Missionary friends of ours living in Chiang Mai were planning to visit the churches in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar) over Christmas week. They asked if we wanted to come along. We thought that would be great to visit this closed country with someone who knew where to go. We both applied for visas, but theirs were denied, perhaps because of their occupation. They encouraged us to go, and we could take some things to the church that they were going to take. So we did. 24 December 1974 Tuesday. We flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then from Bangkok to Rangoon, arriving about 8 pm. While waiting for our bags, we noted that all the shops and money exchangers were closed. There was a strict prohibition against using foreign currency in Burma, so we ... read more

As you will recall from a previous blog from 1967 in my senior year of high school I was a member of the topographical survey crew that surveyed the top of Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand. Seven years later I was assigned as the construction manager for the construction of the radar station on top of the mountain. My immediate boss was a 62 year old American civil engineer who had his vocal cords removed due to throat cancer which required him to carry a note pad around to give instructions. The contractor kept all his notes for a future contract claim. He was responsible for the road construction and for the radar station on the two days I had off (Sunday and Monday). He knew that this was his last job so was ... read more

Uncle Wayne and Aunt Minnie were living in Vientiane, Laos. They invited my parents and us for Thanksgiving. We took the night express train to Nong Khai and the ferry across the Mekong River to their home. Uncle Wayne, Dad, and I then drove to a Hmong village many hours north of Vientiane. We stayed that night in a thatched house on stilts. We ate very basic tribal food, and put the bones and leftovers through the gaps between the floor boards to the waiting pigs and other animals below. The next morning, Mom and Linda flew to our village in a small Cessna. On the way, the pilot made a mail drop to a village in a narrow valley. The mountains surrounding the valley were occupied by communist Pratet Lao soldiers who might shoot at ... read more

On February 1, 1973 we flew from Pittsburg to San Francisco, and took a bus to Travis AFB, where we caught a Military Airlift Command chartered flight o Bangkok. Our first stop was Hickham AFB, Hawaii, and then on to Anderson FB, Guam. We were supposed to be there long enough to offload passengers and cargo, but the forklift punctured the side of the aircraft, which took about 8 hours to patch. Then we were off to Clark AFB, the Philippines, and on to Vietnam. As we approached Saigon, the landscape I knew from 1964 was totally changed, with rows of craters from B-52 bombing runs. Although a peace treaty had just been signed, the pilot was taking no chances as he maneuvered a steep dive into Ton Son Nhut Airport. From there we continued to ... read more

Amazingly I just found the two cassette tapes I recorded just after arriving in the States; so if the following is very detailed, it’s not from my memory 42 years after I took the trip! 1 August 1968 Thursday. My Mom and Dad took me to the airport at 5:30 pm after I said farewell to my dog Punky who had been my faithful pet since I was four years old. This was the last time I saw Punky. It would be four and a half years before I would return to Thailand following college; this time with my new wife, Linda. My Swissair flight departed Bangkok about 8 pm.. On the 4 hour flight from Bangkok to Calcutta, I sat next to a biology professor from the University of Indiana. He was with a group ... read more