Bestest friends, laughter, beautiful beaches and fruit shakes...if this isn't heaven I don't know what is!

We spent a week chilling in hammocks, catching up on each others love lives, sunning our bums and scheming for our 2013 rendezvous, which consequently will be held trekking up Mnt. Kilimanjaro! 2012/13 is the year of Africa!! Come one come all!

You know you've got irreplaceable friends when the reunion is seamless, like you haven't been separated, living different lives for 9 months...when being together is as easy as breathing. Every once in a while there are hiccups and heartaches, but life is what we do best together! :) 

Safe travels dear ones!  And here's to our next 2013 adventures! xx

Quotes to live by:

"You need to sun your moonshine" -V (after we taught miss South African some new hillbilly lingo)

"We don't not pay we just steal!" -V (while explaining SA)

"Just float like debris in the ocean" -M (said in a very profound, zen tone)

"It could be atomic waste"
"Bust I sparkle!"
"You could grow a third arm"
"BUT I SPARKLE! -(During a night skinny dipping session when we found that the ocean sparkled around us when we moved due to microscopic glowy marine plankton)

"Grab a bottle, I'm peeing magic!"

SP#18

I know I've been deplorably lazy when it comes to the Self Portrait series. It's always, "I'll wait until things calm down," or "...until I've got firmer footing." I'm now starting to think that it's not about gaining a secure foothold, but learning to move WITHOUT one. Life is unpredictable, things are always changing. People coming, people going, what seems like your happy place 10 minutes ago is now your hell, what you thought was a great job is no longer tolerable...Life is in a constant flux and if you're always waiting for the right time to move, well my friend, the time is now! So here is to the old and the new, what was and what will be. Here is to looking ahead even when the ground is shaky. Here's to looking towards the future and letting the sun set on the past! 

Check out Inge Kathleen's new SP#22! 

Just wanted to share a little slice of Paradise Koh Wai style, with all you poor babies mired in snow and ice...*shivers*

I'm finally back in Chiang Mai, Thailand after an incredible Cambodian Xmas, Bangkokian birthday, and beach bumming New Years Eve! It's nice to have one bed to lay my head (even tho it feels like a stranger) and not have to live out of my small, beat up old backpack. Being a beach bum for a week gives you some good time for New Years resolution reflection in between snorkeling, sea kayaking and whooping some serious ass at sand volleyball (you know who you are). This is usually a time where I look backwards to see if I lived, laughed and loved hard enough. Did I climb higher, work harder, push myself farther, and break boundaries?! All I have to say is I am happy! 2011 has been hands down phenomenal and I am happy with where I am and what I've done and what I've got lined up for 2012. 2011 was my year for SEA Asian and 2012 is my year for Africa! Since the next year must always trump the last I think it's high time I start to do some serious planning. Anyone keen on a easy-breezy Kilimanjaro climb and a little para-glide down? Last one down is a rotten egg! :)

As new years resolutions go, mine was summed up in the parting words of a wacky old Austrian beach bum: "Try to be a good girl!"

And you were wondering why I've been spending so much time in the mountains with no shower, electricity or contact with the outside world?! One word: Coffee. :) Haha, liesss, but it IS a nice perk! In fact, the school children were being taught how to make complicated drinks like Mochas and lattes and guess who was the #1 taste tester?! That's right, be jealousy, VERY jealous! ;) But really what keeps drawing me back again and again are these beautiful people. Enjoy!

Mamma Mo

Earlier this week, I found myself on the back of a motorbike, backpack full of camera, audio and video gear, zoom-zooming up the side of a mountain on a road covered in carnivorous, man eating potholes. I like to fancy myself afraid of nothing, but faced with the very real possibility of tumbling off the back of the motorbike and then down down down the mountain, had me nearly peeing my pants.
At the top, I kissed the red dirt and said a thank you to whoever was watching out for me, then got to work. I hiked 6km to the village of a very special student and there I was welcomed into the remote and lovely Karen hill tribe village with open arms. The village leader greeted me and fed me ocean fish and beer (two incredible luxuries) and the village woman crowded into the room, fat babies bobbing on their hips and youthful faces lined with the sun of a hard life.
This beautiful lady in the photo, invited me into her house and stuffed me full of rice and veggies, telling me to "eat mok mok!" We communicated mostly with charades and hand signals and through which I learned that I was to sleep in her house, on the floor, with three other students to keep me safe. It ended up me and five other village kids all armed with their crumpled English books trying desperately to communicate. Neither of us could pronounce the others name so she asked for me to call her "Mo" for "mother" and she would call me "daughter" in Karen. She told me I must come back and stay a long time. Her generosity and kindness warmed my soul!

This land smells of sweet sweet flowers. I first noticed it while zooming home thro the rice fields on my motorbike one evening, singing happily to myself while watching loose lanterns scale into the sky to join the stars. At first it reminded me of the sickly sweet, poignant smell of death and the flowers that lined my grand mother's coffin. But now it will forever remind me of warm Thai evenings, of laying on my back watching Loy Kathong lanterns travel across the sky and setting banana boats free on the ping river.

Thailand just celebrated the gorgeous Loy Kathong festival. We were invited to the local elementary school where the small children rolled out mats and showed us the art of folding banana leaves to decorate our floating banana boats. The boy scouts all practiced lighting and releasing the lanterns into the sky, which is far more difficult than you might think. After three attempts that the lanterns crashed and burned, the children finally hit pay day and off floated their white lantern into the afternoon sky. The children raced after it, running and jumping in excitement!

