"I like ham and candy"

Yesterday we went up to the Akah hill tribe village to help them build an adobe stove. It was such a primitive place, unlike any I've been to so far in Thailand. The buildings were all small huts and some of the older women had tribal headwear. The kids were so excited and followed us around and held our hands. They have an alternative medicine clinic there that we're all helping to build and so far the building and the sauna are complete. On the way back our taxi driver made a stop at his house to show us his baby. He had a little ball cap on and his name was Juan. They even let me hold him ahhh! Once we got back I watched some Glee with Amy and we were all listening to her skype her parents in Texas and imitating their accents (apparently we do that a lot). Amy was teaching us all the different types of southern accents using the phrase that Riley picked "I like ham and candy."

This morning we went to pediatrics and I met the love of my life, a little Thai girl with downs syndrome. I did puzzles with her and read and acted out books for her and she started getting into it too. She kept clapping and then leaning in to hug me. She's the best little girl in the world. Afterward we travelled around a bit to find a bank and post office and got caught in the rain...again. This place is constantly wet these days. This picture of a little boy from the hill tribe might be my favorite picture of the trip.

"Happy, happy and good luck"

Well we did it. We got up before the sun and made the journey over to the big Buddha overlooking the city of Phuket for the sunrise. It was so serene and we also got blessed by a monk who gave us bracelets and then tapped our head with a twig thing and said "happy happy and good luck." He also gave us some ramen and water along with a small book on Buddhism. After dawn broke we took a flight back to Chiang Mai (no awesome people sitting next to me this time :[ bummer) and then a bus to Chiang Rai. We've kind of just been chilling tonight and cleaning up some dead stuff off our back porch. Welcome home.

"Is this real life?"

Today was the last full day of our trip before we head back to Chiang Rai tomorrow morning. We got to go to an AWESOME jungle in Krabi though and see some crazy stuff. Some of the biggest, nastiest bugs I've ever seen and wow it was breathtaking. There were so many sounds all around and I have no idea what any of it was. The guidebook said we might see tigers and panthers but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we just saw some monkeys. Still crazy though. It was about a four hour hike and we saw some beautiful waterfalls. We got caught in the rain at the very end making things very slippery but it was weird because we could hear the rain for about 5 min before we actually started to feel it.

Anyway, now we're back in Phuket so I'm finally getting my blog up to date. We're waking up early to climb up to the big Buddha to watch the sunrise so I should probably get to bed since we're getting up at about 4:30 am. Good night.

Update Part 3

Last night was amazing to say the least. Koh Phangan is known for its epic Full Moon Party on the beach. Everyone should google it because I don't even know how to describe it. We weren't even there on the main day (this Wed) but is was already crazy. Basically there's different dance music down the whole beach and everyone has neon body paint on and there's so many places/platforms to dance on. It was nuts. I went with Amy because the others didn't want to go out. We were really tired too actually but this thing is supposed to be epic so we sucked it up and went. Such good music! They were throwing down some dirty beats. I loved it. Amy and I definitely danced until our bodies physically couldn't dance anymore.

Ths morning we left for Krabi and took another ferry and then bus to get there. We've basically been travelling all day which is fine because it has been so rainy everywhere. Now we're in Krabi and don't really know what to do because it is raining so much. It was funny, right before we got onto the ferry on the way over here it just starting pouring buckets and Amy and I got soaked. It was a bad day to wear a white t-shirt. The rainy season has definitely begun.

