers put carbon bags over the fruit while its still on the tree and because it blocks the sunlight they become super sweet. (Not sure of the science of that quite yet.) We learned about how the mangoes were grown and then were given about a dozen each. Fantastic. I had to make sure to get a knife on the weekend so I could cut them up like a local.

This looks like 2 player FruitNinja

Pi Spider goes for the gold.

On Saturday we had a very successful trip to future park. (Is that possible?!) Sarah and I bought all the necessities to make bomber valentine’s bags for our office.

Ben let us know that an island near him is having a Full Moon Party this weekend, so we spent a little bit of Saturday trying to plan for that. Should be very fun.

Sunday was spent packing for another week in a hotel, plus a weekend trip, plus another week in the hotel. Needless to say, living out of a backpack is getting a wee bit old, but it is also still refreshing to live with less STUFF all over the place.

Took us about 3x as long to get into the city because of the red shirt protesters and a Bangkok-illiterate cab driver, wah wah. The protests are not even exciting to us anymore- just a nuisance. Quit beating your drums in the street, its midnight.

Sunday night we went to our favorite movie theater and saw “The Rite”… we expected it to be a lot scarier, but it probably was good that it wasn’t because Sarah and I had to share Jordan as our protector from creepy things (the only thing he has done is an excellent job at scaring the bejeebers out of me after we were followed by a goofy tuk tuk driver:)  ).

We have a new hotel/hostel (I don't like saying hostel because it sounds like the horror movie...) room for this week and here are some of the things we said in reaction to it:

“Yes!! There’s a shower curtain!”

“Did you realize the beds don’t have sheets?”

“We have skylights in the bathroom…”

“This bed makes my bed at AIT seem luxurious.”

“Why is the mirror above the toilet?”

 

So there’s good and bad.

Oh hai, BKK! ... the sign to our Hostel

Our hostel is green-people friendly

Internships are turning out to be pretty interesting for each of us in different ways.
-Sarah and I got to go on the sweet field trip and have a week-long one coming up soon (hopefully to Chiang Mai)
-Jordan got to score the winning soccer goal for his office team in the league championship
-Chelsea has spent 2 weekends at a PDA school and hotel
-Chad is spending the week doing eco-stuff in Chiang Rai
-Torey is conducting interviews, writing emails for big wigs, MC-ing anniversary events, and her picture will be in the Bangkok Post this week
-and Ben is a beach bum


It's crazy how all of our experiences have basically been shared until the past two weeks- now we all have different stories and crazy experiences to talk about... which we will do over tropical drinks at Coyote:)

Lets see what else has happened…

-Valentine’s Day was successful. Everyone really seemed to like our goodie bags:). Our office gave us these really pretty embroidered towels that were made locally. It was fun to celebrate vday here, but it was definitely the most homesick I’ve been. It’s not anything too terrible or too consuming, but I would have loved to spend that day with my people.

-Today Pi Spider showed us pics of famous Thai ladyboys for about half an hour. We thought it might be a little NSFW, but no one cared, they just came over and talked about them with us. There are some pretty big ladyboy celebs over. Cosmetic surgery is pretty wild over here.

-I had the BREAKOUT OF THE CENTURY- I think a mix of pollution and humidity and heat and sweat and weird food caused me to have this crazy crazy breakout of sorts on my face and neckline. It was seriously like nothing I had ever experienced before. Gross, I know. Thankfully it is starting to dry up, and I should be good to go for out beach time this weekend. Cross your fingers.

-Today we ate coagulated pork blood soup for lunch. NBD. Looked like liver, another food I would rather not consume. 

Normal food: Pumpkin- and Black Bean Buns for Breakfast. Hope that's food coloring, not sharpie.

-We learned out to take the #16 bus to Siam Square. Quality of life has greatly improved because of this discovery.

That’s about it! Tonight should be a pretty quiet night and tomorrow the Capulets and Montagues are reuniting for a night of fun (ladies night!!) at our favorite hotspot, Coyote. It has the most legitimate Mexican food we have been able to find thus far… 

Love to America,

Rosie

PS, my coworker’s ringtone is “Blah Blah Blah,” by Ke$ha.

Siamese cats come from... SIAM?!

It is February 9th, and according to my typical yearly schedule, I should be on a complete conversation hearts diet at this point. Not to be found in this foreign land.

