Goodbye host family, hello freedom

---

I'm deleting the text from my old travel blogs here, but leaving the pictures for posterity. Or something.

---

Photos

From across the street
Our lane is pretty narrow - I took this picture leaning up against the gate across street. It's hard to capture what the outside of the house really looks like, what with the gate and the trees.

In front of the house
This is our front "yard" if you want to call it that, though there isn't any grass, taken from just inside the gate. Pee Nong is really into animals, and fish in particular. There are a few different fish tanks out front, and all the potted plants actually have fish living in the pots. Um, it's hard to explain. But trust me. And on the left there are guinea pigs living in cages. And on the right there's a table and some rock-hard couches.

From on top of the house
We've got this deck kind of a thing on top of the house, which no one ever goes on. I climbed up there to take this picture, standing on the ledge you can see in the other picture, holding onto the flagpole. This is the view of our lane from the top of the house.

The bane of my existence.
This is one of the three dogs that live in our back yard. As in, they live right outside my bedroom window, and they bark all night. I want to poison their food.

Our kitchen.
This is where Pee Nong makes strange miracles happen. The lady's got some serious culinary skill.

Living room
This living room is just overflowing with stuff. My family is huge on photographs, and there are pictures absolutely everywhere. There's this huge one of the King that I should really take a picture of - it's hilariously big. Note the altar above the TV. And there's another one to the right of it, and a third that you can't see in this picture.

My room
I have a bed the size of Atlanta. You could fit a family of five in it. Literally - the whole family used to sleep in it.

Me
Hey look - it's me! After one of the many showers that I take in this country. I'm making up for all those years of slacking.

My squatty potty
By special request: my toilet. I was pretty confused by it at first - there's no flush. Just a bucket of water... And what's that scoop for? And where's the toilet paper...? So, um, I bought my own TP.

Me and the Tank
This is unrelated. But Ashlee and I went out for a drink and, after we finished the first jug in about 3 minutes, the waitress asked if we'd like a "tank". She couldn't speak English well enough to tell us what exactly a "tank" was, but we gathered that it was beer, so we ordered one. It turned out to be this: almost 4 litres of beer... And we didn't leave a drop.

Comments

[anonymous]

Hi Amanda
Hi, its dad, loved the story about the dog and the move looks like one that will give you more freedom but maybe at the cost of some connection to the the culture through the family that you were staying with. Love the photography, and the comments. Whats up with the job? Life much the same back home , will try and call on Sunday comming. Love u, keep it comming.

[anonymous]

I Miss You!!!!!
Dude, You are such an adventurous woman. I'm glad to hear that you're having fun. if you send me some sort of address and i can send you some sort of care package. i miss you and love you and can't wait until you get back! Vixxx