Chiang Mai-Chico-Washington-Chico, 3.5 weeks!!!

A lot has happened since my last post! I have been back in the US for about 3 weeks now, but it seems like much longer! I have been very busy working the Study Abroad Office, moving into my new apartment, helping 2 of my good friends get ready for their wedding (and then of course attending the wedding last Saturday!), and then taking a road trip up to Washington (the state), with my friend Jeff. It has been a roller coaster ride getting used to being back in the United States and having so much to do, but it has been a lot of fun also. 

My parents even visited last week, but I don't have any pictures from that yet. 

Now I am ready to settle in for the semester. I will be working all this week and next week, finishing moving into my apartment, and helping out with the orientation for the new international students arriving in Chico. Then we'll start the Fall 2008 semester, my last semester as an undergraduate student!!!

I have a lot to do, applying for JET and planning backup options, doing well in my classes, working, and trying to save a little bit of money. 

I'm also going to be studying Japanese on the side, so that if I get into the JET program it won't be quite a shock when I get to Japan. I hope the Japanese students coming to Chico this semester are ready to help me practice! ^-^

Here are pictures going backwards in time from the trip to Washington which I just returned from, all the way back to my last day in Chiang Mai! Click here to see them!

Let me know if you have questions! 

I am going to take some pictures of my life here in Chico for those of you back in Thailand (and everywhere else) to check out! 

Much love,

Katie

Farewell to Thailand!

Hello hello,
I'm about to catch a taxi to the airport! In about 5 hours, I'll be on a plane heading for...Taiwan! And then on another plane heading for...Hong Kong! And then finally I will board a plane heading for California! Last night I started to come down with some sort of head cold, which is not feeling very great right now. It is making me even less excited about traveling for 20 hours to get home. Hopefully I can just sleep on the plane!

I would upload some pictures from my last days here, but this computer is unbelievably slow, like usual. I hope you all are well, and I will be seeing most of you very soon!

To any Thai or Japanese :) friends who read this, thank you so much everything!!!!!!!! I will miss you so much and I hope to see you again soon! You are all welcome in my home in Chico, or wherever life takes me.

Much love,
Katie

Chiang Mai

I'm back in Chiang Mai! I survived the motorbike trip from Dalat to Ho Chi Minh City, just made my flight to Bangkok, and the next day flew up to Chiang Mai. I have been here almost 4 days and it has been so lovely to see everyone! I have spent a lot of time on my feet exploring parts of the city, and Doi Suthep, that I didn't get the chance to see before. I have also been spending time with the students when they are not too busy working on their thesis projects. Since we left last time, Art and Fang have planted some black sticky rice that they are working with for their projects, and the other students are all quite busy too, but I'm not sure what they are studying specifically. Tonight we will have a last dinner and going away celebration, at Riverside, a restaurant on the river, as the name suggests. Or at least thats what I think will happen. As I've mentioned before, I miss a lot of the details and back-and-forth that happens. We are doing something tonight though, this I know. Moe came into Chiang Mai last night. She has been in a village near Mae Chaem, where she is doing her research on subsistence farming. We walked around the Sunday Walking Street, where Moe unfortunately had her camera stolen out of her bag :( Then we ate some delicious foods and she stayed at my hotel with me. Today we got up early, had some more delicious foods, and came to the MCC (Multiple Cropping Center). We went to lunch with the students at a buffet that was having its grand opening. It was very very delicious and very unlike American buffets :) Also, it cost less than a dollar, which is amazing, as always.
Since then we've been hanging around, drinking coffee, talking to Dr. Sakda, etc. Soon we are going to go play badminton, which I'm very excited about. They are serious about it here. When I arrived last week, I went and watched them play but wasn't wearing good clothes to participate, but today I am prepared!
Tomorrow, I fly back to Bangkok in the morning and then the next day it is back to California!!! I am very excited and sad all at the same time. I have greatly enjoyed my time traveling, especially Chiang Mai! I will miss the new friends I have made, but am also very happy to have had this experience!

And now I am going to go play badminton, see you so soon!!!

