The Beginning of the End

Sadly our year in Thailand is rapidly winding down. This weekend we begin a farewell tour of sorts: with my parents coming to town we are planning on visiting some of our favorite spots in the country before departing at the end of May. As we have reflected on this incredible year the three of us have made a mental list of some of the things that we will miss most. So in no particular order here are some of the things that we will be sorry to leave behind:

The liklihood of photo opportunities like this one will be gravely missed, as will the ubiquity of elephants.


I've gotten a lot of comments about this one (for instance my dad starts every Skype call with "Shaun, do they not have barbers in Thailand?"), but I will miss not having to cut my hair. I will also miss this shirt, which is actually quite stylish in Thailand (or so the lady at the market told me before I bought it).

This really doesn't show anything I'll miss, we're taking Maisy with us. I just wanted to throw this picture in.


The fruit. This lychee tree growing in our front yard has been the source of many delicious breakfasts as I run out the door to work.


My research. Pictured here is one of the villages that we visited as a part of the study that I am involved with this year.

The extra play time. I am a big fan of medical school, for this reason I decided to pursue a medical education. And yet I can't help but notice that we all have a little bit more free time in Thailand than we had while in school in Chicago.


The opportunity to pursue new hobbies: the greater portion of free time allowed us to each cultivate new talents. For Dianna this was yoga classes taught nightly at Chiang Mai University, for me it was playing the banjo (see below), and for Maisy it was weaving her way through all the other students in her Mom's yoga class during the several times that we went to observe Dianna in action.

Let the red-neck jokes begin...


The people and culture: we will definitely miss the distinct flavor that Thai culture added to our lives, like orange clad Buddhist monks out early in the morning collecting alms...


...or the people from the Northern Hilltribes gathering at some of the local temples...


...or our friend Nuk, who has answered a ridiculous number of ridiculous questions about things that we didn't understand when we arrived here (for example it was Nuk that taught us that it was okay for 12-year olds to be driving motorcycles on their own).

Last but not least we will miss these two guys. I know they already made their appearance in Dianna's post last week, and typically we try to restrict everyone's 15 minutes of fame to just one entry, but moves like these necessitate attention in multiple entries. It's hard to have a bad day when you have Thailand's two-man version of the Jackson five dancing from dawn until dusk (or whenever the beer runs out) just steps away from your front porch. For reasons that should now be obvious I refer to the gentleman on the right as Tito, and the one on the left as Jermaine.

Songkran Festival

Last week was Thai New Year, which in our corner of the world is the biggest and most beloved holiday of the year. It falls in the hottest, driest time of the year so accordingly, in order to celebrate Thais have a nation-wide water fight. This is a water fight like none we have ever seen before.
First of all, the entire city participates in the mayhem. The streets are filled with people who are equipped with water guns, hoses, buckets, and anything else that will hold water. People waiting on the streets with water are often dancing to music as they wait to drench people going by on foot, scooter, or car. Those in cars keep their windows up. Those on scooters are completely soaked. Those in trucks fill their truck bed with water and soak those waiting on the side of the road. It's a whole lot of water!
Secondly, the festival lasts for an entire week and for at least three of those days, you cannot go outside during the hours of 10a.m to 10 p.m. without expecting to get drenched.
Third, the water festival is no respecter of persons. The elderly, babies, professionals in suits...it's doesn't matter. If you choose to go outside during this time, you are choosing to get soaked. And, you CANNOT get upset about it (since it is all in good fun).
Without further ado, we give you the Songkran Water Festival. Keep in mind, cameras don't really mix well with big water fights, so these shots are a bit distant and very mild compared to the areas where the guys with the really big hoses were located.


The dousing of an unfortunate biker



Luckily this picture was taken within the safety of our own car.



We decided to head out to the street to try our hand at water throwing. Maisy is refilling her plastic Tupperware out of our trash can (which was full of water). Needless to say, our supplies looked pretty meager comparatively.



