Sunset over the Mekong

This picture was night two on a sunset cruise down the Mekong River. Along with Moon and I was a Canadian women from Ottawa.  Karin was taking a break from her regular job, with an offshoot arm of he UN, as a Syrian Refugee Coordinator in Jordan. She didn't find work as an attorney her cup of tea after receiving a law degree and wanted  something more interesting and rewarding. That sounds a lot like Disneyland to me, not Jordan with the possibility that somebody could take a shot at you. She was a delightful woman in her mid thirties and beginning to look for something more settled since she'd been doing this kind of work in different parts of the world since 2005 when she helped with the tsunami relief.

US Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan, Michael McKinnley and his wife Mia sat next to us at breakfast yesterday morning. He works in the compound and is an expert at war, as his wife explained. The Ambassador only leaves the compound with an armed-to-the-teeth four car motorcade and keeps his head down. Mia never leaves except when she and her husband are able to take a break out of country.  He's trying to help negotiate a way out of the whole mess.

So this tiny blog is dedicated to these two people who put their lives on the line to do important work.

More later.

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is right in the middle of Laos.  The brick colored Mekong River runs through it.  It's a busy waterway carrying supplies and tourists.  The width in front of the hotel is about a quarter to a half mile wide.  A boat trip to sight see and fish was on the agenda this morning.  As we moved downriver, on each side of us there were many small gardens very near the water.  Lots of cucumbers, corn, cabbage, carrots...staples of the food stuff around here.  The different water levels are evident above the rivers edge...so it looks as if the river rises during monsoon season then washes all the gardens away, renews the soil and everybody starts over the next year.

There were a few water buffalo along the way.  The Laotions raise water buffalo instead of cattle for a couple resons, one, they're suited to the environment but they don't chew the roots out of the areas they graze and cattle do.  Cattle kill off a grazing area while buffalo leave enough of the plant and root to regrow.  I didn't know that.  There were no other animals along the river....except a couple of chickens.  No ducks, no seagulls, no geese, no birds of any kind flying over or swimming in the water.  It's kind of like viewing a picture of the Seattle waterfront with the Space Needle nowhere in sight.  Weird and it seems a little impossible, but hey, this is Laos not Seattle.  

Every morning Moon and I have coffee on the veranda.....the minute one of us opens the door it smells of smoke.....like when you're camping.  Everybody here, locals anyway, cooks over some kind of open fire outside, whether charcoal or wood.....and that means so much smoke that it's hazy in the valley most of the time.  You can see by the picture below...a typical day of campfire smog.

Butterflies....that's what I noticed first when arriving in Luang Prabang.   They're all over the place and they never seem to light on anything, they just keep flying around, sometimes chasing each other for a couple of minutes at a time...like seagulls only not as obnoxious.  We visited a butterfly exhibit, where in a netted area we were surrounded by hundreds of butterflies....all different colors and sizes. Very unique.

It's just as hot here then in Bangkok, but it's not as humid, that makes it much more tolerable.  When the humidity gets to 87% Moon gets "sphitzy", which is a word she coined to mean sweaty, humid, and hot accompanied by mild delirium.  And if you've ever observed a delirious Moon...it ain't pretty....it's time to cool off and hydrate. More later.

Heading back to Bangkok, then on to Luang Prabang

Phuket to Bangkok. Left our beach experience behind....reluctantly....and headed for Bangkok.  Arriving in BKK airport is much like being in the middle of a science fiction movie. The airport is ultramodern, 10 different types of Wifi, people movers, sky train to downtown, high tech city.....outside of the airport?....over crowdedness everywhere you look...up, down, or sideways....Neal Stephenson sort of wrote about a city like this 20 years ago. in his novel Snow Crash.  It has an energy much like New York City...very vibrant but absolutely raw. An odd detail about Bangkok....skate boards.....didn't see one anywhere in Bangkok or Thailand.  Good for them.

Didn't want to forget this. There is a common scam in Bangkok...a nicely dressed gentleman approaches or walks up beside you and asks if you need direction.  You say no I'm going to _____(you can put anything in those spaces)...this time I'll put the "The Jim Thompson Silk Museum".  He then says to you..."that's closed today" or "that's not open until this afternoon......or "they're not open for another couple of hours"....Being the helpful and generous soul that he is...he'll then gives you the address of a jewelry store that has the "cheapest gold and silver in Bangkok"....or better yet, he'll walk you over since he knows the owners personally.  We were approached 3 times like this.  Gotta tell you, I got pretty tired of looking at jewelry....just kidding. Became good at crossing the street when we made eye contact with any well dressed male.

