The Hamletts’ Blog

Sawatdee Bee Mai!

Happy New Year everyone! We can hardly believe it is 2009! 10 years ago, Bobby and I first started “dating” – hard to really imagine! Nonetheless, the Lord has been good to us and we’re looking forward to a new year!

For New Year’s Eve, we decided to spend some time with Bobby’s family. PNid has some friends/coworkers who sell beside her at the night market who invited all of us to a lake! We were excited to truly experience a Thai New Year party, even though we weren’t really sure what that entailed! Around 11am, PNid, PSeua, PJenn (friend), James (cousin), Urn (little girl), Bobby and I all packed into the truck to set off on our unknown adventure.

Katie, PNid, and PJenn

We traveled for about 20 minutes, and then turned off of the main highway onto a dirt road. We then traveled out into the middle of nowhere – about 20 more minutes away from all civilization. No houses, no stores, no other people. We were alone, somewhere in the twisting woods! We came upon a lake where a little gazebo was built. PNid’s friends from the market were already there and had everything set up. It was beautiful!

We started to unload our truck – mats, some food stuff, snacks, chairs, a computer? Was there even electricity out here? Not really sure how since there was nothing within a 10 mile radius, but sure enough there was! We settled in and started fishing – Thai style! The thing I love most about fishing in Thailand is that it’s pretty quick! You really don’t have to sit there for more than about 10 seconds before you get a bite. There were fish EVERYWHERE! The thing I did not like was the nasty fish bate! You had to reach in, get a big ol’ handful and squish it together in your palm around this metal coil on the fishing line. And I’ll tell you what - it was not the most pleasant odor!

After realizing we had no running water or antibacterial soap, we “roughed” it and washed our hands in the lake. Truly Thai style! Fishing was so much fun though! We thought it was all for fun and game, then we realized the fish that we were catching were being sent straight over to the “slaughter table” where they were killed, gutted, stuffed, and grilled – all in a matter of minutes! Doesn’t get much fresher than that!

It was pretty cool! Meanwhile, PNid and her friends were preparing the feast! Making homemade som-thom (a papaya salad - one of Bobby’s favorites if it’s not too spicy!), cutting up the beef and intestines, grilling the fresh fish, washing the vegetables in the lake water – they were very busy! We ate and truly enjoyed it! Throughout the entire day until midnight, we fished, ate, sang some karaoke on PNid’s computer, and ate some more, fished again, napped, sang, fished… and so one until 1 am when we left to go home! We had such a great time and just enjoyed the quality time with PNid and everyone!

We posted some videos on YouTube of the fishing trip - To watch, you have to copy/paste the link into your browser!

View of the fishing site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR89v2TIO2E

Baiting the hook & prepping the fish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41g6nqIdtaU

**If copy/paste doesn’t work, you can go to YouTube.com and type “thehamletts” in the search bar. Two videos will appear at the top of the page called “New Years 360″ and “Bait and Prep 0001″**

School is back in session and we’re winding down the weeks until we come home! We’re spending a lot of our days rehearsing for Beauty and the Beast – a play that the drama class is going to be performing the night we leave to go to Bangkok (Jan 31st)! Bobby is starring as Gaston! And I will be Mrs. Potts! We’re working on costumes and lines and haven’t gotten too far with either! But we’re excited to be a part of it!

So we will try to post one before we leave Khon Kaen! Our flight is scheduled to arrive on the 3^rd of Feb at night. It will be sad to leave all our new friends and family, but we are excited to get home and see everyone we miss so dearly!

Bye for now! =)

Katie and Bobby