I love the look on this man's face...it's so sweet, especially when considering we were coming towards him with a bowl of water.



The classic water gun to the head approach.


And last, but definitely not least, a picture captured by Shaun of a couple of Thais showing off some pretty sweet dance moves to pump themselves up for hours more of water-throwing. (These guys were on our corner for three days, all day long, singing, dancing, and throwing water. I'm not sure how they did it, but I think beer and the sweet sounds of Thai hip-hop had something to do with it.)

Our trip to 'Nam

Last week the Odell tour of Asia rolled on--this time to Vietnam. We never anticipated having an interest in visiting Vietnam as it is always portrayed as a war-torn, depressing country. However, we kept hearing fellow travellers and friends talk it up, so we decided to give it a shot. As it turned out, Vietnam was probably the most vibrant and culturally distinct country that we have visited thus far, as well as one of the most beautiful.

We started off in Hanoi, the capitol city located in the North of Vietnam. One thing we noticed first off was that Hanoi was a crazy-busy city. About 90% of the vehicles on the road are motorcycles and they literally drive every which way with seemingly no respect for traffic laws, sidewalks or pedestrians. Another charming part of this was that Vietnamese drivers LOVE their horns and will keep one hand on the wheel and one hand on the horn, honking almost continuously. I think they feel it is their patriotic duty to ensure that someone is always honking a horn. Any self-respecting Vietnamese person has also installed a souped up horn, such as a friendly melody, or my favorite, a horn that gradually fades away (although sadly horns that play 'la cucaracha' have not yet made it to this corner of the world). Crossing the street was a little terrifying at first. Basically you step out into the road and the motorcycles swarm around you as you cross. It took a couple of days for us to get used to the method behind this madness.


One of the highlights of our stay in Hanoi, was a trip that we took to the Perfume Pagoda, a complex of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the karst cliffs of the "Mountain of the Fragrant Trees"(sounds like a place straight out of Princess Bride, right?--"behold the cliffs of insanity"). We took a small row boat along a river that was nestled between limestone cliffs and rice paddies.

Maisy loved the hour long boat ride, especially when she found that if she waved and smiled at boats passing by, they would throw her a choco-pie.















The pagodas/caves were really busy, as we happened to be there during the second lunar month which meant that thousands of Buddhist pilgrims were also there for some type of festival. We stopped at one of the many thousands of food stalls/restaurants that lined the way up to the pagodas. Nearly every restaurant had a large array of skinned and dried animals there to welcome you. I'll let you use your imagination to determine which animals are shown below (and yes, skinned cat was one of the favorites--seen here on the far left).


After three days in Hanoi, we headed East to the coast of Vietnam and went on a traditional Vietnamese 'junk' (boat) cruise of Halong Bay. Halong Bay is one of those amazing places on earth that is impossible to describe in words. We are finding that pictures just don't do it justice either. Imagine 3000 or more limestone karsts and islands jutting out of the peaceful bay as far as the eye can see. We cruised on the boat for two days and admired the scenery as it stretched on and on before us. The overcast weather (which is typical year round) made it a little misty, adding to the magical and ethereal feel of the landscape.




The "Junk" we stayed on was beautiful, and despite it's name, very fancy...complete with rooftoop lounge chairs, delicious seafood, and massages for all (even for Maisy who convinced her Dad that she too needed one).

These are some pictures of the locals who live in Halong Bay. I can't imagine a more picturesque place to live! Below is a picture of a floating village that we stopped at.

After two days at sea, Maisy proved that she was "sea-worthy" and the captain let her try her hand at the wheel for a while. The video below makes us think that Maisy may someday pursue a career as a pirate, judging by how natural (and maniacal) she seemed behind the wheel.


As the final part of our cruise we stayed a day and a night on Catba, the largest island, and one of the many national parks located in Halong Bay. We went on an amazing hike through the jungle when we first arrived to a tower located on one of the tallest of the islands many mountains. Our guide was a local islander who may just have been the Vietnamese Tarzan. Maisy loved him because he was constantly doing something really funny like creating musical instruments out of branches and leaves or suddenly swinging 50 ft in the air from the vines.


