Last Day

Today I leave for Bangkok, staying at the airport hotel in preparation for a 7 am flight tomorrow. Will be home Wednesday night and back to work on Thursday.

Still need to pack and possibly buy a few more things -- this is a commercial center after all!



Photo is of my loot. It seems like a lot, but considering the amazing array of handicrafts here -- it's nothing!

Am on final spree. Goodbye to the market with piles of fish paste, curries, and everything you could imagine. Check out tea service at raming tea house.

Toads, Rats, Shopping, Food

I spent the day walking. Well, first I had an aruyvedic spa treatment where the physician told me that I was VERY stressed (this after three weeks of vacation) and that I needed to laugh and cry more. I will work on that.

But after the treatment (which included limo service in the Jazz (Thai version of Honda FIT), I set out walking. I wish I'd clocked the miles. Can I count the number of tuk tuk drivers who asked if I needed a ride? Anyhow, I wandered and wandered and did at least 5 miles if not more, all in my flip flops.

This is what I saw:

a beautiful, friendly, screw-tailed Thai cat. Can I take it home to replace the hostile felines in my own home?

Cigarettes with pictures of deformities caused by tobacco on their covers.

A Wat embedded in a neighborhood. It's so complicated, the religious life and the secular. Reminds me of Italy with all the churches...



but what of the frogs and rats?

Yesterday I went to the "Sunday Walking SStreet." Thoustands of vendors. On the way, a rat crossed my path. It was not alarming, more amusing. And on the way home, I collided with a toad. My foot touched it as I walked, I screamed a little, and we both realized our mistake and moved on.

Temples, Street Food, Foot Massage

Decided that I must see the Forest Temple. It's located a few kilometers outside of Chiang Mai. I hailed a tuk tuk (after turning down all the aggressive ones, settled on one who seemed less pushy) and we roared through Chiang Mai. Once close to the temple, the chattering of the cicadas was deafening. I don't know how you can live with the background noise. I did record this sound, with a prayer session in the background. The temple itself was not particularly interesting - the ones in Chiang Mai are very beautiful. But they have meditation caves. Included is a pic of the caves with a dog sleeping next to a statue of the Buddha.

We moved onto the Chiang Mai cultural museum. It was kind of interesting and the descriptions explained why I have no problem with directions in the city -- it is laid out on the cardinal points. So, even though the streets meander crazily, I usually have a sense of where I am in spite of its flatness. I did wonder though, about the Khmers. Since the Khmers ruled much of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam until 1200, I wonder why no mention. The Lanna kingdom didn't really get off the ground until 1400. Is that why?

I also realized today that nearly every cat I've seen is tiny, pretty, and has half a tail. Sometime the half is in a little corkscrew or worse. Since the cats are neglected (compared to the pedigreed dogs), I assume their tails were not cosmetically whacked. I had wondered if they were all lost in fights. But no, too many half-tailed cats. I promise I will look this up and share photos.

After the touring, I decided on a holy foot massage. I went to the Temple where they use massage as a fundraiser. $4.00 for a one-hour massage and it was quite lovely.

After this, I wandered around the old city for a few hours waiting for the Saturday silver market to begin at 4. This market was wonderful. I visited many silver shops and picked out many bracelets I wanted, but had no money to pay for them. I must return. The most wonderful part of the market was the street food. Four stars and I was sorry I didn't have the appetite to try everything.

They had Maeng Kam (bits of onion, lime, peanuts, etc. rolled up in a leaf), Takoyaki (see photo), beautiful Kaoi Soy pots (I will take photos at tomorrow's night market), and another dish I tried, but did not catch the name of. And there was more. Most of the markets seemed to be local. There were tourists, but mostly locals. I felt like I had been somewhere, but of course bought nothing except for food.

Returning back to my beautiful hotel, I took a long swim. Really nice pool, must take pics.

Chiang Mai; Street Food Bravado

After years of fearfulness about buying street food in Asia, I am cured! It was the visit to Bangkok's Chinatown that did it, too. Last time I was in Chiang Mai, I found the market (near Chinatown) overwhelming. How does one order when all the menus are in Thai and no one speaks English? How do we figure this out? Well, all alone, I marched into the food area. There were some temporary vendors with little hot plates and bowls and others looking more established with more complicated cooking rigs. I chose one of the small vendors. It seemed to be soup (yes, I have a sore throat). I picked out my ingredients (no to intestines, no to liver, yes to tofu and chicken). He filled up my bowl and the ladies sat me at a table with bowls of basil and bean sprouts. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The soup was delicious and burned my throat, which I think is a good thing.

