IN NAKHON PHANOM, THAILAND

We are now in Nakhon Phanom in the northeast corner of Thailand. This town is on the Mekong river with a view across the river to Lao. 

Every so often along the river the town has placed exercise equipment which is used in the evenings.

This is a wonderful town for bicycling. We have seen more bicycles here than in any other city in Thailand. Laura is busy filling her SD card with bicycle photos. The town is flat and along the Mekong River so it’s perfect for bicycling. Here's a photo of a lady and her bicycle with her child in the front carrier, a basket for goods, and a seat on the rear fender for another person.

On our first night here we ate at The Little Tokyo restaurant which is near the hotel, and which has wonderful Japanese food. We also met Lew Brown, who is an American from Grand Rapids, Michigan, living here with his Thai wife. 

Through him we met a fifth grade Thai schoolteacher, and her sisters. We went on a two hour walk with her one night, to the Tuesday used clothing market. Here's a photo of both of them with Jim.

Through Lew we also met the owner of the L A Bicycle shop. When Laura started photographing his bicycles, he said that he had one for Laura to photograph. So, the next day he brought this classic antique Raleigh bicycle from his home so Laura could photograph his pride and joy.

Jim had a red Raleigh bicycle similar to this one when he was a kid, but it was not as fancy as this one.

The hotel we stayed at provided breakfast, which rotated between omelet and noodle soup. One day it served omelets, then the next day noodle soup. We thought we were eating a Thai type of omelet, but found out later that the type of omelet were eating was Vietnamese. At the hotel we met Sam, from the Italian part of Switzerland, and his girlfriend.

Here is what the well dressed Thai dog wears. 

Here's a photo of some yard art which would look nice at home. We have seen the elephants up to life size.

We walked a short way along the rive to Wat St. Ann, which is the very modern Catholic church in town.

The big annual event here is the annual boat festival where they build rafts up to four stories tall and float them down the Mekong River. They light them with drinks cans filled with kerosene. We regret that we missed the festival. Here is a photo of a model of one of the smaller floats.

On our last night, Lew invited us to his house to meet his wife and her children. This is both their second marriage. The wife’s first husband died of cancer, leaving her some property. So, we went to their home where they have built a cabana type of hotel, which was extremely nice, and well done. The property is next door to one of her sister’s house, and her parent’s house, while another sister lives about 100 yards away, across the road. Here is a photo of Lew's wife and daughter.

We were in the market and saw this truck full of bagged fertilizer arrive in town and wondered what would happen in the U.S. if a full fertilizer truck pulled up with men wearing ski masks? 

IN UBON RATCHATHANI (UBON), THAILAND

We took an eight hour bus ride from Korat to get to Ubon. The guidebook says the ride should be five to six hours, but Jim managed to book us on a local bus which stopped at every town along the way, and even some towns that weren’t on the way. Now, we are back where we got stopped last year because of meeting new friends. This year those friends have spread to other parts of the world, and we are back. Brenda is in Lao, Mick is in Pattaya, Thailand, and Lars is home in Denmark.  

At the bus station we met the same tourist office lady, Pla (which means Fish in Thai), who helped us last year.

While walking around we happened upon this 1952 Chevrolet for sale. 

  We were tempted.

After seeing the 1952 Chevrolet we then happened upon this car show featuring vehicles with huge sound systems.

We are again staying at the Sri Isan hotel, which has more senior travelers than we have seen in any other hotel. When we checked we met Udi, who is 85, traveling by himself, is retired from dealing in furs and skins, and is from Denmark. 

 So, we have a few years left to travel if he is any example.

One advantage of the Sri Isan hotel is that it is across the street from the morning market. Sri Isan provides coffee and toast for breakfast but we go across the street to the morning market to get Vietnamese food for breakfast. Here's a photo of the seller of Jim's breakfast sandwich (Bahn Mi).

One morning this portable monk was at the market collecting alms.

Last year there was a weekend night market in front of the hotel. This year they moved it to a bigger street in front of a government building. For us the highlight of the market were these cowboys who 

performed bluegrass music. 

One night we watched them arrive on their motos. Both had their instruments on their back while riding their motos. It was quite a sight to see the base fiddle stick three feet above the head of the driver.

 Ubon is located on the Moon River so we keep thinking of Andy Williams. Here is a photo of fish farms on the Moon River. 

