Born to Be Thai Wild!

January 12, 2015
   According to our hosts in Thailand, there are 20 million people living in Bangkok and they ride around in 8 million cars. By my math, I believe the rest of the population is on motor scooters. I have never seen so many bikes or such dare devil riding in my life, and I raced motorcyles as a hair-brained youth.



A random photo over Tommy Bell's arm of a sea of bikes on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

   And, in case you think that was an exception to the rule, here is another shot taken a minute later:



More bikes than you can shake a stick at.

Born to Be Thai Wild
   For starters the Thais drive on the wrong side of the road and they are especially fond of U-turns where long lines of autos and bikes make standing still turns into the high speed lanes of oncoming traffic! Unlike any other place I've been (crazy traffic circles in Valencia Spain, roundabouts in Argentia, tunnels in Paris) the Thais utilize the roadway and slice it into very, very small pieces. In the states you have, say, three lanes of traffic on a busy city street (with three lanes going the opposite way) and everyone pretty much adheres to those lanes, but not in Thailand. In Chiang Mai, I witnessed the standard three lanes, but then the Thais utlize three more lanes of motor bikes, splitting those lanes into smaller pieces, and then, and I'm not making this up—you have a non-lane on the far left of motorcycles going the wrong way, straight at you. I kid you not.

   Here is an excellent example of Thai traffic taken with a Go-pro helmet cam on the streets of Chiang Mai. Notice how often the driver goes into oncoming traffic—and no one even flinches!

Take A Hair Raising Drive On The Wrong Side of The Road!

   At the end of this video, the driver stops at one of the restaurants we went to with Tommy and Amy. What are the odds of that in a city of 1 million crazy scooter drivers? Anyway, I sure fit in there:



We don't need no stinking boots in Thailand!

   Full confession: I had the hardest time getting used to the no shoes in the house rule, but I finally took off my boots and was traipsing around the Pothong house in Phichit, when Thomas Charles said, "Hey Father Goose, come out here and let me take a photo of you on your ride."

"Itchin' for a run in. Head out on the Thai way. . ."
—Born to Be Thai Wild

Killing Cartoonists

January 12, 2015
   I was traveling when the Charlie Hebdo massacre happened, but now that I'm home I have to say I agree with my fellow tribe member, Tim Kreider, who wrote in the New York Times yesterday, "I'm relieved to live in a place where the worst thing I have to worry about is being called names on the Internet."
   Tim also nails it with "The Interview" hacking scandal as well, explaining to the North Koreans: "No, see, in our country, this is stupid art. We weren't even going to see it in theaters until you threatened to bomb them; we would've waited for it on instant streaming. Some part of the international reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre was the same kind of condescending incredulity: Wait, this was about cartoons?"

   Tim also talks about being paid $20 a week for his cartoons when he worked for the Baltimore City Paper, which is $5 less than I got paid for my Honkytonk Sue comic strip at New Times in Phoenix. Fortunately for me and my growing family at the time, I also was the art director, and that paid me $110 a week, so I can relate to the low man on the totem pole nature of doing cartoons.



The Honkytonk Sue cartoons I drew for New Times were repurposed into four semi-successful, self-publishedl comic books.

   That said, personally, for me, no one has topped this quote from the guy who almost single-handedly created underground comix:

"It's just lines on paper, folks."
—R. Crumb

My Way Or The Thai Way!

January 9, 2015
   We're in Seoul, South Korea where we will change planes in an hour and begin the long haul (13 hours) across the Pacific. We are chasing the clock this time shaving off time and gaining a day. We left Bangkok this morning at 10 a.m. and will arrive home this evening, shaving 14 hours off the clock.

   Yesterday, we said our goodbyes to Tommy and Pattarapan and flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok where we were met by friends and family of Pattarapan's, Rassarin Phimukuiaseth, her husband and a beautiful relative, who not only drove us the half hour into the main downtown area where our hotel was, but treated us to a sumptuous dinner along the banks of the Jow-Prah-Yay River. We had to take a bicycle cab the last part of the trip and as soon as we sat down I saw this dude:


The Thai 66 Kid: It's My Way Or The Thai Way

We got there just before dusk and soon the river and the skyline glowed from our table perched right on the river:


Our view at the River Tree Restaurant in downtown Bangkok

   Our host, Rassarin, ordered a dozen dishes, including this platter of Thai shrimp:


Just one of the 15 platters of food we consumed last night.