Update Part 2

Snorkeling was amazing! It was just Amy Ashley and me plus Tim and Phil It was a 6 hour trip and we got to drive around in a speed boat. I got to sit on the very front tip of the boat with my legs dangling over the side for awhile. So much fun. The beaches were amazing the cliffs were amazing the water was amazing the reefs were amazing. We were/are definitely in paradise. One of the places we went to is called Monkey island and there were monkeys running around everywhere. One monkey attacked a lady right as we were pulling up in the boat so we were all kind of cautious taking pictures with them but they were so funny. It's hard for me to even describe the trip because it was so amazing so I'll just post some pictures. We really bonded with the boys though and explored the islands with them. It was fun because they were really down for anything. But yeah, snorkling was amazing. There were so many crazy fish around me (kind of freaking me out) and the strangest coral I've ever seen. Once we got back to our bungalows after a long day we slept for a little but before we went out. Like I said before Phi Phi islands are known for their huge party scene and it's so much fun! There are dance parties all over the beach and it's crazy crazy crazy. I went out with Amy and danced with her for a bit. We were the only people on the dance floor for awhilebecause it was only like 10 pm and these two girls came up to us and asked if we worked for the club because sometimes clubs hire people to dance and make the place seem more fun. We let them know we weren't; how awesome of a job would that be though? But anyway I ended up meeting up and partying with Tim because you know...some of the group doesn't feel too comfortable with these things. Tim and I had so much fun thouh. We danced to the song Kids by MGMT in the ocean, we even got to chill in a sweet long boat (for like five seconds because some dude kicked out). After awhile we went into down and stopped at the place that I got my tattoo at the night before to say hello. There was a girl there who was about to get a bamboo tattoo and was really nervous so I held her hand because her friend was in the bathroom. Such a fun night. I met so many fun people. We got to bed at about 4 am.

The next morning we checked out of the bungalows and I chilled with the boys for a bit until we left. Gonna miss those guys. We took a bus to Krabi and met more people. This guy sitting in front of me asked me if i do a lot of drugs because "I seem like I do". It's funny that that wasn't the first time someone said that to me randomly. I need to clean up my image I guess. Amy told him he was being rude but he was just really curious about doing mushrooms in Thailand which I cautioned him against. He was fun to talk to though and told me some good electronic music to check out. He also gave Amy and I a "best friends test" which he said we passed haha. Love that girl. After the bus we took an overnight ferry to Koh Phangan, another island. It was so weird. It was a sleeper ferry so it was just made up of beds all in a row. They felt like hard pieces of plastic. Pretty funny experience even though I'm pretty sure it had bed bugs or something. We got to Koh Phangan at 5:30 am with no room booked but luckily we found the perfect place to stay. Our room has a beach front view and the bathroom walls are made of rock and you can see the ocean when you shower! We're paying just as much for this place as we were for the shack bungalows we stayed at on Koh Phi Phi. So we slept until about 11 and two of the girls went to ask the guy at the front desk about a national park here. They came back saying he was the rudest guy in the service industry they had ever dealt with and that he was snippy and mean for no reason. They were thinking it was because they were American. I got so mad when they told me that because they really are the nicest girls. That's probably the best adjective to describe them actually. So anyway I went over to the desk to ask him a question about the ferry assuming he would be rude and I could get angry at him. For some reason he was really nice to me though and even laughed at my stupid jokes. Go figure. Afterward we decided to rent moto bikes and drive to the beach. Ryleigh and I drove the bikes with the girls holding on behind us but then it started raining pretty hard so we decided to come back. They made me ask the guy to refund our money since I was the only one he hadn't been mean to and he did so it all worked out. So now we're just chilling in our room waiting for the storm to subside. Another rainy day in paradise.

Update Part 1

I haven't had internet for a bit so I'm going to post a blog that I already wrote now. More to come.

July 23, 2010

Wow..my mind has been blown in more ways than one. We took a ferry to the Phi Phi islands yesterday and...wow. This is the most beautiful place I've seen in my whole life. I wish everyone in the world could see it. It was almost like a dream. I wish the pictures could do this place justice! I also learned that I can't judge people (too much) based on their religion. These girls have been pretty awesome. I love them. Here's a story. Daddy I hope you don't cringe when you read this but: I got another tattoo. Let me explain though. So we arrived to this beautiful place with the nicest people with the nicest girls who can appreciate this just as much as me and anyway there is this guy here who does traditional bamboo tattoos. That means he sticks a long piece of bamboo dipped in ink in and out of your skin making for a longer and much more painful tattoo process (but way more badass). I decided to get one and what an experience! The four other girls on my trip (Ryleigh, Ashley, Amy, and Holly) all helped design this tattoo at dinner around my life and experiences etc. The end result is an elephant with different designs inside. The trunk is made up of 3 words written in Thai: family, discovery, passion. The elephant's heart is the shape of Thailand condensed down to a heart (if you look at Thailand you can see it's sort of heart-shaped). This is the best tattoo I have ever gotten! It's beautiful and the process was amazing. All the girls were so excited to go with me and they were great the whole time. They stayed with me from 9 pm to 2 am even when I told them they could/should leave. It was so painful and my Amy said "Do you want me to get you a bucket?" Let me explain what a bucket is. This island is all about partying and they sell a bucket filled with alcohol with about half a bottle of whiskey inside among other things. It sort of tastes like cough syrup. So I said "Yes! I need a bucket!" The pain of these tattoos instead of being dull like all the others is more like sharp jabs of constant pain. So picture this situation: I had 4 amazing girls supporting me. One holding a straw to my mouth from the bucket, 2 holding my hands, and one stroking my head. All were singing to me or telling me random stories as I got this tattoo. The shops here don't have a front, they're just open rooms so drunk people kept walking by and stopping to chat and they were nice too! They were telling me how awesome it was, how brave I was, some fed me their food. It was hilarious. Honestly one of the best experiences of my life. Oh! And get this. The British boys from the plane are here too. Their names are Tim and Phil. We sat with them on the way over on the ferry and they're coming snorkling with some of us today. They were amazing too. They sat with me for a awhile telling me stories in their little accents trying to distract me. They even came back later when they were heading back to check up. What an epic epic day. It really changed me and I am so thankful I have had this experience. So... dear parents, I just want to say even though I got another tattoo I also got an unmatched experience that has definitely changed my mind about people.