Much love,
Katie

Dalat, Vietnam

It has been a long 48 hours. Yesterday at 6 pm we boarded a bus in Hoi An bound for Nha Trang, where we would transfer to another bus to Dalat. We'd have loved to see Nha Trang but we are really running out of time! We have to be in Saigon on the 9th for our flight (still not sure why we booked our tickets so early, but its a good lesson). 12 hours later we reached Dalat. Throughout the night, we were treated with excessive honking, loud conversations among the drivers, the air conditioning being turned off for a while, and a nice stop around 1 am to fix....something. I awoke to loud noises like an air pump or generator and pounding and grinding. I looked outside to see an autoshop and guys down below doing something to our bus. Still not sure what happened, but this Australian guy stepped out after about 20 minutes of this and tried to find out what was happening and get them to turn on the air conditioning at least since this bus's windows could not be opened and we were all dripping sweat by then. A couple minutes later, everyone was back on the bus and we were moving. I am so often confused here, but I am mostly used to not really knowing what is going on. It also seemed that we took a few detours down very bumpy dirt roads. I'm not sure whether that was the road or the driver's short cut.

We arrived in Nha Trang at about 6:30 am and the bus dropped those people staying in Nha Trang at a hostel, along with Kylie and I's bags. As we pulled away, we saw them and Kylie ran up to tell the driver, frantically motioning and telling him to stop. He does not stop and says it will be okay and pulls off around the corner. We continue trying to get an explanation or get him to go back, when we arrive at the traveler bus station. We all get off and of course our bags aren't there to be unloaded. SO they give us directions on how to walk back to the hostel and get our bags. Kindly, they call the hostel to tell them to hold on to them for us. After our amazing nights sleep, this is awesome. So we go get our bags and leave them with other luggage at the bus area and asked 2 girls at the desk if we had time to go grab some coffee and baguettes before our bus to Dalat came. They said yes, just be back by 7:30 and you'll be fine. So we went and came back at about 7:25 and sat down with the group of people who were also waiting. About an hour goes by, and a few other people are asking when the bus will finally arrive, so it seems like we've all got the same idea. So the bus finally arrives at 8:50 and we go to get on and they look at our ticket and tell us this is the bus to Saigon and we missed our bus. We are VERY frustrated by this and are sent to the booking desk where they proceed to tell us how we should have checked in with them and we should have been on our bus and that now we have to wait for the next bus tomorrow night. We tried to explain what had happened, but they were not wanting to deal with us, so we got directions to the bus station and caught a couple motorbike taxis there, where we were promptly loaded onto a van which already had about 20 people on it. Then, they crammed some more people in. It was a large van, like the kind schools have for sports teams or field trips, but they squeezed about 30 people in and there was no air-conditioning. We departed on 5 hour trip and met Tom, who speaks English. We had a nice time talking with him as he asked us all sorts of questions about california, such as how much bigger the buses are and the roads are in california. He did not believe that they were about the same size. He was also surprised that California has mountains. We met another woman on the bus who is Vietnamese but lives in Florida and was visiting friends and family. The trip got better as we gained elevation and the weather cooled off. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant where Tom bought some kind of fruit and shared it with us, we ate some pho bo, or vietnamese beef noodle soup, and chatted with some people. Soon after lunch, we drove past another restaurant where all the tour busses were stopped for lunch, and I thought to myself that this van ride was my favorite experience in Vietnam so far, and also one of our only experience off the Vietnam tour track. We had really gotten lazy about going the easy route and had really not been enjoying ourselves. So actually, missing our bus to Dalat had been a blessing in disguise.

As we climbed through the mountains to Dalat, speeding around corners, everyone laughing and pointing out the best views to us, I was reminded of why I love traveling. Its not about seeing the monuments and taking beautiful pictures, its about meeting real people and making real connections. You need to get away from the guesthouses and standard tours to do that.

Tonight we checked out the central Market in Dalat and were thrilled and surprised to find strawberries, artichokes, broccoli, cauliflower and persimmons. We had not seen any of these in markets in this part of the world yet, but the wonderful cool climate up here allows it. Walking around, it feels a little like San Francisco. Its a very hilly little city, with bright colored vertical buildings squeezed together and cool overcast weather.

