Loy Krathong, Patong, and Phuket

11/16
Temple fairs are very similar to a US fair. There are ferris wheels, midway games like Pop the Balloon and Fishing for prizes, and many food booths. Coming back from Kao Yai I saw the lights of a temple fair, and it looked very similar to the Tanana Valley Fair. The ferris wheel is the one with a cage that you can make go upside down and swing. There was an article in the Bangkok Post about the temple fair at the Golden Mount and the pictures looked like a state fair in the United States.

We asked if the girl, Oum, who works at the store, could go with us on our trip with the family that Jit is planning. Oum must be around 12 and does not go to school. She helps her Aunt at the store. It looks like she has partial cerebral palsy. She is partly paralyzed on one side of her body. We are always kidding each other, she tells me to go home. Anyway we wanted her to go with us to Ko Kred and her aunt said no, because she did not have anybody else to help her, we will keep trying. Oum is an orphan, her parents died from Aids. When Nick, Nuck, and took she came to watch, we invited her to join us. Oum should be in school.

Loy Krathong at STOU was a big event. There were many Thai dances, and an excellent bad made up of high school students from Nonthaburi. The music was very exuberant, the band used Thai instruments. One of the Thai dances was supposed to be inspired by Rama III. There were dancers from each of the four regions of Thailand, dancing separately and together. It was supposed to inspire people to see Thailand as a single nation. There was also a little girl talent/beauty contest that, for me, was pretty boring. The contest went on and on. There was also a contest for the best Loy Krathong float. People were selling Loy Krathong floats around the lake. Nednapa spent the evening with us and we got to meet many professors. There was also a professor from Utah that was visiting Chuligon University. He teaches Micro-Economics. It there was ever a country that was rich in Micro-Economics it is Thailand. We stayed the night at STOU and, except for the very loud air conditioner, it was pretty good. The Moon was beautiful and came in and out of the clouds. There was also lightening in the distance. We left in the morning to meet Pong and to go to Phuket.

11/17
After a few cell phone calls we all got together at the airport and made the flight. As we were coming into the Phuket airport it reminded me of Ketchikan, with cloud covered green hills and blue roofs. From a distance it looks like southeast Alaska. Coming over the hill to Patpong beach it is hard not to remember the Tsunami. There are many signs of the Tsunami, especially the freshly painted buildings. There are many buildings still being rebuilt.

Our hotel, the Ban Thai is beautiful, but I believe that we saw it during the Tsunami coverage. The architecture and design are excellent. Even the art in the rooms is excellent with white on white paper prints of leaves, the pictures are even signed and numbered. Everything looks well designed and thoughtful. Jit arranged a good price.

We walked up to Woody's Bakery and he was gone. He had to suddenly leave for the Netherlands. His son was in some difficulty, but we emailed a few times. Woody's bakery is very nice, it is new shop house, there is free Internet and very good food and sandwiches. It did not feel like Thailand.

We also met Woody's niece who has taught herself excellent English. I had a meatball sandwich. When we left Jit and Pong got Papaya salad from a street vendor. We then walked home. Patong beach is a tourist place. There are many bars, many Pizza places, many street vendors and many German and English people. I can not really say I like it, but it is sort of interesting. Like most tourist places there are no real surprises, just the same thing over and over again.

The Tsunami experience echoes everywhere. I think it is like the Alaska earthquake or the Fairbanks flood, you will see evidence if you look, but you can also ignore the evidence if you want to.

11/18
We got up early and went walking on the beach. There are many brand new bright red mini-taxis, Diahatsu Hi-Jets. I think they must have been bought to replace transportation that was lost in the Tsunami.. There were many older people walking and running on the beach. Most had complete tans, so they must live in the area. I think that people come here to retire.

We walked up to the Amari Phuket Coral Beach, a very high class hotel. As we crossed the bridge over the river you could see new housing where long tail boats were docked. I assume it replaced housing lost in the Tsunami. I think they are the homes of the boat owners.

