..SouthAsiaRocks..

We're home now... our train ride home was nice and easy :) We sat by the window, so we were able to plug in our laptop and watch movies on our ride home :) It was cool :) We came with 2 bags and left with 4 (not unusual for us :)) It wasn't difficult to get onto the train because there are a bunch of coolies (porters) to help with your luggage and to help get it on the train... BUT when we arrived in our city, we had 2 minutes to get all our heavy bags off the train and ourselves, before the train left again :) But no problem :) We made it out and our taxi, that we had called in advance, was waiting for us :) Nice!! Now, the heat hit us pretty hard, but it was nice to dry out a little bit :) I decided I'd use this blog to post some last pictures from our mountain trip :) The picture on the left is the picture I promised when we first got there, of our tiny doorways :) Now you can see why I bumped my head so many times :) We had fun with the tailors there... there were lots ...

This past weekend we decided we were going to have some fun and brave the Cable Car :) Cable Cars themselves aren't necessarily scary, but here they definitley can be :) It was a pretty funny one... we got in and they took us to the top of the mountain it was attached to. It was a pretty cool view. At the top of the mountain were a few shops and restrauants and TONS of places to get your picture made! We dressed up and took some funny pictures!! I look like a dork :) We had lots of fun! There were a lot of people watching us too... everyone wanted to get their picture with us... I felt like a movie star :) And if you thought I looked funny.... hhahaha - Adam and our friend John posed in this funny style :) This little girl (below) was getting her picture made before us... the costume was a little too big for her :) It was cute :) OK, so this picture makes me Laugh!!!! This was one of the cable car operators!! He was just sitting (facing the opposide direction that the cable car w...

There are two kinds of monkeys up here where we are staying… One is the monkey… I don’t know it’s real name, but everyone just calls this one a “monkey”… we have these all over the country, even in the capital and where we live. These are the regular brown ones that I have a lot of pictures of. Now, there’s another kind of monkey up here that is mostly only found in colder places… it’s call the Langur. It’s really cool!! They are big monkeys that are black and white in color (see the picture). They have really long tails and can do really cool jumps and tricks. The Langur are nicer than the monkeys and they tend to keep to themselves and eat leaves (the monkeys like to eat trash and people food a lot… they also like to steal it out of your hands!). Monkeys are really fun to look at – they do the funniest things!! There’s just a couple of rules when dealing with any kind of monkeys… 1. Don’t look them in the eye or show your teeth to them unless you want to fight 2. When walking around ...

Can you believe it!! We've been in country one year as of today!! One year!!!! Whoa! Time has really flown... well, most of the time (when it was 115 degrees and our AC was broken... time didn't go so fast... :)) But it has really gone fast!! One year!!! Yesterday we had a celebration at school and some little girls were there and eating sweets - I thought this girl was really cute :) They have the funniest thing here in the market!!! I didn't realize what it was until the other day :) I would see a lot of older men pushing children in "strollers" here in the market... I just assumed that it was the grandpa or something... but sometimes we would see them walking around with empty strollers... hmmm... It's funny because we haven't seen many (if any) strollers the entire time in country... Well, we finally figured it out!! It ends up that he's a coolie!! (or a porter)... The coolies walk around the market with empty strollers and ask people with childre...

Up here in the mountains, when they say monsoon season - they mean it!!! We have had sooo much rain! When we first got here it was sunny outside and we thought it would rain some, but be sunny a majority of the time :) hahaha When we first got here, this is what it looked like out our front door : And that night: BUT... this is what it looks like most days: It rained for 8 days straight!! And I'm talking about heavy rains!! We even have to walk to class (about a 20 min walk) in the rain (up hill too :) don't I sound like a grandma now :) hahaha Luckily this past weekend we had a break from the rain during the day and we actually got some of our clothes to dry!! whoo hoo!! Everyone lays their clothes anywhere and everywhere in order to try to get them dry :) It's fun! Everybody has these HUGE golf umbrellas they carry around with them at all times during this season. I bought a fun bright colored one :) Whoo hoo! We're having fun and learning a lot! It ROCKS!

Well, I had a run-in with a leach and a scary spider yesterday... Yesterday, Adam & I walked down into the market to get some stuff, and before we headed back, we stopped at a coffee shop. While we were drinking our coffee, I felt something funny on my foot... so I looked down and this is what I saw... (viewer discression is advised :) I know, it's gross looking - It freaked me out! The locals at the coffee shop just looked at it and said "jaunk" (kinda prounced Junk) - which means Leach... and then looked away - as if it was a normal thing :) One of the guys said... oh, it's just a leach, the leach it gone, just wash off your foot when you get home :) haha YUCK!! It's funny because I didn't even feel it! Crazy hunh? Then, we were out hanging out with some friends last night, and we came back to our cabin and there was a HUGE spider inside!! Adam tried to get it (while also getting video of it) and he missed it... so the spider crawled inside of the back ...

