Blogs from Nakhon Sawan, Northern Thailand, Thailand, Asia

'Ten Baht,' said the rugged, heavy-set Thai woman sitting inside the rusty, caged snack shop, holding a two-meter long bamboo switch which she pointed toward the raving mad crowd gathered outside of her office. She took the stick and jabbed at one of the Macaques as it tried to wedge it's way between the worn metal cage and the wretched tin roof, cackling with one eye open and one shut as the boorish beasts looked on with a healthy dose of respect and indifference alike. She opened up the door and emerged from her self-imposed prison and tapped the seat of my motorbike with her stick before tapping the seat of a motorbike next to the cage which looked as if some great and ancient demon had torn through it with jaws of steel and then ... read more

The sun had yet to rise and in fact would not for quite some time as our motorbike convoy departed from the entrance to Sawan Park on our way to Thailand's grandest of swamps - Bung Boraphet as it's known among the locals - is the nation's largest wetlands and home to all sorts of migratory birds, endangered fish, beautiful plants and the lot. When my alarm went off at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning Tara and I were none too happy but I had only had a few beers the night before and felt alright so we drank down a liter or so of water along with some tea and oatmeal with some dried fruit and made our way out to meet with our friends. We felt none too wise for having lived in ... read more

When people discuss amazing culinary destinations post-industrial, seemingly unremarkable city of Binghamton, New York doesn't immediately come to mind. There is some very good Italian food, reflecting one of the early ethnic migrations to work in the Endicott-Johnson shoe factories, and there are quite a number of Greek diners for reasons unknown to your humble narrator. But then there are the Asian communities, and while they don't get much attention, they are quietly turning out some of the finest meals Binghamton has to offer. The chicken biryani from Moghuls, the baba ganoush from the aptly named 'Turkish Restaurant,' and the lamb gyros and shish kabobs from a tiny Pakistani hole in the wall known as Taj Restaurant all make the list for some of the finest ethnic food I have tasted anywhere in the country. But ... read more

Thailand is, in many ways, a land of informalities. Nowhere does this present itself so strikingly as in the traffic system - with the traffic laws, or lack thereof. When traffic lights go out, the biggest and / or fastest go first. At a five-way intersection, proceed with caution. If you get knocked off your bike, get yourself up quickly. Don't get me wrong, there are traffic police, some traffic lights, and some laws governing who is at fault when there is a major accident, etc. By and large, however, the roads in Thailand follow the laws of the jungle. You must at all times proceed with extreme caution... ...Nothing could have seemed farther from our minds last weekend as we rode to the bakery with our friends Jenn and Kristen - who was visiting from ... read more

Well from my vantage things have been so busy the last week, or two, or however long its been since we left Kanchanaburi, that I can hardly get my head around it all. We have done so much in so little time that I was reminded of a verse from a song "like a ten minute dream in the passenger seat, while the world was flying bye, I haven't been gone very long, but it feels like a lifetime." So much has happened, and I'm hoping now that I can at least get some semblence of it down on paper. The last time I sat down to write we were in Kanchanaburi, planning to reassess our situation. From our perspective, ATI and Innovative Solutions had let us down. From the very beginning of the program we ... read more