Almost Home ~ Seattle

One last stop before Anchorage.






Passing by Ranier















Banking over downtown.











Cherry trees at UW.













And finally at the dog park.

Thai Designer

Pranee Sullivan was someone we met at the breakfast buffet at the IBIS hotel in Bangkok. She's a Thai married to an American, living in a small northern town in Japan. We found her delightful and enjoyed having breakfast with her. Her website Exclusive Thai Decor needs some updating, but it's a starting point for someone who wants some Thai accents in their house or office.

LA Changing Houses

We've made it to LA. Staying at my mom's before stopping in Seattle to see the kids on the way home next week.Took my; camera on today's run and here are some pictures of how this 1950's subdivision is changing as the old houses are being remodeled or totally demolished and replaced.
First a few of the houses that are basically like they they were built. But imagine the trees as little saplings. And yes, we are getting really blue sky for the first time since we left.

























































And here are the newer versions. Note - this is a hilly neighborhood, so the ones that look like they are tilting are my fault with the shots.

Peace Corps Thailand 45th Anniversary Part 2

Here are a few pictures of the 45th Anniversary of Peace Corps Thailand.




This picture was taken Saturday night at the Peace Corps office. This is the same building that has been the office since the 80s near Krung Thai Bridge. But where you used to be able to freely wander in and out, now the entrance is blocked by a small security building you need to go through. There is also a recently completed new building that houses, among other things, a library, computers and internet access, and showers for visiting volunteers.





The ceremonial parts were held at the Erawan Hotel which is now a very fancy Hyatt Grand. Back in the day, as I recall, it was an elegant old dowager of a two story hotel with a wonderful restaurant at the swimming pool that was reasonable enough that even Peace Corps volunteers could occasionally eat lunch there.


Joe Hye, as you can tell from his yellow jacket, is one of the new Group 119 inductees. He's from St. Louis and headed for Trang Province.






Jim Lehman was the only other Group 19 member (my group). Of course, for anyone who knows Jim, it is redundant to say "here is Jim talking.' I don't remember all the posts Jim has had since Peace Corps, but he worked for Peace Corps or AID most of his career, including being Director of Nepal and Sri Lanka. He was the volunteer in Maesod and has agreed to help Somprasong get a Peace Corps volunteer for his school in Umphang, which is down the road from Maesod.








Pam was a teacher volunteer in the 60s and went on to teach at Cal State Sacramento for 30 years.




John Robertson is the new volunteer from Anchorage.




We've been experimenting with Joan's new digital audio recorder and so I didn't write everyone's name down. But I discovered that I pushed the record/pause button instead of the record button for a few of these. So I don't have all the names. This guy is from Group 117 and is getting ready to head home.

Learning to Bow and Curtsy for the Princess

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, from what I am told, takes after her father the highly revered King of Thailand, and longest reigning monarch in the world now. She tirelessly does good works for the poor and represents the monarchy and Thailand. She attended the Peace Corps Anniversary directly after landing in Bangkok from a ceremonial trip to Egypt. While many Americans may see the details of all the protocol as rather archaic, the King and Queen have really been a critical element of Thai national identity. They have worked very hard over his 60 years as King to improve the lot of Thailand, including those people most often overlooked. Nearly all Thais have a very strong respect for the King and would take any slights of the royal family as a great offense.

Part of the instructions before the Princess arrived at the 45th Anniversary celebration of Peace Corps Thailand on March 23, 2007 in Bangkok's Erawan Hotel.

45th Anniversary Peace Corps Thailand

We're back in Bangkok at the Royal River Hotel, with a 9th floor view of the River. Spent this afternoon at the Erawan Hotel where HRM Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn presided over the opening of the anniversary and the induction of Thai Group 119. Since I was in group 19, this had a special meaning for me too. I got to talk with a number of the new volunteers, with some who are just finishing, and a number of Returned Peace Corps volunteers, including Jim Lehman, the only other person from my group. Jim lives in Bangkok now.

