Tuesday, March 3, 2009

On the way to work today...

So, biking towards work today at 8:30am I was shocked to see "tons" of traffic in the middle of our simple one lane highway. The cars were bumper to bumper- but since I was on a bike I decided that I needn't be worried about stopping with them- and went around. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of a large marching band procession slowly moving down the center of town! A marching band procession, with hundreds of people all dressed in matching outfits during the middle of "rush hour"! Really? AND- guess what they were playing?.... Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yes folks that's right, Thais love their celebrations so much that they will let it interrupt mid-week rush hour traffic to play not even a Thai patriotic song. What can I say? The Thais are truly dedicated to their celebrations.
Of course I got to work and asked anyone else if they had also been stuck in this strange marching band, but of course no one else had been. In fact no one else even knew what I was talking about! Which is so amazing because Mae Sot only has two roads... one going into town and one going away.
Ah, life in Thailand!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

A Romp at the น้ำตก Part 1

So it is REALLY REALLY getting hot here and we decided that it was a perfect day to take a trip out to the waterfalls that we have all heard so much about, but never gone to see. They were beautiful! And it was so hot, which made the water temperature perfect! We were also covered in waterfall mud by the end of the climb, so we feel like we also got to roll around in special Northern Thai mud for free instead of going to an expensive Rodeo Drive spa!

We started by going to a lesser waterfall that you had to climb up the mountain to see the falls. Right above it was a beautiful golden pagoda! You could only see it from far away, so no photos of that.


Climbing up to the waterfall

After a really nice and cool dip in the waterfall. It was a perfect way to relax after sitting in a really hot office all week!

A VERY serious photo at a VERY serious waterfall!

Jade looks really really tiny in this photo!




A view of the lake from above


Jade and Matt




Under the falls

The falls were a perfect message




The lake below from our little hut that we relaxed and drank white wine in! A fantastic use of our one bottle of white wine


On the phone... HOLA!

A Romp at the น้ำตก Part 2

This is the 2nd waterfall that we went to on the advice of a Maung guy that we met at the first fall. It was super nice and actually the one that you see photos of all around Mae Sot. It is a waterfall that the area is famous for. So beautiful and completely surrounded by forests.




Tha Wah being totally crazy in the background! HAHAHA.

A really beautiful tree with crazy roots!


Climbing to the top


It is REALLY hot right now in Mae Sot so the cold water was amazing!


Tree nymphs


:).. being romantic is hard in Mae Sot where public displays of affection are taboo... so this was a nice break


At the top


Picturesque!


Maung boys playing at the waterfall. TOTALLY surprised to see me and Jade in our bikinis and we were pretty surprised to see them too. No one was there at first and we had the whoel place to our selves. And YES the boys also wear pants made of velvet... I am not sure when the traditional dress started to include velvet! :)


Matt, Tha Wah, Andrew and Jade on a pefectly placed log over a fall

A Romp at the น้ำตก Part 3


Tucking up the shorts in prep for our next photo


Everyone's in Tha Wah's short shorts!
SOOOO sexy!


A roomie photo


You have to have at least ONE FOB shot!


Monkey Boy


:)


Andrew and Tha Wah with a Maung girl, a Northern Thai ethnic hill tribe. They really love the velvet in their ethnic outfits. They wanted to take photos of me and Jade because we were in bikinis....which to them is very scandelous... so we felt it was only right to reciprocate and take photos of them!





A really cool tree.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

AHH Charity....

So the other day the circus was in town.... No I am not joking. A group called Clowns Without Borders was in town to perform at some of the local schools. Yes the name is as hilarious as it sounds! There are Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders.... but frankly the world would not be complete without Clowns Without Borders!

Any ways, I went to go and see them perform at a local bar in town. They did a whole bunch of fire tricks for us, which were neat. Not super amazing... and they definitely did NOT amazing the locals. Fire tricks are part of Thai culture- which they should have probably looked up before they came here to entertain the kiddies. Oh well! And the Burmese people were just confused. I was talking to a Chin friend who was confused as to why the dances were so sexual when they used to do tricks like that back at home in Burma as kids! Ah, culture clashes!

But none-the-less it was a nice diversion from the normal Friday nights. Below are some photos I took during the performance. I think that they might make the whole thing look a lot better than it actually was.

Clowns Without Borders Photos









Saturday, January 24, 2009

Photos

So, I've decided to slowly post some of my best photos every couple of months so that people can see a little bit better what Mae Sot is like. All of these photos so far were taken in my tiny 10-minute on a bike town. Enjoy. More will come.

Sleepy Space


In our Mae Sot house