Brenda and Brent - Trip Diary

His picture is used everywhere. It seems that all calendars in Thailand have his picture. His picture is featured outside all government buildings.

This picture is hanging on the outside of a shopping mall. It seems anyone can put up a big picture of the king for any reason.

He has been king since before Elizabeth in England - 57 years now.

He has been doing good works for much of that time - concentrating on the poorest groups in the country and mediating between opposing political factions.

When the king suggested people should get more exercise, Thais really took it to heart. They now have huge outdoor aerobics classes in public squares. Other groups favouring particular fitness systems also offer free outdoor classes. Pretty amazing.

When the king decided that people should eat more brown rice (more vitamins and minerals) he was going against Thai belief that brown rice was dirty and white rice clean. Only those who could not afford white rice ate the brown rice. In one of his public speaches he admitted he was a poor man who ate brown rice. The guide telling this story said that there was enough of a switch to brown rice that its price rose above that of white rice. Interesting story and possibly true, but I did not see any brown rice offered in restaurants.

The Thai's modelled their ancient temples on those in Cambodia. Unlike Cambodia though, they did not bring in any rock. They build with brick then covered with stucco to make them look like rock. These temples were built about 300 years after those near Siem Reap.

Here is a temple doing its best Cambodian imitation.

Speaking of doorways, that is another small problem with Thailand - the doors are much too small. People like me who are not tall enough to worry about doors normally get caught here - especially in northern Thailand. I banged my head 3 times, once hard enough to draw blood. The problem is most acute when I come in from outside with my cap on - then my perhipheral vision is blocked enought that I do not notice the door.

You can't see the street itself in this picture, but you can see the sidewalk. It is an almost full time market - from 10 AM to late at night, with some change of vendors over the day. Each vendor has a makeshift stall usually about 3 metres wide. There are stalls selling t-shirts, knock-off watches and leather goods, some fast food. Most of the prices can be haggled down to about 30% of the first asking price or less. T-shirts go for about $2.

The street is almost a mall - just the occasional car and motorcycle. It is full of young Thais, out to watch the hippie type tourists it seems. Often the bars are full of westerners, the streets full of Thais. Who is watching who?

Using the sidewalk is a defense against street peddlers - they set up on the sidewalk whereever they can. Since they are catering to a youmger crowd here, the merchandise is a bit more trendy. You can buy audio CDs and movie DVDs for a couple of dollars. One stall was selling software CDs for $5 - stuff that costs hundreds at home.

One thing we didn't see though was any sign of drugs. The Thais had recently cleaned up the drug trade - capturing thousands with a good number being killed in the process. Perhaps all the dealers left are taking a short vacation in the downtown eastside of Vancouver?

We raced around and bought a new camera - a Fuji 5000. It is not as good in some ways, but better in others. It has far more manual settings, including a manual focus option. The old camera had no manual options. However, the new camera has an instruction book that is as complicated as a computer manual. I am still learning how to use it and still making mistakes. Forget all the stories about cheap electronics in Thailand - I would have saved a bunch buying it on eBay!

Here is a picture of Brenda in a fairly typical roadside restaurant. Most of the clientel would be local Thai people. They make various noodle dishes in a large wok out on the street. The man in the green shirt is the wok master. Pretty good lunch for about $1. This restaurant is in a small northern town called Chom Thong.

The new camera has an interesting feature. When you want to take a picture of a moving object you set it into this mode, aim at the object, then press the button. It starts taking pictures. You follow the object until you have the image you want, taking pictures all the time. When you get what you want you release the button and it saves just the last 5 pictures. So, I have 5 pictures almost exactly like this, two of which are pretty good.

You can't tell from the picture but this is one of my few problems with Thailand - the beds are hard as rocks. You often see people sleeping on the marble floors in train stations - perhaps in an effort to get a slightly softer bed than they have at home. Even after 3 weeks of these beds I still had not entirely accommodated myself. The pillows are often quite hard as well. In southern Thailand the beds were a little softer. Perhaps it is just something the northerners do?

The rafts are very crudely made. They take 5 or 6 bundles of bamboo poles the full length of the raft as floatation, build a floor, put up a crude post and beam building, then install a floor toilet that runs directly into the lake.

Behind her you can see the pillows - that is our bed for the night. They put plastic mats down and then a couple of comforters, and you sleep on the floor. The food was ok, but unfortunately for us the nearest raft was a karaoke raft that played music (Thai language covers of Bobby Vinton tunes from the 70's - is there any other kind of karaoke?) until just after midnight. The combination was too much for me, but we were stuck there with no way to communicate with shore and nothing we could have done anyway.

A memorable but not pleasant experience. Fortunately there were few bugs.

They had a cauldron full of chicken stock as the base. They put rice noodles in a basket strainer, dip it into the soup stock to cook it (30 seconds), add some bean sprouts and a small amout of meat, some of the stock and you have a 50 cent lunch.

This is the only place I can recall seeing really fat Thai people (I first wrote "really fat Thais" - but that sounds wrong).

As I rode along there was a loud banging from the front wheel. It took a while to figure out, but eventually it became clear that there was something wrong in the axle. What to do?

Well, we had stopped right across from this motorcycle repair shop - half of the people of Thailand ride small motorcycles. I rode over and demonstrated the problem by spinning the front wheel. They nodded, removed the front wheel, removed the axle, nodded some more, then went about their busniess. A few minutes later a girl drove up on a small motorcycle with a little box of ball bearings. They showed her the axle and she drove off again. They went about their business. About 10 minutes later she was back with a new axle, which was promptly installed.

So, about an hour later and $100 Thai poorer ($3 Canadian) we were on our way again.

The sand is very fine, the sun hot, but there was a steady north wind.

We stayed in a newish area - a block with guest houses on both sides of the street, which shared a swimming pool.

She was eager to have her picture taken with a western birder though.