Sunday

I have let everyone go ahead so I can spend a few minutes giving you all more than I am ok. My body is doing very well. Eating well and it is all digesting well. Which is rather unusual. Many have a cold and many have stomachs that are not settled. so.. yoga is going well .. I am not nor will I probably be standing on my head..but I am happy with my progress. For the past many days, we have done yoga from 9am to noon.. with a lunch break and then restorative from about 1 to about 2:30. That stimulates us to shop. So I now have several elephant bracelets and amulets. It is great fun. Oh my shirt/jacket arrived... she did a terrific job. Each stick is a little different but it fits me and is very Thai. Love it. Last night we took a bus.. well it is rather a pickup truck with two seats going the length of the bus and went up the tallest mt in Chiangdao. I can tell you it is not for the faint hearted. We had 8 of us in each bus. We made it up.. but we also had to make it down. I have not see too many midis break shops so... I thought we might have to drag our feet. It was better than Dari an lake. When we got to the top, we split into two groups and toured the tribe area. The hill people are rather a collection of folks from Burma/China/and other areas. The chew beatlenut... which is an opiate so their teeth are broken up and their lips are very red. We went into the kitchen and sleeping area and then sat out on a "porch" held up with bamboo and watched the moon come up. Interesting the moon year is a half moon in the shape of a saucer... rather than ) like at home. I took some interesting pictures for the happenings. We had a soup of squash - green or might have been okra followed by rice and chicken. I had a beer to take my mind off of sitting out of the edge of the world. There were chickens and pigs running around and lots of dogs. I was also glad to know that the chicken we were eating came form the nice place we were staying. We then were introduced to the shaman who did an blessing on each of us. He drank water and sprayed it out of his mouth on the woven brackets. We then picked a bracelet and he did more breathing and spitting and pulling on your arm... interesting stuff. The tribe grew Poppy's in the not too distant past.. opium and it looks like a few still had a stash. They now appear to be more whisky/beer folk I was hoping the bus driver who was going to drive down this winding road had not been offered the wild turkey... After dinner we danced.. i did my best..but it was like a jerky hora.. and it was a challenge. Great fun. To celebrate living through the ride, I had a great people of chocolate mouse cake with ice cream drizzled with a raspberry sauce... not all that rough. I have some how lost my new glasses. My friend Anne says that she is going to go through my stuff and hope to find it.. but I am fearful they are good good good. Tomorrow morning we (Anne, Dan, Sheila and I ) go with the rest to the Elephants and then we stay overnight and then the next day. A few wonderful thoughts.. the baby elephants get their food out of the mom's butt.. i will be remembering not to bed over..and I think I will think twice about accepting kisses. The other think.. they are now "house trained" ... so this will be a lots of shit experience... can not wait. Well others wait.. all is good...bye