hitchhiking after midnight...(don't tell my mom!)

on a lonely mountain road in Thailand is not a good idea only because nobody picks you up. Or maybe I should say, nobody drives at that hour. I think Morgan and i saw 5 vehicles pass us in the hour it took to walk home from town, and all of them were motorbikes, except for two. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that we didn't get picked up!

It has been a while since I have written. After leaving Chiang Mai, we took a bus to Pai, a small community nestled in a valley amongst mountains, in northern Thailand. The bus ride itself was a long and hot ride, but the scenery was beautiful! The curvy roads, the dropoffs, the farms and the mountains were all breathtaking! The scenery made up for the rough ride. We were headed to Pai to work on an organic farm called Tacomepai. A friend of Morgan recommended it to us so we decided to check it out. The farm turned out to be one of the highlights of my time in Thailand. The farm and the family that run it are amazing! Anyone traveling to Thailand that wants a unique experience should check it out. Sandot, the owner, is a great soul. His vision is to educate everyone about the benefits of organic farming. He does this by letting people come to stay at the farm, choosing to help out and learn what they want. He is also a huge advocate in his community, trying to teach the local people in his village how to conserve more resources and reduce waste as they live. His passion for farming, the environment, and people in general made our stay a great experience.

Everyone gets to stay in a unique bungalow. There are many to chose from. Most are made of bamboo, with the exception of two straw huts and a mud house. The bathrooms are open air- you can see the stars as you "go"- which I highly recommend! Every morning we got up at 6:30 and went to collect hay from soy beans to use for composting. After that was breakfast, then any chores we could help Sandot out with. We weeded and watered gardens, collected firewood, made soy milk, picked vegetables out of the gardens to cook with, cooked all our own meals over an open fire, and we also got to learn how to "make rice." In case you didn't realize, rice does not grow looking like the rice we see in the stores. It has to be husked, basically. I know there are machines that do it now, but we got to husk rice the old fashioned way and boy was it hard! You use your leg to pump a huge wooden log up and down on a bowl full of rice. The log eventually breaks the outer shell of the rice off and you end up with the rice we see in stores. After you are done pumping, which is a major leg workout, you separate the rice from the shells by throwing it up in the air and catching the rice in the basket while the shells fly away in the wind. It took a group of 5 of us 4 hours to do a big sack.

Besides doing farmwork, Sandot took us to the hotsprings, to a local hilltribe village and on a trek. The trek we took involved an accidental climbing of a mountain- and I'm not joking. Because we arrived late in the day to our trekking area we decided to take a more direct route, you know, like straight up the mountain! It was honestly one of the scariest things I have done. I've never really climbed anything before so I guess my lack of experience might have contributed to my fear, but at one point we were so high up at such a steep incline that you couldn't have gone down the way you came if you wanted to! Needless to say, we all made it! After eating rice steamed in bamboo and a soup made from things we picked on our hike, we slept under a beautiful blanket of stars!

After a week on the farm, we left for Laos...which is where I am now. I've been working on this blog for about a week now, but the internet connections here are sketchy so it's been taking a while. At least now I'm caught up with the Thailand part of my trip! Next blog will be about Laos. I'm also working on posting all my pics through a Snapfish account. As soon as I get enough of a connection to upload an album, I'll post the link for anyone to check out.

Be well!