Working My Way Back toward Bangkok

Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010—Khon Kaen

After rains last night, this morning is cool and cloudy. The hotel serves a free simple breakfast—corn flakes, toast, butter, jam, coffee and tea. I ate that in the open-air lobby downstairs. I also read the Bangkok Post, one of the two local English language newspapers, which they have available there. Then I went to explore the town some more.

There is a very nice shrine complex in town. It was crowded with people bringing food offerings. Today must be a religious holiday. The foods were numerous and fancy. Also, everyone all over town is burning paper in pots. This comes from an old tradition of burning money to show appreciation for their prosperity, but today they use scrap paper as a stand-in for real money. Is that because they are not as prosperous or because they are less thankful?

The city has a very nice market. It’s large and in a clean, organized building. People were shopping for everything there. I considered buying flowers to take back to my hotel room, but I didn’t plan to return soon, and I didn’t want to carry them.

I passed a specialty food store with Thai gourmet items for sale and went inside. I finally got an answer to one of the questions I’ve had. The sandwiches I have been buying all have a fluffy, dry, stringy product placed along the outer edge. It looks a bit like beige fiberglass. Now I know it is shredded pork. While there, I bought a package of the peanut-sesame seed brittle which is one of my favorite snack foods in this area. It’s like peanut brittle at home except for two differences: They use peanut halves so that the brittle can be very thin and more easy to bite, and they add toasted sesame seeds which makes the flavor nicer. Here is a link to a recipe for it.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at the mall again. I didn’t feel like having Thai food, so I went to McDonald’s for a late lunch. It’s my least favorite burger place, but it’s the only choice here. I ordered a chicken sandwich. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about having the same food item in China on this trip until I bit into it. It’s a compressed chicken item, so it is almost impossible to bite. One has to bite into it and pull hard. Eventually, long strands of chicken shred away from the patty so that they can be chewed and swallowed. The fries were much better than the chicken sandwich.

The rest of the day was spent in the room reading, on the computer, and watching TV.

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010—Khon Kaen

The owner of the hotel is Irish and is married to a beautiful, elegant Thai woman who looks as if she could have been a beauty pageant contestant. Both of them have talked to me off and on. When he learned about my job background, he told me there was an American professor from San Diego staying at the hotel, too, who is here for some work. Well, he was downstairs for breakfast at the same time that I was this morning, so we got to meet and visit.

Instead of a professor, he is a doctoral student from the University of San Diego, California, in the field of anthropology. He was here earlier for 30 months to do field research on his dissertation related to community action groups that are working to improve life for small villages. He is back now for some follow-up work as he writes the last three chapters of his dissertation. We chatted for about an hour.

Today I just stayed in the neighborhood. I walked up the street to find a place for lunch. It was a local, open-air restaurant beside a large auto repair shop. Most of the diners worked at the repair shop. Neither the owner nor her customers was used to foreigners eating there. They were all smiling and commenting. I just ordered what I saw her cooking—a stir fry with chicken and green vegetables served over rice.

Most of the afternoon was spent doing planning on the computer. I will leave tomorrow.

Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010—Khon Kaen to Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat)

This was a travel day and the next-to-last leg of the gradual trip back to Bangkok. I returned to Nakhon Ratchasima (also called Korat—a city with a nickname!). It was my first stop when I left Bangkok almost two months ago. I remember thinking and writing at the time about how poor the city is. Well, the same thought came back today. This has to be the poorest city I have visited. It just shows in the dress and general appearance of the people. I think they must be poorer than the people anywhere I went in Laos, too.

It was already hot when I left the hotel for the bus station at 7:45. Fortunately, it was only about a mile away. The next bus wasn’t leaving for about 45 minutes, so I pulled out my book and began reading.

The bus was a “VIP” bus. In this part of the world, VIP is used often. Apparently everyone wants to think or pretend he is a VIP. What it means in terms of bus riding is that the bus is fairly new and has air conditioning, the rider is given a bottle of water and a small package of cookies, no stops are made between stations to pick up or let off passengers, and the ticket price is about 50-100% higher.

It took about 4 hours for the trip. I read part of the way, but the bus was bouncing quite a bit which made it difficult to do so. I napped for part of the time. Since it was 13:45 when we arrived, it was HOT walking to the apartment building where I am staying.

I am disappointed in the apartment building. I thought it would be nicer than it is. It is okay, but a bit warn. The place I stayed here before was nicer and just a bit more in price. Also, I am having trouble with the wifi here; I was online for about 2 1/2 hours, but I have not been able to get online since. I chose the apartment for two reasons: to have a different experience and to be closer to the train station for going to Bangkok. I may go see if a room is available at the Sansabai where I stayed before if I cannot get back online here tomorrow morning.

As I went out to find a place for dinner, I met an Australian man and his new Thai bridge downstairs. They have been here for two months. He is probably about my age. She looks to be around 35. He told me there are several western men who meet at a bar across the street on Fridays to drink and visit. He and his wife plan to spend six months here and six months in Australia each year. Her family has a farm just outside of town.

I had a dish that is made from broad, homemade noodles in gravy for dinner. It included pork and the same green vegetable that is in most Thai dishes. The green vegetable is interesting. It is a bit like spinach with leaves and stems. It isn’t easy to chew. The stems are crunchy, and the leaves are a bit rubbery. The only processing that takes place is what is done with the teeth while chewing it. Whatever form one leaves it in when swallowing it is the form that it has when it comes out later. It appears to be a very good roughage material for eating. I’m not sure if any nutrients come from it since the stomach doesn’t seem to have an effect on it at all.

I’ve had bug fears recently on this trip. All the newspapers are running stories about bed bugs. There were TWO stories in one major newspaper on the same day this week! Of course, one of the warnings is that bed bugs are increasingly a problem due to increased international travel. Sleeping in maybe 35-40 hotels on each of my trips, my chances of encountering them are increased. I did have bed bugs in a hotel in Cochin, India, a few years ago In fact, I had them there twice, since I forgot about them and returned to the same hotel a couple of years later. It was horrible trying to sleep. On this trip, my bugs have been imaginary due to reading the articles. Once, earlier in the trip, I imagined that I had gotten head lice. My scalp gets itchy if I use certain shampoos. Normally it is fine, but I must have gotten a hotel shampoo that gave me the reaction. I switched to my own shampoo, but it takes about 3 days for the itch to go away. So for three days I kept thinking I felt lice moving around up there. I just knew I had gotten them from either sitting next to someone on the bus or from having a photo taken with a local person who had leaned his head toward mine. However, the itch went away. And lice NEVER go away without treatment; therefore, it was all my imagination. A couple of times since reading the recent stories, I have felt as if I was being bitten in bed and have gotten up to inspect. Each time it has been a false alarm—just the usual occasional itchy spot due to dry skin. Hope I make it home safely without any bed bugs hitching a ride in my luggage which is one way the articles all say they travel.