Feb 9th also is the one month marker of our time in this program! Can’t believe how fast it is already going. I was so pumped to read my one month letter from Annie and then I left it in my room. Go figure. Will have to read it on Friday when we get back.

It has been a heckuva week-

Monday began our first day of internships. I haven’t decided yet if that means we have more freedom or less- when we commute back to AIT, we have less free time and our whole days are taken up by getting to work, being at work, or coming back. A couple of us did a fancy schmancy cost-benefit analysis in our heads and decided that staying in a hotel during the week is well worth the cost (under $10 a night with breakfast included.) So that’s where I am right now, in our little three-bedroom bungalow. It’s a youth hostel, with dark wood floors and windows that look over a little shanty neighborhood and three twin beds. It looks like the setting for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, only our beds are equally as hard. Our bathroom is another one of those hybrid thingamajiggers- there is no enclosed shower so you just stand in the middle of the bathroom with a showerhead, trying not to look at yourself in the mirror. We’re on the fourth floor (penthouse, baby) and the stairs that lead up to our room have low ceilings with arched corners. It feels like we are in the Shire. I like that. And we leave our shoes outside the door. I like that too.

I’ve also realized that play-by-play blogging will no longer be exciting for me to type nor for you to read, so I think from here on out I’ll just share with you anything that I can make to sound interesting or humorous. Hopefully both.

Here’s what’s up with my internship: Sarah and I both are working for the Agricultural Land Reform Office of Thailand. Basically we will be doing research on a topic of our choice (which is proving some very interesting challenges). Our office is chock full of personality, that’s for sure. Everyone is very nice and excited to be around us. More on that later.

Monday was a bit brutal. Ok, I’m totally re-nigging on the play-by-play rule, but first days are important?
After waking up late, destroying my feet in new shoes, commuting for two hours, and being stared at as we walked by hundreds of lazy Yellow Shirt protesters, I was pretty beat. It was pretty cool to witness the protesters- they are so different than at home. They were just old farmers camping out and not really doing anything. Lame. They were protesting our office and the one next to ours and nobody in our office even cared. Ah, the luxuries of not being held accountable to your constituency.

We found the office and were shown to our desks… I found a hidden stash of snacks in my drawer and look over to see the lady whose nickname is “Fat” giggling with her hands trying to cover her big smile. She scooted over, swiped the snacks and found a new hiding spot for them.

We have two advisors (kind of), Pi Spider and Pi Yod. Pi Spider is very sweet and has good English and likes to laugh with us about things happening in the office. Pi Yod is a PhD who looks like he might take my lunch money.

Our first day was spent configuring our internet (its not setup for macs and for some reason hotmail, gmail, and facebook have a hard time getting through the proxy), eating, having pictures taken of us eating, and talking about how good the meal was. They get really excited when we know the names of Thai dishes and when we can eat spicy things. We’ve noticed that when they order for us they say “mai ped” (little/no spicy) a lot.

Additionally. They are constantly feeding us. And commenting on our eating habits. We were given three bags of dried fruits and were snacking on them and someone comes over and says “You eat all the time!!” WELL you left awesome food on our desks! And everyday when the juice girl comes around, the nicest man Pi Chad buys us these weird little yogurt juices. Juice girl sets them on our desks and we look over and Pi Chad is watching us to see if we knew it was him. We drink the yogurt and smile and watch him be delighted by the fact that he can please the FARANG. He’s pretty cute. In an awww-cute-old-guy way.

After work we met up with Jordan, and tuk tuk’d it over to the ritzy part of town, Siam Paragon. **This is the part of my life when I decided to get a surgical mask. That’s right, I’m becoming Asian everyone. Put it in your black book, Mom.
You just smell so much gross stuff and inhale so many pollutants, especially riding on a motorbike or tuk tuk. So I’m gonna do that.

Chumpoo Tuesday. Everyone in the government wear pink (Chumpoo) polos on Tuesday. Guys too. I like it here.
Protesters are still outside, we are assigned our first task. On Wednesday, Pi Yod says,
“present to office.”
“Ok. What would you like us to present about?”
“America.”

So we made a powerpoint about America.

