Archbishop Jim

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Dear readers - when we first got here we met a monk by the taxi que at the front door of the hotel. He was wearing an orange sarong type gown which is common for monks in this area. Since he was queing for a taxi as were we, we asked him if we could drop him along the way. He bowed and shook Jim's hand and said "you have a face like an archbishop". So being who he is, he decided to run with it and has been calling himself the archbishop ever since. We ran into the monk again at breakfast yesterday and he was dressed in street clothes. We talked for about an hour and found out he is a head monk in Nepal with 250 monks under his tutelage. His reason for being in robes the other day was that he was going to bless a home of a friend and also his reason for being in Bangkok.

We are leaving for Koh Samui this afternoon so updates to this blog may be fewer as we don't know about internet availability there.

We are returning by train to Bangkok after we leave Samui in twelve days. Yesterday we went out to the hotel we will be staying at when we return and also the train station. We wanted to be sure we could actually walk from the train station to the hotel with all our gear. The train station was interesting in that people were sitting and laying on the floor waiting for their train. Many trains were at the station on a number of tracks coming from all directions of Thailand. The railroad system seems very adequate and a fairly cheap source of transportation for locals. We will find out.

Bye for now,
Jim and Ann

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