Doing nothing...

It was great being back in Thailand for a few weeks. Great to see old friends, great to eat at my favourite restaurants, great to enjoy the warm weather...and great to sit and do nothing! :) Okay, not absolutely nothing...but a lot of nothing. THe non-nothing bits are below.

This first one is sort of a "doing nothing" note, but it was doing nothing on a beach instead of in Bangkok! I managed to hitch a ride as far as Hua Hin (beach town) and then met Libby, an old friend who now runs the Juniper Tree: a Christian retreat/resort area on Dolphin Bay. I spent a very relaxing four days there. Relaxing on the beach was interspersed with kayaking, motorbiking, walking next to the motorbike after it got a flat, building sandcastles, and swimming. Very nice! (More info on the Juniper Tree here: http://www.juniper-tree.org/dolphin-bay.html.)

The next big adventure was actually a big adventure! :) Though I suppose I didn't really "do" much...mostly just observed. When I got to Bangkok in February, I found out that my friend Opas was getting married in early March. Since it didn't cost anything to change my ticket (thank you Air China), I decided to extend my ticket so I could attend. It didn't quite take planes, trains, and automobiles to get to his home village, but it did take a skytrain, minibus, back of a pickup, and a motorcycle.

I arrived Friday afternoon for a Saturday wedding only to find out the wedding was postponed to Monday. No, I'm not kidding! Things are a bit more casual there. No save-the-date cards or months of planning here! Well, some people do plan more than Opas and Gif... these two didn't even bother with invitations! It was a nice wedding, though! (And, no, it's not rude for guests to wear white to a wedding there. As a single female, I was expected to wear white!)

I got back to Bangkok just in time for another party: a pancake party! It is traditional to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (the day before the beginning of Lent). Historically this was to use up any sugar or eggs or whatever wasn't going to be used during the 40-day Lenten fast. The party was at the vicarage--so I didn't have far to go. :) It was fun. We started by eating pancakes and ended by throwing them. They tasted great--though they were crepes, not pancakes--and we all ate too much. After eating we had pancake races and then pancake flipping contests. It was this last contest that turned into a food fight...and I think it was the vicar that started it! :)

The rest of my time in Thailand was spent doing lots of nothing and it was really great. I should do more of that more often.