Getting home Tuesday evening was kind of a disaster. We walked over to Thammasat’s BKK campus and waited for the van. And waited and waited. We knew it was coming because we had already bought tickets, but it was seriously taking forever. Found out that the van was caught in a traffic jam. Finally picked us up around 7, back to Thammasat by 8 ish. Nat took us out to dinner and we were served by the most outgoing, committed ladyboys ever. Vented a little bit about the day, received good advice from Nat, and headed home to AIT.
Tuesday was a 5AM-10PM day. I don’t know how my mom does it all the time.

Today we fairly smooth. We gave our powerpoint (I talked and Sarah clicked, roles reversed for NEXT WEEKS PRESENTATION) and I think they really, really liked it. Well, they liked our youtube choices. Showed a few PureMichigan commercials (we thought it was pretty funny that they OOHED and AWWED over the little white boy, whereas we think Thai kids are the cutest things on the planet), showed the new Chrysler commercial (we had been telling them about the auto industry and Detroit) and a MSU football promo. They really liked that one. It all tied together, promise.
We spent about a half hour answering questions too, which was pretty fun. They ranged from “What are the social disparities in Michigan?” to “Have you ever been a cheerleader?”
I’ll let you guess which gender asked which question☺

After work we spent about 2 hours trying to find our hotel and we did. Checked in, grabbed dinner, and now its 8:30 and we are about to crash. Tomorrow is the last day of the work week and Sarah and I are sleeping in on Friday before we head back to AIT. Cannot wait.
We’ve had (and still have) a very steep learning curve this week. Here’s some stuff I missed…

Things I’ve learned this week:
1. Father knows best: when initially asked about BKK weather he said, “Its either hot or wicked hot.” This week is wicked hot.
2.That I’m thankful my tax dollars go to government offices that are efficient. And somewhat transparent. Or at least staffers aren’t allowed to facebook or sleep through the work day…
3. There should never be squat toilets in a government office.
4. There are some places in the world where it is necessary to keep your own TP in your desk.
5. If you are white, you will be stared at, and people feel no shame for doing it.
6. Make it up as you go.
7. Check and double-check the map. (We’re pros now?)
8. Don’t break your new shoes in on the first day.
9. Make friends with the pain- the four 1” diameter blisters aren’t going away any time soon.
10. Finish your long day with a Magnum ice cream bar. (vanilla ice cream, thick milk chocolate, almonds.)
11. There are things spicier than the hottest bdub wings. They are green veggies in the Tom Yum we had today. They make your tongue feel like it has suffered hundreds of lacerations and is bleeding.
12. Time heals all mental wounds inflicted upon by spice.
13. The best way to spend your time at 6 AM is a morning chat with Mom. (Have you noticed I miss my mom?)
14. People are very surprised by curly hair.
15. I am surprised by my curly hair- it’s so curly I don’t even recognize it. As it gets more humid, my hair gets shorter and shorter.
16. When there’s plastic wrap over your chair seat, you are going to sweat. Don’t try to avoid it.
17. That American politics still get me just as riled up (started my day today TERRIBLY, watching the Bill Oreilly Obama interview. I don’t care your politics, Bill’s a JERK).
18. Always pack flip flops- you never know when you will step in a puddle of mystery muck.
19. Enjoy morning internet when family and friends are still awake and on facebook chat. After 1PM facebook gets incredibly boring.
20. If all else fails, smiles and thumbs up.

Hope this all doesn’t sound too whiny. It has been a long week. I am excited to get into a routine and to know where I am every time we leave the office building. Ready for some rest, ready to not be commuting 4+ hours, ready to enjoy the sun in a swimsuit instead of cursing it for making me sweat through right where my backpack hits my shoulders.

I also have been a bit sentimental… watching those PureMichigan/Detroit commercials, flipping through MSU pics to show coworkers, and talking about our home has made me miss it a fair amount. I could be brainwashed, but I’m glad it’s Michigan I will get to return home to. ;)

It almost gets emotional and then I remember I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt, just paid a buck and a half for a meal, and walked past the Grand Palace. Bam.

Love to America,

Rosie

Sabaidee!

Just got back from our week in Laos/NE Thailand!

Would give all the deets but it all seems to blur together. It takes flipping back through my pics to remember what we did each day!

Here’s the abbreviated version:

Saturday, Jan 29

Evening departure for the BKK train station. Take the sleeper train to the Thai-Lao border outside of Vientiane. The train was a trip, for sure. We had seriously the BEST ladyboy waitress/attendant. Looked fairly girly but had the voice of an elderly male smoker. Pretty great.

