Date:

Wed, 6 Jun 2001 00:51:18 -0700 (PDT)

Subject:

hello everyone, i'm back!

 taking no chances this time, i wrote my mail as an attachment. i hope you can open it without any problems. 

Hello  again, 

where are we? let  me think....i honestly don't remember what town we're in..... time and space are  funny these days, i have no idea what day it is and usually i have to stop and  think where we are...i do feel very good though, more alive than i've felt in a  long time. especially when riding downhill!!

we weren't  ecpecting to find internet here today, but since we did i figured i would write  a little note.

thank you for the  consolation messages you have sent in regards to my last lost email. ii was  frustrating, but i feel much better now. 

well, since i last  wrote to you, we have been to two national parks. one was a park with stones of  very interesting shapes. the wind and other elements had done a pretty nice job  on this 'stone garden' as people here refer to it.

that was pretty  nice, especially the part where we found a really big stone and sat under it, in  the shade, reading gandhi's "the story of my experiments with truth". i also got  stung by a bee that day, and i am happy to say that so far that has been my only  bodily contact with other animals and insects (you have heard of my near misses  with the frog in the faucet and the spider on the wall from ed's email).

the people of the  region were very friendly as usual, maybe even more so since this was a pretty  remote place (we had to bike 13km straight uphill to get to it). i think ed got  a pretty big kick out of a group pf young girls that were coming towards us on  the street at night practicing their 'hello' in english. they did say hello when  they reached us, and when ed answered they broke out into giggles...then there  were some other people that decided to sit with us while we had supper, and  although the only word we had in common was 'spagetti' we managed to communicate  somehow. after finding out that we biked from bankok they asked us whether we  were in the olympics, and although we were tempted to say yes, we decided not to  tarnish the athlete immage so we told the truth. 

another notional  park we went to is known for its nice waterfalls. we were there yesterday. it  was a perfect stop for us since the previous day we had ridden 105km so we were  pretty tired. so we just spent the day in this park, in the river, cooling off  under some small waterfalls. i wanted to relaxe but felt too excited because i  was in such a beautiful place...there were butterflies and dragonflies of all  colors flying around, and lying on the rocks looking at them against the blue  sky made me feel really good. 

the only problem  with national parks is that the accomodations are not the best although they are  pretty expensive by thai standards (~20$ per night). 

right now we are  still riding north east, towards the border with laos, and as we are doing  really good time, we don't think that we'll have to extend our thai  visa. 

i am really liking  biking so far. i was apprehensive at first about how i would find the whole  experience, but i am happy to say that i like it more than i thought. even  though hills are tough (and we've been doing a lot of them lately), the  downhills which always follow are amazing. i actually prefer mountainous regions  to flat ones, because there are no downhills on flats (just thought i'd mention  it...my iq also droped significantly since i've been here, i think it's the sun  and the spices). 

i am surprised a  little at the monks. i guess i had a certain idea in my head after all my  reading, of what a budhist monk looks and acts like. well they do look like i  thought, but the other day we saw one on the side of the road, in a joint,  smoking and drinking coke. not what i pictured in the way of perfect serenity,  but what do i know? he is after all like any other human being, i came to  realize. it's always good to break down preconceptions, isn't  it? 

ok, enough for  now.

larissa, i'd be  happy to hear from jonathan, and you can also fwd him my emails.

dragos, multumesc  pt email si pt interesul in excursia mea, si noroc in continuare la serviciu si  in familie. 

i am getting  homesick already, mostly at night, mostly for my sister and my dog. sometimes  when things are really beautiful, i feel really happy and sad at the same time.  it's a weird feeling that i don't know what to call, but that i am getting to  know better. 

life is good, and i  hope you are all healthy and in good spirits. 

i miss everybody  and thank you so much for writing,

raluca