the long awaited entry

welll let me first say that is has been a long long few days with a lot of thai and knoxville worries. but before my post i get to answer the posts that i was waiting for. ok to renee arrington.. the chicken isnt cooked in its own blood so much as the blood is not taken out of the chicken when its cooked. so the blood is still in some pockets of the chicken and after its fully cooked the chunks are cut out of the chicken. and for aunt carol there is a picture in the post before this with me holding a snake im sure you will love that. ok i have 2 minutes left of my internet card i will get another one and start a new post. grrr this is a pain.

this one is mostly for pictures.

apareently nobody reads this?!?!

after making that last post i am dissapointed to see that there are no new posts?? im just leaving this one to remind everyone that it gives me something to write about when you leave comments or questions!!!!

gone for a few days

hey guys it will be a few days before i can give a full update because we have left khon kaen for bangkok and after that we will be going to be place called chattenbury. now i have no idea whether i spelled that right or not but we will be getting back to khon kaen on about saturday. and the only reason i will not be able to do full updates is because the costs to use internet cafes in bangkok are through the roof becasue of the big tourist area. i will answer all the comments i have in the post right after that but i only have 9 minutes to do it before im out of time. bye be back in a few days.

snakes and temple continued

ok continued from last entry. after we left the snake village we went to a very beautiful and peacefull temple. the temple is believed to be why khon kaen was built where it is. it is told that men on their way east were going to build a temple to buddha on their way they stopped and made camp one night at a dead tamarine tree. they continued on their journey and when they reached their destination somone had already built the temple before they got there. they made the return journey home thinking they would simply build a temple closer to their homeland. they traveled the same course back home with the intent of staying the night once again at the tamarine tree. when they got to the tree it was full alive and budding with fruit. they decided that this was the place that they would build the temple. we explored the area around the temple left and offering of lotus flowers which is the flower of the buddha. we also lit candles and insense at the outside shrine facing the large and beautiful temple. after that we headed back into khon kaen to the apartment. on the way we passed a village that was celebrating the rainy season to come. they buld fireworks out of pipe and bamboo trees. they resemble giant bottle rockets. they meaning behind them doing this is when it is time for the rainy season they will shoot these rockets, which they call rocket fire into the clouds. or in this case heaven, when the rockets reach heaven they alert the rain god that it is time to send the full rainy season to them. the village shoots off many of these rockets. they also have a competition to see whose rocket will stay in the air the longest before it returns to the ground. the record while we were there was just over 5 minutes. i also learned that some villages closer to the airport have to alert the airport a week or so in advance because some of the rockets have been known to fly past planes. although it is very safe most of the time more people are hurt when the rocket falls of the laucher and are crushed by its wieght than victims being burned. some rockets have also been known to land on a house and come completely through the roof or bring the roof and a second floor with it. we watched the festivities for a long while and continued our journey back to khonkaen. we arrived back in khon kaen at a grocery store when Lek and Chelumchai had to pick up a few things. once again Lek grabbed plenty of food for our aparment including 3 different kinds of fruit and wouldnt you know it...... more ice cream. after that we dropped the food off at our apartment and went out to a dinner of noodles from a street vendor. they were good but the very different and a little nerve racking ingedient in this cuisine was cooked chicken blood. the blood is cooked in the chicken when they are boiled. when the chicken is taken out the blood aparently is thinker and sticks together. they collect the blood in a container and put it into a refrigerator where it then becomes like gelatin. and voila cooked chicken blood cubes on top of your noodles. I will say that getting ast the blood aspect of the meal was difficult but it was actually good. i ate the whole bowl and then a second. but thank god Lek did not take us out for ice cream. we returned back to the room stuffed and with a few minutes to mess around on our computer. then fell asleep and that was that. ok that was yesterday now when today is over i will do another one cause it would be very short if i started now.

