Songkran- Thailand New Year / Water Festival

Sawadee-ka,

April 15th is the official celebration of the Thai New Year called Songkran.  It is a HUGE water fight and soooo much fun!!  I stayed in my town and went out with some friends to enjoy the festivities!!!  Basically you just ride in the back of a truck and throw water on each other.  People have water guns or just BUCKETS of water!!!  They fill the buckets of water with ice so it is REALLY cold!!  They also mix talcum powder and water together that forms a paste.  They then put this on your face during the festivities!!!  I had a BLAST celebrating Songkran and I wish we could do this in the states!!! Oh, all of these pics were taken with my camera INSIDE a ziplock bag, that is why they are fuzzy.

Always learning,

Charmel

Quick run to Laos

Good afternoon,

I feel like I am letting my friends down!!! It has been exactly 1 month since a post!! I am sorry guys, I will do better.  Anyway, summer school ended recently and I thought that I was going to just relax around here and chill.  No....I had to do a Visa run.  A Visa run is when you have to leave the country, I went to Laos, go to the Thai embassy there and get an updated Visa.  There are many different types of Visa's,  I am on a work Visa.  I was DREADING the fact that I would have to spend money and go somewhere when I wanted to just relax.  Well, it turns out, it was well worth it and I met some AWESOME people on my trip.  We went to Vientienne Laos, nothing spectacular about the city but I added a stamp to my passport (woohooo!!).  Here are some pics of my trip to Laos. I walked around the street of my hotel and found a temple that had a school on the grounds also.  The BEST part: SHEEP in the back of a pickup truck!!  I was able to see some kiddies and their uniforms are different than the one's here in Thailand.  Oh, I met a man from Lufkin, TX that lives in Korat, Thailand which is about 7 hours north of my city.  It was great to talk about southern food and weather, a taste of home!!

Enjoy,

Charmel