Canoe Trip

The canoe trip was awesome. we had a very nice lady take us in
this flat dug out canoe. first the main canal was busy with
motorboats then we went on calmer side canals and they were beautiful.
everyone raised ducks and pigs it seemed. the pigs eat the algae (or
whatever it is.. looks like algae) from the canals and they looked
very fat and happy. we passed lots of wooden houses on stilts and lots
of beautiful lotus flowers. they are gorgeous flowers.

went to a huge old wooden monestary where there was only one crazy old
monk and 4 novice (little kid) monks. the old one would ask where you
were from then start naming cars from that country... "ohhh japan.
nissan, toyota, panasonic, mazda" then i said us and he said "oh us..
chevrolet" adn to the germans.. oh.. mercedes BMW. you get the idea.
it was pretty funny. we think he was going a bit daffy from being out
in that big old monestary with nothing to do. we watched the sunset
there then the lady took us back. a very nice and relaxing afternoon
and christina also enjoyed it a lot.

another funny thing.. we were looking for this motorboat driver named
win because we heard he was good. i asked a couple people this am
then forgot about it. we were eating lunch at a totally different
area of town and 2 people approached and the guy said this is win you
were looking for him. great communication network. phones dont work
but word of mouth sure does. anyway i'm going with win at 6:15
tomorrow am. we're going to 2 floating markets and a bunch of other
stuff then i'm going to his house for dinner with his family.
christina didnt want to go so early so she'll do a half day trip
tomorrow and we'll ride bikes or go hiking together on saturday.

dinner tonight was fish curry. maybe not quite as yummy as it sounds.
it was a whole fish and took a lot of work to get the meat off. it
was good once we did though. curry here is definitely not the same as
thai curry. again people are so darm nice though. as i'm sitting
here typing someone just brought me tea and orange slices and
"traditional shan dessert". not chocolate but it tastes ok. yesterday
someone brought us a fried banana that was absolutely delicious.. it
had this great coating on it. they gave it to us as a "present".
everyone knows and uses that word here. they give a lot of presents
and usually expect nothing in return.

i better go so i can walk home, take a hot shower and go to bed. it
got really cold last night.. down to 5c in the area which i think is
about 40f. chilly with no heat. very nice and warm and sunny during
the day.

i took a ton of photos today and imagine i'll do the same tomorrow. i
am going to be kicking myself when i'm back home and have to sort all
these photos out!!