"Ouch Cha-lie, that really hurt"

Wow what a day. I'm on the brink of falling asleep but I really wanted to get this done before I do. So this morning I worked my favorite project yet. I got to shadow a speech pathologist at the hospital and watch her with 3 different patients. One was a small girl who she thinks has brain damage. She was so cute but no matter how hard we tried to teach her that the square peg goes in the square hole she kept putting it in the circular hole. After shadowing the doctor brought me and another volunteer out to lunch and we got pad thai...from Thailand! It was so exciting getting something I've heard of before. It was really good but mine was crab pad thai and a little fishy. Then she took us out to ice cream and it was this green soupy mixture (I later found out was coconut milk) with some green ice cream and a chunk of ice in it. It tasted kind of like soap but I guess I like soap because it was good. After that I came back to the house and prepared for this week's adventures! We caught a bus to Chaing Mai and it was a beautiful ride. It was three hours but it went by so fast. I saw parts that looked like the jungle, I saw the sun set over the rice paddies with the reflection shining in the water. I tried to get pictures but since we were on a bus they didn't really turn out. When we got to Chaing Mai we got a flight to Phuket where I am right now. The flight was funny. I sat between an awesome girl from my trip named Ryleigh and this British guy. He was talking to his friend who was sitting across the way and their accents were outrageous! I loved it. Ryleigh and I kept looking at each other when they would say stuff like "pissin on our accents" and "chap." She told me I should ask them to say "Charlie bit my finguh" (you tube sensation for those of you out of the loop) so...I did. I was reading the in flight magazine and there was an ad for Britain's got Talent so first I asked if they watch it..I thought I was so hilarious and I was just laughing to myself. Then I asked them about their accent and tried to do it but they just laughed and sayed it was horrible. I asked them to do the Charlie bit my finger thing but they just thought it was funny because they had never heard of it. (Probably because a baby speaking in an American accent wouldn't be funny in America...or we're just weirdos in the US). I spent awhile joking to them about their slang and their accents. It was fun, I talked to the guy a lot about "Uni" and he's in med school so he told me a bit about that. They were cool dudes. I'm glad they were good sports about all my teasing too. Anyway so we just spent an hour and a half in the van from the airport trying to find our hostel so I'm going to try to get to bed soon. We're staying at the Phuket backpacker hostel. It seems sooooo sick but more time to explore tomorrow. Must...sleep...

"BYU is one of the top 10 party schools"

