judy on September 30th, 2006

Ira and I have finished another week of language school and are feeling very proud of ourselves.  Ira’s class had a test on Tuesday and mine on Wednesday.  You will be happy to know that we both passed!  (This in spite of the fact that Ira had sworn previously in his life that he would never take another test!)  Yesterday (Friday for us) after class, we went with my class group to get some coffee.  Since one of the Japanese in our class doesn’t speak English and since we wanted to practice Thai anyway, we all chatted mostly in Thai.  It was lots of fun and gratifying.  This is not to say that we have suddenly become fluent — FAR from it — but it was fun.

We also learned that the same Japanese young man, khun Yamada, has a photographic memory.  I already knew that he is an artist, but was astounded to find out that his visual skills extend to being able to see the Thai words and then retain them with virtually no effort. Before joining our class, he had only studied Thai for 2 months and he did that on his own!!  He is in the class to learn to speak and understand the verbal language, but he can read the written language like the wind.  Ira thinks that khun Yamada has a Mozart version of language genius — we were in awe.

Last night we went out for dinner and dancing with one of our ex-pat friends and his Thai girlfriend.  That was a great evening also.  Our friend’s name is D.J. and he is working as head of food and beverage at one of the very nice Thai hotels near where we live.  D.J. is retired early from the US hotel business, has been here now for about a year and a half, and is living in Thailand on a permanent basis.  As you can imagine, D.J. is lots of fun and has many interesting stories to tell.  His girlfriend, whose nickname is Kay, is lovely and also in the hotel/hospitality business.  We all had a great evening!

Next week will be our last week of Thai language school.  Ira and I both feel that we have made a lot of progress, but are also a bit tired of keeping our retired noses so intensely to the grindstone and are ready for a break.   We are actually going to miss a few days of school due to our trip to Myanmar which is coming up on Saturday, October 7.

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judy on February 5th, 2006

Daddy/Ira and I arrived safely in Bangkok.  The trip across the Pacific was all that we had hoped for.  The Evergreen Deluxe class on EVA airlines is between economy and business class in comfort (seat size, seat layout, and distance between rows) and general amenities with the prices only a bit higher than the standard Economy Class.  We will never fly another way whenever we have this option!!

Our flight had an interesting quirk.  Before we left Los Angeles, they told us that the headwinds were so strong that, even with a full load of fuel, our 747 couldn’t make it non-stop to Taipei from LA.  So, we had to stop in Anchorage, Alaska to refuel!!  This stop extended our time on board by two and a half hours.  Thank goodness that we had such comfortable seating!   Also, thank goodness that our lay-over in Taipei had been long enough that we didn’t miss our connecting flight to Bangkok.

When we arrived in the Kingdom, the weather was sunny and 86 degrees Fahrenheit.  As most of you know, I have not been enjoying the cold at home.  I was thrilled to be really warm again!  After clearing immigration and customs (they don’t even look up in customs), we actually got to our apartment around 2:30 pm Bangkok time on Saturday, Feb 4.  Ira had set his stopwatch when we were at the airport in Dallas so we noted on arrival in our apartment that the elapsed time for the whole shooting match was a little over 30 hours.

Our apartment at V.P. Tower is in great shape.  The maids had cleaned it  for us on Friday and had strung up some colorful plastic bags on the balcony to look like the lanterns for the Chinese New Year which was a week ago today — celebrations for which are still continuing. We were delighted.  We decided to wait to sleep until night-time so we went to the gym to work out the kinks, bought a few groceries, and headed down to Tee Sud Isan, our local restaurant and hangout.

Our “social life” is now back in full swing.  Last night, at Tee Sud the owners Doug and Yim were there along with 4 other of our favorite friends, so we had a great welcome back.  We stayed later than we had ever intended, but had a terrific time.  Plans for viewing the Super Bowl were made also.  Since it starts here at 6:00 am tomorrow morning, Doug and Yim are going to open the restaurant for our group and serve breakfast along with all the appropriate adult beverages. They have a large TV with all the channels so we will be watching the game live along with most of you.  Go Steelers!!

