Next we drove to the Border town of Chiang Saen.  It was about a 1.5 hour drive from Chiang Rai. It is on the border of Thailand and Laos.  You can see on the map the Golden Triangle, which is the place where Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos meet. We walked to the river and there was a pier where you could catch a longtail boat and go down (up?) the Mekong river. From the dock you could see a giant gold buddha on the Thailand side that looked like it was sitting on a giant fancy boat. It sort of looked like an amusement park to me, but we didn’t get a close up look at it. I can’t find a lot of information about it, but it appears that it is part of a temple at Ban Sop Ruak and is one of the several attractions built around the Golden Triangle (which isn’t much to see here, just basically a sandbar). We did not really look around Chiang Saen and the area, we just took the boat ride from there.

Down a bit fom Chiang Saen, on the Laos side is a fancy, new casino with a big golden dome.  For the life of me, I can’t find the name of it. But this is a picture of it. The Chinese built this (and other casinos in the area) and are capitalizing on the poorness of the region to allow them to build. “The Chinese have a lot of money to invest and the governments of Laos and Burma have few resources or defences to control the intentions of China’s growth into the region“. The sign says “Welcome to the Golden Triangle Economic Zone”. There is also a large casino/resort down a bit that is in Myanmar (or technically in “no mans land” since Myanmar doesn’t allow gambling) called the Golden Triangle Paradise Resort. Reading about it on a travel site called ThingsAsian “I came to discover that the Golden Triangle Paradise Resort is one of 34 casinos that ring Thailand’s borders. Together they bring in an estimated US $2 billion per year, as Thais cross into Burma, Laos, and Cambodia to indulge in games of chance outlawed in their homeland.” Thailand also does not allow gambling so there are a lot of Thai and other daytrippers to the casinos.

We stopped for a brief shopping trip on Don Sao island in Laos. You aren’t allowed outside of the shopping market without a visa but you can technically say you were in Laos. And can put some of your money into Laos instead of Thailand. Laos is a considerably poorer and less modernized country than Thailand.  Here is a tip from the website above: “(Hint: Get the post master on the island to stamp your passport with the Laos postmark, to prove you’ve been there).”

The main reason everyone was looking forward to this stop was the chance to try and to buy Snake Whiskey (along with scorpion, lizard and other disgusting things). They had big glass containers of a murky liquid with decaying giant snakes, lizards, etc. in them that you could try a dipper of, and many of our group did. Not me, no way! It grosses me out to think about it.

And there were many bottles of the whiskey for sale (as souvenirs primarily, I hope) with various things in them (the snake being the main item). I did buy a nice tunic top of white crinkle cotton. That is my main purchases I made this trip – various tunic tops of crinkle cotton (which I find washes very nicely).  On the other side of the river, where we started, was a lot of shops also that I really wanted to shop at (and had seen some things I wanted to get). But unfortunately, when we got back we just had time for a potty stop and then we left. Can you believe we left somewhere unshopped?! Not typical for a tour company but something that set this tour apart, in a good way. We were not inundated with shopping, shopping, shopping.

From here we went to our hotel for the next 2 days, the Phowadol Resort and Spa. Here is the TripAdvisor page on the Phowadol which is very detailed and has reviews, pictures and more.The Phowadol Resort was very nice and very picturesque. It had separate pavilions with open air lobbies where the rooms were located.  The reception desk was in a separate pavilion (see picture). And there were private bungalows around some of the small lakes that you could also rent.  It had a very open, tropical feel with lots of lush vegetation, winding paths, little lakes/lagoons and a very nice pool that I actually got in and spent some time in.  I am typically an “indoor Susie” so this was an unusual occurrence (and I may have gotten a touch of heat stroke, unknowingly). But the weather was just ideal, warm but nice breeze and not too hot like it was further south.  The rooms had lots of wood and a private patio with a large palm.  An oddity of the room was a beautiful painted mural on the wall next to the bed that slid open to reveal the bathroom. The question, of course, is “why???”  Other than being great for a puppet show, it is just plain freaky-deeky. But I guess you did have a nice view outside through the patio doors from the toilet… Other bath news: the bathtub (an important fixture for me) was wide and deep. It was a little shorter than usual perhaps, but plenty long enough for me and the deepness and wideness were excellent.  Unfortunately, even with the panels to the bathroom open, you couldn’t see the TV from the bathtub. That would be the only real advantage to having the panels that open, in my opinion.

