This has been such a fun and bizarre trip so far. We are in the city of Lampang right now (leaving later for Thoen). So far in Lampang, I have ridden an elephant, gotten a Thai massage (kind of like "involuntary yoga"), visted a ceramic factory and a power plant, toured an interesting (yet disgusting) hospital and crashed a funeral. Yes, after leaving the hospital, we're standing by this building with a bunch of people in it, when I realize there is a dead body laying on the table with an arm hanging out. I'll have to tell more about it later.
Here are a few other interesting tidbits:
*This morning, I asked a little 7 year old boy what a dog says. his reply: "Hung! Hung!" (so cute!)
*Thai's like to use toilet paper for napkins and paper towels
*They use kitchen sprayers for toilet paper
*They're not necessarily in to hot running water - makes for a quick shower
*It takes about 6 days to get over jet lag (13 hour time zone difference)
Funniest moment of the week:
After spending 30 minutes trying to tell our hostess that our cameras were in the trunk of the car we were in and we wanted to get them out to take pictures, one of my teammates says in exasperation: We have got to get a new phrasebook! This thing has "knappy rash" but not "trunk".
I have written so many pages in my journal. I'm looking forward to sharing more stories when I have time. I hope everyone is well!
Christin: that trunk story reminds me of when I was in Thailand. Of course, I forgot my camera, so, yeah, you know....:)
Posted by: UJ at March 7, 2007 06:29 AMYou've ridden an elephant and crashed a funeral! Lampang sounds so much cooler than Monroe.
Posted by: jeniliz at March 7, 2007 04:26 PMYeah, I can't say I've done anything even NEARLY that exciting since you've been gone! No using kitchen sprayers for me; I totally prefer the good old toilet paper :-)
Posted by: Ragan at March 7, 2007 05:02 PM1) Try "boot" as they've probably learnt their English from the... English.
2) Hey, when you figure it out, you can communicate "I've got a knappy rash on my trunk" and that could be handy, considering the toilet paper/kitchen sprayer dilemma.
3) In France, when you expectorate, they say "tous tous" not "cough cough." RobiTUSSin, get it?