Thailand

Terrorists In Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Last year Thaksin’s government sent in police militia to quell fundamentalist Islamic violence in a southern Thai province that is populated primarily with muslims. As a result over 60 combatants were kiilled. In retaliation, the jihadists continue to murder Buddhist monks and teachers as well as civilians in several southern provinces.

Today from the Christian Science Monitor:
Emergency rule was imposed on three provinces of southern Thailand wracked by violence in an Islamist rebel campaign to return the region to an independent sultanate. But critics said the move would be meaningless to residents there, many of whom consider the central government corrupt. More than 800 people have been killed since the violence erupted 19 months ago, two of them in the past two days.

Thainess And The West

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The July 2005 edition of the slick upscale magazine for English-speaking foreigners called The Big Chilli ran an article with interviews of prominent Bangkok residents to get their views of what constitutes Thai culture. Two were Thai and two were western expats living permanently in Bangkok. This is what they had to say.

Jai
Korn Chatkavanij, a member of the Thai Parliament, believes that the Thai language and way of life has more to do with the soul than the surface. There is no English equivalent to the Thai word “jai” he says, but the closest you can come is “heart.” William J. Kausner, Professor at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University adds that the core element of the traditional Thai persona is the “cool heart” where “one is enjoined to preserve a sense of emotional equilibrium, treading the Buddhist ideal of the Middle Path, avoiding both extremes and overt expressions of socially disruptive emotions such as anger, displeasure, annoyance, and hatred. Confrontation is to be avoided at all costs as any open and direct conflict makes Thais psychologically uncomfortable, says Professor Kausner.

Mr. Chatikavanji says that this lack of confrontation makes Thai culture more tolerant…willing “to roll with the punches.” This, then, makes Thais traditionally adept at indirect expressions of antisocial emotions through gossip, anonymous letter, pamphlets, etc. says Professor Klausner.

On the other hand, Ms. Khunying Chamnongsri, an author, poet, social worker and Chairperson of the Rutnin Eye Hospital says that tolerance comes naturally from the inside. “It doesn’t count if it is done consciously. This can be seen through the Thai ‘wai’ (bowing to another in greeting with hands together as if in prayer,) not touching people’s heads or pointing with your feet.

Relationships and Inclusion
“Foreigners are often surprised when Thais ask them their age, because their ego feels that their privacy has been invaded. But Thais ask this question, Ms. Chamnongsri says, out of a sense of friendliness and inclusion, extending sister and brotherhood. In the old days, and often even now, a friend will immediately ask if you have had something to eat and if not you will be offered food…even if it is only a glass of water. In rural areas you see jugs of water in front of homes with long stemmed ladles so that people can help themselves to a drink. “This all shows a sense of inclusion, concern and welcome. We don’t have a strong sense of self-centeredness or egocentricity since throughout our history people have lived together very much as communities creating a notion of extended family,” says the professor.

Philip Cornwell-Smith, author, says that Thainess is all about relationships which will trump the economics or rules of the situation every time. It comes from a different logic based on a sense of loyalty and kinship rather than on abstract principles, leaving people from other cultures startled by Thai choices and behaviors.

Way Of Life
Thais are not an ideological people, says Mr. Chatkkavanji…adding that most of the world’s problems have been caused by ideology. “We talk more about a way of life and have a general feel of what we need to do to get along. Since we don’t confront we try to find ways to compromise. This is a key word in Thai society and it infuriates ideological youth.” Equilibrium, anti-confrontation and emotional detachment are seen by Thais as positive aspects of Thai society.

Sanuk (Fun and Play)
Play, says Philip Cornwell-Smith is a fundamental Thai value that continues all the way through life and is not viewed as being a childish thing. Len (play), and deun len (walk play) means going around just wandering and looking at things. My son’s wife is always saying “lets go look around.”

Status Consciousness
Professor Klausner goes on to say that Thais accept their hierarchical order of society whether a person is on the lower or upper rungs of the socio-political ladder. It is interpreted as a justification for continued unaccountable control by those in power and acceptance by the disadvantaged of their exploitation.