We stayed one night at a little place call Jumputa Garden Villas.  Eight small bungalows built over a lake....Beautiful little place.  Then entire inside of the little villa was teak wood.  The lake had fish like bass although they weren't...maybe tilapia?  Complete with lily pads, plumeria trees, and other plants to make the  whole thing appear as an oasis.  There was a rice paddy next door. Very quaint.  If it weren't for the fact that we were in the middle of an industrial area five minutes from the airport....and the friggin guy next door in his backhoe that was 60 feet away from us where we were having dinner... it would have been a pretty peaceful evening.  LOL  Having a great trip.  More later.

Scooters, Scooters, Scooters everywhere

Scooters. The small Honda scooter rented in downtown Khao Lak didn't quite handle like my Harley so it took some getting used too.  I wobbled around the corners, strayed into the other lane often enough to hear Moon yelling, "left, left, left", and sometimes getting from the curb to the street/highway was an off-road experience.  Finally my comfort level rose to a point where I was confident of not falling over diving into a corner.

The majority of Thais ride scooters...young and old. Cars are a nice luxury but scooters are essential to getting around. There is an strong element of trust between the folks on scooters and cars and trucks. Everybody watches out for everyone else. Fast, slow or erratic what ever you're doing is respected by other drivers. If you're prone to road rage this is not the place for you....you wouldn't survive 10 minutes here. The Thais like to pack them on the two wheelers like a "full meal deal".  We passed a scooter yesterday with a small child..(like a 1-2 year old) in between two men..the rider with one hand on the child and holding a rather large bag of groceries with the other and a 8 year old hanging off the back. That would be 4 in all and not an unusual site to see...just business as usual. Off in the distance down the highway was a blob coming straight at us.   When the blob neared it was actually a  scooter with a sidecar piled so high with stuff it looked as if would topple over at any second. But they never did.

Things I forgot to mention about Khao Lak...oysters, the size of a nickel, all over the rocks in front of the hotel...the seafood plate lit on fire with flames jumping 10 feet into the air....the cook coming out from that restaurant to thank us for coming (a second time, the food was so good)....the fact that we could have a great big meal for 400 baht or roughly 12 bucks...and that was a pretty expensive dinner...a ride into the jungle on the scooter was fun and relaxing.

Sharks in Thailand

Each morning after breakfast Moon and I would take up our position in the lounge chairs, a few yards from the water.  I would swim out to a small rocky island...maybe 300-400 yards away.  I'd snorkel for awhile, then swim back.  On the last monring I walked to the beach and noticed the water was very cloudy.  When I dove in the water was so stirred up that I could barely see the fingers of my outstretched arm.  But I swam out...lifting my head on occasion  to mak sure my direction was straight.  The rock was a couple feet away....I almost ran into it.  I was too cloudy to snorkel.  So I turn turned around and headed back.  On the way in I started thinking about sharks and how this might be a perfect time for one of those Great Whites to sneek up on me and chew off one of my limbs......ouch.   Why these thoughts on the last day I'm not sure but I had a premonition.  The first thing that sharks do is bump their prey before  they attack.  And just about then and only 50 yards from shore I felt a pretty good bump on my right leg....I immediately stopped, tensed up, and lifted my head out of the water to locate a fin or the telltale sign of a water disturbance.  There was nothing....so I took a deep breath and put my head into the water....looking around, still trying to locate my attacker...they say if you strike back at a shark it might scare it away....so I was ready with all my strength.....then just beneath me....there it was...a sand covered rock I had inadvertantly run into while swimming to the beach.....to say I was relieved is an understatment...not sure how I could feel beads of sweat pop out on my forehead while already in the water     but I did....and while the danger was completelyl gone....I still took off for the shore pretty quickly.                                

The beach at Khao Lak

We arrived in Khao Lak tuesday of this week.  The trip from Phuket to our hotel was of the "fast and furious" type.  Cab drivers like to get to all their destinations as-soon-as-possible. So the trip went quickly. Let me just say that all Thailand cab drivers are sort of a cross between Dale Earnhart, Jr. and Evil Knevil.  It makes for a high sphincter level and little beads of sweat popping out on your forehead when the driver decides to pass while theres a car coming the other direction.....right at us...but that car moves to the left a little more and everything works out.  Maybe a little, "Oh God, folks, hold on, this is goin' be tight"....or maybe a little, "sorry about that" kind of explanation....but it never happened.  Just normal driving.

Khao Lak is a lazy strip of beach north of Phuket about 90 kilometers.  The beaches are beautiful, the mood casual and the water is both a strikingly tourquois and warm....it's a good place to be lazy and not have to feel bad about it....when one is used to being productive....it takes awhile to get over the guilt...but we both managed that problem.   Ocean on one side....jungle on the other.  We attempted to find a waterfall which ended with our turning around when the road became much like those that you see on TV when watching an enduro motocylcle race.  But we were far into the jungle by then....some of the leaves of some kind of plant bigger than Moon or me.  Tropical smell, lovely flowers.....oh, and rubber tree farms all over the place.