When we were walking a person asked me, on the street, if I was interested in Diamonds, I said no, but as if I would get a diamond from somebody on the street, I mean I would never buy I diamond anyway.

There were Christmas drinks advertised at Starbucks and Christmas decorations at Jim Thompson house, it does not feel like Christmas at all.....

We took the hotel shuttle to Phuket. We also got a ride with a car at the Central shopping center to look around a little and to go to a Wat that Jit and Pong wanted to see.

Phuket is a pretty interesting town, I bugged Jit and Pong and we walked through the old part of town and explored. I took many pictures. We also had to go to this stupid vast jewelry store to help our driver. He will get a commission if we go to the store. The scale of the store was immense. We got out of there.

We went to Wat Chalong, it was pretty new, but beautiful and interesting. There was a brick structure, like a cone, where people light off strings of firecrackers for some kind of luck. There was a large beautiful spire. We climbed up inside and looked around. The Wat was new since there was a modern elevator integrated into the design.

We got back and swam and lazed around. We then went looking for Thai food. We had to walk a long time. We finally asked some street vendors, who were eating Thai food, where to go and we found some restaurants. There was a group of restaurants distinguished by the color of their chairs, red, white, blue, and orange. When we got there people were competing for where we would sit, sort of like when you drive by the water front in Cha Am. The food was good.

Walking back we could see many bars, and many "activities" There sure were a lot of old, fat, tattooed men with young beautiful women. Somehow I do not think it was love. Patong beach has many bars. Actually it is pretty boring, even the people watching is a little boring. I have never seen so many people smoking. German people seem to smoke in public with out much thought.

When we got back to the hotel there was a band outside. The band was from Africa. The music was really excellent, I have listened to African music for years. The band was called Jumba Survivors. During the night it was pretty noisy, with random German yells. There was a thunder storm which calmed things down a little.

11/19
After we went for breakfast we walked up to Woody's to get a return airline ticket. Pong looked around a little, but we eventually went to a travel agent.

Woody's was like being in America. There was a picture of a Colorado mountain on the wall and bluegrass music. One of the songs was "I saw the light sweet Jesus, I saw the light" which is very odd to hear in Thailand. Many British and German tourists came in for the Internet access and to get bakery goods and sandwiches. Woody's even had Brown and Haley's Almond Roca candy. I grow up near the factory and we used to go get candy at the factory in Tacoma Washington. It took a double take before I realized what I was seeing. If I did not look out the window I would feel like I was in the United States.

The people at Woody's are very nice. I checked the email and heard from Margaret, she is leaving for Brazil for a week. In Fairbanks many new stores have opened, an Old Navy, a Petco, and soon (Yeah) a Barnes and Noble. I guess they might even be building another Walmart on our side of town. It was good to hear from Margaret and some Fairbanks news.

We went to a travel agent, we found out that the flights are full to Bangkok tomorrow, it was a long weekend holiday because of Loy Krathong, so we will leave Monday. We also got a driver from the travel agent to show us around the island. We agreed to stop for only one "commercial" stop, and no diamond's or pearls. We saw many beaches as we went south and many remnants of the Tsunami. One place had the beach houses all destroyed, across the road, where there was a hotel, was completely vacant. It was sort of a hazy gray day, but the feeling of Southeast Alaska or the Northwest United States around Bellingham remained. There was a spirit house dump. I guess there are certain places that it is "safe" to leave spirit houses if they are broken or need to be moved. Many of the beaches on the Island are nice places to be lazy.

Gasoline stations are pretty odd on Phuket, a 55 gallon drum with some kind of pump and a glass gauge on top. Some of them are advertised to be open 24 hours. I assume there are for motor bikes. The first time I saw these gas stations is in Phuket.

One thing the bugs me, is when I ask a question, it is changed into a desire. Just because I ask a question does not mean that I want to do something, I just want information.

