Anantara

We all know that Emily is the better blogger so I just say that Hua Hin is beautiful, or at least the Anantara Resort in Hua Hin is beautiful. We spent the whole day either in the pool or in the ocean! It was fabulous, except that now we are feeling sun drained.

This is the private pool for the lagoon room residents like ourselves. It is right next to a beautiful lagoon.

This place is very luxurious. They brought out cold hand towel to the poolside to refresh yourself. And they came in while we were at dinner and turned down our bed leaving little palm leaves with a happy valentine note on them. Plus there is a pillow menu! You call and tell them which of the eight types of pillows you want. I chose the orthopedic comfort pillow. Good Night

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Chinese New Year

Bangkok Doll Museum

We love Creches, aka nativity scenes. We collect them. So we wanted a Thai Creche. Let me tell you, it is not as simple as you think. I have asked 3 or 4 interpreters. My private interpreter worked hard trying to find me one. We went on a made dash through Chantaburi trying to get one. I found a website, www.bangkokdolls.com , and they had one on there. But when you go to their directions and contact info there is none! So I kept trying and trying to find out how to get one. Then the other day I found a website for doing things with kids in Bangkok and one of the activities was to visit the Bangkok Doll Museum. I suspected it was the same place since some of the awards matched the awards won by the orginal doll maker on the first website. Still the hotel didn't recognize the address and told me to look in a completely different area. Then last night I found another website that had a map to the museum and then I confirmed that it had the same nativity. The map showed it to be in some out of the way neighborhood.

So today we headed out in a hurry, leaving around 10 am. =) and set off to try and find this place on our way to the weekend market. We got off the skytrain, hired a taxi and wound our way through some very narrow streets deep inside a real Bangkok neighborhood, you know not where tourists go. We eventually found this cute little shop/museum tucked away in this Soi (Thai for side street).

We found the nativity and after trying to understand one of the little doll makers the owner, the son of the famous doll maker came to help us. He has retired from teaching law to care for the company since his mother is old and in the hospital. He was a very kind man and very helpful and even gave us a discount since I was there doing humanitarian work for the Thai people. We were sooo happy.

This lady has been working here for over 50 years and is one of the original workers. It was cool to see this little group of about 6 working over all these dolls!

One Night (and a Day) in Bangkok

Em and I had a great day together. We (she) slept in and then we had a leisurely breakfast, followed by a taxi ride to the Royal Palace, also home to Wat Phra Kaew, you know the one with the Emerald (actually Jade) Buddha. (It was originally covered in plaster til a monk noticed some green where it had flaked off on his nose.) This place was massive and beautiful!!Em took advantage of the dripping flower water blessings. We walked around there for a while and then had our first Tuk Tuk ride. It was crazy, weaving in and out of traffic on this little thing with a loud buzzing motor. It dropped us off at Wat Po. Em was just going to sit and wait since she was tired and feet were hurting (swollen =( ). But when I saw how awesome and ginourmous this reclining Buddha was I went back and had her come in. She was glad. His feet are inlaid with various mother of pearl scenes and designs.Em found us a yummy restaurant on the next street and did her first bits of shopping with the street vendors.

We then took a long traffic jammed taxi ride back to the hotel and relaxed until the Dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River. This was so much fun. It had a live band that was actually not too bad. The river was beautiful at night with the temples and palaces lit up. It was a very romantic and fun way to celebrate Em's birthday, valentines and especially Chinese New Year. Royal Palace at night. Wat Arun or Temple of the Dawn. My favorite one on the river. (Rama (or King) VIII Bridge, I guess he was assassinated and they build it in his name. I love having my new travel buddy!!! (My picture count for today was 172! Mostly used to get good night shots that weren't blurry. Grand total so far is 894.)

Cobra Gold Endex

I am writing this blog at the Starbucks at the Bangkok Airport waiting for Em. My heart keeps leaping every time I see someone that might be her, even though the last one was Asian and was holding a child. I’m a little jumpy after the crazy taxi rides I’ve had today. I assume the plane that arrived from Tokyo is hers despite the different arrival time and different flight number since the one on her itinerary doesn’t seem to exist.

Today we did half a days work at our last site since we had to high tail it to Bangkok today. Most people are leaving early tomorrow morning. It was the wrong day to cut short, especially for dental. I took out more teeth on my first patient (8) then I did all day yesterday!! My assistant May, Pim my interpreter and I have been doing tooth brushing instructions each morning for all the patients waiting to be triaged and seen. Today’s was a lot of fun. There were a lot of kids that came over to listen. They all laughed when during the brush your tongue demo. I guess I have a rather large tongue and my tech keeps making me show them and laughing! A lady yesterday visibly flinched when I showed them. Good things my self-confidence is made of steel!

