Erika and I made it through the night without too many problems; we haven’t slept in the same bed since we were children. I woke up with the sun, but Matt and Erika were up early too. We had a lovely breakfast outside on the farm at Mike and Eadie’s. Mike made us a mean breakfast with pancakes, eggs, Canadian bacon, corn from the garden, bacon and banana from the banana trees. It was a peaceful listening to the birds, eating with good company, and sitting right next to the water. We didn’t see any, but learned that they have seen cobra, monitor lizards, rats, and other snakes on the farm. Erika enjoyed playing with the 10 dogs on the property. Eddie and Panda was her favorites, but I liked the black one.

With thousands of acres of rice patties around the farm, it was interesting to see the rice in various stages. Newly plowed fields, newly planted rice, rice that was much taller, and rice starting to brown and get ready to be harvested. We saw the equipment used to level the fields before planting, the men who use something like a leaf blower to disperse the seeds in the fields, and the paper bags tied around the fields to keep the water buffalo out of the fields. Water buffalo are used to plow the fields, and while doing that they are also pooping and fertilizing the fields. Their poo is also collected and sold by some of the farmers.

Two years ago there was a terrible drought in Thailand, and hit the rice farmers very hard, some of the fields no longer plant rice, but grow trees for selling. Diversifying the crops has been good for the economy in these small towns. We saw other crops such as fields of water lillies used during Buddhist prayers.

We arrived back in Bangkok, and had a lovely lite lunch of 60 jiaozi (dumplings), pickled radishes, young green papaya, and cheese puffs, which were all delicious. We were considering going shopping but our bodies were just consumed by the comfortable couches and we didn’t want to get up. So we chilled, napped, wrote blogs, and watched a movie. We needed this.

Tonight we’re having Mikes famous Thai lasagna. Actually Mike is known for pulling our legs, and Erika believed that it was Thai, but it’s just lasagna. Tomorrow we leave this beautiful country with its beautiful people for 24 hours on a plane. And while we’re not ready for the flight, we all are ready to be home.