and also, i have ringworm.

after 2+ weeks of travelling, kyle and i finally arrived in the little town of pai to begin our second home stay on a small farm growing coffee beans and fruit. we took a 4 hour bus ride from chiang mai and telephoned our host named...

wait for it...

willow ironhorse.

we probably should have taken this as an early warning sign, but we didn't.

upon meeting willow, he immediately launched into a detailed analysis of our chinese zodiac signs. he would refer back to peoples' signs later in conversation, which was sometimes disorienting. ie "you'll have to meet my wife. she's such a pig."

willow believes that the us government engineered every major domestic disaster over the past 200 years, including pearl harbor and 9/11. he cannot justify living in the states for this reason. somehow, he still manages to justify living off a government check. go figure.

willow is (literally) twice as old as his akha wife, buti, who gives him sponge baths and cuts his fungal-infested toenails.

willow did way too much lsd in the sixties, seventies, and probably eighties.

to top it off, this didn't turn out to be a homestay, so much as a "you can camp on my land if you want while i live in town and occasionally treat you to my crazy lectures." this is fine, but it isn't what we were expecting. luckily, there is a healthy cast of characters also crashing on willow's farm, which is making for an interesting experience.

1. australian couple. normal, smart, funny, similarly disillusioned as to the homestay/labor exchange aspect of this opportunity. we get along.

2. ceb, the french expert in thai boxing. extreme alpha male, but friendly so long as you don't piss him off. when he isn't hauling tree-sized logs and tilling the garden, he's packing a bowl (i've never seen anyone smoke this frequently - he seems to have an inexhaustible supply and tolerance).

3. mike. we think he's thai. mostly what he does is come over during the day and smoke ceb's weed.

4. the malaysian prince (we're pretty sure). he has come to the farm to study thai boxing with ceb, which is unfortunate, because ceb can't stand the sight of him. occasionally, ceb will lose it and confront him verbally in front of everyone ("you need to shut your mouth!") which is pretty unconfortable, but mostly he just gets the poor guy drunk and then beats the shit out of him during "training."

there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of work to do on the farm, so i'm not sure if we'll stay a full week. perhaps we'll move on early or explore chiang mai a little more thoroughly. for now, we're still collecting stories, so we'll stick around. :)

hope all is well back home (in babylon, as willow would say, frequently).

<3 audrey