Bung Khan, Pu Tok

Dirty water, myself, and Laos on the far side

Suitable living for a monk

It's been a little while, but only because I've kept busy. My weeks are crazy occupied with school, but I've gotten opportunities to travel quite a bit.  One of my first weekends in Isan I followed another teacher, John, up to Bung Khan to relax in a tiny little ton on the Mekong River, overlooking Laos.  While farmers in Thailand were shooting rockets into the air to make it rain behind us, across the Mekong a magnificent display of a thunderstorm lit up the sky-

 unlike thunder back in New Jersey, lightening would brighten the sky for minutes on end, not just mere flashes.
This was no freak storm - just the other day we sat at our balcony and watched as rolling thunder would stretch out in spiderweb patterns across the entire sky.  Then brilliant flashes of glaring light would blind you, and a few seconds later the high decibel thunder would literally shake the entire house for near on a minute. I've never been anywhere near a bomb going off before, but I would imagine it was quite similar.

From Bung Khan, we took an hour long car ride along half paved roads to reach Pu Tok - a temple that sits halfway up a plateau with steep cliffs.  To get to the temple is easy - climb up a few (hundred) stairs.  But to get to the top, you have to climb around the mountain.  At the top? Not much besides an overgrown jungle. But the walk up to the top    (Thai people thought I was crazy) was thrilling.













While I was out the night before my trip to Bung Khan, I met a lady who'd just returned from France after 3 years and a difficult marriage.  Having traveled to France did however instill a wish to see more of her native country, so she offered to take us to Ko Samui for a  few days, which is what will be in the next update.

Maybe, by then, I'll have figured out how to format this blog a little better!

Vit