Respect For Others
An innate respect for others is a part of Thainess, says Khunying Chamnongsri. “You can see it in gestures, smiles and what you do for others and that this contributes to Thai success in the service industry. “Krengjai” is the moral imperative to be considerate towards and avoid bothering or offending others, as well as the traditional value of “katanyu” or gratefulness towards one’s parents, teachers, and others who have protected or supported you. The Four Sublime States of Consciousness: compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equilibrium are central to Thai culture so they value not hurting or impinging on the well-being of others,

Contact With The West
At present, Professor Klausner says, there is a burgeoning civil society which wants to change the rules of the game by substituting equality and individual civil and political rights, for status; and popular participation, the rule of law and good governance, for unaccountable power.

Ms Chamnongsri laments that Thai values are not as present as they used to be. “Times change,” she says, “and there are both positive and negative influences that come with the dynamics of cultural interchange that contribute to today’s fast paced life, the breaking-up of extended families and the new values of materialism.” “Copying the ways of the West, believes Korn Chatikavanji, “will inherently destroy the Thai way of life. Politicians don’t think about happiness as much as they do about development and economic growth. Do people really want to create an ‘American way of life’ here in Thailand,” he asks? “90% of Thais would say no, so we really need to define Thainess. As Anand Panyarahchun said 15 years ago, ‘There is no Thai or Farang way. There is only the right or wrong way.'” Professor Klausner believes that Thai traditional attributes will assure that a more individualistic and egalitarian society that emerges is still one where respect, graciousness, gentility and civility prevails.

Exposure to Thai culture is a gift to those of us from the West who visit Thailand.

It is July 2005 and the end of this travel segment…I will fly back to Los Angeles from Bangkok on China Air and then on to Oregon for a month where we will repack and fly to New York on JetBlue at the end of August to sublet an apartment in Brooklyn until January 2006.

Walking Out On The Iranian Ambassador

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Foreign Correspondents Club hosted another panel discussion last night with the Iranian ambassador to Thailand, H.E. Mohsen Pakaein

Western observers were confounded by the surprisingly strong victory in Iran’s recent presidential election by dark-horse candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative cleric, mayor of Tehran and former Revolutionary Guard. At his first presidential press conference, Ahmadinejad declared that his victory marked the dawn of a new Islamic revolution that would spread around the world. He also vowed to press ahead with his country�s controversial plans to acquire a uranium enrichment capability, adding that neither he nor Iran would be dictated to by the West.

During the questioning, much of which was hard-hitting, the ambassador gave party-line non-answers….most of it prompted by his sharp-eyed aide sitting by his side. We had recently heard a presentation by Nobel Peace Prize winner Sharon Ebidi from Iran who, as an attorney supporting freedom of the press, told us that they estimate that up to 200 journalists were in prison. So when the ambassador denied any violation of human rights, I got up from my front row center table, turned my back on the ambassador and walked out….many others trickling out quietly after me.

A retired Scottish engineer and human rights worker, a young Russian Jew who fled his “lost generation” and immigrated to Thailand at the age of 28 and a woman who is a Korean/English interpreter and I justly debriefed the talk over beer until well into the morning.

Press: Enemies of the Thai State?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club hosted another panel as part of it’s occasional series on freedom of the press this week.

Panel members were Anchalee Paireerak, operator of http://www.fm9225.com, one of two closed�websites, and executive director of and political commentator for community radio FM92. Also speaking was a representative from SEAPA, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Pravit Rojanaphruk, senior reporter for The Nation, commentator on media reform, promotion of transparency and public accountability and democratic culture, and Sue Saeri Mee Jing Rue author of a recently published Thai-language work on the subject “Does Press Freedom Really Exist?”
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Critics have long maintained that Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is unwilling to accept a totally free press, especially when it is critical of his policies.� They argue that his administration has fired, sued or otherwise silenced most of the independent voices on the air and in print — an assault on press freedom that they believe carries the pungent scent of power abused. Mr. Thaksin’s government has responded by promising better relations with the media in his second term.

But in mid-June, the government acted again. After, Anchalee Paireerak, the female 32 year old professional journalist & operator of the 24 hour community radio news station criticized Thaksin for enriching himself through his political policies, The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology ordered her two websites shut down on the grounds that they posed a threat to national security, defamed senior officials and employed language guaranteed to incite public unrest.

However, Anchalee explained that when the officials appeared on her doorstep to close her down, they explained that the reason was because her radio antenna was higher than 30 feet, reached too wide an area and could interfere with air traffic causing a plane crash. We all laughed at that of course. She has decided to leave Thailand for Australia temporarily after being sued by one of Mr. Thaksin’s corporations. She has established another website: http://www.fm9225.net.