The room also had this ultra-modern unit that controlled the TV, the air conditioning, the lights (every one individually) and any thing else you can think of. Of course, none of us could figure out how it worked… That seems to be a theme with the hotels, that there is always something no one can figure out.  It turns out there is a master switch on the unit that turns everything on.  We got that part, but I tried and tried to figure out how to turn on the lamp next to the bed on my side.  The lamp itself had no switch, the cord had no switch and none of the buttons on the control panel worked for it.  I went to a friend’s room and asked them how they got it to work.  As it turned out, the light bulb was burned out in our lamp.  I think there is a joke in here somewhere about how to keep an idiot busy…

Now is a good time to talk about the bed mattresses.  Ever since Bangkok, the bed mattresses have been getting harder and harder.  These were a thin batting on a wooden platform.  It was extremely firm, but surprisingly comfortable (once we got over the surprise of a mattress that is even significantly firmer than ours at home, which is just a bed quality futon on slats).

We all wanted to see the musical light show clock tower and to go to the Chiang Rai night market so Nok arranged the bus to take us and to stop at the clock tower just as it was doing its thing and then we walked to the night market.

This is a shrine we passed while walking to the night market.  It was beautiful and was all silver (actually tin) filigree.

Chiang Rai has a very nice night market with a food place with a stage and entertainment that was quite varied, from a duo on acoustic guitars singing ’70s easy listening music like “Summer Breeze” and early beatles, to a quite extravagant Ladyboy show in Chiang Rai (aka he/she, aka katooey, aka transvestite). Click on the link to see a video I took. He/she’s (as Nok says) are very common in Thailand and no one thinks anything about it. At many stores and markets, there was a ladyboy working and no one gave it a second thought.

We asked Nok what the feeling was about them and Nok said people liked them because they were so cute and girly. Actually, Bangkok/Thailand is one of the best, if not “the” best places to go for transgender surgery. They have the most up-to-date, experienced surgeons and tools.  But just because a boy acts/dresses like a girl does not mean he is working on being changed physically into a female. It seems to be a way of life that is complete the way it is.  The ladyboys in the show were so beautiful and feminine that several of the guys in our group absolutely refused to believe they were men and went up to take a close look and still didn’t believe until a few of the performers were a slight bit more male looking and they said it was possible.  Many a man has ended up being surprised that the “woman” they picked up, was really a man.  It is just a common thing.

They used to have the same setup (night market, food area and entertainment) in Chiang Mai. I went to it when I was in Chiang Mai in 2001. But Nok says it closed that down and just has the night market now.

This is a picture of the delicious fish dinner that Sean had at the night market.

Sean and I did a little shopping at the night market and then we took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. We paid 120 baht to get back. It was nice to know that we were not traveling tomorrow! Tomorrow is a free day and we plan to just hang out and maybe take a swim and just generally be lazy. Maybe we’ll go back to the night market.

By the way, to see all my posts from my February 2010 Smartours Amazing Thailand trip, you can select the category “Thailand” from the category dropdown on the right.

And a quick note, I may not post again for several days as Sean and I will be at the happiest place on Earth – Disney World next week.

