Departure

This writer has finally left fantasy island. It was high time. And my visa was expiring. Looking forward to a more outward-looking, less hedonistic period of my travels, which is about to begin. It was funny on the bus back to Bangkok, I was forced to endure about eight episodes of "Sex in the City". I was trapped. too load and present to concentrate on my book or to sleep, so I surrendered. I couldn't help but watch. It was New York, it was America, it was my craft, and in some ways, it's a decent show. In some ways it made me want to be stoned to death with overripe bananas rather than continue watching but still, that's not the point. The point was in one episode the lives of thirtysomethings were being contrasted with those of twentysomethings. And it made me glad that I'm about to resume a more thirtysomething pattern of behavior wuite shortly. I started talking and thinking about my Laos photobook project again after a conversation with my seatmate. I've had enough of Haad Rin for quite awhile. I don't regret anything I've done, I'm just saying I'm glad I'm in motion again. Ko Pha Ngan was wonderful, and it's now the closest thing I have to a home in Asia. But I'm onward now.

New photos uploaded to my smugmug photo site (tomguiney.smugmug.com). Mostly pix of my people there.

So I'm leaving Thailand early in the morning, catching a flight to Yangon, once known as Rangoon before the SLORC took over Burma and renamed in Myanmar. I am eager to see what kind of shape this poor tortured country is in. I've been reading up on their history, and it's not atypically awful for the region, it just happens to be awful to live there now under the curent government. Or that's what I would assume. I am going there tomorrow morning and I'll report back in about three weeks. There's no internet there and international phone calls are prohibitively expensive, but I'll try to find a way to keep in touch. Telegrams are what is recommended by Lonely Planet.

until I return to Thailand or someplace with internet

yours

Tom