The most interesting comments were made by the SEAPA representative who outlined the complexity of the economic and cultural pressures against a free press in Thailand. For example efforts to unionize the journalists have failed miserably because it is culturally very difficult for Thai people to confront authority.

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“11 Minutes” Outranks Mao

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On my way to my BTS Skytrain station, I stop for lunch at The Emporium, an upscale indoor shopping mall where there is a variety of restaurants on the 5th floor. A young Asian woman sitting next to me at a sushi counter is reading an English language travel guide. I wonder if she is from Singapore but to my surprise she is from Beijing. She is here with her “fat” Texas boyfriend, but “he is rich,” she says. I am impressed by the command of spoken and written English by this 26 year old woman.

Fascinated to find a mainland Chinese traveling outside the country, I said that I was told by many Chinese that the only way to get a passport was via an organized holiday tour or a business trip with associates. Her business card reads that she is manager of the contacting department of a cultural communications company but I never did understand what her job is.

We met the next morning for coffee…talking intensely for four hours. One of my questions related to the fact that even after everything that happened during the cultural revolution, I still see statues and big portraits of Mao everywhere in China. She said her mother thought Mao was a hero for China. I told her I thought Mao was worse than Hitler. She bristled and said that that wasn’t true. I told her that I thought that many people in China don’t really know what happened for the ten years of Mao’s campaigns in the countrysides where it is estimated that anywhere from 30 to 80 million people died.

Then we visited an English language bookstore where I recommended the shocking biography of Mao written after Mao’s death by his personal physician of 25 years, “Wild Swans,” a story of three generations of a Chinese family, “11 Minutes” by Paulo Coelho-a book that I think is being read by every traveler from Europe to Asia, and “Soul Mountain” by Chinese author Gao Xingjian who was the first Chinese to win the Nobel prize for literature. I have since received an email from her telling me she was moved down to her soul by “11 Minutes,” the true story of a prostitute who discovers love.

What Is A Farang?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Or what does “farang” mean to the Thai people. It has been said that the word derives from the French. It is also the Thai word for guava so you hear farang-eating jokes. To make it work “kee nok” means bird shit but alo is a type of guava. So you can see where this going.

Bob and I both feel that the author’s analysis is rather over-simplified and defies the existence of the many upstanding western teachers and business people you will see on the sky train at rush hour but you do not see at Patpong night clubs. And we question the views of a westerner trying to explain how Thais see them. But the author does raise some interesting points to think about especially if you are living here:

What Is A Farang?
By Kenneth Champeon
http://www.thingsasian.com/goto_article/article.3281.html
“Sometimes you can learn most about a people by studying how it views other peoples. In Thailand, the most common and prominent visitors from outer space are the farangs, a versatile term that may apply to foreigners, Westerners, “white” people; like any term deriving from a loose racial category — Negro, Oriental — it has its uses, but ultimately defies precise definition. The average Thai’s conception of farangs is roughly as follows. First of all, farangs are extraordinarily large; this and their pale skin and variably-colored eyes and hair contribute to their otherworldliness — and, to many Thais, their resemblance to ghosts. Farangs are also rich. While it may be true that the income of an average person of European ancestry far surpasses that of the average Thai, many farangs in Thailand are there precisely because they have little money. But good luck trying to tell a Thai this. Gouging foreigners wouldn’t be nearly so much fun if it were known that often they too have to struggle to make ends meet.

On a related note, Thais are also generally of the opinion that farangs are stingy. This because a farang’s property is his own and no one else’s, whereas a Thai is more accustomed to viewing his property as shared amongst family and friends. Farangs are also individualistic, meaning that they do things like travel alone, scale mountains alone, and engage in antisocial behavior such as the reading of books. On a recent visit to America from Thailand, one of the things I first noticed was how few groups I saw: everyone seemed to be on his own, atoms crossing each others’ paths but never meeting. While the Thais have a grudging respect for the farang’s capacity to go it alone — calling him geng, or “skillful” whenever he does something of which an individual Thai deems himself incapable — for the most part I suspect that they find individualism to be unsettling, as it goes against the Thai respect for family, social cohesion and obeisance to authority.

