Traveled Two Hours South of Bangkok Today…

…..and will spend the weekend here and work two days before going even further south to Rayong. The week in Bangkok went well and the American Embassy job went reasonably well for working with the U.S. Government. I stayed at the Conrad Hilton about two blocks from the embassy and each morning I walked to work along sidewalks filled with Thais; street vendors with the hot, spicy smells; Asian music blaring from the taxis—and it was easy to really just get absorbed in the experience of being over here.

I had five students—three Thais, one from East Timor, and one from Hong Kong who spoke almost no English. We got along well and on Thursday took a break and visited one of the temples here. When the week was over everyone seemed to have become friends and it’s always a little sad to wrap it up.

I've just learned the job in Cameroon has been approved so I'll be leaving a couple of days after Thanksgiving and returning four days before Christmas. I've really got mixed feelings about this job--Cameroon is not a fun place to spend nearly a full month. I was thinking about this past year this afternoon and got to calculating--I will have spent 4 1/2 months overseas during 2007. From October 26 through November 26 alone I will have visited five Continents (Asia, North America, South America, Europe and Africa). And while I'm really looking forward to the trip to Peru next month, I'm also very tired physically but all this travel has really enriched my life in ways I never dreamed possible so I'm deternined to keep doing it as long as I can and I still enjoy it.

I took a taxi to Sriracha this morning and the hotel here is nice, but certainly not as luxurious as the Hilton in Bangkok. It is a fairly large town located right on the coast and this afternoon I walked around the beach. This is not a tourist area and is very industrial—I’m working with a trucking company here this week. It is much like Pasadena or Freeport in Texas but more seaport oriented—ship building, salvage, ferrying, etc. While it’s not scenic, it’s interesting because I’ve not seen another Westerner here all day. The hotel seems to have a lot of Japanese here and the Thais do not speak very much English—some don’t speak any which suggests this really is off the tourist path.

I ate supper at the hotel tonight and the food here is authentic Thai—nothing watered down but red hot with those deadly little Thai peppers. I love my food hot but I have to be very careful here but still, I ordered off the spicy menu and loved everything they brought me.

While I was walking around this afternoon I wandered over a bridge to a small island that has been turned into a park and it was filled with families—again with the music, food and smells. The small island is actually a rock protruding from the ocean and at the top of the rock, a small mountain, there is a Buddhist temple. I walked around the island but didn’t climb the mountain since I didn’t know if it was allowed due to being a religious temple. Still, it was a fun trip and this evening I went to a night bazaar across from the hotel. It’s evidently a weekend thing and is lit up like carnival. It was packed with people shopping but there wasn’t anything I was shopping for—there really doesn’t seem to be a tourist trade here at all.

Tomorrow I meet my contact here—an Australian and he should be able to give me some suggestions on things to visit and see the short time I’m here.

I'm including here a picture of the famous, or infamous, Thai taxi that's affectionately referred to as a tuk-tuk taxi. They are literally everywhere and Bangkok has them on every corner. This photo was taken here today and you can see they pack them full of fares. To wrap up this blog entry I'm attaching a short video of the infamous Bangkok traffic when the light turns green....