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judy on November 15th, 2005

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You probably already know that Ira and I are friends here in Bangkok with Yim and Doug who are the co-owners of an excellent restaurant which is also our neighborhood “hangout”.  Yim is Thai and Doug is from the US. Thanks to Yim, Ira and I were recently lucky enough to go to a traditional Thai wedding.  The daughter of a friend of Yim’s from her old neighborhood got married last Saturday.  We really enjoyed the experience and thought you would be interested to know a little about it!  I have copied most of the following write-up from a description that someone else wrote.

The wedding day is not a random day. An astrologer has set the best day according to the stars.

I don’t know about this — sounds good to me!

The number of guests in a Thai wedding is always a weird mystery. It is difficult to know the number of guests because invited persons might not come and uninvited persons might come. In Thai custom, it is difficult to know the number of guests as Thai invitation cards are different from invitation cards in foreigners’ norm. In western countries, you see RSVP or regrets only with telephone no. on the bottom left of cards, so the guests can reply whether they can come or not. Thai people don’t answer and so the number of guests is not known exactly. Guests might come with or without their children, with or without friends.

Obviously, Ira and I came as Yim’s friends and were definitely unexpected, but warmly welcomed.  Doug and two of their three boys came also.

In the early morning of the wedding day (around 6 a.m. ) monks arrive at the bride’s house. Nine monks are invited.. Prayers are said and the main monk sprinkles holy water on the audience.  The newly weds, wearing beautiful Thai clothes, kneel close together and there is a string going from the bride’s head to the groom’s head. On the head it makes a circle. They close their hands making a “WAI” or Thai greeting. Nine trays are placed in front of the monks. Each tray contains several small dishes. After prayers are over, the newly weds give an envelope to each monk. The envelopes contain money. As monks cannot touch money, Thai people give envelopes. Then the monks eat and when the meal is over they go back to the temple. Religious ceremonies are now over.

We arrived at the bride’s house about 7:45 am while the monks were eating.  The monks eat inside the house and everyone else is either serving them or waiting around outside.  No one else eats until after the monks leave.  After the monks were finished, they said some more prayers and then departed in a Toyota van.

As a side note, apparently if the newly weds are not rich enough to afford to bring the monks to the bride’s house, the bride and groom go to the temple in the early morning to make donations and give food offerings to the monks.  But, at the wedding we attended, the monks did come to the bride’s house.

After the monks left, everyone who was there began to eat.  At this point, none of the groom’s family or friends had arrived — only those of the bride.  We all ate and drank — mind you this is now at about 8:30 – 9:00 in the morning!! And we are eating green curry and fish and ….. Around 9:30, the groom’s family and friends arrived and the “doors ceremony” began.

Doors Ceremony

A procession of the groom’s  relatives and friends brings gifts and food to the bride’s home. Music is played during the whole procession ceremony. The procession song is called “RAM VONG KLONG YAO” and features a drum.  During this ceremony, the groom leads the guests. If the groom’s house is too far from the bride’s house, a place like a bus stop can symbolize the groom’s house. The groom walks to the bride’s house followed by his parents, family and friends.

In our case, the groom’s group had chartered a tour bus for the trip to the bride’s house as they lived across Bangkok (realize that Bangkok has 7 million people and is quite large).  The bus dropped them off up the street from us where we couldn’t see them.  The groom walked up there to join them, they all assembled and then processed to where the bride, her family, and their friends were waiting. 

The groom has to cross symbolic doors before entering into the bride’s house.  In traditional Thai weddings, the groom shall cross two gates called “silver gate” and “gold gate”. The gates are on the way from the groom’s home to the bride’s home. To open the gate, the groom must give a gift, i.e. some money to the children. Of course the amount is bigger to open the gold gate than the silver gate. Doors are symbolized by girls holding a chain. Often those girls are the bride’s sisters. At each door the groom is asked if he is rich enough to take care of his wife and his family. He has to give an envelope to each girl in order that they will remove the chain to let him pass. The envelope contains money. Each time a door is symbolically opened, people are shouting.