But the main point I would like to make here is that farangs — Westerners as experienced by Thais, in Thailand — are a world apart from Westerners everywhere else. Many if not most farangs in Thailand are oddballs, rejects, runaways: hippies, druggies, alcoholics, sex maniacs, beach bums. Asked to describe a farang, a Thai is likely to imagine one of two creatures: the odiferous, long-haired backpacker, or the pot-bellied, beet-red barfly. And he may be surprised to learn that he has more in common with the average Westerner — a regular job, a stable family life — than the average Westerner has in common with farangs.

This because farangs in Thailand live according to a morality all their own, neither Western nor Thai, though drawing in some part from both. So, for example, a Westerner newly arrived to Thailand may be opposed to prostitution on principle, but the longer he stays the more he will come to condone it and he may even come to participate in it. He has gone some way toward becoming a Thai male, roughly three-fourths of whom have visited prostitutes, but he has not gone all the way. (He may draw the line at prostitutes he believes to have been coerced, for instance.) A farang is in the unique and often uncomfortable position of being judged according to three very different standards of conduct: that of Thais, that of Westerners, and that of farangs, and a certain amount of maneuvering if not outright deception will be required to satisfy all three. On the other hand, farang morality can be profoundly liberating — as, in some sense, it is no morality all, but instead boils down to whatever you can afford so long as it keeps you out of jail. (And what’s more, staying out of jail may boil down to what you can afford — in terms of bribes.)

Indeed one of the reasons that farang morality can be so amorphous is that the Thais are exceedingly tolerant, so that behavior that might not fly elsewhere in the world receives, in Thailand, a good-natured shrug or merely a bewildered stare. Farangs are barbarians anyway — why chide them for acting like barbarians? And in some cases the Thais are simply in awe of the liberties farangs are prepared to take. Unfortunately this only reinforces the common notion that all Westerners sunbathe in the nude, drink like fish and treat Thai baht as if it were Monopoly money.

And tolerance, of course, has its limits: very often the word farang is used in a derogatory or resentful manner, when a Westerner has overstepped the bounds of admissible conduct or has done something that brings shame to Thailand or its people. Indeed one occasionally hears the word spoken in the same tone that an English-speaking homophobe might use for the word “faggot”, where both classes of people are seen as a kind of contagion affecting some mythically pristine social body. In many cases, of course, such scorn is justified, as Thailand’s reputation would be much improved if its less savory farangs — the drug traffickers, the pedophiles, the football hooligans — were to get lost. But it also reveals the extent to which Thailand is a racist society — and, paradoxically, one in which whiteness among Thais is prized while whites themselves are often ridiculed.

One indicator that farangs constitute a unique subculture is the existence of a magazine dedicated to them: Farang, which carries the regrettably narcissistic subtitle “You! You! You!” Although I have once appeared in its pages, much of Farang’s content is uninteresting to me, me, me and my friends, friends, friends — extreme sports, “hard” sex and similar amusements for the chronically bored. But all too often such things are what draw farangs to Thailand and keep them there. For many farangs Thailand is less a country than it is a playground, a place where childhoods can be relived or lived for the first time. And if the Thais can profit from providing the conditions for this to occur, then they are usually more than happy to oblige, especially as the Thais are generally more insouciant than are their Western visitors, many of whom seem never to have learned how to smile.

And it is partly for this reason that many Thais view the mighty farang not with awe but with an emotion by which farangs might be surprised: pity. Where are your mother and father? How often do you see them? How many siblings do you have? Questions like this are as urgent to a Thai as they may seem irrelevant or impertinent to a farang, but they are nothing more than variations on the question: Why on earth are you in Thailand, alone? Don’t you — this is another fairly common question — get lonely? A farang may deny this up and down, but the truth is that loneliness is precisely what he has come to Thailand in order to cure. What, I asked a farang friend of mine headed back to the US, do you fear most about returning? “Alienation,” he replied, without skipping a beat. And farangs are not just fleeing loneliness; many indeed are fleeing the very (and very dysfunctional) families about which the Thais are so inquisitive. “Westerner,” a Thai once told me — and she was referring in particular to Americans and their convoluted family trees — “is fucked up.” So there you have it.

