Some of the cool, weird, interesting, and strange things about my month in Thailand!!! Although the following has a lot of sarcasm, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Thailand, and it has been one of my favorite countries on The Race!
The return of the squatty potty
I thought Africa and Europe were the end of my squatty potty days, but I was wrong. The nice part about the squatty is that the body mechanics required for proper posture enables better excrement elimination, and you get a great quad workout, too; however, it takes perfecting to not get sprayed. TMI? Maybe.
The return of the cold shower
Come to think about it, the last time I had consistent cold showers was Central America and Romania. For the most part, my African showers were warm/hot, surprisingly. I told Sisk on the first night of living in our Thai village home, “It’s chilly but tolerable … at least The Race has well conditioned me for this.”
Super spicy food
Although I don’t have a high tolerance for spicy foods, Thai food is legitimately spicy. The food our host families servedus was “watered down,” so to speak, because they know we can’t handle their spicy traditional food!
The sauce on the bottom right is wicked spicy
Our house smells like a barnyard
Our host family raises pigs, chickens, and roosters, and the animal enclosures pretty much surround the entire perimeter of the house. And since the house windows are always open, the inside of the house smells the same as the outside.
These two monstrous pigs lived right outside the back door
The backyard
The barn in the front yard
Rooster crows beginning at 5 AM!
I never got solid sleep between the hours of 5 AM and 7 AM, and I used ear plugs, too. More World Race-induced sleep deprivation!
Thai people sleep on incredibly hard mattresses and pillows
I don’t know how they do it. After the first night of minimal sleep, I busted out my Big Agnes sleeping pad and Big Agnes inflatable pillow. Praise God for my camping gear.
Praise God for fans and mosquito nets
Southeast Asia is hot and humid, so unless you want to sleep in a puddle of sweat each night, you have the fan blasting all night long! Our ministry contact told us before we left for Mae Ai (our ministry location) that we should definitely sleep under mosquito nets because “you don’t want to be sleeping with any critters.” Those “critters” would be huge spiders, lizards, toads, ants, mosquitoes, and other Asian insects. Oh, the joys of The World Race! At least my threshold for bugs has drastically increased!
Sisk and I slept in this fort!
I had to jury rig our mosquito net to the wall with ramdon pieces of string and a hanger … booyah
No way! We have an electric washing machine!!!
Hand-washing my clothes is by no means my favorite chore. Prior to arriving in Mae Ai, we were under the impression the village people hand-wash their clothing; however, when Sisk and I saw the washing machine in the kitchen on the first day, we sung the Halleluiah chorus!
My clothes get pooped and crawled on when they are line-drying outside
I am not sure why the chicken coup area is designated for line-drying clothes, but it is. I just have to smile and brush off the stool and ants and remind myself that I am blessed to have an area to line-dry my clothes.