One of our favorite temples is here. It's not so much the temple that we find wonderful as it is the library at the temple. The temple is set in water to keep bugs away from the manuscripts inside. We like to go into this temple, sit and look at the Thai Buddha for people born on Friday, which we both were. 

IN NAKHON RATCHASIMA (KORAT), THAILAND

We took a four hour bus ride from Bangkok’s Mo Chit bus station up to here. Passed out on the bus were hand wipes, red bean buns and water. We also were given a Rob Roy pattern blanket to use on the bus. The ride was uneventful although the Thai dubbed Chinese Kung Fu movie they showed on the bus we could have done without.

If you read our blog last year you might recognize a similarity in that in both years we left Bangkok for Korat. This time though we are not going to the Cham temples scattered throughout the area. Korat is the gateway to the northeast of Thailand, or Isan. So, we will be spending a while in this part of Thailand. Last year when we were in Korat, there were protests here in favor of the government, this year it’s quiet, and where the protesters were, there are temporary markets. This year Thailand is under Martial Law, but outwardly there are few signs. We have only seen soldiers once, and when we did, they were too busy photographing each other to notices what was going on. We did here the Thai Air Force in the skies above Korat. They were having some sort of exercise because we could see and hear the fighter jets climbing nearly vertical and zooming along in formation.

Yesterday in the center of town there was a fire fighting festival. Firefighters took kids up in the snorkel of their snorkel truck, 

showed them how to fight a fire with a fire hose connected to their pumper truck,

and how to evacuate people using a boat in the old city moat.

Plus, there was lots of drawing and water coloring painting for the kids especially “Hello Kitty.”

One of the most innovative things was a toilet bus. Instead of using porta potties the city had equipped a bus with toilets. Men entered through the back and women through the front. What we liked best was the slogan on the side of the bus “Happy Toilet Healthy Life”. Not too sure of its meaning but catchy.

We also had our first massages of the trip. There are two Klang department stores downtown. One is in a newly remodeled building and is part of a high end mall, the other is older. They are about five blocks apart, and both seem to be doing a good business. We went downtown to the old Klang Deprtment store and went up to the massage area on the fourth floor. Last year the massage area was behind the televisions, this year they have moved the televisions elsewhere and the massage area is now behind the artificial flowers. As we headed up the escalators we could smell the menthol from the massage area before we could see it.

We both had foot massages for which we paid slightly less than $5.00 each for the one hour massage. When Jim’s masseuse reached his big toe, which had physical therapy in Topeka, she stopped and consulted with Laura’s masseuse about the toe before proceeding. Jim's masseuse made his toe feel a lot better, and at a lot cheaper price than the physical therapist in Topeka.

There are a lot of taoist temples in Korat, and with these temples go paper items and money you burn to send to your ancestors. One of the stranger items we have seen is these paper people, for which we are not sure of the reason.

At dinner last night in a food court, Laura was invited to sit down by this Thai lady who wanted to talk in English. This lady's mother was from Thailand and her father was from India. We had a very nice chat over dinner and then exchanged taking photographs of each other.

The main statue, and hero of the town in Thao Suranari, also known as Ya Mo (Grandmother Mo), who lived from1771 to 1852, and was the wife of the deputy governor of Korat. In 1826 the Vientiene King invaded Siam seeking complete independence. The king's forces seized the city by a ruse when the governor was away. The invaders evacuated the inhabitants, intending to resettle them in Laos. Lady Mo is credited with saving her people by harassing the enemy. Varying stories describe her either getting the invading soldiers drunk, or leading a rebellion of the prisoners on the way back to Vientiane. The generally accepted version is that, when the Lao invaders ordered the women to cook for them, Lady Mo requested knives so that food might be prepared. That night, when the invaders were asleep, she gave the knives to the imprisoned men. They surprised the Lao troops, who fled, and the prisoners escaped. Thai King Rama III soon sent an army in pursuit, defeating the Vientiane in three days of fighting and completely destroying Vientiane. King Rama III awarded her the title Thao (Lady) Suranari, (the brave lady) in recognition of her courageous acts. Her statue stands in the center of town, and is a popular object of devotion. 

Chinese New Year is coming next month and the town is getting ready.