While in doing one of these oral hygiene instructions this morning I saw a kid that didn’t look well and had a large swelling. I brought him over afterwards and his teeth were just horrible. I thought the swelling/asymmetry was due to an abscess but it turned out not to be tooth related. The parents claimed it was since birth, along with a history of hydrocephaly. I’m still not sure what is the cause or what it is. I took out four rotted teeth, but didn’t see a dental cause for the englarged area, neither did the physicians. Any ideas?

When we got back to the hotel, I had forgotten how nice it was!, we headed out to the night market. It was pretty cool with lots of cool stuff to buy. I thought I am in trouble if I bring Em here. So I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t know about it! =)

She’s here!!!! Buy!

Here are some of my Singaporean friends. They were two of the many great people I became friends with and worked with.

P.S. The pool party was lots of fun last night! I think we ended up throughing in about 15 people. How many people can say they threw a Thai Army Colonel into a pool and lived to tell about it! Thanks Colonel Pete!!!

Almost Done...!

Not too eventful of a day. We visited our 6th site today, and have one more left tomorrow. Today was really slow with very few kids; whereas most of the others sites had tons of kids come. We're also in a less rural area.

So, since we had some extra time, I taught one of the physicians how to anesthetize and extract teeth. He did a good job!

I did see one kid who needed a tooth extracted and was very uncooperative. I got her through it, but she cried the whole time. I knew that if I didn't get it out, though, it was destined to become infected/abscessed.

Here is a picture of her after. Looks very happy and grateful don't you think?
I'll throw this one in too...
The traffic is crazy here. They have so many scooters, and they pile the whole family on!
I saw a family of four with two little kids all on the same little scooter driving through the busy streets.

These guys are pretty cute:
Tonight we are having a farewell pool party to say thanks to all the interpreters. They really have been extremely good. My interpreter Pim was great at helping us set up, work with patients, break down our dental stuff, help load the trucks each day and interpret for us, as well as being our tour guide on our excursions! Thanks Pim!

Now just one more day of work and then I get to see my BEAUTIFUL WIFE!

Namtokphlio National Park and Chaolao Beach

First off, this hotel's breakfast is absolutely amazing. A lady is on standby ready to make fresh juice with her juicer. I visited her three times for about seven glasses of juice. Awesome! Pineapple-guava turned out to be the best. There is another station of omelet and fried egg makers: my omelet was fabulous as well. Can't wait until morning!


Following breakfast, a group of us headed out to find the Priew waterfall in a national park. As we approached we saw lots of really long green beans for sale. A few minutes later I found out they were to feed the fish. These fish were insane. You throw a piece of bean in and a hundred fish all dive after it.

Later we dangled our feet in, after seeing people swimming with them, and they nibbled my toes rather innocently. After feeding the fish we went on a trek around the park above and around the water fall. At one point we followed the wrong trail for 20 minutes until we figured out the correct way to go.




Afterwords we went to a little beach town called Chaolao. We had lunch in a little open air hut: lots of yummy Thai seafood. Followed by a some fun in the water.

We couldn't believe how warm the water was. It was as warm as a nice bath! Warmer than our swimming pool, which is really nice. I've never been in ocean water that warm. The beach was beautiful.The afternoon ended with a mad dash through Chantaburi to find the Catholic Church that said they had a Nativity for sale. We finally found it after running across a bridge, around the Church courtyard only to find a very disappointing Nativity you could buy at the Dollar Store. So the search for a nice Thai Nativity is still on!

Now I'm going to go spend the rest of the evening and night at the pool! (After talking to Em via Skype! HAPPY BIRTHDAY EM!!!)

Em is Great

A Few of the many things that make Em the Greatest:

She makes the best chicken noodle soup for me when I am sick
She is the best at folding fitted sheets
She is very playful and "spirited"*
Christmas Tree Decorating skills are most superb
She makes the best whipped cream with ease
Her birthday cake skills are untouchable
She is the best ceramicist or potter I know
She likes to spend time with me
Excellent taste in everything
So very artistic
She is the best and most loyal friend to others and Me
Has a great decorating eye
Is a very tender mother, full of love
She is letting me miss her B-Day to go to Thailand for 3 weeks without her!
She is a hot chocolate connoisseur

*this is what I call it when she tries to pick fights with me and pick on me and/or torment me especially when I am trying to fall alsleep.
**My sister doesn't like it when I talk in the superlative but I can't help it when referring to Em!

