Andrea's birthday that will never be matched in awesomeness

Did I forget to mention we slept with airconditioning in our room for the first time since we had been in Thailand? We felt like royalty!

We rode our bikes to catch the bus to Mae Sai, and before long were crossing the river once again into Burma (or Myanmar if you want to be politically correct. I'm sticking with Burma though).



We were a little shocked at the sights, smells, and (ahem) shopping options in Burma the first time we went and because of that we didn't venture far from the border crossing area, but we decided to make a morning of it this time. We have worked with a lot of people fleeing Burma and wanted to have a little taste of it, even if it was just the roudy border city of Tackhilek. Prepped for what awaited us across the border, we braved the vendors and made it far enough to snag a tuk tuk driver to take us on a tour.

 First stop was a Burmese temple which conveniently matched my shirt exactly. This was the most run down of the three types of temples we visited, interestingly enough.

Burma Buddha isn't my favorite, but it was interesting to see the different style.

Next stop was another Burmese temple over-looking the city. This one reminded me more of what we saw regularly in Thailand.

View of the border from the temple. You just never know how your pictures are gonna turn out when you hand your camera off to your tuk tuk driver..

 Lastly we stopped at a Shan temple, which was the most meaningful to us. We've met a lot of Shan and feel a connection to them and their situation. We appreciated being able to go into one of their temples!

Beautiful Shan writing.

And that was the end of our tour. We were glad to actually go inside Burma and explore the border town a little, but at this point we were anxious to get back to Thailand.

 Back to Thailand safe and sound. Phew!

We had arranged to meet Ting Ting and a friend for lunch, so we rode our bikes back to the village to meet them.

You'd better believe I was telling all these people 'Ni hao!' as we passed!

 A HUGE highlight of the day was our lunch location. We ate on the banks of this secluded lake surrounded by mountains on three sides, overlooking the reflection of the trees in the water. It was AMAZING. One of the coolest places I have ever eaten.

Fried rice, noodles, chicken wings, oh yes and friend chicken elbows, ankles, and knees. They were better than I expected!

Ting Ting was so nice to treat us on my birthday!

We had a bus to catch, but couldn't leave without crossing this amazing bamboo bridge to see a mountainside Buddhist cave.

And we were off again to the Chinese-settled mountain village of Mae Salong! My love for China being the theme of this weekend, we saw it as the perfect opportunity to spend a night there exploring.

It was a happy miracle every time we made it somewhere on public transportation!

Headed to Mae Salong on a song tao

We checked into our villa and were happy to upgrade to one with an awesome view for the same price.
 

We wasted no time and headed right up the mountain to the temple that overlooks the valley!

Justin contemplating the meaning of Buddhism.

Walking up a bumload of stairs. It was a huge workout!

 BUT the views were worth it!

One of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen! Northern Thailand at its finest.

Temple at the top.

 We walked back down and explored the tea fields that lined the mountainsides.

Birthday dinner at our villa. Not quite authentic Chinese but close enough.

It was a marathon, multi-cultural birthday of travel and excitement that will make every birthday from here on out seem pretty dull! It was a little weird to not be surrounded by family and friends on a birthday, and instead be a foreigner and not even being able to communicate to anyone that it's your special day, but it was a blast to spend it with the most important person in my life, and to have his love and complete attention all day. I know there will be birthdays in the future that will get crowded by other things so this was a really memorable birthday for that reason, too. I'm so grateful for Justin and his continual concern for my happiness. He's the world champion at making me happy!

Birthday weekend kickoff. Monkeys included.

 7.20.12

Our second visa run to Burma happened to fall on my birthday. Which initially made me super mad but when I realized I would have a stamp in my passport with my birthdate, I was actually really excited for it. The trip to the border takes a lot of time and would have stunk to do on the morning of a birthday, but fate stepped in last time and gave us an adorable Taiwanese friend who offered to arrange a room for us at a guesthouse near the bordertown of Mae Sai for dirt cheap, so it worked out perfectly to head there the night before!