We did not get a clear picture of the gates.  The bride and groom then go into the house for the white thread ceremony while the new arrivals eat and drink and generally make merry. 

White thread ceremony

In a room, the newly weds sit close to each other. An old and wise man says auspicious sentences in order to bless the wedding and give hints to the bride. Then white threads are linked to the wrists of the newly weds. Threads are soaked with holy water.  In Thai language the Thread ceremony is called “PHITI BAI SRI SU KWAN”.  The “BAI SRI” tree is often prepared by friends and neighbours. It is made of banana leaves. It is in the center of the “BAI SRI” ceremony. This ceremony has an Indian origin. The tree shape reminds of the mythic mount Meru (the center of the universe). Some symbolic food is given to the newly weds. The parents attach a white string around the couple wrists and bless the couple.

When this ceremony is completed, the bride and groom come outside and are blessed with good wishes by their family and friends.

Outside the house, the newly weds kneel on a pedestal with their hands clasped together. An old man says auspicious sentences and anoints them on the forehead. The newly weds wear beautiful garlands around the neck.  Every guest pours a shell filled with holy water (“NAM SANG”) on the hands of the bride and groom. They say holy sentences and blessings to the newly weds.

We missed the blessings as it was almost 11:00 am and Yim was ready to go — and so were we since we had been up since 5:00 am.  After the blessings, everyone goes about their business until the evening when there is a big party with more food and drink.  This was to be held at a large restaurant and, again, the exact number of attendees was anybody’s guess.  Since we were now part of the group, we were actually included for the evening as well but declined.

Ira and I really enjoyed this special occasion.  Since we had studied about Thai weddings in one of our language classes, it was particularly interesting to see the things actually happen and to know some of the specialized vocabulary.  Also we have so many fresh memories of another wonderful wedding with very different traditions —  Olivia and Aaron’s!

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ira on December 17th, 2003

This has been a huge month, too, and as our time here comes to an end, we want to wish everyone Merry Christmas. We get back the night of December 16 and look forward to seeing many of you.

Olivia and Aaron come to Thailand.
Olivia and her friend Aaron arrived over Thanksgiving in time for Judy’s birthday.  We spent two days in Bangkok seeing most of the things that have to be seen, many of which Judy and I hadn’t seen yet. Then we flew to Krabi and spent three days at Railay beach, known for azure waters, white sands, and huge limestone karsts that come down to the sea.  This area is said to be a climber’s paradise.  Olivia and Aaron seemed to have a great time climbing.  They met up with Shelly, an English language teacher in Krabi and former instructor in our Ban Phe school, were we met her.  She is a skilled climber too.

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ira on December 10th, 2003

On December 7 we took the slow train from Bangkok to Khon Kaen.  We wanted to see the landscape of this part of Thailand that we had been eager to see.  Khon Kaen is the largest city in Isan and a university town.  In fact, the university itself –located on 4000 acres–is a town itself.  Dr. and Mrs. Chaiwit hosted us.  He is the professor of Neurosurgery at the university and she heads the medical school’s library.  We arrived on a day like our blue-sky days of autumn.

The highlights of the visit centered around the neurosurgery department of the medical school and a great afternoon  in the city with three medical students.  This is a place where they do lots of neurosurgery and have strong neuroradiology and pathology in support.  When we get back to Thailand, we hope to spend several months in Khon Kaen.

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ira on December 1st, 2003

We’ve still got that Bangkok feeling but have less than a month left to enjoy it before coming back home.  So we’re trying to do everything that we haven’t gotten around to doing yet.  We expect even greater activity when Olivia and Aaron arrive, including a trip to Krabi for some surf and, for Olivia and Aaron, some rock climbing. 

