So-long for now

Thursday we fly from Bangkok to Burma. In preparation, yesterday we crawled under the razor wire at the Myanmar Embassy and joined the queue of tourist-visa supplicants. Last year and the year before, our Burmese travel agent, Peace House Travel, obtained the visas for us. But the regime is getting more paranoid by the minute as this year's "election" approaches (probably in the fall), and all visa applicants must now show themselves and be "interviewed."

A pleasant travel-agency employee named Toi accompanied us. We took a number, waited an hour, and when number 235 came around, we all approached a sliding window about the size of a safety deposit box door. Inside it, a surly little man in a uniform inquired as to why we wanted our visa on Monday since we weren't leaving until Thursday. Joe said, "Just being safe." It was plain that the man was not familiar with this idiom. "What! What!" Joe repeated, "Just playing it safe." The guy was now considering, I was certain, why this insolent farang was raising questions of "safety." Was he some damnedable trouble-maker? I said, "Today is more convenient." The clerk glared at me for introducing a complex new element into the discussion, but to our relief he accepted our applications. Toi picked them up at the end of the day. This all seems Orwellian to us, though people in New York State say dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles is identical.

We've been enjoying Bangkok. We took a long, hot walk the two or three miles over to the river today and blew ten bucks for two seats on the tourist boat that goes up and down it. It was breezy on the Chao Phraya. We didn't get off to look at all the gorgeous sights close-up this time---the Grand Palace with its marvelous tiered red roofs and the golden temples and stupas all glorious in the sun---but it was nice to be reminded of how we saw Bangkok with fresh new eyes for the first time three years ago and how it changed our lives. We have no illusions about Thailand's deficiencies---feudalism, political rot, as much hypocrisy among Buddhists as there is among Presbyterians---but we are still crazy about the place and its easy-going, sweet-natured people and the way they receive blundering farangs with patience and open-heartedness. We hope to keep coming back.

Note to family and friends who might need to reach us: internet service in Burma is poor to nonexistent. We have rarely been able to send or receive email there. In an emergency ("in the unlikley event of a water landing"), Frankie Nyi Nyi of Peace House Travel could track us down. Frankie is at tour.mm@peacehousetravel.com. We aren't sure how Frankie has internet access in Yangon (Rangoon), but often he does.
I'll be back in Bangkok March 11. Joe will return two weeks later, after communing with some more of his oh-so-rural people.