UPDATE - New Pictures: It was supposed to be so eeeaasssyyy

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Today's Theme Song: Here 

Oh my gosh today has been one of those days, ugh. While both Graham and I try to be positive about our experiences here (and life in general) the flood gates of ick really opened on us today. So to all of you who may be a bit bored at your jobs, wondering what the world has to offer, let me tell you-what you got isn't so bad trust me! Today we suffered the consequences of simple mis communications that have resulted in a day full of frustration. No one can be blamed, but the inability to speak with people here, coupled with layer upon layer of social customs and norms, can be incredibly difficult to handle. And then we have some lingering problems in the states, which also sucks, especially when we both worked so hard to clean our slate for our time here. Ah, life, sometimes you are a....um, difficult. Thank you so much to our parents back home, especially my mom, Lynn, for all of their help making this whole dream (right now it seems like a nightmare-were we crazy to come here? sometimes I think so!) a reality. Teaching has also been very challenging at times. Today I actually had to hide some tears, as I dodged things getting thrown at me as I sulked out of my classroom. After trying so hard, walking around singing "We wish you a merry christmas" like a total idiot for an hour, with the kids being so loud and disrespectful, I could not but momentarily give in to the stress and cry quietly behind my fake purple RayBan glasses.

At this point I am venting a bit, but we try to share our positive experiences as much as possible, and so it seems only fair to our readers to know that there are some difficult times too. I have only read a couple blogs here and there, and they always sound so wonderful (maybe sometimes a bit sugar coated, we always want to appear to be happy etc,) that I am sometimes left feeling a bit bad about my life. So, just remember that no matter where you are or what your situation is, you are experiencing something unique, and doing things that you would not be able to do if you were in a different place. With that being said, our friend Jenn put it a good way, we are getting good life experience. And I promise to never say anything bad about a job that pays more than $10 an hour and doesn't totally suck. Also, I promise to never say anything bad about Kaiser Medical again. Anyways, we did have an amazing weekend, so I want to focus for the rest of this posting on that. 

So, last Friday, free from our enslavement for 2 and a half whole days (Natalie-think positive!) we were so mentally exhausted we layed in bed for the entire afternoon with our two stray cats, Angel and Mr. T and our stray puppy, Knuckles (who is sleeping right next to me right now, she is soooo adorable!) Our little family somehow keeps growing, despite my better judgement. I have really been trying to not fall in love with another single animal, as I know how much it is going to hurt when I say bye to them forever in 3 short months. Also we have been trying and trying to get our adopted cat neutered, but, like everything here, with the language barrier and the rarity of neutering cats and dogs, it has proven very difficult. Everyone in this town thinks I'm a crazy cat lady as we scoot around with cats in our backpack trying to mime neutering to whoever might be able to point us in the direction of a veterinarian. We have not yet been successful, but we continue to try. Making a difference takes a lot of extra energy here (doesn't it always?), but we are determined to leave this city a bit better than when we left it, even if it means one more kid can sing some dumb song and one dog does not have to suffer through multiple pregnancies that she is not healthy enough to carry. So, anyways, Friday we made no strides toward world saving, but rather lazed through three consecutive episodes of the TV show Rome. 

Saturday we slept in, fixed our scooter which had a flat tire, then zoomed off to a little mountain city called Ban Rai. Mountain city here is subjective, since where we live is so flat. Maybe foothill city would be more correct by American standards. But the ride out there was beautiful and fast, and it was so nice to arrive at our destination without having to take multiple buses and taxis, vans etc. We checked into our resort (which was right behind a gas station, but it was still surprisingly nice) and we even upgraded our room to a really nice all wood room with a patio overlooking the river and garden. After checking out the town a bit, we headed to another resort for lunch. We were in for quite a treat as the resort was gorgeous, in the countryside overlooking farms and patches of jungle, and we were literally the only people there as far as we could tell. We checked out the place, then had a really delicious lunch looking out over the view. The whole place was very Zen and we enjoyed our afternoon there.

We next headed to the famous "Big Tree" which was indeed, big. It was huge in fact, a relic of the surely once magnificent rainforest that has since been cut and replaced with a palm tree monoculture. (I really have to do a post on all of the times I think about the movie Fern Gully) It was nevertheless nice to feel a bit more like we were in nature, and I trekked through that monoculture like I was Louis (or Clark) on an expedition of an unexplored territory. We saw a gorgeous sunset while we were wandering around the "forest" and nearby river, and had a fun ride in dusk home.

The next day was one of our favorite days so far in Thailand. Everything was easy, pleasant, and simply unreal. So impressive! So, first we went to a wat built right into the side of a sheer limestone mountainside. The morning was so beautiful and nice, and we walked all around the colorful gardens and checked out the view of the surroundings from the top of the wat (ha, that rhymes!) It is difficult to put into words just how beautiful this place and the day was. After looking out over the valley and garden and chatting for a while, we  followed a path that wrapped around to the back of the wat, and led us to a number of caves that we explored alone. We followed the path through the forest past the creek and finally to a banana plantation, where we saw some dogs and had to turn back (everyone here has guard dogs that are trained to attack!) But the sheer limestone cliffs and the rock formations were all incredible. Again, it is difficult to describe, suffice it to say if you are ever in Thailand Ban Rai is not on the tourist loop, but it is definitely worth a stop!

From there we explored the beautiful country streets some more, got lost, had lunch on the side of the road at some little stall, with the usual chickens and stray dogs wandering around, and then stopped at this super fancy resort where we checked out the pool and grounds, which were amazing (well, the pool was, definitely the coolest pool I have ever seen!) and then we headed to some more caves-but they weren't just any caves. They were the coolest caves either of us have ever been in! Again, it was just the two of us in enormous expanses of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites- so big they reminded me of the organs you see in enormous churches in Europe or something. There was one main room and we each wandered around whispering "whoa" to ourselves over and over as our jaws continued to drop at the magnificence of the place we were in. Since we have done a fair share of cave exploring alone, this time we were not nervous at all, and we even bravely turned off our lights on several occasions and let ourselves get engulfed in the utter blackness and silence that we were in. We saw snake skins, tons of bats, scary looking spiders, and I even saw a gecko eat a strange, very big cricket. It was so infinitely cool, again, being in a cave with just one other person, not knowing what amazing formation is behind every turn in one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced (sky diving does not come even close to being as intense or exciting, no lie). This particular cave was especially gorgeous, and it felt very alive (ie there was bat guano everywhere and a thriving ecosystem). It was sweet. 

From there we headed home, past fields of burning sugarcane, and saw an intensely red sunset (as is usual when there is so much smoke in the air) that was beautiful, but also gloomy as we drove past truckloads of cane and had to wipe the ashes off our helmets. We will try to write more about this later, but I am going to try to limit my sugar intake. 

Graham just asked "Are you writing a blog or a novel?" I guess I'd better go. Love to you all!