udon thani

this is udon thani looking like a dream which it is

this is mon.

last little bit in udon thani-this city is amazing, and i keep hearing that its not even the coolest part of thailand-i'll be exploring that in about a week. felipe and i rented a motorbike again today because it is too much fun and wandered through temples, markets, parks.

of the 12 people i know here, 4 have gone to the hospital. 2 for weirdo skin diseases, 1 for being bitten by a wild dog, and franklin has been in the hospital for 2 days with what the doctors SAID was swine flu, which was really scary, but is instead a bacterial infection of some variety. felipe and i are somehow still in miraculous health, despite our continued insistence on drinking unfiltered water, eating off the street all day every day, and trying every freaky thing passed our way, from snake to frog to mealworm to eel to cricket to beetle to durien (the fruit that smells so bad, its illegal to bring it into our hotel).

yesterday i climbed in some caves and ate MORE bugs. sicknasty.

today i went to this place, called the sarnelli house, which is for hiv+ children that have been adandoned by their families. and i would just like to say, everyone (big statement coming up) that i RETRACT how much i hate kids. these kids are awesome. amazing actually. they immediately ran up, screaming laughing putting white string around my wrist making wishes sitting in my lap showing me dances they made up to american pop songs. it was really overwhelming and, like a total soft-heart, i cried in the seegathew home, wishing i had something more to give them then stickers and the parts of the macerena that i remember.

it is really hard to be in a place where people are KIND, kinder than the states even though they have less, much less. i think a lot of it comes from having a society rooted in buddhism, which something like 95% of the people in thailand practice. people here just dont seem to feel entitled. they are grateful. and really really really kind. it is wonderful but it makes me sad when they tell me how much they want to learn english, or come back to the states with me, or when i see the drugstore counters littered with 'whitening' creams and the advertisments covered with blonde women. when i see how they see america as an ideal and themselves inadequate.

on a minor note, i was looking through my lonely planet today, and saw that my mom, who highlighted major points in the 'thailand' chapter (and 'X'ed out the section on hitchhiking), specifically highlighted the section saying 'make sure to get off motorbikes on the left side, so as to avoid searing your flesh off on the exhaust pipe on the right.' thanks mom, i guess i should have read that before i gave myself a gnarly scar not 3 hours after arriving in udon thani...? damnit. moms actually really know best.

oh yeah. i put just a couple pictures (the internet connection in these cafes is puhretty sloww so there are only about 4) on my flickr account; the account name is jaki.bradley. check them out if youre so inclined.

this week, im building more, finishing the house, then trekking through northern thailand and staying with a hilltribe village for a while. that said, im checking out of internet world for a couple weeks. ill be back in june. BUT i would like to talk on the phone. mines still acting weird, it can text but apparently people are having problems calling it. im going to work on getting it fixed byt given my thai it may be hard... BUT i will be with felipe so call him atttt

FELIPE 919 491 6938

hes my roommate at the moment, so im with him alll the time ohmygaw, and he knows im giving out his number so dont feel weird being like 'nah man im trying to talk to jaki.' the best times to talk are probably like 700, 800, 900,1000 am, states time, and like 800 900 1000 pm. yeah. angel wont you call me?

lovejaki