There were formalities - we all had to learn when and how to bow when the Princess came in. But it was, overall, a happy occasion. The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke about how his life was changed by Peace Corps volunteers in his town. The representative of the new group, Scott, stood up and did his whole speech is exquisite Thai. Doris, who was sitting one person over from me, and was in Thai 2 or 3 and a legend when I arrived because of her excellent Thai, sputtered when he was done, "No one can speak that well in three months." His vowels, his consonants, his tones, were right on and crystal clear. I learned from another volunteer later that he was a linguist and had written his master thesis on how to learn languages. I'm not sure I have it all accurate, but he did an incredible job. And he did it in front of 40 or so former Thai Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as the Ambassador.

Later there was a reception at the Ambassador's Residence.

Joan didn't feel well when it was time to go - headachy and nauseous. I told her she didn't have to go. She didn't. I had her new recorder with me and recorded the event and maybe we'll start our first podcast when we get back. Also some interviews with former PCVs, new ones, current ones, and old PC director and a Thai official who hired PCVs.

Mekong Cruise Part 2

Dinner in Pak Bang after the first day of boating with the Tosas and Nellie, the French nurse.











The main street of Pak Bang the next morning early before getting on the second boat for the rest of the trip to Huey Xai, on the Lao side of the Mekong.











In the Pak Bang market before getting on the boat.











A boat along the river.












We stopped several times at villages to unload cargo. Here we just stopped at the rocks. People came down from the village and carried things up to the village. Most of the stuff was from China, everything from rings to put pots over a fire to huge bags of noodles.






On the left side of the boat is Laos, on the right side is Thailand, since the border is in the middle of the Mekong.






Sunset before reaching Huey Xai.

Mekong

Our boat, #77, from Luang Prabang to Pak Bang.


The slow boat up the Mekong was a great way to slow down and relax. We went into another world. We'd been warned we have that there were backless wooden benches on the boat. We went early and got seats. Actually all the seats had backs, and the wooden ones had cushions. We were early enough to get regular tour bus type upholstered seats. Very comfortable. The dominant feature of the trip - as has been most of the time in Thailand, but particularly in Laos - has been the
smoke from the slash and burn agriculture of the hill tribes. The river was shrouded in thick smoke as you can see in the pictures. But we were in sparsely populated areas and just slowly went up the river. There were people here and there on the shore fishing, panning for gold, in boats, with their water buffalo, in villages. There were lots of interesting rock formations. And time just slowed down as we spent two ten hour days - with a break overnight in a small
village full of guest houses to accommodate the boat passengers.

Some People We've Met In Laos

Here are some folks we met in Laos.

Jamie and Patrick are two Canadians from Vancouver who claim that some friends left before we came and that was why there were so many empty beer bottles at their table.



This is Enrica, one of the Italians we met at the Vientiane Airport who works in Guangzhou, China. We stayed at the Sayo Guest House in Luang Prabang and learned a lot about the textile industry in China, about Turin and Italy. There's a darker picture of Enrica and Cristina on Phousi Hill at sunset. Cristina is also an Italian working in China - Frank, you should contact her. Her Chinese is very good. She's in Beijing. I don't seem to have another picture of her.




We met Thong Souk on our bike ride in Luang Prabang. When we were about to give up on finding the grave of the French explorer, we stopped at a little shop (See the mother and son in a previous post). Thong spoke pretty good English for a guy in a small village outside of LP. He took me over to see the school and then to see his house.






Phonesvan is the Laotion educator I wrote about in a previous post. We taped some of our conversation with her about her work to help kids in the LP area get better education. She's the U of Hawaii graduate.




Here are two more Vancouver guys. These two are law students at University of British Columbia on a semester exchange at Hong Kong University. We met them at the vegie buffet table in Luang Prabang






Tetsugi and Machiko Tosa are two young Japanese we met at the airport in Vientiane and did things with them until yesterday - including the two days in the slow boat up the Mekong. He's a plumber and she was a cell phone salesperson. They quit their jobs and have finished their first month of traveling. After SE Asia and India and Nepal, they want to go to Peru! We hope they'll find their way to Alaska.







