Itinerary

So here we go:

Tomorrow, I head to Kanchanaburi- It's the location of the Bridge Over the River Kwai. I;I'll be there for a couple of days.

Friday afternoon, I'll go to Auythaya, home to ruins, and I've heard, not much else.

Sunday night, I'll take a train or a bus to Chiang Mai. I'll take a cooking class, see some ruins, and visit a park. And perhaps speak to a monk. I'll be there until the 8th or so. I'm still working on this part.

I will fly to Phuket to go diving in the Similan Islands. It will probably be a live aboard - so I'm on a boat for four days in the middle of the Andaman Sea. I'm still trying to work out the exact dates/times for this. It does mean that I'll spend my 30th birthday (9th - Happy Birthday to Dawn K!) sober, as diving after drinking is not allowed.

I'll hit another national park before heading back to Bangkok. I fly to India on 18 Dec.

You'll continue to receive updates, but that's the master plan as I have it now. Subject to change, but knowing me, not subject to much change...

Last test, hopefully...

I think this should be the last test post to make sure everything is going ok. And next time you stop receiving notices to the inbox, please don't wait a month to tell me...

Thailand is still good. I haven't done much today except read the guidebook to figure out where I want to go. No exact plans yet, but I'll let you know soon.

Testing part two...

This is a random post to test the autoupdate feature... This is the second part of the test. Google.com seems to be holding up its end of the bargin, so we'll see about blogger...

MH

I'm ok...

I'm in Thailand. I have learned a lot about Austria this evening, as I spent it with Jacob and Bernie. They gave me the lowdown on Thailand as well.

Anyway. Why was it that no one saw it fit to tell me that there is a new Harry Potter movie out? I almost fell out of my airplane seat when I saw the ad. Needless to say, it was placed at the top of today's to-do list.

Hope all is well. I have no plans yet for Thailand, as I just got the guide book today. I will keep you all informed before any moves out of Bangkok.

Reading material...

So I have a lot of time to catch up on reading, and I figured I'd give you an update on that...

I brought A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson with me. Quite good. Bill Bryson normally does a lot of travel writing, not guidebooks, but things that happen to him while he travels. That's how I became acquainted with his writing. But this is more about science. Stay with me!! It's science the way that you should have learned it. Every few pages there is a fact that will just astound you, like the fact that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have different salinity levels. If they didn't, the current in the Atlantic would flow north to the Artic and melt the pole instead of warming Europe. You don't need a science background for it, but it does answer a lot of questions they should have answered in school...

My other books have been purchases at used book stores. So you can see what everyone else is reading. Interesting, as I have never read Sydney Shelton, but she seems quite popular. I've been wanted to read Walden, but have yet to find that. (Bali also seems to lack large bookstores of the type you'd find in the US. One's found in airports seem far better.)

So in the selections Ubud Library was selling, I stumbled upon Global Soul by Pico Iyer. The author has Indian parents, was educated in England, but is a permanent resident of the US, in California, and now lives in Japan. (He's a writer for Time.) The book discusses the fact that he's not the only one in the world with such a conglomeration of backgrounds. Good read, made more meaningful because I had been to many of the places he traveled to in search of answers. Some of it is about the difficulty faced when flying from one place to another. What do you put down for nationality, address, which form do you get. He talks about airports being the one place he feels at home. This I can wholeheartedly agree with. The least stressful times for me are in airports. I know the system, I know what should happen. There are always English signs. It's only when I exit that I have to worry about putting a roof over my head and feeding myself. The airport is a brief respite from the stress of having to figure out another culture. (I think my brother would like this book.)

Other parts of the book talk about mixing cultures. Toronto has many different cultures living together in mostly harmony. There's little actual mixing however. Most of it is groups living with each other. Which seems to be true for a lot of places...

The current read is Fast Food Nation, but more on that later...

Thailand...

So I'm off to Thailand today. My flight leaves around 6 PM, and gets into Bangkok at 9 PM. I will be 12 hours off of Eastern Standard Time.

I have a hostel reservation and an airport pickup already scheduled, so don't worry about that...

Oh - my Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a margarita and pad thai, along with a tiramisu like dessert. Not so traditional, but not at all bad...

Hope all is well.