Sunday, Jan 30

Arrive at the border and spend over an hour in the circus of emigration. Traveling is awesome but any parts that deal with the bureaucracy can be downright exhausting. We eventually move into Laos, begin driving on the right hand side again (ahhh so nice) get picked up by Pi Me, and architecture prof who is our guide for the week. We head straight for Laos’ hydroelectric dam. This place is awesome- looks like a massive green lake with red-gold islands… we find out that the islands used to be mountaintops before they flooded the area. Boated around for a while. It felt good to be in a boat with low riding gunwales again. Sigh.

paradise.

Monday, Jan 31 (happy birthday Justin Timberlake)

Visit Laos’ biggest temple. (We’re a little temple’d out, so I don’t really have much to say on the matter.) A lot of gold, a lot of taking our shoes off, a lot of quiet.

Walked around the other Vientiane landmarks and visited the UXO museum. The UXO (unexploded objects) museum was super powerful. Laos was bombed heavily during the Vietnam War, and because they only let NGO’s on about a decade ago, much of the land is not UXO cleared. Hundreds die every year coming across them. Was really irked me was in one of the pictures of survivors, a man had lost a few limbs and an eye, and was wearing a USA t-shirt. I was infuriated. I was actually infuriated that Laos is a US friendly country. They shouldn’t be. We kill hundreds of their people every year. That really pissed me off.

Afterwards, were dropped off at a day market in the city. Had the rest of the day off.

That night was interesting… involved exploring the “beach” (actually the dried riverbed) of the Mekong, hanging out with a French guy Pierre who has friends at MSU, and meeting Lao police. Or so we thought. They had jackets that said “US Army.” REAL convincing. Jackets may have been not real, but we’re pretty sure their automatic guns were. Everything worked out fine, will tell you the story if you so desire to hear it.

A whole new world!!

UXO display

Tuesday, Feb 1.

Hit the road early and headed out towards our night accommodations in the ecolodge. On the way we stopped in a village to see the farming projects they are working on. Cool to see NGO $$$s in action. Also cool to see villages learning about diversification in order to make their income steadier. Nice work, Laos. While we were busy touring the village, the women busied themselves making a lunch for us (around 10:30 AM!). As far as we know, they didn’t even know we were coming, but they took the time and energy and their own food to feed the lot of us. We realized that we don’t even know how to react to such kindness.

Driving, driving, driving… eventually arrive in the general area of the village. The landscape here is incredible. INCREDIBLE. It’s like spans of red Georgia dirt with deciduous forests and then these massive, completely unprecedented rock formations. Unlike anything I’ve seen before.

We climb up into a cave trying to avoid multiple hazards that include the floor length sarongs the girls had to wear, teeny tiny steps, and Lenny the Ling Ling trying to take Sarah home with him. He was so cute. Love that little fuzz ball. We ducked into the cave, more stairs (barefoot this time) and find this really cool temple built inside of the cave. Still trying to feel enthused about temples, but this one was pretty cool because of its locale. Nice.

Lenny

It’s just about dusk when we reach the village. We toss our packs in the eco lodge, a big empty cabin on stilts with a massive front porch, and promptly head to the campfire for playtime with the village kids. Kids are so universal, its amazing. They boys are all violent little crap heads and the girls are all shy and want to learn your hand claps. So fun to watch. Plus they are the cutest little children of the world, it’s a fact. They loved playing with my ipad, our digital cameras, but most of all loved piggyback warfare. We wore them out (and ourselves) for about an hour or two and then ate a much needed dinner. (By this point we’re a little worn out on backcountry Lao/Thai food). Omelets for breakfast lunch and dinner. For real.

We rest for a bit and the elders (I’m assuming) held a welcome ceremony for us. It was really awesome. Somebody in our group made a good point- we had obviously paid to be there and that is a part of the package, but it did genuinely feel like they were welcoming us into their home, genuinely wishing us good health and a long life. I liked that. Didn’t like? The LaoLao- a rice whisky that we were supposed to drink every time we got welcomed (we got welcomed about 4x each). Man, that was strong stuff. I could only handle it once. The oldest man alive who was doing the ceremony drank it like water. And would burp like Homer Simpson. You go, old man. You go.

We snuggle under the bug nets (everyone’s taking their malaria pills, just in case) and hunker down for the night.

Wan Jai

Wed, Feb 2.

