going to India tomorrow!

Well, my time in Thailand has come to a sudden end.  I went to buy my ticket to India and the best ticket I could find leaves tomorrow.  I am so excited and also nervous for a new country.  I was getting so comfortable here, learning the language, the ropes, the food, the people.  I met August in Bangkok on the 3rd and we have been having a blast together.  Helping him find his way here has made me realize that I am an old veteran.  It was so fun to show him all the craziness I have been within and I saw things with new eyes again, re-realizing the things that had made me so awestruck like being with 20 people in the back of a truck or the strange nasty smells dripping from random pipes above, or the way Thai people smile so beautifully and unrestrained.  We went back to Whispering Seed and helped out on the farm when we could.  Sara and I learned some natural building and helped with a mud house and oven.  After a few days, the other travellers there, Jim and Nao, and their 4 year old burmese orphan, Suan Chai, felt like a family.  Our efforts were combined to help farm, help Senema as she struggles with AIDS, support her soon to be orphan daughter, Aeow, who cares for her mother with a smile and with diligence beyond that of any nine year old I've ever met.  My last day at Whispering Seed, a medicine woman came and we held a ceremony to communicate with the spirits on the land.  The old woman went into a trance and rode a horse into and out of the spirit world, having conversations, yelling, soothing, spirits we couldn't see.  We fed the spirits and gave them alcohol and tobacco and when they were full, we had to finish the offerings.  The woman gave us each a bracelet to hold our souls close as we travel.  It was sad to leave, but I was ancie and feeling futile and Aug was ready to see more of Thailand.  He and I went South to the beautiful white beaches of Krabi and explored some islands and snorkled one day.  The next day we rented a motor bike and found a huge cave.  The second cave we found cut my head so we left and went to a temple and a monkey jumped on my head, crawled up my back, and started inspecting my head and the cut.  It was sweet, but this was a wild monkey On My Head!  It jumped off but then I missed it, it was so sweet to check out my wound.  We climbed 1,274 stairs to the top of a mountain and had a view of the province from the wat and saw a footprint in the stone believed to be that of Buddha's.  Sara is still at Whispering Seed and we are going to meet in India.  Yep, going to India.  Wish me luck, Love Amy