Flying to India tomorrow morning. A bit nervous. A lot excited. Five days on my own before the course starts. What to do, what to do?? But first, what have I been up to these last couple of weeks in Thailand? Well....

I did make my way to Laos after visiting Jo's farm, but only to renew my entry permit. On the bus back to the town I was staying in (Ubon), I immediately began to regret not actually spending a few days in Laos. Everyone I've talked to has gone on and on about how beautiful it is, and relaxing, and blah blah blah. Like who would want to deal with that? Nope, not I. Instead I jumped on a 12-hour overnight train back to Bangkok, my favorite city in the world. There were only third-class seats available. That's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I hope! Bench seats with straight backs facing each other in pairs. Thankfully there was at least a thin vinyl covering on the benches, rather than straight-up wood. I learned a whole new dimension of discomfort. My seat partner and I, shy at first, made no bones about leaning against each other after then first 4 hours. We ignored the fact that we were leaning against each other, but it was the only way to get some sleep without falling forward onto the seat across from us.

The bright side of 3rd-class is all the yummy food vendors that descend on the train at each stop. Steamed pork buns, BBQ chicken skewers, pineapple slices.... you don't get this in first class. In first class you get overpriced, meager and tasteless food provided by the train company. In third class you get cheap, plentiful and yummy food provided by struggling entrepreneurs with very little overhead and no concerns about catering to some weird notion that foreigners like to eat shitty food. Now if only second-class actually combined the seating comfort with the good food, THAT would be a travel experience to write home about. Oh wait, I am kinda writing home about my travel experience in 3rd-class. Hmm. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Once in Bangkok, I called up my friends Maria and Ludo, who live and work at a place called Wongsanit Ashram a couple of hours outside of Bangkok. I met Maria and Ludo at Whispering Seed, and was interested in seeing them again as well as learning more about the ashram. So I got back on a train, then a bus, then a scooter to get to the ashram. Eighteen hours after leaving Ubon, I arrived at Wongsanit Ashram. Stayed there about a week, and caught some of their anniversary celebration. Saturday was like a county fair, but on a really small scale, while Sunday was more about workshops and panels and presentations on social justice and development issues. Everything was in Thai, so I understood nil, but I was still interested in seeing how this particular organization celebrated its presence in the community, and how the community received that presence.

I originally intended to leave the ashram on Thursday, but my friends MattMatt and Jo were coming to Bangkok and the ashram (respectively), and invited me to travel back to Whispering Seed with them on Sunday. Which worked perfectly because I got a chance to see the anniversary celebration over the weekend. During the week, however, there was a group from Burma. Really funny. Monks doing things that, well, monks aren't supposed to do. Like handing me a cigarette. Monks are never supposed to give or receive something directly to or from a woman's hand. They're not supposed to smoke. They're definitely not supposed to eat yummy sweet pastries after noon. There were boundaries being explored and tested. It was, for them, a letting go of the many boundaries that exist in their lives as monks in Burma.

Jo, MattMatt and I caught an evening bus back to Sappraiwan, arriving at 3AM. Jim and Nao from Whispering Seed were planning to pick us up at the early morning market, getting some fresh produce while in town. They were late (as I would have been), so the three of us curled up on a bamboo platform on the side of the road designed for snoozing and snoozed. Travel as a man is very different. Travel as a native man.... I wish I could do that sort of thing regularly and without fear!

The house at Whispering Seed was just about finished by the time I left. Pictures can be seen at http://www.whisperingseed.org/baandin.html. I want to live in a hobbit house!! (Mmmmm.... West Side Story, anyone?) I did come down with a nasty 24-hour bug while I was there. Sported a 102 fever for a day, really congested, couldn't eat until the fever broke (at which point I devoured everything in my sight). Still a bit congested, though it's now moved into my ears. Hoping it will have cleared up enough that a short flight to India won't aggravate it too much.

Last big news is seeing Return of the King. I am happy. It was a great movie. See Spot run. Seriously, it was epic. I was sad that certain things were cut out, but not surprised. I mean, of COURSE they couldn't have included the final bit about Merry, Pippin, Sam and Frodo getting back to the Shire and having to kick ass. That would have added another hour! Not that I would have minded at all, but I understand that they were working under some constraints. I can't wait (though I'll have to) to see all three extended versions back to back. Wouldn't it be cool if there were super-geek-out-extended versions that were completely faithful to the storylines of the books? We'd get to meet Tom Bombadil, for instance. Sure each film would be 15 hours (at least), but whatever.... this is an epic trilogy here folks, not just a couple of Blockbuster hits. Matrix movies can be 2 hours.

So that brings me back to flying to India tomorrow. I've already been dealing with a bit of homesickness, and I think Christmas will be tough. Most of my friends back in the San Francisco Bay Area spent this past Friday night dancing their asses off and celebrating all night long. Most of my family is trying to keep cozy through some big snowstorms, and generally experiencing a New England winter such as I haven't seen in a few years. I'm hoping to find a nice beach somewhere and a good book. That, I think, will make me feel a lot better. Maybe find someplace to go to midnight mass. What do you think people would think if I went around carolling? "We three three kings of orient are....." I'll let you know how that goes! This was a very long blog. Thanks for bearing with me. I will try to be more regular so it's easier both to write and to read the entries! Happy holidays everyone!