Hello Thailand!

I've made it back to Thailand. The grand South East Asian loop is almost finished. I arrived in Udon Thani just after lunch time and headed straight for a bank to exchange money. Turns out they won't take Lao Kip here unfortunately, so I'm stuck with nearly $20 worth of Lao currency! But I was really excited to see that you can take out large sums of money from the ATM's. In Laos, the most amount of money that will be dispensed from an ATM is 700,000 Kip, or just over $70. To make it worse, they stick a $2 fee on every withdrawl, plus whatever my bank at home decides to charge me! Unfortunately, the ATM here in Udon Thani gave me huge bills, bills that few people will actually have change for. So, spotting a large shopping mall, I headed inside to find change. And then I saw it. Dairy Queen. Oreo Blizzards. I had to have one. The blizzard was fantastic, just like at home. Perfect. I devoured that little cup of ice cream while the employees scrambled to find some change. Two birds with one stone...ice cream and change all in one!

So now, I'm waiting at a bus station for a few hours before I catch the overnight bus up to Chiang Mai. I'll be in Chiang Mai for at least the next 3 weeks, primarily working on the organic farm. I have no idea what to expect when I arrive, so its pretty exciting! All I know is that there is another WWOOF'er working on the farm until February 9. I do know however, that I'll get my own room and bathroom and have access to a kitchen so that I can finally do some cooking. As nice as it has been to eat out 3 meals a day for the past 3 months, it sure would be nice to have some home cooked meals.