Sadly, the fucked-upness of farangdom is not something to which the Thais are entirely immune, and indeed they sometimes display an uncanny ability to adopt or at least imitate the worst, because most conspicuous and alien aspects of Western behavior. But because the Thais are more grounded than their farang counterparts, whose ideas of what is right and wrong have been so assaulted by rapid social change that they are all but nonexistent, the reverse is more often than not the case, with farangs coming to embrace values in Thai society that they see dying in their own. This in part explains why so many farang men are attracted to Thai women, who represent for the men an ideal of womanhood — which may be as simple as finding contentment in the mere raising of children — that in their cultures may no longer exist. So in many cases a farang is a social reactionary, at least from the perspective of the society from which he originates. But to a Thai he may seem progressive.

Throughout most of this essay I have spoken of farangs as if they were all male, and that is because most of them are, and because I am, but there are plenty of female farangs too. And they are, almost without exception, regarded as beautiful by Thais, men and women alike. Thai women in particular see strength as well as beauty, but the more observant of them will sooner or later realize that this strength is sometimes a disguise meant to conceal deep uncertainties. Thai women tend to give an appearance of malleability that hides a solid core; with farang women the reverse is often true. Commonly the result is that farang women urge Thai women to stand up for themselves only to bemoan their own loneliness and insecurity, and the counselor ends up being the counseled. At once strong and sick: this more generally may be said to represent the farangs through Thai eyes.

Then again I suspect that for most Thais — that is, the Thais in the countryside — the farang is largely a comic figure, someone to wave at or make fun of, as he drives a motorcycle that is too small for him or fumbles his way through a language too musical for him. “Fa-lang, fa-lang!” — this accompanied by pointing fingers and toothy smiles (or laughter discreetly covered by a small hand) is very often the most recognition that a farang will receive on any given day. And it’s quite enough, really.”

Posted by laughingnomad on July 14, 2005 10:44 PM

Stories Of The Bangkok Street

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Ten baht (25 cents) for a motorcycle taxi gets me to the American educated dentist down the soi and around the corner in little more than a minute…scared to death that the trucks, cars, motorcycles, light poles, garbage bins and food stands we swerve past will take off my long western legs. Have been in and out of Bangkok several months and have seen just about every specialist (all women) in the dental office…implants, crowns, surgery, cleaning….the cost about 1/20 of the cost at home. Have only have one root canal to go before flying home on July 27th.

A walk up the street past the food stalls, fruit markets, massage shops and Indian tailors…into the big expensive air conditioned Park Queen Hotel, through it’s busloads of Japanese tourists and out the back door into the hot air again takes me through a lovely park on my way to the Sky Train. If I pass through about 6:00 in the evening I stop and watch relaxing rows of Thais and farangs (foreigners) alike practicing Tai Chi to slow meditative flute music. People with their children lie on the grass asleep…catching a cool breeze wafting off the pond. Sometimes a small group of little ones can be seen sitting on the grass with their parents listening to a story teller.

Have walked up the steps to the BTS sky train above busy Suhkumvit Rd so many times I don’t even get out of breath anymore. I can either catch the clean comfortable air conditioned train in the direction of Mo Chit at the end of the line or the other way to On Nut or I can walk across and down some steps to the other side of the street where I can buy some unsweetened yogurt, swiss meusli and eggs in the Villa Market. I can take my used books to the Elite Book Shop next to the market and exchange them for others and then stop in the Starbucks on the way back to read the English language newspapers…Bangkok Post or The Nation with almost daily coverage of corruption in Prime Minister Thaksin’s government and criticism of the way the PM is handling the violence in the south. Government authorities finally admit in today’s paper that they have found Bird Flu in 25 provinces. I am glad we are leaving soon.

With no patience for waiting around, Bob has been roaming around the mountains in northern Thailand and Viet Nam. I am in a new serviced apartment down a little soi off Suhkumvit 22. I have a king sized bed, kitchen, satellite TV (that gets knocked out when it rains) and a broadband internet connection in my suite. My Mac laptop is hooked up to some miniature speakers and my iTunes provides plenty of music. The smiling workers at the front desk keep good track of me.

A short walk away and I have my choice of a dozen massage shops…an hour long foot massage which includes legs, arms head and neck costs about $5 while a two hour full-body Thai massage sets me back a whole $7.00. I will miss these when I go home.

On Friday nights I can take a motorcycle taxi through the sois (side streets) to listen to a great blues band at Tokyo Joe’s. And the food is great. The lead singer and guitar player seems American but he says he is Danish! I can get a great beef stew in this bar. The rest of the week features progressive jazz bands…which Thais generally find very uncomfortable to listen to…so it seems odd to see Thai band members wailing away on sax’s and guitars. Most of the patrons are farangs and last Friday I had a great conversation with a young French English-speaking couple who have been in the city almost a year putting together a visitor’s magazine. I envy their courage to strike out on a publishing adventure like this.

