What a long strange trip it's been . . .

After Bangkok we took a bus to Kho Yai National Park where we spent 3 days hiking in the jungle and searching for amazing animals. We stayed at the Green Leaf Guest house which was great. They organized jungle treks which we decided to join in on to try to guarantee that we got to see some animals. Our tour guide was crazy and ran us around the jungle to see gibbons, horn-bills, indo-chinese water dragons, water monitors, emporer scorpions, barking deer, macaques, wild elephants, and lots and lots of leeches! It was really awesome to run around and to see the life in the Thai jungle.

That night, instead of going back the guest house with the rest of the group, we stayed in the park and rented camping gear. It was in interesting night of camping because I couldn't shake the idea that there were leeches crawling all over me, but luckily I got some sleep and I managed to not get bit by any leeches.

The next day we woke up and found a hiking trail that took us through an even denser part of the jungle. We saw more scorpions and a giant water monitor that was well over 4 feet long. It started to pour down rain while we were hiking and when it stopped, the whole forest was thick with steam that rose up from the jungle floor around us and up into the clouds above and moved away with the wind. It blew my mind that we were actually there and seeing it.

We managed to hitchhike a ride out of the park that evening before it started to pour down rain again and spent the night at the guest house again. The next morning we took a bus to Khorat where we quickly reserved a room and then hopped on a bus for another 2 hours to another town where we walked around some amazing Khmer ruins. We were really happy that we found this place since we weren't able to go to Cambodia and see Ankor Wat on this trip.

It was a slight adventure coming back from the ruins because the motorcycle taxi that I was on got a flat tire, and so I had to jump on the back of the motorcycle taxi that Wes was on. I'm not sure that Wes has ever been that close with a man before (the driver), and I didn't know that I my thighs were that strong to hold on to the very edge of the seat. . . . I definitely had a hard time walking afterwards, but it was hilarious.

We took the bus back to Khorat and spent the night. We woke up the next morning and realized that Ubon Ratchatani was a little further than we thought from Khorat so we rushed to the train station to get the soonest possible train. We had to do this because we told Cullum that we would be at the monastery by mid-day. We didn't quite make it by mid-day but we did get there around 3 thanks to this lovely woman that Wes met at the train station who gave us a ride to the monastery.

The monastery was quite an experience for me . . . Cullum lives at the Wat Phanachong Forest Monastery in Bung Wai. He is still considered a novice so I was able to spend time with him during our time there, but definitely not as much time as Wes because I was confined to the women's section of the monestary for most of the time, which is what made it such an interesting experience for me . . .

The day we got there we were warned about the amount of very poisonous snakes that inhabit the area, as well as the poisonous centipedes and the prevalence of supernatural experience that people have with ghosts there because it is built on a crematorium. (There is also a functional crematorium on the grounds still as well). This didn't help me sleep very well at night in the women's section where I was staying alone in my own little hut that was infested with 4 different kinds of ants, flying termites, geckos, spiders, and other critters that I only heard but didn't see.

Wes stayed in his own "kuti" or hut in the area where the monks live. He had a fantastic experience living with the monks and helping them do work on the grounds and talking to them about their monastic experiences. He can tell you much more about his experience. I unfortunately really only saw him for maybe 10 minutes each day, so I can't tell you much more about what he did.

For me, I woke up every day at 3 a.m. and looked for the flashlight glow of the one other lay woman that was staying that monastery (she didn't speak any English) so that I could meet her and walk up to the main meditation hall for morning chanting and meditation. At about 5 a.m. we would sweep for a couple hours before going to the kitchen area to help separate the alms food that the monks collected from the community in the morning.

After preparing the food, we ate the one meal we got a day and then swept some more. At about 9:30 a.m. we were done doing everything we had to do for the day . . . . so I had a lot of time to meditate and think about everything there is to possibly think about until 4 p.m. when me and Lily would drink tea. After drinking our tea and starring at each other and smiling (because I don't know Thai and she doesn't know English) we walked back to the women's area and sat and walked and meditated and thought about everything there is to think about until 3 a.m. where I would do it all over again.

It sounds easy, but I have never spent that much time alone before with no distractions other than the insects crawling on me and the thoughts of getting bitten by a king cobra. I survived though and it was really great to see Cullum and support his monastic life.

We took a sungtao back to Ubon after spending 5 days at the monastery where we took an overnight train back to Bangkok.

We spent 2 more days in Bangkok where we visited Wat Pho and a big park and just meandered around the city until it was time for us to head to the airport to fly home.

It was such an amazing trip and I got to do things that I never thought I would do or see in my life. We are really fortunate to have had such a great trip where we met wondeful people and didn't really run into any trouble or mishaps along the way.

We have so much more to tell you about the trip if you are interested, and we'll post some photos soon. Right now, we are in PA spending time with my family and trying to get our sleep schedule back in order.

Hope to see you soon! Lots of Love!