The long weekend

So for the past 4 days, it had been a long weekend which means that I haven't gone into the office since the last time I wrote. However, this weekend, I met all of the other foreigner volunteers. I haven't met them, except Sarah, until now because 2 of them had been away on a hiking trip, one was away visiting another city with a friend, and another new volunteer also just arrived this weekend.

So let's list them all so that I can refer them by name from now on. Matt: a guy from Germany. Jamie: the English guy who's my age. Tera: an American girl who had been working as an IBM consultant for 3 years after graduation (I need to get lots of advices from her in the next 2 weeks about how to be a successful consultant!) And lastly Jessica: a Hong Kongnese American girl who had just finished her courses in medicine at Cornell and is taking one year leave before she starts interning.

Every volunteer except Jessica and Sarah is currently living in the same apartment building as I do! So there are 4 of us on on the same floor, and it's kind of like a dorm setting where people pop in for a chat. It's been really fun (and Jamie is so talkative that he can fill up anyone's afternoon with a conversation. Finally I found someone who's more talkative than me!) And the past few days I've visiting a lot of really cool places in this area, and it was nice to have these guys as company. Everyone are genuinely nice and fun people, and I am grateful to have met them.

On Saturday, I went to the border of Burma and Thailand. It was a nice market, with lots of cheap, made in China stuff. I also climbed up to a temple on the mountain and saw Mae Sai from a nice view up top and it was quite an interesting walk. To get there, I had to take the stairs with about a 70m elevation and I went up there as fast as I could and it was pretty tiring. On Sunday, I went to a cave temple. It was really interesting because it is so serene and quiet and I can see why it is the perfect place to meditate infront of the Buddha statue. Then yesterday I hung out near the lake side (nowhere near as nice as Lake Michigan but still...) with Sarah, Jess and Jamie. We had a couple of beers and it was good fun.

Lastly, today I had a really fun adventure with Jess. I was in 3 countries today within a span of about 15 minutes! That's the record of my life time! I was in Thailand, Laos and Burma and I traveled by boat in the Mekong river! The place is called "the Golden Triangle". It was just a cool thing to do, even though there wasn't much to literally see or do. The boat ride was just blissful with the strong wind on my face that I really needed because it was sunny and humid, the soothing sound of water rushing by (I love water :) ), and the right balance of speed and sun. We got off the boat in Laos at this special economic zone market, and the one thing that impressed me most is that they sold whisky with a HUGE dead snake in the jar.

So all in all, I had a really fun weekend. I'm looking forward to start working again tomorrow!


The long stairs I took to go see Mae Sai from the top of the hill


Jess, Jamie and Sarah - the other volunteers


At the Golden Triangle!


Snake whisky in Laos!