Bought plane tickets a month ago to go to Burma with a Thai friend. But Air Asia won’t let us cancel our tickets without losing the money. So I spent all afternoon in the embassy office with a few others waiting for the official to appear at the window. But don’t know if I’m going to get a visa or not…you are retired? What was your last job? What organization did you work for? He really looked over my passport closely…too many stamps in too many countries? Maybe I am a journalist traveling around the world? We are only offering visas on a case by case basis, he said. Your application will have to go up to headquarters, he said. And instead of the usual one day turnover, it wouldn’t be available for another 10 days. So I gave him my phone number and he will call and let me know if my application has been accepted. I doubt it. But my Thai friend who wants to go with me has two students at Kasetsart University that are from Burma and whose parents work for the government. They are going to call the embassy on my behalf. We’ll see.

Then on the way back to my hotel I was surprised by an exhibit at the Phrom Phong BTS station. There in front of the Emporium Mall were the same Herd of Cows that we saw in the plazas in the center of Prague in 2004. The life-size fancifully painted cows were culled however. Most of the most suggestive and political cows were missing…the humorous ones probably not translatable.

BTW, I highly recommend new friendly Som’s Guesthouse on a little soi next to Queen’s Park Hotel on Sukhumvit 22. Beautiful large room with wood parque floor, refrigerator, TV with scads of channels, free breakfast and best of all free WiFi…all for 800 baht ($25) a night!