Of rice, suger and mystery meat

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Friday, Bee, her parents and I took the bus from Bangkok to Khon Kaen. The trip was unadventful, the only highlight being, that the bus depot was right next to where I used to work about 15 years ago. Boy, that brought back memories..... No running water, toilets that didn't work, rain leaking on the computer monitors, traffic jams, cold beers under "the tree"

We got to Khon Kaen in one piece and of course the first thing we had to do was go eat. Thai women, only eat once a day.... They start when they wake up and don't finish until they go back to bed. It's amazing how they manage to keep so slim. We went to this Korean BBQ place somewhere in town. This place is a massive; all-you-can-eat; BBQ buffet. Bee asks me to accompany her to choose what I wanted to eat. Boy! that was a bad idea. Let me tell you, that looking at trays and trays of meat, fish, stuff(?) sitting in their juices out in the open doesn't produce a healthy appetite. Eventually Bee comes back with some pork and beef for me. At least I'll take her word for it. I cooked the food until I was pretty sure that I had killed any potential bugs. Washed down with plenty of beer to make sure; although it took a while to convince the serving girls not to put ice in my beer.

Now I'm at the family home in the middle of a small farming village. It's quite and not much to do, so I can relax for a while and unwind. Only downside is it's the middle of Sugar Cane Harvest season. This means; burning the cane before cutting, so the air is full of smoke and ash. The other downside, is the overloaded trucks on the roads. I didn't believe it was possible to stack can so high. Every now and then, a truck will drop cane onto the roads, making for interesting times for all other traffic. Imagine a 10 foot spear comming through your windscreen, or worse being on a motocycle following and dodging bouncing bundles of cane.

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