In Bangkok, Thailand

We started the second part of our trip by flying to Bangkok, Thailand. We left San Diego by Amtrak to Union Station in Los Angeles. The train left on time, we had checked baggage and there was no security screening, which is not a bad way to travel. There was also food available for purchase on the train, which we did not partake of, having been loaded down by Jim's daughter, Sherrie, and her fiance, Lisa, with provisions. When we arrived in Los Angles we discovered that Union Station had been transformed from a genreal eyesore into into a transportation hub with subways, buses and trains all congregating there. We figured that we could get to just about anywhere from Union Station. However, we chose to only take the Fly-Away bus to Los Angeles International Airport. To catch the bus we walked to the end of Union Station, paid our money and had a very short wait for the bus. When the bus arrived, it was clean, and then we had an easy trip through the express lanes on the freeways to the airport. The bus dropped us off in front of our terminal, the updated Tom Bradley Terminal (Terminal B). Jim still doesn’t think much of the terminal, even after its facelift. It was here that we checked in for our New Years Eve Eva Air flight to Bangkok, with a change of planes in Taipei, Taiwan.

The flight was long and uneventful. Again we felt like cattle as we were herded through the security checkpoint at the airport and then into economy class on Eva Air. However, the food and service was good on the flight, and the wine was from Chile.

Once in Bangkok, we retrieved our luggage and caught the airport train to the MRT, as the subway in Bangkok is known, and then walked to our hotel, near the Suthisan MRT stop. Jim tries to pick hotels near MRT stops as that is our main way of getting around Bangkok. The MRT goes from the main train station to a smaller train station and goes past most of the places we go, and gives seniors half fares. The Skytrain, which is the elevated train doesn’t give foreign seniors the discount that the MRT does so we usually take the MRT.

We are staying at a fairly new hotel, the Bangkok 68. The rooms are large and almost all concrete. The walls are two tones of gray concrete and the floor is variegated gray grant. The white bed sheets make a striking contrast with the dullness of the floors and walls. 

Our room costs 700 baht per night, which is $21.28 U.S. dollars. For that we get a large room, daily cleaning and a pool on the roof, but no breakfast. For breakfast we head to our local neighborhood market next to the MRT.

Jim broke his glasses before he got to San Diego, and he hadn’t had an eye exam for at least two years. So, he decided to remedy the problem. First he went around town seeing if his old lenses could be fitted into a new frame, to no avail. Then he decided to just get a single vision pair of glasses so he could at least see far away. The spare pair that he carries are at least five years out of date so he was not seeing well with them. He reads without his glasses, which is why he breaks them. The last pair he took off while reading in bed and then slept with them all night. In Bangkok, he went to the local market where a man measured his eyes for glasses and told him to come back the next day for his single vision glasses. Bifocals would have taken a week to make and we were leaving before then.here is a picture of Jim in the market with the man and his wife who sold him his new glasses, which he is wearing.

After getting his glasses, which fit perfectly and enabled him to see much better, he decided to get an eye exam and a new prescription. Normally, these two things are done in the opposite order, but, why not? To obtain the eye exam we took the MRT to the Rutnin Eye Hospital where we walked in and were scheduled for an eye exam by an ophthalmologist. In the hospital the first stop was to have the glaucoma test done, which Jim passed with flying colors. Then next stop was the refractionist, who measured Jim’s eyes for the glasses. Then he had his blood pressure checked and his eyes dilated before finally seeing the ophthalmologist who told him he was starting to get cataracts, but otherwise his eyes were in great shape. He then went to the cashier to pay his $40 for the exam and pick up his prescription for new glasses. After that, off we went, Laura leading the way for Jim with his heavily dilated eyes.

On the weekend we had to go to the Chatuchak Market which is the largest market in Thailand. the market has more than 8,000 stalls separated into 27 sections, so we only see a small part each time we go. Anyone for a statue?

Wednesday is cheap movie day in Bangkok. So, for $3.00 we saw the latest installment of the Hobbit. We had seen the previous Hobbit movie when we here last year. It was wonderful to see such a majestic movie on a large screen.

We finally located good cheap wine in Bangkok. The Chinese have invaded the wine market. For $3 we bought a bottle  of Qian Hu China Plum Wine which had the following ingredients listed on the front of the wine label: Water, Plum, Sugar, Yeast, Carmel, Flavors. The wine's alcohol level was 10.5%. We found this wine at Tesco, the big English supermarket chain.

We eat a lot of barbequed food on the street, but these chicken heads were unique. However, we passed them up and took chicken gizzards instead.

We have come to really enjoy Bangkok. but, we are now off to the northeast of Thailand, then on to Vientiane, Laos, before returning to Bangkok to catch a flight to Singapore.