I met Som, a middle aged lady from the village of Baan Na Tong in Northern Thailand, who labors many hours a day to make some very exquisite and colorful quilts. It takes her up to 60 hours to make just one piece.

Located about 32 kilometers from the city of Phrae, Baan Na Tong is a very beautiful village surrounded by greenery. The village offers homestay accommodations and is one of the areas where the endangered Siamese Big Headed Turtles can be found.

In Phrae (or in the village), the quilts sell for 4000 baht ($121USD) and in USA, Europe or overseas, they sell for as much as 10,000 baht ($300USD). When the quilt sold through a retailer -whether it be in Thailand or overseas - her cut of the pie is only 800 baht ($24USD). That averages out to only 13 baht an hour, based on 60 hours for production. It doesn’t seem fair, but she isn’t complaining because she enjoys her work.

It’s a shame that artisans - especially in 3rd world countries - make so little monies from their handiwork, while others profit immensely. I probably should have suggested to her that she market her goods through an artisan or artist cooperative in order to her increase her remuneration.

I have seen the same phenomenon happen in other countries – Mexico, Peru, Ghana to name a few - where locally made handmade goods are very cheap to buy locally, but on the expensive side if you buy them in the USA. Someone is making a lot of monies; it surely is not the local artisan or craftsman. Such is the way of the world!

While walking in the downtown area of Nan in Northern Thailand, I happened to stumble upon some sort of local parade/celebration. Not knowing exactly what was happening, I decided to follow the people as they danced - conga line style - into the nearby Wat Apha accompanied by some lively Lanna music.

Inside the complex, the focal point seemed to be a large money tree, and the participants invited me to join the festivities. Offering me food and drinks - the local whiskey, a choice of Thai beers - in addition to encouraging me to dance with them, I could not refuse their hospitality.

I inquired as to the nature of the party with some of the participants, but no one could really speak sufficient English to offer me an explanation. I kept on hearing the word Papa repeated over and over again, but of course I didn’t know what they were talking about. Walking back to my hotel, it seemed that the rest of the town was relatively quiet, so it was safe to say that the celebration was relatively limited to Wat Apha.

It was only after talking to the owner of Nan Boutique Hotel that I found out about the true nature of this celebration. What I witnessed at the local Wat is known in Thailand as the Paa Paah Festival. Celebrated during the months of October and November throughout Thailand, the Paa Paah festival is a special fund raising party for each local temple/Wat – and it is strictly a localized festival, as each temple celebrates this festival independently on different dates.

I consider myself very fortunate as an outsider to have been invited by members of the Apha Wat to join in their festivities. The people were very friendly and hospitable and they had no qualms about me taking photographs of their merriment. It also gave an opportunity to learn more about the fascinating and exotic culture of Thailand

After flying to Pitsanulok from Bangkok, I boarded a bus about 8:00AM to Uttaradit, a small, rather nondescript but pleasant city of about 75,000 people located in Northern Thailand. The bus ride, which would take approximately 2 hours started out very inauspiciously when the bus driver turned on the sound system full blast. The music was absolutely deafening and immediately this bus ride starting was turning into a real nightmare.

Rather than submitting to this early morning torture, I decided to take action. Since most of the passengers probably didn’t understand English, I pleaded with them (I was the only foreigner on the bus) to tell the bus driver to turn down the volume by using my hands – I made a circling motion with my right index finger in front my ear, then covered both ears with my hands, simultaneously uttering “Mai chorp, Mai chorp” (means I do not like).

I knew the other passengers understood me but all they did was make strange faces at me and smiled as if they were saying “You stupid Farang, you’re in our country now and we are not going take any action because it is not our custom, so you’re going to have to suffer.”

As the Thai passengers were not going to be cooperative, I decided to execute Plan B. Whipping out my cell phone, I called Khun Moongmink, my good friend in Bangkok, and I explained to her in English, my problem with the loud music.

Walking towards the front of the bus, I then handed my cell phone to the bus driver so Khun Moongmink could voice my displeasure to him. After talking with her for about 1 minute, lo and behold, the bus driver turned the music off. I smiled to myself, very content with my ability to be assertive.

About 5 minutes later, I looked behind me to find that some of the Thai passengers who were making faces and laughing at me before were now dozing off.

LESSON LEARNED - In Western Culture (or at least in America) we are very assertive and will protest or complain if something is not right and take action if need be while in Asian culture (at least in Thai culture), people have a tendency to be somewhat passive and considerably less assertive; I guess you could say, they just go with the flow! Viva la Difference!

I liken my 43-day/42-night travel odyssey to Southeast Asia –Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia - to running a marathon road race. The official marathon distance is 42.15 KM (26.2 miles), which coincidentally matches the total number of nights of my trip.

Believe me, I know what I’m talking about having completed six marathons over the years. Like running a marathon, I started out a bit fast out of the gate – during my first 5 nights in Bangkok, I was ripping and running. Leaving Thailand’s hectic capital city, I found a nice running rhythm as I continued to Northern Thailand.

As usual, I had to negotiate some rather steep hills and obstacles along the way, but I persevered and got through them relatively unscathed. However the reality of changing hotels 15 times in 42 nights eventually caught up with me.

By the time I completed 75% of my trip on Day 32 (comparable to reaching the 19 mile mark in the marathon), I hit the proverbial wall. On that day, I transferred by ferry from Penang in Malaysia to the popular beach resort of Langkawi.

Hitting the beach, I was totally fatigued and I dozed off, but I had to dig down deep inside to get ready for the next day’s return journey to Thailand. From Langkawi, I traveled with 30 other tourists on an oversized speedboat to Koh Lipe, a distance of 30 maritime kilometers. The journey took about 75 minutes.