This woman was weaving in shop at the weaving village of Ban Panom when we were on our bike ride in Luang Prabang. There was something about her - we connected and bought several scarves she had woven.







Edwin and Yvonne are biking. They've been thru Cambodia and Laos. We were on the slow boat up the Mekong with them. They work in Rotterdam for a social service agency that builds and maintains housing for the poor.


This monk is training at the Wat across the street from our Guest House in Luang Prabang. The Wat has money from UNESCO and New Zealand to train monks in the various skills - wood carving, sculpting, painting, etc. necessary to maintain the temples in the area. At the work table there was also a farang monk. He had gone to Luang Prabang when he was 16 and studying at the international school in Bangkok - about the same time I was teaching in Kamphaengphet. His kids have all grown up and now he's become a monk here in Luang Prabang. My monk friend was delighted to be able to talk to a foreigner in Thai, but we weren't able to talk too long.

Luang Prabang Day 3

Went to the pier to check out how to catch the slow boat to Pak Ban tomorrow. We bought our tickets and then looked for a seamstress to sew up a hole in my levis. I asked a woman, in Thai, at a shop on a main street and she pointed me up a small street to the house on the end. Joan saw the dog barking and waited on the main street (where she got a fancy coffee). The pants got sewn, but not as nicely as they did the other side in Thailand. As we walked back to have breakfast, the lady who told me where to find the seamstress opened her garden gate and asked in incredible English if I’d gotten my pants sewn. Turns out she studied Education in Hawaii and knows a Lao teacher Joan knows in Anchorage. We talked for a long time about the projects she’s working on to help various schools in the area. She’s teaching at the College here in town now and appears to be the senior teacher in town.

As we finally made our way back to get some breakfast we ran into our Japanese friends who are taking the same slow boat we take tomorrow. We had breakfast with them and then went back to see make an audio recording of Phonesvan in the exhibit area near her house where they are developing products and figuring out how to do fundraising.

After that we ran into our two Italian friends and had an Indian lunch with them. And we met some monks at the temple where they are learning how to restore and maintain the temples here. This is a UN – New Zealand funded project. More later.

Luang Prabang Pics

Here are a couple of shots of the first evening. Here are our Italian friends Enrica and Cristina.









The vegetarian dinner spot where everyone sits together. See the first Luang Praban post for more.









The evening market set up on the street.















Joan at the riverside restaurant where we hand light snack.

Luang Prabang Sunset

Here are some shots of Luang Prabang from Phousi Hill the first evening.

Luang Prabang 2

I'm figuring out how to use this machine. Sort of. These are pictures from yesterday's bike ride. Here's the lady at the shop with her son who got us pointed in the right direction to the grave site. By the way, that extra woman in the picture yesterday was a German woman who was biking alone and also couldn't find the spot.

You can see how hazy it is, and how nice it could be from this mountain view.

Luang Prabang

Our 10:10am flight left at noon - the smoke in Luang Prabang was too bad to fly in. But eventually we got there. Then several of the people we got to know waiting at the airport - Enrica, a Japanese couple, and Christina - got a taxi together to a guest house in town. At the guest house Enrica and Christina discovered they were both Italians working in China.

Luang Prabang - what to say? I've wanted to come here since back in Peace Corps days, but it was tricky back then and I only made it to Vientiane. This has been designated a world heritage site - the whole town. It is full of temples. It is a beautiful little town, former royal capital of Laos, sitting on the Mekong. I'm not sure what it is - narrow streets, not much traffic (mostly motorcycles). I think it's the details - the buildings and the streets are nicely finished, clean, and plants and trees are everywhere and blooming. And of course the people are delightfully friendly. But this place has been discovered and is crawling with tourists. And it has obviously changed to accommodate all the tourists. It seems that every fifth house is a guest house and there are outdoor restaurants everywhere aimed at tourists.

