Cool Mountain Breezes
Wednesday, October 27th, 2004Sorry again about the delays in posts. I must be getting lazy. The past few weeks have been a blast. I decided to get out of Bangkok and see some more of the country, postponing my teaching plans some more.
As I mentioned earlier, I spent the last 8 days in Kantchanaburi province, a mountainous region northwest of Bangkok on the Burmese border. I was invited up to the area by Youn, the long time manager at the Shanti Lodge. We were planning on joining the owner of the Shanti Lodge, Kim, who was treating some of her workers to a vacation for a few days. Youn and I headed up to Kantchanaburi with another Shanti guest, Ken, a well known nature photographer from California. Ken and I were both sick and were looking forward to some clean air to kick our respective colds. Our destination was Mr. Hey’s farm where he has some bunglows set up. Mr Hey and his wife, Wonpen, are the parents of Nat, the cook at the Shanti lodge. Nat’s cooking at the Shanti has been some of the best Thai food I have had, though I soon found out where she got her skills from. Her mother, Wonpen is an amazing cook who dishes out delicious treat after treat of nice, healthy food. The bungalows we stayed at had no electricity or running water (water for bathing was collected into cisterns from the rain), and we fell asleep each night to a concert of various bugs.
We were joined the next day by Kim and her two hyper kids, Tai and Tia, 5 Thai construction workers (who had been working to expand the Shanti Lodge), and Pete a friend of Kim’s that happens to be the skipper of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior. Pete had a seeming endless supply of crazy stories from his job of being a quasi eco-terrorist. Over the next few days, this motley crew and I toured the province, taking in most of the major sights. One of the highlights was visiting a monestary where the monks take care of tigers. They have domesticated them pretty well, and for a small fee you can get your picture taken sitting next to (and petting) unchained tigers. We also spent a night on a large resevoir in a houseboat. By the end of the week, my cold was gone and I must have put on 10 lbs. of weight from eating so much good food.
I am now down on the island of Koh Phi Phi, the location where The Beach (with Leonardo DeCaprio) was filmed. The scenery is spectacular and I promise to post some pictures soon. Sorry this entry is short, but the internet on the island is too expensive.
Neil
One of the more popular destinations in SE Asia is the temples of Angkor in Siam Reap. From the 9th - 12th centuries, a sizable civilization flourished in Cambodia which at its height, controlled ... 
Sorry again for the lapse in postings, but I have been at the beach down here in Sihanoukville (affectionately known as Snookyville) where the days are lazy and the nights 
Neil