January 25 from Bangkok

I arrived here this morning at 5:30 a.m., having come in on a sleeper bus from MaiSod.

The sleeper bus was not like the ones in India with full berths, this bus was more like business class on an airline. Nice big chairs that laid back like a recliner, and we had a stewardess, got a bottle of water, a fruit drink in a box, and a box of goodies with Nescafe instant coffee, cream, sugar, hot cup, spoon, and several packs of cookies. I never saw any hot water, but I sure did sleep good. Past experience led me to wear socks, and carry my windbreaker, and sure enough it was - cold! The bus also offered a blanket.

So you may be wondering where have I been for the last 5 days, or maybe not!

I had hoped to show you via pictures, but as happened in India, I can no longer open my SD card from camera. I thought I had learned how to prevent that - but apparently not!

I have been over on the Myanmar (Burma to Gator nation people) border visiting refugee camps. I was traveling with a Burmese and a Thai young man. It was "quite" a trip, not only in seeing the camps, meeting the people, hearing their stories, but in traveling with and eating and sleeping with my host and the folks that put us up.

My sleeping was always good, but the mattress and bed may have caused a few a proplem. All my beds were a two inch foam pad, either on a tile floor, or a teak wood floor. It is a test to get up in the middle of the nite from the floor, then down steps, and one time, outside and down a hill to the toilet facilities. And cold showers - well, actually I only took one! - convinced me that the Lord didn't mean for my little bod to ever be in a lot of cold water! maybe that's why I get in so much "hot water" some times.

One place had hot showers and, man, - can I enjoy a hot shower! Now 'squat" toilets are another matter!! But you do what you gotta do!!

All of our meals were - what at least - interesting. I know one place had chicken so done it could not have been bad for you, and I've never had beef for dinner that was like eating jerky - weeelll done.

Then for breakfast - now, I don't want to sound negative - but as soon as I got Bangkok today, I went and ordered two fried eggs and toast. I have eaten some strange breakfasts, like rice and pork, which sounds good, except it was more like rice and hog jowl. And my buddies ate it all - so - I jumped right in and ate all the hog jowl - fat and skin and meat and rice.

The refugees come from Myanmar and are mostly Koren tribe people. The refugee village is very old, and has cement sidewalks up the hills (steep hills), but all the houseing is traditional bamboo, with roofs of leafs. I have never seen 'leaf' roofs before, but seem to be very effective, and are very "quaint" "native" looking. You ought to see my Pictures!!! Oh, that is so frustrating.

In one village we went to a new house dedication . This is a Koren tradition, all the neighbors come and bless the house and then have a big meal. They have another tradition that is when a person dies, they have a memorial for the dead person a month after he dies and this also includes a large meal. Well, at this house on this day, it was memorial to the dead owner and a house dedication all in one. There must have been a 100 people crammed into the house, and then the dinner was large.

The meal, however, had hard rock chicken, scalding hot (seasoning) beef tips and boiled vegetables, and raw cabbage, and white rice, and beef jerky beef. The hostess fills your plate up with rice and you then scrap off what you think is too much into another bowl that stays on table if anyone needs more rice. The water here is good to drink, I guess, cause everywhere we went I drank the water poured for me. That was nice, but I also had a bottle of water if I wasn't sure.

Then we went over to Burma - Myanmar - to a church service. Myanmar is the typical 3rd world country. Trashy streets, horrible streets in residential areas. The money changers at the border are sitting with stacks of 1000 kyats bills. I mean stacks as large as say four shoe boxes put together. The exchange rate that I got was one dollar to 1,000 kyats.

At the church - after the service we had lunch. Before lunch they served a bowl of COLD thin milk with all kinds of gummy bears stick things in it. Eaten with a spoon, it was very good and refreshing, and very colorful - purple, bright green, hot pink, and kinds of things and stuff. Lunch was about the same - hot beef - stewed fish - dry chicken, fried vegetables and white rice. My staple was fried vegetables and rice.

all for now

Johnny