Until then,

~Susan Mellott

While in (or near) Lampang, we visited a mulberry paper making factory and a ceramics factory. I don’t remember about either of these (maybe it was too early).  I do somewhat remember seeing how they beat the mulberry pulp to make the paper. As you can guess, I thought it was somewhat interesting but not one of the highlights of the trip Actually, maybe we did this yesterday (I’m writing this after the fact). In any case, we did that sometime in there…

But the first thing I really remember for this day is the visit to Uncle Gao’s pineapple farm. Nok, our tour guide, showed us how they were a straw hat and carry the baskets to pick the pineapples. This is a picture of Nok, the Wonder Guide.  We met Uncle Gao (“uncle” because he is older) and he showed us how he cuts the pineapple up, whack, whack, whack!  We saw his house which I think you could safely call a shack, although really, it had pretty much all you would need.  There was electricity and a TV and a small refrigerator and a place to cook with burners. I didn’t see an oven.  He had graduation photos of his kids proudly displayed, along with a picture of the King (as found in most Thai houses). I think there was only an outdoors toilet but it was pretty nice since it was built with tourists in mind so it was probably the newest, most modern structure there. I didn’t see a shower but there was water so there was probably a shower or hose somewhere. Everything was decrepit and dusty/dirty. I heard some of the people say they didn’t believe Uncle Gao lived there, that it was just for show.  I couldn’t say. I believe he did, there were plenty of houses that looked like this along the way that people lived in.  But maybe not all the time, or any more.  I’ll bet at least that he used to live there. Anyway, it seemed livable to me.

Uncle Gao was a nice older man who lost his wife about 2 years ago. Nok said she was killed by being hit on the road I believe she said.  She said she saw Uncle Gao some time after that and he cried when she asked where his wife was.  It’s a sad story and he was all alone except for his dog (and her puppies).  He looked at Sean’s tattoos and showed Sean his tattoos. He had some on his chest that he said was to protect him from being shot. I forgot to ask why he would need protection from being shot. Maybe when he was younger he was in the army or something like that.  He told us about that using a gun shaped lighter and pantomiming it and we figured out what he meant and we all had a good time doing so.  Nok (the Wonder Guide) translated for us when we visited with people and that made it easy to talk to people we could not have on our own. Nok always introduced us and translated for all of us and facilitated conversation. That is not something you get very often, in my experience. Even if the guide spoke the language, they usually didn’t do much more than maybe tell us who the person was.  Nok seemed to personally know each person we met.

After we left Uncle Gao’s, we went to Phayao where there is a big reservoir/lake.  It was very beautiful with a large lake and hills in the background.  There was a pretty little stop with coffee, bathrooms and misc stuff with a pretty shrine and lily pond in front. There is another thing in Phayao that we didn’t see but sounds interesting. It is Wat Sikhom Kham. I could not find a lot of information about it, even searching the net, but what I read sounded intriguing: “Wat Sikhom Kham, on the shore of the lake, houses a revered 400-year-old Buddha image. But it is the startling statues of dinosaurs, devils and other images of hell – inspired by both Hollywood films and Buddhist legend – that attract many visitors.”

That sounds very interesting to me, like the roadside attractions that I love to visit when on a road trip. I remember my parents and us girls going on road trips with our Mobile Travel Guide and stopping at all the interesting attractions they listed.  One time I saw an entire minature Jerusalem made out of concrete and broken bottles and jewelry and all sorts of “found items”. It was the work of a mad man or a saint (or both). But it was so worth seeing. It is called the Ave Maria Grotto and its Facebook page has lots of pictures. We had the best road trips!

But back to Phayao.  In Phayao we got to taste the infamous Dancing Shrimp. Several members of our tour had asked about it and sure enough, in Phayao, there it was. Nok, as usual, took us right over and bought enough for all of us to try.  So what is Dancing Shrimp?  It is tiny live shrimp stirred quickly into a seasoned salad, put into a wrap and eaten, while the shrimp are jumping around and trying to jump out of the bowl, the wrap, your mouth and everywhere else.  Nok fed each person a taste so they didn’t actually have to hold it As you might have guessed from my previous posts, I did not try it.  But people said it was OK.  I think it was probably the novelty of it along with a decent tasting base that made it good. But it was the topic of discussion for many days and I was glad that people got to try it.

