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The King of Thailand is also quite a jazzer and in the past has kept his own while playing sax with jazz legends like Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton and Benny Carter. Evidently every friday he has jam sessions with local talent and he even wrote the Thai national anthem! As Lionel Hampton said, "He's simply the coolest thing in the land." Naturally, his loving constituents have also embraced jazz and one night we went to Chiang Mai University to see a concert by The New Orleans All-Star Jazz Band who were incredibly humbled by the amount of hurricaine reflief funds that came from Thailand. The concert was great, our pictures were terrible.

Another pattern that's developing is that everywhere we go we somehow get involved with rescuing dogs. For example: Helen and I rented bicycles so we could tool around the back streets of old Chiang Mai. We decided to go to his lovely little park that was highly recommended and across the street we found a sweet, young, bald, half-starved, scabies-ridden collie locked up behind a guest house ironically called The Come On In...yeah, right! From there we rode around until we found a vet to get rescue info from. His very long hair, nails, and heels indicated that he may have a nighttime job as one of the many Thai ladyboy performers. He was in the middle of an intricate operation on a dog in the hallway of his office, but he stopped the surgery long enough to give us the number of a rescue. We called and were told someone would meet us the next day, and voila, were in the thick of it again.

The following noon we met John, an English ex-pat, and Boon, his flatmate and translator. In Thailand it's so much better to have a local on your side, it can save you considerable aggravation and even more baht. So the four of us went to work by making contact with the owner and politely offering our assistance which was met with a bit of resistance. Unfortunately, we had to leave town but our new friends are going to follow up and keep us posted. John also took us to meet the incredibly philanthropic Karin who lives outside of town on a large piece of property, part of which she has sanctioned for a dog rescue. We've decided to start including links to really great animal places so we'll start here and now with Karin's official website. Please check out www.carefordogs.org and you can see what she's doing. Keep in mind, as of now she's doing all of this out of her own pocket. Later that afternoon we went up to Wat Ram Poeng temple to see the dogs that John is taking care of, and of course we ended up hanging out with the monks.

Oh, almost forgot, there was also a military coup while we were here. This particular coup de Thai was probably the most passive and unmemorable military action in history. I checked out the CNN online video feed and got irrate over their coverage because they made it sound like beheadings were going to start in central Bangkok any minute. It was incredibly irresponsible of the western media to put such a melodramatic spin on what was essentially a very soft news story. The Bangkok Post reported that over 80% of the country advocated the ousting of the evil empire. Even the Buddhist monks were happy about it. C'mon, the general who organized the coup (and was supported by the King) even apologized for any disruption that was caused! Just one example of the former PM's corruption was he sold his cell phone company for $1.9 billion (US) and his good old buddy who he put in charge of the country's taxes (who is also being investigated) let him slide under the counter without paying a cent. It was also proven that he had fixed the last elecions, but he'd put all his cronies in the necessary offices so that the country couldn't even do a recall. What it boils down to is a filthy rich crook got his just deserts and all the western governments do is poo-poo it. Actually, the biggest irritation the coup caused us was that Helen and I couldn't get to the border of Myanmar (formally Burma) to get another 30 day visa in time. It's called a "border run" and almost every westerner who visits or lives in Thailand has to do it every month. Just organizing these trips is a huge part of the tourist economy. The new government had closed the eastern border for 5 days, then it was opened and it was business as usual. Some people did get a little freaked out at the immigration office where they were offering 10-day visa extensions until they reopened the border. One guy was trying to organize a shopping trip/border run to Kuala Lumpur, but he was a total wacko and no one even wanted to go to a coffee shop with him much less a weekend in Indonesia! Naturally, we're just skating on the surface if the tip of the political iceburg, and even though there is still some question as to what will happen in this country that has been known for bloody outbursts, most peiople seem to feel relieved that the coup took place. I wish I could take credit for the photo of the soldier being blessed by the monk, but it was an AP photo that I thought summed up the whole thing. When I took the shot of Helen with the soldiers they were just happy to have something to do. The monks...well, they were just busy being monks.

When we were finally able to do the run we decided to make a full day tour out of it. Hence, our day of the Golden Triangle. It's a little spit of land on the Mekong River where Thailand meets Laos and Myanmar. The triangle became synonymous with the flourishing heroin trade that erupted during the Vietnam War – the economies of the 3 countries were in such a wreck that the drug was bargained gram for gram with gold. The stories I've heard first hand from an ex-drug runner living in Chiang Mai make it sound much more brutal than the wild-west scenarios that are going on now in Afghanistan. Anyway, other attractions on the tour were so-called "hot springs" that were actually mud holes in the ground surrounded by souvenir stands (the highlight of which is a woman dipping eggs into the boiling mud to hard boil them...riveting fun was had by all); taking a trip on a long boat to a Loatian village, which was surrounded by souvenir stands; and visiting a "real authentic" Karen hilltribe village, which was surrounded by...need I say more? Let's just say the Thai's really take their tourist economy seriously. Incidently, the temple in the photo contains some of Buddha's ashes and the tree is from a seed of the original Bodhi tree in India underneath which Buddha achieved enlightenment,

One thing that makes for comfort while on the road is finding a good watering hole, and we found a REALLY good one in Chiang Mai called the Sticky Rice Blues Bar. The tiny place has 6 stools at the bar and three tables that spill onto the sidewalk. It's one of those places that on any odd night there will be 8 patrons and they will inevitably be some of the most interesting and oddly mixed group of people you'll ever toast with. Also, our one year anniversary arrived the night before we were to go off to the Elephant Nature Park. It was an action packed evening featuring massages by blind masseurs, drinks, exotic food (mexican, hooray!), sneaking up on a cat, and for the topper I rented a karaoke booth at the local mall. They had Waylon Jennings on their selection list and I was in HEAVEN! Note: the was cat not harmed in the making of this photograph.

PMB 1/10/06