So yesterday the only thing I did was visit the pediatric unit of the hospital again. I hung out with the same little girl as last time and I learned all the colors in Thai. Then last night we all got a little wild and played "soda pong".... They were all joking about caffiene and how bad they were being. I played one game (with water because I can't drink that much soda) and I made the first 3 cups! woo! Oh on the same subject I was sitting in the truck bed with all them today when we were driving to their job site and one girl was saying "Yeah I left UCSD to go to BYU because there was too much partying at UCSD...little did I know BYU is one of the top 10 party schools." So then I asked her "well what do you guys consider partying at BYU" and the answer I got sounded more like a slumber party or something. I'm learning a lot about will power because I have to watch what I say ALL the time. And even trying my hardest I still manage to offend people sometimes. Well anyway so today we went to build a watchtower for the Akha hill tribe. They need it to look out for squatters on their land/ look for forest fires. So the group chopped down eucalyptus trees with machetes to make a frame and then we mixed cement and poured it to make a foundation. After that we had lunch at this dude's house where I ate the spiciest thing I've ever tried: papaya salad. I felt like I was putting my mouth on a hot stove. It burned so bad. I'll include a picture of it. None of the thai food here is anything like I've had in a thai restaurant at home but most of it is pretty good. We eat a lot of sticky rice which you pick up with your hands, ball up and then dip in different mixtures. It's kind of an all around dirty experience considering a lot of times there's no soap to wash your hands with before hand. On the way back I felt like Indiana Jones because I was standing up in the back of the truck bed leaning on the roof while the truck forged through the crazy forest. The girl in the picture with me at the bottom is mybff Amy. We're the only girls who aren't mormon and have had less than 5 boyfriends our whole lives. The girls here date like crazy! They were so surprised that I've never been set up with someone. Reaaaallyy reaaallly surprised. Tomorrow the adventures begin! A few other girls ans I are traveling around for a week since Monday and Tuesday are part of a Buddhist holiday so we get them off. We're going all around Thailand to Chiang Mai, Phuket, the Phi Phi Islands and Ko Lanta...among other things. So stoked! One more thing...my farmer's tan is incredible at the moment.

The Day of Rest

Last night I went to the Saturday night walking street in downtown Chiang Rai. It was a very local place unlike the touristy night bazaar I went to earlier. I tried some octopus on a stick...it felt like I was eating a balloon..tasteless and everything. We also danced with the Thai folk and the Thai men taught us some groovy moves. They're all so friendly here. We met some dudes from the US there and it was so funny. We were telling them where we were all from and one girl with us is from Utah (of course) and one guy was like "Okay so I heard there's only like two types of people in Utah, the cool snowboarder people and...like...mormons." Hilarious and kind of awkward...I loved it. It hasn't been super weird living with mormons but it was funny today because there was only one other girl and me the whole morning while everyone went to church. It was really nice having the place to ourselves though, I think Sunday is going to be my new favorite day. They all know I'm not mormon and not only that but I've talked to them a bit about what I think about religion and this morning there was another awkward incident because they were all leaving for church and I was laying on the hammock on the porch and one person was like "I hope you don't think we're just all crazy church-goers" and just looked at me. I wasn't sure what to say so I said "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to." And then they left. Oh, it's also funny because a select few get mad if you say "oh my god." Wtf, very odd. Anyway, so I've kind of just been chilling and cleaning and doing physics on the porch today since it's raining. It's a nice break from the heat though. Tonight we're going to have breakfast for dinner and make pancakes and eggs at the LDS missionaries' house that live next door to us. They're a super old couple and luckily they haven't tried to convert me although I'm sure they can see it would be a lost cause. I thought I would be uncomfortable living with mormons but it turns out it's just hilarious. Oh and ps even though some get mad if I say "oh my god" but they throw around the n-word. Here's a quote from one of our LEADERS of all people: "I like black people in Africa, just not the ones in America." Wow.

"Are you tipsy?"

So last night we went to the DOPEST CLUB EVER! It was so big and they had some crazy lights going on. There was a big stage with performers and a huuuuge dance floor. Probably one of the biggest dance clubs I've been to which is weird because I never would have expected it to be in Thailand. What was cool about this place was instead of just playing music they had Thai people in skimpy outfits singing a lot of them with such great artists as Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, and Justin Beiber. They also played really really awesome techno music and the place was packed. I don't have any pictures because I didn't bring my camera but I'm going to try to get some next time I go because it was insane. I decided I wanted to dance on the stage when the dance music was on but none of the girls would do it so I went up with the one guy in our group. We were only up there for a few minutes though before they kicked us off. Then when I got down I met a guy from...of all places..Seattle! Then these Thai girls started talking to me and kept asking me if I was tipsy and offering me shots..so funny. We got back pretty late and I didn't get to bed until about 3 am. Today we went to another school and taught the kids how to type. They were so cute and giggley. By the way, this is the weirdest thing I've seen so far in Thailand:

"It feels like I'm living in an armpit"

It's 104 today with 60% humidity. Bleh. So yesterday afternoon I visited the white temple. It was awesome. I'll include some pictures because I can't really describe it. It was very intricate. Anyway this morning I went to the pediatric unit in the local hospital to hang out with the sick kids. It was a weird place. There were hospital beds outside with sick people and the bathrooms didn't have soap. Strange place not to have soap. Afterward we got lunch and it was SO hot. My whole body was just damp. There weren't any projects going on today so we came back and took a nap and rearranged the room. I'm going to put some pictures of the room up since I haven't done that yet. We live in the addition of someone's house in four rooms, two for girls and two for guys. It's an awesome spot. Enjoy.

