Festival of Lights

Hey all- feeling much better! I hated being sick here- basically just slept between all of my jobs. On saturday night I nursed my belly with some really good european food and watched a bunch of videos made about the center and the wildlife trade, including a special done by Animal Planet a few years back. Got to see what a lot of the animals that we have here now looked like when they were first rescued. Most of them looked very different before they got healthy- it was cool to see the difference you can make. I'm going to try to get Edwin to burn me a DVD of everything so I can bring it home to show you all.

Last night was the Loi Kratong festival in this little village that we spend two hours an evening in. The name of the festival, loosely translated, means "floating flower thing". :) The Thai ladies who work at the center helped some of us build them and then at the end of the night we let them go in the river. Very beautiful. In the village we saw the real floats, which they judged in a contest. I included a picture of one of them, and keep in mind that they are made entirely of bamboo, folded banana leaves, flowers and fruit. Unbelievably intricate. So it was a fun night- I also added a pic of ten of us piled into the back of Edwins van on the way back...drinking the one dollar 40s that we love so much. The pancake lady was at the festival and I finally snapped a shot of her- notice the vat of oil and butter that comprise about 50% of the lovely pancake taste! Oh and yeah, the Wildlife Center people were the ONLY non-Thai at the festival. good times!

Tomorrow some of us are supposed to be going with Edwin into one of the National Forests to see if we can find some wild elephants- I'm really excited about it- they've actually seen them the last two trips! There is so much to see here- I could probably stay a year and not do everything I want! More soon...