Planning as I go

I had been in Thailand for just five days and done so much already! I felt right at home, thanks to my hostess. But it was time to get out and see some more of Thailand. Linda had suggested I go north or south – as I read up, I decided that I could stay for three weeks instead of two and go both north and south! As I sat in Thomas the Travel Agent’s office waiting for Sukhothai tickets, I looked at the calendar on his desk and realized that Christmas was coming; all along I thought I would go north first but once I looked at the calendar I realized that I might be better off going south first, before the holiday rush.

There was an internet café near Marilee’s house, and on Monday and Wednesday evening, I went for an hour or so, to catch up on email and to make some advance plans – I didn’t necessarily need confirmed reservations but I at least wanted some options, so I could avoid what Rose used to call the bag drag. I’d had good travel luck so far but there was no sense pushing it. Thursday I designated as a day to do no sightseeing, just planning. I went to Wawee Coffee, a local chain with wifi, across from the internet café (I got into something of a routine where I went to Wawee in the morning and the internet café at night when I needed to). Thai coffee is iced, with brown sugar and condensed milk – way too sweet for me. I’m glad I tried it, but in subsequent Wawee trips I had iced cappuccino, and when available, chocolate chip cheesecake. Yeah, I missed Café Bilal and the pastries from the Escalade, but I had to make do with what was available…. It was also possible to have internet chats with friends, with a twelve-hour time difference to the Eastern time zone.

I repacked and reorganized and then went to the train station to get a ticket (which was a good move – the late train was sold out of sleeper berths so I ended up on an earlier one), using the underground Metro (two completely different systems - the Skytrain has Metrocard-like tickets, the Metro has token-like slugs – with a couple of transfer points so that you can get from one to the other). And then I had a Thai massage at Marilee’s spa-like place, Bodytune. I had time to see her to say goodbye for now (and goodbye for now to the big green suitcase) and then it was on to the overnight train, which Linda had said was a must. I had a compartment to myself (when I bought the ticket I wasn’t sure if they would put someone in with me or not); they served light meals and made my bench into a bed. I slept comfortably, though I was cold (even with the extra blanket that Air Berlin encouraged its customers to take with them). Was it a must? Not sure, but it was fun – and a good way to get a long way away without using up daylight hours! Thailand is a long country.

This isn’t the most picturesque entry, so here are a couple of random pictures:
The bathroom (raised toilet, unlike that in Morocco. Tank next to the toilet has water and a scoop to use for flushing. Note – most of the time I found public Western toilets (and every place where I stayed had one). But the squat toilets here had toilet paper in addition to hoses for those who prefer to hose their nether regions, and the sinks always had soap for hand-washing.


Offerings – these are available in the morning; Thais buy them to place on their spirit houses.



Spirit house – placed outside the house, for protection. Daily offerings to the spirit houses include food, water and flowers. My sister had me send one to her.