The LONG Road to Chantaburi

We left Ratchaburi and headed across Thailand through Bangkok to Chantaburi this morning and about 10 hours later we arrived at the hotel. (This is part of the Bangkok Skyline.)Everytime we drive somewhere the estimated drive time is only half of what the real drive time has been. The first trip was 3 hours=actual time 7 hours. Today was supposed to be 3 or 4 and ended up beign 10. Now today we did take a 2 hour break in Pattaya. The drives during the day is brutal. The "air conditioning" is grossly inadequate for the heat along with the sun beating through the windows. (Except for a couple of the vans, one person even had a blanket on as they drove by us!!!) Even our Thai interpreter is struggling with the heat!

I was quite glad to leave the Golden City Hotel in Ratchaburi. It housed all the smells of Thailand in one place. The rooms smelt bad (as we checked into the rooms a maid was running around spraying air freshener into all the rooms.), and then the hallways had their own aroma as did the lobby. Then all that was compounded by the agriculture smells from outside. The previous motel at the resort was less smelly but we shared rooms and the beds were the hardest substance known to man. This is all meant to lead up to the resort at which we are staying for the last 3 days of our trip. It is nice. There was a lady waiting with glasses of juice as we approached the reception desk and another with cool towels to refresh ourselves. Instead of the film and feathers in the pool at the last place, this pool is perfectly warm and refreshing. The rooms are nice and best of all there are no unpleasant smells so far.

Those 2 hours mentioned above were great hours. We stopped at a Garden Park where you can see different Thai culture shows, elephant shows and rides and the grounds are covered in beautiful plants. My friends and I headed straight for the elephant rides. I'm not sure what our interpreter told the elephants drivers, but we got hooked up. Instead of the quick ride the other tourist had, the drivers took us farther away and then let us get down from the seat and onto the neck of the elephant where the driver had been sitting! It was great and actually a lot more comfortable then the padded bench seat. It was great riding ON the elephant as it lumbered back and forth with its large ears whipping my ears.We followed this awesome experience with an equally awesome meal at one of the restaurants. Then we headed back to the elephants and feed them some bananas. As we gathered for a group photo we jumped at the chance to take one with one of the elephants that came walking by. I asked the driver guy if he would let the elephant lift me up onto its back. Next thing I know he is having the elephant wrap me up in its trunck and hefting me up in the air. It was so fun!!! And look at how cute this little guy is!! This is my disgust after she blew elephant snot all over me. It was worth it though. We had a great great time.

Two Peas in A Pod

One thing I love about Em is how much we have in common. Here are a few things that come to mind.

We both:
love mystery books and shows
(including Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, Rumpole)
and books by PG Wodehouse
love NCIS, Lie To Me, White Collar, PSYCH, Monk, Burn Notice, 24, Alias, Lost, Survivor, The Office, and 30 Rock
enjoy collecting sand from beaches
love to read
love to eat out and try new ethnic foods
love chocolate
enjoy a competitive game of backgammon (she taught me how to play)
Have same taste in pictures, decorating
like to blog (though she forced me to start since she wouldn't ever let me post on hers)
like to pester each other
enjoy BBC videos/miniseries: Miss Marple, Poirot, Cadfael, Sherlock Holmes
love Audio Books (one of our favorites was "The Amulet of Samarkand" by Jonathan Stroud, part of the Bartimaues Trilogy)
love to frequent public libraries
love classical music and Symphonies
forget to take our books/movies back to the library on time
think we are funny (we differ in that I am the funniest)
sleep with at least 2 pillows
get cranky if we don't eat by 5 pm
love California
love to camp
love the same music (though there are some (huge) outlying differences there, the bulk is shared...)
Have an awesome sense of humor! =)
love to travel
love all things European
have the same taste in Art (though we differ on whether we think nude "Art" is p*orn or not)
in other words,
We are perfect together!

Last Day of Ratchaburi

Today’s highlight was the visit to the Vet by the pet porcupine! Yes, there was a 3 year old porcupine on a leash. And since I had learned my lesson last night about approaching wildlife, I naturally avoided any interaction with this little girl. (The Vet and owner argued a bit about the gender. It looked female to me, but what do I know.)