I also had some Thai red iced tea for the first time. People had said how great it was and they were right. It is a milky, sweet, tasty iced tea.  We also had peanut/sesame seed bars like peanut brittle and black sesame seed bars that we think were made with molasses. And some people bought some crunchy fried bamboo worms (that were called “Pringles” on the package).  I didn’t try any but people didn’t seem to think they were that good. Just mostly crunchy I guess.

Then we went to Mae Sai, Mae Sai is the northern-most city of Thailand. It is mainly a stepping stone for visits to Myanmar. You can walk under a big arch, across the bridge and you are in Myanmar (Burma). Other than that, it was mostly just a lot of little shopping stalls and food carts. It was good for a quick stop, potty break and a little shopping. It was at this point that I realized that we had not been inundated with shopping stops. Although we went to some specialized places to see how things were made (and visit their gift shop), I was not feeling shopping overload by any means. Actually, I was feeling a little shopping deprived and I crammed as much shopping as you can into a short (20-30 min?) stop.

Next stop was a delicious lunch at our hotel in Chiang Rai, the Phowadol resort.  I think I will stop this post here and resume with lunch in my next post.

Sawasdi Jao,

~Susan Mellott

Today we left Topland Hotel early-ish (7:30 or and headed to Sukothai. The Sukothai Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the site of the first capital of Siam (Thailand) Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th century. It had many stupas and buddha statues and beautiful ponds and landscape.  You have seen typical buddha statues, of which there were many.  But this was an interesting statue of buddha of a type I had not seen before.  It is the Walking Buddha (I can’t remember, was it for walking meditation?) and was very feminine in form.  This is the way the Thai Buddhas look. This is because the thought  was that the feminine figure was the most graceful and beautiful of all human shapes.  It did not mean that he was feminine or female, just that he was graceful and beautiful. If you follow the link above, you can see the list of desired attributes. Sukhothai artists tried to follow the defining marks of a Buddha set out in ancient Pali texts. All the statues in Sukothai were feminine in nature. You could rent bicycles and cycle around the grounds as they are very large, but it was pretty hot for cycling when we were there, although a lot of people were doing it.

We stopped for lunch at another buffet which I can’t remember, exactly. I think it outside in a garden as were several of the lunches that were buffets.  I did write down what we had to eat though!  We had bean sprout soup, morning glory veggie (green stalk type veg), chicken, glass noodles, rice, watermelon, pomelo (sp?) – a delicious fruit that is like a large, mild, sweet grapefruit (that I could not get enough of), beer and water for 680 baht for both of us (or about $20).  As usual, it would be very expensive to get the same quality food here in the US.

The next stop was a museum to view ancient ceramic kilns that were excavated and left in their original condition. It was fascinating to see and understand how they created kilns to cure their pottery.  They are known for their celadon (sp?) green ceramics.  The display of the kilns was very well done.

Then we visited the textile museum (and shop) and met the owner, a very nice and funny man. It was nice that in most of the places we went, we got to meet the owner/creator.  He was dressed in the clothing of Laos, a bordering country.  Most of the people who owned these places we visited did not speak English but with the great help of Nok, our excellent guide, we were able to talk to them very well.

And then we went to our hotel in Lampang, the Wienglakor hotel.  The hotels on the road are not as nice as the one in Bangkok.  This is probably because they are in small towns that are just stopovers on the way to somewhere like Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai.  The Wienglakor hotel had a very noisy air-conditioner and an interesting, unlabeled (in our room) slot that you put the key in order to turn the lights on.  That is actually fairly common, but we had not encountered it yet and it was unlabeled so it took us awhile (and asking another room) to figure out how to work it. It was funny because we started wandering down the hall looking for someone to ask and we found 2 of the guys on their knees peering at a little hole in the wall by the floor behind a baseboard that was pulled off. They had accidentally dropped their key into the slot that turns on the lights instead of inserting the attached plastic bit. They MacGyvered the key out of the wall with various pens, tweezers, pocket knives and other tools.

