Holidays at Pun Pun

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I must admit that Christmas at Pun Pun was definitely my best Christmas yet... not like I've had many to compare...

Everyone here got pretty into it actually. The Christmas tree, as you can see, is made from bamboo - Leah and Josh got it from the nearby bamboo forest. We all made presents and wrapped them up and then drew numbers to see who would pick first. It was all very fun and people were quite creative with their gifts.

We then ate ridiculous amounts of food. Replicating western food seems to be a pastime here for the foriegners since it's a fun challenge to try and make due with limited ingredients. Peggy tried to make pumpkin pie, but it didn't quiet work out. Her mashed potatoes were excellent. Everything somehow still tasted distinctly Thai thought (still very delicious nevertheless). I made pizzas with cheese (a hot comodity) that someone brought back from Chiang Mai.

PiBen also killed one of the ducks the day before for the Christmas feast. A few of us were really interested in watching him do it.... this is a whole other story, but I definitely think that despite it’s wonderful life at Pun Pun the duck most likely suffered greatly in death... I’m only guessing since after PiBen sliced open it’s throat and drained most of its blood (we all thought it was dead at this point) it got up and dashed down the road. We all stood there horrified as PiBen chased after it. It was pretty gross... but all in all, not as bad as I thought it would be... I even helped pluck out the feathers and watched as he took out the guts and cleaned them...

Anyway, we baked everything in our new oven - which works like a charm. Julia and I added the final decorative layer (roots and leaves) just a few days ago. It looks really beautiful.

After stuffing ourselves with mass amounts of food and booze (homemade ricewine and passion-fruit wine) we had a bit of a dance party and ended the evening off by blasting some indian music that Michel put on. A good time was had by all and I think everyone was very satifsfied.

This is just a small small sliver of what's been happening here. I'll try and post more pictures. I'm now off to meet Yona in Bangkok (which has been described to me by people at Pun Pun as hell...)

Oh yeah... this last picture is of Michel's precious Kyrgyzstani melon. He is very protective of it. Michel is the resident seed-saving guru at Pun Pun and this melon was grown from seeds he brought back while traveling in the "stans". He says it will weigh 8 kilos when it finishes growing.

ok that's it for now.

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Photos

L'oven
...so proud...

from the l'oven
Pizza.. so good.. If I may say so myself... Ginger told me that I should open a pizza shop in Chiang mai... :)

Michel's Kyrgastani melons
Planeted from seed which he brought back from Kyrgastan (sp?)