Congratulations, Africa!

The lovely country of Benin on the West Coast of Africa has at least one more amazing resident as of yesterday: Miss Meredith Magin (recently of West Tisbury).

We were all pretty devastated to see her go, but I was happy to get to go to Great Rock Bight with the Peace Corps' soon-to-be most valued volunteer before she de-patriated.

Here's a frolic:



And a reminder to stay the course:



And friends:



YOU ARE MISSED!!

Love to all,
Paige

Koh Samet: Part Deux

Hellooo --

Had a really nice and sunny weekend on Koh Samet. Here are a couple of pics from the little bungalow we stayed in (and not to rub it in - but I have to mention that it was about $7.50 each for a night, ha) :::





And here is my friend Rachel who I went with and I on the boat back to Ban Phe where the ferries leave from:



I'm now officially on vacation, and off to a very strong start relaxing. In fact, I was so dedicated to resting up that I slept through the alarm at 3:45 this morning that was supposed to wake me up so that I could get on a 5am bus to Cambodia for a visa run. Oops. Guess I'll go tomorrow instead.

I'm also going to be celebrating Christmas with the Mastaches on the 26th instead of the 25th, because their younger daughter lives in Portland and the airport was shut down because of the snow! I'm not especially attached to the 25th, so not to worry about -- kind of nice to have an extra day to relax before all that exhaustive present opening and eating, ha.

Hope you're all well!

Love,
Paige

Back to the Beach

Heading to Koh Samet again for the weekend tomorrow morning. Really psyched.

love to you all,
Paige

Ko Samed; Koh Samet

One fun thing about English in Thailand is that there are often no "correct" spellings for the names of places. Koh Samet (Ko Samed) - the island where I went this past weekend - falls into this category.

However you want to spell it, the island was great, close to Bangkok, and the weekend didn't cost too much more than staying in the city.

The bus out there was about 3 hours, and then there was an hour-long ferry ride. The ferry had beach chairs for seats.

I went with four other folks - and they were all really nice. Everyone was just very ready to sit on the beach, read, and breathe in some cleaner air.

The island wasn't too busy, but wasn't desolate either. Had some really good spicy papaya salad and really had to try hard not to pet the very cute, homeless beach-dogs.

Here are some pics of the fishing village near where the ferry dropped us off on the mainland, the group I went with, and the beach:







I think I'll try to make a beach-trip about once a month while I'm here..

Alright. Bedtime.

Love to you all!
-Paige