There were very cool horse drawn carriages in Lampang that you could rent cheaply to go around town and Lampang was a pretty little town. We wanted to go out and look around but yet again we were tired from a long day and laid down when we got to the hotel and didn’t wake up until about midnight (and then went back to bed). I wrote a post before this one about  the Wienglakor hotel and misc. My posts are out of order because I had a hard time finding internet so sometimes they were current and sometimes they were catch-up. When I am all finished, I will make a travel page for them and put them in the correct order.

Tomorrow is the Golden Triangle, Chiang Rai, a ride on a boat on the Mekong river, a stop just across the border of Laos and Myanmar (Burma) and various occupations and handicrafts.

Onward and upward,

~Susan Mellott

OK, let me see if I can figure out what day it is. According to my itinerary, it is Monday, February 8. We have been on the road since yesterday and will continue through tomorrow. Then we stop for a day in Chiang Rai, before heading to Chiang Mai for a few days. I like seeing everything, but am tired of traveling on the bus. It makes for very long days and we are exhausted by the end. I also get a tiny bit carsick, so that doesn’t help. I sound like a wuss complaining though. Compared to my last trip, this is like traveling like royalty. The bus is air-conditioned, has soft seats and even a bathroom (but best avoided if possible). Nok is good for stopping for “Tea and Pee” breaks . The last trip, it was in a Songtaow for 7 hours at a stretch (with lunch stop). A songthaow is a pickup truck with bench planks in the back along the sides of the truck bed and a canvas roof on it. They are hot, bumpy, painful, crowded and the fumes from the truck about asphyxiate you. So I shouldn’t complain. But we just went through the mountains and I have a bit of a sick headache so I will complain a little, at least at my weak body!

So yesterday, Sunday, we left Bangkok at 7:30am (or thereabouts), heading for Ayutthaya. On the way we saw many local busses, all painted up in wonderful colors.  Our own bus had Grateful Dead style pandas on the fuzzy carpet interior, with pink and green ruffly curtains and fancy lights on the ceiling.  It was 2 stories and we rode on the top story with the luggage and a small bathroom (and the driver) below.

Ayutthaya was the former capital of Thailand. We saw the giant bronze statue of Buddha (Wat Mongkol Borpith) and the rest of the remains of the ancient city. I will tell you the info I wrote down (scribbled, so I can’t read it too well). It may be wrong since I can’t check it on the internet. But roughly, Ayutthaya was the capital from 1350-1769 (about 400 yrs). The Burmese invaded and conquered it and took all the gold on the statues and stupas (tombs). After 15 years, Rama the first took it back. But because it had been damaged, he moved to Bangkok to be the new capital. That started the King Ramas. Rama 4 was the king in “The King and I”. It was about his life and was pretty accurate except for him falling in love with Anna. It was banned from Thailand for quite a while since it showed him falling in love with her and acting in unkingly ways. And showed her acting inappropriately too.

The Thai people love their kings. You will NEVER hear a Thai person speak badly of their royal family. I guess there is one of the brothers (son?) of the current king who is a playboy and he is not mentioned at all in public, like he doesn’t exist. One of the people on the tour saw him in a picture of the royal family in the marketplace and asked Nok about him and she said to wait until later and not to talk about him or ask questions or mention him at all in public. But everyone sincerely loves the king and feels that he does much good for the country. Nok said she would die for him and so would most other Thai people and she really meant it. There are pictures of him and his wife everywhere, big ones decorated on the sides of the roads and in the squares. And he really is an interesting person. He seems like he is quite the renaissance man. He was born in the US (Boston, I think) and plays the saxophone and composes music and has many CDs of his music. I would be very interested in reading a book of the story of his life.