A Bus To Trang

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While I was on Koh Samui visiting Luk, while Doug was in Oregon, we decided to hop a bus for Trang where Luk’s family lives. This is my second visit here. We stayed in a nice hotel…Luk trying out the kareoke downstairs with her cousin and some friends…and visiting her mother and grandparents again.

I bought some jewelry in a local shop…had my ears pierced again and visited the Sunday market where we ate some delicious local food which, being in the south of Thailand is a bit different.

At the end of our visit, at the bus station, Luk bought a traditional Thai cake for her friend that was taking care of her dog, Ting Tong on Koh Samui.

On the way back a motorcycle hit the rear of the bus. Watching the bystanders, police and others through the window of the bus for an hour in the heat was more than I could take. There had been many buses passing us to Koh Samui. I left the bus and approached the driver who was just standing by the side of the road and asked if we couldn’t please leave the bus and get on another one…but just then he took his seat behind the wheel on the bus and we were off…aborting my ready attempt to throw a hissy fit and thoroughly embarrass Luk.

After a month on Koh Samui with Luk, I took a flight back to Bangkok on Bangkok Air.

“Oh New Shoes Lost Me!”

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After a flight from Bangkok on Bangkok Air, I have been enjoying my 26 year-old daughter-in-law on quiet Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi Province the last couple of weeks while my son Doug is in Oregon. Luk’s English is delightful and I hesitate to puncture her enthusiasm by correcting her but alas she must learn correct English. She often helps her friend Cie manage some resort bungalows up the street and they spend down time in the office with a pile of Thai kareoke CDs…singing their hearts out together…nearly always innocent and young romantic fantasies proclaiming lifelong love…tears falling when hearts are broken.

I am staying in the same bungalow that Doug and Luk were living in when the tsunami hit their sliding glass doors…15 feet from the water and even closer at high tide when tsunami detritus gets washed up each day. This morning I shivered when I sat up in bed to look out at the beach covered with dingy colored beach towels and empty plastic water bottles.

The owners upstairs are members of a delightful extended Muslim family…they speak no English but when mom comes downstairs with an offer to share their dinner…a big steaming bowl of homemade Tam Yam with freshly caught fish…a special treat here in Krabi…I bow deeply with hands folded and I give them no other words except kwop kum kha…thank you. I thoroughly enjoy their broad smiles in acceptance of my eager gratitude.

Luk and I are both trying to lose our “poom pooy” (fat) tummies (not that Luk has a fat stomach) so we often only eat omelets for breakfast and delicious broth soup with vegetables and pork for dinner made by a friendly Thai lady up the street. She doesn’t want to eat after 4pm…”it’s poom pooy to eat at night” she says. However, once in awhile I ride behind Luk on the motorbike to Au Nong Beach, 20 minutes down the coast, to splurge on something special …like the fresh hot cinnamon rolls with big juicy raisins at Lavinia…an Italian restaurant. Before heading back to beat the rain, we buy a couple newspapers that will eventually get peed on by Luk’s dog, Ting Tong. I check email and maybe buy a couple pirated DVD movies….Cinderella for her and Hotel Rwanda for me.

On another day we motorbike to a nearby moving market. I like to buy mangosteens, mangos and small ripe tomatoes from one of the Muslim vendors to munch on when I get hungry…passing up the small custards with difficulty. Luk likes the chili chicken satay on a stick.

For bigger excitement we sometimes take the songthaow, a small covered pick-up with two benches in the back facing each other, to Krabi Town where we can buy almost anything we want…even KFC and Swanson’s Green Tea Ice Cream. On my last trip, an elderly Thai silversmith on the street made me a necklace to enclose my tiny little wooden image of Buddah that was given to me by a monk during a blessing at a wat (temple) north of Bangkok.

Then it’s back to our quiet little beach where we are becoming part of the neighborhood…waving to familiar motorbike riders…buying water from the same little market each day…greeting Bum Pom, a lean young Muslim boatman who has been working on his long-tail boat under the bridge during this rainy season, his broad smile showing a missing front tooth…dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail hanging down his back.

After more than a month, it’s back to Bangkok.