Tomorrow morning, we will go exploring the area around Dalat with "Easy Riders". They are guides who will take you on a personalized tour on motorbike. They have a great reputation for being very knowledgeable and taking you places not a lot of people go. I am very much hoping that it is great and not like the tours I have grown to dread. We met a couple students from Dalat University tonight who work with a program through the Foreign Languages departments to do similar local motorbike travel or tours. We talked to them for a while and they said they do drives from Dalat to Saigon, with an overnight in Bai Loc. We had been planning on taking a bus, but I am much more interested in the motorbike at this point. I think it would be a much greater adventure and I could experience Vietnam in a way I will totally miss with bus travel. My only concerns are of course, safety, rain, and carrying all my baggage. Right now we're planning on seeing how the motorbike trip goes to tomorrow and then we will contact the students if we are interested in going to Saigon with them, and we will discuss the details.

Alright, I am off to bed! I hope you are enjoying all these long posts! We have been taking some early nights in, so we can get up early, which means I have some time to update.

Only 10 more nights in southeast Asia, and then Chico!!!

Much love,
Katie

Hue, Vietnam

Xin chao from Vietnam! This is our third day in Vietnam, in Hue specifically. We are waiting for a bus right now that will take us to Hoi An. This computer access is FREE in our hotel, and FAST. I am so impressed. There is this wierd chain of service set up for tourists in Vietnam. There's a specific track of cities they take you through and its really easy to travel city to city and do the tours and stay in the hotels. We are kind of taking this path because we are so short on time and would like to see as much as we can in the next few days. It can get old very fast to spend every day being bussed and boated around to look at ANOTHER temple or tomb. So we are also trying to break it up by making as much effort as we can to meet local people. We try to find places to eat where there are only Vietnamese people and make friends if possible. It is hard sometimes because when you ask people about a good local place to go, they usually will first recommend the popular traveler spot. You show up and see only foreigners and everyone speaks English. Its weird that this is frustrating, since in Chico I always like to be places where there are foreigners and we of course speak english, but this is different.

Yesterday, we caught an 8am boat cruise up the perfume river and saw three famous tombs, a pagoda, and a temple. You can see a some in the pictures. I would tell you the names but I do not remember them at the moment. We had lunch on the boat too, which was semi-delicious and cramped. There was a group of girls from Hanoi on the cruise who were taking a holiday after graduating from university, and they were fun to talk to.

Later we ate dinner at this popular local place near the old city, on the edge of the citadel. There were a lot of older men ordering whole cases of beer which we unfortunately did not take pictures of. We ate some very delicious grilled squid and spring rolls as well as some sort of soup with egg and crab. Today, we went to the citadel and the Forbidden Purple City. No longer forbidden of course, and mostly destroyed in the Vietnam/American War. Here it is called the American War (or the American War of Aggression depending on who you talk to).

Something interesting here is that you can use American dollars everywhere. Many prices will be quoted in dollars and then they convert into dong since thats all we are carrying. People sometimes give us weird looks when we say we don't have any dollars. Next time I come to Vietnam, I'll remember this...

Here are a few pictures from our last night in Savannakhet with our friend Yah and his friend Mr. Lee. Yah calls everyone Mr. and Ms. I think it is translated from how you address people in Laos. We are Ms. Katie and Ms. Kiley. We went to their favorite restaurant and they ordered us eel. It was all chopped up and in a stir fry that tasted similar to a lot of Thai dishes. Eel is good, but it had the vertebrae and little bones in it which was kind of weird. The next morning, we were off on our bus to Hue, and lastly, there is a picture of the border crossing into Vietnam, where it seemed like every single official needed to check out our passports and then spend a few minutes looking at every stamp and detail. It really seemed more like it was for personal interest than any sort of security reason.

Our bus is coming soon, so I'm off, I hope you are all well and I will be seeing you soon!

