This weekend, we visited Tamui, nestled between mountains and river, the eastern-most point in Thailand. Many of the villagers, we were told, had swum the one or two kilometers to leave Laos and settle in Thailand. The first night, I slept on a platform near the edge of the river. Except for the sprinkle of raindrops, it felt no different from sleeping anywhere else in the village.
Walking through a National Park outside the village. Mountain, forest, Mekong, Laos.
The oldest cliff paintings in Thailand. 
After hacking our own path down the hill, we found that darn waterfall. Even though the "fall" was about two feet, it was incredibly refreshing.
The Naga, a five-headed monster who lives in the Mekong, was supposed to shoot fireballs out of the river near Tamui in celebration of the end of Buddhist lent. Hundreds of visitors rolled into town and set up mats and picnics next to the river. We camped out for five hours on the platform where I had slept the night before. We were fortunate enough to be sitting next to a guitarist, a fiddler, and a traditional pipe player.
As we waited, we watched flaming boats float along with the current.
I bought a floating flower-shaped craft decorated with banana leaves, marigolds, incense and candles and pushed it into the river. The Naga wasn't tempted; we never saw any fireballs.
My favorite was watching human-sized lanterns being filled with flame and sent into the air, where they curved in lines with the wind. They stayed lit long enough to look like stars.
We left Tamui as the festival was winding down and drove overnight to Bangkok, arriving just in time to get out of the van and into the lines of people marching for World Habitat Day. People from slums around the country walked between buildings speaking and reading their demands for protection from eviction, for funds, and for legislation to help communities obtain legal tenure. It was powerful to see so many people from so many places coming together, and to realize that although there is a long way to go, they have made progress by doing things like this.
We left the demonstration in the afternoon at the surrounded UN building, where another group was protesting a Climate Change conference.
Before. We returned to Khon Kaen and the next morning, began tearing up land to create a garden at the program facilitator's house. The work went quickly...five and a half hours later, after lunch and a trip to buy seeds:
After. Ready for fire pit and planting. This was the most satisfying day of work, topped off with a "shower" in a canal whose current forced me to crawl up the wall 20 meters down, and a delicious celeberatory dinner we helped cook at P'Joy's farm. Miles called the day, which ended with watching my friend play with a Thai band in a local club, a "full-spectrum day." But it was really just part of a full-spectrum long weekend.
As we waited, we watched flaming boats float along with the current.
I bought a floating flower-shaped craft decorated with banana leaves, marigolds, incense and candles and pushed it into the river. The Naga wasn't tempted; we never saw any fireballs.
My favorite was watching human-sized lanterns being filled with flame and sent into the air, where they curved in lines with the wind. They stayed lit long enough to look like stars.
We left Tamui as the festival was winding down and drove overnight to Bangkok, arriving just in time to get out of the van and into the lines of people marching for World Habitat Day. People from slums around the country walked between buildings speaking and reading their demands for protection from eviction, for funds, and for legislation to help communities obtain legal tenure. It was powerful to see so many people from so many places coming together, and to realize that although there is a long way to go, they have made progress by doing things like this.
We left the demonstration in the afternoon at the surrounded UN building, where another group was protesting a Climate Change conference.
Before. We returned to Khon Kaen and the next morning, began tearing up land to create a garden at the program facilitator's house. The work went quickly...five and a half hours later, after lunch and a trip to buy seeds:
After. Ready for fire pit and planting. This was the most satisfying day of work, topped off with a "shower" in a canal whose current forced me to crawl up the wall 20 meters down, and a delicious celeberatory dinner we helped cook at P'Joy's farm. Miles called the day, which ended with watching my friend play with a Thai band in a local club, a "full-spectrum day." But it was really just part of a full-spectrum long weekend.
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