BootsnAll Travel Network



who wants to play a guessing game? (and an update)

stolen from christy’s myspace page, originally posted on feb 29, 2008:

whoever can guess closest to the number of insect bites, stings, and red welts covering my body without going over will win a special prize from thailand. jess tallied them up this morning. as much as i love thailand, the bugs seem to love me even more.

post your answers in either blog comments or regular comments and i’ll reveal the correct answer the next chance i have to blog.

and now for an update…(warning, quite long)

when i last left off, i was high off of the elephant rides and jungle experience, and thinking about bungee jumping… so let’s continue on…

that night i went to bed feeling sick, but like always, thinking that if i just ignored it, it would magically go away.

i woke up too early and hit the internet cafe to blog

later i ran into thelly and jo (my new aussie friends) and signed up for bungee jumping. an hour later a van picked us up and whisked us away to our site jump. in the van i made thelly and jo take a picture with me, stating that it might be our last picture ever (one of the other girls in the bus did not appreciate my sense of humor… oops!– i guess she’s not familiar with pong’s philosophy- haha)

the jump was 50 meeters and hung over a small green pond. i waited to go last because i was so nervous, and kept thinking about backing out… i also kept thinking about this psychic i saw a couple years ago (lon vo) who had predicted that i was going to “almost die” when i was 28. i couldn’t remember if she had said that this would happen in the ocean or in the water, and couldn’t stop thinking “what if it was in water, and this is the water?!?!”

luckily it wasn’t that water, because i survived! *whew!* and let me just tell you, it was the scariest thing i think i’ve ever done. scarier than spitting caves. there’s something about falling face first and having faith in lines and cords, that is completely terrifying. it took me forever, but i eventually did it  and it was such a fun rush! i couldn’t stop smiling when it was over. i still can’t believe that i did it even now. but i now get to cross it off my list of things to do before i die. (i even have a video of the jump, but i was being such a scared baby towards the end, that i might be too embarassed to show it to anyone)

after that i returned to chiang mai and took a nap, feeling even sicker… it was too hot and i’m too restless of a person for much of a nap, so shortly after, i hit the streets and found a pharmacist. he spoke a lot of english and listened to my symptoms. i asked him to prescribe the same things he would to his daughter, and so he gave me some western medications and also a brown vial of makham pom juice which he told me to drink throughout the day. it was weird tasting and made my mouth numb, but helped a lot with the sore throat and coughing.

he told me to drink lots of water and get plenty of rest. i told him i would drink a lot of water, but that i wasn’t going to rest, because i’m on vacation and i want to do as much as i can. he shook his head and told me that i was like his daughter, then walked me down two stores and ordered me a spicy noodle soup with chicken and pork and a lemonaide that was both salty and sweet. (it was the best soup i’ve ever had, and he was the nicest pharmacist i’ve ever met– see, even being sick in thailand is fun!).

later i got lost in the city, walking up and down random streets and meeting lots of nice people, kids, and dogs… and after that met up with the girls… we had all gone our separate ways… kimi to find a dentist (because healthcare is so much cheaper here), malia and jess to run across the border to laos to renew their visas, kira tagging along with them for the experience, and lisa and her mom to take thai cooking classes.

the next day was a looooong day of travel… we woke up at 6am and packed our bags and headed off the the airport. caught a flight to bangkok and said goodbye to lisa and her mom, and then another flight to phuket. from there we caught 2 busses down to khuraburi… we didn’t get there until about 7pm at night.

we walked around and went to their fair and ate all kinds of interesting foods. jess and i braved the big fried grasshoppers! not as bad as i thought, but still nothing i’ll ever try again. you can feel their legs sliding down your throat when you swallow (eww).

the next morning we met up with jess’s friend aung and caught a boat out to the island of surin. that’s where we’ve been the past 3 days. such an idyllic paradise. we camped out in tents and dove our asses off, seeing so many sea creatures!  i kept praying for a whale shark, but no such luck this time around. no hard feelings though, because i did get to see flying fox bats, fruit bats, a pet monkey and lots of fish, sea anenome, clams, tako, starfish, and the list goes on.

we also got the meet the moken tribe, a tribe of “sea gypsies” who live off of the ocean and have amazing diving and fishing abilities. they were really nice and i loved how playful the children were in in the ocean.

there’s so much more to report on… the little things… but i know i’m already overreporting as is, and whoever’s made it this far is either really patient or really bored. so thanks for reading and once again, i hope everyone is doing well back home.

in about an hour we catch a bus back up to bangkok… soon we’ll return home. i feel sad that this trip is almost over, but a million times grateful for the having of it.

much love,

christy



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