Rise and Shine, we’re going hiking. Coming off of wilderness, I felt a little over-prepared in my underarmor and running shorts as our guide is wearing a dress shirt and slacks (and sneakers.) We did about 10k of forests, caves, rivers, and farmland. The caves were amazing- huge and dark and scary but also smooth and calming and intimate. <3.

Best part? Swimming in a cave. You know, whatever. It was the greenest river (with some kind of gross floaties) that we (I) nervously swam in while lunch was being prepped. Felt like Tarzan. We weren’t sure what to think of lunch (seeing that it still had eyeballs), but as soon as we tasted it inhibitions were lost. It was DELICIOUS. White fish right off of the bone, pork jerky, endless supply of legitimate sticky rice (its very sticky.) What a pleasant surprise. Feel bad that the fish had to watch us eat his guts, but such is life I suppose.

planet earth.

lunch

swimming hole. 

Hike Hike Hike some more, get to village #2 and catch the van that takes us to our real van. Real van couldn’t make it down the dirt road, so we had to ride to it. Immediate indicator of how that ride was going to feel. 12 of us packed in a van (4 in the backseat) for over an hour going about 15 mph. Misery.

By nighttime we arrive at yet again another guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. Our bed spread our designed for 8 year old girls. No complaining, there’s hot water in the shower. Go into town for dinner. Ok let me make a note here on dining out in Laos. And in Thailand too for that matter. Many more people eat out here than in the US. Its so cheap. Why not. THEN WHY have these people not mastered the art of running restaurants?! Literally every meal we went out for took forever to order, orders were messed up, checks were confusing, and we had a Lao AND Thai speaker with us! And we were just pointing at the menus! It was very baffling to me. Also, its normal for restaurants to bring out your food as soon as its prepared, so you just start eating as soon as you gets yours. A good concept, but not sure why they can’t time dished better. Every meal we had one person not get their meal until everyone else was finishing up. I do not understand.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Wah Wah, get over it, Rosie.

Thurs, Feb 3.

Visited a research rice farm and learned two things. #1, they put frogs in the rice paddies to increased the dissolved oxygen thus increasing yield. Cool. #2, BLACK RICE WITH COCONUT SHAVINGS is my favorite.

yumm. 

Time to return to Thailand. Cross the border (another production) and head towards Phuphan National Park. This was an interesting night:

1. Had a salad with ant eggs in it

2. Saw the most stars I have ever seen

3. Found a scorpion under my backpack in the cabin

4. Interrupted a high-school age camp

 Thats about it

Friday, Feb 4.

Last day of the trip. Hit the handicraft center early and that was very cool. Was expecting a big market but it was actually more of a giant facility for crafting. Wood carving, wall hanging sewing, clay on the wheel, the whole shebang. They let us paint our own ceramics, which was a ton of fun. Felt like a kid in art class again. Again, can’t believe how incredibly nice these people are- they let us paint for free and gave Pi Paew and Grant really cool legitimately painted ceramic elephants. So jelly.

Went to a temple and this huge family came up to Torey + Sarah + Me and held out their camera. Thought they wanted us to take their picture. NOPE. They wanted a picture with us. And not just one, about 15. PICS WITH FARANG how fun!! That made others feel more comfortable taking pics with us and it became the thing to do I suppose. On the way out a local professed his love for Torey. We walked away briskly. 

ceramics about to be painted

arts and crafts!

pig.

nuther temple.

A couple more stops and we were at the train station. We were a few hours early so naturally we hit the mall. Jordan, Chad and I got AMERICAN food. SO SO SO GOOD. Also got DQ- not as good, but close enough. We were on the escalator when a woman who Chelsea bought a calling card from ran up to us and gave us these cute little cell phone charms- she had seen Chelsea looking at them and wanted us each to have one. Just straight up gave them to us. I just don’t understand the generosity.

Before we knew it we were back on the sleeper train (no ladyboy this time) and we hit the hay pretty early. Have to say I am a huge fan of sleeping on trains. I like the sound of the tracks and the engine. I slept almost as well on the train as I did on the way to Japan :)

Back at AIT and we are all busy prepping for our internships and running last minute errands. Tonight we are celebrating Ben’s birthday and going back for our favorite: the Chinese pork leg + fried bread dinner. YES. Might hit up the Chinese New Year celebrations in BKK. Who knows where the night (or the taxi driver) will take us.

Love to America,

Rosie