Anyway, Khao Lak consists, primarily, of hotels of all shapes, sizes, and prices...right on the beach.  It's nightlife is calm so the backpackers don't make this their number one destination.  That's OK with Moon and I.  We're usually in the sack by 8:00.  The humidty and heat can get to you.  Late night partying for us, sans table dancing, ended at 8:45.

There is a great market 3 days a week.  It has everything.  The food is delicious.  You want deep fried crickets?.....grasshoppers?....and these white larvae about an inch long, moving and pulsing around with it's head coming out of one end periodically....it looked very much like what the "Wrath of Kahn's" Recardo Montoban placed on Mr. Checkov's neck.....then we all looked on in horror as it crawled into his ear....that still gives me the heebie jeebies.  Anyway......the food was great.  Seafood, pork....(whole pig heads)...chicken cooked with the heads on......duck....head on.  Everything deep fried or cooked on the grill with every type of tasty sauce poured over it......I'm hungry.  More later.

Keep your head down......y

Terry and I were aware of the protests against the govt. They've been an issue for several months and have started to drag on the economy.  There are flare ups and lulls.  The hope has been that the lulls will become the norm and the whole thing will peter out all together.  Unfortunately, the flare-ups have been more destructive and costly in terms of human life.  Historically, the Thai people do not like the leaders who take advantage of them.....they do not sit idly by.

Travel reports and blogs warn to be aware of your surroundings in order to stay safe.   So we tried to do that......but Bangkok is a big place.  There was no map that identified the protest areas.  Our first foray into the city was by skytrain.  We got off the train and down below saw thousands pup tents.  The building in back of the tents was a national sports arena.  I'm a sports fan  So naturally I thought here was a sporting event....I'm thinking maybe thats something we could take in.  But no.  As it happens, this in the first of many protest camps and not a very big one at that.  The protesters have also camped out in the street, essentially shutting down and/or disrupting traffic.  The police have cordoned them off with fences that run down the middle of the street for blocks and blocks.  If you are on the outside of the protest area, you either enter their area or you walk a half mile or more around the fenced area, just o get to the other side of the street.  We entered the protest area which looks like any other market selling food, trinkets.....everything else a normal market has to offer.  However, the t-shirts were different....they read "We shut down Bangkok" and "I love Thailand" and "Restart Thailand".  Generally speaking, the protests were calm while we were there.  But the day we left the traffic was horrible and there were many ambulances, which was odd.  We learned that afternoon that a clash between the protesters and the police resulted in lose of life and many injuries.  The protesters threw a grenade at the police and the police shot back.  The lovely smiles and congeniality of the happy Thai people doesn't seem consistent with grenades and bulletts.  I dont want to be naive here, but maybe everyone gets a piece of what they want and the conflict can resolve.  More later.

Safety First!

As an Occupational Therapist working in the field of work injury management for many years, I have an eye for something amiss when visiting an injured worker's place of employment.  Particularly...I notice if the environment is not safe. With that in mind......Moon and i observed a 5 man crew running a pile driving rig.  Approx. 50 feet tall, roughly 15 by 15 feet square and all steel.  The whole thing sat on two railroad-type rails. The rails were 30 ft long.   Estimated rig weight was 3-4 tons. One pile would be driven every10-12 feet.  When the rig ran out of rail...they jacked the whole thing up with something that looked like a beefed up car jack, then pulled the rails forward by hand.  At that point the rig was lowered back down to the rail. They would then attach a hook to the end of the rail which was attached to the rig and winch the whole thing forward, screeching, over the rails. You might think this is crazy, but we're not there yet.  The five man crew did not use gloves, they didn't wear hard hats, no safety glasses, no protective clothing within 10 miles, and......get this....they were all wearing slippers for God's sake.....hard to beleive.  I can imagine....maybe in a strange alternate universe that these men....before rising each morning to start their day said a short prayer asking their maker for a little pain and suffering....maybe a nasty head injury would be fun or  maybe a grossly amputated foot would be the order of the day.....or couple of fingers crushed flat...haven't done that in a while....or maybe....on their lucky day....the rig would fall over on them all and pin them to the asphalt (a crew that is pinned together, stays together!).  The foreman, dressed in shorts and also sporting slippers,  told us to go away.  I'm thinking he thought it wasn't safe for us to be there....40-50 feet away......go figure.