As I near the tail end of my arduous travel odyssey, I have finally found my 2nd wind in Koh Lipe, a rather small, relatively obscure island in Southern Thailand’s Satun Province. During my remaining days on the island (through December 27), I will be preparing travel stories, anecdotes and insights for publication in Calypso Island Chronicles.

Returning to Bangkok on December 27th for my final three nights in Thailand, I am geared up for a furious kick to the finish line. Yes my friends, the end is in sight and after all is said and done, the whole trip/race will have been worth it!

In retrospect, running an actual Marathon is a lot easier than this Travel Marathon

I met Mah Jong and his colleague, Kah Ching at Phu Lang Ka Resort in rural Northern Thailand. They are somewhat typical of dogs of the rural area – average height with short yellow hair and a somewhat stocky build. To be honest with you, the typical Thai dog is somewhat drab in appearance.

Traveling throughout Thailand, I have seen so many look-alikes among the dogs in the countryside – one wonders if they are all related as Thai people don’t believe in getting their dogs fixed and the females have such large litters. As pets, the stereotypical Thai mutt do not cost more than 1 baht – in other words they are free for the asking.

Mah Jong and Kah Ching are not pets of Kevan, the owner of Phu Lang Ka or any of this employees – these Thai pooches belong to some of Kevan’s neighbors. During the height of the tourist seasons which last from November – February, they can be seen hanging around Phu Lang Ka Lodge for most of the day, going from table to table looking for food, eating the many leftovers from the guest’s meals.

Unlike Jah Thep (Kevan’s dog) who is a very civilized, sweet and obedient dog, these mutts are professional freeloaders or moochers. Mah Jong and his cohort do not provide any valuable service to the owner such as extra security i.e.watch dogs nor do they really mingle with the guests like Jah Thep. You’d think that these dogs would at least bark when a stranger approaches – not these mutts!

And when the season is over and the food supply dries up, these pooches disappear and go elsewhere

To be honest with you, I have never seen a better-fed doggie than Mah Jong. On my first night at there, I saw him down the leftovers from a large grilled fish, Thai soup, rice and greens from one table, then he went to another table to devour some more leftovers.

Depending upon how you look at it, I guess Mah Jong and Kah Ching can be considered professional recyclers or seasonal busboys.

I called my sister from Taiping, a city of 100,000 people in the state of Perak in northwestern Malaysia. Now most people with any sense of geography know that Malaysia is located south of Thailand and the whole country is very tropical, by virtue of being so close to the equator.

Now my sister is not ignorant by any means, having earned a B.A in Sociology from UC Berkeley and having worked as a social worker for a good part of her adult life. Furthermore she has traveled to such diverse tropical places such as Mexico, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Yet I had found it very difficult to refrain from laughing out loud, when my sister innocently asked me “Is it very tropical?”

I answered her in rather stern tone “Yes, Taiping is very tropical. It is considered the rainiest city in Peninsular Malaysia.” Excuse me for being such a smart-ass!

Funny thing is that it rained relatively little during my brief five day stay in the Taiping Area. Shortly after I checked into my hotel in downtown Taiping, there was a rather fierce torrential downpour with thunder and lightning which lasted a brief 7 minutes. And I loved every minute of it!.

Outside of this brief deluge, there was only some moderate rainfall - during day three of my stay, there was some steady rain sometime late in the afternoon, and on my departure day, there was some light rainfall throughout the state of Perak. Oh well….

Traveling in a foreign country, the traveler will most likely experience communication problems, especially when the language and culture is radically different than his own. This is definitely the case with Thailand - even though Thailand is westernized to a degree, it’s language and culture is still very exotic and foreign.

Sometimes it can be very frustrating, and in some cases very hilarious when trying to communicate to a Thai (especially when trying to ask directions), as most Thais speak and understand nitnoy English, and even the most accomplished English speakers are sometimes hard to understand because of their accent and difficulty with pronunciation of certain English words. *

To give you some idea, I will tell you about a hilarious incident of miscommunications that happened to me while I was visiting the city of Phrae in Northern Thailand. I call it the tale of “Monkeys Must Be Free”.

I was taking an all day tour of the city. The whole itinerary had been discussed in advance with a gentleman from the regional tourist office and the owner of Phoom Thai Garden Hotel, both of whom spoke fairly good English.

My driver (Let’s call him Lou), who drove a dilapidated songthaew, spoke absolutely no English. Out first stop was Ban Na Tong, a small village located in countryside about 32 KM away from the city. The village offered homestay accommodations and was a sanctuary for the Big Headed Siamese Turtle, an endangered species.

Fortunately, the resident teacher of the village spoke some English and showed me around. Afterwards he asked me if I was going to see the Pet Monkeys? I shook my head and said “No, I’m not interested in seeing any pet monkeys.” I asserted that all monkeys must be free and not be held in captivity. The teacher talked briefly to Lou, my driver, in Thai about the rest of my itinerary shortly before we continued with my touring.

After stopping at a couple of more places, we returned to the Hotel whereupon the owner greeted us. He talked to Lou in Thai for a couple of minutes and turned to me and said “The driver said that the farang (referring to me) was not interested in seeing Pet Monkeys, so he didn’t take me there.”

The owner, who had an excellent command of the English language, laughed out loud and explained to me that Phae Muang Phi referred to an area just 7KM outside the city where there were some unusual earth pillars. The pronunciation of Phae Muang Phi was almost identical to the English pronunciation of pet monkeys - therein lies the source of the misunderstanding. The owner asked me if I still want to go to Phae Muang Phi, to which replied Hell Yeah, so long as the Monkeys are free!