Sharpening my pencils

1st day of school tomorrow.  As my dear friends are wrapping up their school year in the states, semester 2 here we go.  Meetings and more meeting kicked off the semester last week and this weekend.  I am not going to lie I have a pretty sweet schedule. I think I teach 3 classes one day and the rest of the week it's between one and two classes....oh except Wednesdays, you know mid week break, no class!!  I am hoping they need some more classes covered because I love working overtime hours and making extra Bahts.

It has been nice to spend some time in Bangkok before the semester kicked off. We had some goodbye parties and birthday parties, recovery days and productive days. Can't wait to get back in the classroom and filling up the blog with some more stories staring Ajarn Rachel and her wonderful students.

Koh Tao, better known as paradise

 I just walked off the boat from diving all afternoon. Happy little camper. 

 How flippin cute is this little main drag

celebrating the new scuba kids

Malaysia

Here are some of my favorite treats I found in Malaysia...if you can't tell I have really enjoyed the eating aspect of traveling...

Pow buns..filled with everything and anything. I liked the..oh corn ones, black bean, and BBQ pork. Wash it down with some Chinese tea...good morning feasts

We forgot to take a before picture.....so this is the after picture of Satay. Crab, chicken, fish, tofu, peppers...you name it we dipped it in this pot of heaven...cooked it and scarfed it down. 

JuSt lOOk at the size of these babies!!!!

Having a Chinese tea ceremony, we learned a lot and drank some very tasty tea. 

Just hanging out at a tea plantation...we could not get enough! 

There was a bit of a walk there and back...so we stuck out our thumbs. These nice kids brought us back to the main road so we could catch a bus.  All they wanted was a group shot after! Loved them!

You can never have to much fun on the road...oh the things we find at souvenir roadside shops.....we got bored waiting for the bus so we started walking again...who knew you could stick your thumbs out and wave down a city bus....they picked us up ..how nice was that!

This country was hot, hot, hot....so we needed to hydrate, hydrate hydrate. I am just showing my appreciation for water...we had water races...which led to me having to pee at least twice an hour. whoops sorry guys thanks for making all the pit stops! 

Oh this one is great....we had just picked up the bus by walking down the side of the road...also Zach had been traveling with us for some time now.....he really needed boy time, he was over all these pictures. 

Petronas Towers

 

Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Once they were the tallest buildings in the world but I do believe they are the tallest twin towers. 

So I did what I love to do...and pose.

To Amy

I found these Famous Amos cookies in Malaysia...and I thought of none other then that pretty girl herself.  I will take a quick moment to say Ammmmyyy I miss you! Also a congrats is much needed since she will be working in living in the beautiful state of Colorado this summer with...of course.. ponies. Amy got an internship! Whoo hoo!!! 

love letter

Dear Singapore, 

I wanted to thank you again for your clean streets, your good food and your beautiful buildings.  I am sorry our relationship only lasted 2 days. However, what did you expect when you charge $18 for a Stella draft. Stella draft is my favorite, but girrrrl I was on a budget. I hope one day I can return to you when my pockets are full of gold. xoxo Rachy

Just can't get enough of India

Darjeeling trying to see the tip top of Everest 

 

This is how we got ready for bed. Brushing our teeth with water bottles maybe washing our face with a face wipe then boarded the train that would rock and rattle us to sleep

Remember the popcorn guy...well I had some extra so I shared with this lil lady while waiting to buy more train tickets

Running around an Indian Palace for the day

This captures our last train ride

I usually took the top bunk on train rides if I could....here is the view from the bottom bunk. I hope you are jealous.  Look at the comfort of that plank.  

 Where Mother Teresa did her work

This is by far one of the WORST places we slept. It was in Kolkata. We had to buy scarves for the beds. Lonely Planet described it as "coffin like and spirit crushing" which it was. Bugs, rats...eeekkk

KEEP DARJEELING CLEAN

soooo......they are working on it

Darjeeling

Varanasi 

These are the cremation logs piles and piles and piles

 The Burning Place...I wish I could say we did not get closer. But we did.

 River Ganges at sunset and sunrise

Snick-ity Snacks in India

CORN

right next to the corn guy

popcorn father/son duo

All food came wrapped in paper.....I am sure it was used at some point. Old book, magazine, newspaper pages.....

dear.lord.  We called these maple syrup donut holes.....they look nasty and I never would have tried one, but Brian did it 1st. Since he did not die...we tried one too. 

Spicy crunchy goodness

Mini Steamed Buns

Chi and fruit cake

Tea tasting in Darjeeling

LASSI "cold curd in a clay pot"

Our go to....mixture of golden raisins, almonds and cashews. 

I dedicate this to all the animals of India

 Cows hang out everywhere here...by bikes...

 The bunny house! The door with the flower on it is where we slept and then the bunnies were our next door neighbors. We had to be careful in the morning, on our way to the bathroom we would get bunny poop in between our toes

Brian had a special relationship with this guy

 Cows also hung out in jeep parking lots....

 Monkeys strolled on roof tops 

 Whats this??? ANOTHER COW!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Donkeys hard at work

 Cows strolling down the sidewalk, doin a little window shopping