Santana came to Bangkok, and a group of us met at Doug and Yim’s restaurant and headed out to the Impact Arena for dinner and the big concert.  The arena went dark and BAM!! the music hit.  It went for two hours straight and was great.  Santana dates back to Woodstock, so the age spread of his audience was wide.  So, as people began to dance, they did so with steps and moves from across the decades.  It was like watching the evolution of Rock.  A few rows down a Thai woman was dancing like Goldie Hawn of yore.  What looked like a tin of Tiger Balm bulged in her right hip pocket and reminded me of a Skol tin in silhouette.  After the concert, we returned to Doug and Yim’s house, which is a fabulous one they built of teak and Italian marble.  Out front they have an mango tree and beneath that a carp pond.  A bridge over the pond leads to the spirit house.  We all enjoyed ending our grand evening there and taxied back our separate ways in the early morning.

Fish Story.  Ray and I spent a day at Bungramsan Lake, once a gravel pit, now a deep fresh water fish reserve just outside Bangkok.  Here you can catch and release giant fresh water specimens of the giant Mekong catfish, its cousin, plaa suay, carp and others mentioned on the picture of the sign.  Ray is not only a career English language teacher for the British Council, he is also a serious and skilled fisherman.  He taught me a lot.  We estimated our day’s catch of ten fish at about 200 pounds.  This estimate does not count the really big ones that got away.

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ira on November 17th, 2003

At the end of that week, we took a long weekend in Hua Hin.  Hua Hin is a resort town known for its white sands, lush landscapes, restaurants, and European tourists.  We went down with Nigel, a Bangkok friend who spends weekends in Hua Hin, where he and his long term partner live. Nigel is a microbiologist from Wales who has been in Thailand for 15 years. His partner, Rung, is from Isan, and she is really sharp! They were most gracious and spent a lot of time showing us around and introduced us to some of their Thai friends.

One of Rung and Nigel’s friends owns a garden restaurant and, on the night before the annual Loi Krathong festival, was having a dinner party.  It was a beautiful evening with great food and drink and Karaoke in full throat under a clear sky and full moon.  As the karaoke was dying down and the party nearing an end, a drawing was held.  Judy held the winning number, and first prize was a beautiful gold amulet with a figure of Buddha!  The net day we bought a gold chain to wear it on.

Rung made Krathongs for the four of us for Saturday night’s Loi Krathong festival.  Krathongs are elaborate, colorful floats woven typically from banana leaves and are dense with flowers built on a banana stalk base.  Joss sticks and candles stand in the center.  Rung’s were exquisite.  On the night of Loi Krathong, these vessels are released into the sea, rivers, canals or even into the swimming pools of resorts.  

On Loi Krathong night, we ate at a seafood restaurant on the end of a pier out over the gulf as a full moon rose again.  We watched hundreds of lanterns rise into the night sky and krathongs make their way out to sea.  Later on, we released our own krathongs into a canal.  Our vessels bore our transgressions of the year, a few coins, and good wishes for the future.  We lost sight of the candles and glowing smoke of joss sticks as our krathongs drifted into the distance.

But who could ask for better luck or good fortune than Judy and I have had?   We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in Hua Hin that weekend.  Last year we were in Capetown for our anniversary, next year ????

On Sunday, Rung took us through the Hua Hin market and to an outdoor noodle restaurant for lunch.  We then drove up a mountain for a view of the city.  Spreading beneath us along the coast with a mountain near the sea, Hua Him reminded me of Rio.

Nigel just wrote a very interesting article, “Fungal Frenzy”, that appeared November 17 in the Bangkok Post.  If you don’t think you care for fungi, check the article out.  It may change your mind.  Go to the the Bangkok Post, sign up for the archives and search on “Fungal Frenzy” if this link has expired.

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ira on October 31st, 2003

Judy and I were both invited to speak at the annual Neurosurgery Review Course in Chiang Mai about the electronic medical office.  Dr. Voravut Chanyavanich from the NS division at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok started this annual review course.

Thai neurosurgeons–including our friend Dr. Chaiwit from Khon Kaen and our recent acquaintances in the division of neurosurgery at Chiang Mai University–presented interesting material, as did internists, neurologists, neuroradiologists, radiation-oncologists and pain management specialists.  I am very impressed with the quality of the clinical neurosciences here in Thailand.