Anyway, after Ayutthaya, we went to the town of Lopburi. Lopburi is absolutely filled with monkeys. They look like monkey gangs roaming the streets. They cross the streets in a stream and swarm all over the shops and roofs and wires and sidewalks. I’d be afraid to walk the streets at night. Monkeys can be pretty aggressive animals, especially in groups! There is a ruin of a temple there that has a bunch of monkeys hanging around it. One person kept teasing the monkeys and getting too close to them and trying to get them to come. The monkey people who keep them back from visitors were having to keep chasing them back.  And they stole someone’s sunglasses and the monkey people had to get them back. They look cute but can be very aggressive and people wouldn’t have been happy if they had gotten bitten, like one did to Sean’s mom in Bali. She was sick for a year with some sort of internal parasite from it, not mention getting a pretty bad bite.

So after that we stopped at Chi Na (something like that) for lunch in these amazingly beautiful gardens. I will have to include pictures of the gardens as soon as I can get everything uploaded, etc. Actually, as you can see, I am able to upload now. But my camera ran out of juice and had to use Sean’s so I’m waiting to get his pics. Until then, it was stunning. Thai pavilions, koi ponds, flowers hanging from everywhere, statues, a river, water fountains, everything. Buffet style food, as are all the stops we make as a group. And as always, the food is inexpensive but the water/beer/etc is expensive. That is where they get you, price-wise. This is a picture of their bathroom.

We also visited the Bronze Case factory to see how the buddha statues are made. It was very interesting to watch them make them by hand, using few (if any) machines. The picture on the right was an interesting statue sitting by the door. Not very PC here, but probably not of any notice there.  People do collect this type of memorabililia and it is a whole section on ebay.  The factory was not commercial at all (although of course they had a gift shop).

After that, we drove a while, had a “tea and pee” break and got to the Topland hotel in Phitsanulok province about 5:30pm. The hotel was beautiful in the lobby, but the rooms were not as nice as the Century Park hotel in Bangkok. Of course, that hotel was very nice. We got used to the nice separate stone shower and large bathtub. This bathtub was really narrow. I am a bath taker and I could just fit in it width-wise (although it was quite long and pretty deep). I could not put my arms next to me in it. At home we have a monster soaking tub so I am used to giant tubs. This was nice and was usable, unlike most hotel tubs. But it sure was narrow (or I sure was wide)!

The hotel had a small mall connected to it with clothing and sports shops and some restaurants and fast food places. I had KFC and it tasted good! Shame on me, I know. All this fantastic food and I eat junk food. Well, deal with it Sean went out and found a thai place there and got nice noodle soup and beer and was happy too. We were exhausted from the day and went to bed early. Of course, I woke up thinking it was about 6am, looked at my watch and it was midnight. I didn’t have trouble getting back to sleep though!

The hotel also had a nice pool (we didn’t go there, but saw it from our window) and internet in the lobby for 30 baht/15 minutes. It used an ID/password that you received and just cut you off when the time ran out, which is dangerous since you are probably logged into things. I had to buy another 15 minutes because I was in the middle of a post and when I relogged in, it came up with my editing of my post, which it would have done for anyone. So I made sure to log out of everything (yahoo, wordpress, etc). I tried to delete the history but it would not let me. That is really a bad design to have it just log you out but not even shut the computer down or anything. The person next to me, when they logged in, they were in someone else’s email.

There was also an ATM in the mall so Sean got 5000 baht (about $150) out since we were getting low and didn’t know when we would find another one and were started the part of the trip where credit cards and things like that were not taken by most places. Then we went to bed since we had a 6am wakeup call, 6:30am bags outside the door and 8am departure.

