Stories from Thailand

"HereWell we left the sdafety of Darlene's school after a fabulous week, headed into insane bangkok! here's a glimpse:

...zzzzzzzzzOOOOOOOOOOOOooommm...the light turns green and 80 morotcycles and a steady stream of cars scream down Silom. On the side of the "lawsuit-waiting-to-happen" sidewalks (as tracy calls them) there is a line of about 20 women waiting for motorcycle taxis that come one by one and deliver each woman, side-saddle, to other destinations. Walking the sidewalks, there is no room for error - if you are bumped you will either step into the whelming traffic, or walk on a man with 1 limb selling flowers. Street vendors (selling barely-noticeable things) and 7-11s every three steps. Beautiful thai people with "We love the King" shirts on, wearing filters to mask out air pollution or inhaling from pocket menthol inhalers to personalize their breathing experience...

We are finding that for basic things we are generally ok with our level of english, but in many places we have been, it has been an awkward and sometimes impossible experience communicating with a 10 word vocabulary. The major problem is that the Thai language is built on 5 tones (which all sound identical to us) but apparently "mai mai mai mai mai" spoken using all five tones can communicate a whole sentence! For example, an english teacher, Jim, at Sammuk was received by uproarious laughter on his first day, because his name, spoken with the tone he chose is slang for female anatomy. He's currently working on a name change.

After bangkok (more about that later when we go back there for 4 more days) we took a back-up bus (the first one broke down on the way) to a small town called Pak Chong, northeast of BKK. From there we took a songtow (sp?) to our 200 Baht (about $6) pre-arranged accommodation (which in Thailand means "can we stay there tonight?" replied in turn by "yes!"). It turned out to be about as grimy, dingy, hot and infested as you can get (complete with bugs on the wall), but had a bed and a lock on the door. James said "perfect!!!!"...





[Tracy's addition to James narrative....I was ready to cry because it was the grossest room I'd ever seen...end Tracy's addition]





...but we held off on the utterly bohoemian experience until hill tribe trekking (Chiang Mai - coming to your local station in a few days). We pushed on to Jungle house up the road with a zoo in the backyard, and a rat in the air conditioner.

In the morning we joined a tour group with 2 hollandaise, and 2 brits and had the best wildlife tour of our lives!!! The tour took us to Khao Yai National Park and was led by two supremely knowledgeable guides. I think there names were Nine and Lek. We were continually amazed at their ability to spot white-handed gibbons and Oriental Hornbills sitting in the canopy far off on the horizon (it became a joke actually...we thought they must have had inside information). They had two spotting scopes with them which made watching birds etc. like tv. Other incredible things we saw were a water monitor lizard, one of the last remaining wild Asian elephant herds in thailand (from 250 left in the park - many other elephants, like those we saw in Chonburi, are kept alive as work elephants (for agriculture, forestry, entertainment, jungle treks) since this is the only way to pay for the the enormous cost of feeding them each day) tons of incredible birds (we got some awesome pictures by putting the dgital camera up to the spotting scope) and lots of other things i cant remember at the moment

From Khao Yai we took local transportation to the town and then a local train to Ayutthaya. Although we both de-trained exhausted and with massive headaches it was a great taste of small village travel. To travel about 100km took 3 hours, with stops at every village along the way. When the train was up to speed it felt rickety like acarnival ride where you know the cart could pop off at any time. Air conditioning was acheived through the open windows when the train was up to speed, and even better when you stuck your head out (but you had to dodge garbage being thrown out the windows). At each town a new cast of locals would board, walk up and down the aisles and sell you whatever they grew or made, from lychee to a dead chciken on a stick to beer. We are now in Chiang Mai after a 12 more tomorrow In Chiang mai we are hoping to do hill-tribe treks and maybe an elephant trek. Hill-tribe trekking involves hiking through the wilderness to visit small tribes that still practice the traditional way of life. is a quick update from James and a few pictures from me. " End James' story.

#1- we had a lovely few days with Melody...she and I had manicures and pedicure ($3 each) and ate at some great restaurants. Thanks again Mel.

#2 James and are bothe the proud owners of cell phones now...they really do make travelling easier.

#3 and #4 some wildlife that we saw on our tour...see Kerrie there are turkeys in Thailand too.

#5 James had a bit of a problem with the land leeches on our trek...yes Shannon you read it right...land leeches!!! They are everywhere in the woods around here....