Ramblin' in Mongolia

Hello friends and family! First off I want to say I am alive and well. Secondly, sorry for the extremely long delay since my last post. As some of you may or may not know, I went to Bangkok, Thailand at the beginning of January for arthroscopic surgery on my shoulder. I injured it wrestling/slipping on the ice last November and after a couple months of no activity and no improvement, I went into UB for a MRI and it was revealed I had a torn labrum muscle. It wasn’t a complete tear (75%) but it was more than enough to warrant a surgery. I spent a week consulting my doctor on options, went through with the surgery, had 3 weeks of physical therapy, and now I’m back in Mongolia. The healing process is coming along and soon I won’t have to wear a sling anymore. As long as I keep up my PT, by the start of summer I should be lifting weights again and near 100% recovered.

While I was in Thailand, I had plenty of down time to see the sites and experience the culture of Bangkok. I couldn’t really leave the city all that much as I had PT everyday and couldn’t stay the night away but I did almost everything there is to do in the city. To try to sum most of it up… I saw the reclining Buddha, the golden Buddha, What Po, What Arun, night markets after night markets, weekend markets, China Town, ate wonderful street Thai food all day everyday, splurged on amazing Western/Mexican/Italian/Chinese/Halal/Lebanese/Iranian/Egyptian food, all the red light districts, ate grasshoppers/crickets/meal worms/ants/cockroaches, cruised the river on a Thai boat, visited the ancient capital, saw the ocean in Pattaya, partied with foreigners on Khao Sung Rd, rode the amazingly efficient sky train (its incredible at what I’m impressed with these days), ate McDonalds breakfast, got massage after massage, drank Guinness, watched the SUPERBOWL, had the best burger of my life, met lots of Thai Peace Corps Volunteers, met up with lots of visiting Mongolian PCVs who were on vacation or also there for medical reasons, took 2 showers everyday, sweated my butt off, got bite by bugs, got a sun tan, and so much more etc etc etc. 

I had a great time but I was very ready to leave I’m so happy to be back in some normal below 0 weather. I came back just in time for the lunar new year celebration of Tsagaan Sar. A recap of that coming up next. Happy Lunar New Year!