Highlights of the Past Month

So I haven't written in this blog for a while so here are a few highlights as of recently:

Songkran - is a water festival celebrated in Thailand, Burma, and maybe some other countries too. It is basically a 4 day massive water fight/party. SUPER FUN!! Just driving around town people line the street throwing buckets of water and passers by, which is nice actually cuz it is super hooooootttt right now. So I've spent the past few days running around town.

The Waterfall: There's a waterfall just on the outskirts of the village which some local friends took me to last week. It was a fun afternoon/evening filled with swimming, guitar playing and the best part - cliff jumping. Despite my youth/adolescence spent in a coastal town with abundant cliffs suitable for jumping off of, I still feel as though my lifetime cliff-jumping resume is not as distinguished as I'd like. It was a great time.

The Butterflies: The beautiful natural environment continues to amaze. A few weeks ago I was taking a short-cut from my village (Doh Ki Tah) to the nearby Thai village (Nai Soi). The path involves cutting through some farmer's paddy fields and walking through a river. It was a quiet morning. I am walking down the path approaching the river, and I notice along the river bed a few butterflies just sitting together along the river's edge, green on the bottom, white on the top. They were in my path and as I continued to walk toward them they started to take off. I quickly realized that what I first thought was 5 or 6 butterflies was in fact, 25 or 30 which proceeded to dance in circles around me. I didn't dare move, as that might scare them off, and besides I was awestruck. They danced away leaving my thinking, "THAT WAS THE COOLEST FREAKIN' THING I'VE EVER SEEN!!!" wish I had my camera.

The Chinese Village: I went to it for the second time, this time I took some friends from out of town (you can see pictures on Facebook). We put our toe over the Burmese boarder heavily guarded by a bamboo fence, although after we were there for a while some Thai soldiers did show up - but no one was to be seem the first time I went. The other highlight was playing on the man-powered, wooden ferris wheel, and shooting our very small friend Grace around. I was too heavy for my friends to push me up o the top, but I was able to climb up the rungs to the top and fly down. figuring out the weight balances was like physics class mixed with a carnival WHAT MORE COULD SOMEONE WANT?!?!?!