Well, I didn’t exactly leave her alone: I did pet her and then feed her some Doritos.

(The picture will have to suffice, I've been trying to upload the video for hours now! But that Dorito was in my mouth first! She took it right out of my lips!) Good Times!!

We had a good day of steady patients. One was behaviorally pretty tough. He was a large 6 year old who was just sobbing and didn’t want any of his BOMBED-out teeth pulled. I wasn’t able to calm him and knew he was too large and strong for me to safely “force” him to do it. He really needed general anesthesia, as do most of the kids I’ve been treating. So I pretty much gave up, which is rare for me, and told the mother I couldn’t safely do anything. Then Pim, my interpreter, asks if she can try with him outside for 5 minutes (not sure if she was going to talk to him or rough him up). So they come back in and he is only sobbing a little and I was then able to talk him through each step, showing him all the things I was going to do. So I finished with out any problems. Thank you Pim! Nice work.

On the van ride back to the hotel (we drive out to each site from our central hotel, usually about 1-2 hours), I asked Pim what she said to him. She to him he had a worm in his tooth. That if the American doctor didn’t take it out it would go into his stomach and make him very sick. Also, that the American doctor is a foreigner and is the best (that part was true) and wouldn’t hurt him, but some other dentist might. Oh my! It worked I guess. A worm. Really! Into his stomach!!

Here are the cows outside my window: They smell...nice. Good morning, Ratchaburi!

Happy Birthday

The Day is dragon without you here.Can't wait to see you!

This One is For Mom

Sorry Mom I was very photographically, dentally, and blogily uninspired yesterday. Mom and Emily were both disappointed with lack of Thai post yesterday.

We went to our first site in the Ratchaburi Province yesterday and it wasn't very busy for dental, while for the optometry clinic they had over 450 patients! We did get a visit from a 2 star US Army General and a handfull of Colonels. They flew into the site on a Blackhawk and landed/took off from a cattle field next to our school. It whipped up a bunch of cow smell and debris!
Today was a bit better at the second site (4th total). Still, a few too few patients for my taste, but I got to teach a few of the Army how to pull some teeth: one medic and a Singaporean Doc. They thought it was awesome and I agree.

I may also have picked up head lice from some of the kids today! There were a lot of patients with it today. But there were some really cute kids too! I got to hold a very beautiful 10 month old Thai princess baby today! She was so cute!!!!

After work today we went and visited the Bat Cave! Why do they call it that? No, it's not because Bruce Wayne lives there, rather... Well just look at the pictures!
(Justin is in the blue shirt, he's the medic)
Every night around 1800 (6pm) millions of these cuddle birds take flight to gather food! They pour out of their cave for over an hour!! It is quite the sight to behold.

Notice the black "line" of bats between the temple buildings:
That's not smoke!The rock below is not usually black!!
We then went to eat at the great floating restaurant from two days ago and then visited a night Flee Market which was pretty cool! (Note to self, you cannot appease two vans full of people!!! Too many people came on this outing and we had a bit of drama. But fun nonetheless.)

Now for the horror of the evening: To get up to the bat cave you had to climb up a hill of stairs and then walk down a path. We should have believed our noses and stopped at the overwhelming smell of ammonia/bat guano. Justin and I continued down not having seen the cave and saw some monkeys. I immediately switched lenses and got some cool shots of a mama and her baby. Then saw some more as we continued on. Then we came upon some males that we scooted past a bit wary. (this is where past where we should have turned back.) As we got past them, I saw the male monkey bare his teeth at Justin's back. We soon discovered we had come to the end and had to face the monkeys again.

They however bared more teeth at us and appeared threatening-- so we retreated back to pagoda up on the mountain where Justin found us some sticks and I found an old 2X4 that was wield-able. Notice the mean one in the middle!
Newly armed we approached these primates who by now seemed a bit more cooled off. We slowly approached them, scooted down the path, and then ran!!! I could hardly take pictures of the flocks of bats as my body was shacking from the adrenaline! Justin was back down the mountain in no time. I left the path to approach the cave of bats--to my interpreters chagrin.

She got me back on the path by telling me the monkeys were coming again. WoW, was that a stupid experience!!!! Yes, Em I said it for you. Later I said to Justin, "Who is stupid enough to get that close to wild monkeys?" REALLY?

So mom, your fear of bats is nonsense, you should be deathly afraid of Thai Monkeys, like I am now!