The rest of the day I roamed around getting gear to make ginger tea. I should have hauled out the google translator because perhaps they were selling ginger tea at the market.

I also had a hot oil massage. You know the face hole in a message table? They had a bowl of flowers so you have something pretty to look at during your massage. Isn't that just too sweet?

My hotel has no TV, so I am a little nervous about this Burma earthquake. It is quite close to Chiang Mai -- I don't know why I didn't feel it -- perhaps I was flying at the time.

Tonight I am having Kiao Soy for dinner (a local Chiang Mai treat) and going to the night market for a little while. I am gong to need more books....

Bangkok, Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Bangkok is a crazy city that prompted us to hold hands while running across every street since it was never obvious when to cross. The streets are filled with motorcycles, motorcycle cabs, tuk tuks, cabs, and cars. In addition, most of the sidewalks are filled with vendors leaving very little room for clearance.

Our hotel room was pretty amazing for the price -- a suite with two very large rooms and a kitchenette. I had every intention of sorting through my backpack (where only the top layer has been accessed for over a week), but ended up unstuffing and stuffing.

We sat on the river breathing diesel fumes at dusk and then moved onto Chinatown where we successfully bought and ate a meal on the sidewalk. Chinatown is nothing like U.S. and Canadian Chinatowns -- merchandise is mostly wholesale, and most restaurants are in the street (literally). The cats are all tailless and hungry and saw a number of desperate beggars. It is a lot to take in.

Today was a bit calmer. We started with a trip to Jim Thompson, the high end Thai silk manufacturer. After buying a few very expensive things, we walked to the Oriental -- the classic old hotel frequented by Joseph Conrad, Grahame Greene and others. We walked into the cafe and had a few drinks on the water. Everything was very five star - catch the photo of just one of the many orchid arrangements in the lobby.

Relaxed and rested, I ran through the gem stores. Most of them import from Afghanistan and Pakistan and are filled with all manner of beads and stones the size of bricks. I managed to pick out a few things, knowing I was paying too much. But then I am not a wholesaler, so was satisfied with enough for my personal use.

Right now I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Chiang Mai. I was able to get a roundtrip ticket for less than $100 - I think I paid twice three years ago.

I may stay in Chiang Mai, but am toying with a sidetrip to a place called Pai, a bit further away.

Please note, KFC sign is from Bangkok and a response to son Max's KFC sign from Prague.

toddles.

Koh Chang to Bangkok

We are in paradise. We have a private jungle and beach. The island is a bit deserted considering it is still the high season -- apparently tourism is down here. Not much to report -- reading (Born to Run), relaxation, eating Thai food.

The most exciting event was a giant lizard siting in the duck coupe in our private jungle. A thunderstorm had just blown through and I was walking past the coupe where a lizard at least three feet long rested on the fence. He looked at me, moved his little lizard head left and right and then scampered over the fence. There are many, many little geckos here, but I find it a bit unsettling to know I might run across this critter another time.

Kampot to ko Chang

We bought seats on a minivan from our kind hotel owner. Throughout the trip, I and then Barbara and I have been very careful to ensure that we get a full seat, that minivan will not be filled with chickens, etc. or that our minivan is not the back of a truck. Perhaps we were too relaxed after successfully traveling through Cambodia for several days.

And in fact, we were picked up by a clean minivan from our hotel. It seemed propitious. But then we were told that there was a mixup with the time and actually we would be taking a bus that left 30 minutes later. We loaded our things on the bus. A few minutes later we were asked to get off the bus. Our things were then loaded onto the back of a minivan already groaning with freight (see picture). In fairness, we started out with a full seat each, but the mini was packed pretty full. That would have been fine, but then our driver continued to pick up passengers. My traveling companion is a bit anxious, so at every stop I kept asking if she wanted to get off and catch a cab. She said no, I'll be okay. But when the driver stopped for a passenger along the road, she snapped and insisted on getting off. From there, she argued with the driver. He said, "this is how we travel in Cambodia." We begged him to call us a tuk tuk since we were quite far from Kampot at this point and had all our luggage.

Eventually he relented, gave us our bags, called a tuk tuk who took us back to our "nice" hotel owner. We figure several deals had been made as we were sold from one carrier to the other. Everyone made money here.

