What a small world!!! Ohhh sooo much fun!!!

Friday 03Nov2006
Shawn and I traveled back to Chiang Mai today and got to our guesthouse no problem. The bus trip was long- about 6 hours- and really cramped!! I had never seen it before but they had three seats in one row and two in the orher on the bus- just like on an airplane- and the seats are sooo tiny!! Shawn and I had to double up on each other to fit!!!
Anyways, we got into town earlier than Jen and Hilary so we went to this really nice hotel that has excellent hill tribe coffee (very strong) and internet. Shawn is reading me this e-mail that he got from his friend Pam from Salt Lake City who had traveled to Thailand and made it to Chiang Mai!! She was writing to see if we could meet up- as he is telling me this I look out the window onto the street and ask Shawn if that was his friend ahead- I don't know- I have never met her!! Amazingly it was her!!! What a small world!! They went out onto the street cafe and started drinking Chang Draft and catching up. Then we met up with Hiliary and Jen and went to this great Indian restaurant and kept drinking!! After that we wandered over towards the festivities of Loy Kratong (they spell it all different ways- maybe there is no right way!)

We hung out near Taepae Gate where there were lots of Loy Kratong festivities. Loy Kratong is a holiday when Thais pray to the "water angel" of the rivers and apologize for polluting the water and thank her for letting them use her resources. They make these little boats called Kratongs out of banana leaves and flowers. They fill it with incence, coins and a candle. Then they float the kratongs in a river on a full moon night. The river will be full of a thousand little lights and the sky will be full of hot air lanterns. What a sight!!

After that we met up with Nadine and went to the Rasta bar called Babylon- where they had a rasta band playing!! We had a few drinks and then Jen, Hiliary, and Nadine got up and started dancing- this became contagious and soon enough everyone in the place was dancing!! What fun!! Jen was playing with this little girl and put glitter on her and we were all deleriously happy!! What do they put in that Chang beer? I dunno but it was soo much fun!!

By the end of the night this guy came up to Shawn and asked him how in the world could a guy like him be at the bar with the most beautiful ladies in the bar! Lucky Shawn!! That led into more drinking and many more people hanging out- people from all over the world!! Jen and I were singing "All the freaky people make the beauty of the world!!" The french guy agreed!!

I went around the outside of the bar with Jen and I saw this vendor selling all different kinds of insects to eat so I quickly scooped up Shawn tohave a look. He was very much interested- or drunk?? Anyways, the vendor gave Shawn some grubs to eat--'tastes like liver!' proclaimed Shawn--- eeeewwwwww!!!!!!!!!

We made it back to the guesthouse to call it a night earlier than everyone else- they are troopers!! They were out until like 5 am. The bar was closed, the lights were out, we had already drank them out of house and home, there was no music, but we could stay!! Crazy!!

What a great time- and it was very cool to be in Thailand and have a group of friends to be hanging out with!!