Away We Go...

Saying goodbye to family is always difficult, but our time has come and so Megan, Katie and I were dropped off at the Chiang Mai bus terminal to head south.  We wanted to thank our family for such an amazing 3 months.  It is a rare experience to be half way around the world and have a home.  We were able to share the exciting, mundane, and everything in between together.  We love each one of you so much!!

Our first stop down south was Ayutthaya, the acient capital of Thailand.  We rented bikes for a dollar and rode around the city.  The ruins are spectacular and I couldn't think of a better way to see them than on bikes... oh wait you can see them while riding elephants!!  

But the bikes were way cheaper so we stuck with our two wheeled mounts.

Here's a few more photos from the day...

After our short stay in the ancient city we took a van to Bangkok, made a quick switch to another van taking us to the Koh Samet pier and after a short ferry we were at the BEACH!!!

We had two nights on the beautiful but strange island of Koh Samet.  The people on the island were slightly unusual, particularly the men who worked at the restaurants and bars.  Let's just say they were very friendly to the ladies and tried about every cheesy pick up line in the book.  We left the island and made our way back to Bangkok arriving a few hours later than we were supposed to and discovered that nearly every hotel was full.  Megan and I search all over the obnoxiously loud and crazy Khao San Rd until we found the dingiest little room right above all the madness.

Loud music was playing all night and we had to catch our shuttle to the airport at 4am so there wasn't much sleeping.  But we made it out of there and got to the airport. We were so excited to share our last few weeks with Katie.  We had a whirlwind adventure, which was a perfect goodbye to Thailand.

And now we're in Kolkata, India!!

Road Trip!

We have taken long flights and bus trips, made our way around towns on motorbikes and bicycles, but how often do you get to take a road trip on the other side of the world!?  Our good friend Katie just flew to Thailand for her first time in Asia and she's spending 10 days with us.  We knew that she didn't have much time so we wanted to make the best of our time and decided that we would spend a few days up north, a few in Chiang Mai, and end our time with a few days on the beach.  

We put her through a whirlwind on her first weekend:  Flower festival, Jazz Festival, Baan Tawai wood carving fair, and finally Sunday walking street.

We were all exhausted, so we had a leisurely morning on Monday and then Tad's parents were incredibly kind to offer their truck so we could go on a road trip through Northern Thailand.

We started by driving to Pun Pun and Panya farms. Two farms that I visited five years ago!  We made it through all the directions until the last turn- it made no sense, we went in circles asking anyone we could where to go, and just as we were giving up a man spoke English and understood our request.  He pointed us in the right direction and we finally made it.  However, as we arrived we couldn't see anyone at the farm.  There was a Thai woman looking very frantic saying, "We have an emergency".  Ignoring her instructions to stay at their shop, we followed the voices and found that everyone was running with buckets of water to put out a fire that had started in the field. We immediately jumped in line and started to shuffle buckets of water down the line.  Within no time the fire was out, but because of the commotion there were few people that we could talk to at Pun Pun, so we gave ourselves a tour and then drove over to the nearby Panya Farm.

 

Panya is a farm started by Christian, a friend of mine from Bellingham!  He grew up in Thailand, but then moved to the states for college.  About 5 years ago he returned to Thailand and has focused his life on learning about permaculture farming and natural building.  He also treated us to some of his home-made cider wine, a Roselle, but take a look at the list of flavors they make:

After the farms, we made our way to Chiang Dao for some natural hot springs and a good nights rest.  Then in the morning we woke up to a beautiful yet cold day and took a tour through one of the larger caves in Thailand.

Katie was very excited about the idea of going to the Golden Triangle, so we drove all the way to the tip top of Thailand, the point where Thailand meets with Laos and Myanmar.  We made it just in time for sunset, which was beautiful, but meant we had another hour of driving in the dark back down to Chiang Rai.

We spent our last day was in Chiang Rai, and it was there that we added to our means of transportation for the trip: long tail boat and elephants :)

It was one of the best road trips I have ever been on and when we got home we packed all our things for the first time in 3 months, said goodbye to the family and have now arrived in Ayutthaya.  Here is a peak at the amazing ruins... will post more on our time here in the next few days.