Adam and I are having fun here at language school... they forgot to put us on the schedule this week (seems to be a common problem here... it was us and about 5 other people that were forgotten) - so we've been scrounging (sp?) for classes this week. I've only had a few classes and I have already learned soooo much - it rocks!! Adam and I got stuck in the middle of a monkey fight today!! It was a little scary!! The dog that lives at our guest house area (the landlord's dog) always comes with us when we leave the house. Today we were going down to the city, and he followed us... we got to a pack of monkeys and he decided to try to chase a small one... well, the big HUGE males all got on the wall and started making these attacking monkey noises (can't really explain it...) and the dog hid behind us!! We were trying to move out of the way, but the dog stayed with us and monkeys didn't get any less mad... then the biggest monkey came and ran after the dog and pushed pa...

Yeah!! We're here in the mountains for a month to go to language school! The temperature has been awesome!!! We were actually cold last night :) We're high up - over 6,000 feet!!! It's crazy! I had a little bit of altitude sickness yesterday, but I'm fine now :) We were glad we brought our "backpacker backpacks" instead of luggage because the cars can only go so far up the mountain, and then you have to walk the rest - and it's steep!! hahaha - it was a fun adventure. We took a train & a taxi to get here and it was the best train ride we've ever had here! It was awesome!! We have leaches here!! (Is that how you spell it??) - you know, those little blood-sucking slug things that usually live in lakes or streams... well, it's so moist and wet up here (because we're above the clouds) that they just hang out on the ground... we found one on our wall last night and everyone says to carry around some salt in your pocket in case they latch onto y...

Monsoon is here!! It's finally here!! WHoo hoo! I've really been missing the rain and it's raining hard today! It's awesome!! I love rain! yeah! Adam just put up a new blog post :) Check it out, it's funny :) (you can click on the link on the left or just go to: http://www.southasiarolls.blogspot.com/ )

There were some funny signs that we found while in Thailand. I thought I'd pass them along and share them with you guys ;) This one just made me laugh!! Internet-massage-guest house :) I don't know why, but I though it was funny :) You can't see this very well, but it says: "No littering in the toilet bowl please" - that was just really funny to me :) This was a sign at a temple that we went to... my favorite rule is: "Do not dangle any doll" - is that a big problem here? hahaha it's funny that they had to put that on a sign. Maybe it's some cultural thing that I have no idea about - I don't know, but it's pretty funny :) This bathroom sign made me laugh :) And last (but definitely not least) - these funny bathroom signs!! The girl and guys bathroom signs just made us laugh really hard... they were so funny... we tried to mimic them, but we didn't do a very good job ;) haha oh well ;) Hope you enjoy :)

Well, we ditched Pattaya and we went to a really cool island called Ko Samet. We got in a Song-tao (I have no idea how to spell that)... it's kinda like a truck with two bench seats in the back that are facing each other... and asked them to take us back to the bus station. We told them we were going to take a bus to Rayong... so, we start heading towards the bus station... and then we passed the bus station... we got the driver's attention and told him again that we wanted to go to the bus station... and he said: "bus! yes!"... and we kept on driving... so, like many situations we've been in while living in asia... we just sat back and went along for the ride and decided to just wait and see what would happen... well, after a couple more minutes, the song-tao driver started motioning to a bus driving by us and got the bus to stop. The bus stopped and our driver said that that was our bus to go to Rayong!! It was really funny, we had to give them our bags and jum...

BAnGkOk! Well, we left Chiang Mai and headed down south to Bangkok for our vacation :) ... We've had a lot of fun :) We've seen a lot of things and traveled so many different ways... so far we've traveled by airplane, boat, water taxi, songtao, tuk tuk, bus, sky train, metro... well, it seemed like a lot to me :) While in Bangkok, we got to go to the top of the "world's tallest hotel" (that's what the pic from the top is from)... At the top of the hotel, Adam and I got to play ona rickshaw - it was really fun :) We visited the Siam Aquarium... it's supposed to be one of the biggest aquariums in Asia... It was neat... there were all kids of crazy fish!! We took a boat up and down one of the big rivers in Bangkok and went to see some old buildings and some other things... We got to see the largest "reclining buddah" in Thailand... it was HUGE, it's hart to imagine any bigger than that!! Anyway, we had fun! Right now we're in Pattaya ...