Tony and I gave our farewell speeches to the school in THAI. We were dreading it, but the crowd appreciated it so much we were glad we made the attempt.
HAD to get a pic of our favorite teacher friend, Ajan Sompit, whose laughter we so wish we could bottle up & take with us!
Our little English Department going away party included some FINE karaoke tunes, all in English (Carpenters,Elton John, Beatles, Denver,etc.)

Good-bye to Mancha Khiri

It's our last day in Mancha Khiri, and we still have most of our packing to do, house cleaning and some last photos to take, but otherwise we are quite ready for the next stage to begin (and I can promise you I won't miss the awful sappy Thai-pop love songs that are always blasting at the internet cafe where we blog!). Yes, tomorrow we set off on the beginning of our six weeks of travel, starting out slowly-- with a return to Chiang Mai. I'll be meditating for five days while Tony finishes his dental work (lucky boy). Then it's off to Siem Reap, Cambodia for four days. Next stop: Phuket for a week, before making our way further south, with a few stops, to jump on a ferry to Sumatra for two weeks in the wild. We end our journey in Singapore, where we are staying with friends until we fly home (on April 13th). We will have some fun stories to tell from this trip, I am quite certain. . . It has been very good to live in one, mellow spot for four months, soaking up the culture & environment. And it has prepared us nicely to hit the road with new energy & intrigue. HERE WE GO!

King Cobra Village snake boxing....

Located in north east Thailand, Isaan province is little known, overlooked by most tourists, it boasts no indigenous tribal people, has zero beaches; yet it is the capitol of Thai silk, home to spectacular National Parks, origin of Maw Lam music, & location of Ban Khok Sa-Nga, King Cobra village. Two hours on the main route from home, 20 minutes down a small two lane, then 10 minutes on a dirt road lands you in a small village where the main attraction is an elevated stage surrounded by four small bleachers. As we arrived the Maw Lam music was pumping accentuated by a lively female MC. Eight Thai women came out from behind an enclosure with large snakes around their necks & shoulders. As they took their place on stage, they made two rows front & back & began dancing to the music with the snakes around them. Their stage act was punctuated at the end as they held the snake's head & put it into their mouth, this was the beginning of our King Cobra experience.
As the music started up again, two men mounted the stage from the side, one with a stick, the end hooked & used for handling poisonous snakes. The other man casually took his time taking off his shoes, pulling up his socks. The man with the stick walks to where there are a number of wooden boxes, flipping the lid open & pulling out a snake with a very large girth & easily measuring 10 feet long, dark in color with off-white bands around the body. The snake glides half the distance of the stage, the female MC is warming up, the music is winding up & the man with no shoes makes his way towards the snake grabs its tail & pulls the snake towards him. All of a sudden the snake rears up one-third of its length, agitated, a hood expands around the head, it's the famous & feared King Cobra!
There is a perceptible excitement now in the MC's voice, the man in socks is in a crouch & makes a move at the snake, the pitch of the music heightens, the cobra strikes as the man dodges backward, finds new footing & throws a punch which lands on the snake, the MC's voice has gained momentum & treats this like a major sporting event with a blow-by-blow commentary. The snake makes it's move & tries to slither away only to have its tail grabbed & pulled back, it uses the backward momentum & strikes at the shoeless man who sidesteps the attack & delivers a glancing blow downward atop the snake's head. The two face off in a very mesmerizing way, the cobra rearing up with full hood swaying from side-to-side, its opponent doing the same, slowly he reaches out towards the snake until he actually has his fingers around the snake holding it, lets go turns his back to the snake & bows to the crowd.
These cobras don't spit their venom like some cobras do, but they are no less deadly. The show features a few more boxing matches before the last act, a man with the largest cobra of the day, wrapped around his neck & shoulders. Some of his antic have to be seen, such as putting the cobra's head in his mouth & then down his pants until half the body disappears. And yes, that's a cobra that Becca & I are holding, she stepped forward first while I was hemming & hesitating. -TLC

gettin' cozy with the cobras!

Dining out in Mancha Khiri

The English Department teachers took Becca and me out for lunch one day. Conjure up all you know about Thai food: the peanut sauce & flat noodles of Pad Thai, the sharp lemon grass taste of Tom Yum soup, the rich creaminess of coconut milk with green or red curry spices, the firey bite of papaya salad, the minty freshness of spring rolls. Now cast all those flavors, aromas and visuals to your culinary sensory side pocket; our lunch represented nothing of the sort above. Of the many dishes that made a debut on our lunch table were beef spleen cubed & boiled with fresh cilantro; strips of cow udder fried on a bed of lettuce; parboiled beef tripe with raw diced yellow onions & spring onions & red chili peppers; fried squid with curried crab eggs & sliced green onions; boiled-until-coagulated beef BLOOD cubed with ground beef, green onions & Thai eggplant, and somewhere amongst all of those savory organ delectables was the cow's moo.

yes, a bit like Halloween-- unfortunately, we were taken seriously! Thai royalty for a night.

our home

entering our last month in Mancha Khiri

Lately it has become apparent to Tony and me that we're darn comfortable in this little town in northeast Thailand. We are settled into a sweet house on stilts (refer to photos above -- including an outdoor squat toilet house where Tony is washing his clothes & a separate, fabulously rustic kitchen). It is so pleasant to lounge on our deck or underneath in the hammock, listening to crickets in the evening, birds during the day. We have at least one enormous spider in our toilet house and an oversized gecko in our bedroom (Tony is still trying to identify it--well, and draw it, of course). Other than those, we have squabbling pigeons on our tin roof and loads of mosquitoes during the night (thankful for a mosquito net for sleeping!). Inside are quite a few framed pictures of the king & queen, as well as old family photos of the folks who are renting this place to us. It really is a delightful home... I have also been excited about setting a bit of a running routine for myself, and I really do like it because it is so beautiful out on this red dirt path that winds through rice fields and a roaming lake. I pass hardworking fishermen and farmers and children tending to water buffalo and cows, admiring the footbridges and dwellings that are nearby while I take in the glory of the setting sun and its reflection in the water. The other evening I came across two young men who had JUST shot & killed an enormous snake, at least five inches wide & plenty long. It was lying there just short of my path. Whoa, that thing was massive! Tried to show it to Tony the next morning, but it was not there... Also in recent news, Tony & I took part in "The Best of Mancha Khiri" which happens every January along with the orchid festival. People come from everywhere & it lasts for three days. We were asked to participate in a Thai fashion show--sounded harmless enough, until we spent three hours in a beauty shop where they made us even more white, stripped me of my eyebrows (well, not entirely, but more than I have ever wanted taken off). Anyway, we paraded our new selves for the awe of the town and now our photo is on a large banner hanging over the beauty salon on the main street! Our students thought we looked sooooo beautiful. I wasn't much in to the attention, especially being stuffed into that green gown, and I missed being paraded in front of the audience because I was off trying to find my shoes when they announced Tony's name.OOPS. But what I did love was the drama production-- the story of how Mancha Khiri came to be (immigrants settling here, etc)-- and all the dancing, performed by our students. Altogether it was quite the festival, including luminaries sent off into the night sky. I am so impressed that the town comes together like this every year, demonstrating their community spirit & pride... Really, I just dig walking around this place, soaking in the lifestyle of the people here. It is an easy place to live and appreciate simplicity amidst smiling faces and a relaxed pace. Can I get an "A-MEN!"? A-men...love, Becca