Mosquito Repellent is the New Perfume

Cooling off in the waterfall!

After our visit to the White Temple, we drove another hour or so, saw more sights and scenery, and hiked to a waterfall where we got to go swimming. 

  

 
























After that, we trekked to our home stay, and set up camp for the night.  I was extremely excited to stay with a hill tribe, and was trying to contain my excitement, when all of a sudden, when being introduced to our host family, two puppies came rolling out from under a table playing, and I was in heaven.  After 24 hours in transit with less than 5 hours of sleep, there is nothing like an adorable puppy (let alone TWO!) to cheer you up.  

Playing with a new friend in the village

We spent all evening running around the village, playing with everything from puppies to pigs.  We got to meet several of the villagers and practiced our international sign language (as they did not speak Thai) and had a very delicious and romantic candlelit dinner.  

It cannot go without mention however, that the mosquitoes here are bigger than life-size.  I am fairly certain that these bloodsuckers are on steroids because they are more than twice the size of a normal mosquito.  Furthermore, I’m extremely popular with mosquitoes, which is NOT the kind of popularity one should hope for.  As a result, mosquito repellent has become my new scent, and I happily spray it around every chance I get.  It still is no defense from these monsters, which manage to bite at every ample opportunity.

Candlelit dinner :)

After an exhausting day, the four of us were fighting to keep our eyes open past 8:00pm which of course, is difficult to do when you are living with a hill tribe and rely on natural light.  By 6:00pm it was dark, and after guzzling down a delicious traditional Northern Thai meal, we were hit with food coma and exhaustion.  Suba and I curled up in our mosquito net, ready to call it a night.  

Our room for the night...

At about 2am, I was woken up to the sound of intense thunder, lightning, and pounding rain.  Suba was also wide awake.  We quickly realized our grass hut was NOT as waterproof as one might hope, and we scrambled to keep our blanket dry as all of our belongings were soaked.  In the beginning, we were laughing, and saying how thankful we were that we had a warm meal, a semi-decent roof over our head, and a place to sleep.  But heaping puddles, soaking wet clothes and two hours later – we were not as enthusiastic about our situation.  

 

Yet I still could not get this woman’s face out of my mind from our volunteering at Chula two days before – and I still knew, despite the rain, despite the mosquitoes, and despite the spiders in the bathroom that had a leg span the size of my HAND, we were lucky.