In the evening, we all made our way to the Ping riverside in Chiang Mai where we stashed prayers on our little banana boats and lit their candles and incense then set them free to sail down the river, far far away. I tied all my fears and worries to a Loy Kathong lantern and sent it sailing to the moon. It was a beautiful moment of bidding farewell to the past and opening my arms wide open to the future. :)

Karen Hill Tribe Village

More images from our time at Huaysampoi, a remote hill tribe village in Thailand. Each one of us was touched in different and poignant ways by these incredible people.

This past few weeks have been jam packed full of incredible things! One of which is the English Camp Travel-to-Teach volunteers put on at the local Buddhist temple, Wat Doi Saket. I've always been a little scared of monks in Thailand, mainly because if a female touches them they have to say a gazillion prayers to be purified again or do penance or something crazy like that. Either way it's bad news bears. But after a week with these baby monks or "novices," it's pretty clear to see that these are just rowdy boys dressed in orange. Here are a few of my favorites from the past week, more to come soon! xx

Introducing...

The wild Travel to Teach volunteers!!

After a long day exploring Chiang Mai on our motorbikes, we cooled off at a beautiful waterfall on the way up to Doi Suthep. The place was absolutely stunning with a natural slide and monks splashing in the water. After a fun time of chasing each other to the top and riding the water down, the boys decided to hop off a cliff into the falls and decided I had to do it with them...and like a crazy person I agreed. I made them go twice before I would go and then I stood there for literally 10minutes staring down and trying to swallow my fear. I had to jump over a rope tire swing and aim for the waterfall's V, the deepest portion of the pool. I had been dared to do cliff jumping once before while up in the boundary waters only from an even greater height and I chickened out. But this time I was determined...I told everyone if I died it was their fault, took a running step, and hopped off. When I came up my body was still humming from the adrenaline rush and I was smiling SO big and SO proud of myself!

I like to keep my quota of firsts pretty high as it makes life loads more interesting and in one day I managed to do TWO firsts: jump off a cliff into a waterfall and munch bugs...

This is the story of how I convinces a group of innocent volunteers to eat the biggest, ugliest bug at the Chiang Mai Sunday market...

After a day of motorbike explorations, we sat in a small cafe near Thapae Gate sipping fruity smoothies and cooling down. On my second sip I had an epiphany, "Let's eat bugs today!" Every Sunday a sweet little Thai lady gathers all her dead, partially dead, or soon to be dead bugs and heads to the market place to show her munchable friends to oogling foreigners and bug loving Thais. I had been waiting for just the right moment to dare a group of people (preferably males) to a bug munching competition and the time was exactly right, we were all suffering from an adrenaline overload from jumping off a cliff into a waterfall and extremely hungry. To my surprise Kyle responded with a very serious face, "Today is the day we eat bugs."

So we went in search of the bug lady...She had big bugs, small bugs and in between bugs...Nick got a weird glint in his eye and said it would be lame if we didn't eat the BIGGEST bug there ever was...with a falling feeling in my stomach, I told him I'd munch anything he munched... Kyle tried desperately to talk us out of our decision, he couldn't be shown up by a girl...but to no avail. We left the bug lady with our arms full of plastic baggies full of cooked buggies. We found a quiet table to set out our wares with coke chasers and convenient shadows to run to if our stomachs weren't as stupid as our brains...

First, Kyle eyed Mr. Massive Bug...

And Mr, Massive Bug eyed him back...

We finally convinced Nick to go first (he decided to play with the bug a little bit before giving it a good munch)...

And then we watched closely to see if he died...

He didn't, but Anna and Kyle nearly did...

Guess what?! We survived! We were so proud of ourselves we pranced around the the market place. For proof check out this FB video.

The world doesn't look quite the same after you've eaten the biggest bug you've ever seen. On the way home a cockroach tried to surprise us (Like they always do) by running out of a hole on the sidewalk right under our feet...not one of us blinked, we kept walked unimpressed muttering, "We've EATEN bugs bigger than you buddy...*sniff*"

Munching bamboo shoots and catfish on-a-stick with our fingers, perched on the banks of this raging river with Inge = heaven!

Goodbyes

Never feel good...
This sweet little man has taken a piece of my heart with his soulful eyes and beautiful smile. It always surprises me how hard leaving can be and it's never the people you would initially expect. I never got the chance to tell this little guy in Thai that I was leaving, but he seemed to know clinging to me like a monkey, legs and arms wrapped around me for the entire workshop. When anyone else would work with him he would always reach back for me, and I took him for rides while he guided my steps. To the fence so that we could pick little flowers and take them back to the home or to the sink to wash our hands. He took my hands in his and scrubbed them with soap like a little grown up, tsking over my cut and wiping it so clean it hurt. When it was time to finally say goodbye, his eyes welled up with tears and he kissed both my cheeks and forehead. As we headed to the van, he stood by the fence looking so sad and desolate I had to go back to give his salty cheeks one last kiss. There is no easy way to say goodbye.

Photogrpahy Workshop

Last week we gave the neighborhood Burmese refugee and hill tribes children cameras and sent them home with the assignment to tell the story of their life in photographs. A big project for little tykes, yes? Some of them came back with cameras full of unused film and others fully used and reluctant to give back their new toy. After developing the roles of film, the REAL fun began! As I opened each folder I got to peek into their lives, to see the faces of their mother, father, sisters and brothers. I got to see little girls playing dress up in princess clothes and where they sleep on the floor at night. Below is the pieced together story of 11 children's lives. 11 children whose families came to Chiang Mai to escape poverty, cruelty and abuse and who started a new life in this city. These series of photographs give us a rare peek into their personal lives from the perspective of a child. Enjoy!