chickens in the kitchen

since i've been traveling, i have caught myself feeling like where i am isn't so special and that a lot of the places i'm seeing could just as easily be in the united states. there are some notable exceptions, of course, but just in the day-to-day activities i sometimes forget i'm not at home.

so i've started a short list of things that remind me i'm "not in kansas anymore," or things that no longer surprise me:

1. chickens running around the kitchen

2. not having to wear shoes anywhere (i LOVE this)

3. stands of bamboo everywhere, and being used for everything

4. in restaurants, food arriving in any order (food may come before drinks, one person will have finished dinner before another gets anything)

5. eating whatever gets put in front of me (as long as it's vegetarian), whether i've ordered it or not

6. watching geckos conduct their politics on the ceiling

7. packing 18 people in the back of a jeep

8. seeing 2 people ride a motorbike--with 2 pigs also strapped on

9. looking at US currency (which is used here in cambodia) and thinking it seems fake

a couple of photos:

our new friend eva took this photo of me taking photo of other visitors to wat phi in laos

this is me holding the daughter of our trekking guide. so adorable, and only one of the many amazing things we saw while trekking. (all my photos are in black&white, and it seems to me that pictures of people are more interesting than scenery for the most part...)

and here is morgan, getting peed on by the same beautiful baby. this always happens to him!

tubing in vang vieng

laos is a very relaxing country. and beautiful. and believe it or not, one of the activities that helped me to slow down and appreciate that was tubing down the nam song river in vang vieng. it was fun and peaceful at times, and also full of drunken debauchery. the town itself was sort of annoying to me, with restaurants that show the tv show friends on a continuous loop and lots of tourists getting intoxicated. that said, we had a really chill time there. and even better than tubing were the couple of trips that we took to caves. in both cases we could swim inside with the use of headlamps. pretty amazing to find natural spring pools to enjoy. and that was just the beginning of the water. the new year festival involves endless squirt gun fights, hosings, and general water chaos. you learn pretty quickly to bag anything important--cameras, journals, usb drives... we truly couldn't leave our guest house without being drenched. of course, our guest house participated whole-heartedly in the celebration.

then we made our way through vientiane, the capital of laos, pretty quickly. and back on the bus for another overnighter. now we're in pakse, near the bolaven plateau which we'll explore tomorrow. i'm hoping that we'll get to do a two day trek complete with waterfall and coffee plantations and a homestay in the village. that's dependent on the weather.

after that it's off to the 4000 islands, a place that is supposed to be as beautiful as you might think 4000 islands would be. i'll let you know!

lingering in thailand

more from laos tomorrow (or soon).

but now a few photos from our time at the farm in thailand:
well, this wasn't technically at the farm... we took a little field trip to some nearby hot springs for mud baths. and below is sandot cooking our eggs for dinner.

and here is sunrise on the farm, courtesy of morgan.

made it to laos

we've left the farm in thailand (which was amazing). we did all of the things mentioned in the last post, plus some. i've tried unsuccessfully to upload some photos for you to share in the beauty of the place. i hope i'll make it back there in the future...

it took two days on the slowboat to get here along the mekong river. the pillows we purchased were such a good investment. but it was a beautiful and peaceful trip, and we've arrived in luang prabang, laos. this is a nice little town, if a little touristy. that's the hard thing: being a traveler instead of a tourist. i don't quite know how to cross that line sometimes.

the water festival for the new year hasn't yet begun-- officially. we've been drenched while walking down the street on a few occasions. we've also avoided a few soakings due to jasmine's "teacher look." the festival officially begins on the 13th, i think, and i'm not sure what city we'll be in at that point.

we leave tomorrow to vang vieng which is a 7-hour bus trip. i'll let you know how it goes; there's always some excitement!

love,
alexis