New Chapter

I'm retiring my heading. It seems outdated:

THAILAND ADVENTURES

After a year in the Land Of Smiles, it's time for a new look on the blog. I'm still enjoying and adjusting to the tropical weather, yummy curries, and heart-warming people. Follow along as I try to understand this wacky culture where they sweep the trees (because they're dirty??), but wouldn't dare touch the year old massive cobwebs on the ceilings.

Rocket Festival

After Tara's house we spent a night in Roi Et at Michaels house. So cool to see so many people's towns and new cities in the NE part of Thailand.

After Michaels we all went to Yasothon to Natalie's house for the ROCKET FESTIVAL.
A festival at the end of the hot season trying to get the rain god to send down some rain.

I think there were about 15 of us at Natalies for the festival.

Saturday was a huge parade down the main street of town. The street was lined with stages. Each group that made a rocket had a stage blaring music. As some of the only farang in town we were invited up to lots of stages and got to do lots of stage dancing.

Day two was the blasting of the rockets. Thousands of people got together in a park to watch the rockets go off every couple minutes. If your rocket was a dud your group was thrown into the mud pit. There were a lot of muddy people walking around. We muddied our face with tribal war lines.

There was lots of down time where we sat around at Natalies and played games or watched movies and tried to stay cool. And lots of som tam eating.

It was quite a bitch to get home- 13 hours door to door and some long bus rides. The kind where they put little plastic seats in the aisles to fit more people in. The kind that seem to stop every 20 minutes to pick up more people. Tara was with me on my first leg, and thankfully we were so exhausted we could sleep for most of it. I made my connection no problem and when I got off the bus Munglee came running to me. It was a nice home coming.

PICTURES:
top: an elephant came by one night and we were feeding the guy

middle: a policeman handing out wooden penises, the other symbol of the rocket festival and apparently the entire province. That's Merissa

bottom: our war painted faces at the festival. Me, Tara, Emily, Natalie, Bryn.

Tara's house

After Carolyns I met Tara in the booming city of Korat where we had air con and TV! And went to the mall!



Then I went to Tara's site and got to see how she lives. We had dinner at her 'family's' house after picking up goodies at the market.


Next day we went to the Khmer ruins near her house. Tara lives on the Cambodia border.

We were supposed to go see Karabao, a very popular Thai singing group. But the dates got mixed up. I had gotten a Karabao Kareoke VCD and we practiced so we'd be able to sing along... Next time I guess. At least I have a Thai song under my belt for when I find myself in front of a kareoke machine with a microphone pushed in my face.

Carolyn's house

Went on a little trip to see lots of friends and spend some time at their sites. Carolyn lives in a pretty rural place. She has the cutest little place with her dog Lucky. We popped a karaoke VCD into her computer and belted out some tunes the evening I arrived. The dogs in her neighborhood howled along. Oh, and treat of all treats, Carolyn has a toaster oven and made me a baked potato and sweet potato chips.

In the morning we went on a great bike ride out to a resevoir. There was a few hills which I am so not used to. Riding down one I picked up some speed and I smiled as the wind passed me it made me think of skiing. Pathetic. Get this girl to some snow.

[actually Jeeda, Wendy, and I are going to 'Dream World' near Bangkok this sunday and they have a room with snow apparently!!!]

We passed lots of rice fields, and even though I have about 200 pictures of rice fields I needed to take more. I LOVE them so much. Today on my run I took the turn at the end of the road, passed all the houses, and BEHOLD fresh green rice fields for miles into the distance. It made me gasp. The sight is so pure, beautiful, graceful, innocent, peaceful, and open.

After the ride at Carolyn's we got some som tam (papaya salad) and went for a walk out behind Carolyns house with Lucky and a few other neighborhood dogs who are apparently a bad influence on Lucky because sometimes they run around and kill neighborhood chickens. We sat in a small wooden platform on the edge of the fields and had our salad and mango.