The hotel owner, who is from Ireland and looks like Mr. Bean, arranged a cab for us. A driver picked us up, but then took us to another location and picked up our real driver. Afterwards he filled the tank of the camry. It was jerry-rigged with a gas tank in the trunk, right behind where we were sitting. I had no seatbelt.

The trip across the mountains to the Thai border was terrifying. Our driver was going 60 or more the entire way, and per Cambodian protocol, drove on the wrong side of the road until an oncoming car appeared. I guess this makes passing the many slower vehicles more efficient.

At one point we stopped at a restaurant where another minivan filled with passengers and covered with dead chickens, feathers and all. Really, it looked like the van was wearing a feathered hat.

We eventually made it to the border and passed through easily.

We picked up a shared van with the Europeans who had shared the original minivan with us (four of them, two had been at our hotel, other two took cooking class with us). Several hours later, we were at our beautiful tropical hotel where we had to wake up the manager to get a room.

Cooking Class

The class is held in an outside kitchen. There are children, brothers, sisters, grandmothers coming in an out of the family compound.

Before cooking, we go to the city market to buy ingredients. The market was described to us by our fellow chefs as an open sewer. Not quite true, but the concrete floor has canals carved into it where waste products are placed. Thankfully this is usually bits of vegetables, but the smell, the closeness, and the heat are overwhelming.

There are many live animals for sale -- I saw a woman carrying several ducks by their feet through the market. Chickens sat quietly (terror?) next to their owners, and huge barrels of live fish and eels.

There were even piles of organically grown tobacco.

Back home in the outdoor kitchen, the family helped us chop, grate, dice, the ingredients for our meal. Every dish was seasoned with salt, sugar, bouillon, and oyster sauce, but amazingly they all tasted different. We made: Amok, sour soup, egg rolls, shrimp with fresh peppercorns, and mango salad. By far the most interesting was the shrimp with fresh peppercorns -- we cannot get those fresh peppercorns in the states and they are so delicious.

Kep

Today we rented a tuk tuk (motorcycle with a carriage attached) to take us to Kep. Kep is on the seaside and was settled by the French in the early 1900s. Along the way we stopped at a pepper plantation. The land was rented by locals and had pepper, durian, jackfruit, and mangos growing. The fresh Kampot pepper is amazing and delicious.

Kep is a small town filled with decaying mansions. When the Khmer Rouge came in, all houses were vacated where many still sit. It is shocking that 36 years after the Khmer Rouge took over, the houses still remain. I have read that much of the property has been bought by wealthy foreigners who will develop when the time is right.

We went to the crab market for lunch and ordered crabs and shrimp cooked with fresh Kampot pepper.

Onour return, we stopped at a sea salt farm. Many acres of land is soaked in sea water and allowed to evaporate. The salt is raked off and stored in a shed. All very unsanitary, but then salt in that concentration will kill most anything.

Kampot, Cambodia

Ok, blog does work. I have no idea what the problem was.

Today we are in Kampot, on a river near the ocean. Yesterday we took a minibus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and then a cab from Phnom Penh to Kampot. The photos were taken in the market in the birthplace of Pol Pot. They are of lotus blossoms, and roasted crickets.

It is beautiful here in Kampot. Many of the buildings are still vacant, but on the whole it is quieter and more relaxed. Our hotel is heavenly -- a huge tiled terrace covered with a thatched roof. Room adequate with two large beds. Price: $20/day. We think we will stay in this area until Barbara returns to Bangkok. From there, I will probably head up to Chiang Mai.

Siem Reap

Another trip to a school. This one in a wealthier village. The road to the village passes by the bones of a huge estate -- the Prime Minister is building himself a mansion. Interestingly, Dick (a German we met at Tomoko's dinner party) said that although he is a dictator, he is good because he keeps the warring factions of generals in check. He gives them all the money they want in exchange for keeping a lid on their war-like tendencies.

Anyhow, many of the girls wore jammies. More rotting teeth, but better.

We attended a ceremony at the Small Art School and met some of the older artists. Very fine work.

Afterwards we had a Japanese meal made by Tomoko-san (the founder of the art school). Ai (a Japanese friend) and Yuko were there as well as a German/Japanese couple who live in Siem Reap.

They gave us travel tips for our trip to southern Cambodia.

This morning we go to the school to help the students practice their English pronunciation and then to the Soap Factory!

The flowers in the pick were taken from the window outside the hotel. Jack and the Beanstalk vines growing up the entirety of the building.

Watching updates on situation in Japan. Naoko tells me I may need to cancel trip, but will wait a few more days.