Waiting for the bus with our fried rice and pad thai to go!

Outside the guesthouse. It had been my dream the WHOLE TIME we were in Thailand to ride bikes and tour around somewhere, and not 5 minutes after settling in we were given bikes and told to ride around the Taiwanese village. Heavenly!

We rode around in the direction we had been instructed by our friend Ting Ting. We weren't sure we had arrived at the so-called monkey temple, until all of the sudden we realized a big monkey was walking through the entrance to greet us. And for the next half hour we were so overwhelmed and confused at what was going on. REAL MONKEYS roaming the temple grounds. What??

Monkey creeping at me. They are scarier than I ever thought!

This is the closest we got to one. Too close for comfort!

I can't really explain what happened next. We were handed bamboo poles and told to head up the mountain by a monk, but then got stopped on the steps by a monkey sliding down the handrail towards us, when these presumably intoxicated people showed up in a car, bought fish food, gave us one of the bowls, and posed in pictures with us. Yep..I'm just as confused as you are.

Cannot describe the confusion we felt. Maybe this facial expression will help convey it?

So. Many. Monkeys.

Annnnd at this point the monkeys started attacking the drunk lady and scratching her legs trying to get food from her, at which point the drunk man grabbed Justin's bamboo stick and started chasing them away. That was our cue to leave this crazy place!!

We enjoyed the rest of our evening, monkey-free.

The view from our guesthouse

This whole village was full of Chinese-speakers, which left me feeling happy as can be. I was able to remember enough Chinese to order food and make a little bit of conversation. It was awesome!

Noodles and unidentified fried food from street vendors. We washed it down with a Coke and didn't get sick after..haha

Birthday banana split

Justin and the Confucious statue in the lobby of the guesthouse

A Red Carpet Event

7.17.12




After hours and hours of hard work, the HIV/AIDS video was finished and ready to be premiered to the public! ..or at least to the HELP Thailand team. We decided to make it an event to remember and had the other NGO over to our landlady's restaurant to have popcorn and watch the film. We experienced a lot of obstacles during this project--transportation, language barriers, technology issues, funding-- but it all came together so well and we could not have been happier with the result. A 30 minute film written, directed, and filmed by a local NGO who will then be able to distribute copies of the DVD to groups of migrant workers to help them understand, prevent, and get treatment for HIV/AIDS. It was a proud day :)

Bed sheet projector. Oh yeah.

Teachers make the best students

7.17.12

Oh goodbyes. If you do too many at once it feels like you are breaking your heart into tiny little pieces and handing them over to everyone you leave. And boy, does it hurt. Our teachers at Jao Mae School were the first real goodbyes we had to do. They were an awesome group of teachers eager to learn English! We had a fantastic time teaching them and it was sad to see our time come to an end.

 Going over the lyrics to English learning songs. Those expressions are priceless.

We gave our 'students' small gifts from America--pennies and Jolly Ranchers

 And here's what they gave us..Thai culture is so extremely generous!

The principal. He lovvvved us.

Presenting them with their very own CD of English learning songs produced by our group for them to use after we leave.

We love our students/teachers at Jao Mae and we'll never forget them!

Thailand video of greatness!

We took a whole day last week and whipped up a tribute movie documenting our time in Thailand. For our sake (and yours) it's only one song long, but we had enough video footage to make a much longer one. For that reason it's pretty fast-paced, so watch it a couple times ;) It shows the best of our time in Thailand! We also chose this song before it got popular in the U.S..that's annoying, but we used it anyway.

Eventually we'll catch up on all of the blog posts we've missed (...), but a movie is probably more exciting anyway. We sure miss Thailand and the adventures we had there every day, but we are happy to be home with family and friends and catching some summer before school starts up again. Be sure to catch up with us on our regular blog! just-an-adventure {dot} blogspot {dot} com.

Enjoy ^_^