More on vacation....

Just wanted to post a quick blog about my time in Thailand.  Thank you to all of you who were thinking of me while I was in the hospital.  That was definitely not how I planned on spending Christmas this year or the first part of my vacation.  Of course, it was frustrating.  I had literally been counting down daily to this vacation for over six months.  But looking back, there are definitely a few silver linings about the whole thing.  The doctors said that I carried my "friends" the bacteria with me from Africa - so I'm thankful that I was in the hospital in Thailand and not Africa.  I'm glad that Mel was able to be there the whole time.  I'm glad that I did not need my appendix removed.  And I did get to goof off in Thailand for four days - the last two I had no medication restrictions on food and drink.  So here's a bit of a glance into my time in Thailand - the good and the bad :)

PS.  Just in case you are wondering, "I give you a new line" means "I will give you a new IV."  I'm glad that I did not understand that Tinglish when the nurse spoke it.  And if I am never asked, "How many time you pee? poo?" again in the rest of my life, I think I will be okay.

Home for four days.

The only picture I allowed to be taken of me during this time.  This was a peaceful time in between hurling.  Christmas Day :)  Complete with the Asian peace sign.

Oh Chiang Mai - how lovely you look from the window.

And finally... outta there!!!  Two of my wonderful nurses!  The one on the left gave me the new IV - which hurt infinitely less than the first so in the end, I was actually grateful for another needle.

Now the fun begins!  And - after a stop of McD's - we fed a baby tiger.

Visited a temple.

Mel and I at the temple.

This is probably not a good idea less than 24 hours of being released from a hospital - oh well :)

It's soo beautiful there!!!

I'm so glad Mel loves animals just as much as I do.  Our goal:  touch and feed as many animals as possible.

Night bazaar : a shopping woman's delight!

And then zip-lining happened.  

Giraffes are, hands down, the coolest animals on the planet.  And I've made the decision that America needs to get with it - here I could feed him a huge bucket of greens for about $1.  How stinking cool!???  They care more about the experience and less about money making!

And feeding the elephant!  Seriously, if I could live at this place, I would.

They gave us a FREE ride.  Mel and I couldn't believe it.  

So all of the "fun" pictures above - they all happened in two days time.  We crammed so much stuff into two days that it was insane.  I'm glad we did but it was also exhausting!  Then I flew to Bangkok to hang out with the other Mel for a couple days!  The first day I got there, I slept the whole day.  I was scared if I didn't, I would get sick again.  After that, for the last two days of my trip, we had fun :)

This is why I love Asia.

Bangkok is full of malls and yummy things :)  First Frappuccino at Starbucks after I was off antibiotics!!!  

Self-explanatory!  What an experience to be in the crowd of thousands waiting on the New Year!  

Happy New Year!!!!!!  

Big THANK YOU to the two Mel's for hosting me!  And for everyone else praying for my recovery and the rest of my time there!  As you can see - I did get some fun stuff in!  Now, I'm happy to be back in Africa (did I really just say that!?) and we're getting ready to gear up for a team, an English camp and MY DAD comes in NINETEEN days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!