Last night after watching the sun set over the Mekong and Luang Prabang from the temple on the little hill in the center of town, we met all the folks from the taxi ride and while looking for a place to eat, stumbled on the vegetarian buffet. Fill your plate for 5000 Kip (about .$50). The amazing part was the long tables filled with people from everywhere. There was a Canadian next to me who had worked summers in Cordova. Two others from Vancouver who are taking a semester abroad from UBC law school in Hong Kong. One of them started speaking great Japanese with our Japanese friends. Joan was talking to a customs official from Holland.

And then we walked down through the night market that was filled with displays of various local crafts. On and on and on.

Today we biked to see the grave of Henri Mouhot, the man who found Angkor Wat buried in the jungle. He died up the road from here of malaria at 35. It was really just a destination for us that seemed like a reasonable bike ride. We couldn't find the sign. We finally stopped at a little shop - a shack really - and asked. It turned out we could walk to it in 15 minutes from there. A young man led us to it. When I got back we met the headmaster of the school and visited a few classrooms and one of the men took me into the village to see his house. I have lots of pictures to print and send them.

And I have lots of pictures, but again, I can't figure out how to reduce the image size to post them in a reasonable time. I'll try a couple. Anyway, Luang Prabang is truly an incredible place. Don't know how long it can last with the influx of tourists, I know it must have been much more interesting 5 years ago. It is really an unexpected jewel of a town way out in the jungles of Northern Laos.

Vientiane Walking Tour

Our room at the Inter Hotel


We're out following the Lonely Planet Guide to Laos' Vientiane walking tour. After the Arch d'Triumph Lao style copy, we wandered thru the morning market and then to the Vegetarian Restaurant for a nice buffet lunch for a little under $3. Here's Joan in the restaurant. I'm having trouble reducing the size of the pictures on this computer so it is taking forever to upload them. It was easier to upload the videos.

Hornbill

OK, this is short and a little shakey, but hey, how often do you see Greater Hornbills? They hide out way up on top and they are hard to see. Look carefully, you'll see it once it starts to move.

Thai Classical Music

Sunday morning, March 4, at 7:30am, before class, Manit picked us up and took us to his Gold Shop in downtown Korat where his friends were playing an informal concert. They practice Tuesdays. They also have a Western Classical group.

Vientiane

The 10:30 am bus from Korat to Nongkai was full. So we walked over to find the other bus company that had a bus at 11:30am. (They start in Bangkok and you can't reserve in Korat unless you buy a seat from Bangkok. These are the VIP fast, well airconditioned busses.) Anyway, where we asked, the pushed us on a bus that was leaving right then (9:30am). In Udontani, they pulled us off and got us another ticket (no extra cost) and we waited 45 minutes for the bus to Nongkai. We met an American from LA who lives in Nongkai and has the Black Canyon Coffee franchise in North eastern Thailand. He told us where to get off the bus to get to the bridge where you leave Thailand and enter Laos and suggested the Inter Hotel. Things went pretty smoothly and the hotel room is great - it is a very nicely refurbished old building across the street from the Mekong River. Not sure if I'll be able to get pictures us while I'm in Laos. This computer isn't cooperating at all. I have a great, if short, video of a Great Hornbill, but that will have to wait a bit.

Travel Plans

It's Friday. I have class tomorrow. My foot is in much better shape than yesterday. We took a tuk-tuk to the Hospital for Joan's last rabies shot. Then walked the couple hundred meters to the Mall to check on email and to post. Email was fine, but couldn't post. The student who had us listen to the classical Thai music last week, invited us to visit a private Chinese-Thai school. He's president of the foundation that funds it along with the Thai government. I'm in his office now, above one of his gold shops, posting. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the cord to download the pictures from my camera or I could offer you some pics of the school.

