Memo #12? More stuff

Hi again. Katais mother sells rice to her neighbors. These are 100 lb sacks that she buys in C.M. and unloads by herself. In the photo of the lunching group, Katais mother Noi is seated next to Katai.
This is Ee Chows flip flop. Not Mickey Mouse, but Mickey and Mouse.
Ee Chow and Katais niece Donus coming back from a motorbike beer and soda run to the local store. It was a fine day all around.
On the road into town we passed a man lying on the highway. His motorbike was nearby and was sprawled motionless with blood pooling from his head onto the pavement. No helmet. A fera he was dead. It was sobering.
Bye for now, Doahlah

Memo #11 in the mountains

Hi. Hers the group enjoying lunch. This farang fellow is Dutchman named Jon. He is friend and massage customer of Katais. He has a glass eye. When his real eye moves, the glass one does not, or move independantly. The young lady smiling at you is Sas' daughter Ee Chow (phonetic spellig) She was a sweetheart.



Here are some photos of the village. We walked about a kilometer through the town and countryside to see Katais coffee. She is growing about 1000 trees on two pieces of land.

Heres a poinsietta (sp) growing wild next to the road.
Wanna see more?

Duck

Memo #10 Goin north

Halloh. I had another pleasant overnight train ride from Trang to BKK. I met two young Swedes in the bar car. The attendant sent us of to our sleeper cars bofore we were ready. They lock the doors to keep the 3rd class riffraff out. A young Brit in my car went to sleep listening to music on his I pad. When he awoke in the morning, his ear pieces were still in but his I pod had gone missing. The culprit was likely the attendant or a railway policman. So much for security. I had a three hour layover before my day train to Chiang Mai. That was a good thing because the train was two hours late. I had time to have a coffee, a shower and buy some snack food before climbing aboard.
The weather in the south was awful. The monsoon season is supposed to be finished but it's still raining and there is much flooding. 300o water buffalo are starving. Much of their pasture land is under water. Many are drowning trying to swim to higher ground to find food.
The weather here in C.M. is lovely. Toasty warm sunny days, and cool nights. And NO rain! Katai invited me to go to her village Pah Pei (phonetic spelling) in the mountains. Her mother drove to C.M. and loaded seven of us into her pickup for the drive back.

This first photo is Katai mashing peppers, some other green food and whole little fishes that grow in rice paddies intp a tasty dip.
This photo is Katais friend Sa mashing hot peppers into a curry.
This photo is Katais work in progress
Here are two steamed whole fish. They were quite tasty. I'll make another entry with more photos.
Ducklass

Memo #9 Last day on Ko Libong

Halloh. Heres some photos of cute little island children. There were many Muslims living on the island. There was a mosque somewhere. We could heart the calls to prayer.

This is Uthai. He was the manager. He was very cold in the mornings. After all the temperature had dropped to 25 C. Thats about 80 F.
This is on the longtail boat back to the mainland. Most of these women are muslim. Just after this photo was taken they dropped the tarp to keep out of the rain. This is Ricks back. He had a poncho. I had an umbrella, so we stayed fairly dry.
Tomorrow I start my journey north. An overnight train to BKK, with a connecting day train to Chiang Mai. I think the PAD folks have invaded C.M. Parliment moved there, so they did too. We shall see.
Doahlah

Memo #8 More Ko Libong

Hi. This is my $15 a night bungalow. It was equipped with a cold shower, electricity from 8 A.M. until 1 P.M., and again from 5 to midnight. It also came with two species of ants and a resident bat that I had to coax outside so I could sleep.



This is Rick at a small beach bar near our resort. The beer was much cheaper there.!






This young lady is Blong. We shared our first beer with her. She then assumed it would be anytime we were there! Shes all fancied up with that white powder women wear to look less Asian.

There was a karaoke machine there. World Music, except the manufacturer misspelled World.
It rained alot here too. We got one afternoon of nice weather. I got some quality snorkel and swim time. Then it clouded again and poured with rain.
How about one more?
Doahlah

Memo #7? Ko Libong

Halloh, The scenary here is quite striking. This is a shot of the mainland, but Ko Libong was very rugged, like this. This is the back of Ricks head!, along with two locals having a smoke.
My motorbike driver had my small bag between his legs. It squiretd out and landed in a mud puddle. I left it packed until the mud dried, knocked the big clumps off, then unloaded it and hosed it down.
Rick and I met a charming Aussie named Terry. (on the right). He is a retired teacher. His wife still teaches and is understanding enough to let him galivant around Thailand a few times a year. I'm trying a different photo format. I'll check my work and send more photos.
Douugggg!

Hat Yao memo #?

Halloh, ketching up now, I got the right mini bus and made it to Hat Yao. I spent two nights there. This is a tasty lunch I had at a restrauant up the road. This is called Khao phud, or phat depending on who wrote the menu. This particular meal would be Khao phat roam, meaning fired rice with fish or seafood. With squid it would be Khao phat muk. Ba, bla, or pla depending on whose speaking, is fish and the type of fish, squid. I think! This meal was 35 bt, about $1.05.
This is a little store across the road from the Nature Resort.
This is looking over my meal at some fishermen unloading their catch.
This photo is Dr. Siaw and Anna from the resort. Laurence is a retire Anthropology professor. He volunteers at the resort. I learned a great deal about Thai politics waiting out the rain showers.
I met a young Canadian from Ontario named Rick. We decided to grap a longtail boat over to Ko Libong, an island nearby. We booked two nights at the sister reort there.
It's been unsually wet here in the south. It was not raining on the trip over, but the road to the resort was very muddy. We were on the back of motorbikes. Rick had to get off and walk some as it was too slippery for driver to have him aboard. As it took me forever to download Picasa and then my photos, you're going to get more stories!
Ducklass