snakes and temple

well i am up again not quite as late as yesterday but it really doesnt matter since the sun is already up. i think back to what we did yesterday and it was very slow to startout with really. by the time we were up and moving it was too late in the day to go into town. we were sure it would take longer to get back than we had time for. so we waited around the aparment for Lek. she arrived at noon Mr.chelumchai her husband decided to come to or he didnt want his wife to drive his Bmw. i havent figured out which yet. we got into the car and they took us to lunch. when you are eatign with Lek it always means she will order about 5 plates of food too many. and while i am full i continue to eat because she has a smile on her face while she piles food on my plate. we ate at a barbeque chicken type place but this was definitely not the same as american barbeque. they cook the chickens whole over a fire. so as you walk up there are many chickens over several different fires. from there you get a table and they bring you the chickens. before you get the chicken however it has been cut up into pieces. now mind you these are the chickens that are pretty much free range around here, so they dont exactly have a great amount of meat on them. but we ate and ate and then ate more. and then they got us dessert which was good and if i wasnt so full i wouldve finished it. the dessert was coconut milk in a bowl and in the milk were pieces of ice along with what looked to be tadpoles. the tadpoles were green.... well tadpole shaped gelly type things that were colored green. they are made out of rice. it was very good especially the coconut milk which they add sugar to. after we were don eating we kinda slowly made our way to the car and took an hour long drive or so to the traditional snake village.
the village we visited is home of this which you may or may not find interesting.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218502,00.html

im not sure if that link will work when i post this but if not just copy it and paste it into the navigation box. but when we arrived at the village the show had already begun. when we got there it was still in the early stages of teh show where the girls just dance witht the snakes which really wasnt all that exciting. after that they got out one of the king cobras and a man came us on stage and began to what i can only describe as pissing it off and then pretending like he was a boxer and boxing the snake when it stood up in the air. we was very close to being bitten many times. the show repeated like this for a number of minutes where they would bring out a snake. mind you all of these snakes were at least 4-5 ft long. but they would bring out a snake and aman would step up on stage. he would then bow. and they would ring a bell like a boxing or wrestling match. now i was sittign there thinking it couldnt get any worse...... but of course i was wrong the last 3 matches were kids..... all under 12. yeah it was absolutely amazing. one of them was bitten hut he was a new guy and didnt have a poisonous snake anyway. but i mean it was amazing. after the show was over i got a picture with a big ole python. no cobras in the audience which is no fun. then around back of the stage are all of the snake cages and we got to see all of the other snakes that werent used in the show. and it was all the same for the most part up until we got to the last cage which was a python that had to have been as big around as my head. it was at curled up but from the look of it it had to have been at least 15-20 ft long. the village had a small what we would call zoo with some monkeys and just a few more snakes. i will finish this post and the next when i return we are goign into town.

