Hammock

A fine new addition to my house, thanks to Andy (for the hammock) and Narnu (who helped me put it up - i.e., did it for me).

And, completely unrelated, a bright creepy crawly that was clinging to my bike spoke this morning.

Phi Ta Khon Mask Festival

Ghost Mask Festival in Dan Sai

Phi Ta Khon Masks

 Thai blackface and oversized penises - not sure of the significance of this; will look up later and repost if I find out

Drunk photobombing

Any ideas what this one with a motorbike helmet was trying to do?

ASEAN flags 

Phi Ta Khon

Phi Ta Kohn on a bicycle

Phi Ta Kohn on workout machines

Phi Ta Kohn everywhere!

No festival in Thailand is complete without a never-ending parade

This float was so big... 

 It got stuck!

 The Phi Ta Kohn mask I made

Asian American in Thailand

On a daily basis, people confuse me for being Thai. Many comments and conversations I've had in some variation or other:

"Where are you from?"
"The U.S."
"But why do you look Thai?"
"My parents are from Taiwan."
"So you're from Taiwan."
"No, I'm from the U.S."
"But your parents live in Taiwan."
"No, they live in the U.S. now."
"And they work in Taiwan?"
"No, they work and live in the U.S."
"But you work in Taiwan?"
"No... I work in Thailand."
"So who lives in Taiwan?"

After a couple minutes of conversation in Thai...
"Where are you from?"
"The U.S."
"Oooh, you're not Thai! No wonder I was thinking, this girl doesn't speak Thai very well..."

"Japanese!"

"Korean!"

"Chinese!"

This week, several Americans came from outside Atlanta, GA to help out at our school. When I introduced myself, some of them said, "Wow, your English is so good!"

Thanks.

I guess some things will always be the same no matter whether it's Thais or Americans.

Laos

I took advantage of the summer break to venture outside of Thailand to nearby Laos. I've been told it's like Thailand 50 years ago. At some points, it felt just like I was at site.

View of Laos from Nong Khai, border town on the Thai side
After several attempts, Andy caught the lightning on my camera

Sunset over the Mekong River

Mulberries, an organic silk farm

I helped out making thread from silkworm cocoons!

(I wonder if the ladies working look forward to tours
for the break they get because of tourists wanting to give their job a try. Silly tourists.)

Haiku: Unexploded Ordinance (UXO)

Beware of UXOs!
May look phallic but they're deadly.
Bomb makers, perverts?

Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped over 270 million "bombies" on Laos.
Up to 30% failed to detonate. Approximately 80 million UXO remained in Laos after the war.
http://www.uxolao.org/

The presence of UXOs still affects the lives and livelihoods of Lao people who cannot farm uncleared land.
Children play with bombies, some the size of tennis balls, thinking they are toys.
People can be killed or injured from UXOs that explode when struck or stepped on.

MAG International is an organization that conducts the long, painstaking process of clearing UXO.
The white part of the blocks on either side of the trail mark safe places to walk.
(Great work they're doing, but I think their logo and slogan could pass for a sarcastic drug ad.)
http://www.maginternational.org/where-we-work/where-mag-works/lao-pdr-/

Trees growing out of bomb craters

This is how people in some villages get water to their houses.
Hey, that's just like my site.

Plain of Jars
It's like the Stonehenge of Laos

Shart-Scented Phone Finds New Home

I flushed my phone down the toilet a couple weeks ago. You always hear about people dropping their phones in the toilet but who actually flushes it too? It must have been half hanging out of the pocket of my hoodie and fell out at the exact same time I reached to flush the toilet. The sound startled me but I didn't know what it was at first; I thought I had knocked the toilet seat down. I only realized what had happened when a minute or two later, I heard the voice of a British lady: "It is 6 o'clock. Time to get up. It is 6 o'clock. Time to get up." My alarm snooze going off. From my toilet.

The teachers got a good laugh about it at school. I joked that it would have been funny if the British lady's voice had sounded like it were coming from underwater. That same day, I got a new SIM card with the same number and my old credit on it free of charge from the phone service company and my host cousin gave me his old phone. Everything turned out alright...

Until a couple days later I discovered my toilet was clogged. (I warn you now, I will spare you no details.) I found this out the hard way on a not-unusual day in Thailand when I had diarrhea. Not everything was going down like it is supposed to. I tried to unclog the toilet, first with an auger, or plumbing snake (I didn't know what this was until I had to use it). That didn't work even after several attempts. Then I tried a plunger - but imagine a plunger with a short handle so that only one hand can grasp it. This requires you to get closer to the toilet. This is what I was using. (Side note: I had started out using rubber gloves, but by this time I had given up trying to keep my hands clean and taken them off.)

I couldn't unclog it. My host cousin had to help me. He cut open the pipe leading from my toilet under my house to the septic tank. After trying to shove several things up the toilet to dislodge the phone, including my hand, the plumbing snake, and a wire coat hanger, we (he) pushed the phone up and out of the toilet using a water hose. My host cousin joked that I should hang the cell phone on my bathroom wall as a souvenir. I said it would make for a sh*tty air freshener.


Edited (5/14/12): Thanks for the title, Jeremy!