Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai
After a whirlwind Indonesia trip, we found ourselves back in Thailand. This time, in Chiang Mai in the North. We arrived during the Loi Krathong festival which happens every November during the full moon. The festival lasts a few days - we arrived near the beginning. Every day (and all night) people set off fireworks. All over the city there are markets with stalls that sell all kinds of Krathongs - which are little boats made from banana leaves, flowers, incense, candles, etc. which people purchase in order to light and set afloat in the river. They range from simple to the more beautiful and ornate displays. Every night the sky is lit up with lanterns - giant white paper lanterns which you have to light and hold onto until it can fly into the sky on its own. The releasing of the krathongs and lanterns represent the releasing of suffering. We bought a krathong, lit the incense and candle and released our suffering into the river...well, not too much suffering over here but we wanted to take part in the tradition. The sky is alive with thousands of lanterns and fireworks! There are parades, dance performances, crowded markets (which does not stop people from setting off fireworks among the crowds). Every night we snacked on random market food for our dinners: mussel omelette puffs anyone?Trekking
In Chiang Mai, the big thing is to go trekking into the surrounding mountains. We decided our stay here would not be complete without partaking. We decided on a 3 day, 2 night trek in Mae Taeng area. Our guide was a Thai man named Bond (James Bond). We began with an elephant ride! Ridiculously touristy, but we have to admit it was super fun... Our elephant was named Binteea--she was chill. We bonded. Next a super fast paced and rather steep climb up to a Lahu hill tribe village for the night. We were joined by a second guide - Jack Sparrow. Yes, we are sure that is his real name. He was the most nimble, resourceful, and entertaining guy in army pants, and two machetes on each hip which helped him fashion hats out of leaves and various bamboo creations. We were fed delicious food, some Lahu women made us a fire, and we slept in a bamboo hut under mosquito nets. The next day we had a significantly easier trek down to a waterfall for a refreshing jungly swim. That night we slept in a similar bamboo hut in a "jungle camp". After a short trek on our third day, we whitewater-rafted, grateful that our boat was the one that did not capsize completely in the rapids. Bamboo-rafting was touristy also, and goofy, as the raft floated a foot under the water--from shore I'm sure it looked like we were oddly bobbing along...
Monk Chinnaworn's Organic Farm
We stayed on an organic farm run by monk Chinnaworn. The advert for it reads, "Second Home is located in the tiny village we call Pang Term. It is an educational institution in the valley to train your mind, learn how to live a simple life, close with nature,meditation, Buddhism, cook vegetarian food, build mud house,gardening, monk chat and meditation every night at 8:00pm." Everything here is monk- or volunteer-made, including all bamboo or earthen buildings, paths (we hoed a hillside path through avocado trees), gardens, irrigation, plumbing, etc. The meals are created from vegetables and fruits from our organic garden there, or from Chinnaworn's mom's garden (she comes often, bringing food from her own fields--Chinnaworn is from the local mountain village of 80 people). Six of us foreigners are here, making the atmosphere intimate and laid-back. Everything is open-air, there is a laptop that sits on a table beneath only a homemade leaf-roof and mosquito net. We prepared three spicy,creative, wholesome meals together daily and sat on a covered bamboo-board patio in mindful eating: one day we had assorted fruit, banana patty, steamed pumpkin, sesame seeds, and a ramen noodle dish topped with flowers, vegetable protein, and corn for breakfast. Each meal is finished with ripe papaya. One day we weeded peanut, green bean, and cilantro rows in the garden. While a Welsh girl here built her own mud hut to stay for 1-2 months, we stayed just four nights in our stone, 3-walled hut (overlooking rice fields & banana trees). We spent our last day helping finish this mud hut. We dug up the dirt, hauled up buckets of water, smashed it with our feet (like grapes!), added rice husks and mixed in hay. We wrapped the muddy hay around the bamboo frame and then flung handfuls of mud at the walls for a more "finished" and refined look. Chinnaworn himself is great--smiley, present, a great cook and even great badminton player (we think he has yet to lose). In the end it truly felt like a second home - in our little peaceful valley in paradise.
Fang Orange Orchard
The town of Fang is listed in Lonely Planet as hardly more than a truck stop on the way north from Chiang Mai. For us it was the agricultural setting for a fun & interesting weekend with Thai friends. We met 4 of our Bangkok friends in Chiang Mai & bussed 3 hours north to Fang. P'Poi & company used to work in Fang and had many friends & connections--we were still farang, but felt like locals. We toured the orange orchard with the managers, picking & eating Juju fruit & oranges. We picnicked at the local hot springs national park. Most the weekend we spent in the back of one pickup or another, wind in our hair, taking in the quiet countryside. We ate countless oranges, and our hosts kept us fed with delicious & unusual snacks, such as coconut sticky rice with custard wrapped in banana leaf, papaya salad with fermented fish juices (mmm....), fried cassava root stick snacks, longan fruit, and more! Thanks to our friends for making Fang more than a dot on the map...we hitched a ride with a Fang friend to Mae Sai, not on the itinerary, but here we are in the northernmost town of Thailand--on the river-border between Thailand & Burma (Myanmar).
After a whirlwind tour of Java, we spent the rest of our time in Indonesia in Bali. One night in Kuta - the hectic tourist scene where a night club was bombed in 2002 by Muslim extremists opposing Western hedonism (they were executed while we were in Bali) - after some time in the surf, we headed inland to Ubud.
Anyone read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love? The author finds the love portion of her book in this artistic, agro-rich, mountainous, chill town. For four days, we indulged our senses in everything Balinese: traditional dances (Kechak, "monkey"), art museums, shadow puppet shows, local organic food, bicycle rides winding through rice paddies and traditional villages, glimpses into traditional practices of rice harvesting, sipping locally brewed coffee, motorbike taxi rides, monkey sanctuary, temples.
OBAMA!!!!
Koh Phi Phi is possibly one of the most beautiful - and touristy - places on earth. White sand beaches, limestone karst formations jutting out of the emerald water, and islands of lush (yes mosquito, spider & lizard infested jungle) rainforest. We'd seen slides of Phi Phi of our friend Skip from 16 years ago. The island then wasn't developed and the difference is dramatic. Skip also visited prior to a tsunami a couple years ago, from which the island is still recovering. 
Katie and Lauren, friends from Juneau, met up with us for a couple of days. After a quiet week on Phi Phi's sister island, Koh Lanta, this was our time to get a fix of the backpacker social scene, bargain at the markets... There's quite a party scene and tons of drunken westerners roaming the streets - they actually sell alcohol in buckets, that's the big thing there apparently. Don't worry, we only shared a couple and managed to avoid joining the drunken parade of farangs (we hope).