UPDATE

Apologies for forgetting about Lurkers Int!!!

However, if anyone's still interested, here's a quick update:

Maura is in Nepal with her dad, then heading to Europe.

Kevin, Malcolm, and Ellie are in northern India.

Maddie is in Mexico/Cuba.

Soon the gang will be lurking across 3 different continents at once! Hooray!

Koh Wai, Thailand

OUR OWN LITTLE ISLAND!

Life in Northern Thailand

The five lurkers are back at it again.

We have spent the past week elephant riding, hitch hiking, mud brick making, pond swimming, and organic farming.

After spending a few days together in Chiang Mai elephant riding and relaxing we hitched up to Pai and spent a little less then a week living on an organic farm. Tacomepai, (which has now become my home away from home) was a beautiful 100 acre farm situated just 6 km north of Pai. The boys slept in a small straw tent while the three ladies stayed in a small hut. We learned all about cotton picking, fruit and veggie growing and sustainable living.

Everything on the farm was made 100% from natural resources.

We were surrounded by  loving people and enjoyed many mellow nights around the fire singing and playing Thai and American tunes.

Back in Chaing Mai to pick up our India visas. Heading south to Koa Chang, a small island on the east coast close to Cambodia. Catching an over night train to Bangkok and we will be on the beach in no time.

Sending lots of love out to the 505, my family, and all my college homies.

-Maura

Kevin giving bananas

Maura feeding

Elephant at the waterfall

Malcolm enjoying the ride

Kevin's first tattoo...a Malcolm original

Taking some photos

Motorbiking up to Tacomepai

Hitching up to Pai

Mud bath at the hot springs

Tacomepai

Tacomepai

Hitching back to Chiang Mai

Meditation at the canyon

Organic gardening

Stairs up to our hut (no nails were used)

Outdoor toilet

Yes, We're Alive

And staying on a farm in the jungle in northern Thailand!


We've done a lot in the past couple of weeks and will put up photos as soon as we stop being lazy....


KEEP LURKING!

A Language Without Words

wrote this poem while traveling south.
-Maura

You say you'll take me on a journey for free,
One with glasses filled of amber and enough rice for two.
The soul is being fed with the quiet rumble of the streets,
As the dusty roads become paved routes
While the taste of blood and sweat only lasts in a memory.

My glistening Mekong has been traded for buildings and Tuk Tuk drivers,
Only little boys let their privates show and bums stick out,
Are you trying to be cheeky?

Yes, I long to run naked with you through the streets of heat,
And ignore the cat calls that ask for nothing by money.
Together we can become strips of light,
White,
Never stopping to fill our lungs,
But eager to make angels in the sand
And cart wheels in the water.

We drink to the dirty river
And mumble awkwardly,
Searching for what once gave us joy, now lost at bay.

But don't be mistaken in thinking I have lost an identity,
That I am running from what I once knew,
For I am only searching for a language that doesn't depend on words,
Where desire originates from the soul of the universe,
And when you want something with all your heart,
You will feel closest to the soul of the world.

A Little bit of Motavation

Greetings  from Maura! Sorry its been a while.

While Maddie and Ellie have been off temple exploring I chose to head south to the beach for about a week. I started in Phnom Penh then moving onto Sihanoukville and a little west over to Kampot. I made good friends with a small group of Brits and we traveled around together. My week was filled with good laughs, delicious seafood bbq seasoned with kampot pepper (one of the spices Cambodia is best known for), cave exploring, salt field seeing, and relaxing.

Traveling alone has been a trip within its self and im excited to reconnect with my fellow lurkers in Thailand.


Woman in Phnom Penh at market



Monk at market in Phnom Penh

Friends in Phnom Penh

Looking out from a run down mansion

This man has been selling hammocks for over 20 yrs

The Speaker Tree at the Killing Fields

Skulls at the Killing Fields



Salt Fields in Kampot



Little girl from a fishing village

Farmer and his pepper

me and J-Jay in Kampot

Bus ride back

Small houses on the trip back

Bamboo Train in Battambang

Hello everyone!
 We (Ellie and Maddie) are in Battambang, Cambodia. Yesterday we took a ride on the famous Bamboo train, a platform made of bamboo that can be easily disassembled when approaching an actual train or another cart going the other direction. Earsplitting, bumpy, and actually pretty fast, we sped through the dry countryside to a small village where we followed a boy to his home. There, we were greeted by a 7 foot boa constrictor: the family's dinner. The kids in the brick-making village were eager to practice their English with us, and made us grass rings and bracelets. Cambodians are so friendly!
Tomorrow we are heading south to Phnom Penh to meet up with Maura, before flying to Thailand!

Behold! The cheesiest tourist pictures to date!

Bamboo Train!

Disassembling the train to allow another to pass

 

Our tuk-tuk at Angkor Wat

ps- Yes, we wear the same thing everyday: v-necks and skirts.

Are You Happy Now Emma Gavin?

Look! Lurkers International in the Sand of Vietnam!

(a month ago)

 

 

Happy now Emma Gavin?

Seven S's of Survival

Ellie and Madeleine's List of the Seven Important S's of Survival:

1. Shell (our backpacks that look like turtle shells)

2. Snacks

3. Spork (the most useful tool, given to us by Kevin)

4. Sanitizer (hand sanitizer saves the day!)

5. Speaker (for our ipods)

6. Sleep Sack (Our cozy security blankets that shield us from gross beds and questionable surfaces)

7. Sun Hat (to complete our old lady tourist look)

More Photos

(Because we are such faithful bloggers!)

 

Fish "Massage" in Siem Reap- little fish biting off your dead skin.

We passed.

Our friend Izzy going for an extreme tubing ride into the Mekong, off of Don Det.