Oakland parking lot
Street art has become a kind of big deal in some cities. It is an early stage experiment in some places, like Bangkok, and an integral part of the architectural landscape in others, like San Francisco’s Mission District.
Bangkok street food.
There is one crazy thing I forgot to mention that I learned in Kanchanaburi. Are you sitting down? On January 25, 1942, Thailand declared war on the United States!!! Who knew? And also, huh?
Sawadee ka from Hua Hin, a beach town about three hours south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.
Did you ever wish you could hang out with elephants for a day? I don’t mean ride one or give one a banana from the other side of a fence. I mean hang out.
Yesterday, I hopped the train to Kanchanaburi, 100 miles northwest of Bangkok. Train rides are usually low stress transportation, often with a lot of personality. And the ride to “Kan” is a lot of personality.
It is easy to have fun in Bangkok. We started off at a hotel on the city’s Chao Phraya River and got around town in a wooden water taxi that linked to Bangkok’s “BTS,” an above ground train system that is immaculate, fast and cheap.
Inle Lake is on Burma’s short list of best places to visit and home to various ethnic communities, small farms, and lots of wildlife. It has the added benefit of being at 3,000 feet elevation so its climate is much cooler than our other whistle stops.
We arrived in Bagan by way of a four hour, somewhat bone-jarring back road drive from Mandalay. The drive gave us a view of the gorgeous Burmese countryside — carts pulled by horses and Burma cows, herds of long-eared, black-headed goats, and thatched houses along mile after mile of bright green farmland.