Much love,

Katie

Savannakhet

Sabai dee from Savannakhet, Laos! This is our 3rd day here, and our last. We're boarding a 10 am bus to Hue, Vietnam tomorrow morning. We ended up having a very easy time getting our Vietnamese Visas when we arrived (it only took about 15 minutes, instead of the 4 days we had been told it would be), but the next bus to Vietnam from here was Wednesday, so here we are. It's been nice staying here though. We've actually made a good friend named Yah. We met him the first night when we went to The Rose Garden. He works there and asked if he could practice his English with us. We of course said yes. He's been doing that with all of the travelers that come through apparently, and speaks english quite well for just learning from customers at the restaurant. He taught us some Laos and we talked for a while, and he even played us one of his band's song. They could only afford to record the one, and its quite good, but we haven't been able to get a copy of it yet. Maybe before we leave. He sings with the band, who's name is "By Myself" and actually likes to sing all the time. His favorite song is "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias, and he can sing it almost exactly like Enrique, which is interesting because he doesn't actually know the meaning of the words, he's just memorized it.

The next day, we were eating dinner at "Seven" and he pulled up on his motorbike and told us the Rose Garden was closed for the week to train a new manager or something, so he hung out with us to practice his english. He took us to a place called "We All Love" where different bands played and people sang, not karaoke style, but just went up and sang with the band. Yah sang "Right Here Waiting for You" and a Laos song. Everyone cheered a lot and seemed to like it. We met a group of students at that place who are from Savannakhet but go to school in Hue. They had drank a lot of BeerLao and were all trying to practice their English with us and tell us about Hue and talk us into going dancing with them. We might have gone, but our guesthouse has an 11:00 curfew, so no late nights for us here.

Today Kiley and I walked around the city some more, which we're getting to know quite well. Its right on the Mekong, and there is a beautiful view across the river is Thailand. We ate Laos baguette sandwiches for breakfast which were quite delicious. It was strange to eat a sandwich though! Bread is not so popular in this part of the world. We also got "traditional Lao massages" today, just to compare to Thai massage, research you know :) I think it was the most intense massage I've had yet. A lot of stretching and bending and kneading. In a good way though. After that, we finally found a place to buy Laos Cotton that I'd heard about. It was a really neat business that makes all natural, handmade cotton clothes, accesories, pillows, etc. The cotton is from all local farms in the province, with about 400 families participating. It is then spun into yarn in another village and brought to Sannakhet where they do the dying. I took a few pictures of that. Then, the dyed yarn goes to another nearby village to be woven into cloth, and it returns to Savannakhet to be sewn into different items. They had a lot of beautiful things to buy, but could only accept cash, which I was low on, so I got a very pretty cotton scarf. Its always nice to buy from something like that that is actually really helping local people.

After that, Yah found us again, we're probably easy to spot around here... And we made plans to meet him at four. We will go to dinner and then to meet some of his friends.

I'm glad we've gotten the chance to spend a few days here since we're too low on time and money to see more of Laos and need to head towards Ho Chi Minh city since we already have tickets to fly from there to Bangkok. I have seen many eyeopening things here, some of which are very hard to see. It seems like everyday I am traveling in southeast Asia, my perspective changes at least a little. I am so thankful that I am able to be having this experience.

Here are a few pictures. At the present I seem to have misplaced my other memory card for my camera, which I am very much hoping I will find back in our room. Cross your fingers!!

Much love,

Katie

Famous in Ubon

Hello from Khon Kaen! We are currently in northeastern Thailand, making our way....north? east? south? We are really not sure. Kiley and I are together we have a ticket on Air Asia from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok on July 9th. It was part of an earlier travel plan that hasn't quite played out. So now we are trying to find out about changing/cancelling flights with Air Asia, which is just not easy with our limited and usually very slow internet connections. Today we will head either east to Mukdahan and cross into Laos and then onto Vietnam, or north to Nong Khai and into Laos to Ventiane, up to Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, and then east to Vietnam, Hanoi in particular.

