I scanned the faces on the other side of the fence. Did any of these people look like an Ahmad? I saw families with children, but I knew that Ahmad was a single man from Syria. I saw the dark skinned man from Cameroon that one of my daughters was assigned to visit and made introductions. I had almost reached the end of the fence when I saw a man stretching to see over the others around him.
I ducked my head as I entered the long, white basement room at the Buddhist wat. I had participated in short, guided meditations before, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from a 2 hour Buddhist mediation led by a monk.
While we were in Bangkok, our daughters’ friend came to stay with us for two weeks. One of the activities she wanted to do during her visit was to see a floating market. Having just gone to Amphawa floating market the previous weekend, we didn’t really want to leave Bangkok.
After surviving our adventure getting from Bangkok to Kanchanburi, we settled into our raft house for the night. It wasn’t until the next morning that I fully realized our room was floating. I woke to the sounds of boat motors. Moments later our little cabin began to rock to and fro. I walked out on the balcony and saw the source of the mini earthquake, waves from the river Kwai bobbing towards me.
Kanchanburi is a popular destination just outside Bangkok known for its World War II sites (Bridge on the River Kwai), natural scenery, and floating raft guesthouses. Travel agencies will happily book overpriced tours from Bangkok, but we prefer to take local transport which is cheaper and usually not that complicated. Usually…
When planning a trip from Bangkok to a floating market, most online sources will recommend either Damneon Saduak, the biggest, most popular, most geared towards western tourists; or Amphawa, the smaller, quieter, more popular with Thais. Some will say Amphawa is more authentic and less touristy, but the truth is none of the floating markets in Thailand are “authentic.” None still sell stuff from boats because it’s the easiest way to transport goods. They sell stuff from boats because tourists like it.
There is just something about visiting ancient ruins that makes you keenly aware that you are walking on the same ground as people who lived thousands of years ago. It makes sense, or course, that seeing these crumbling buildings would conjure a sense of the past. And our trip to Ayutthaya was no different.
It occur to me recently that things that seemed unusual in southeast Asia at first are starting to seem normal. Our daughters had a friend come stay with us for two week recently and we would laugh when she would point out things she found strange because they didn’t seem weird to us anymore.
We spent a total of one month this summer in the small northern Thailand towns of Mae La Oop and Mae Chaem. While we were living there I noticed something was missing. Something I see everyday in the United States. I look at this household item several times a day at home. Sometimes I spend up to an hour at a time staring at it, analyzing and adapting what I see when I look at it. Continue reading
Mae Chaem is a small town in northern Thailand. Not as small as Mae La Oop. But not very big. Some people say it will be the next Pai, but not having been to Pai so far, I can’t say. There is definitely not much tourism happening in Mae Chaem . . . yet.
Any Direction We Choose 