To be continued…

~Susan Mellott

Here I sit, in Lampang, Thailand at the Wienglakor hotel. It is supposed to be one of the best in town. It is fine, but a little rustic. No swimming pool, and the air conditioning is really noisy. It reminds me of the hotel we did a day stop at, in Chiang Mai on my last time to Thailand. It’s funny, the last time, the hotel in Chiang Mai that was similar to this was the lap of luxury for the trip. It was a very rugged trip, though. The air conditioning was very noisy, and didn’t work very well, but it was air conditioning! And there was a western toilet and electricity and a real bed! Of course, it was just a day stop for a couple of hours. At lunch today I was telling our fellow “smart people” (what Nok calls us, since it is the Smartours), about my last trip. And they asked if it was with Intrepid. And I had forgotten who it was until they said that, but yes, it was with Intrepid, through Adventure Center tours. I will have to look up Intrepid when I get internet and see if it still looks the same. I still have not found a wireless connection, so I am just typing this on my computer and will upload it as soon as I can.

I am actually quite surprised by the lack of wireless access. And if there is any, it is really expensive, like $1/minute. There are places where there is free wireless, but few and far between and never where both me and my computer are at the same time. When I was here in 2001, there really seemed to be as much internet access as there is now. I know that even in the backwoods places we went, if it was any sort of a village at all (as opposed to a camping place or the like), there were internet cafes, and they were cheap. I do think the choice of hotels has a lot to do with it. If I were picking our hotels, I would not pick one that didn’t have wireless (and there are plenty). But since we are with the tour, we go where they take us. And the hotels are just fine, it’s just frustrating to not have wireless (when I know it is out there). The last time, I could find internet, no problem. But to find an inexpensive international phone was almost impossible. Now, with Skye, it is practically a moot point. And since Sean is with me on this trip, I don’t have to worry about calling him.

There is a person on our tour that has a Blackberry something or another phone and he did something to use it in Thailand and he is making calls right and left. I’m not sure how he is doing the international calls, but he makes them a lot it seems. It seems it might be expensive but I will have to ask him. Maybe it is included in some plan he has like unlimited data and phone. He is certainly on it for the internet plenty. And surprisingly, the reception is pretty decent. He had very few times he couldn’t get a signal, even today when we were traveling in the mountains, with almost no houses (and those didn’t look like they had electricity, much less internet). Heck, we lose voice cell when I’m talking to Sean and he drives down Maples Road by our house!

Buzz was looking up everything (just like I would)! We had some sesame/honey treats and he wondered where sesame seed plants looked like and he googled it. There, I said googled. I sort of hate that term. I prefer “searched”. But it is getting so common that it is basically synonymous with “search”. (wow, I guess that is how you spell synonymous. It looks weird to me, but I didn’t get a spellcheck error).

Nok has been giving us treats to try. We had some Roti, which is strings of spun sugar, like spaghetti, wrapped in a thin, tortilla looking wrap. It was delicious! Quite a treat. We’ve also had sesame/honey bars that I love and that you can find everywhere. And someone found some Happy Panda cookies that are good. And we had rice paper (thin, crispy rice sheets) and cooked coconut in the inside shell, that you could drink the milk and eat the meat and it was soft. Also, some really good, slightly sweet brown rice cakes. And Thai Iced tea, which is red and milky. And Thai coffee! It is really so good.

I have difficulty eating Thai food. I know it is weird and makes me seem provincial, but it just have unfamiliar smells and tastes and it doesn’t seem good (or right) to me. And it is frequently so hot! It’s not that I don’t like any of it, but I don’t like most of it. Sean however, is in hog heaven. He loves it! I am glad, since he doesn’t get it too often. Oh, we had some Pomelo (or is it Pemelo? That is how it was spelled in our grocery), a fruit similar to grapefruit. It was very, very good. I do love all the fruit! We don’t get a lot of tropical fruit at home.

Well, this post is going all over the place! I was going to write about what we did, but instead I’ve written about everything else. I think I’ll end this here and start the next post with our last couple of days.

And if I am lucky, I’ll find a place to upload it from my computer sometime soon!

~Susan Mellott