A valuable lesson we are learning is that planning planning planning is key! Before I do another trip like this I will definately spend more time planning a more exact route rather than one so general. Also, we will definately research visa's better! If our time frame was much longer, we would be doing great, but because it is short, we are losing a lot of valuable time in trying to arrange plans and visa's. However, I keep reminding myself that I am still in Thailand and it is still wonderful to be here. Everything we do is a challenge and never works out quite right, but that is the adventure of it. So long as we remain optimistic, positive, and keep our hearts cool (as Thai's encourage) we will be just fine, or better!

So you may be wondering who is famous in Ubon, and that would be me. On the day we were to leave, Friday, we headed off on a #8 saungthaw that would take us to Ba Na Muang Wat according to the city map I had. It was quite full and everyone was asking us where we were going. After about 10 minutes of the Thai's talking back and forth and us saying "Mai kau jai" (I don't understand) a lot, it was determined that we were heading in the wrong direction! They had us stay on until we passed a #8 going in the other direction, they shouted for him to stop and we jumped off and ran after our new #8 and boarded. In moments I felt I was missing something and after some frantic searching, realized that my wallet was no longer with me. We pushed the buzzer, jumped off and headed swiftly back in the direction we'd come from. I assumed I had dropped it or it fell out of an upzipped pocket in the saungthaw switch. We walked very far up the road and my wallet was not to bed found. I sat down on a corner and did a thorough check through all of my bags and pockets and then was overwhelmed by the planned trip ahead of us and the prospect of having no money, no way to get money, not even knowing our plan yet, and of course the general stress of negotiating your way through a foreign country where you do not speak the language but "nidnoy" (a little). I started to cry there on that corner and within moments local people were gathering, asking where I was going, "Where you go?" and I attempted to explain that the problem was not that I was lost but that I had lost my wallet. They understood the word "money" and with some skilled acting, I was able to convey the message. Suddenly several people were scanning the street for my wallet, or at least some money, depending on whether they understood me. One man spoke better english and got the whole story from me and brought me over to a food stand where they gave Kiley and I free roasted bananas while he called the Tourist Police. Thai people do not like to see someone in distress. They do not show these strong negative emotions. If you happen to get into a situation where you show them, you'll hear "Ja yen yen" a lot, which directly translates to "cool cool heart". You want a cold slow heart, not a hot fast heart.

Soon, the Tourist Police arrived, who are my new personal heroes. Two middle aged men stepped out in their tight fitting uniforms, of course, its the norm here for police men. They gathered us up in their air conditioned car after speaking to the nice man who had helped us, and off we went. Kiley and I weren't really sure where we were going, but it seemed like they knew what they were doing. It turns out, we were chasing our saungthaw. Apparently there are MANY #8s though, and we had no idea what one we were on. We began following the route, with the tourist police stopping every #8 to ask them....questions?? I really have no idea how they deduced which saungthaw we had been on, but maybe the fact that we were about the only 2 "farang" in the city of Ubon at the time helped. After about 30 minutes of driving around, they had determined that we were in Saungthaw #32. We drove to what seemed to be a rest stop for all the drivers and they had us get out and wait. They made a call to #32, and what luck! The woman who had been collecting money had found my wallet and was holding it for me. Now we just needed to wait for them and check to see if everything was still inside. This was important, as I had just made a withdrawal at the ATM and had almost 5000 Baht inside. While waiting, our 2 policemen began asking for emails and addresses, saying they wished they could come to California, and if they were able to, they would like to visit us. They had Kiley get out her camera and kept urging her to take more pictures of the scene. We were a little confused. So we took pictures and exchanged emails and they told us their names and that they could get us a room at a guesthouse if we wanted to stay in Ubon. They kept asking if we liked the city and when we were coming back. Finally, #8-32 arrived, and I laid eyes on my wallet again!!! Upon inspection, everything was as it should be and a rush of relief washed over me. But now it was time for photos! Everyone present was ushered over in front of #8-32, with me and the couple running the saugnthaw in front. We took several pictures of them handing my wallet to me and then I was requested to give them an "award" for their kindness. I only had 2 20B and then a 500 and 1000, so I just gave them 40 Baht, though I wish I could have given more, so I had been sure I would never see my wallet again. The policemen then said we had to go and we were back in the car heading.....? It turns out we were headed to the Tourist Police Station, where we found a newsman waiting to interview me for the news. We met the head of the station who shook our hands and thanked us a lot... for losing my wallet? It was all very surreal. Then the news man recorded our names and got copies of all the pictures from Kiley's camera, as did the policemen. Then they took pictures of us with the head of the station and the two policemen. Then one of the policemen asked me some questions on camera such as whether I like Ubon and would tell all my friends in California to come to visit. I of course said Ubon was wonderful and yes, I would tell everyone to come. Then they offered to get us a room to stay another night in Ubon, but we told them that unfortunately we really needed to catch the bus to Khon Kaen, so we were back in the car racing to the bus station. We pulled right up next to the bus we needed and felt very important all of a sudden as the bus station workers rushed us to the ticket booth and took care of everything and then rushed us onto the bus with first row seats, there was a lot of hand shaking, which is very very strange for thailand, and then we were off on the bus.