Before we went to Khao Yai, we bought AirAsia tickets from Chiegmai to Bangkok for March 22. Low cost airlines have made it to Thailand like they have to India. The fare, one way, was B599 on line, but I couldn’t book from the internet store I was in. So we went to the AirAsia outlet where it turned out to be B1500 each (fees and taxes, plus a small commission.) So it’s about $45 one way for an hour flight. We have reservations at the Royal River Hotel in Bangkok for the Peace Corps reunion March 22, 23, and 24. My class is over on Sunday, March 11, and our visas expire on March 14. So we plan to leave Korat Monday, March 12, and go into Laos that day or the next. Then we’ll move on up to Luang Prabang, the old capital in the north, and slowly move our way back into Thailand through Chieng Rai and to Chieng Mai. It looks like bus from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, and then a two day boat ride up the Mekong River (I think) to where we cross into Thailand at Huay Xai.

Khao Yai Day 2

I was up again at 6am with the audio recorder and binoculars. There were also groups of the school kids with binoculars and bird books. I found a little path into the jungle and put the recorder down and pressed the button. Just like the camera gets me to look at things differently than I would without it, the recorder had me focusing on the sounds. It was like a piece of music. All these different critters contributing in different ways. (We checked the tapes today in Korat and they are great. Too bad we didn’t learn how to post pod-casts before we left. If we don’t figure it out here, we’ll post some jungle sounds when we get back.)

When I got back, Joan was sitting on the bed, dressed, but wrapped in the comforter. We quickly got our stuff together and walked to have breakfast, stopping to look at the birds in the field. Red-vented Lapwings we’d seen at Bharatpur, swallows.

Our guide turned out to be a 64 year old retired park driver. He’d been at the park since it was brand new – the first Thai National Park, opened in 1962. He said there’d been lots of changes. In the old days no one came. They didn’t know about it. There were no roads. And they were afraid of the tigers. Now there are only 6 or 7 tigers left. We had an 8 km walk, which turned out to be more rigorous than most 5mile walks. Ups and downs.

Vine-like branches an inch or two in diameter looped around overhead, across the trail, and underfoot. A certain kind of palm has a long extension of the leaves that hangs out over the trail and is covered with little thorns looking for a shirt or hat to grab onto. But it is the dry season so the trail wasn’t muddy or slippery. There was also ample evidence that elephants had been on the trail recently. I’m not sure how they manage – it really is just a one person path. There was a concert of birds and insects all the time. At one point we listened to the gibbons howling and chattering away in the distance. We stopped to try to see the birds we could hear, but rarely succeeded because they were high up in the trees. At one ;point hundreds of butterflies lifted up from their resting places as we came by. We saw a couple of Greater Horn Bills. Our guide was delightful and I’m glad we had him. Speaking Thai really comes in handy, though people are so warm and hospitable it doesn’t really matter. And Joan’s Thai is really coming along well. Toward the end of the hike, we stopped at a small waterfall – a lovely little spot, with rocky outcroppings and there was a blue whistling thrush on the other side. Pak said in Thai it was a “Nok Ian Tham.” Nok is bird, Ian is the name of this kind of bird, and Tham is cave, where they like to hang out. Then up a little further to the bigger waterfall that was the destination.

I’d had a slight tightness in the back of my right heal when we walked over for breakfast. It never really hurt, though I was aware of it on the hike. But eventually, when we got dropped off where the food is, I realized I couldn’t walk without pain. In the little shop where’d I’d gotten the candles, they had small bags of ice cubes. When the girl heard why I needed the ice, she just took out a handful of ice cubes and gave them to me in a plastic bag. So I sat down with my leg on another chair, icing my heal. The lady at the info center offered to drive us back to the room since I couldn’t walk. It was another early evening.



Today [Thursday, March 8), my foot was slightly better – I could limp around in my sandals – but I wasn’t in any shape to do any more walking than necessary. Joan walked to the visitor center while I stayed on the porch and enjoyed the jungle symphony in the cool morning air. The visitor center lady drove up to get me at 9am and we spent the morning on the bird watching deck at the visitors’ center. The birds are really hard to spot, but sitting there for several hours I began to see them. Familiar ones – a drongo, not sure which kind. The black crested bulbul. And a few others I couldn’t quite identify. Being forced to just sit had its advantages. The driver picked us up at 11:15am and drove us all the way to the bus stop in Pak Chong, where the bus to Korat was leaving immediately. As we drove back down to lower elevations and then out of the park, I was really glad we stayed inside the park. Aside from the fact we didn’t have any traveling to do, the weather was so much cooler up in the park. And before long we were back at the Sima Thani where the front desk staff know us already. And soon I was on the bed with my foot on ice again and we watched the Woody Allen Aphrodite movie on Star TV. I wasn’t impressed. Watching birds on the deck at Khao Yai was much better.