"You ah mai flend"

Okay so apparently even though there are three waves of volunteers there's only three of us in the third wave including me so when I arrived in Chiang Rai I walked out to a bunch of people yelling my name and waving because I'm the only new person right now...which makes it kind of weird. So my first night they invited me karaokeing (sp?) and I can NEVER say no to that. We stayed there for four hours and didn't leave until 1 in the morning but it was fun. A lot of the songs we sang were in Thai making it kind of rough but I just winged it. This morning we got up at 7 and they put me on the project working at a primary school teaching english. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do but it turned out to be awesome. They taught me so much Thai and it was so funny; they would clap and cheer when I counted to ten. They were so intrigued by my tattoos and piercings and they kept wanting to touch my arm. It was kind of rough teaching english. We had four different classes, all at different levels but it was fun to make games and get them excited. They learned things like "my favoreet food ees feesh and lice." They were cuties. Then I played this game that sounded like "taco" with them which is kind of a mixture between volleyball and soccer and a played about a thousand games of bochee ball and some soccer. These girls would not leave me alone. They kept asking me if I love any boy and then they were trying to decide if I was fat or not (consensus: a little fat) and kept saying sorry while squeezing my love handles. Pretty funny. Oh! They also asked me where I was from and told me to pull up my shirt because the boys were looking. I wasn't even wearing anything low cut! Rough crowd. But they kept telling me I was their friend and beautiful etc so that was nice. Anyway, right now I'm chillin on the hammock back at home and it's hot as balls. I guess next week is vacation week so we're planning a lot of travelling around Thailand we're going to (hopefully) rockclimb, swim with sharks, and hike. Woooooo! Going to the night bazaar tonight to buy a machete. I'm going to take up whittling. Didn't know you needed a machete for that but I guess that's what people do here. This place is awesome.

Sample lesson (I drew the awesome hamster):

"Drug Trafficking is Punishable by Death in ROC"

Well here I am in Taiwan waiting for my flight to Bangkok. There's a lot of warning signs in this airport (see the title of this post) but all of them have pictures of beautiful asain women on them. Doesn't seem very fitting. The first thing I noticed about Taiwan was that all the houses we flew over looked like they were made of legos; they were blocky and colorful and stacked up. It's also reaaaallly crowded here. I went to the bathroom to put in my contacts and there was no room to stand because all the ladiez were primping themselves so I just did it outside. Even though this place is packed I am definitely the only white person here. I get to creep on all the asain babies though. It's kind of an over load (but still awesome).

The flight over here wasn't too bad. Everyone was super nice..when I got to my seat it was taken by this small asian child and I told his mom it was my seat (my beautiful primo window seat) and she said (sort of in butchered english) that she wanted the kids together and could I take another seat. I said whatever and proceeded to the shittiest seat on the plane. It was in the middle right in front of the wall. Anyway, they were super grateful I guess so they kept talking to me (sort of..in a kind of butchered english) and smiling. Then the flight attendent let me know there was another unoccupied window seat up in the front. Hell yeah! When I sat down there everyone was smiling and seemed ridiculously happy. The lady next to me was cool. She was from the philipines. As far as the food on the flight goes, we had a choice between the american meal and the chinese meal for dinner (at 3 am) and breakfast. I got the chinese stuff both times. The dinner thing was just fish and rice. Pretty gross but only because it was airplane fish...we've all seen the movie Airplane! right? The breakfast was like...oatmeal..only it was rice and had peas in it? I dunno, didn't taste like much. The safety card on the airplane was pretty funny. Here's a pic: My fave is the asian baby in the bottom right.

Anyway, I haven't even started on my adventures yet, just thought I'd start blogging early since nobody seems to think I'm actually going to do it. I'll leave you with this awesome picture until next time. To infinity and beyond! (That's my new life motto).