The Laughing Nomad

Every month my son Doug has to cross into Burma and come back into Thailand to get another 30 day stay in the country. If you are late it’s a $12 fine per day. It’s a racket. So this month he and Luk, his wife, took a bus south to Krabi town to get a crown placed on his tooth. Then he had a hell of a time on the bus getting north to Ranong where he crosses to Burma on a boat and back through Thai immigration to get his passport stamped. The bus stopped every few km and he got there too late to get across the border yesterday….so he had to wait til this morning and get a fine, which is a lot when you are living on the local economy.

I think he depends on Luk to get reservations etc. but she didn’t check if it was an express bus. When I have watched her ask for information I need, I notice, when I question her, that she hasn’t asked any detailed questions…just too polite to press for information. She appears very uncomfortable to ask again…too hesitant to “confront” even though she will use a very nice voice.

Late this morning I get another call from Luk complaining that Doug is angry with her. He left her in the hotel to do his three hour crossing with a request that she arrange for the bus to Surat Thani where they catch the ferry to Samui. Instead of going to the bus station for the ticket, she called and found out that there is a bus leaving every hour. But she didn’t ask if there was room or make a reservation for the next available bus. So when they got to the station at 11am they were told the buses were full until 2pm. Of course they didn’t bother to tell her that when she called. This would put them into Surat Thani too late for the ferry to Samui and meant that they would have to pay for a night in Surat.

Doug Luk and I took a break from Samui and put the car on the ferry for the two hour trip north to the island of Koh Pha Ngan for a couple days. Almost no car and truck traffic, motorcycles or pot-holes=bliss! This is the island, two-thirds the size of Samui, of the legendary full-moon parties but luckily we were there only during the post-half-moon party…the southeast beaches full of 20-something Europeans in dreadlocks and a slew of Israelis. We stayed on a serene northeast beach…me in an aircon bungalow and Doug and Luk in a 300 baht fan bungalow facing the Gulf Of Siam.

A drive up to the end of the paved road landed us at sunset in a sandy beach restaurant watching the sun go down while eating fresh-caught baracuda and spicy Thai salad…and we are leaving all this on the ferry in two days?!!

"Stamping out" consists of leaving Krabi Thailand at a border crossing...in the case of Ranong the border is with Burma...and then "stamping" back into Thailand. To do this they went to the Thai immigration ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob begins his Patagonia leg...making his way through through Baliroche and Califate Argentina and visiting the Los Glaciares National Park by bus which is an area of exceptional natural beauty, with rugged, towering mountains ... [Continue reading this entry]

Back on the boat from the little gorges tour, a woman appears at our cabin door...in her little English she says "I have a hotel for you...a bus will pick you up and take ... [Continue reading this entry]

Side Trips on The Way At 6:05am a tour guide knocked at the door...follow me, follow me now, he says! We saw the ghosts...a series of temples in the dark of morning called the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Down the Yangze River From it's origins in Tibet through Tiger Leaping Gorge to Chonqing every Chinese calls China's longest river Chang Jiang and at 6300km is the third longest in the world. From ... [Continue reading this entry]

My favorite country so far...the people are sweet but very natural and direct. Flew from Siem Reap Cambodia to Vientiane, the Capital of Lao. The "s" was added by the French so ... [Continue reading this entry]

August 26 2002 It is possible to take a ferry up the Irrawady to Mandalay but we chose not to do this because we heard the ferry was government-run and we tried very hard not ... [Continue reading this entry]

Our friend, Jiraporn, who lived in the U.S. ten years and has a doctorate from Oregon State University in Fisheries and is now a lecurer in the Department of Fishery Management of Kasetsart University, generously drove us to the weekend ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 16 to July 13, 2002 Standing bunched shoulder-to-shoulder in the small anteroom of the prison on Robben Island where Mandela and others were political prisoners, our half of the ferry load of visitors impatiently ... [Continue reading this entry]

The Makoro Trip through the Delta By the time the 1300 km long Okavango, southern Africa's third largest river, enters Botswana from Angola, through the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, it begins to spread and sprawl as it is absorbed by the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sun May 25, 2002 Up at 5:30 for the sunrise micro-light (motorcycle with wings) ride to view the falls and the geologic formation left by them over thousands of years. The half hour ... [Continue reading this entry]

We spent evenings on the deck of the Mercury Bar watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean full of fishing boats and beautiful lean bodies swimming in the water. The Mercury Bar is ... [Continue reading this entry]

May 11-15 2002 City of Stone Town Island of Zanzibar The tropical island of Zanzibar has a more cosmopolitan and warm and open ambiance than other African countries we have been in-more like the islands ... [Continue reading this entry]

In Aswan, a felluca, an ancient sailboat of the Nile, is a common means of transport up and down the Nile River. It has a broad canvas sail and the boat itself has ... [Continue reading this entry]

As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with brilliant-white buildings with blue trim ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob had some more adventures on the ferry the morning of April 13th. He saw big cups and little espresso cups by the coffee machine and said he wanted a big cup of coffee. The waiter said he only ... [Continue reading this entry]

From Seville we took a bus to Algeciras on the south coast of Spain and saw hundreds of windmills that reminded Bob of Don Quijote. In Algeciras we took the ferry to Tangier. ... [Continue reading this entry]

After two years on a waiting list my husband and I were finally able to spend 18 days paddle rafting the Grand Canyon...putting in above Flagstaff Arizona. We went with a company called "Azra"...not a cadillac company...but with knowledgeable ... [Continue reading this entry]