8 March 2007 - Khao Yai 1

Back in Korat after two nights a Khao Yai National Park, my leg up on a chair, the heal on ice, hoping to walk normally again soon. [I wrote this last night. Today the foot isn't 100%, but it's much, much better.) But it was worth it. Getting info on the park was sketchy. The official tourist office in Korat gave us the name of a small ‘resort’ outside the park for B600 (@$17) air conditioned with breakfast. Tours can be arranged. We took the bus from Korat to Pak Chong (normally an hour on the ‘tour’ bus, but someone signed us up for a cheaper bus before we realized it. The air conditioning was weak – and it is in the high 90s in Korat – and this was clearly and older bus. And we stopped anywhere there might be a potential passenger. But 90 minutes later we were told it was time to get off the bus. On a commercial street in Pak Chong with our suitcase and backpack. But people were right there to help us out. A Song Thaew (truck with two benches in the back) with Khao Yai in English on the front was there right away and we climbed in. There was another farang couple in there already. Was this father and daughter? Was he younger than he looked and she older? It sounded like they were speaking German. I finally asked if they’d been to Khao Yai before and she said ‘no.’ The ‘resort’ was supposed to be a mile 19.5, but there were no mile markers. Well, there were, but they were just white, no numbers.

I asked Joan if we should just go on to the park and see about places in there. We knew they had them, but not much about them. We could always go back to the resort. She agreed. So eventually the German father and daughter – they’d lived in Krabi in the south and she spoke Thai – and Joan and I got out at the park entrance and the Song Thaew turned around and went back. B400 each for foreigners entry fee. If you stay outside the park, you pay each day. If you stay in the park, good for a week or two. OK, now, how do we get into the park? Taxi is B400 (@$13). We didn’t see any taxis. Or, she said, you can hitchhike. We four looked at each other. There didn’t seem to be much traffic either. Joan and I started walking. It was 14 km’s and we could use a little walk and someone would surely pick us up. Within five minutes two cars had passed us. One had stopped to pick up the Germans and another stopped to pick us up. Our driver turned out to be a test driver, driving an Opel, which he would be driving for about 5000km around Thailand.

We climbed about 1000 meters and he dropped us off at the visitors' center. Nothing was completely clear. We could have a room with a bathroom, no fan, no air, for B800. It was four kilometers away. No food there, come back here to eat or get take out – Thai version, which would be to put some fried rice or whatever we ordered in a plastic bag. We can get a guide for Wednesday for a hike and then drive to a view point and then if there is still time to an animal viewing stand. And he would take us back to Pak Chong on Thursday. B1500 each. That was the same price the travel agent in Korat had quoted so I said fine. The driver would take us to the room in a couple of hours. Meanwhile we could take a short walk on the nature trail. So we wandered around and ran into the Germans who said they were staying about 800 meters away and there were plenty of empty rooms there. So we went back and checked. Then to the building next door that was the accommodation place and first they said there wasn’t any place. Then they said the place we were staying was being renovated and we couldn’t stay there. Then said we should go check the place before paying for it. Where else can we stay if we don’t like it? No where. So why not just take it? (There were also tents available.) Apparently enough people change their minds so we went up to look at it, with our luggage, and said it was fine. And got a ride back to pay. It was a row of about 20 rooms, just room for two beds and a small table, and a bathroom. Very clean and neat. The bathroom nicely tiled, flush toilet. All well screened and windows on both sides for good cross ventilation. We could walk back after we ate. What about the monkeys on the side of the road? Oh, it’s ok if you aren’t carrying anything. (And Joan already has had two rabies shots, so no problem.) The pavilion with the food was nice, though the food was very basic Thai curries that are sitting out for a while or noodles. But aside for the room which was pricey by Thai standards for what we got, the prices in the park were more than reasonable. Two fried rice plates came to B50 – less than $2, and less than in most places in Korat. I saw candles in the little store where I bought water – also cheap – and bought them. Joan guessed the two candles and box of matches was B35 ($1). They were B6 altogether. As we walked back to the room, we found Joan a walking stick (and potential monkey protection stick) on the side of the road. But all we saw were neat birds, a couple deer, and a few other tourists walking or biking. There was also a large building for groups and a school group nearby.