   The dishes came to fast and vanished so quickly, I had to take notes. Here is what I think we had: crab with fried rice, grilled shrimp, pork sauteed, chicken with lemon sauce, deep fried fish, snake fish with herp, morning glory with oyster sauce, pumpkins and green beans, pork curry, grill pork, fish soup, pork leg and another chicken dish that Football (yes, that is Rassarin's son's nickname) ordered. Top that all off with Singha beer (the ha is silent, Ha!).

"Somebody give me a cheeseburger!"
—A Classic Rock song, the title I can't remember because I've been out of the oountry too long

Walking Up And Down Sticky Falls

January 7, 2015
   We're packing this morning to leave for the long journey back to Arizona. Here's another peek at the trip: we journeyed up into the mountains east of Chiang Mai earlier this week to visit Sticky Falls, a striking waterfall that is made of limestone and, they tell me, it makes the falls very sticky to the feet and you can literally walk up, or down, the steep, watery cliff.



Tommy and I looking up the first leg of the falls, from the bottom



Pattarapan near the top of the first bench. You can see Tommy literally walking down the falls to help his old man. Ha.



Tomas surfing down the second shelf. Pattarapan is sitting in the warm water.



The Old Man crowing proudly after making it up the second leg. Unfortunately, I got my hat wet and refused to do the third leg and they had to carry me out.

   Half of that is true.

"Unfortunately, youth is wasted on the young."
—Old Vaquero Saying

Another Look at "The 66 Kid"

January 7, 2014
  Here's a great message I received today on our last full day in Thailand:



  Bob, I didn't realize when I ordered "The 66 Kid", that it would come directly from you. Thanks for signing it!

  I just finished reading through it for the 2nd time in a week.  I wasn't raised in AZ, but I was still in the back seat while we were "making time"!
  It wasn't Route 66, but highway 2 and 10 east to someplace called "North Dakota"...

  Your book made the memories come flooding back. Thank you for that!

  What a great read! And the artwork is fantastic!

  I have been through Kingman several times and often wondered, while driving on Andy Devine, what it was like in its heyday. I have a better idea now. I got more from the book than from the Route 66 Museum just off 40 and 93....

  I hope this finds you well and again, thanks for the memories!!!

—Lynn Lofthus, Auburn, Washington

  I also received another nice plug for the book from Ron Warnick:

A link to the PBS interview

  Tomorrow, we begin our marathon journey back to the desert. We fly to Bangkok at noon tomorrow, then to Seoul, Korea in the morning and on to LAX, and then one final hop from LA to Phoenix. Oh, and then an hour drive home to Cave Creek. Going to be a long one, but it has been worth it.

"When the road ends, keep going."
—BBB

Is There Authentic Mexican Food In Chiang Mai, Thailand?

January 7, 2015
   A local Thai in Phichit, Pa Boon (no relation to Daniel), told me there are at least 50 different chiles used in Thai cuisine and having eaten an amazing variety of Thai dishes now for almost three weeks, I can believe it. I can describe this edible array simply: hot, hotter, hottest and even hotter still!

   Perhaps this explains why we have not seen one Taco Bell in all our travels around the country. Plenty of McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Subway, Swensen's, but no Taco Bell. One theory is that because Thai food is so spicey, they find Mexican food too bland, although that doesn't explain the love of the above chains.

   After eating a ton of Thai we decided on our last full day in Chiang Mai to try out the handful of "Mexican Food" joints. First up is Miguel's in the old part of Chang Mai, right next to the moat that surrounded the old kingdom:


Miguel's Cafe sign in downtown Chiang Mai




"Real Mexican Food" sign outside Miguel's: the price for a room at the Miami Hotel is 690 bots ($23 American)


Miguel's "authentic decor" includes Cassius Clay, Homer Simpson, Texas, Smiley Face and Budweiser, which is not all that Mexican, but kind of zany.


We sat outside with a wonderful view of the ancient moat: BBB, Kathy, Pattarapan and Tommy Bell.



Miguel's huevos rancheros: homemade tortilla, decent beans. The salsa was actually very authentic and much better than the other two places which each had too much vinnegar.


Miguel's carne asada taco and a pork taco. both had mozzerella cheese (minus five points for THAT), sour cream, tomato and lettuce (Tommy prefers shredded cabbage for an authentic street taco in the Arizona and Sonoran style)

Next Up On The Thai Taco Hopping Tour Is The Salsa Kitchen:

Thai Salsa Kitchen Mexican Restaurant, which had a tad better decor inside:


A very cute, custom poster inside the Salsa Kitchen

   The Salsa Kitchen did not have huevos rancheros on the menu so we tried to order a steak taco and, instead the cook sent out three chorizo tacos, which kind of looked Thai, even though they were trying to be Mexicana. As metnioned previously, all the salsas at Salsa Kitchen were too vinnegary to be authentic to our palate. However, we ordered the quesadilla and it was quite good:



The quesadillos had excellent presentation and a very authentic Mexican taste.



