Cha-Am House

... I have no other choices.

The flight was on time (this is the only leg we had to purchase as the rest of the ticket was frequent flier award) and we arrived in Bangkok with our driver holding a sign with my name on it waiting to transfer us from Bangkok airport to the Hyatt in Hua Hin.

Hua Hin is where the Thai King live most of the ...

... as well!!! Hopefully we will meet up with two Thais we met in Vang Vieng, Laos ...Warasin and Boong as they live in Bangkok and w said we might meet up for a drink. Today is Phils birthday and we have agreed to go to an Italian restaurant to eat tonight. Phil collected us on a scooter....all 3 of us. Hels in the middle and Tony holding on for dear life. It was great when we arrived at the restaurant ...

I know some people have expressed an interest in donating before--I wanted to remind everyone that if you go to my main page, click on this: http://www.travelpod.com/cgi-bin/member _donations.pl?tweb_UID=ktmcq143&twe b_tripID=2&tweb_entryID=1215111840. .. you can help me by giving a donation. I paid a substantial fee to come and volunteer here--I thought it as mainly for my room and food, but ...

... to try to meet up with Andi and Andy on my day off. Andi is a girl from California who was a JV at my placement at the YWCA a few years before me, and she stayed there and still worked in the area by the time I got to California. Andy is her new husband and they will have flown into Thailand on their honeymoon yesterday! There's no way they could ever find the sanctuary on their own, so if I get to see ...

... will walk around with them on their shoulders and have tourists pay them in order to feed the gibbon. I suppose when Nee went blind or got too old he wasn't considered useful anymore, so somehow he got kicked out and ended up at the sanctuary. He's really really sweet and has super sharp hearing. I also really like the one foster mom macaque who is taking are of two baby macaques. I'm not sure of their names. The ...

... a kfc. Moving on, swiftly, we drove on into the afternoon and soon arrived at Ratchaburi where some of the older boys had been studying at the local Yamaha music college. After some milling around they decided to join us so we continued south with an extra 4 people - just to make up the numbers you understand. Oh! I forgot to mention - On the way to Ratchaburi Dada, who was driving the lead van with most of the kids in got pulled over by the police. We passed ...

one of the longest walks in the world - possibly even longer than 18 holes of golf - is the one you will take from the gate to the immigration counter at bkk, the new suvarnabhumi airport in bangkok. thankfully, they have provided many moving belts to help you along but so many people get on them and just stand that they slow you down instead of speeding you up. being late at night i suppose, the immigration lines were ...

... and the northern THailand was experiencing unusually chilly winter. I thought if the wind was not dissipating, I'd take the bus. The next day, the wind was much stronger. I cycled to a nearest town of Sawi, then took a bus to Chumpon, then to Penchaburi - just 150km s/w of Bangkok. I arrived in P'buri demoralised and tired. Yesterday's Bangkok Post featured a story about strong gust of wind in teh region forcing ...

... 36 hours straight to get here from about-to-be-snowy Colorado by car, plane, 2 buses, boat and sawngthaew (a pickup truck with benches in the back used as a taxi) and finally feet, but it was all worth it. At some point I figured I'd travelled almost exactly one hour for each of my years (I arrived on my birthday!) to get here, so that seemed fortuitous somehow, although my math skills have been known to be very...creative, so maybe someone should verify those ...

... left to find my bus to Cha-am. At the bus station, a sassy (maybe brash would suit you better?) monk who spoke English mocked my pronunciation of Cha-am: "Say (curtly), Cha! am! No Chaaaaaaaah aaaaaaam!" His eyes rolled while he laughed and pulled out his cell phone. Upon arriving at the center, located on the grounds of a Buddhist temple, I was introduced to a dozen humans, forty seven macaques (nasty guys!!), twenty gibbons, several lorises, a few langurs, five ...