Before the sun went down, I walked around and found a little stream behind the rooms, surrounded by thick jungle, frogs beginning to croak. Also saw a monkey on the shore a ways down. We brought Joan’s audio recorder to Thailand but hadn’t used it. She showed me how to use it and I took it back down to the stream and caught five minutes of evening sounds..

Taping evening sounds (hope it looks better on your computer than it does on this one)



As it was getting dark, we lit a candle and listened to frogs and insects and some birds. I took a shower – no hot water, but it felt good after a hot sticky day. And now the temperature had dropped (we were about 3000 feet up) and with a breeze coming into the room, it was delightful. The sign at the visitor center said the temperatures ranged from 29C high to 20C low. So that would have it dipping into the 60s, a delightful change, similar to Umphang early morning. Lights were out about 7:30pm.

Catching up

We visited Idiris' wife and three daughters on the way back from
Umphang. It was good to visit them, but we missed Idiris not being there with us. All these people I know because once upon a time I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Only in spirit. The girls are all now adults - two studied/study in the US and one in France. Then a wedding in KKP. Friday we went to the old school, visited Mook's parents, and Gersin's mother. Gersin was working in
Guangzhou when we were in HK and who vistied now and then and who we
visited in Guangzhou. He died of an aneurism in September. His mother is 95 and is still wokring in the market.

Then we got ready to drive back to Korat. Mook and Raksana took us.
But just as we were getting things into the car, their dog got loose
from the chain and bit Joan in the leg. We went to the clinic where
they cleaned it, gave her antibiotics, and gave her a rabies shot.
She will have two more. One Monday, then next Friday. They don't do
it in the stomach any more. The dog did have rabies shots last
August, but the doctor said it was better to be sure. They will also
watch the dog to see it doesn't get sick. Joan felt good yesterday morning - there was no pain and things are getting better. There were a couple of puncture
wounds. Joan and Mook and Raksana went to visit old Khmer ruins nearby yesterday while I was in class. Today one of the students picked us up at 7:15am to hear Thai classical music at his gold shop in downtown Korat. Maybe I'll find some time to download the pictures and video and post them. Despite the early hour, it was a very nice way to start the day. A group of men mostly over 50 I would guess, who get to make music together a couple times a week. I'm early for class today, so can post this quickly.

Back to Kamphaengphet

We got up in a very pleasantly cool Umphang. Had breakfast, then signed the school guest book. Mark and Noy (see earlier post for picture) joined us in the van to Maesot. Mook was extremely busy so he couldn't pick us up, but he arranged for someone else to get us in Maesot. We stopped in Tak to visit Idiris' wife and three daughters. It is hard to start talking to someone when someone has recently died, but we quickly were talking. His oldest daughter recently got back from several months in New York. The second daughter studied in France (like her father), and the third daughter is studying in Miami. We first met them when they were little girls and they got along great with our daughter. It was a sad occasion today, but it was good to see them all again. Then back in the car the rest of the way to Kamphaengphet where we met Mook at his office, washed up quickly, put on some cleaner clothes and went to the wedding of the son of a teacher in the school I used to teach at in the Peace Corps. Now we are pretty tired and ready to sleep. Tomorrow Mook and Aew are driving us back to Korat and will stay a night to have a mini-vacation.