It was probably the strangest experience I've had in Thailand, but it is very nice to know that the tourist police can be so amazingly helpful. So if you're ever in Thailand, do not hesitate to call 1155 and you will have them at your service.

Now I need to do more research to find out where we are headed! I will post some pictures of us with the police as soon as we're at a computer that can do that.

Miss you all! Much love,
Katie

Ko Samet

Hello from southeastern Thailand! I am sitting on Ko Samet. I have just uploaded a few new pictures from the island, so go check them out! You are going to have to miss all of my pictures from the last week or so in Phitsanuloke and several other events, as I burned those pictures to discs and left them in my suitcase in Bangkok. When I get home I can show you more pictures than you'll ever want to see though ;)

Tomorrow morning, we'll be leaving early to go back to Bangkok and hop on our overnight train to Laos. We got a sleeper car, so we should get some rest on the way, which is great. If I can update from Laos, I will, but no promises.

I hope you are all doing well, I miss you!

Cheers,
Katie

Last days in Chiang Mai and trip to Mae Sai and Myanmar

Art, M and I at the Khantoke dinner at the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center dinner show. They are wearing their CMU Graduate students Lanna shirts. Nalat!

Art, riding behind Ayk. Everyone here has a motorcycle!!! M and I

Clark and Mo (M and Art's friend)
The Mekong River. Over on the left is the Guesthouse where we stayed. Entering Myanmar!

At the market in Myanmar. Boy selling parrots at market in Myanmar.

Burmese monks. Art and i


chicken feet, mae sai...

where we stayed in mae sai (northernmost town in thailand). Wat Umong Temple in Chiang Mai.

Its monsoon season :)
ryan's bike that i can lift with one finger. he's very proud of it.

M and I. Delicious thai fruits.

delicious bugs? mai aloi.

dragon fruit. Buddhist sayings.

Moe and I, on way back from homestay in front of a "Hot Sping"
The wall around the old city.
The loved Thai king.

flowers at Warorot Market

Everything here in Chiang Mai is going great!!! Last weekend we went up to Mae Sai, which is the most northern town in Thailand, and crossed the border into Myanmar, primarily to get our Thai visas renewed. It was a very interesting experience seeing the very north of Thailand and a very very small glimpse of Myanmar. There are a few pictures here. Also, I have been exploring around Chiang Mai more and getting to be better friends with the Thai students. Sadly, today is our last day in Chiang Mai!!! We are all wrapping up last minute things and then tomorrow morning we leave early to Phitsanuloke, which is near Sukothai. For the next 3 days, we will be exploring Sukothai and finishing up our class, which means we are taking the final exam and each group will give a presentation. We have been working on them alot, as all of the Thai students will have to give part of the presentation, so they need to get it down in English.

Saturday, we will say goodbye to our new friends and head south to Bangkok and then the gulf! I am sad to leave Chiang Mai, but very excited to do some relaxing on a beautiful beach, and of course some snorkeling and possibly diving. I am still checking into airfare to Vietnam to see if thats a possibility.

I hope all the pictures here don't slow down your computer! I will try to update again soon!

Cheers,

Katie