Hey again. I'm back in Bangkok. Chris-- Din Daeng (ding dang) is actually not too far from here. And ping pong is a serious sport around these parts. I dare not challenge anyone... Every once in awhile the most excellent opportunities for movie quotes come up and I feel a serious pain because I have to hold it in. Most of my companions are not up to speed on their Indiana Jones, etc, etc. I am trying to take pictures of these things, though. I took one a couple days ago that I'm going to call, "feel like stepping on fortune cookie!!" Needless to say, your absence is felt.
I really have enjoyed getting notes from everyone and I hope you continue to write and tell me whassahappenin.
I took a longtail boat from Chiang Rai to Laos to try something called "snake whiskeÿ." I thought it was just a name, but it turns out it's just a bottle of homemade rice whiskey with a giant dead snake in it. Looked like a science experiment, and reminded me to the time Chris and I found a bat in the desert and I took it in to Doctor Petowski (my elementary school science teacher) in a ziplock bag. From Laos we went to the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand, and Burma meet. I wandered through the opium museum for awhile. THey don't hand out free samples there, and they don't find it very funny when you ask, either. Afterwards I walked over the border to Burma to walk around for a bit.

Now Burma is different than Thailand and Laos. It's poorer, darker, dirtier. I held onto my bag tightly while walking down the street and little kids with white poweder on their faces grabbed at my arms and begged for money. Some of them will just hang on you and not let go. I went with only a portion of my group and we decided that we wanted to try some Myanmar beer. A little bit into our search I start having these abdominal pains, increasing in ferver each couple minutes. THese warning signs come not too long before you're in serious trouble, so I was forced to take action immediately. THe problem was that we couldn't even find a restaurant, let alone a restroom. This girl I hang around with a lot, Laura, and I ran back to the border to go find one. It was a harrowing and frightful journey which I would not like to recall. After that it was already time to go, so basically I got my passport stamped and crossed this crazy borderland just to relieve myself in another country.

I also recently visited Ayothaya, which is the old capitol of Thailand. It seems like it was abandoned a year ago, not centuries ago. THere are few people out at all in the day time and no one at night, except for the occasional monk with an alms bowl. It's very poor and all the temples have hundereds of headless buddha statues from when the Burmese came in and destroyed everything during war. Interestingly, my tour guide calls all acts of war "slash and burn,"which is actually a term used to describe the cutting down of forest and trees for farmland. My guide, (his name is Tee) is a nice local guy. He played guitar for us one night and altered the words to his favorite Bob Marley songs, including my personal favorite, "I shot the tourist," (formerly " I shot the sheriff"). I forget if I already mentioned that or not.

I'm very tired right now so I apologize for the lack of enthusiasm in this entry. I'd like to write more but I'm pooped and I need to get a nap in before I go out tonight... I'm going to a THai boxing match!!!!!! I hear the best part is the crowd. ANyhow, perhaps Í can finish up tomorrow because I think I'll have more time then before I head down south. Love all you guyses.
katie

p.s. here is a quote i've been thinking about everyday:

"And yet, and yet... denying temporal sucession, denying the self, denying the astronomica universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges."
-jorge luis borges "a new refutation of time"1946 essay