More pics up on my Bangkok page thanks to Agnes who is a shutterbug!

Congratulations to John who graduated today! After three years of hard work in law school, he has now earned his Juris Doctor and only the bar exam stands in his way of becoming a lawyer. Yeah!

The whitewater rafting pictures are here! Check out my Zambia photos page to see photos of me jumping off a cliff and submerging myself in the rapids.

Our last day in Bangkok was filled with relaxation. We slept until checkout and then headed to MBK one last time to take in the VIP movie suite. We watched Mission Impossible II in luxury with comfy seats, blankets, and complimentary fruit punch. All this for about $7.50 and they don't care if you bring food in from other places! One interesting thing about the movie (and luckily we had read this in our tourist books ahead of time) is that they play the national anthem before the movie and you are expected to stand.

Our last meal in Bangkok was at a restaurant in MBK. Kristen and Agnes both ordered sushi, but Kristen was handed utensils and Agnes was given chopsticks. Hmmm.

After the meal Kristen and Agnes headed off to Senegal via Paris and I started my long journey back home via Nairobi, Amsterdam and Detroit.

Another ambitious early morning for Agnes and me as we headed to the bus station in Bangkok and took a two hour journey to the floating market I have heard so much about. We hired a boat at the canal and rode around looking at stalls of souveniers and food as well as women on boats selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Agnes and I both ordered some lunch on the boat and bought a few items from passing

boats just to say we did!

After the floating market we decided to shop modern style and headed to MBK, the seven story mall popular with trendy Thai teenagers. The mall is basically a bunch of stores with pirated goods. Not much more than the street vendors in air conditioning except for an electronics floor and western food choices.

After the mall Agnes headed to the hospital to get the meningitis shot I scared her into getting before her trip to Senegal and I headed to dinner with Kristen. We did dinner on Khao San road, famous for the many backpackers that line the streets mostly due to the many hostels in the area.

As you can probably already tell from all the pictures on this page--it was a big day. Not just for me, but for Buddah. Today is Visakha Puja day in Thailand which celebrates the birth, enlightenment, and death of buddah. Sort of like our Christmas I guess. Agnes (a manager from SF) and I started the day with a tour of the Grand Palace where many buddists had come to pay tribute to the emerald buddah. There was an overwhelming smell of incense and flowers as well as many people wearing white.

After the grand palace we headed to Wat Pho, the largest reclining buddah.

All this walking around as well as the lack of sleep from our outing the night before made for two very exhausted tourists. So we headed over to the Wat Pho massage school where we got an hour Thai massage for $8. The only difficulty was trying not to drool on the massage bed.

After the massage we were in a state of bliss, but ready to head back to the hotel. We headed out again at night with the group to Vertigo, a bar on the top of the Banyan tree hotel where we had an amazing view of Bangkok at night.

After drinks we headed to the night bazaar where I got lost from the group, but managed to run into a co-worker from my first project in DC, Satyan. Satyan is also on an ADP project, in Sri Lanka, and happened to be vacationing in Bangkok with his girlfriend who is working in Singapore. What a small world!!!

Day 1 of training was just as insightful as the first. It was great listening to the experience of others, including videos of past ADPers.

After dinner Andrew, our trainer, took us to Radio City, a bar in the Pat Pong district (red light district) of Bangkok. Entertainment consisted of a Tom Jones and Elvis impersonators, a band, and a handful of back-up dancers.A Argentinian bridal shower group was the life of the party, eventually getting our group to dance around the stage and wear some crazy Argentinian hat they had brought along.

We arrived in Bangkok around 7am and headed straight to the hotel as training began at 9. Training (the whole reason we're in Thailand to begin with) was great. I met other Accenture-ites from all over the world also on ADP projects. We talked a lot about the development sector and what its purpose is....safety and health and culture and customs. Our trainer Andrew was very interesting. He has been doing work VSO (volunteer service organization) for many years and currently lives in Nepal. He occassionally runs the ADP training for Accenture and has a lot of insight as to what sort of experiences we are in for as part of an ADP project.

After our training we headed to dinner as a group at a Thai restaurant. There we listened to some live music by a very enthusiatic Thai band and debated whether our server was a waiter or a waitress. video.google.com has video of the band (search under my name).

Today we hit the motorbikes once again in search of some sites outside of the city. This time Gareth and I lost eachother early on and I rode aimlessly trying to take in the sites and sounds, but mostly just took in the sun and the smog. Gareth managed to make it to his destination...some sort of lake that he said was nice.

After our bike ride we headed to the train station, this time able to get a 1st class sleeper for the longer 14 hour ride to Bangkok.

Day 2 in Chiang Mai and we decided to adventure to the outskirts. We rentedmotorbikes (only $8 for the day)! I was a little nervous, but after a practice run down our hostel alley I felt confident enough to follow Gareth as he was more experienced on driving on the 'other' side of the road. I should have known better as he led me down a one-way street in the wrong direction while a Thai man yelled "one-way! one-way!". Fortunately I was able to turn around quickly and we got back on the right track. Our first stop was Bo Sang, also known as "Umbrella Village". This is where they make the many beautiful umbrellas you see in the picture as well as Sa Paper which you have probably seen in scrapbooking or nice stationary stores.

After Bo Sang we rode for a long time in search of the hot springs. We did finally find it, but it was less than impressive and I was much more excited about the ice cream freezer they had. At least the ride was scenic.

We got back before night hit and headed to the famed Night Street Bazaar, which was not a whole lot different than the Sunday Market except it happens every night.

Once we arrived in Chiang Mai we finally got some sleep at the hostel and then headed out to check out the city. First we did the natural thing in Thailand and visited a bunch of wats to see all the different buddahs. Outside one of the Wats, there was a small forest of sorts that had buddhist saysing on them in Thai and in English.

Eventually our touring lead us to the center of Chiang Mai where the Sunday Street Market was going on. This lasted all day and into the night and included jewelry, clothes, food, paper lanterns, thai massages, and sooooo much more! Gareth and I also happened upon a tailor shop where we decided to get suits made as it's quite cheap there. Their finished products looked good and a couple fittings and days later we had tailor made suits!

I forgot to mention I went to a concert last week at Carnivore...the meat restaurant I went to back when I first showed up in Nairobi. The singer's name was Angelique Kidjo. She's from West Africa, but apparently is really big all over Africa. I went to the concert because it sounded like it would be fun...and it was...but unfortunately none of her music is in English. So instead I just soaked up the sounds, which was a little like Jamaican music. Regardless it was nice to hear some live music.

.So work is coming to a close which inevitably means a lot of time spent finishing deliverables. Unfortunately I am an outnumbered American and am forced to write all my documents in British English. While I have learned and adapeted to the different spellings of words like programs is programmes, catalog is catalogue, and hemorhage is haemorhage (don't ask why I needed that word), the biggest difficulty is in changing all my z's to s's e.g. socialise, realise, localise, customise. I don't quite understand where they use z's as everything requires an 's'. I asked Gareth and he said they just use it when imitating someone sleeping (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz).

Happy May Day! Yes that's right--another holiday in Kenya. A positive thing about being an American abroad is the number of extra holidays you get. Luckily I'll also be home in time to celebrate Memorial Day.

One thing I've learned over here in Kenya is how to conserve. Whether it's electricity, water, or food I'm much more conscious of not being a 'wasteful American'. Not that I was extemely wasteful at home, but the phrase "there are starving children in Africa" when you haven't eaten all of your meal, has a much larger impact when you're living in Kenya. So, I've tried to be more aware of the resources I use--I only hope I manage to carry these habits with me back home.