The Three Chorizo Tacos Looking Muy Thai: Tommy claimed they had good flavor but not a Mexican flavor and without the authentic salsa it didn't work.

   We all really enjoyed the quesadilla and thought it was the best dish we had on the tour.

The Final Stop On Our Thai Taco Hopping Tour was Sunset Mexican Food:

The Sunset Tacos Mexican Grill


Mexican Sunrise Tacos Spread, Including a Barbacoa Taco!

   The Sunrise Tacos Cafe, which was found by Pattarapan, was in a mall and seemed the weakest in terms of decor and presentation but they stunned us with a barbacoa (goat meat from the head) taco which is a specialty meat that not even many specialty Mexican food restaurants carry in the Southwest. The meat was excellent and I would rank it just below Taco Villa in Phoenix. A real find and a delight.
   Tommy tells me there are are two competing theories about the origin of Thai chiles. The first is that the Portuguese brought chiles to Thailand from the Americas and the second theory is that the Thai chiles are an offshoot of the hot chiles indigenous to Schezuan, China. Either way the Thais have made the peppers their own and have given the spice a rainbow of tastes in everything from breakfast to lunch to dinner and beyond.

"Trust no one."
—Tommy Bell's motto when it comes to finding good restaurants

A Whiter Shade of Thai

January 5, 2015
   I am always looking for anything Western wherever I am and Thailand is no exception. Didn't have to look far. Here is a restaurant not far from where Tommy and Pattarapan live:


Western House in Chiang Mai, Thailand

   The Thais seem to absorb anything Western they like. Pattarapan tells me there were no coffee shops in Thailand when she was growing up (mid-eighties) but today there are coffee cafes all over the place. Here is Tommy and Pattarapan's favorite joint for great coffee:



Mingmitr (a phonetic rendering of "lots of friends" in Thai) Coffee Bar in Chiang Mia

    They have latte, espresso, cappucino and all of the Starbucks entries. The only problem for me is the Thais really love their coffees sweet (actually ALL drinks) and so you have to ask them specifically to not make it sweet. And then, often as not, the attendant will turn and say, in Thai, "He wants it just a little sweet." And then Pattarapan—A UN diplomat par excellance—will reiterate, "No sweetener, please." And the Thais behind the counter invariably look at me like I'm one crazy farang ("farang"—pronounced farung— is Thia for white foreigner), which, of course, I am.

Farangs On Parade
   The Thais are very polite and I have never encountered any condescending or derogatory slights, but they do have their little terms, like their term for backpacking hippies: "Farang Ki-Nok" which means "foreign birdshit." The irony of all this is that the Thais are more than a little obsessed with being white, and in a nation of brown skin people this can get a little weird. Check out this food court in a huge mall outside Bangkok:



Two Thais and a table full of farangs, not to mention the leering farang on the back wall.

   Virtually all products that deal with sunscreen or face cream have "whitening" promises, like "complete white" or "whitens skin" on the label. All of the TV anchors I have seen are light skinned as are most of the TV show stars. But none of this is as creepy as your typical farong going after a Thai woman:


A Typical Farang Chases A Thai Babe

   In a land full of beautiful women—and Thailand has more beautiful women than any other country I have ever been in—it's not hard to see the attraction to living here. Add to that the cheap prices on everything and you can begin to understand why there are an estimated 30,000 farangs living in Chiang Mai alone.

   Last night we participated in a New Year Thai tradition and wrote new year wishes on a paper lantern. You use a candle, light the center ring of wood and then turn it over, letting the heat fill the balloon space and then the lantern floats up into the sky (it's really a miniature hot air balloon). It goes straight up for about a thousand feet and then floats off into the cosmos. A very touching and beautiful experience.



A Komloy lantern being lit by Thomas Charles and Pattarapan

   By the way, Pattarapan means "Golden skin" a name her father gave her to encourage her to be proud of her dark skin.


Grandma Ya Pothong and Pattarapan: Two beautiful Thai women standing out in a land of beautiful women

"Beauty is only skin deep."
—Old Vaquero Saying

Lost In Thai Translation

January 5, 2015
   The Thais love English on their clothes. It's pretty flippin' amazing:



Thai unnofficial motto: If it's in English, it's on my chest.