There were four other “farangs” on the program:  Dr. Tom Flynn, from Baton Rouge, whom the King of Thailand proclaimed to be a Thai neurosurgeon for his good works, and Professor E. M. Rice, former head of the department of NS at Charing Cross Hospital in London.  Also, Dr. Dolenk  from Slovenia and Dr. Patet from France presented.

Here is a copy of Judy’s kind e-mail to our family about this event:

Just wanted to brag on Daddy/Ira.  He delivered his paper yesterday at the Neurosurgery meeting to great success.  His introductory remarks in Thai were very well delivered and very well received.  He even got a round of applause!!

His talk (in English) also went over well — of course, you would expect that.

We had a terrific time at the meeting in Chiang Mai and have met some more people – Thai, American, and British – whom we really like and hope to see again.  We have also spent some more time with the Thai Neurosurgeons whom we know and those relationships are continuing to grow and blossom.  We’re now back in Bangkok until next Friday when we’re going for the weekend to Hua Hin.

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ira on October 15th, 2003

We have made two trips to Chiang Mai.  At the end of September, we took a two-week “vacation” to Chiang Mai and environs that included a trip to the Golden Triangle and long-tail boat trip on the Mekong.  We were just there again (October 28-31) for a “Neurosurgery Review Course”. 

The following comes from an e-mail to the family on 10/12/2003 regarding a two-week trip to Chiang Mai and north into the “golden triangle”:

“Well, another school.  It seems that Mom/Judy and I have been students since we arrived in Thailand: first to learn to teach English, then about 100 hours towards learning Thai, and last week in Chiang Mai it was cooking school.  What a day!  Were we ever glad to stop slaving in that hot kitchen and have a Mae Ping riverside restaurant cook dinner for us!  Joke, yuk, yuk.  It was great fun.  If the teacher would run three classes a day she could call her establishment “Wok around the clock”!  Ha.

We had already attended another school of sorts just north of Chiang Mai, though not as pupils.  It was a training camp for elephants.   It was located on the banks of a narrow river that ran muddy and fast from the rainy season.  Now that elephants aren’t logging much any more, they’re being trained in camps such as these for the tourist trade.  Elephants have a 200-kg/day eating habit to support.

The only thing between us and the trunk was the mahout, who sang to his elephant as we sloshed across the river and rocked up and down a jungle path.  We recognized two words of the mahout’s song—long and nose—and we tried to join in the song when those words came up.  Mom/Judy and I were on an elephant again, excited, with bunches of bananas in hand to feed our elephant along the path.  We enjoyed every minute of it. 

We swayed back into camp at a stately pace and settled down on some low bleachers.  The show was on!  A dozen elephants and their trainers bowed to us, and the elephants proceeded into amazing displays of brute strength (log rolling) and light touch (taking bills from our hands, picking up coins from the ground, and shooting baskets).  Our group left the elephant camp and snaked down the river in a long line of bamboo rafts, the drivers polling thru the current.

Along the way, we passed bamboo dwellings with corrugated iron roofs rusting away.  These could have been the homes of mahouts, as elephants stood nearby, snatching at greenery with their trunks.  One elephant stood alone, chained to a solitary tree on a low hill, silhouetted against a patch of sky above the dense green.  All our cameras seemed to fire in unison.

We docked and caught an ox-drawn cart that bumped us along a rocky road further in the direction of lunch.  We passed elevated wooden stalls selling tee-shirts and baseball-and-yarmulke-like caps embroidered with hill tribe patterns.  I wanted a baseball cap, but they were all too small and ridiculous looking perched up there on my head.  We arrived at a small resort for a lunch that was fallen upon by all, what with the morning’s exertions.

On the way back, we went by a monkey show which was a non-starter and then by an orchid farm which was enjoyable.  But after a big morning with the elephants, everything suffered in comparison.  What can you say?

