Hi from That Phanom

Anne and I are now in NorthEastern Thailand right across the Mehkong from Laos. It's a lovely little town here and we're staying with a lovely women, who has decorated her guesthouse with her own paintings and plays Nora Jones all the time. It's very relaxing.

Tomorrow we're going to head into Laos and then north. So far its been very quiet. Can't quite work out where all the tourists have gone. Everyone is saying that its very quiet for this time of year. I wonder whether the trouble in the South has scared people away. That's a real pity if its true, what's going on is hard enough for the people anyway.

Anne and I had a great time at Khao Yai national park. We stayed at the same place that Jen and I did a couple of years ago. It hasn't changed at all. Did the same tour too, and saw Elephants! There were 8 individuals that we could observe for a while, they were right up next to the road - maybe 10 metres away! 4 females, 3 babies and a youngish male. We also saw an older male trying to mate but he went off into the jungle when our car showed up. It was very cool.
Unfortunately the night safaris have been becoming extremely popular, when we went - not even on a weekend - there was a long line of trucks all following each other - I looked back at one point and all I could see was a long line of spotlighting lorries. A traffic jam of spotlighters. It's amazing we could see anything at all.

After that we went to Khon Kaen in the heartland of the NorthEast. THis area is famous for it's silk and we were lucky enough to be there for the last day of the annual Silk Festival. It was great, a warren-like collection of tents and stalls selling everything from penis enhancers to hardware and fairy floss, mixed in with old-style sideshows - we saw a tent advertising giant spiders and snakes and a bearded lady (not kept with the snakes thank goodness!). Somewhere in the middle of all this chaos there was also the silk market. We bought some to send home, then sat down at a little noodle stall to people watch and drink beer which also readily availiable was apparently not permitted at the festival and had to be hidden - ours was put into a paper bag that only came halfway up the bottle - not at all conspicuous!

The weather is very cold for Thailand - you need a jumper at night and a couple of blankets on the bed. Anne had a buy a coat from the local market - she's very proud of her $3 purchase!

I'm having fun practising my Thai - people are so helpful - stopping buses for us and looking out for us. It's hard to get global information though, not cos Thailand doesn't get international news, but cos as a traveller I don't have access to it - if I lived here I'd have cable telly and a subsription to the Bangkok Post, not to mention a cell phone and the internet, but as a traveller I have to rely on what I can find. I found a Bangkok Post in a shop before but it was from Dec 7.

This state of affairs is unlikely to get much better once we enter Laos. Will continue to send emails when I can and thanks for all your replies, it's really great to be in contact with all my special people.