The more obtuse, the better, the Thais say.

   London is hot as well:



How about Boy Kingman? Huh? What about THAT Thai Hipsters?

  There is even a local Zonie baseball team logo over here on a woman's chest:



Arizona Diamondbacks T-shirt spotted in Mae Phang

   But it isn't just Ts, the Thais love to name their businesses with English names and on signs with English names, but somtimes it gets a little warped in the translation:


The Greasy Nail & Spa (right next to the Gassy Bowl)


Well, Happy New Yewr to you too, Thais!


Mai Dang Automotive. Dang, I've got one of those too!

"Would a greasy nail by any other name smell so sweet?"
—Old Samurai Saying

Houseboat vacation

January 4, 2015
   Yesterday we motored up into the mountains northeast of Chiang Mai, Thailand to spend some time on a houseboat moored on Mae Ngat Lake. We parked at the primitve marina (no dock) and piled our gear on a long keel boat and took the ride up the lake:


Tommy and Triple B in the front of the boat with all the groceries and luggage.




We had precious cargo: Pattarapan and her faithful Shih Tzu Hurley (he's eight).

   After a ten minute run we rounded a corner of the lake to see a series of houseboats lining the shores on both sides:


The floating houseboats of Sainatee

   After a feint around the lake (and past two other houseboat enclaves), we swung around for the approach to our floating hotel:


The approach to the Sainatee Houseboats

   The floating compound included a restaurant, at left and our rooms on right:


Our front deck, literally.

   Unfortunately, there was a large group of college kids partying next to us, although they were quite sweet to us and sent over a platter of Thai bar-b-q, which was delicious. Still, the girls wanted to move, so Pattarapan negotiated for us to move down four rooms so we could have a little peace and quiet. We are in the Thai dry season so it only gets up to about 80 in the day and gets down to around 60 degrees, but it was quite nice out. We sat out on our patio, ordered Thai food from the restaurant and played Catch Phrase until the cows came home.

   In the morning, it was very still and beautiful out (the college kids were down for the count).


Kathy Sue, around 6:30 in the morning, standing on the almost empty dock.

   Tommy came out around eight and decided it was time to test the waters:


T. Bell contemplates a brisk wake-me-up.


Thomas Charles heads in.

   We lounged around all morning and took the last boat back at 11. The entire affair, food, boat ride and rooms cost 3,700 Bots ($120). Amazing.

"Winter squash?"
—Pattarapan's funniest answer to our Catch Phrase marathon (you had to be there)

The King And I

January 2, 2015
   Oops. Got the New Year date hiccups. Think I labed yesterday's blog post as Jan. 1, 2014. Speaking of beloved leaders, I am amazed by the ubiquitous of the King. His image is everywhere in Thailand. On the side of buildings, on arches over the highway as you enter almost every town or village, in businesses and in homes. Here are a couple examples:



The King of Thailand on the side of a building



A Wall Painting on a large buiding in Chiang Mai

   I finally realized what it must have been like in the days of kings. There is a loyalty, or, diefication of an individual that defies gravity. We were warned by several guide books to not attempt to talk to the Thai people about him, but, of course, I couldn't resist and got a guy at the Bang A Gong B&B to spill the beans, which was basically this: "We love the king and can't get enough of him. His son, not so much."

The Runner Up Champs of Chiang Mai

January 1, 2014
   We landed in the mid-mountain town of Chiang Mai, Thailand yesterday at about five, after a seven hour drive from Phichit. Went over several mountain passes on the way here and saw many beautiful sites.

   Tom and Amy live in a neighborhood called, of all things, "Land & Houses." Yes, that is the name of it, and the sign is in English. We walked to Sriwalle Restaurant for an early New Year's Eve dinner.

   Like almost everyone else in Thailand, Tom and Amy own 125cc motorscooters which are so much better at getting through traffic in the downtown area. After breakfast at the World of Breakfast in downtown Chiang Mai (inside the moat), we motor-scootered over to Tom and Amy's campus to see where they teach at an international school:


Teacher Tom Bell



Teacher Pattarapan Pothong

   Last semester Tommy was the head coach and Amy co-coached the U-12 (girl's under 12) basketball team. Here are the champions, the C-Max conference runners up:



Taken in early December, here are the Chang Mai U-12 Athletic Conference Runners-up and their coaches, Tommy and Amy Pothong Bell. They made it to the championship game after a triple-overtime thriller against the conference tournaments favorites, but then lost 9-12 to a more rested team.

"WHO ARE YOU GUARDING?"
—Coach Tom Bell's most repeated phrase