Drivers on Phuket get commissions for steering people to different shops. Many of them are really large commercial enterprises. There are tour buses and vans clustered around the outside. It is pretty irritating to keep being distracted by things I do not want to see. We were told we did not have to buy anything, just go use the bathroom, and we would help the driver, but it was not so simple, and it was pretty boring. We finally made it very clear, or I really made it very clear, that I was not interested in jewelry or pearls. We did stop at a couple good packaged food stores that were actually worth visiting. We got some dried fruit and also some nampik. After we sorted out our priorities we did get to go to some useful stores. I also found out that we walked through the right places to see the old part of Phuket. We had an expensive dinner by the beach. Most of the customers were not Thai. The food was good, but again it felt like we were being manipulated.

When we got home it was windy and stormy. Psychologically it felt like it should be cold, but it was warm. Tomorrow we will explore Phuket some more. My preference will be to get stuff to read and to hang out at the beach. We will return on Monday instead of Sunday.

I have been doing a lot of photography. During the day I use the Olympus 7070 digital camera and at night I use the Hexar AF camera because of the quick focus and fast lens. I am not sure I am getting anything valuable, I do not know the area well, but it is still fun to take photographs.

11/20

Patong is sort of boring, it is an entirely tourist town. Tour agencies, restaurants, bars, hotels, T-Shirt, art, DVD, photo developing, dive shops, car rentals, all the normal tourist stuff. It is sort of like Anchorage after the tourist boom, downtown is a great place to buy T-Shirts, but that is about all.

Phuket is a full town with some interesting old buildings. There is a historic reclamation area that is interesting with narrow streets and interesting architectural detail. I think that renovation is permitted, but not tearing down and replacing buildings in the area. I like Phuket.

The other towns we saw are similar to Patong, they are tourist beach based and again sort of boring. The beaches are pretty nice, if your goal is to sit around on a beach and eat and drink there are many places. Summer is winter is a nice experience.

In Phuket there is a fairly new hospital that is abandoned. We were told that it is because it is near the fishing port and nobody wanted to go there. There is still a satellite dish on the roof so it must have been abandoned pretty recently. We were also told there were ghosts in the hospital, but I imagine any hospital will have spirits and ghosts!

The chess game that I saw at the boat launch across from Klong Toey dock is not really chess, it is a Thai board game called Mark Lok, or something like that. I also saw another Thai game in Phra Pradaeng. There is a basket hanging in the air and men kick a small ball into the basket. The men had uniforms and the game looked well organized. I was told the game is called Tra Kow

In Thailand some people use their middle finger for pointing, at first because of my cultures association with the middle finger, it seems a little odd, but after awhile it is normal. Small things illuminate cultural differences.

Yesterday there was a sun dog, a circular ring of haze around the sun. The sun dog looked like it was around the spire at Wat Chalong. I said it might rain tomorrow and I was right. I am not sure if sun dogs are really a good predictor of the weather, but it seems to work.

In the morning there are people running and jogging on Patong beach. There are also beach combers. We saw one person going along the tide line with a metal detector. Early morning is a great time to watch how everyday people live.

There is a large tower called Patong Tower. At night there are no lights. It is a huge new building. I think it might be condominiums, but I will search Google to see what it is. (It is a condomenium)

There is another large hotel tower called Montana Grand Tower. I do not know what the reference to Montana means, it might not even have anything to do with the state of Montana, but it is an odd reference to see in Thailand. (Here is a possible definition
"Arnica montana
n : herb of pasture and open woodland throughout most of Europe
and western Asia having orange-yellow daisylike flower
heads that when dried are used as a stimulant and to
treat bruises and swellings [syn: Arnica montana]"

A couple weeks ago we went to eat at a Thai restaurant with Pan, Jit's brother. It was a very nice place. There was a Thai women there who was eating, she grabbed her fork with the palm of her hand, it looked sort of odd. I looked around and nobody else was holding their fork in the same manner. This morning a saw a women holding her fork in the same way, I think she was from England. I assume that the Thai women spent some time in England. My poor brain works this way.

At breakfast I saw a T-Shirt today, "Alabama Dream", I wonder what an Alabama dream is about?

Tomorrow we go back to Bangkok, we will explore Patpong some more tonight and tomorrow morning.