| Brad and Jen's journal entry for: October 15, 2001 |
| Greetings from Thailand, The trip continues. We hope people are enjoying our small stories. Many people have written us and said that with the terrible events and military strikes, it does them good to hear people out in the world who are safe and having fun. Maybe we are a bright spot in the midst of the bad news. As I have written in the past, many places in the world experience danger on a daily basis, it is just a new feeling for us Americans. It is truly unfornate, but something we may have to learn to live with. We are also proud to be ambassadors of America right now. You must know that our reputation world wide is not what we would like it to be. We were fortunate to have a dinner with a Thai family this past week. Our friend Marcus, from Switzerland, was leaving for home and had made friends with a batik artist, Aib. Aib's wife Gung prepared an "almost" authentic Thai dinner for Marcus and his friends. Gung had spent the day fishing to catch the meal. We arrived a bit early to Aib's shop/home, which is no bigger than the average american kitchen. Space was cleared on the floor of the shop and we all sat around the beautifully prepared dinner. The meal was entirely made of fresh caught fish. Fish soup with lemon grass, fried fish, a whole fish wish spices and smaller tuna steamed. Every fish was served whole with the head in tact. Whole fish soup is bit daunting at first, but the taste was amazing. We say an "almost" authentic dinner because they made it much less spicy than usual. The conversation was fun as our hosts attempted to teach us more Thai words.. Jennifer evened learned some Thai dancing moves from Gung. The farang's (tourists) brought the beer and a special wine cooler (or two) for Gung. The drinks cost more than they spend on food in a week. When we asked to help clean up, we were immediately shut down. Marcus said it was unusual for the wife to join us for dinner at all, for this dinner she joined us half way through. For dessert, Gung fixed fried banana's and sweet and tacky coconut that was to die for. We felt very priviliged and fortunate to be invited into their home. In our pictures you can see Aib's batik work in the back ground and Jennifer also bought a t-shirt. We bought a colorful scarf from Aib on our anniversary night. Today we have been shopping. Jennifer is in seventh heaven! You know Brad tends to be rather miserly with baht (dollar). We finally found our traveling wedding bands. It is nice to have wedding rings again as we left ours at home. Also, it has been a day of christmas shopping. This will come as news to our families, but before we make our next move to a new destination we are sending home christmas gifts. The most expensive part of the gifts will probably be the shipping costs. It sure has been to think about what everyone would like and wonder through all of the shops. Another fun thing that happen this week was the Railay games 2001. This is a big event for all of the Thai workers on Railay Beach. They play soccer, volleyball, a bouldering contest, and a native game where they kick a small ball over a low net. Kind of like volleyball with the feet and body. It was a lot of fun to watch. Brad was going to enter the bouldering contest, but his nerves got the best of him. They had two divisions, begnner and advanced. He is not strong enough for the advanced but definately not a beginner. It turns out it was just for fun and he could have easily enter the beginner....and maybe won! We watched several friends in the bouldering contest. This was the first year for it and the only contest where farangs are able to compete. We watched our Thai friend Reed in the 3rd place soccer game. He lost 4-1, but took some pictures of him and going to give them to him before we leave. The only other news is that we about 90% sure we are going to be headed for Australia and New Zealand instead of Nepal and India. We are sad that our experiences are not going to be as exotic, but we are sure they will be no less exciting. We might fly into Sydney, buy a van, and tour around and camp, rock climb and sight see for about 3 months. Today we bought a used guide to Aussie and are going to begin the planning. We are definately ready for a change of scenery. We are glad we have stayed here a long time because we have gotten to meet the people and make friends. As far as the opportunity to work in the school near here, we think we will look for other opportunities along the way or return to here next spring. One problem with flying to Aussie, is that it may shorten our trip because we are likely to spend more money there than in southeast asia.That is o.k. because neither of us have been to Aussie or New Zealand so it will still be all new to us. Click here for pictures of the Thai meal Click here for other fun pictures! Peace and Love, Brad and Jennifer Back to home page Back to October page |