The whole city planning thing is willy nilly.  I am not sure hat the city fathers had a good idea of that they wanted.  Considering how the whole thing is laid out it looks like it was planned out and developed by either a hoarder or a five year old whose primary experience was with sand castles and/or legos. But then again, it is a very old city whose outgrown it's infrastructure several times over.  It seems to work, albeit maybe not as efficiently as it might.

I'm not sure what all is attached to the telephone poles, but there are sometimes 50-60-70 lines running between poles....bundled together or not.....occasionally, poles look as if they might collapse under their own weight....we take for granted building codes or are not even aware of them or what they do for us.....but i'm glad we have them.  Sometimes this place runs like the Wild West, complete with shoot-at-hip building projects, sometimes those projects look sophisticated, futuristic, and architecturally sound.  All for now.  More later.

Last Day in Bangkok

Cities have ther own......odor.  As a child, I could identify the city I was in by the smell.  Blindfolded and scurried away in a jet plane to Colorado's largest city..then plopped down on a park bench somewhere......I could take a deep breath and confidently spout, "I'm in Denver".  Bangkok has it's own brand of "fragrance" that smacks you in the face and tends to numb the senses after awhile. It's a mixture of the sweet smell of tropical flowers, a bucket of kim chee, diesel, vomit, and a fish you've had in your pocket for 3 days, ( I don't know why you'd end of up with a rotten fish in your pocket but I'm trying to make a point here)....oddly enough, you get used to it.  

There is so much to see and do here....it overwhelms.  The "Weekend Market" with it's 8000+ vendor stalls where for your purchase you could assume ownership of almost anything you can imagine....t-shirts, animals, art, food, ladders, iPhones, Tupperware, medical supplies, or a foot massage. You name it...they got it in different colors, sizes and textures.

The floating market offered some great food....actually the street food was some of the more delicious and the variety is unbelievable.  Let me just say that I love curry.....and this is the place to get it whether its red, green, yellow, Northern style......I'm in culinary heaven.  Moon loves it too.  We're having a great time.  More later.

Life along the Chao Phraya River

Arrived in Bangkok late at night....Looking out the window of the plane seeing lights to the horizon.  Eleven and a half million people live in Bangkok proper.  When those rural folks come into the city to sell their wares....you could imagine that it might get a little crowded at the lunch line.  Humanity everywhere, all the time......like being at the Puyallup Fair on the hottest day, waiting in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl with 500 of your closest friends....

Thailand is one of the most diverse countries in the world.  Everything seems to work relatively well as far as people to people, considering the differences in religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.  If the Republicans and Democrats could be so lucky.

Outside our window is the Chao Phraya River....the color of a good Borsch soup.  The river is a major transportation water way, seemly just as busy as the highways.  They have every kind of watercraft.  Water taxis, water buses, private boat taxis, barges of all types, party boats, dinner cruises, small oil tankers...you name it....if it floats and has a motor attached to it....it's here.  Very interesting to watch it all unfold.

Did I mention the heat.  About the time we realized that it was just too hot to stay out was the very second you feel like passing out.  Staying hydrated is important.  So we learned to get something to drink or head inside to cool off in order to continue on.....the humidity is pervasive.

Bangkok is of two minds.....it is the dirtiest, most polluted, over-crowded, impoverished place I have experienced...on the other hand....it is opulent, high tech, seeped in history, forward thinking, and very easy to get around with all the transportation options.  Thais are generally wonderful people and they prepare the tastiest food in the world.......

Good Morning All.....we leave this morning for Bangkok.  Life has been busy.  Planning an extended trip is kind of like playing "whack a mole".  Each time the plans are finalized and finished...ooops there's another one.  By the time Moon and I get to the plane....right before I step off  the tarmac.....I'll remember something else...that, "did I turn off the oven?" thing.  In general , though, we're ready to go. Will miss Thelma and Louise and all our friends and family. 

Have noted some unrest in Bangkok.  Middle class Thais don't think too much of the current president....that's what Google says anyway. The protests have died down in the past week...probably because it's beginning to hurt the economy.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out with all the tourists.  Just read an article that mentioned many of them are cancelling trips to Bangkok and diverting to Chang Mai to steer clear of the unrest. We'll keep our heads down......lol.

I'm going to have my fair share of anything with curry in it. And then maybe have another helping.  On the flip side, I've promised that I will absolutely, never-ever, under any circumstance purchase another T-shirt again.  There is just no reason to get another one.  My closet is filled with them.  But, you know...maybe just one Bangkok Harley Davidson shirt is ok.........There....just one. 

Moon looking forward to relaxing after working until yesterday afternoon.  She needs some rest.  Fabrics are at the top of her list.  Cooking class?  I vote for that.......

We start our Edventure today.

Ed...out.