View from the top of Catba National Park

The beautiful views from the summit seemed like a fitting climax to our trip. Shortly thereafter we were driven back to Hanoi, from where we returned to Chiang Mai.


Hey Dan...Jellyfish, by Shaun

Sook Sun Wan Gerd Dianna!

In the Odell household we get the two biggest holidays of the year out of the way in March--St. Patrick's Day and Dianna's birthday. While normally we devote blog space to completely meaningless material (like ranting about flagrantly foul fruit) I'm taking a step back in honor of the latter of these important days. Today being Dianna's birthday this seemed like a good chance to list some of Dianna's qualities that Maisy and I have the privilege of having in our lives. Without further ado some of our favorite things about Dianna, displayed pictorially:

Just so we're clear, amongst the many God given gifts with which Dianna has been blessed, the one that initially kicked off the process of me 'wooing' her was the fact that she was smoking hot. I know that isn't politically correct, but just to get that out in the open it was the hotness people, the hotness.


Along with good looks, she is also ridiculously smart. She graduated with a 4.0 from her Masters program at the University of Illinois after receiving a full ride scholarship. She is the Albert Einstein of the Social Work world.


Regardless of what we're doing, or in what corner of the world we find ourselves Dianna always has a good time. Being around someone this upbeat is always contagious.


She's also just plain likable. It's very common for me to come home from work and hear a story about how Dianna and Maisy made some new friend at the park, or at a restaurant. People just like her.


While this has led to an embarrassing number of setbacks in our personal racquetball competitions, Dianna is really athletic. In my defense she did play on the racquetball team at our undergrad (Brigham Young University)


See the picture regarding 'hotness' above.


Dianna is also really adventurous. Even well into her pregnancy she was still scaling rocks at Acadia national park (see below), or biking, or kayaking, or braving Chicago's subzero temperatures on her way to restore order to the dialysis unit at Mt. Sinai hospital.


Seriously, even pregnancy didn't cause her to miss a beat. The night before she went into labor we walked 6 miles through a winter's night in Chicago.


One of things that I appreciate most is how good a conversationalist she is. We haven't been married an extremely long time, but 4+ years has been long enough to get through a host of important topics ranging from who she thought would win in a death match between Walt on 'Lost' and our crazy Korean neighbor here in Chiang Mai, or whether or not it would be good for Maisy to learn to ride a motorcycle. Here's to many more years of good conversation.


This post seemed like a good time to catch up on events that occurred before we started blogging. A little over a year ago, in a 30 hour labor-a-thon that left me marveling at just what an incredible wife I have, Dianna became a mother. Newborn Maisy weighed just a shade below nine pounds (which seems even heavier when you factor in Dianna's 100 lbs plus small change normal weight).


Mothering has come to her naturally and all of the sweet characteristics of our little girl I attribute to the time and effort that she puts into making sure that Maisy is well taken care of. On the other hand I am proud to report that it was me that taught Maisy just how funny it is when people burp.



Dianna has without a doubt been the MVP and the glue that has kept our little family so happily stuck together. Whether walking the beaches in Ireland or at home going on bike rides she is always looking out for the two of us.


I also can't imagine a more ideal wife. She has always been cool about taking Maisy to a late night ball game, or letting me take up some random new hobby like learning to play the banjo. As we have gone through the experience of three intensive years of medical school and a year living abroad she has not only never complained, but has always loved and supported every new experience.


Maisy and I also have the privilege of enjoying Dianna's great sense of humor on a daily basis. Wherever Dianna is, and whatever she finds herself doing doubtless hilarity is sure to ensue.


Both Maisy and I count ourselves blessed beyond measure to have Dianna to hang out with all the time. I can't imagine a more perfect companion, or a more devoted mother. Happy Birthday Dianna, we love you.