Well, after twenty-seven hours of various misadventures, I have reached Wat Suon Mok and checked into the meditation retreat. Since we’re not supposed to leave the retreat grounds or do any reading/writing while we’re there, this means you won’t hear from me until Nov 11 or so…I’ve also turned off my cell phone, etc. so [...]
Well, after a very interesting (and very long) conversation with the body painter, he’s agreed to paint me. Very excited about this–I’ve always wanted to be painted/photographed professionally, and this guy is one of the absolute best. The thumbnails on his webpage really don’t do his work justice. He’s right up there with the woman [...]
Just ran into a fellow-traveler who spent a month volunteering near the Burmese border–working with the hilltribes, trying to save young girls from being drawn into the Asian sex trade. She gave me the email of a local volunteer coordinator–most of the NGOs will only take a few western volunteers at a time, but this [...]
I’m still finishing up some things in Bangkok, but am preparing to head out to southern Thailand, for the meditation course at Wat Suon Mok, 53 km north of Surat Thani. (If you look at a map of Thailand, Wat Suon Mok is on the east coast of Thailand, almost directly across from the southernmost [...]
I finally broke down and bought a cell phone: +66-6-092-7800 (66=Thailand country code). This is good only in Thailand, I may be able to get another # elsewhere, I might not. You can also send me text messages–that’s pretty cool.
Keep in mind that Thailand is +15 hours from PST, so 4:39am on the [...]
Well, after ten hours of traveling by feet, pickup-taxi (a pickup with bench seats in the back), ferry, bus, and skytrain, I’m back in Bangkok, enjoying the dubious pleasures of exhaust fumes, traffic, and tuktuk drivers. I must admit, I’m grumpy: I wanted a few more days in Ko Chang, hanging out on the beach. [...]
So, yesterday I went to the elephant trek place, and after haggling a bit convinced them to do a three hour trek for 1000 baht ($25). I’m acclimated enough to local pricing that this made me wince severely (that’s about equal to my entire food + hotel bill for the four days here…so definitely foreign-tourist [...]
Well, I made it to Ko Chang with very few mishaps. Ten hours by bus, the back of a pickup, and ferry, plus incidental waiting time. (Here “Thai time” doesn’t mean a pretty good Thai restaurant on El Camino, but the happy tendency of the 5pm ferry to turn into the 6pm, 7pm, or 8pm [...]
Today was relatively uneventful. I met with the 63-year-old Chinese guy, who turns out to be a troubleshooter/plant technical expert for a yarn factory. After a Chinese buffet lunch in which he stuffed me unmercifully (I had forgotten that Chinese hospitality involves feeding your guests more than they can eat), I showed him how to [...]
So, yesterday I got up in the morning (a change from my recently-nocturnal habits) and made it down to the Snake Farm, aka the Pasteur Institute, where they produce antivenin for most of Southeast Asia. They also, not coincidentally, put on live cobra-catching and venom-milking shows for the tourists (70 baht, about $1.75), and [...]