Update in Brief

Are you there Blog? 

Consider this line from Jerry Maguire, "There is a sensitivity thing that some people have.  I don't have it. I don't cry at movies, I don't gush over babies,  I don't buy christmas presents 5 months early...."  Now reverse that. That's me.  I cry at movies, I gush over babies, I even cry when random sports teams win games and the players all run and mass tackle each other.  And, I hate goodbyes.  Oliver left yesterday.  It's odd how a person's presence can enter your life so completely.  Can fill in the spaces and places that you had known only as your own and put an entirely different meaning on everything.  Everything is suddenly more wonderful, more interesting, more complete.  And then goodbye.  And your life is once again only yours but now with the shadow of that person glazed over everything. 

Today I am sad.  I want to call a time-out and live the last two weeks over again.  

But sadness aside, it is everything between the 'hello' and 'goodbye' which is really worth saying.  

My lovely job gave me a week off from work to travel.  Our route was this. Flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, bus from Bangkok to the Thai-Cambodian border, tuk tuk and taxi into Siem Reap Cambodia, flight from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang Laos, and then a bus back to Chiang Mai. 

Upon the way various life lessons accrued, passport stamps acquired, temples seen and scams narrowly avoided.  Word from the newly wise when crossing the border into Cambodia you will be taken to two fake "borders" before you are actually taken to the real border. You will arrive at a prop table and two men in uniform will jump out and say "good evening sir, welcome to the border!" Then, Oliver will say, "I would like to go to the real border."  The tuk tuk will drive a few more feet to yet another "border."  Then Oliver will say, "I would like to go to the real border."  And you will go to the real border.  Scam scam thank you ma'am. 

This and various life lessons to be shared in the upcoming entires.  I promise the silence is broken and we can return to our slumber party style Asia gossip as quickly as we left it.  

In the meantime just know that today I inadvertently ate pig blood and learned that my colleague Waraporn has a twin sister named Waraparn.  

If that doesn't keep you reading, what will?

p.s. the picture at the top is from the temples at Angkor.  Go see them. Go see them. Go see them.