This is the end.....beautiful friend, the end

So this is my farewell blog.....my last night of this amazing trip. I can barely believe what these last few magnificent months have entailed. This trip has been everything....and the most amazing experience of my life.....and I say this without hesitation. Traveling alone is the best thing that anyone can do for themselves, without a doubt. If ever life leaves you in an utterly hopeless quandary I would suggest to pick up, pack your bags and get to India.....or Brazil....or just somewhere that gets you outside of yourself. And if life has left you with no quandary what so ever, then all the more reason to go. Traveling is amazing.
You know one time when I was younger my aunt Chrissy said maybe this world isn't so big and when you go in an airplane they just shake you around for a while and pop! They say, "Now your in France, or Poland, or Russia." And yes at some points during this, and definitely towards the end, it felt like this. I mean what a brilliant little box, that has allowed us to bop all over this planet. And meet people from all over the world who are doing exactly the same thing. Young minds full of curiosity and a general faith that the universe, God, the Buddha, or the Lonely Planet, will help us to find what we were looking for. And in everything I saw, learned, experienced on this journey, the most brilliant part of it all was to discover the incandescence that exists within me.....and finding what makes it, shatters it and causes it to blossom. I have fallen more in love with life and this glorious world we live in then I ever have been.
My mind is brimming with ideas for my classroom, and the mundane pleasures of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area leave me with so much gratitude. My family and friends are the most exciting and beautiful people and I am so blessed to have this loving network of people.....that extend from San Francisco to New Mexico, and San Diego to Portland.....and now that network has expanded to every facet of the globe. My life is full and I feel so anxious to share everything that this trip has given me. I can't wait to be home and in the loving arms of my darling Jason and all of you too. So I arrive in San Francisco Tuesday morning and I would love to see each and every one of you....I have a million stories that I'm just bursting to tell!

And then I ate dog....

Well, so going from the strict vegetarian diet, I had acquired through yoga, to the all meat diet of my friends in Beijing was a bit of a shock to the system.....and of all of the fabulous meat dishes I've had in my life I now must say that dog meat is the most tasty little dish I have ever had! Now once you get past the, oh no a cute little puppy, and just focus on the pure pleasure of their tasty bodies you'll understand what I mean by YUMMY! Yes, the meat is a bit fatty, but oh so tender. Tony seemed to think that this restaurant may have been trying to pass off dogmeat, a delicacy, for simple beef.....like the opposite of what Chinese restaurants in the states are known for....but I'm sure this was no beef...and the menu said dogmeat.....but you know it was written in Chinese, like everything else.

Getting by in China with no understanding of the language is something I would not recommend. I mean no one speaks English at all....and everyone speaks to you in Chinese. And I look like I should be able to, so this only adds to the difficulty. China is a place that I'm very glad I came to, knowing someone and having a place to stay. And Tony has been the most brilliant host. The weather has been ungodly....it snowed the first night I was here. And so now after this little taste of Chinese culture, and Chinese chow chow, he he, I'm headed home in the morning. It was short, but oh so sweet!

I'm so glad I missed my flight!

So I missed my flight from Bangkok to Beijing......you know at first I was freaking out, hysterical panic attack mode.....you know the usual. Then some of my meditation training kicked in, along with a visit to the gym and then the realization comes that everything happens for a reason....and the reason for this fiasco was that I had no idea how crazy fun Bangkok is! The best way to see Bangkok is to make friends with a few rickshaw and taxi drivers, and ask them to take you some place good.....our first purpose for taking a cab was A. the air conditioning and B. to get as far from Ko San Road as possible. The cab driver took us on this crazy long ride around the city and eventually we ended up at a crazy Thai restaurant, but you know the kind that are made for tourists. Anyway from there we were instructed to go to this all night market where there was boxing and ping pong shows....so we went. What we didn't realize, and were astonished to come upon were..... well...... ping pong pussy shows, strip tease boy bands, girly men, eatable roaches, which Marty tried, racing rickshaws, all night thai whiskey rickshaw rides and the rest I'm going to have to leave to your imagination.....or I'll tell you in person...anyway needless to say this turned out to be one of the craziness nights of this wild Cheyenne's life, too much fun.

And with every ounce of will power in me I made it from that lovely pub on Ko San to the madness of the Bangkok airport....and onto the next flight to Beijing. And wow if Bangkok to Beijing wasn't shocking enough. I had to add all of these extenuating circumstances just to get the full effect of the China culture shock! And then I ate dog....

Goodbye Bangkok, Hello Beijing

So it is my final night in Bangkok.....and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. Coming from India causes everything here to severely pale in comparison, but I guess that's not really fair since it is like apples and oranges. My friends from San Francisco just arrived and they have been noticing the salesmen, pollution, and toilet situation among other things that are difficult to deal with. And to every observation they have made I up the ante with...."Well in India", which is actually starting to annoy me. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to want to go anywhere else. Or perhaps I end up like one of those 30 something English folk who have been to India a dozen times. I guess we'll have to see who things work out, one can never guess.

But besides the comparison with India I am overly anxious to get out of Bangkok. This is a tourist trap if I ever saw one. Luckily Jamie and Marty are an entertaining pair, so my last day is turning out quite well. We went to Wat Pho today, which was really the one place I really want to see before I left. In it there is a gigantic sleeping Buddha, which is truly brilliant. We had a lovely day, and Marty made me start to feel like a bit of a Buddhist expert with the millions of questions he had. It's interesting running into old friends and getting some indication of how I've changed......and haven't. Traveling alone it's just you looking at you. It's interesting now to see myself through their eyes. It's very heartening. I have made baby steps towards improving my lifestyle and ways of thinking about things, and it feels good to see the difference.....the subtle changes. And besides that it's just wonderful to be with old friends. It feels like sooooo long since I've seen a familiar face. So we are off to some highly recommended restaurant which Jamie has on her list of "things you must do in Thailand". I just had to squeeze one last Thailand blog in. Next I will be telling all about my fly by night ideas about Beijing and then home!.....oh this trip is ending so soon I can barely believe I'll be home in a week!!