The next day was also exciting.  If the Toyota diesel van is the workhorse of tourist group travel and elephants the most empathetic, imagine what mode of transport compares on the Mekong River?  Picture this: Judy and Ira in life vests skimming across the Mekong at the Golden Triangle, wind swept hair, teeth glinting alabaster in the sun, with Burma to the left, Laos to the right and Thailand behind us, riding the thunder of the straight pipes of a long tail boat on the muddy Mekong’s high tide.  Yeah!  A large, squared off boat heading to China passed, possibly moving opium (we thought adventurously) along this ancient route.  Long, shallow canoe-like boats were tied to the Laos shoreline while their owners, fishermen for the giant Mekong river catfish, swam during siesta time.  We docked in Laos at a hard-currency shopping island where five types of local liquor were recommended: Cobra whisky with a cobra in the bottle, another with another snake in the bottle, a ginseng whisky with a ginseng root floating in it, a cinnamon bottle, and finally one containing “tiger” genetalia, this one said to enhance the drinker’s potency.  We assumed the genetalia to be from another animal, as the numbers of bottles surely outnumbered the tiger population.  The booze was not a big seller, needless to say.  We stopped in Mae Sai for a visa run into Burma.

That day concluded with a visit to two hill tribe villages adjacent to each other deep in the jungle and down a long path on the side of a gorge.  The physical setting was wet-jungle slippery, as it had started to drizzle.  We visited a village of “long-neck” people who place ring after ring on their women’s necks as they age up.  Another tribe of obscure origin formed the other.  These groups were from the dwindling Akha and Karen tribes.  The long necks with their gold-colored neck rings won straight 10s on a scale of the picturesque and unique and the others for their delicate embroidery and silverwork on their head gear.  Imagine this as your everyday dress. 

But, night was approaching, so Mom/Judy and I shot off a few pictures and began the climb back up the misty path to the Toyota diesel while we could still see.  We all loaded and bumped on up the road onto the highway just as a lightening storm began.  It drenched the windshield for most of the way back to Chiang Mai, and we arrived in darkness.

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ira on September 21st, 2003

In Phnom Penh you are never far from reminders of Pol Pot’s reign of terror. In Phnom Penh itself, Pol Pot’s psychopathic minions converted a former high school into a central torture center.  Where students once studied and played, tools of torture replaced the tools of learning. The metal beds, blood-stained floors, and grim implements of torture remain today in these cruel rooms.  The guide who took us through the torture center spared no detail.

In the courtyard–the ultimate in cynicism–a sign lists the rules of conduct victims must observe during torture.  One rule advises, “While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.”  We’ve posted a picture of this sign in the Photos section.

In the unlikely case that these grim rooms fail to break your heart, a documentary movie playing in the last building certainly will.  In the movie, families, survivors, and torturers alike tell their stories of the times: touching ones of young couples summoned to a distant village, never to return.  A former guard describes with stunning nonchalance how he forced victims to kneel at the edge of a pit, clubbed them, and allowed them–dead or alive–to fall in.  Victims, those crippled few who survived with bodily injury alone, tell their horror stories, too.

En route to the “Killing Fields” 9 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, our car crept and bounced along a nearly impassable road for some miles.  Our guide was quieter than expected: His father disappeared during the Pol Pot times and may lie somewhere there. 

All arrivals are met by amputees in wheel chairs, victims of land mines.  And children, lots of rib skinny, impoverished children, await you, open the car doors, smile and ask for a dollar.  As you enter the fields, you see that picture you’ve seen before–the tall glass-walled memorial with storey upon storey of skulls.  Then you walk down the paths alongside the pits and read the signs telling what’s known about the fallen victims in each one.  And there is a children’s pit, even a children’s pit. 

You still see occasional teeth and bone fragments and bits of cloth scattered along the paths.  Today, local children play beneath the trees in this grim place, and the park guides reluctantly shoo them away when they beg a pittance from the stunned visitors. 

As encountering any historical atrocity, you have to wonder, “why the cruelty?.”  In Pol Pot’s case you might say ideology explains it: they believed they were killing the past to plant a new future.  But I believe it was more.  I believe baser instincts were freed to run wild.  I believe these cadres relished the savagery, the bloody torture and killing. They enjoyed it and had found an excuse.

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