A few nights ago we spent talking with Bernhard, an ICU nurse from Austria, who began traveling on his motorcycle in '09, recently arriving here after shipping his bike from Kathmandu to BKK. Here's his blog, A Dream Come True! which has some wonderful photos. (I used Google translator so the text is a bit rough.) In the last year and a half, he's traveled from Austria to Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India (2X), Nepal (2X) to Thailand. He's off now to Laos, Cambodia and Australia. (His BMW at 1000cc's exceeds Vietnam's size allowance. Not sure why.)
Last month in CM, I tried acupuncture on my knee (still swollen from surgery, preventing me from regaining muscle tone and causing pain on stairs and when lifting my leg.) It felt good...but only lasted about 30 minutes. (Photo shows moxibustion heat treatment to stimulate micro-circulation.) I then saw a Thai knee specialist who drained 15ccs of fluid from my knee, giving me the first relief I'd had since August - miraculous! Even tho swelling is gradually returning, along with some of the pain I am now hopeful of a solution.
A previous hangout - you can see we go to the finest cafes. We're wrapping up a week at the Thai-style Baan-Fai GH where Jim spent the last month. Very homey, run by a school principal and his wife with her Thai textile shop next door. There's a small cafe serving great coffee, free wifi, an outdoor multi-level deck area plus an open-air common area where we have a few beers each night before foraging for dinner.Not many food vendors to choose from in this small town - except on Fri and Sat nights. Last Sat. we brought home a smorgasbord of sticky rice, fried chicken, a yummy tender pork dish I didn't recognize (sort of like pulled pork or pigs feet), sai-uua (spicy northern-style sausage) and a cold crunchy delicious veggie dish made from shredded coconut, papaya, bamboo and who knows what else. [If I can't ID the food group, I at least check for no coagulated blood (looks like dark tofu chunks), intestines, chicken feet, ungutted fish or too many chilies.] On Sundays, there's slim pickings; we ended up with plain rice, an unknown meat (heart?) batter-fried, an unknown pickled green veggie concoction (way too hot/spicy which we had to rinse before eating), bland soup with carrots, bamboo and an unknown tofu-like item (almost like custard) into which we dumped the veggies which enhanced edibility. This coming Sunday, we're eating earlier!