Jammies as Outerwear

We went to two schools. The first, a large complex with several classrooms; the second in a village. At the larger school, I met Em, who is a computer teacher there. The computer lab was filled with mid-nineties computers. He teaches his students Word and PowerPoint. No internet, no wireless, no laptops, just old computers. He said that they had to pay officials a "commission" to get them into the country. The donor was from Singapore (point in fact: Singapore has higher per capita income than U.S.)

The second school is in a village. To get to the village, you need to ride through the ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Along the way are tourists, monkeys carrying babies, and local tourists --20 standing in the back of a truck.

The villages are poor. Bamboo huts, some on stilts, with an open area up front for lounging and eating. Maybe 50 children come for art class. We do an English lesson first, and a Japanese lesson, and then we pass out food. Apparently the kids are all hungry. I found out later, that the first group of kids who got food were the ones who came just for the food. For a time, they had 80 students in class, but it turned out that many of them came for the food only. So they feed them first, those kids go off to eat, and the rest have their art lesson.

The kids all knew some English and we talked about their paintings. The assignment was to draw something they enjoy. All of them drew pictures of fishing (with many fish in the water), with a vegetable garden on the side.

The kids had bad teeth. Some were rotted out (this is a 12-year-old), others were just dirty, really dirty. They mostly wore American clothes, some dirty and ripped, but covered with English phrases. The most interesting trend was the use of jammies as day wear. These are the flannel, warm cuddly kind that we wear in the winter. Check ot the woman in her jammies riding her bike in the photos. The children, aged four to twelve were all very sweet and friendly.

Siem Reap

Photo from the breakfast area next to pool. This hotel is amazing for the $36/night price. And it includes breakfast.

The journey: after a 24 hour ordeal flying from Newark to Bangkok, slept a few hours and then boarded the bus to Aranjapathet, at the border of Cambodia.

The bus ride was uneventful except when the police boarded at a blockade and removed two local men. I have no idea if this was an immigration problem or something more serious.

At the border, things became rather hectic as predicted. First, our bus driver took us to a fake Cambodian checkpoint to fill out our paperwork and collect 800 Thai Baht. Thankfully I remembered that it was US$20, so was released from their clutches to find the correct entrypoint. The lines at the immigration point were long -- all Europeans and East Europeans. It took me 1.5 hours walking back and forth (I was confused) until I figured out the process. While waiting in line, watched people push giant carts back and forth through the border. A step back in time.

I had pre-arranged a ride into Siem Reap and since I was an hour late, was concerned I had missed my ride. But two scraggly men approached me with a sign that had my first name on it. Apparently the driver had hired them to find me. I was so glad he waited. Of course when we got to the car, they wanted tips. Many men surrounded me demanding tips. I actually did pay up to the two who found me out of gratefulness. On the road, with the Cambodian version of James Brown "I Feel Good" on the radio, we sped past bicyclists, motos loaded down with hundreds of pounds of goods, and open trucks filled with people. The rules of the road are simple: might makes right. Bikes and motos move to the side to let us pass.

The landscape and living conditions along the road reminded me of the Caribbean - St. Vincent to be precise. And the smell from the hotel lobby - smoke -- burning trash? Cooking fires?

Today Yuko is picking me up and we are going to the Small Art School for the Saturday class. My friend Barbara and her new friends went to Ankhor Wat to see the sunrise from the temple.

Packing

It is an amazingly rainy Sunday here in Philadelphia as I desperately try to clearn up my life in anticipation of a nearly one-month absence. This means: new batteries for smoke detectors, taxes, FAFSA, and a disturbing pile of emergency items that I must deal with, but have no time due to the hours on the phone required to resolve. Hopefully they do not get too serious before I return.

I am also packaging soap to give as wampum to people I meet in my travels -- but it is so heavy! And then there is the spraying of the clothes with DEET. That's right folks, treating of clothing is recommended in these tropical areas. Gotta get that done soon so I can pack the clothes in my backpack.

Spring and Skype

Check out the blackberries in the flower arrangement! It just makes me happy to look at this sweet arrangement from falls flowers, llc, our local florist. Peic ha's new shop is amazing and she always surprises with new varieties. I've been buying pink lately -- pink orchids, gerbers, etc., but this week I needed a change.

I can't wait to see if last year's raspberries survived in the yard (I hear this is a joke -- like trying to grow ivy), but neverthless I hope for their survival. We have bulbs peeking out, some prematurely.