woke up at 8. woot woot

yes i finally did it i woke up after the sun came up and i didnt have to watch the sunrise for the third time. but there really is no sunrise where i am am cause i could never find a place to actually see the sun come up. yeah today is? i need to buy a calender in town today cause that is not a good start if i cant figure our what day it is. but yeah were gonna start with yesterdays adventure and then tune you guys into what is going to be happening today. i woke up at 5 yesterday and basically didnt want to wake my room mate chris. i sat in bed for at least and hour and a half and finally realized having fallen asleep before dinner again the night before. so basically i got dressed as quiety as possible and really there was not a whole lot open but i managed to find a taro bun breakfast and some type of cheap burger thing at a 7/11. that early in the morning i really wast gonna comlain about where i got my food but the truth was it was really good.so about this time it wasabout 7:40 so instead of going back to the room and waking Chris up i simply walked around and listened to my ipod untill about 8:40. i ended up goign back to the room where Chris was still asleep and what do you know.. i wake him up. instead of me walking around the room making noise i go borrow the laptop from Bill who may or may not have been awake when i knocked on his door. i got the laptop from him but when you get into conversation with him he always has such descriptive and long conversations. i learned a little bit more about the systems and just some other random fun facts andthen was on my way back to the room. i playedon the computer for a while but really never did do anythign of any importance. i just tried to be quiet and that was about it. we finally got moving around 9:30 or some and woke up BIll again who had gone back to sleep from when i woke him up. He got his shower and we went to te main campus road to catch a #16 truck into khon kaen. yesterday was basically just another day to learn the city since Bill would be leaveing us the next day. or since i am writing this in the future he will be gone in an hour so we are on our own today. but we looked at the grad streets and the main places to go. that was really about it. we ate at my favorite grovery story/cafeteria. i had some type of vegetables and pork or beef. couldnt tell what it was but it was very good nonetheless. after we had eaten we needed to meet chelumchai back at his buisness. which i may or may not have told you is interwater treatment. he is basically heading the system operation right now because it is easier for him to do it. his buisness already had all the supplies needed to do this operation and on top of that he speaks the language which is a major bridging point for us who dont. but we were meeting him at his buisness because his wife was back in town from bangkok. she was thee applying for a romainian visa so that she may travel in the coming weeks. we had to take the truck/bus to interwater but because chelimchai and lek were going to take us to certain sites around khon kaen. kind of like a tour around the cool stuff. but we arrived at interwater after crossing a 6 lane highway which amazingly enough couldnt have been safer. but yeah we got to interwater and as tradition to anywhere you go in thailand we recieved cups of water. we met lek for the first time and then waited on chelumchai. chelumchai arrived and he and lek began to disucss where they were going to take us that day. they decided to take us to a dam and there were some things that we could stop and see along the way. im gonna try pictures again cause yesterday ahad some cool stuff.but for now i will finish this post. the first stop was a small temple over looking the dam. and the sotry behind that is long ago before that dam was built people in thailand didnt have enough water. so they prayed and were told to build a temple where it is now. they built the damn and built the temple and they have had enough rain to fill the dam on most years. but the temple was beautifully elegant. so very simple but beutiful. it was built into a forested and rocky hillside that over looked a lake that was made because of the dam. the lake was so large you could not see the other side. you couldnt see that far anyway because of the comeing rain but still it was an enormous lake. from there we traveled to the other side of the dam and there was a restuarant and some boats and a place where you could pay to feed the fish. lek got us ice cream and bottles of water. chelumchai took us to waters edge where we could feed the fish. which looked like catfish except i have never avually seen a cotfish swimming, unless you count a fishing show but yeah. we sat and enjoyed the snenery and it was a nice day. the rain was still very far off in the distance as well. from there we left to another area of that same side of the dam. when we were at the first temple we could see a giant white buddah on top of the hill on the other side of the dam. we went to see that next. when we actally reached the top of the hill we realized how big the buddah actually was. it had to be at least 100-150ft tall. i took many pictures of it and the surrounding scenery. the rain was getting very close now and you could see the drops falling in the middle of the lake. we got back into the car and headed back down stoping halfway down the small mountain to see another set of buddah relics that were very interesting but will be easier to explain as soon as i can get some pictures up. we drove all the way back to the aparment and i slept almost the whole way. they dropped us off and said they would pick us up in a little less than an hour for dinner. Chris and i just kinda around the room for that time playing with the slow motion feature on his HD video camera. it was fun.. chelumchai and lek picked up us americans and took us to what can only be described as the thai version of a melting pot. but it wasnt near;y as expensive or nice for that matter. and there was no chocolate. how it works is the center of the table is a hole and in it they put coals and over that they put a grill but the grill only takes up the center of this. ok heres once again will be easier to explain with pictures. but in short i ate way too much and Bill told me that Lek is famous for trying to make you eat 5x's more than you should have and i definitely did. the kinds of food that we used on the grill were pork, chicken, shrimp, some type of fish, and squid. let me just say that grilled squid is awesome. and yes i ate both sides which you grill separately. the head of the squid tastes a little bit like a warmed up edible rubber balloon. and the tentacles were all around jsut very good. but we finished up there and where did they take us... but out for ice cream. which couldnt have been a more terrible end to a already stuffed body. i ate some kind of chocolate thing with truffles in it. after that they took us back to the aparment and i basically just fell asleep. that was really how my day went yesterday. Bill has already left to bangkok to pick up a rotarian that sponsored a system by himself. because that rotarian did this he has flown over for the dedication. That rotarian is also giving a speach which he is completely unaware of. but i will give you the scoop on how that goes later. today Lek is goign to take us wherever we want to go. but this morning we are going to make our way into town and try not to get lost.