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.