A Magical Afternoon

I had a bad yesterday. I had told Nadine to meet me at the movie theater around 5 to see a movie that I won tickets to. Around 4:30 I went out to try to catch a song-taew and for some reason none of them would take me. They told me there was too much traffic. I got denied about 20 times and then I just decided to walk. I'm pretty ambitious about walking and I do it a lot here but it was a looooong walk. It was getting later and later and I stopped to ask for directions. Just as I went to cross the street, I almost got hit by a tuk-tuk. Then, I had one of those supreme culture shock moments. I embarassingly started crying on the street and kept thinking, "I just want things to be easy like at home." There are so many little cultural things that can just build up sometimes. It's so easy to get overwhelmed.

Then today, I arrived in Pai and I remembered why I am here. Talk about synchronicity...there
were 2 girls on my minibus who had been staying at the same guesthouse in Koh Chang as me last week. Since I'm here alone, they have taken me in and we've already had a great time.
I wandered around by myself this afternoon and came upon a quaint little cafe called the Witching Well. They actually sold potions! I had the Vision Potion (it's actually a cool brew of herbal tea) and sat and read for awhile. Then, I went back to my guesthouse which is an amazing herbal garden called Mr. Jan's. The place is gorgeous and I spent some time just reading in the garden. Then I had a Shan massage. The Shan are one of the local hilltribes and their massages are intense and interactive. It was much more yogic and harder than Thai massage but it was just what I needed. After that, I popped into the herbal sauna at our guesthouse. It looks like some sort of torture instrument or magic trick because it's one where you stick your head out of a hole at the top while your body is immersed in the sauna. It was a very strange experience...we were covered in this honey/milk gel and all sweating and laughing our asses off.

Had falafel and ice cream for dinner and walked out of the restaurant to see the night sky littered with a constant stream of Thai lanterns. Next, we're off to the fire show and maybe some live music.

Tomorrow will also be perfect. I'm hitting up yoga in the morning and then taking a half-day Thai cooking course. Around 6 i'm going to a tea ceremony and then the weekend market. I'm so happy that I think I'm shining.

GLEAM!