Words for the Pictures

We arrived at the public transportation stop early to make sure we got a seat on the songthaew, a truck with benches in the truck bed for seating.  Fortunately, there were only 7 people so we all packed in and geared up for the 5 hour ride into the northern mountains of Thailand.

After about an hour we had a pit stop for food and picking up more passengers and there were about 20 people that all piled into the truck!  Pi Wa kept looking over at us saying, "Aren't you glad we have the VIP seats?"  The VIP seats meant that we had a seat- there were about 15 people stuffed on the seats, 3 sitting on the bed of the truck, 4 standing on the back and another 4 on top the truck.  We had no idea a single truck could hold 28 people, and we were wrong... it can hold more!  We had another stop about another hour later where 10 more people all piled in.  Five more up top, and 5 more stuffed into the bed, here's a look of the inside of the truck (don't be deceived by our wide angle lens, it is not an extra wide truck):

Oh and there were two babies... but they were awesome!!  So adorable and didn't cry at all.

Megan, Pi Wa and I took some meds to help with motion sickness and were so thankful that we did as the road twisted and turned up the hills.  At one point there were six people all around us puking into bags and tossing them out of the window.  This may be too graphic, but some of the people didn't get a bag in time and some bags had holes that were discovered at the most unfortunate times, fortunately we weren't hit :)

We arrived at our last stop after 6 hours of sitting on a slightly padded bench, but couldn't complain when there were people sitting on the roof, standing on the back and sitting on the floor.  There was still another hour motorcycle ride on the worst roads yet to get to the village.  Our butts were either in pain or totally numb, sometimes it was hard to tell.  We put up with the pain because we had the most beautiful view as we rode through the mountains.  After an hour we arrived at Pi Wa's house where her mom was waiting with all the grandchildren to greet us.  We brought a box full of gifts from Chiang Mai, mostly dried fish (a favorite of Pi Wa's mom), noddles, oranges along with some lighters and other nicknacks.

After eating some dinner, Megan tried to do some traditional weaving...

...and even went out to help collect some fire wood, which they do every night.

Megan took about 30 pounds of wood and Pi Suk took close to 100 pounds.  They carried it all in bamboo basket with a strap that goes over the forehead. Megan struggled as she felt the pressure on her back and slipping around on the dark trail, we still can't believe how strong Pi Suk is to carry all that wood every night.

The night sky was incredible, with just a tiny amount of light coming from each house.

The next morning we walked around the village and met with just about everyone in the village.

The first visit was to Pi Wa's Aunt.  She is 100 years old and hasn't been able to walk ever since she injured her leg seven years ago.  She had such a joyful spirit and wanted to talk to us all day.

The neighbors showed us the traditional Karen dress that they were weaving...

After meeting and greeting everyone in the village we were told that we should teach the kids at Sunday school. It is hard to really describe how amazing this was; we started the lesson by teaching them a song.  All the boys would jump up dancing and singing Hallelujah then sit down and the girls would jump up and sing Praise the Lord. It took us a while to get the right tune, however, not by the fault of the kids.  We had just heard the song the night before and my (Megan) Sunday school song knowledge is little to none, so I kept singing the wrong tune as I was teaching the kids. Tad came up to me and said, "Meg- it goes like this..."  and once I got it right we sounded great!  A good thing, because they made us sing in front of the whole village at church later that day.

After we had practiced the song over and over again, I (Tad) told them the story of David and Goliath which seemed fitting since I was literally a giant in the village.  To prove that point here's a photo of me and the pastor of the church.

Later in the day I brought out my Ugandan sling shot (thanks Casey!!) and we set up some cans to shoot.  You gotta love the aiming warm up!

Megan gave them some bubbles and played with the girls, although a little boy named Guitar became fixated with them, trying to shake out every last drop. (By the way- his sister's name is Piano! Such cute kids and great names).

 We woke up at 6am to catch the early songthaew home, and while it was freezing we were thankful for the opportunity to put on our jackets and long pants after so many months of shorts and t-shirts. The ride home went smooth- no piles of people, no throwing up, and we even made it home in 5 hours!

We are so thankful that Pi Wa's family opened their home to us for the weekend, it was a weekend we will never forget.  We pick up our friend Katie today who is visiting us for our last week in Thailand!  It's hard to believe we have been here for nearly three months, it has been an amazing adventure but we are excited to fly to Kolkata, India next week!